“Pete, calm down, it’s fine! It’s not like we’re going to attack them or anything,” Huffed Sirius as they unbuttoned their shirt even further, likely to impress Remus at the leavers' ball, though it would only succeed in getting them scolded by McGonagall (not that they were likely to care). “We’ll be perfectly civil towards whichever people stole away my spouse so cruelly, won’t we, guys?”
Peter scowled and stuck their tongue out at Sirius. “As if I would ever marry you!” Sirius tried to interrupt but Pete held a hand out to interrupt them, taking a break from doing Marlene’s eyeliner. “Besides, that is exactly what you said when James said they wanted you to meet his partners and look how that turned out. You hexed all of their hair to turn bright pink, Sirius, you can’t blame me for not exactly trusting you on this,” They finished, tapping Marlene’s chin to get her to look up so they could line her lips.
“Yeah, well that was different, wasn’t it? You’re not dating my brother, are you…at least I really hope not, because if you are-”
“I’m not dating your brother, Sirius,” They jabbed a thumb in James’ direction. “That’s her job.”
James grinned and bowed dramatically, tipping his imaginary hat and winking at the group.
That dragged a groan from Sirius, who had looked away from everyone else and grimaced. “I’ll never get used to that, you little brother-fucker,” They grumbled.
“Well, back to the point at hand,” Peter continued, standing up from Marlene’s lap and smiling as she admired her friend’s work in the mirror. “Don’t even think about trying anything with them. Especially not Riah, if fawn gets even the slightest impression that you’re going to prank her, you’ll have a fist in your face before you can say ‘I’m gay for Remus Lupin’ so good luck with that one, bud.”
Sirius went bright red, eyes widening and their hands clenching into fists out of embarrassment. “You can’t say that! What if Remus had been here?”
“Then I wouldn’t have said it?” Peter explained, amused.
“Whatever. I don’t care about what Mariah does. She can’t be that bad, can she?”
Mary spoke up from where she was standing in the doorway, pulling at her untied floral bow tie and smirking. “Oh, she really can.”
Everyone laughed at the way Sirius squawked. “Wh- You’ve met Mariah? You. Have. Met. Peter’s. Girlfriend. Before. Me?”
“Well yeah, we go to runes together. We’ve known each other since first year, you just chose to not socialise with people outside of your exclusive club for the first five years of school so you didn't notice.”
“Okay, enough faffing around, we need to get to the great hall or we’ll be late,” Lily clapped and jumped up from where she was sitting on Sirius’ bed, grabbing the hands of the closest people to her to pull them toward the door.
“But we need to wait for Remus!” Sirius gasped, gripping onto their bedpost and looking at the bathroom door.
James rolled her eyes and opened the door leading down to the common room. “He’ll be fine, he’s not five, Sirius.”
They narrowed their eyes. “Fine.”
Peter grew more and more nervous as they stood in the great hall, music flowing around them, Mariah and Benvolio still nowhere to be seen.
Sirius was practically glued to their side, staring at Remus from where he was talking to Marlene and Dorcas, who seemed to be more interested in each other than Remus. Not long after arriving, Peter zoned out, panicking over where their partners were, whether something had happened or if they had forgotten they were supposed to meet them at the ball.
“Ugh,” Peter was dragged out of their thoughts by Sirius burying their head in their shoulder to hide from… something. Ah, James had found his partners. He was currently clinging onto Evan for dear life, and Peter assumed they had already greeted Regulus, taking the dramatic Sirius clinging to them like a koala into account.
“Pete!” They heard a voice from behind them and Sirius looked up quickly, knowing they didn’t recognise that voice.
“Oh! Riah, hey! I thought you’d forgotten about me,” They confessed shyly.
