Bloody Carousel
11: Bloody Carousel
Oh, come, take my hand
And run though playland
So high, too high at the carnival
Ursa insists on the need for a big reveal, so everyone lingers in the living room as Regulus performs his hair-stylist magic in the bathroom with scissors he insists aren’t right for the job. She heads to the kitchen for a glass of water as James and Sirius reminisce over a prank the girls didn’t know about and Remus was the brainpower behind, those other two baboon-brained morons certainly wouldn’t be able to come up with that.
Ursa pours herself a glass of fresh water and sips it. Peter’s bent over with his head far into one of the cupboards “Hey” she leans against the counter beside the one he’s crouched inside. Peter jolts up and smacks his head against the cupboard. She laughs and he flags her his middle finger “Hey, if I have to be nice, so do you”
“Mocking my pain isn’t nice” he sits back on his heels and rubs the sore spot on top of his head
“I didn’t mock it. I just laughed at it” she flashes him a smile and he finally realizes what a dangerous game he’s playing. Under no circumstances can he fall for that pearly smile and those thunderstorm eyes, seriously, they look like they’re freaking sparkling
“Where’s those damn Jelly Slugs” he mutters to himself, diving back into the cupboard
“Or, you could try eating something healthy for once” she tosses him an apple from the fruit basket. Red and poisoned with Ursa playing nice “your teeth will thank you” she parades out the room and Peter chews the sweet, juicy apple. It’s actually quite good. Not that he’ll ever tell her that.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” James announces in the living room
“We bear in front of you the new and improved, the beautiful,” Sirius introduces
“Striking,” James adds
“Amazing,”
“Wonderful,”
“Stunning,”
“theee… I’ve-run-out-of-adjectives Marlene Mckinnon!” James cheers “drumroll please” he points at Peter and he suffices “you’re supposed to come out now”
“Is it that bad?” Mary grimaces
“She looks great. You look great” Regulus reassures her in the bathroom, stiff as an awkward board. Marlene takes a deep breath and heads out. Her hair is the shortest it’s ever been since she was a child. Regulus styled it with a texture spray to give the pixie cut some volume.
“You look fucking hot” Mary sentences and the unaimous agreement comes flooding in, Marlene’s cheek turn a deeper shade of red with each compliment.
Ursa’s eyes run her up and down, not bothering to hide how she’s blatantly checking her out “Smoking” she bites her lip and Marlene somehow turns even redder.
“Told you” Regulus tells her smugly
“You have talent little Black” Mary beams
“Please don’t call me that”
“Is that one reserved just for James?” Ursa snickers and Regulus wrinkles his face in distaste
“Are all Slytherin’s this… pervy?”
“Just the inbreds” Ursa doesn’t miss a beat and Lily lets out a cacophonous laughter no one was quite ready for.
“So all of them?” Remus asks and Regulus flips him off with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth
Right, right when I'm near
It's like you disappear
Where'd you go? Mister Houdini, you're a freakshow
Their little sleep-over breaks off into two groups, one for girls and another for boys. The girls take Sirius's (now expropriated by Ursa) room and the boys take James' (he insists on calling it his and Reg's).
In the boys room, Sirius is hesitant to trust his menace of a little sister to spend unsupervised time with them. James wrote him off as dramatic while Regulus encouraged him to play chaperone in the girl's room instead, Sirius then went a bit red about Regulus trying to get rid of him so he could do indecent things to his best friend, to which Regulus admitted to with no shame whatsoever. The defying strike came from Peter and Remus "Mate, no offense, but if she were to try anything, I don't think you'd be able to stop her"
"You'd probably make it worse, as a matter of fact"
"I've been dealing with her for 15 years, okay? I know how to handle her" Regulus snorts and Sirius turns to him with a glare
"Was that not a joke?" He frowns at his brother, apparently he wasn't joking. He really wasn't making his house's stereotypes of idiocy much of a service. Funnily enough, Ursa would find that hilarious "everyone in this house together wouldn't be able to ‘handle her’, whatever that means"
"I think you're giving her a little too much credit"
"You're giving her too little, as usual! She ‘handled’our parents, she ‘handled’ Bellatrix, she ‘handled’ the freaking dark lord, or did you forget about that?!"
"Alright, she did not handle—"
"Of course you don't remember, you weren't there!"
"Okay, okay, how about we take a step back?" James steps between the two brothers before it can escalate "why don't we go ask them what they want?"
