Sirius sat, quill in hand, staring at the four pieces of parchment in front of him. Two were filled, one a letter to Remus, the other to Peter. The other two had only a couple of words each. “Dear Tara,” and “Dear Lola,”. He had been sitting there for almost ten minutes, staring. He knew what he wanted to say, but when he tried to move his hand and write the words, he found he couldn’t move. A sudden pecking on the window made him jump, and he looked round to see an owl staring at him through the glass. It looked official, and he jumped up to let it in.
The bird swooped around his room, dropped a letter on his desk, and flew out again. Sirius picked up the letter, and saw that it had a black seal, imprinted with a skull. With a feeling of foreboding, he opened it.
“Dear Mr Sirius P Black,
We regret to inform you that Mr Alphard Archibald Black passed away yesterday at 11:28pm. The funeral will be held on “”
He stopped reading. His Uncle Alphard had died. One of the only family members who hadn’t cast him out, and he’d gone. He wondered if Andromeda knew yet. He couldn’t tell her, he couldn’t be the bearer of such news. He placed the letter on his desk and collapsed, face down, onto his bed.
“Sirius! We have lunch! Mum made an inordinate amount of sandwiches, and I spy some pickle ...” James’s voice called up the stairs. It paused, and then, “Sirius?”
He heard the thudding of footfalls as his friend bounded up the stairs. He didn’t move.
“Hey Sirius, didn’t you hear?”
“Not hungry.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I said pickle!”
“I hate pickle. And so do you,” Sirius mumbled. James paused.
“Okay, you’ve got me there. It’s disgusting. But there should be something good, she made mountains ... again ... come on, what is it? Do you want to go steal a llama and hold it ransom instead?”
Sirius gestured to his desk. James went over and picked up the letter. There was a minute while he read it, before he said, quietly, “I’m sorry. What will you do with the money?”
"The what?"
"The money."
"The what what?"
"The money!"
"The what what what?"
"For goodness sake, the money that your uncle left you!"
Sirius sat up straight. "How much pickle have you been inhaling?”
James shook his head, smiling briefly. “He left all his money to you.”
Sirius blinked. He grabbed the letter, and read through it frantically. James was right. His uncle had left all the money he had in Gringotts to him. “I ... I don’t know ...”
“Come on, we’ll go show it to Dad, see what he makes of it. It’s a Saturday, he’ll be home.”
The pair went off in search of Mr Potter, and eventually found him in the kitchen, eating a pickle sandwich and reading the Daily Prophet.
“Hey Dad, can we show you this letter?” James asked, taking a sandwich, and checking it for traces of pickle.
“Did you know that someone else has gone missing?” Mr Potter asked, absentmindedly.
“Um ...”
“That’s three times this week, and there are reports of Muggles disappearing too ... Some people say it’s this Voldemort person ... Work’s hectic ...”
Mrs Potter looked worried, “Boys, I don’t want you wandering the streets any more, do you hear?”
“Mum, come on ... We were planning on holding a llama for “ I mean, checking out that new ... uh ... wood store,” James quickly covered up, and Sirius almost laughed at his incapability to lie.
“You wont be “checking out” anything, mister, not when people are going missing! Merlin, if I lost either of you ... I don’t think I could ...” she composed herself. “You shall stay either in the house or the garden. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Mum,” James said, meekly.
“Yes Mrs Potter,” Sirius muttered, and she bristled.
“I told you to call me Auntie, Sirius, dear.”
“Right,” he mumbled, “sorry.”
They turned to leave, and just as they were about to be out of hearing range, they heard Mrs Potter call after them, “And if I hear the slightest hint of a rumour about you and any kind of llama ... the garden is out of bounds too!”
“Dear Sirius,
I heard of your uncle’s death, and I’m sorry, I really am. He was your favourite, wasn’t he? I’m sure that’s what you told me, and when I read it, the first person I thought of was you. How you must feel right now ...
However, what you did was next to unforgivable. It really was. Tara has been distraught while her parents are wondering where their happy, let’s-look-on-the-bright-side daughter has gone. However, Lily tells me that she and you spoke in the Library a few weeks after it happened, and she stressed that you seemed to feel a lot worse than we expected you to. She also tells me that she didn’t murder you, which I think was a step forward for both you and her. Do you see now why I wouldn’t give up my friendship with her, all those years ago?
