Love Among the Marauders

Chapter One

Sirius looks up and closes his book. "I thought we weren't going to do this anymore."

James says nothing.

"I thought Lily was the one. And all that shit. That you were ready to make the shift to your adult life."

"Yeah, I thought so, too."

"But no?" Sirius is on his feet in an instant, predatory, his narrowed eyes alight. James knows that Sirius chose to change into a Grim for Remus, to be a fellow canine, and he is named for the Dog Star, after all, but James always thinks Sirius should have picked a cat. Hard-muscled and supple with big velvety feet. A panther, maybe, his whole long body silky with the inky hair that James twines around his fingers when they kiss. "I'll take that as a no, then," murmurs Sirius, already upon him, pressing him hard against the just-closed door, his hands wandering and his tongue deep in James's mouth.

James breaks away and says, "Bloody hell, Sirius. Can we talk about this?"

"No." Sirius's face is closed and his eyes are bright and hot. "No talking. Fuck or get out."

"Sirius. Damn it. It's complicated."

"No. It really isn't." Sirius throws himself backward onto the bed, settles into the pillows, and reopens his book. "People just say that when they want more than one thing. When they don't want to choose. That's weak, James. I'm not interested in weak. Now get out."

::

Later, sitting opposite Remus in the library, Sirius flips irritably through a book of hexes. Remus glances up at him. "I hope you aren't planning anything."

"Not just at the moment. Why? Am I making you nervous?"

"I feel fairly certain I'm not the one who needs to worry."

"Oh, no? Who, then, is my intended victim?"

"Sirius. You can't make him do what you want."

"Why not?"

"It just doesn't...work that way."

"Well how the hell does it work? Because however it's working right now is unbearable." Sirius looks devastated and also petulant. Which is a combination that Remus cannot imagine anyone else managing to make so attractive. The thing about Sirius, which is both exasperating and wholly explanatory, is that he is irresistible, six foot two, snake-hipped and broad-shouldered, with a fine-boned, arrogant face. He has straight black hair, smoldering black eyes, and big pouty girl lips.

Remus sighs and pushes aside his books. "It's possible James is frightened."

"What? Of what?"

"Of not being...normal. I mean, far more than you or I, he has a bit of a taste for the white picket fence. Perhaps he wants children. That kind of thing."

"Well we can have children!" exclaims Sirius in disgusted exasperation.

Remus starts laughing. "Excuse me... What?"

"Well, I'm sure we could round one up somewhere. Or several. Whatever he wants. That's no trouble."

"Right. Yes. Round them up. Perhaps what I mean is that neither of you can have them."

"Well, but that's hardly the point. It's the bringing them up that matters."

This is such a sensible thing to say that Remus is silent for several minutes.

"The thing is, Moony," Sirius continues earnestly, "I already know. This is just a huge waste of time."

"Maybe he needs to feel like he knows. Like you aren't making all the decisions for both of you." Then, more briskly, "And while you're straightening it out, please ease up on the whole pouting sex god thing. If one more person asks me if you're single, I may have to start dating you myself."

Sirius grins and throws a book at his head.

::

Despite all this romantic conviction, Sirius chooses to play it as though he has lost interest in the matter entirely. Even Remus, who is privy to Sirius's despair, sometimes loses track of the situation when he sees Sirius pressing some nubile young thing of either sex up against a wall, his hands roaming freely. One day, on his way to lunch, Remus finds the halls packed solid with students entertained by a mysterious spectacle. Peter appears at his elbow. Remus gestures at the crush. "Any idea what all this is?"

Peter rolls his eyes. "Sirius. Of course."

"Sirius! What on earth is he doing?"

"Dueling with Malfoy."

"What? Why?"

"Malfoy caught him shagging Julian Asherton." The slender, red-haired Julian flirts shamelessly, but has never before, to Remus's knowledge, strayed from Malfoy. Trust Sirius to antagonize the only person in the school who is possibly a magical match for him.

Remus forces his way through the crowd, emerging in time to see Sirius skillfully block an explosion from Malfoy's wand that flattens into a wall of sparks and vanishes. Malfoy, enraged, begins another attack, but before he finishes the words of his spell, both wands vanish. They are instantly on each other, Sirius's fist hitting Malfoy's jaw and Malfoy tumbling Sirius to the floor of the hallway. By the time Remus and two hefty Slytherins have dragged them apart, both boys are panting and bloody.