After a dramatic staring contest (they're Blacks after all, they never forget the dramatics that entails), they make their way downstairs to find the three girls huddled around Ursa, giggling and happy
"Missing us?" She looks at the five boys standing on the doorway and the girls stop laughing to follow her gaze. They giggle like partners in crime along with Ursa's smug smirk. Sirius fears it's too late, she has them cradled in the palm of her hand. She could crash them and have them thank her for it. Judging by the smug smirk on her face, she knows it. But wasn’t this what he wanted? Everything is spinning. What does he want? If she fights with them he hates it and if she gets along with them he hates it too?
“We were just wondering if you were happy with the current sleeping arrangements or would like to change it around a bit?” James offers a friendly smile
“You want to get rid of Sirius so you can do slutty things to his little brother!” Ursa beams and Sirius eyes shoot wide
“That’s not—”
“That’s exactly it” Peter betrays him but he can’t help it. He hates siding with Ursa, but apparently not as much as missing out on Sirius’ rage pouring down on James. Does that make him a horrible person? He shrugs as he shoves a fistful of gummy worms into his mouth
“Who says I won’t be the one doing the slutty things to him?” Regulus cuts him off in his usual deadpan tone and James disintegrates. He ceases to exist. Lily’s eyes sparkle with humor and she meets Remus’ eye as he laughs.
“I hate you both so much” Sirius rubs his temples. Ursa flinches at it, a little too obvious, but covers it up with a tight smile when she notices Mary looking at her. Of course she makes sure she notices her ‘flinch’ first
“Right back at you” she winks at her brother who rolls his eyes. After a moment of silence she looks back up at him and adds “Do you wanna sleep over with us Siri? We were gonna gossip and do our nails” Sirius stares at her like she just grew a second head
“I want to gossip and do my nails!” James says with far too much enthusiasm, Regulus’ lips twitch with fondness at him, he really is a goner for James Potter
“I already did your nails today” she grins at him with a fondness that both Regulus and Sirius know better than to believe true. James, however, doesn’t
“Right! I love them! Not my nails then, just gossip! I love gossip! Pete and I do it all the time! And maybe I can do yours!” he sounds a bit manic, too overrun by the event that is Ursa holding a friendly hand out
“I think you should do Reggie’s nails” she smirks at her twin, he doesn’t seem to find the humor in it, but there’s not a single chance in this world James is going anywhere near her nails
“And I thought we were gonna do slutty things to each other” he says with his same deadpan expression that makes the girls chortle. Remus snorts and Sirius glares at his betrayal.
“We do that every night” James brushes him off, Regulus glares at him and Sirius bangs his head against the frame while Peter leans against the other side of it, deflating from laughter
“Oh, James, please don’t ever change” he says, a melted puddle of joy on the floor, Sirius kicks him but it only makes his laughter roar louder.
“Okay, we’re leaving before something bad happens” Remus pulls Peter up by the collar of his shirt and ushers Sirius up with a hand around the back of his neck “Say goodnight” Peter waves Sirius’ hand for him, Remus shoves them towards James’ room. Regulus is about to follow when Mary speaks up
“Why don’t you stay with us too, Reggie?” she bats her lashes at him
“Don’t call me that”
“He prefers Reg” James adds ridiculously fond of the sour brunet. He holds his arms out for him and Regulus sets into them with a huf.
“It’s Regulus”
“Just to be clear though, you won’t be doing slutty things to each other while I’m in the room” Ursa winks at James who lights up. He’s finally cracking through that icy harsh exterior Ursa presents! If he weren’t so delusionally positive and hopeful he’d know it’s just an act. Or maybe just smarter.
And it's all fun and games
'Til somebody falls in love
But you already bought a ticket
And there's no turning back now
Sleepy gossip goes back and forth along with rambling nonsense "Great. Now that we're all friends," Mary rounds to Marlene with a smirk and waggles her brows “you and Pete? I saw you dancing”
“There’s something going on with you and Peter?” Ursa snaps her head around towards Marlene with something closely resembling a scowl. Regulus tilts his head to the side watching his sister and holding back the roll his eyes pull him towards
“No.” Marlene bites down on a laugh and she lets out a visible breath of relief, her face relaxing back into comfort. Ugh, she's playing it up too much. It's hard when dealing with oblivious Gryffindors, you want to be forceful but not obvious to get things through their big thick brains. James still seems as joyously clueless as always, what if the girls are as thick as him? Statistically improbable.
