Starting Out

Starting Out

Remus sat on the ratty old sofa in the middle of the room wishing he weren't there. This wasn't what he'd been hoping for when Sirius insisted he'd found them a decent flat. This place was... well, a rat-infested fleapit of a dump with furniture of questionable origins.

His friend had described it as Bohemian, and certainly having a battered packing crate as a coffee table could be described as something, but Remus was sure Bohemian wasn't the word. The peeling wallpaper of the combined living room and kitchen was in shades of grey and yellow, the carpet not so much threadbare as bare of thread entirely. A single bedroom smelt not so faintly of cabbage, and the tiny window let in almost no light whatsoever. This, he thought to himself with a sigh, is what you get for letting Sirius Black choose where to live.

Sirius, currently somewhere on the street below on a mission to 'bring back sustenance' (as he so valiantly put it) had stormed out of the Black family home just a week before. Remus, on the other hand had been spending time with his mother in Wiltshire, contemplating what he was going to do now that he'd graduated. Having spent two days moping about at James' home, Sirius had been 'suddenly inspired', Remus now remembered with a wry smile. He'd got it into his head that they should find a flat together in London. "After all," he'd told Remus via fireplace, "you can't be living with your Mum in the sticks forever, eh? We could get a place together in London, Diagon Alley just around the corner. It'd be... awesome." Somehow Remus' common sense always managed to be overridden by his friend's outright enthusiasm for everything, and he'd found himself agreeing to meet him as soon as he'd got the right place lined up.

But when he arrived in London, his worldly possessions in just two (fairly small) cases, he discovered Sirius had already paid for the apartment outright, and as ever, there was no getting out of the arrangement. Before he could even begin to list the reasons why it was completely impossible to consider staying in such a hovel, Sirius had bounded out the door to retrieve their first meal.

A half hour passed, and reluctantly Remus started to unpack, although he was uncertain about the sleeping arrangements. There was just the single bed, and the sofa showed no signs of being able to be opened out. Sirius had already strewn his belongings including a mind-boggling amount of clothing across the bedroom area, so Remus assumed that he was consigned to the living room. Muttering a spell, he secured a wonky shelf on the back wall, and reverently placed his books, alarm clock and a few other items upon it. Looking around, he decided to keep his clothes in his case, as there was nowhere that looked clean enough to put them.

He was just tutting at the state of the kitchen cupboards when a rat-a-tat-tat on the door and the arrival of a grinning Sirius caused him to turn round.

"I have sustenance, as promised!" he declared, proffering a large greasy looking paper bag which contained, from the smell, cod & chips.

Quirking a brow, Remus replied, "The chip shop is downstairs, why would that take you so long?"

"Ah, well..." the dark haired lad said, "because I took a slight detour, and brought back this!" With that, he drew a big bottle of firewhisky out from behind his back. Smirking at the look on Remus' face, he moved past him and attempted to find some plates. Coming up empty, he diverted his attention to a quest for glasses. With no joy in either department, it was mutually agreed to eat out of the wrappers and swig from the bottle.

Sitting on the sofa, munching away, Sirius enthused at how amazingly cheap the property was, how lucky he'd been to get it, all the while inelegantly shoving in chips and bits of fish. Somehow, despite that, he managed to look the epitome of style and élan, although Remus found himself at a loss to work out exactly how that was. Swallowing a chip, he looked his new flatmate straight in the eye and said, "Padfoot, this flat is bloody awful."

He held the other's gaze for a few moments, looking deadly serious, before Sirius picked up the firewhisky and announced, "I'll drink to that!" This caused Remus' face to break into laughter.

Remus decided against concentrating on the negatives of their new dwelling, let alone wondering where he was going to come up with the money for his share of the bills. That could be on tomorrow's agenda. For the time being, he was going to drink to the future and feast on the fried food of the here and now.