Malfoy straightens his clothes and eyes Sirius. "How was it for you?"

"Tsk, tsk," says Sirius, grinning. "You don't own the boy, Lucius, dear. And you may have noticed that he was quite enjoying himself..."

Malfoy smiles dangerously. "As were you, judging by your, ah, enthusiasm."

Sirius looks blank for a moment.

Malfoy continues, "Nothing quite like a blue-blooded fuck, is there, Black?"

Sirius lunges, but Remus, arms firmly around his waist, mutters, "Steady on," just as an irate McGonagall appears through the quickly dispersing crowd. She is holding both of their wands in one hand. After being bawled out, docked house points, given detention, and dismissed, Sirius and Malfoy snarl at each other and are dragged off by their respective friends.

::

Remus sits Sirius down on the edge of a sink in a hall bathroom and sponges the blood off his face. "Now. What the hell are you doing?"

"I don't know." Sirius stands up and kicks the wall hard. "Ow."

"How long since you've spoken to James?"

"Maybe a week."

"And your plan is...?"

"To dull the pain, obviously, Moony. You bloody git."

"And how's that working out for you?" asks Remus, gently touching Sirius's rapidly swelling eye.

"Ouch. Bloody hell. Don't do that."

"Here." Remus uses his wand to freeze the water in the sink, knocks out a block of ice, wraps it in a handkerchief, and hands it to Sirius.

"Thanks."

"I think you should talk to him."

"Why? He's made his choice."

"He's still your friend. I don't think you want to lose him entirely."

Sirius just shrugs and holds the ice to his eye.

::

James and Sirius have been together since they were fourteen, with a few gaps, all initiated by James and romantically exploited by the more promiscuous Sirius. In the beginning, in the vague rules of their attachment, girls were not an issue. Remus remembers them side by side on the couch at the tail end of Gryffindor parties, making out with two of the house's female heartbreakers, and then disentangling themselves and going up to bed together.

As far as Remus knows, James has never had any interest in another boy. Sirius seems to prefer boys, but perhaps he just prefers James. By last year, Remus thought that James had finally made peace with the fact that no girl would ever hold his attention the way Sirius does. Or did. Remus is not sure what to think about Lily.

Of all the lovelier Gryffindors in or around their year, Lily Evans is the only one who has never been involved with either James or Sirius. And James has had a crush on her for years. Which never made any impression on Sirius, who finds Lily too prim to be interesting. Remus is not sure that this is a fair assessment. Lily is scrupulous about rules, which Sirius finds both incomprehensible and sanctimonious, but she is also hot-tempered and occasionally capable of a brutality that Remus finds rather shocking.

At first, Remus assumed that James was so elated to have Lily finally pay attention to him that he forgot to worry about Sirius for a while. Now, however, there is a ponderous quality of choosing in his alliance with her, and in his break with Sirius, that is new. They have never split this way before. And Remus is aware that Sirius, who is very hurt and hates to be abandoned, will have plenty of opportunity to do something stupid.

One difference between James and Sirius, as the most drooled-over boys at Hogwarts, is that James is beloved of sweet-natured girl groupies. Sirius has a more dissolute fan club. When he and James have been apart, he has slept with any number of people whom he either won't admit by name to Remus, or who have stalked him in ways that would be disturbing if Sirius weren't so capable of defending himself. Malfoy is not one of these people, but Remus, who is wary of him anyway, sees their spat in the hallway as a reprise of another fight.

Several months earlier, James and Sirius had been standing in the courtyard, James showing off with his stolen snitch and Sirius watching him irritably. Sirius said, "James. Put that damned thing away. I'm bored."

James grinned, "Can't have that," and began jinxing the hair color of half the students in the courtyard. There was a wave of shock and then hilarity as people noticed what was happening. The enraged Lily had hair as green as her eyes. When James got to Malfoy, he said, "Hmmm. Pink, I think..." and then hit the ground as Sirius tackled him. James said, "What the hell...?" and looked up from under Sirius to see Malfoy, wand out, watching them sourly. There was an enormous scorch mark on the wall behind them.
Sirius leapt up and said, "Hardball then," and shot a hex that Malfoy blocked adeptly. Someone shouted that a professor was coming, James swiftly returned everyone's hair, and Malfoy and Sirius backed away from each other, scowling. Malfoy had a shallow gash on his throat and Sirius's robes were torn open.

