High By The Beach (Lake)
Sirius
The war meeting happened the next morning by the Black Lake. Sirius, Remus, Marlene, Mary and Dorcas all snuck away from James and Lily while they were off doing head boy and girl things. Lily still refused to have any contact with James, only communicating when necessary and mostly communicating through prefects. Peter was stuck in the dorm, finally unpacking after ignoring his trunk before he went to bed that night.
The summer air still lingered in the sun, but the cool breeze was enough to give Sirius goosebumps, though that might just have been at the sight of Remus. He was so beautiful. Practically glowing in the sun, laughing at something Mary was saying. Remus’s gaze shifted and met Sirius’. Embarrassed, Sirius looked away and saw Marlene and Dorcas sitting together, their pinky fingers ever so slightly touching, but Sirius didn’t have time to think about that before he heard Remus’ voice.
“Okay guys, let’s get this..meeting started.”
Marlene pulled out a joint and lit it with her wand before passing it around. “So how exactly are we doing this?”
“Yeah, I mean James is definitely not going to be an issue,” said Dorcas, “but Lily is going to be nearly impossible.”
It was Sirius’ turn to chime in. “Well, that's why we need you guys, we need someone on the inside to convince Lily to change her mind. She likes Remus enough, but will not tolerate any mention whatsoever of James, even me.”
“It’s true,” Remus confirmed, “we need you guys to be able to get her to go out, coincidentally in the same places James happens to be.”
“Merlin, that sounds quite elaborate, don’t you think?” said Mary.
“And intricate!” Dorcas added, giggling as she passed the joint back to Marlene.
“It’s The Elaborate And Intricate Dating Scheme of ‘78!” Marlene declared.
“Marlene, surely you cannot already be that high. It’s 1977, in case you forgot.” Remus said, laughing at her.
Marlene rolled her eyes before explaining, “You guys are seriously delusional if you think we are getting those two together before the end of year. By the time we even get them to stand in the same room together, we’ll be well into next year.”
Everyone was silent for a second. Then Sirius spoke up. “I mean, she’s got a point.”
Murmurs and nods went around, it was silently agreed that this was what the plan would be called.
“Okay!” Sirius said, clapping his hands together, “next point of business, we need to do this slowly. Lily will catch on if we rush into it. I say we start by making them sit near each other for dinner.”
Mary shook her head. “That’s not going to work. Lily won’t hesitate to miss dinner.”
“Which is exactly why Remus is going to be extremely upset about something, he doesn’t want to leave his amazing, comforting friends, so he stays in the Great Hall, but he still wants Lily there for support.” Sirius felt himself grinning like a maniac.
“That is…not a horrific plan, I’m in.”
“Same. I mean, if it’s going to get us out of the extremely long and boring rants about ‘his stupid glasses’ and ‘his stupid hair’ and ‘his stupid smile’ then without a doubt. I’m in,” said Marlene, “James honestly isn’t that bad a guy. He’s just got an ego the size of this lake.”
“Yeah but a heart to match it. We just have to get Lily to see that.” sighed Remus.
Sirius wholeheartedly agreed. James was his best mate. James was the one who took him in when he was disowned and held onto him while he wept. James was the one who sat next to him on the train, knowing who he was, but not particularly caring. Yes, sometimes James was a prick and didn’t know when to shut his mouth, but he would never hurt a fly, even if that fly was trying to kill him.
“Wait,” Dorcas spoke up, “if James already likes Lily, why isn’t he here, it’s not like he’ll object to the idea of getting Lily Evans to fall in love with him.”
Sirius had thought about that, but he knew James well enough to know that he wouldn’t want anyone meddling. “Not really, James believes in fate. He thinks that Lily will just come to him when the time is right, he doesn’t want anyone to interfere.”
“So if James found out about this..scheme..he would react badly?” Marlene asked, looking into the distance.
“Absolutely.” Sirius replied with a curt nod.
“Then we’d better disperse, considering he’s walking down to us right now.”
“What!” Sirius whipped around and sure enough, James was making his way down the grounds, waving at the group. “Just pretend we were discussing homework or something.”
