Chapter 1
Sirius Black and James Potter had been best friends ever since James had chucked a chocolate bar in the air in that train compartment and it landed in Sirius's hair in first years. They had been through thick and thin together. But the infamous friendship of their time went beyond the two boys. On the other side of the compartment sat a blonde boy, eyes eagerly eyeing the tray of food that James had bought for them. Next to him was a shy brunette, with wounds slashed across his face, on the verge of healing. The timid first years, with the exception of James and Sirius of course had quickly realised that they were to bunk with each other for the whole seven years of Hogwarts. Remus took one look at the extravagant boy and sighed heavily. He couldn’t tell that years later, he’d be snogging said extravagant boy. This was just the start.
A now much older Sirius weaved his way between people at the fifth year Gryffindor party. People from all houses gathered here, especially after a quidditch match. This one was for the victory of Gryffindor winning the match against Slytherin. James motherfucking Potter had strutted into the main hall with Sirius close behind, the biggest smiles beamed across the room from their faces. Remus was hexing Slytherins and changing all the banners into red and gold whilst Peter followed, handing out sweets to the players and every house except Slytherin. A certain two people turned their head away from their angry housemates and gave the payers small smiles, before turning to their mates. The party was obnoxiously loud, with the music spreading across the room like wildfire as the people danced and laughed, drinking away their problems. Marlene was shouting something unintelligible at Mary, something about stupid fucking Slytherins and how they can suck her dick (or Sirius’s, they weren’t picky). The only Slytherin in the room was none other than Dorcas Meadowes, who came to keep Pandora company, sipping her drink before chucking it at Sirius’s head. He ducked in time, clearly he had lots of practice. He spotted another Slytherin actually, but only saw the flash of green as it swept past. Pandora was indeed pissed, and fell head first into a bowl of homemade firewhiskey James had concocted.
“DARLING GO EASY ON THE ALCOHOL,” Mary shouted, her tone lively. Her habit of calling every woman on the planet ‘darling’ or ‘baby’ had rapidly spread and it caused many gay panics. No exaggerations.
Now at a clearing, Sirius flopped himself down, grabbing a couple more drinks and balancing them on the edge of the armchair he was sitting on, downing shot after shot. He stumbled out of the chair a few minutes later, pleasantly pissed but not black out drunk, yet.
James was snogging Evans in the corner of the room. He was so in love with her, her face, her sparkling green eyes, her freckled face in the moonlit night, and music blasting across the common room, he didn’t stop to take in the small look of discomfort in her face as she battled with herself, but took in a dark figure opposite him, hidden in the shadows of dancing people, as it turned around and left, it plagued his mind for the rest of the evening. Lily was ‘in love’ with him too. They were the perfect couple, especially since they were well on their way to becoming head boy and head girl. But that is a concept not one, but two people need to convince themselves to agree with.
Remus arrived super late to the party, having dozed off in the library. With a chocolate stain on his cheek, he groaned from the sudden blast of sound and trudged upstairs to the dorm. Peter Pettigrew lay on his bed face down, hands covering his ears.
“It’s not been this loud since James fucking got Lily to say that she didn’t actually hate him just tolerated him,” Peter grumbled. Remus hummed in agreement before flopping down on his own bed, and pulling out his old classics. He thumbed through the well-worn pages, before realising one was missing. He flipped over, but fell onto something painfully sharp. He leapt up, startling his dormmate and clutching his chest, he ransacked his bed until he found it. A book, the missing one, lay there, with a note in it.
“Here’s your book back -Padfoot”, Remus read out loud. Peter had fallen asleep. Remus sighed in relief as he fiddled with the book, realising it had annotations in. Sirius had marked the pages, things that reminded him of each of the marauders. But on one particular page it read “i miss regulus.” This book was now not just an ordinary book, but a window into Sirius’s head. Another page that stood out to him was one that had an annotation that read “me and moony :)” in his scrawly cursive.
There was a knock on the door, and Remus dropped the book, leaving the dorm.