Chapter 8: Coming of Age
“You’re not going.”
“Like Hell! You can’t stop me!”
Sirius’s mother’s eyes flashed, “You just watch me,” she breathed, furiously. Anyone else would have crumbled, given in, but not Sirius.
“But she’s my cousin! And she’s your niece, and today is her daughter’s christening. Why won’t you go?” Sirius asked, his voice raising in volume.
“Because she is married to a Mudblood, that silly fool Tom Tonks, and now they have had a child “ a Mudblood! They’re a disgrace to the entire family, I will not hear of this madness any longer,” his mother said, calmly.
“First “ it’s Ted, not Tom. Second “ Are you saying that her parents wont be there either?”
“That, Sirius, is precisely what I’m saying. Now get to your room.”
He did as he was told, almost in a daze. Poor Andromeda. This was the last chance he would get to see her for quite a while, not to mention his Uncle Alphard, whom he hadn’t seen in almost two years. He made up his mind. Like a man possessed he tore around his room, throwing anything he could lay his hands on into his trunk. Soon, the room was bare. He stopped and thought. He knew exactly where he wanted to go, but would it be too pushy? Should he at least owl them first? No, he thought, there’s no way I’m going to wait for a reply, I’ve only got two hours before I have to be at the church.
He went to the nearest fireplace, dragging his trunk with him. Soon, he was falling into the Potters’ Living Room, coughing, and trying to steady himself. James and his mother were there, Mr Potter evidently still at work. They seemed to be talking contentedly, while she knitted some kind of scarf, which was odd for mid-summer, until they both stopped and turned to stare at him.
“Um. Padfoot, why are you in my fireplace?” asked James, raising an eyebrow.
“Left. For good. Can I explain?” he asked, and James’s mum beckoned for him to sit down. He thanked her, and then launched into the whole story. When he had done, Mrs Potter was about in tears.
“But of course you can stay, darling! You’ve been through so much, I won’t have you staying there a moment longer! You can always have a bed here, for as long as you need one! Now, did you say you had a christening to attend?”
Sirius yelped, as he looked at the time “ he had half an hour to get there.
“Find your dress robes, both of you, and I’ll get the fire up and ready,” Mrs Potter told them, shooing them into the Hall.
“Both of us?” asked James, perplexed.
“Well, unless Sirius wants to go alone ...?” she looked over at him, but he was grinning.
“Come on, Prongsy, we have a church to go to!” Sirius sang, ecstatic.
He lay awake that night, perfectly content. His mind wandered to the final events of last year. He had been with LaLa, and he knew that he shouldn’t have been. He had told her so many times since then that it was madness, but she always replied the same way.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You stop this thing with me, and Tara will know all about it. She won’t be happy now, will she? And what on earth would her friends think of you then?”
It had been that last part that swung him every time. He didn’t mind if Lily hated him for eternity. He liked her well enough, and he knew that James liked her a lot more than that “ but it was Lola he was most worried about. She didn’t like him that much at the moment, and that was bad enough. But if she knew ... It didn’t bear thinking about. So now he was stuck. One moment of weakness and his life had fallen apart. He tried to push the thoughts out of his mind. He should be happy. He had left his family forever.
The next day, he awoke, still not quite believing that he was really there. He would never have to go to Grimmauld Place again. He didn’t have long to contemplate, however.
“Sirius! Get up!” James came into his room and physically dragged him out of bed. “Breakfast, then we’re going.”
“Where?” asked Sirius, grumbling slightly.
“Into the Muggle town nearby,” James said, as though it was obvious.
Sirius frowned, “But why?” He didn’t get an answer. He was being dragged downstairs by his energized best friend. They came to the kitchen, where the table was groaning with breakfast food, and Mrs Potter was bustling around behind it, and appeared to be making even more.
“Take what you like, Sirius, dear,” she told him when they came in. James sat down straight away and began piling his plate, but Sirius waited to observe in wonder for a moment before sitting down. Soon, they were finished, dressed and leaving the house.
They wandered about the town, looking in shops and trying to hide their amusement, playing small scale non-magic pranks on Muggles and discussing their plans for the rest of the holiday. Sirius decided for definite that from now on, he would stay with the Potters, after James had assured him that he was practically one of them anyway.
