Sirius grunted as he chucked another ball of parchment across the dormitory, missing the bin by a couple of feet. Taking a fresh sheet from his bag, he looked up at the only other person present: Remus, who was intently studying—as he always seemed to do lately whenever he and Sirius were left alone together.
Remus was ignoring him. Again. Still. It wasn’t as if they never spoke, but now, those words were purely functional, and also, few and far between. Sirius was getting fed up with this awkwardness between them. After all, it was only Snape, and nothing had happened to the greasy git thanks to James—no toothpick had been required to remove Snape from Remus’s teeth. And anyway, if Snivellus was such an idiot that he’d listen to what Sirius told him, more fool him.
“What do you want to do in Hogsmeade next week?” Sirius asked, starting to place folds and creases in the parchment in a determined way. “D’you have anything specific to buy?”
Remus didn’t even bother to look up as he replied with a succinct, “No.”
“Oh come on, Moony,” Sirius pleaded as the door banged open and James joined them. “You can’t hate me forever.”
Remus promptly threw him a look that said
he was very capable of doing just that.
“You still grovelling, Padfoot?” James chuckled, and he snatched the creation from Sirius’s hands.
“Oi! Give that back, you interfering bastard.”
James jumped up to stand on his bed and dangled the piece of parchment just out of Sirius’s reach. “What is it?” James asked. “Tell me, and I might give it back to you, short-arse.”
“It’s origami, you overgrown, lumbering, uneducated ape!” Sirius wrapped both arms around James’s legs and yanked hard. The pair of them tumbled to the floor in a heap, both of them trying to gain supremacy over the other. “Ha!” Sirius shouted, holding up his prized piece of half-finished origami. Then he frowned. “You bastard; you’ve torn it.”
Pulling himself up, Sirius rolled the parchment into a ball, throwing it at the bin and missing again, and then taking a new sheet from his bag.
“What are you doing origami for, anyway?” James asked, brushing himself off as he stood. “Isn’t that a Muggle thing?”
“It’s a present for Remus,” Sirius admitted, and he looked over to Remus hopefully. But Remus was still adamantly reading. “To say I’m sorry—again—and to show that I do think of him. Lots.”
Sirius felt a small burst of hope when Remus slowly raised his head from the book; perhaps he would finally give Sirius a break. But no, going by the glare on Remus’s face, he was not impressed.
“Seeing as you didn’t hesitate in using me to carry out a prank,” Remus began stonily. “I find it hard to believe that you think that much of me.”
“Of course I do, Remus!” Sirius pleaded. This had been the most Remus had said to him in one go since the prank on Snape, and Sirius felt the cogs turning in his head as he tried to think of a way to prolong the conversation for as long as possible. How could he prove how sorry he was? How could he get Remus to forgive him and put what had happened into the past, where it belonged? “If I could, I’d go back in time and bloody change it all. I’d do anything to make it up to you, Remus. Anything.”
He should have known better than to say something like that in front of James. Out of the four of them, James had always been the sharpest and the most devious; if there was an opening waiting to be abused, it was a dead cert that James would spot that weakness. Sirius realised his mistake too late when he saw the spark of mischief flash in James’s eyes.
“James, whatever it is you’re thinking, you can bloody well stop thinking it. Right now,” he warned.
“I was just wondering if that was a promise you’ve just made to Remus,” James said. “If so, perhaps you should put your money where your mouth is.”
“How?” Sirius asked with narrowed eyes.
“Not sure yet, but I’ll let you know when I think of something. Remus, any ideas?”
Remus only shook his head, chuckling. “You see what you can come up with, James.” He continued addressing James while turning
to fix Sirius with a frosty stare. “I’m
sure you’ll find something appropriate.”
Sirius opened his mouth to plead for mercy, but just then, the door banged open a second time and a very out-of-breath Peter entered the dormitory.
“You’ll never guess what’s happened,” he
panted as he slumped down on his bed.
“McGonagall’s going to come up to the common room shortly and have a
‘talk’ with us about it.”
Everyone looked at him expectantly as he shuddered on his bed apparently lost in his own thoughts.
“I think you’re leaving out some key information, Peter,” Sirius pointed out. “What have we been caught doing this time?”
“Not us!” Peter said with a sudden laugh. “Podmore and Croaker—they’re… you know…” he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “gay.”
