Chapter Two: And They Didn’t Desert Me At All
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“James!” Sirius hissed, leaping down the boys' staircase and grabbing James by the shoulder before he could enter the common room. “James, we can’t let Peter “ “
“Not no, Sirius,” James said in a low voice, still keeping his back to Sirius.
“What?” said Sirius. “How can you just “ that little bastard is up there “ “
“And Remus is in here,” James interrupted, and he took Sirius’s hand off his shoulder and strode through the door in front of them and straight into the common room.
“Bloody stubborn Potter,” Sirius muttered and shoved open the door, storming into the common room after James. He made straight for the unruly shock of black hair visible over the back of the sofa and, bracing his hands on the back rest, flung himself over the back of the sofa to land roughly beside James. Someone laughed.
“You’re a little short of elegance, aren’t you, Black?” It was Remus.
Sirius gave Remus a genuine smile before trying to exchange a glance with James, but James would not meet his eye. He wouldn’t meet anyone’s eye; he was staring pointedly at the chess board on the small coffee table between their sofa and Remus’s armchair.
“Fancy a game of chess?” James said abruptly.
Remus, who had a moment before been eyeing James with a look of anxiety, instantly relaxed. He smiled in response to James’s frown.
“Yeah, sure. Best out of three?” he offered.
“And I’ll play the winner,” Sirius put in.
Remus set up the pieces and turned the board so that James could have the white pieces. Remus and Sirius both leant forward, awaiting James’s move, but James simply sat there, absent-mindedly flicking the white bishop’s hat. Sirius nudged James in the ribs.
“Oi, wake up, mate.”
“Huh “ what?” James looked up from the bishop, a slight frown still clear on his face.
“Whites go first in chess,” REmus reminded him.
“Oh, right, yeah…”
After what felt like hours of Remus politely ushering James’s pieces off the board, Sirius began to lose interest; it just wasn’t entertaining unless James was playing his usual tactics of crushing Remus’s pieces to dust, or else losing all patience and flinging them unceremoniously out of the window.
Remus’s queen was just in the process of kindly helping James’s knight off his horse when a shadow fell over the board. Sirius glanced up and tensed, his momentarily forgotten anger quickly returning.
It was Peter.
James shot Peter a look that made him recoil, but Remus greeted him with a smile.
“Hey, Pete,” he said happily, before surveying the board and announcing, “Check mate! James, you’re useless tonight.”
James congratulated Remus half-heartedly and pushed his remaining pieces off the board. Then he turned to Peter.
"Well?" he said expectantly. "What'll it be?"
Sirius saw Remus frown slightly out of the corner of his eye. Sirius raised an eyebrow at Peter and quietly cracked his knuckles.
Then, to his complete surprise, Peter hitched a grin onto his face and scooped the white pieces into his hands.
"Can I play, Remus?" he asked, kneeling down to face the board.
"Of course," Remus said, smiling.
Sirius exchanged a shocked glance with James.
"Hey, Remus," Peter said quietly once his pieces were set up. "You know we're cool with it, right?"
Remus looked up, beaming.
"Yeah, I do," he said gratefully. "Thanks, guys."
James leant forward and rumpled Peter's hair, smiling. Sirius, feeling all the anger drain out of him, nudged Peter's knee with his foot and gave him a small smile. Peter smiled back.
Remus opened his mouth for a moment, but then shook his head and closed it again, deciding instead to lean forward and pull them all into an unexpected, bone-cracking hug.
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"It's hopeless," James groaned, slamming the heavy leather-bound book shut and dumping it on the floor.
Sirius had been sat in the library with James and Peter for over three hours and none of them had had any luck in finding the slightest scrap of useful information within the vast amount of volumes on the shelves.
"It's not hopeless," Peter said, retrieving the book from the floor and setting it back on the table. "There has to be something in one of these stupid books…"
He began flicking through the pages of the book, scanning random paragraphs, before discarding the book altogether and picking up a new one. He repeated this process several times before Sirius seized the entire stack of books and flung them across the table where they skidded over the edge and onto the floor with a loud thud.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"
"Damn," Sirius muttered, shifting his chair a little to the left in an attempt to hide behind James.
"Utter disrespect! Defacing school property! Out - OUT!"
Sirius stood up immediately, seizing his bag, and made a break for the door, stealthily dodging past a furious Madame Pince who was brandishing her wand at him and screeching loudly.
He slowed to a walk once he had reached the end of the corridor, and slung his bag over his shoulder, glancing at his watch as he went. It was a quarter past six; fifteen minutes until his detention with Slughorn. He ought to get going.
Sirius strode down the corridors, stopping to chat to anyone that he knew, attempting to delay his meeting with Slughorn as much as possible. It wasn't Sirius's fault that Snape's cauldron happened to explode… and that Sirius just happened to be pointing his wand in that direction at the time…
He reached the entrance to the dungeons and squared his shoulders, tightening his grip on his wand; Slytherins would be lurking around here, and Sirius hadn't yet had his daily anger-release.
A tall, skinny, scrawny-looking boy was walking about ten paces ahead of Sirius, his head down and his hands jammed into his pockets. The boy walked in a jerky manner, his long, greasy black hair twitching about his face.
Sirius grinned and quickened his pace, catching up with the boy in a matter of seconds.
"Why, hello… Snivellus."
Fidelity by Furry Little Problem
Chapter Notes: Chapter Two!! :) This is the same evening as Chapter One, so it's just kinda the other half of that scene. Nothing too HUGE I'm afraid, that;s next chapter.... ;)