Chapter 5
The sound of the whistle screeching is all too familiar to James, and he will likely never stop hating it.
WHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
He’s quick to stop showing off his backwards three turns to Marlene—who is currently trying to imitate him and failing miserably. She’s already face planted trying it a couple of times, so it might be a blessing in disguise for her that Coach Hooch is signaling for all of them to group up around her. “I’m gonna get this,” she tells James, who simply laughs.
”I believe in you,” he responds with a thumbs up.
To be fair to her, it took him months to get down at first too. Back three turns are a trick that Sirius taught him a long time ago, when they were in middle school. Traditionally, three point turns are supposed to be done on figure skates. But when Sirius switched sports, he was almost immediately able to translate all of his figure skating skills into hockey maneuvers. It was one of the things that made him stand out from his teammates—scouts everywhere raved about his incredible speed on the ice, about his ability to outsmart other players and to skate circles around opposing teams while making it look effortless. His stickhandling and shooting were also commendable, but his speed and his precise moves were considered natural gifts. Sirius always laughed at that whenever he read the reports back, of course. He’d always say the same thing: “Would it kill them to mention that I was a figure skater first?”
Still, Sirius taught most of the figure skating tricks he knew to James. And while James’s skating isn’t quite as good as Sirius’s, he’s still an incredibly fast player thanks to it. And his extra training gives him fun moves to show off to his teammates (and to make them hate him for it).
As James skates over to Hooch, he pretends that he doesn’t notice all of the new players out on the ice. Given the fact that none of them have a proper practice jersey yet, it’s proving incredibly difficult. But he also knows what it’s like to be the new teammate—so he doesn’t try to make it worse for any of them. He’s sure they’re already going to hate Coach Hooch singling them out and introducing all of them, as she does every season.
She doesn’t even wait for everyone to gather around before she launches right into her introduction speech. Must be eager to get started, James thinks. “Alright, everyone,” she starts, “if you couldn’t tell by all of the mismatched jerseys on the ice, we have some new teammates joining us for the season.” Everyone laughs at that comment, though some of the laughter sounds more nervous than anything else. Here it comes… “If anyone new could come forward and introduce themselves and their positions to the team before we get started for the practice…”
As always, total silence follows, a split second in time where absolutely everybody is frozen and no one even dares to breathe. Ah, the absolute horror of being the new one..
The first to skate forward is the one in goalie pads, and James takes a moment to study the half hidden face behind the mask. And he nearly pees his pants when he sees who it is.
A few moments later, he speaks. “Peter Pettigrew,” he says, and James can hardly believe he didn’t recognize him back when they were all dressing in the locker room. “Playing goalie.”
To be fair, he had no idea that Peter switched positions. It’s been years since James saw him last, and the last time he saw him was at an end-of-season team party for a roster that’s long been disbanded. He remembers distinctly the day that Peter told them all that he’d be moving out of state, remembers the group hug that ensued amongst a cramped locker room full of sweaty and exhausted kids. He and Sirius had been especially close to Peter—Peter had been one of Sirius’s first teammates besides James to become his friend. They’d all lost contact as the years went on, though, and James and Sirius often brought him up. Mostly, they wondered where he was now.
Now James knows. And he cannot wait to call Sirius tonight.
Just as quickly as Peter came forward, he nearly scampers back to where he was standing. There’s the Peter that James remembers. The second to come forward, in contrast, is much taller. He wears a bright pink practice jersey, which James thinks is probably the best thing he’s ever seen, and there’s a prominent scar decorating his cheek. “Remus Lupin,” he says, and despite his size he somehow manages to sound even smaller than Peter. “I’ll be on defense.”
He offers Coach Hooch a nod of acknowledgement before returning to the very back of the crowd, which doesn’t surprise James. And as about five more new players eventually come forward, James finds that he’s paying less and less attention. He’ll learn more about all of them when they actually get to play together—for now, he’s eager to get on with practicing.
Finally, Coach Hooch decides to end the torture that they’re all enduring. “Alright, that’s enough of that. We’re going to be doing a one-on-one drill—two of you skate out, whoever plays defense will transition backwards and defend against whoever’s playing forward. Pretty sure you all have done this a million times by now, so let’s get to it,” she explains briefly before gesturing to one of the corners of the ice. “Line up over there,” she says, tapping her stick down on the ice a couple of times to signal that they should start lining up.