“No,” James said in disbelief, leaning forward with interest to hear more of the story. “What happened? How did they get found out?”
“Apparently, they were seen... kissing by the lake,” Peter screwed his
face up. “This was their way of—how did Longbottom put it?—‘coming out’.”
“Bloody Hufflepoofs,” Sirius chuckled. “I’ll be careful not to bend over when they’re around.”
“Sirius!” Remus said, and he gave Sirius a stern look. “Don’t be such a homophobe.”
“A what?”
“A homophobe,” Peter replied helpfully. “It means you have a fear of gay people.”
“I’m not scared of them; I just think that it’s not right…unnatural.”
Remus picked his book up to start reading once more and muttered, “That’s your mother talking.”
“Fuck off,” Sirius automatically snapped. Then he frowned; how was he supposed to get back into Remus’s good books by telling him to fuck off? But, he reasoned, Remus had made a direct comparison between him and that…that bitch, so he felt the ‘fuck off’ was justified. Perhaps he should just clarify this with Remus. “My mother is only concerned with bloodline, and that’s why she doesn’t like poofters. I, on the other hand, don’t understand the point of it, not when there are plenty of girls to go round.”
“Is that so?” Remus asked unconcernedly without looking up.
“Yeah, especially now Poddy and Croaker are flaunting their relationship around in front of everyone. It’s all just to get attention.”
“Like Sibyll and Harold?” Remus said, pointedly referring to a heterosexual couple who were always showing off their relationship to other people.
“But…” Sirius stuttered as he screwed his
face up and tried to think. “They’re
not… but…. Yeah, exactly. They might not be poofs,
but they’re just as bad. It’s just that all queers always have to make such an issue of it.” Sirius smiled to himself at his reasoning
before proceeding to make fun of Sibyll and
Harold. “’Oh, we’re so grown up. Look at us; we’ve got a proper
relationship.’ Only with queers, you can
add, ‘Oh, we’re so scandalous. Look at
us; aren’t we wonderful for being…abnormal.’ Why can’t they just keep it quiet?”
“So what about Joe Jenkins?” Remus asked. “He doesn’t flaunt it.”
“He’s not…. No way…. You’re having a laugh…” Remus just looked at him knowingly. “Really? But he plays Quidditch…. He’s a beater for fuck’s sake,” Sirius said, as if it completely undermined Remus’s assertion. “Oh, my god. I’ll be sure not to drop—”
“Sirius,” Remus interrupted sharply, “if you so much as breathe the words ‘drop the soap’, I will hex you into next week.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll shut up.” Sirius pouted and went back to concentrating on his present for Remus. After making one fold in the parchment, he added, “I just don’t understand why they had to let everyone know.”
“I bet they would have thought twice about it if they knew what would happen,” Peter said.
“What do you mean?” James asked.
Hearing James’s voice so close behind him, Sirius whipped his head round to see that James had been sneaking up on him. Sirius glared and cradled his artwork protectively.
“They’ve been split up,” Peter explained, “Croaker’s had to move in with the sixth year Hufflepuffs. The teachers don’t want them doing…stuff in the dormitory.”
“So if you don’t like any of your roomies, all you have to do to get rid of them is shag them,” James laughed and made a dive onto Sirius’s bed. “Beware, Padfoot! If you annoy me too much, I’ll have to rape you.”
“Get off me, you great ponce!” With one momentous shove of his shoulder, Sirius had James on the floor with a thud.
Sirius leaned over the edge of the bed and was not pleased to see James looking up at him with another thoughtful expression. “What?” Sirius asked suspiciously.
“They must have known they’d get a lot of stick, but they were still willing to risk it—to let everyone know. All because they wanted to be together.”
“James,” Sirius said with disgust, “don’t bother trying to be romantic: it just doesn’t work coming out of your gob.”
“My point is that they were willing to take all this shit. I think it’s obvious that they’d do anything for each other—”
“James…”
“—such as coming out to the whole school. At the moment, I can only think of one thing that would show more devotion to a friend. If, as you claim, you’d do anything for Remus, then you wouldn’t mind proving this by doing the same thing.”
“Potter!” Sirius carefully placed his origami on the pillow and then propelled himself off the bed to attack James, all the while hearing Peter and Remus in hysterics in the background.
“A real friend,” James panted as Sirius tried his best to squish James’s face into the carpet,” would be willing to come out, even if he wasn’t gay.”