I was looking through The Daily Prophet today, and couldn’t help noticing the alarming number of deaths and disappearances. It made me scared. Whoever is behind all this is powerful “ really powerful. We used to be great friends, Sirius, and I’m sure you haven’t forgotten. Despite everything you’ve done, I find myself sitting here, at my desk, extending the hand of friendship. If you take it, I will be so glad, and if you don’t, I wish you luck in your life. But I have a feeling that we’re soon going to need as many true friends as we can get. And that’s not just any prediction abilities I seem to have.
Lola
PS: Plus, it’s high time Lily got over her dislike of James, don’t you agree? Care to help me on my mission?”
Sirius put down the letter, his hands trembling. Had he really just read that? It spoke so many truths ... As he hastily began to write his reply, he imagined her watching the owl she had sent fly into the horizon, biting her lip, wondering whether she had done the right thing. He had to reassure her that she had, she had done exactly what he needed her to.
Seeing Lola again was strange. They had corresponded all through the remaining summer, rebuilding their friendship ... but that was different. They were just letters, words, it wasn’t actually seeing each other.
The Marauders were in their usual end compartment.
“So Sirius, are you worried about meeting Lola?” Remus asked, for some reason looking pointedly at James, who had received his Head Boy’s badge, much to the shock of everyone around them.
“Well, a little,” Sirius shrugged.
“I mean, surely meeting her would be very different from writing a letter. Your first real meeting is key, wouldn’t you think?” Remus was staring hard at James, emphasising on certain words or phrases. Sirius frowned, and looked at his best friend too. Suddenly he understood.
“Yeah ... it’ll be weird seeing her as a friend, for you, won’t it Sirius?” James said, obviously thinking that reason he was being stared at was because they expected him to answer.
“Well, yes, it will be like meeting for the first time,” Sirius nodded, and Remus looked at him and smiled, realising that Sirius understood. Neither Peter or James seemed to, however.
“Why do you guys keep saying ‘meeting’ in that weird way?” asked Peter, and James shrugged at him, until realisation hit him, and hard.
He jumped up, swore, and ran from the compartment yelling about missing his first Head Boy meeting.
“Poor James. Do you think we were being too subtle?” pondered Remus, as he watched James run away flailing his arms and cursing anyone who got in his way.
“Nah, he’s just too thick to take a hint,” Sirius laughed. “How dead do you think he’ll be when Lily’s done with him?”
“Oh, most definitely, very seriously dead. Maimed even,” Remus replied, smirking a little.
“I get it!” Peter suddenly cried, clapping his hands in glee, “You were emphasising on the word meeting because James was missing his, and you were trying to make him realise on his own!”
Sirius and Remus both turned and raised an eyebrow. Before they could make a remark along the lines of “duh,” the compartment door opened.
It was Lola. Sirius’s breath stopped short, and he tried to smile. “I’ll, um, I’ll sit down then, shall I?” she said after a minute.
Remus noticed that Sirius was preoccupied with watching every tiny movement she made, so took the concept of a greeting unto himself. “Of course, how have you been?”
As Lola came into the compartment, Tara was revealed standing behind her. This seemed to jolt Sirius out of his senses, as all the memories of their previous year came crashing down. He didn’t want to be in the same room, knowing what he had done. How could Lola force this on him? You deserve it, a voice that sounded oddly like Lily’s said.
“We want to talk about Lily and James,” Lola said, bringing him back to reality. He nodded.
“They’re Head Boy and Girl,” Peter pointed out. “Maybe, they’ll kind of ... you know, get to know each other better.”
Everyone nodded. “Should we nudge them along?” asked Lola. There were many uncertain nods. “Okay, then how?”
Silence.
“Maybe they should be left to their own devices,” Remus muttered, and everyone agreed a little too quickly. Suddenly the concept of bringing together two people who either didn’t know when to let go, or hated the other seemed like far too large a job for them.
“We’re terrible at this,” muttered Peter, and there were sounds of agreement.
“I think I love her,” James said to them one night.
“I know,” Sirius breathed, although he wasn’t talking about Lily.
“She’s so beautiful.”
“I know.”
“I got there, late, and she was so mad at me. She looked so ... amazing. Like she’s matured over the summer, she’s really grown up. And she was so good with the Prefects, she didn’t look down on them or anything. She’s everything. I really think that I love her.”
“I know,” Sirius said again, thinking about someone entirely different. The way she laughed, and joked, and tried to think of things she could say to convince Lily that James was right for her.
