The cute boy
“Sirius Black”
The first time I saw Remus I couldn’t believe my eyes. How could anybody be that beautiful?
Now a week later I’m still hit with the same conclusion. Remus his face is the perfect shape and his brown curls are placed so gently. His brown eyes seem to be shining everywhere he goes.
And don’t let me start about how friendly he is! You can find him in the library most of the time and he loves helping other students figure out spells or helping them with their homework.
He’s kind to everyone, but I can see people talking about him behind his back.
One time I went over to them and told them to “fuck off”.
We’re walking with our group: me, James, Peter and Remus. And as we pass by, I see a boy (a hufflepuff) crying in the corner.
I’m not the only one seeing it.
Remus walks over to the boy and bends down. I hear him whisper some stuff to the boy. He nods and shakes his head to answer Remus.
After a while they get up and the kid runs off.
I look at Remus with big eyes as he passes by.
James is the sort of friend you never fall out with. He looks after you and is kind, but he also makes jokes and loves Quidditch.
Peter, I don’t know Peter very well yet, because I don’t know how to talk to him. He’s shy and quiet, but he’s a very good friend. He doesn’t like breaking the rules, unlike me and James.
In the great hall we sit next to Lily, Marlene and Mary. They’re nice, but I don’t think Lily likes James very much. Because of the stunt I pulled.
After breakfast we head over to our first class of the day: transfiguration.
“Class! Today we will start the preparation for our next transfiguration,” Professor McGonagall informs us, getting me out of my trance of looking over at Remus.
“You will turn your cup into a mouse and back, in your book you will find the spells you will need to practice in order to complete the task,” she continues.
Everyone starts with the task right away. Muttering with their neighbor and trying out the spell, flicking their wands.
The lesson goes by very slowly, but it finally finishes. Remus packs up fast, as usual and waits for me in the classroom. James and Peter wait at their table.
I pack up the last of my stuff and look up at Remus who is already looking over at me. I quickly look down and feel my cheeks heating up.
“I think we should do something tonight,” I tell them on the way over to our next lesson. Remus agrees and that gives me confidence.
The rest of the day goes very slowly, but looking over at Remus makes it worth it. He’s penning down everything carefully in his neat handwriting and he looks good doing it.
That night Remus, James and Peter climb into my bed. “So what’s the idea?” Remus asks. “You’ll see,” James interrupts me and he gives me a sneaky smile.
We sneak down and in the hallway James tells us to be very quiet. He looks around the corner and waves us over.
James leads us to a classroom, Slughorn’s, he pulls us closer and tells us: “We’ll curse the toilets, if someone goes to wash their hands, water will pour out everwhere at them. And of course there will be one sink that doesn’t that we can use.” We all agree, Peter very quickly this time.
~~~~~~
We sneak back to our dorm and slip between our sheets. “Goodnight,” I call out. “Night Sirius,” Remus answers. Peter and James say “goodnight,” in sync.
The next morning
My eyes fly open and I jump out of bed.
James is awake already, I smile at him and go over to Remus. Remus is drooling over his cushion and I can’t help looking over at him fondly. “Remus,” I whisper, “Remus, wakey wakey.” Remus grumbled and turns around. James grins over at me and I give him a dirty look: “You wake up Peter then!” I scowl.
Finally I managed to get Remus out of bed and we’re walking down to the great hall. There’s a few people there already, a lot of Slytherins and a few Gryffindors, Huffelpuff is almost complete, it seems and Ravenclaw is scattered all around.
“Well, well, little cousin of mine, you’re already blending in with the Gryffindor crowd! What will your mother say!” I close my eyes and sigh. I plaster a smile on my face and turn around.
Bellatrix, Narcissa and some other Slytherins are standing in a crowd around me and my friends. “Bellatrix, Cissa, hi,” I say. “Don’t hi me, Sirius! You let the Blacks down, you don’t get to hi me!” Bellatrix snarls at me.
“You could’ve been in Slytherin and have way better friends than those,” she looks at my friends in disgust and I stand a little taller, they don’t get to talk bad about them, “the blood traitor, the halfblood and that low ranked wizard!”
“Don’t you dare insult my friends like that!” I spit in her face,” James is not a blood traitor! Remus will be more pure blooded than you’ll ever be and Peter is worth so much more!”
Bellatrix stares at me and gestures to a boy to come up. “This is Severus Snape, he can be a much better friend than those,” she holds her head higher, “you won’t be such a disappointment if you hang out with us and Slytherins your age.”
She pushes the boy, Severus, closer to me. “Hi, I’m Severus as you know and I’m much better than those people you call your friends,” he says, grinning meanly.
I turn around and push my friends in front of me to the Gryffindor table. “Don’t you dare take another step, Sirius Orion Black! If you continue there is NO going back!” Bellatrix shouts after me.