“Don’t worry mate,” he assured him, “Mum worships you, she’s always seen you as some sort of tragic hero, anyway. Forced to live with an evil family yet staying pure, etc etc. She hardly ever shuts up about you, actually.”
They reached a bakery, and when they looked inside, they saw a fantastic display of the squashiest of cakes, the gooiest of éclairs. “Do you have any Muggle money?” asked Sirius, his mouth watering. He heard James make an incoherent noise which he translated as ‘no’. An idea began to form. “Alright James. I dare you to go in there and buy two of those cakes.”
James came back to reality, “What kind of a lame dare is that?” he demanded.
Sirius grinned, “You have to convince the shopkeeper to take a galleon for them. He’ll presume you’re trying to fob him off with fake money, but you have to convince him to accept it.”
James seemed to think about it for the briefest of seconds. Then he grinned, and entered the shop. Sirius followed him, but kept his distance, pretending he didn’t know his friend. It was hilarious to watch. James put on a show of inspecting the items to the tiniest of detail, picking them up, sniffing them, poking them “ at one point he even got out a tape measure and began measuring them to find the biggest. Sirius didn’t quite see how this all was necessary, but it was funny, so he wasn’t about to complain. Eventually, he selected the two that he had decided were the best and brought them to the counter.
The man standing there was quite short, and plump. There was flour on his cheek, but he hadn’t seemed to notice. “Can I help you?” he asked, and James placed the two cakes on the counter, and the man began wrapping them in paper.
James stood stock still not moving a muscle. But Sirius could tell he was doing this on purpose “ he was standing in the same way he did whenever he was about to tell a punch line, or when he was winding someone up. No one else would have noticed this.
“That’ll be five pounds then,” the baker said. James didn’t move for a second, and then slowly, carefully, took a galleon from his pocket, and handed it to the man, never taking his eyes off him. He could tell “Ernie” (as it said on the name tag) was a little unnerved. “This, uh, this isn’t what I asked for,” he said. “I need five pounds.”
It was if he had set off a trigger in James, who immediately began yelling and storming around the shop. It wasn’t, however, English he was speaking, and Sirius had a feeling he was making it up as he went along. He shook his fist at poor Ernie, threw his hands into the air and even grabbed Sirius as a kind of hostage, all while raving non-stop in this unintelligible language. Even Sirius began to suspect that his friend had lost it a little. Eventually, strode up to the counter, took a blue biro from his pocket and brandished it threateningly in Ernie’s face. He fell silent in this position, still holding onto Sirius’s arm as a makeshift hostage and stood perfectly still, apart from his left eye which appeared to be twitching maddeningly.
Ernie was still holding the galleon in fear. Eventually he managed to stutter out, “The-this will be f-fine.” and he handed him the paper bag containing their prizes.
James’s face broke into the most pleasant, friendliest of smiles as he took the bag. He released Sirius, and put away the biro. “Thank you,” he said, brightly, and left the shop, leaving the baker in utmost shock.
The summer passed in a colourful blur, and soon they were back on the train. Both Sirius and James were talking non-stop about everything they had done, and boasting of their impressive OWL results, and how James was now the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, while Remus and Peter played exploding snap.
“And do you remember the hoopla girl?” asked James and Sirius spluttered with laughter.
“So ... so funny ... ‘I’m not a tomato’ she said!” Sirius screamed with howling laughter, and James nearly fell off his seat.
“And “ and then “ then “ there was the poodle shenanigan!” James gasped, before they both burst into peals of laughter.
Sirius began pretending to be a poodle dancing around the room “ obviously trying to act out what had happened. As the pair continued in this manner, Remus and Peter ignored them, except to glance a sarcastic I-can’t-believe-we-actually-know-you-lunatics look their way.
The door to their compartment opened, and Lily, Lola and Tara stood there. James and Sirius immediately got up from rolling on the floor in hysteria and sat down, trying to keep their cool. Sirius cleared his throat, and smiled slowly, indicating that Tara should sit next to him, which she did, after a quick kiss hello. James’s hand flew to his head and he ran his fingers through his hair, watching Lily as she sat in the furthest space and looked out of the window. She had grown, and was beginning to look as beautiful as James kept insisting she was. Only Lola was left standing. She looked away when she saw Sirius watching her, and sat by Lily.
“So, what brings you to this neck of the train?” asked James, his voice deeper and more manly than usual, which made Sirius smile slightly. Lily and Lola both glared at him, and Tara frowned a little at her two best friends.
