Ascertainment
And though I walk home alone
I might walk home alone
But my faith in love is still devout
The last night of the fair
From a seat on a whirling waltzer
Her skirt ascends for a watching eye
It's a hideous trait on her mother's side
As soon as James opened the door to his flat he was surprised to find Sirius and Remus laying on his couch, along with Peter who helped himself to a cup of Pepsi from the fridge.
“How did you guys get here before I did? Sirius i'm revoking your key privilege”
“Oh no spare me kind sir! For thy will regret this decision afterwards!” Sirius responded.
“We were in the area, got the text and rushed to your flat” Peter said.
“What about the rest? Did they tell you when they are arriving?” James asked
“Well Marlene and Dorcas have the rulebook and they went home to get it. I guess no more than 10 minutes.”
The Rulebook is actually James's old history notebook (which he used for anything but note taking). It's full of drawings and photos of their friend group and it also has crucial information regarding what they can and can't do during their dares. Over the years as their game advanced they started developing certain rules against cheating and a set of accepted excuses for backing out from the game. They have only ever had to use it once, and that was when Sirius ran away. James didn't like how similar the situation was.
“Prongs, where is that new vinyl you bought? It's awfully quiet here.” Sirius asked, standing up and arranging his gloves.
“Look, when I said it's serious I meant it, why would you think I asked for the rulebook Padfoot? You're also involved so just…prepare yourself ok?” James said, not wanting to disclose anything before everyone arrived.
“Serious? But I'm Sirius! How could anything be more serious than I am?”
“Oh for the love of God stop making that joke already!” Remus groaned. Just then the doorbell rang and Peter opened the door for all the girls to swarm in.
“Oh James this better be important! We were having such a nice time! Here's your damn book” Marlene said, sucking on a lollipop.
“Yeah! We found this cute dinner place and everything..” Lily said
“Okay everyone, settle down then” James asked. And his friends obeyed, they could tell he was nervous.
“Uhh Mary, did you have any idea who the principal dancer at the Royal Ballet, aka my teacher, is before signing me up for classes?”
“Do I look like I frequent ballet performances? Of course I didn't! I just saw the flyer on the street and because I was out of ideas I just went with it…why do you ask? Who is your teacher?” she responded.
“It's well uh…Regulus. I didn't know he continued with ballet.” he responded, glancing at Sirius
“No. No way. Did mum actually let him live his whole ballet fantasy? After everything? I had to go trough all that torture protecting us only for mum to just what ignore it? ” Sirius asked, clearly angered by the situation.
Now, the problem was that no one besides Sirius knew what actually happened in the Black family the day he left. He never told anyone, not even James. Sure he does know about his trauma, or his scars, or all the horrible things his mother did, but not what made Sirius and Regulus grow apart from each other and break contact entirely.
“I say a dare is a dare, you have to keep going. It's only for a year after all and it's not like Sirius has to come see him or anything.” Lily said.
“Yes Lily but it's Regulus! If Prongs starts talking to him wouldn't he ask to talk to me eventually? Am I supposed to just act like nothing happened?” Padfoot was shouting.
“Okay but why is no one asking anything about what Regulus said? Did he ask about Sirius? Did he treat you differently?” Mary asked, almost ready to go fight anyone that was mean to James.
“He just.. said it's nice to see me and asked how come I decided to attend ballet classes. After that he just gave me a lot of corrections and acted normal. Not a word spoken about Sirius. I guess he's very professional ?” he responded.
“I'm pretty sure the book says you're not allowed to back out unless a family member dies or you go through a brutal breakup or get some life threatening disease. Nothing about people you don't want to see.” Remus was shuffling through the notebook, smiling at the occasional drawings he and Sirius made in the corners.
“I mean, let's vote. This game we have been playing is basically our culture now, I don't want us to stop it just because my brother gets in the way. I'll just keep avoiding him.” Sirius suggested.
“Sounds good to me. Those in favour say I!”
Basically everyone voted for the game to continue. James appreciated what Sirius did for him but he could tell that Padfoot wasn't thrilled, oh no he was really mad. He just always liked to bottle up his feelings and explode when it all became too much. James made a mental note to talk to him alone after his friends leave.
“Prongs you have to promise to not talk to him about anything that isn't ballet. I don't want you telling me you and Regulus are suddenly buddies.”
“Okay Padfoot, I promise. Just…let me know if you're not okay with it alright? I can maybe switch classes or something.”
“Sure. I will” Sirius said
“Well since we already got here lets order takeout and get wasted! Haven't had fun in a while, work is eating me alive” Lily said.
“Oh come on in my flat again?” James tried to seem mad. “ What should we order?” He grinned.
“Chinese!” Mary exclaimed.
“Oh we get that everytime! Just order like 5 kinds of pizza and pray we eat it until tomorrow” Remus responded.
“Hell yeah! I'll go get the drinks! James, where do you keep that special gin of yours?”
Sirius was already on his way to the kitchen.
“Cabinet over the fridge! I'll go change and shower until the food arrives. I'm all sweaty and sticky! Ballet is super hard dude!” James had a feeling showering will be pointless considering he will probably throw up at some point but he grabbed a pair of pajamas and locked himself in the bathroom.
*
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*
“PIZZA IS HERE!!!” Marlene shouted
“Gee are you inviting my neighbours too or what? The whole flat will hear you”
“Ooh what do we have here— THIS ONE IS MINE!” Dorcas said, snatching one of the boxes and tiptoeing on the couch.