“Why don’t you do it then?” Sirius asked
while picking up a lump of fluff from the floor and attempting to poke it up
his best friend’s nose.
With a quick jab of his knee, James upended Sirius and bounded across the beds to escape to the other side of room, calling out, “I don’t have to prove myself to Remus.”
“Oh very funny, James,” Sirius said,
glaring at him insolently. “You’re sick,
you know.”
“He has a point, though, Sirius,” Remus piped up, and Sirius snapped his head in Remus’s direction. “You wouldn’t do anything for me—like you claimed.”
“You want me to tell everyone I’m queer?” Sirius asked in amazement, and Remus nodded back at him with a sly smile.
There was silence for several moments as Sirius tried to grapple with what Remus expected, his jaw lowering and raising as he tried to respond, but each time his mouth opened, his brain refused to provide him with any words. He said he would do anything—turn back time if he could. And he had meant it. What was more important: having Remus’s friendship back like what they used to have, or not having the school gossip about him?
Grabbing his present and muttering “enervate”, he pressed it into Remus’s hands.
“I’ll do it,” he said as an animated-origami-Padfoot jumped up and licked the end of Remus’s thumb.
Remus’s eyebrows betrayed a flicker of surprise, but he didn’t get the chance to comment, as just then, Professor McGonagall’s magically amplified voice boomed through the doorway, telling all of the Gryffindors to make their way to the common room.
**
Sirius felt very uncomfortable throughout
the talk and found it hard to pay attention, what with James persistently
smirking at him. The main gist, as far
as Sirius could make out, was that, although McGonagall and the other teachers
at Hogwarts didn’t consider feelings of that
sort as wrong, a certain amount of discretion was needed within both the Wizarding and the Muggle world,
and a certain level of conduct was expected within the castle grounds—no matter
what the sex of those concerned. Her final
comment was to point out that “certain activities” were illegal in the Muggle world for those under the age of twenty-one, and the
Ministry would not appreciate having to bail anyone out under those circumstances. She didn’t have to specify what activities:
Sirius was well aware that all poofs liked to shag
each other up the arse—though, why they would ever want to do something so
disgusting was completely beyond him.
“So, how are you going to ‘out’ yourself, Sirius?” James asked in a whisper after McGonagall and most of the other Gryffindors had dispersed.
“I dunno,” Sirius said, shrugging in defeat. He was determined to do this, for Remus—even if every last square inch of his brain was screaming at him not to. It was just a question of how to minimise the humiliation. “It’s not as if I’ve got a bloody boyfriend that I could snog in front of people.”
“Well, perhaps you should get one.”
“Oi! I agreed to let people think I’m a poof; I’m not doing stuff with anyone… There has to be another way.”
“You could just let it slip on the grapevine,” Peter suggested.
“But I’d need a reason for it getting out. I don’t want Podmore and Croaker thinking that we’re just taking the piss out of them—”
“Even though you were blatantly taking the piss earlier…”
“That’s not the point, Remus.”
“Marlene McKinnon has been after you for ages,” Peter said, nodding his head in the direction of several girls sitting on the other side of the room. “She’s always hanging around in the hope of catching you alone. If we left you here on your own—you could pretend to be studying—I bet she’d come over and speak to you. She’s sure to spread the news: she’s forever gossiping about something.”
Sirius nodded reluctantly, and the others stood, James patting him on the shoulder, saying, “Good luck, mate,” and looking far too pleased with himself as he did so.
It wasn’t long—a grand total of two minutes—before Peter was proved right and Marlene approached Sirius, shyly asking him out.
“Sorry, but…erm…I’m gay,” he stuttered, not letting himself acknowledge what he was doing, not wanting to think about it until later, much later. But Marlene had him waking up to reality with a snap.
“You? A poof?” she asked incredulously, and Sirius looked down at his hands, feeling strangely insulted by her words. “Not you an’ all. It’s always the good-looking ones. Next you’ll be telling me Remus is.”
“Nah,” Sirius chuckled, relieved that
someone else had become the focus of the conversation. “He’s not gay; he’s just asexual.” Taking in her wide-eyed expression, he
suddenly realised she hadn’t taken that as the joke it was meant to be. The last thing he needed was for her to
spread it around that Remus was asexual and then for Remus to hear who had
started the rumour. “Seriously, Marlene, he’s not gay—or
asexual. Do you want me to put a good
word in for you?”