“We got kicked out by Snape and those other drone-heads,” she told the Marauders, shrugging it off. “So we “” Lily and Lola coughed angrily, and she corrected herself, ““ So I suggested we come here instead.”
They carried on forwards in near silence. Sirius was filled with guilt as he felt Tara next to him, and remembered LaLa. What they had done. He hated himself for it. Ok, he thought, I’ll end it. Next time I see her, it will be over.
“I mean it this time, LaLa. We’re done.” There was something in his voice, or maybe his eyes, which let her know he was serious. Her own eyes darkened.
“I’ll tell Tara. You know I will. I’ll tell her, and it will all be over for Hogwarts’ most perfect couple.”
“We’re not perfect,” he told her and she laughed humourlessly.
“Oh really? There you are, every young witch’s dream, handsome and charming, funny and daring. There she is, blonde and pretty, and looking up to you. It doesn’t matter that she’s stupid, because without even trying, she’s got the one thing that all the other girls want.”
And suddenly, Sirius understood. LaLa was jealous of Tara. Being in Ravenclaw, he knew she must be intelligent, and hard working. She had just admitted that most of the girls at Hogwarts liked him “ so did that include herself, even before they had started this madness? So there she was, clever and striking, yet he had never noticed her, he had gone out with Tara “ who he knew must look like a complete air head to the outside world. And now, here she was, trying to break them up. She really was very clever to have thought out such a plan “ to get underneath his skin, to start this affair, probably knowing how bad he would feel about it. And then, to break up him and Tara when he refused to carry on. But now he was here, he knew what he had to do.
“LaLa, I’m sorry. I’m sorry this ever started. But now it’s going to end. I know you’ll tell Tara, and I know she and Lily and Lola will hate me forever, but I suppose I deserve it. So go on, LaLa “ do your worst.”
With this, he turned and ran from the deserted classroom they had been talking in. He was dreading Tara finding out, but he also felt relieved. He knew he had done the right thing.
Two weeks later, and it appeared that she hadn’t told Tara yet. Sirius was glad, and hoped that she had decided not to ever let it on. If he ever saw her in corridors, she would just smile serenely at him, and walk on.
He felt the mirror in his pocket go warm “ James must be on the other end. He pulled it out, and sure enough, it was not his own face, but his best friend’s that was looking back at him.
“I’ve located the target. Old Snivellus is coming out of the dungeons, Moony and I are going to follow him from there. You and Wormtail head to us, and we’ll keep you updated on where he is.”
Sirius grinned, “Yes, sir.” He put the mirror back in his pocket, and felt it go warm again, which meant that James had left too. He and Peter left where they had been searching for Snape, and went to meet up with the rest of the Marauders. They found them quite easily, along with Lockhart, who apparently still had unnaturally bouncy blonde curls, and a voice that was far too high pitched for his age and gender.
“Hey guys! James and Remus just agreed to let me help you in your prank! It’ll be so much fun!” He chirped. Sirius saw his two friends looking pained behind Lockhart’s back, and shaking their heads.
“Um, are you sure they agreed?” Peter asked, frowning.
“Absolutely! Tell me what I have to do!”
Sirius sighed, “Alright you can help. I want you to go out there, and distract Snivellus.”
Lockhart paled slightly, and muttered doubtfully, “But ... But he knows dark arts ... I might be knocked unconscious and then wake up dead in the Hospital Wing!”
James stopped miming killing Lockhart behind his back, and frowned, confused. “Did you just say you might wake up dead?” he asked. Remus and Peter laughed, and Sirius smirked, but Lockhart didn’t seem to notice.
“Look,” Sirius began, bending down beside Lockhart (who was also unnaturally short for his age) and trying to seem friendly. “We need someone to distract Snivellus. But if one of us does it, he’ll get suspicious. Do you see?”
Lockhart nodded, and James smiled at him too, “You see, it’s almost as if we need you.” Sirius shot him a warning look, and he grinned back.
“Now, you go out there, and try and distract him.” Remus told Lockhart, who nodded vigorously, causing his curls to go into a kind of hyper-drive.
He left outside, where Snape had apparently gone, and the Marauders followed close behind. They watched from a distance as the small boy strode purposefully towards the gang of Slytherins. He tapped Snape on the shoulder, who turned and sneered.