“Okay guys c'mon sit down! I want James to show us what he learned in ballet class today. After every move he has to take a shot!” Mary said.
“Oh please don't make me. I look ridiculous.” James wasn't going to give in. He just wasn't.
Eventually everyone settled down with a pizza in their laps while James remained standing in the middle of the room.
“ Okay Prongs trust us and drink this and start dancing!! Please, I want to see!” Peter said, handing him a regular sized glass full of vodka ( James does not own a single shot glass. Everyone is drinking from big large glass cups)
“Fine, but we didn't do any dancing actually- we just learned a few basics. Ballet is a LOT harder than it looks. “ he said.
More than a few drinks later James did show them each position for both the hands and legs. He nearly fell down trying to bring his legs together for fifth position but Remus caught him just in time. At some point during the night James couldn't tell why but his legs hurt. They hurt really bad. His muscles were sore, whenever he moved around the pain only got worse. Maybe the alcohol enhanced it. They drank and they puked out of the window and did some other stuff James couldn't recall and before they knew it the sun was up. James couldn't really sleep, so he waited for Sirius to wake up.
“Mate you awake? Be quiet everyone is asleep c’mon” he said, grabbing Padfoot's hand.
“Oi what is this?” hic “ I do not consent to you grabbing my glove like that” Sirius said giggling, clearly not sober yet. hic “I wunt sum coffe and a cigarette” hic “Les cigarettes sont élégantes” Sometimes he switched to French when he was drunk.
James dragged them into his bedroom and locked the door, ignoring whatever Sirius was blabbing about. Prongs sat him down on the bed and Padfoot rolled around and laughed in his pillow.
“Look at me.” James said, a bit more harshly than he intended. Are you sure you're okay with me attending? Y'know with Regulus and all” James asked.
Sirius turned around and smiled a bit.
“Pfft suuure, i'm just pissed he never bothered to tell me mum had a change of mind. After all those hits and burns I took for hiding his little secret about him taking ballet classes mum is suddenly okay with it? Okay with letting him do ballet?” hic “I dont wunna talk about it anymor. J'ai faim.”
James watched Sirius stand up and leave. Then he looked around the room, clothes still scattered around from when he got ready for ballet class. Somewhere deep down James was glad he could continue. He liked going out of the house and learning something new, and once James Potter started something he had to finish it. Never in his 23 years of living had he ever accepted being average at something. Like when he joined an essay contest as a joke but didn't stop until he became first in the world. He had to be good, and ballet was the perfect activity to humble him. An area where you can't be good all of a sudden, you need time and practice and patience. A lot of the things he needed to work on. Plus James felt the effect it had on his body even after one class. Squeezing your muscles tight for a full two hours is a lot of work. He was still bothered by how Sirius reacted. He could tell that Padfoot didn't want to talk about it and he was actually super bothered by Regulus being back in England.
Prongs however, felt selfish. He had always liked being friends with Regulus back in middle school. They always got along well and had plenty to talk about- of course not as well as Sirius and James but definitely pretty close. He had always wanted to spend time with Regulus again. He was fun to be around and way more calm and organised than his friends.
*
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*
An hour or so later everyone was awake doing whatever they felt like in James’s flat. Remus was smoking with Sirius, Mary was discussing the language she was learning with Lily, Peter went out with Dorcas to buy breakfast (James forgot to buy groceries that week) and Marlene was smashing together pots and pans for some reason?
“Hell yeah! My parents should have put me in drum lessons when I was little. I'm super good!” Marlene said
“Let's learn a song and surprise the others by the time they get back! Remus will you do vocals? I want to use that tambourine James had” Sirius said
“James where's your tambourine?”
“Uhh somewhere in the living room , under my bookshelf I think”
“Found it!” Remus yelled from the other room
Soon enough the three of them started to learn how to play Rebel Rebel by David Bowie while James had to lock himself in the bedroom and Mary and Lily in the kitchen so they won't interfere with their “super top secret practice session” (according to Marlene)
During his time alone James noticed he got added in a group chat: Adult Beginners group. Soon after Regulus sent a text:
Hello everyone! I want you all to have this order memorised by tomorrow. You can search the pronunciation on google. This is the order of our barre exercises.
- Plié
- Battement tendu from first position
- Battement tendu from fifth position
- Jeté
- Rond de Jambe par terre
- Fondu
- Frappé
- Rond de Jambe en l'air
- Adagio
- Grand Battement
- Relevé
For the next class we will focus on learning the following exercises along with some stretches and strengthening exercises you can do.
James made a mental note to memorize that list before class and responded to the message Regulus sent with a “Thank you!”. He also saved Regulus’s number.
A few minutes later Dorcas came back alone with the groceries because Peter had a morning class to attend. Remus called everyone in the living room and had them all sit down for their performance of Rebel Rebel. Costumes were also taken care of thanks to Sirius who knew where James kept his old clothes. They all looked ridiculous.
“This is for all of you queers! Love you all” Marlene announced before clanking two wooden spoons together.
The performance was decent. Remus actually had pretty good vocals and Marlene did a nice job at beating up James’s favourite pan. Sirius was a bit off beat but in the end everyone cheered for their friends who took big bows.
*
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*
Sirius and Remus left last, and James made sure to ask Remus for frequent updates on how Sirius is doing, and whether or not he is in fact mad at James for staying in the classes. Remus assured him he will take care of Padfoot, who also swore (on his favourite leather jacket) that he is not upset and that he would tell James if he is. Once again Prong was left alone in his apartment with nothing to do besides sit and wait for his next ballet class on Friday.