“You think he’d be interested in me?”
Sirius was rather taken aback by her
enthusiasm for the idea. He had made the
offer without any real intent, assuming that, with her attentions focused on
him, she wouldn’t want to get involved with Remus. He had only said it to emphasize that Remus
was not asexual. Still, he told himself, they
never said I couldn’t pimp Remus out.
“I dunno… he might be. I’ll find out—let you know.”
She gave him an awkward smile and walked back across the room. Sirius pretended to go back to his book, but his attention remained with Marlene. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she shook her head at her friends once she had sat down. She then wrinkled her nose in disgust and mouthed, “He’s a poof, too.” Every head turned in his direction, and he heard the gasps of disbelief and disapproval. Sirius groaned. What on earth did he think he was doing?
**
As the gossip began to spread over the next few days, Sirius noticed that besides the random bouts of homophobia, he was receiving more than a few appreciative glances from some of the boys in the school, and—much to James’s amusement—he had even received a couple of offers to go up to the Astronomy Tower. Regulus and Snape had been—predictably—complete arseholes about it, but they were always doing their best to annoy Sirius, anyway, so nothing really changed in that respect. Regulus had also been very quick to tell their mother, and the letter she sent had provided Sirius with a good deal of amusement over breakfast one morning; Sirius made a point of thanking his brother for the entertainment.
And then there was Remus. He seemed to lighten up slightly towards Sirius, and Sirius mistakenly thought that that would be it: they could now go back to their previous friendship. But he didn’t anticipate Marlene to be so persistent, or how much it would annoy Remus.
“Look, he just doesn’t like you,” James said nastily, after she had approached Remus for the third time that day. “Leave him alone.”
“Lily’s right; you are an arrogant berk,” she said, glaring at James. “It’s not my fault I got the wrong impression. Your poofy friend was the one who said Remus might be interested.” She gestured in Sirius’s direction and skulked off down the corridor.
Sirius tried his best to will himself invisible as he felt the other three stare in his direction. Perhaps if he laughed it off, it would be okay.
“You told her I might be interested?” Remus asked stonily, and the look on his face made Sirius re-think his strategy, very quickly.
“I only said it because I didn’t want her to think you were bent as well.”
“But why on earth would she think that, Padfoot?” James said in a sickly sweet voice, and Sirius cringed. It was obvious that James knew Sirius had said something he shouldn’t. “You didn’t happen to imply that he wa—”
“No! Of course I didn’t. I… I just made a joke that he was…erm...” Sirius lowered his voice. He knew it was an automatic response based on insane logic, but something inside of him hoped that reducing the volume would diminish their reactions to his unintended cock-up. He continued, his words barely audible, “That he was…asexual. But she didn’t realise I was only having a bit of a laugh.”
“Really, Padfoot,” James said, and Sirius narrowed his eyes, warning bells going off in his head at the way James was rubbing his hands together in anticipation of something…painful. “Anyone would think you weren’t taking this promise of yours seriously. I think—as punishment for putting Remus through all this grief with Marlene—you should prove yourself…by going on a date.”
Sirius’s jaw dropped. “There is no way, no wa—” He stopped when he realised that Remus was now nodding in agreement with James.
“After all,” James continued, “with all these offers you’ve been getting, it’ll seem weird if you don’t start dating soon.”
“But he shouldn’t be allowed to just accept someone who’s already asked—that would be too easy,” Peter piped up, looking far too excited by the prospect of putting Sirius through more humiliation. “He should have to approach someone new.”
“An inspired idea, Wormtail! What do you think, Remus?”
“You did say you’d do anything, Sirius. Or did you mean to specify a time-limit to that promise?”
Sirius gravely shook his head. “No time limit. But… who then?” he asked, feeling that the
situation was bad enough without having to single out any specific boy to
date. “Who do I ask?”
“Joe Jenkins,” Remus suggested. “I’ve often caught him looking at you, even more so now that you’ve come out. You can ask him to meet you in Hogsmeade. I bet he wouldn’t turn you down.”
“Yeah, and you can ask him tonight,” James said. “The Ravenclaws have got Quidditch practice—you can catch him afterwards.”
Sirius stared at James’s amused expression,
saying nothing. Oh God, I’m going on a date, he realised. A fucking date. With a poof who plays Quidditch.