“We haven’t started classes yet.” Marlene said bluntly.
“Then we were discussing the summer! It doesn’t matter, we just can’t let James know anything!”
Suddenly, a voice appeared behind Sirius. “Can’t let James know what?”
Sirius started to panic, “Oh just–um”
“We’re just discussing your birthday. Can’t have you ruining your own surprise now can we?” Remus interrupted with an easy smile
Thank god for Remus.
“My birthday isn’t for like…7 months” James questioned, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s our last year at Hogwarts. We’ve got to make it bigger and better than anything before, so we had to get a start immediately.”
Jesus, it was scary how good of a liar Remus was, because James believed in it easily. He sat down with the group and began talking to Mary. Sirius could see Marlene and Dorcas were already engaged in their own conversation, yeah there was definitely something going on there.
Sirius brought his gaze from the group over to Remus, there was a mischievous glint in his eyes, a small smile crept onto his face. Sirius winked at him, ever so slightly, and the hint of colour that rose to Remus’ cheeks made Sirius’ heart flutter. He just made Remus Lupin blush.
Just as Sirius was about to speak, a group of other girls two years below them came over. Sirius recognised one of them as Pandora Rosier. She was the twin sister of Evan Rosier, who was one of Regulus’ best mates. Sirius didn’t know much about Pandora, just that her and her brother were quite close, the thought of that gave Sirius a twinge in his stomach. Maybe it was that fact that he and Regulus weren’t close, and probably never would be, that much a bit of hatred in his heart for Pandora, or maybe it was the close attention she was paying to Remus. Sirius was pulled out from his train of thought when Pandora spoke.
“Hey Remus, have a nice summer?”
“Uh lovely thanks,” Remus replied with a smile, “and yours?”
“Oh splendid. Thanks for asking!”
“That’s nice.” Remus said with a nod, before turning back to Sirius, he looked like he was about to say something when Pandora continued to talk.
“I was so bored though, you know, when Evan was off traipsing over London with Regulus” Sirius could have sworn she made eye contact at the mention of his brother's name.
“Oh yeah, totally get that.” it was evident Remus was over this conversation in the look he gave Sirius. Sirius tried his best not to laugh.
“Do you have siblings?”
“Huh? Oh, uh no, I just meant I was a bit bored without my friends around.”
By now, the rest of the group had gone silent and was watching this interaction, curious looks growing on their faces. Sirius could see that Remus was growing more and more uncomfortable, though it probably didn’t look like that to anyone else except James. Sirius could just tell by the way Remus was picking at the skin around his fingernails, one of his biggest nervous habits since first year. Sometimes it would get so bad that all of his nails had splotches of red lingering around the cuticles.
Sirius made eye contact with James, he’d also picked up on the nails, and they made the silent agreement that they needed to get Remus out. Now.
Pandora was just about to say something when James suddenly burst out “Moony! Padfoot! We forgot about that, um, detention!”
For a brief second Remus looked confused, then grateful, “Oh yeah! Better get on that. Don’t want to make Mcgonagoll mad on the first day right.”
Marlene, clearly not picking up on the situation said “How do you guys already have detention? We got here yesterday.”
Remus looked at the ground, looking for an answer, luckily James already had one. “Well, if we told you McKinnon, then we’d have to kill you.” He said with a shrug.
Marlene snorted, “Yeah whatever.”
On that note, James, Sirius and Remus picked themselves up. When they were far enough away they all burst into loud laughter.
“That was so awkward!”
“Blimy Moony! First day back and you're already getting swarmed by ladies!” James said, wiping tears from his eyes.
“It was one girl!”
“Remus Lupin. Casanova of Gryffindor House!”
“James, stop it. You know well enough I’ve never dated..” he made eye contact with Sirius, “..a girl.”
“That we know of! Right Sirius?” he poked Sirius in the ribs.
“Huh? Oh, um yeah.” Sirius was still looking at Remus.
“James, knock it off. I mean it.” After Remus said that, Sirius was broken out of the hypnotic trance that is Remus Lupin’s eyes.
“Come on, let's go find Pete and prepare for the moon tonight.”