James doesn’t need to hear that twice—he immediately begins to skate over to the corner, though he lets a few players get ahead of him. If Sirius isn’t right there doing it with him, he doesn’t need to be the first to go.
Once a bit of a line for the drill has formed, he takes the time to examine the line ahead of him and count them all into pairings. There’s one, two, three pairs ahead of him… and then him. He looks over to his side to see who he’ll be paired with…
And is greeted with the sight of a bright pink practice jersey.
Ah. One of the new kids.
“That’s a sick jersey,” he says before the blowing of Coach Hooch’s whistle interrupts. The first pairing—which is Marlene and Emmeline—begin to skate out, and after watching them for a second he glances back over to Remus. He’s fast enough to see the scoff that Remus lets out, and doesn’t miss the way his eyes narrow.
”Don’t fuck with me, dude. It was the only clean one I had.”
Realizing quickly all of the wrong ways in which that comment could be taken, James is quick to shake his head. He probably shakes it too aggressively, actually. “No, I’m dead serious!” he exclaims hushedly. ”Is it CCM?”
He can feel Remus’s head turning towards him, can detect the way that Remus is trying to figure him out. James has never quite understood that—people love to act like he’s this big old mystery they need to unpack. He thinks he’s the most blunt person in the world.
But finally, Remus seems to figure out that he’s not trying to make fun of him. And then he sighs. “Yeah, it is. My old teammates all went out and got matching ones a couple of seasons ago on a dare. It was stupid.”
”Not stupid at all,” James says, and he’s still shaking his head back and forth. “It’s sick. I like it.” Though Remus doesn’t respond, James doesn’t miss the tiny chuckle that he tries and fails to hold back. And he smiles a little. “I’m James.”
The whistle blows again, which means the second pairing is now going. ”I know,” Remus responds, which causes James’s head to turn nearly at lightning speed. Huh? he thinks, and his confusion must be evident. Remus’s face quickly falls. “Sorry, that sounded creepy,” he quickly apologizes. “It’s just that people won’t shut up about Sirius Black right now, so..”
James rolls his eyes, making sure to over exaggerate it for Remus. “Oh, they need to shut up. They’re just fueling his already massive ego.”
That does get an actual laugh out of Remus, who’s now fully grinning. “Nice to actually meet you, James.”
”You too,” he says. The whistle blows for a third time, which means that James and Remus will be next. “You wanna play D?” he asks, gesturing over to the pair that’s going right now. Remus shrugs as James takes a puck out from the pile that’s formed in the corner, moving it back and forth with his stick as they wait.
”Yeah, it’s what I always play.”
“Alright, let’s do it,” James says, and it’s not even five seconds after that the whistle blows again. He takes a deep breath in and sprints out to the blue line, carrying the puck with him as he re-enters the zone.
Already Remus is watching him like a hawk, anticipating what his next move is going to be when James himself doesn’t really know yet. After spending a moment debating what he’s going to do, he sprints forward at full-speed—and Remus keeps up with him, his stick trained on the puck and daring James to mess up.
James is impressed; Remus is good. He’s fast, aggressive, and attentive to every single movement that James makes. He’ll be an excellent defenseman for the team, which is something that Sirius never got to experience the luxury of when they played together.
He’s good. So James has to be better.
He begins to pass Remus on the right, and silently wills Remus to follow him. It takes a moment, but eventually he does. He attempts to poke the puck away, and in doing so makes his fatal mistake—he turns his shoulders just too slightly to the right, over-rotating so that it’ll be more difficult for him to spin back around. This allows James to deke and to switch his direction completely. He pulls the puck over to his left side and breezes past Remus, his eyes focused on the top left corner of the next where Peter’s left just an inch of room—
And then he completely misses the shot, the puck he’d just handled so carefully hammering into the glass and falling back to the ice.
If he weren’t so out of breath, James would groan; he had that shot, and it was right where he wanted it. But alas.
As they return to the back of the line, James feels a tap on the back of the shoulder. He turns to see Remus there, with an approving sort of expression on his face. “Nice move.”
James practically has to gasp for air before he responds. “Thanks,” he gets out, offering Remus a nod. “You did not make that easy.”
Remus shrugs, still smiling through it all. “I try.”
James likes this new kid.
❅ ❅ ❅
In the span of less than three hours, James and Remus have gone from total and complete strangers to James showing him one of Sirius’s best figure skating costumes.
