Bell
The first nock on the door of the flat came around 6 pm. It was James, Regulus, and Harry of course. They were always the first to show. Regulus is very punctual. Next Lily and Mary. Then came Marlene, Dorcas, and Emily. Then Pandora, who also brought Crouch and Rosier.
Sirius was never a fan of either of them, but they are Regulus’ friends, so he’s going to try. He greeted everyone to the flat and offered each of them a muggle beer. James, Mary, Marlene, Crouch, and Rosier all excepted the offer. After everyone was comfortable, Marlene got out her bright red bell from her purse. They all knew what they meant, well maybe not Crouch and Rosier but they were about to find out.
The red bell what the competition bell. Once it is rung that night, the games had begun. They have a series of drinking games to decide who is the champion. They started this tournament thing back at Hogwarts. Sirius can remember the first time they did the competition. It was 5th year. Remus won, Sirius was so impressed. Right then he should’ve known that he was gay. Right in that moment, he should have known.
Marlene rings the bell it jingles. “Let the games begin!” She said as it rang threw the flat. “The games?” Rosier asked with a questionable raised eyebrow. “It’s a tradition, when the bell rings the games have started.” Marlene started. “We have a number of games we play and our sober drivers” James continued, then gestured to Lily and Dorcas, who raised their hands slightly. “Will keep score and whoever wins at the end of the night will be known as the champion for drinking games until the next competition is started.” Marlene said taking the conversation back.
Marlene and James did that a lot, switch in the middle of a conversation and stay on track. It was impressive. Very impressive.
“So our first game is, Shot Roulette!” Marlene announced to the group. She go out all Remus and Sirius’ shot glasses. Don’t ask how many they have, it’s a lot. Then she fills half of them with water and the other half with tequila and vodka. Then she asked Lily and Dorcas to shuffle the glasses so they can begin. “Ok, so the rules are simple, we all pick a shot and guess if it is water or alcohol, if we get it incorrectly we will have to take another shot, the person that takes the least amount of shots win!”
Everyone nodded in understanding of the rules. They all took a shot and made their guesses without smelling the shots. Sirius got his wrong on purpose just bc he wanted to take another shot. James also got his guess wrong, same with Crouch and Mary. At the end of the game Rosier ended up winning, guess he’s good at guessing.
Where is Peter? Sirius thought to himself. They never see him anymore. Sirius feels like there’s a reason that he can’t remember at the moment. It doesn’t really matter. He has all of these friends with him now. His family, his families he chose. Sirius wouldn’t change any of it. Not even a little.
“Next game!” Marlene shouted which got Sirius out of his own head. He was getting uncomfortable in his wooden chair so he got up and sat on Remus’ lap, who gave his a questioning look at first but then kissed Sirius on the cheek. “You two are so cute” Pandora complimented. Sirius and Remus gave her a thankful smile. They played a few more games before Lily said. “Wait, where’s Harry and Em?” They all were drunk by now or at least a little tipsy. Lily was one of the only two sober adults in the flat. She was supposed to be watching Harry! Lily got up and began looking around the flat.
A few minutes later they could hear laughing coming from Sirius and Remus’ bathroom. Sirius, James, Remus, and Marlene got up to see what happened. As they came into the bathroom they see a laughing Lily, Em who has different colors of eyebrows and lipsticks all over her face, and same with Harry. Em had one of Sirius’ eyeliner pencils in her hand. Probably about to attempt what her mom (Marlene) does. The first thing that Sirius said when seeing them was “Mini David Bowie?!” Remind you, he’s hammered drunk from losing the games. James and Remus find this quite hilarious, and started laughing so hard they fell to the floor. Along with Lily and now Sirius himself.
Lily told the others to go back to the games and she had everything under control. Which was 100% true. She came out with both kids, a 5 year old Harry, and a 4 year old Em, both clean from the makeup and now in pajamas, to say good night to their parents.
Lily is very good at the whole parenting thing. She’s always on top of whatever she needs to do to make sure the kids had everything. Sirius wished he was that good at it. He definitely wasn’t. He tries, he definitely tries, but he’s not that good. He still gets surprised that they let him, Sirius Black, watch Harry every weekday. Well week days he doesn’t have Arura trainings. He made a deal with the ministry that let him do most his classes from him and Remus’ flat.
Lily took both kids back into Sirius and Remus’ room so they could lay down and go to sleep. Sirius checked Remus’ watch, it was already 10:30. Lily came out to the rest of the group to supervise. She was also good at that. Parenting the adults. Sirius needed it sometimes. He knows it, but always denies it.
Like, when they got too loud, or stuff like that Lily just gave them that one look, that look that Effi had when Sirius and James were out late because they were at some muggle club when they were 16 or Mini when she caught all four marauders out after hours trying to plan a prank. Yes, that mom look, the look that make you question your dissuasion. The look that, to Sirius at lest, made you respect them WAY more.
The next time Marlene rang the bell and it jingled it was past midnight. They were all pretty hammered by then, well except for Lily and Dorcas/the sober drivers, as muggles call them. Lily grabbed Harry, Dorcas grabbed Em and apperated home and came back to get their spouses and James and Regulus.
After everyone was gone Sirius and Remus agreed they would clean everything up in the morning. They both got into some comfortable, warm closes for this cold mid November night. When they got into bed Sirius snuggled up to his boyfriend. Like he would keep him warm. He would keep him safe. Because he would. Remus would never let anything happen to Sirius. He knows it. And they stayed like that, together, Remus lightly running his fingers through Sirius hair, as they both fall fast asleep.