Mariah laughed and swatted them round the head playfully with the back of her hand. “You little fusser. Of course, we didn’t forget about you. We just had to spend ridiculously long in the Hufflepuff common room because Benny was scared that their jacket wouldn’t match your shirt, it was insufferable.” She grinned and kissed Peter quickly; then, fawn turned to Sirius and held out a hand for them to shake, her grip scarily strong. “Mariah Akesse, it’s a pleasure.”
“Yeah! Nice to meet you too, thanks. Erm, Sirius Black. I don’t know if Pete has mentioned me or anything but…”
She beamed widely. “Of course they have! They talk about you all the time! It’s quite sweet really, the things they say. For example-”
“Darling,” Pete cut in frantically. “Where’s Ben?”
Fawn shrugged, looking around briefly. “Je sais pas,” Sirius grinned at the sound of French. “The last time I saw them, they were getting drinks. Knowing Ben, the drinks are probably all over the floor by now.”
“Hey!”
They all turned around to see a short, angry 6th year with three glasses in their hands.
“Oh, Ben! You have the drinks, what a miracle!”
“That was one time.” They gritted through their teeth, earning a snicker from both of their partners.
“Do I get an explanation?” Sirius butted in.
“One time, we were sneaking up from the kitchens in the middle of the night, and Leo here thought it would be smart to trip up the stairs and spill them everywhere.”
Benvolio blushed and looked away. Mariah laughed lightheartedly and kissed their cheek. “Right, enough of tormenting you. I’m going to go to the toilet, I’ll be back in a minute.” She smiled kindly and stepped back from the small group.
“Remember to kick Filch if he tries to send you to the boys’!” Pete called after her. Mariah gave them a thumbs up.
Peter then stepped forward and pulled Benvolio into a sweet, short kiss resting their foreheads together after. “So, I heard you were fussing because you didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of me?”
“Oh, shut up,” They huffed, pushing their partner away and hiding a bashful smile.
“Bloody lovebirds,” Sirius murmured.
Peter smirked, wrapping an arm around Benvolio’s shoulders. “You’re just sad Remus doesn’t like you, hon.”
“He does,” Benvolio interrupted.
The looks the other two gave them were priceless.
“What? He does, didn’t you know? He talks about you all the time. He has such an embarrassing crush on you, it's so sad. He’s aspec, not a robot. He admitted that he wants to date you, how did you not realise how obsessed he is?”
Sirius’ eyes went wide and they darted off into the crowd, likely to find Remus. James appeared behind them just after.
“What happened there?”
“They just had an aneurysm, I think,” Benvolio said calmly.
“Fair enough,” She had one hand on Barty’s back and the other around Evan’s shoulder. Regulus was nowhere to be seen.
Peter frowned, looking around. “Where’s Reg?”
“Dunno,” Barty hummed. “One minute he was here and the next he wasn’t. He does that sometimes, he’ll be fine.”
“Well, I suppose you’re Ben, right?” Asked James.
“The one and only. I’ve heard a lot about you, James Potter.”
James smiled and nodded. “I like you already.”
A few minutes later, Mariah returned, declaring that fawn had run into Regulus on the way back, who had apparently been sulking in a corner over James graduating and leaving the rest of them behind. James had laughed and pulled Regulus into their chest, quickly returning to his conversation with Benvolio while Evan asked Pete about their day and Mariah gushed about something or other with Barty. Across the room, they could see Remus and Sirius crying as they yelled at each other, whether it was good or bad yelling, Peter didn’t know. Dorcas and Marlene were kissing in the middle of the room and Lily was laughing with Pandora, while resting her head on Mary’s shoulder. Everyone looked perfectly happy and nobody seemed to be judging Pete and their partners in the slightest. They didn’t know why they had even worried. Their main concern had been about the dynamic of a Gryfindor with a Hufflepuf and Slytherin but the majority of the rest of their friends were in inter-house relationship too so they didn’t know why they were so scared.
Pete felt the stress drain from their body completely, leaning into Mariah and fiddling with Benvolio’s fingers gently, before they knew it, they were relaxing into the touch of their partners without a single doubt in their mind.