Remus, looking them over in the library afterward, lifted an eyebrow and said to Sirius, "He tried to tear your clothes off? Very dangerous magic." James raised his own eyebrows, laughing, and looked at Sirius with mock accusation. Sirius looked furious and rather flushed.

::

When James tells Lily about the fight over Julian, she says, "Look, James, I'm sorry your boyfriend is a lunatic, but I really can't deal with that right now. All right?"

James, who knows that he can't expect from Lily exactly what he had from Sirius, in terms of sympathy or companionship, also knows that she is the last person in whom he should be confiding about his love life. He suddenly feels very lonely.

Lily looks up from her book to see him staring morosely into space. Not exactly sulking, she thinks. Sirius sulks. James, when he is low, is more existentially gloomy.

He sees her looking and says, "I want to tell him."

"You can't."

"Things have gotten so out of control." He stops and groans. "He's going to sleep with Malfoy."

"He...what?" She looks at him like he's insane.

"I can tell."

"James. Calm down. Even Sirius must have some standards."

"I don't know. Malfoy's not so bad." James pictures Malfoy's sharp cheekbones and slitted eyes. "He actually looks a little like Sirius. Only blond. They have the same build."

"Yuck. James. Please stop. I'm going to throw up my lunch."

"I need to give him a reason, Lily. He's been in three fights this week and he's probably slept with fifty people. Remus is worried."

Lily says crisply, "Remus has probably slept with fifty people himself this week."

"Lily. For god's sake. What harm can it do?"

"Prophecies are delicate, James. What if it negates the whole thing? I refuse to condemn the wizarding world to carnage and mayhem just because our hormones aren't tickled to death that we're destined to be together. Anyway, we gave Dumbledore our word."

"Great. So I'm just supposed to stand by and watch him self-destruct."

"For god's sake, James. He does have a brain. Did you make all of his decisions when you were going out?"

"Actually," says James ruefully, "I've never had any control over him at all."

::

Remus says to Sirius, "So. Malfoy."

"What?"

"An inspired way to get back at James."

Sirius tries to look wounded and then laughs. "Moony. I have no intention of getting tangled up with that hell snake. I can't help it if he's interested." He pauses and grins a little. "Can you imagine us at the spring dance? It would be like dating Satan."

"So you've thought about it."

"No. I have not. I'm joking. Moony. The thing with Julian was idiotic, but I didn't expect Lucius to go all Othello on me."

"Lucius."

"Fine. Malfoy. I've known him since I was born, for god's sake."

"He's still dangerous."

Sirius looks exasperated. "Not to me." Then he pauses and says more quietly, "You think he killed that girl."

"He didn't stop it."

"I know." Sirius closes his eyes for a minute. "Remus. I may behave like a frivolous idiot half the time, but believe that I am just as serious about this war as you and James." He tries to smile and adds, "I'm not a recognized blood traitor just for fun, you know."

Considering the icy and abusive emotional vacuum that was Sirius's childhood, Remus generally thinks the fact that Sirius has a little more fun than other people is well deserved. Right now, however, he has a deep sense of foreboding about Malfoy.

Remus says, "Please just be careful."

"Since I have no intention of doing anything, I won't have to be careful."

"You might not say no." Sirius glares at him irritably. "Sorry. I probably take too much interest in your life."

"You and everyone else in this bloody sanatorium."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Remus pretending to read and Sirius doodling lazily.

Finally, Sirius looks up and says, "So. Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff. What's your wager?"

Remus, relieved, answers, "Hufflepuff."

"Really?"

"I'd like to see Corwyn Ambring taken down a notch."

Sirius grins. "Me too. Then Hufflepuff-Slytherin. I can't imagine Hufflepuff taking that match. Which means us against Slytherin in the finals." His grin fades as he suddenly remembers the match last year, how fiercely he guarded James from the Slytherin beaters, and how, briefly, late in the game, Malfoy, who plays James's position, Seeker, flew into him without any strategic justification, and their bodies smacked together with an angry electricity that he hasn't quite forgotten.