I ignore her and keep going, ignoring my friends' glances.
“You okay?” Remus asks me, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I’m fine,” I say, shutting him down. He shuts his mouth harshly and I can hear his teeth clacking on each other. I take some toast on my plate and start taking small bites.
After lunch we head out and we hear screams of students, we look at each other at the same time and grin. We run over to the toilets and see children run out, some slipping on the water on the floor. James is laughing so hard, his hands on his knees, bending through them. Peter is laughing too and Remus is smiling lightly, but still looking over at me with something of worry. I am almost rolling on the floor of laughter.
“JAMES FLEAMONT POTTER!” A high pitched, well-known voice shrieks out from the crowd. James stops laughing all at once and looks at Lily anxiously. “How does she know my full name?” James whispers in Remus’ ear.
“Are you behind this?” She commands to know. James lets his shoulders hang slack and grins at her lazily. “No, how would I be able to do this?” He looks around innocently.
“I will prove it was you!” She grits her teeth and turns around, her hair hitting James in the face and marching off.
We walk back to our dorm laughing, because we have free the first hour. We sit on Remus’ bed, because he was reading and he wasn’t coming down to the common room, so we decided to all sit on his bed.
He’s trying his best to ignore all of us, but I can see that his eyes aren’t scanning over the pages and are just hovering over one place.
Remus must feel my gaze on him, because he looks up and meets my eyes. I know that my cheeks are heating up, but I don’t look away. It’s just that his eyes are so beautiful, like if you look at them too long you can fall into them and find all his secrets.
For the first time it’s him who looks away first and my mouth forms into a small smile as I look away.
Look away at James who is looking at me, smirking, and my face heats up again immediately.
Peter, who seemingly hasn’t noticed anything, breaks the silence: “They’re going to know it was u-“ he begins, but is interrupted by a person knocking on our dorm door.
I look at Peter, who could that be? A few seconds later the prefect opens the door and orders us to follow him. James and I swap a confused look.
We are brought to McGonagall’s office and I sigh, of course Peter had to jinx it. The prefect knocks on the door and leaves when McGonagall says we can enter. We all enter and have a seat in front of her.
“I have noticed you pulled another prank, no I don’t want to hear it,” she says, holding up her hand when I start arguing, making me shut up. “So there will be matching punishments, you will clean all the paintings in the castle after classes. You four will be assigned to different places in the castle so you won’t think of another one of your jokes.”
After this she waves us away and we head to our classes. The day goes by quick enough and it’s evening soon enough and we have to go clean paintings.
Of course I was assigned to the part closest to Slytherin, I will eventually have to pass by their dorm, but I’m dreading it.
Still, I have to do it so I walk over to the painting beside the entrance and start cleaning it as fast as possible. “A Gryffindor, here? What are you doing here?” The painting asks me. I look up and he gasps. “A Black! And you’re a Gryffindor, you should be ashamed! You’re a shame for your family! Begone, I don’t want a blood traitor cleaning me!” I ignore him and clean the rest of the painting quickly.
I move over to the next painting, having to pass the door of the Slytherin dorm. The painting doesn’t say anything and I’m so thankful for him.
Behind me someone clears their throat. I close my eyes tightly and turn around, seeing that Snape boy with some friends. “These are Avery and Mulciber, you could’ve been one of us you know,” he begins and I roll my eyes at him. “Nobody with brains wants to be friends with you, Snape!” I snap at him. “You will regret that!” He snarls at me, I give him a fake smile.
Mulciber starts to make his way over to me, but Avery intercepts him, muttering something like: “He isn’t worth it.” Snape walks past me, bumping his shoulder against mine as he does.
When they turn around the corner I breathe in and out deeply.
The next morning
When I wake up, James and Peter have gone to have breakfast already and Remus is up in his bed reading. Without looking up from his book he asks: “Ready to go have breakfast?” I nod and get out of bed, put on my robes quickly and head down with Remus, stealing glances of him now and then.
Peter and James are ready and are just talking. They wave us over when they see us, we walk over and I try to ignore the eyes of the people at the Slytherin table. “Good Morning this morning!” James says, optimistic as always.
The owls are at the same time everyday and I was just in time, because just as I sit down they enter the great hall. “Shit,” I mumble under my breath as I recognise my owl.
It’s a howler, from my mother. “SIRIUS ORION BLACK! HOW DARE YOU BE SORTED IN GRYFFINDOR! YOU SHOULD BE IN SLYTHERIN!” I close my eyes and flinch back a little, but she continues: “I HEARD OF BELLATRIX YOU EVEN REJECTED THEIR OFFER OF HANGING OUT WITH THEM! YOU ARE NO LONGER THE HEIR, NEITHER ARE YOU A BLACK!”
The howler shreds itself to pieces and I look around at everyone at my table staring at me, mouths wide open.