He has no idea how it happened, if he’s being honest. But he’s grateful that he now has company to laugh at this legendary photo with. James has it saved in his favorites folder on his phone for this very reason—he’s been dreaming of getting to show it to someone else for years. And after on-ice practice had finished, Remus had presented a perfect opportunity.
”So, are you and Sirius actually attached at the hip?” he’d asked. “Or is that just something all of the scouts love to say?” It was an innocent enough question, one James had answered easily.
”Oh, this is the furthest we’ve been apart since we met,” James replied nonchalantly. Remus had then raised an eyebrow.
“Wait, how long have you known each other for?”
”Six years,” he answered, and he didn’t miss the way Remus’s eyes widened in surprise. James just about expected that response—most people assumed the pair had known each other for their entire lives.
”Wait, but everyone makes it sound like—“
”I know,” James nodded, shrugging. “No, we were never even supposed to meet.”
He’d then proceeded to tell the legendary story of their first meeting, about Sirius’s failed double flip and the way that he’d stayed completely upright while absolutely demolishing James. He laughed as he talked about the shock on Sirius’s face, an expression he can still recall to this very day. James always makes sure to tell the story like a comedy, but in reality? It had been a miracle that he hadn’t started crying right then and there, and he’s glad that’s not how it happened. Who knows what Sirius would’ve thought of him then.
And of course, Remus hadn’t known that Sirius was a figure skater first. No one seems to know this, and it shocks James every time. Why the fuck do they think he’s such a good skater, then? That revelation stunned Remus, and then he’d begun asking questions about Sirius’s time as a figure skater…
Well, one thing led to another, and now here they are—James is currently showing Remus a picture of Sirius dressed head-to-toe in the colors of the American flag, his top bright blue and donning white stars and his pants donning red and white stripes. And Remus is laughing his ass off.
To be fair, James is too, and it’s probably the millionth time he’s seen this picture. Sirius had told him this story years ago—apparently, he’d been obsessed with the song “Yankee Doodle” back when he was four, and so his coach had let him do a program to it. It had been his very first competition, and his parents had decided it would be appropriate to dress him up like the star spangled banner. Sirius has told him many times that he absolutely would not willingly wear that costume now, but James still sees the entire thing as fucking awesome. He tries not to think about the fact that Sirius would probably kill him for showing this photo to a complete stranger.
..Whatever. It should be fine.
“I can’t believe I’ve never seen this photo,” Remus says through his laughter, and by this point he’s practically wheezing.
”Oh, Sirius would kill someone if the media got their hands on this,” James responds, grinning. “Which is why I’ve gotta be careful about who I show it to.”
Remus opens his mouth to reply—probably about to ask James why he’s showing it to him—but another voice from the other corner of the lobby quickly cuts him off. ”Are you already showing him that photo of Sirius?”
The voice is accompanied by the sound of a bag rolling loudly across the floor. James looks over Remus’s shoulder, and finds that standing across from him is none other than Peter Pettigrew.
“Come on, Pete, it’s tradition at this point,” James shrugs, unable to hide his absolute amusement as Peter joins them (and tries to subtly steal a glance at the photo on his phone). “You know this.”
Peter sighs, though James doesn’t miss the way his shoulders shake up and down as he replies. “You haven’t changed at all.”
”Good to see you again too,” James says, offering him a hand. Peter takes it and they shake, and now he isn’t trying to hide the grin that’s formed on his face.
Now that he’s changed out of his goalie gear, James is finally able to get a proper look at his old teammate. The first thing he notices is that his hair is shaggier now, and his face is a little wider. But other than that, he’s almost exactly how James remembers him. Like not a day has passed.
That thought is comforting to James. In the midst of everything changing right now, at least he’s been given back a long lost friend. And nothing seems to be different.
James turns to Remus. ”Have you met Peter?” he asks, to which Remus shakes his head.
”I haven’t. I’m Remus,” he says, the statement accompanied by a somewhat timid wave.
Thankfully, Peter reciprocates it. “Hey, Remus. Nice to meet you.” And then it’s quiet.
First introductions are always a little awkward when it comes to hockey players, aren’t they?
After James decides the silence is unbearable, he clears his throat and begins to talk again. “So,” he says to Peter, “Sirius is going to lose his mind once he finds out you’re back.”
Peter laughs in response, shrugging. “I doubt he even remembers me,” he says, “But I’ll take your word for it.”