“Sweet Merlin, Padfoot, if he is brutally murdered, you are getting all the blame,” Remus muttered.
“Ssssh ... I think we might be able to hear what’s going on if we get a bit closer,” James said, and the foursome moved slowly towards the group.
They managed to hear snatches of Lockhart’s high pitched voice, “So you see ... mumble mumble ... very important ... mumble mumble... pigeon baths extraordinaire ...”
They heard the Slytherins sneer, and Snape turned away. Lockhart looked at them desperately.
“Keep going!” Sirius mouthed. Eventually Lockhart managed to get it so that Snape was facing the opposite direction, and was very much distracted by Lockhart, as were the others in the group. At this point, the Marauders each sent their individual spells towards Snape, although he didn’t seem to notice until his friends began laughing at his appearance.
James had turned his hair into a mass of small thin snakes. Sirius had covered them in a kind of sticky green slime. Remus had switched his shoes into large clown ones, and Peter had transfigured his nose into a tomato. He looked like a kind of nightmarish clown.
He turned to see the Marauders falling over themselves in laughter, and began to stride towards them angrily.
“Why Snape, what on Earth happened to you?” James spluttered, trying to control his mirth. Snape made a kind of snarling noise and threatened all four of them with all manner of curses and dark magic. Eventually Sirius interrupted him.
“I’m sorry, but I really do fail to see how you could consider yourself in the least bit intimidating looking like that.”
“Why yes, Snape, what did possess you to choose such an unusual ensemble?” Remus asked, joining in with the game.
“Perhaps he had grown tired of his mandatory repulsive hair and oddly shaped nose?” Peter asked the others, and they considered this for a moment.
“If that was truly his intention, I don’t really think he did much of a good job of changing these aspects,” James said, thoughtfully.
“You’re quite right, of course. His hair is still repulsive, and his nose still a rather odd shape,” Sirius observed. All four of the Marauders nodded at this, and turned to Snape enquiringly.
“Pray, do tell us,” Remus began, as politely as possible, “were you possessed by some kind of devilish spirit which forced you to dress like a blind oaf?”
Snape was speechless. He merely stood there angrily, his wand hand twitching.
The Marauders began to back away, knowing when they should leave. “I don’t think that Snape is really willing to clarify the reasoning behind his current fashion statement,” James declared, and the four of them turned and ran away, laughing all along. They hid behind a large tree, and when no one was looking, James produced the invisibility cloak from his bag, and they all got under it “ although it was rather cramped “ and doubled back to see what Snape’s reaction would be.
They were just making there way over to him, when Peter spotted Lockhart, and nudged the others. The boy was wandering around looking confused. “Guys?” he called out, wildly searching the grounds, “Where are you? That was awesome, but ... but now you’re gone! Guys?”
The last day of term before Christmas also happened to be Sirius’s birthday. For the first time ever, Sirius was actually going to leave the castle during the holiday so that he could be with the Potter family. So as a farewell to the whole of Gryffindor, a birthday and leaving party was held, the Friday before they were due to depart the next day.
It was in full swing when the music stopped, and Sirius heard a female voice ask to make a speech. Sirius turned, and to his utmost shock and horror, saw that it was LaLa.
“How did you get in?” He cried, but was ignored.
“I’m sure that everyone here knows Sirius Black from some way or other. He is, of course, well liked. And today, he became 17, he came of age. There are now many things that he can do, and I’m sure he will waste no time in doing so. Now, I’m also sure that many of you are wondering who I am. Some of you may know that this is not even my house “ I should really be in the Ravenclaw common room right now. But there was something that I really felt a need to tell “ no, show “ you all.”
Sirius watched in horror, as she performed a spell, which made a kind of shimmering cloud rise above the crowd so they could all see it clearly. He knew that this was advanced magic, and saw that she wasn’t in Ravenclaw for nothing. He looked around him, trying to see a way out, but there were people blocking his way on all sides. He heard the crowd gasp collectively. Dreading what he knew it would show, he looked up at the cloud. It showed the two of them kissing in a deserted classroom.
“This was sometime last year,” she told them all, and the scene in the cloud changed. It now showed a similar scene, but in a closet. “This was a couple of weeks later ...”