He heard her say, again, “I can see it, clear as day, Sirius. They’re going to end up together, but I also think we have to help them.” He got an idea.
“You have to stop acting like a prat, Prongs,” he told him.
“I don’t act like a “”
“Yes you do,” the other three said, together. James pouted.
“Talk to her like she really means a lot to you. Like you’re really interested in what she has to say,” Remus advised.
“And do gentlemanly stuff “ hold open doors or whatever. Andromeda once told me that she loved that sort of thing, and that’s why she like Ted so much “ and look at them now! They’re married, and little Nymphadora’s nearly two,” Sirius said, and the others nodded.
“We know you’re a good person, it’s just that when you’re around her, you’re kind of ... different. Just be yourself, mate,” Remus said, and James nodded.
“Will you guys help me? Tell me if I’m acting weird?” he asked them. His eyes were pleading, hopeful. He reminded Sirius of a deer in that moment “ not a full grown, impressive stag, but a small, sweet little doe eyed deer. He knew that James really did want to be with Lily, that it had gone past the school boy crush phase.
“We’ll help you.”
And so they did “ every time Lily came near, they would discreetly nudge him if he started getting arrogant again, and eventually this happened less and less. Sirius also met up with Lola and she told him that she was working on Lily.
“I got her to admit he was good looking yesterday,” she told him when they were partnered in Charms one day, and trying to prove some old wizard’s theorem from 200 years ago.
“That’s progress,” he said. “Did you see how when they came back from patrol on Tuesday, they weren’t almost killing each other?”
“I know! It was so adorable, how he made her laugh and she tried to cover it up in case we noticed!”
“I think we should almost be there in a couple of “ is that supposed to be on fire??”
“Mr Black, Miss Armstrong, could you please explain why there is a charred hole in your desk?” asked Professor Flitwick at the end of the lesson. He had been irritable all day.
They looked at each other, and without meaning to, they burst into peals of laughter, earning them both a detention in a week’s time.
“What we need, is a new plan of action,” Sirius announced when they were sitting around the fire a couple of months before the Christmas holidays. Lily and James were on patrol, and Sirius, Remus, Peter, Lola and Tara were doing their homework in silence. They had recently been being given more than ever, since NEWTs were coming soon. Tara still hadn’t forgiven Sirius, but she was friends with the others, and they had come to the kind of agreement where they simply kept their distance.
“What for?” asked Lola, without looking up from her Transfiguration essay.
“For Lily and James, of course!”
Peter looked up, and frowned. “But they’re doing okay. They’re friends, right?”
“Right! They managed to be friends “ and then it stopped! Now they’re stuck in a rut “ the kind where they get on, and they don’t fight, and they can hang out without one of them being murdered, but it never goes any further!” he slammed his fist on the table.
Lola looked up for the first time, and her expression was slightly amused at how passionate he seemed to be about this. “What do you want us to do? Lock them in a closet until they make out?”
Sirius paused, “That’s not a bad idea.”
“No, Sirius, that’s a terrible idea,” she said, smiling.
He looked a little put out. “We’ve got to do something to nudge them along.”
“We could always kidnap James, so that Lily realises how much she misses him,” Remus mock pondered. “Lily would realise her true love, we would get rid of James’s lovesick whining for a day or two ...”
They laughed, and for a minute continued with their homework. But Sirius soon got bored of this.
“Seriously though, we have to do something!” he burst out, as if he couldn’t contain himself. Lola groaned, and banged her head on the table.
“Sweet Merlin, Sirius, some of us are trying to work!” she complained. He grinned at her.
“So am I “ work out a way of getting James and Lily together!” Despite herself, she had to laugh.
“All right Sirius, you think of a plan, and we’ll keep working, okay? But if you get detention for not doing your homework, don’t complain to us,” Remus said.
“I feel that this cause is far worthier,” Sirius stated, and began scribbling on a piece of parchment, occasionally crossing it out, or scrunching it up and starting again.
An hour later, Lily and James had returned, and joined them in their homework session. After Sirius had set James’s hair on fire when he tried to read what he was writing, he was mostly left alone to his plotting.
AN: Hmm, what could he be planning ...? How will he try and get them together ...? I would love any ideas you may have in your reviews! Be imaginative! If you make me laugh out loud, you will get the wonderful prize of ... Uh ... Handy, handy oxygen! I already know what will happen, but I would love to hear any theories anyway! It may even make me update faster ...