”Oh no,” James says, quick to shake his head. “Trust me, he fucking loved you. He still talks about you.”
And it’s true. Sirius talks all the time about how grateful he was to have a teammate like Peter, who didn’t question what the new kid thought he was doing and was always ready to overcorrect for the both of them in case Sirius’s hockey skills fell short. He was a great linemate and friend to Sirius, who was always willing to let James and Sirius stay over on the nights when things got especially bad in the Black household. James doesn’t think Peter will ever quite understand just how important having that was to Sirius at the time—but that’s okay. He doesn’t need to.
“Really?” Peter asks, sounding genuinely shocked. There’s a slight smile on his face, and James responds with a nod. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s good,” James replies, which isn’t exactly a lie. They call every single night, and Sirius is constantly telling him about how grateful he is to get to be there. He likes the family he’s staying with—he especially likes his teammate, Frank. Frank’s even said hi to James a couple of times over the phone, and they’ve gotten along like they’ve been friends their entire lives. James is glad for it—he’s glad that already, the Longbottoms have been a better family and support system to Sirius than he ever got from his own. Sirius doesn’t say that part out loud, of course. But he doesn’t have to.
At the same time, Sirius has never been so far away from home for so long. And while Kamloops, British Columbia isn’t the furthest across the world he could’ve gone, it’s still completely different from Minnesota. James wouldn’t quite venture to say that Sirius misses his home state—but once again, he’s a complete fish out of water in a place where he feels he doesn’t belong.
Just like when Sirius first started playing hockey, James is trying to do everything in his power to convince him otherwise. But he’s not entirely sure Sirius believes him.
So finally, James settles on what he’s going to say next. “He’s still getting used to things over there, I think.”
“That’s very specific,” Remus says, though he sounds more amused than anything else.
”Hey, Canadians eat their bacon with a fork!” James exclaims in response. “There’s a lot of stuff over there that’s completely different.”
“Oh, right, I’m sure the bacon was the biggest change for him,” Remus says, grinning. “And not the fact that he’s, like, hundreds of miles away from friends and family.”
James opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, he catches a flash of familiar black curls right behind Remus. His heart drops as the person rushes by the three, keeping his head down as he rolls his bag away and pretends that they aren’t there at all.
Speaking of Sirius’s family…
Regulus is gone just as quickly as he appeared, practically slamming the lobby door shut as he slips into the parking lot and out of James’s sight. For a moment, James is frozen—does just his presence really make Regulus that miserable? He’d laugh if the entire debacle didn’t make him want to cry.
It’s silent for so long that James has almost entirely forgotten what he was just talking about. But finally, Remus speaks again. “Who was that?”
And the entire situation is so ridiculous that James has to scoff. “Regulus Black, he’s Sirius’s little brother. Clearly a ray of sunshine, if you couldn’t tell.”
”Oh, the look on your face made it obvious,” Remus responds, though James doesn’t miss the expression of surprise on his face. Only a few of James’s teammates know that Sirius has a little brother, and Sirius likes keeping it that way. It’s not exactly like Regulus looks upon hockey players with adoration and respect. Actually, he makes it very clear that it’s the opposite. “What’s his deal?”
James figures that Remus doesn’t have the time to sit and listen to him explain the entirety of his and Regulus’s history—and James isn’t quite sure that he knows that history. So he attempts to keep his explanation short. “He hates hockey players. All of them, but especially me. I don’t think he ever got over Sirius switching to hockey.”
”I think I remember him,” Peter chimes in. “I never spoke to him, but he was like.. always giving me dirty looks.”
”Sounds like him,” James nods. He’s had to deal with those looks since he was 10, so he understands better than anyone else. “Except now that Sirius is gone, he hates me a million times more. He won’t even look at me now.”
”He just sounds like a miserable person,” Remus offers, to which James sighs.
”No, I honestly feel bad for him,” he replies, frowning. “It’s not his fault his family’s fucking crazy.”
If Remus looked surprised before, it’s nothing compared to the surprise on his face now. “What do you mean?” he asks. A question James should’ve expected, probably—but he doesn’t even know where to begin.