This continued for a minute or two, until someone in the crowd was able to find their voice. Lola strode up to LaLa, and screamed at the top of her voice, “Stop it! End it, you bi“”
“NO!” a commanding voice cried. Everyone turned in shock to see that it was Tara who had spoken this time. “Let me handle it, Lola.” She walked calmly over to LaLa. While the crowds attentions were diverted, Lily managed to make the cloud disappear, and Sirius felt his liking for her increase. Not that it would do much good. “Is this all true?” Tara asked LaLa, her voice only shaking slightly.
“Yes.” The other girl said. Tara digested this for a moment, before she slapped her across the cheek. Then she turned and looked at Sirius with a look of loathing on her face.
“I thought you really liked me,” she said, her voice on the verge of cracking. He tried to step towards her, but found he couldn’t move. He opened his mouth to say something, but she held up her hand to stop him. “We went out for two years, Sirius. Surely, if you had never truly liked me, you would have at least bothered to tell me, to break it to me gently. But to go behind my back ... and then to let me find out in this way ...” She stopped, and wiped away a tear angrily, before continuing. “They say your family is evil. But they also say that you’re different. You know what? I agree. You are far, far worse.”
There wasn’t anything she could have said that would have hurt him more. She turned and ran away, up the stairs to the girls’ dormitories, with Lily and Lola following her “ although not before they had both given him looks of pure hatred and disgust. Sirius continued to stand there, and before he knew it, everyone had left. He was alone, standing there staring into space. With all the strength he could muster, he climbed the stairs to his own room.
He retuned to Hogwarts in January, having spent the entire time wandering the Potters’ gardens. He felt terrible, and had barely spoken to anyone. Not even he and James talked much. He didn’t blame his friend at all, and once he was back at Hogwarts, he barely spoke to anyone, and the Marauders didn’t do any pranks or anything for weeks. One day, he had grown so bored of sitting on his four poster to do his ever mounting homework, that he ventured out to the Library.
He sat down, after finding a copy of Advanced Transfiguration, and was just getting into it, when he felt someone slip into the seat next to him. He didn’t look up until the person said his name. To his utmost surprise, he saw that it was Lily.
“Do you want me to move?” he asked, expecting her to start threatening him because of what he had done to Tara.
She laughed. “I never thought that you, Sirius Black, would ever offer such a thing to me.”
“Aren’t you here to kill me?” he asked, confused, and she smiled.
“Not today, I’m afraid.”
Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “How is she?”
Lily frowned, in thought. Then she shrugged. “I guess she’s holding up ok. She’s starting to get over you, slowly.”
“If I told her I saw sorry, would it help?”
“No, I think that would make it worse. But I suppose I could always mention to her how sorry you look these days,” she added, thoughtfully. He nodded.
“And what about you and Lola? How much do you both hate me?” he asked, and she smiled.
“At first we were all set on finding you and turning you into something small and gross and slimy, but Tara made us promise not to. You know, that day, Lola was in such a bad mood. She kept saying something was going to happen, but she didn’t know what. She tried to make us have an early night, not to go to the party, but in the end we went anyway.”
“So, she still sees stuff?”
“Sometimes. It can be really specific, and she’ll say stuff like ‘Make sure you put a cloak in your bag, it will rain on the way back from Herbology,’ or sometimes she’ll be really vague like she was then.”
Sirius smiled. He couldn’t help it. He wished that they could be friends, that he could be there when she made these predictions, and he voiced this.
“Well, if you and me can have a civil conversation, and we were never close like you and her were, I’m sure that you can patch it up with her eventually,” Lily reassured him, but he was unsure. “Look, I have to go,” she told him apologetically. “I think you should try and make it up with your three boy mates, before you try Lola, ok?”
He nodded, and just as she was about to leave, he stopped her. “You know Lily, even though James can be an arrogant prat a lot of the time, he’s actually a really good guy, underneath. And I don’t think he would ever hurt you, he really likes you.”
She smiled at him, almost sadly. “Goodbye, Sirius.”
AN: I didn’t actually plan to finish there, but I realised how long this chapter was getting, and that seemed like a good note to end on. This was a pretty dark chapter, in places, but the next one should be a lot more fun, so don’t worry! I know that I left out some stuff “ Quidditch, and whatnot “ but I’m trying not to make the chapters too samey. You can presume that there WAS Quidditch, and they did take part, but nothing out of the ordinary really happened. Same goes for all the other stuff I may have missed. Anyway, I think Sirius did a lot of growing up here (hence the title of the chapter), and please tell me what you think!