”Well, they’re all a figure skating dynasty—his parents were elite skaters, and so were their parents, and their brothers and sisters all skate too. But Regulus and Sirius’s mom, Walburga, is especially fucking crazy—she was an Olympian back in the day, but she came in fourth place in 2002 and lost out on a medal. Sirius says she never quite got over it. Then she got injured pretty badly while training for the next Olympics, she had to step away from competing and ended up retiring. She basically only had Sirius and Regulus so that they could win the Olympic medals she never got. So when Sirius switched over to playing hockey…”
”…It didn’t go over well,” Remus finishes, and his eyes are so wide that James thinks they might pop out of his head. James nods in affirmation, and it’s dead quiet for a couple more seconds. “Holy shit.”
”Yup. So Regulus is essentially her last hope,” James says. He could go into so much more detail here about just how fucking crazy that family is—about how Walburga had her kids landing double axels by the time they were 7 and 8, about how every car ride home from competition when Sirius didn’t come in first place was a nightmare, about how Walburga would go as far as to deny her kids food on competition day because they needed to be able to jump high enough in the air without the “burden of extra weight.” But he decides to spare Remus and Peter of that. He’d probably get way too angry just talking about it.
Stunned silence ensues, and a million years must pass before someone speaks again. Eventually, Remus does. “I mean…” he begins, and he seems uncomfortable as he attempts to find the right words. “…I don’t think that gives him an excuse to be a shit person.”
”He’s not!” James quickly exclaims, probably more defensive than he needs to be. He’s so loud that Remus flinches, and he grits his teeth together. “Sorry..” he follows. “Just.. I don’t think he’s a bad person. He just hates me. Is all.”
Remus raises an eyebrow at that, and he doesn’t seem convinced. “That’s all?”
”Yeah,” James responds, though he hesitates a little as the word comes out. Remus still looks at him with a doubtful expression, and James suddenly finds himself blurting out the details of their encounter last week. “I mean, he did slam me into a wall last week and tell me to stay the fuck away from him, but it didn’t even hurt.”
”Hold on, what?!” Peter asks, just at the same time as Remus says “What the fuck?!” James grimaces, but tries to shrug it off as best he can.
“It was a whole thing, it was my fault,” he says in an attempt to be casual about it. “I was trying to talk to him after Sirius left, I should’ve known it wouldn’t end well.”
”He did that just because you tried to talk to him?” Remus questions, sounding as though he’s in disbelief. James is still for a moment before he slowly nods—it does kind of sound ridiculous when put like that. “Sounds like a shit person to me.”
”He isn’t,” James says, unwavering. “He just misses Sirius. And I feel bad for him.”
Remus opens his mouth to respond again, but right as he does someone else speaks up from behind him. “James!” exclaims Coach Hooch, causing him to turn around and meet the eyes of his coach. He quickly gives her a wave.
”What’s up?”
”You’ll be coaching Learn to Skate again for this session, right?” she asks as she practically sprints right by him, to which James flashes a thumbs up.
”Like always.”
”Great,” she says, and she’s already at the exit door. Clearly in some sort of rush. He wonders where she’s going. “I’ll see you then!”
Before James is able to thank her, she’s already gone.
With her being out the door, he turns back to Remus and Peter. “I should probably get going too,” he says, mainly because his bag’s been slung over his shoulder for the past fifteen minutes and it’s beginning to kill him. He hasn’t been able to feel it for a while by now. “But it was nice meeting you, Remus. And great seeing you, Peter.”
Remus once again offers a little wave, this time saying goodbye. “Nice meeting you.”
“See you, James,” Peter says, and James doesn’t need to hear any more as he begins waving at both of them.
“I’ll see you guys on Saturday, bye!” he exclaims. He’s already halfway out of the ice rink, never more eager to get to his car as he bounds across the parking lot with his keys in his hand.
He’s absolutely relieved when at last he reaches his car, opening the trunk and practically shoving his bag and stick inside. As he nearly collapses into the driver’s seat, feeling at last begins to return to his shoulder. He really does need to go through his bag soon.
He doesn’t actually end up on the road for a while. Instead, he sits in the car and doesn’t press a single button, reveling in the silence. And he tries his absolute best not to think about Regulus Black.
It’s all he thinks about.
❅ ❅ ❅
“…What the fuck are you doing here?”
Regulus swore to himself that he was going to try and watch his mouth for the sake of the kids he’d be teaching. But it doesn’t matter now. He’s only been at the rink for a minute, and any attempt he was going to make has gone out the window. He doesn’t care anymore.
Because he’s just stepped onto the ice, and the very first person he’s caught sight of on his first day of coaching Learn to Skate is none other than James fucking Potter.