“Is there something between you and him” Mary turns to Ursa with amusement
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Definitely not” she says with a tight smile on her face. Regulus meets her eye with a small smirk dancing on his lips, she hides an identical one behind the swipe of a hand. She focuses down on Lily’s nails with laser attention "You should ask him out if you like him” her grin brightens just a bit past too much. Is that too subtle for a Gryffindor? Sirius insists the girls are brilliant ‘not as much as Remus of course, no one is’, but then again, that's Sirius' opinion.
“I don’t. But you clearly do” they’re less oblivious than James, thank Salazar.
“I don’t like him” she reminds herself that she, Ursa freaking Black, is talking to a bunch of lame, pathetic Gryffindors and thus manages a faint blush. She bites down on a smile, sometimes her acting skills impress even herself
“Lay it on us Potter, you have any inside information, who does Peter fancy?”
James seems to think about it hard before he finally speaks aloud his realization “Huh, you know what? I don’t actually know that”
“Can we please talk about something else?” Ursa returns to doing Lily’s nails
“Pete?” Mary raises a brow at her “Really?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she glares at her, her fingers tightening like claws on Lily’s hand
“You don’t like Peter.”
“Don’t say it like that— like there's something wrong with him, like I couldn’t possibly like him" she personifies her over eccentric, dramatic older brother. It makes her skin crawl and her mind itch for a scrubbing bath, yet she prevails past the mental shivers
“Pete’s Pete. There’s no fucking way you like him as anything other than a game to stroke your already too large ego”
“My ego doesn't need stroking, trust me”
“Yeah, don’t think I like the way you’re talking about my mate” Potter backs her up, maybe he isn’t totally useless
“Can we move on to something else?”
“Please” James agrees with Marlene
“Zabini has a new girlfriend” Mary offers
“Ugh, how did that git find love?” Marlene grumbles
“Well, I hear he has a big heart” Ursa smirks “really big. You might even say huge” the girls all giggle but a scowl pops up on James’ face
“Zabini? A big heart?! Have you lost your mind? He’s the nastiest—”
“She was talking about his cock” Regulus cuts him off and he chokes on his words
“Oh.” he nods with big bambi eyes and nods to himself deep in thought “you know, I like those too” he says and they burst with laughter, even Ursa, for the first time she genuinely laughs with James instead of at him. Regulus' face burns a Gryffindor shade of red. James thinks he looks oh so lovely like that, his eyes are shaped as hearts as he gazes down at him.
One by one they start to fall asleep. James tries his best to stay awake under the illusion that Ursa and him might finally be becoming friends, but eventually even he falls asleep and starts drooling on the pillow.
It's just Ursa and Lily awake. After a few minutes Lily finally dares speak the question into the darkness of the night "What's he like?"
"Who?"
"You-know-who. He-who-must-not-be-named?"
"Bald." Is her immediate response
"You don't have to answer if you don’t want to" she's quick to add
"Not the shiny type of bald but he didn't have any folliculates either"
"A non-shiny bald man" Lily hums along
"Honestly?” she says after a beat of silence “He was underwhelming. I met him and my first thought was really? Him? This is the man that has the entire wizarding world in a choke hold? We really are pathetic"
"Really? Your first thought was underwhelming?" Lily clasps a hand over her mouth, covering an involuntary laugh “I'm so sorry, that’s not funny, sorry"
"Yeah. Then he made my brain bleed from the inside out and I thought: maybe not" that drowns out Lily’s laughter right up “The worst part wasn’t the pain though. The worst part was I couldn’t fight him off. I’ve been able to shake off the imperius curse since before I was ten, but no matter how much I didn’t want to hurt him,” she glances at Regulus peaceful shape, happily curled up onto James broad chest “I still—I still did it”
“It wasn’t your fault”
“But it was my wand and it was my hand and it was—is my body”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that”
“It had to happen to someone, at least I can handle it”
“No one should have to go through that”
“The world is filled with should’ve-s and could’ve-s, I've learnt not to dwell on them” she gets up before Lily can give her any more of her useless pity "it's almost sunrise, I'll go cook breakfast for James' parents, I don't think I can fall asleep around so many people anyways"
"Want me to keep you company?"
"I'm good, thanks, you should try to get some sleep" she flashes her a grateful smile that burns off as soon as the door closes behind her.
She goes to the kitchen and starts mixing the eggs the muggle way. When Binley shows up she plasters on a beaming smile and tells him to enjoy a lie-in, he deserves it.
The shuffling of feet announces Peter before his sleepy eyes turn the corner "Holy shit Ursa!" He brings a hand to steady his startled heartbeat "what are you doing here?"
"Cooking. You?"
"Hungry"
"Why don’t you sit down? I'm almost done"
"It's fine, I'll just grab some candy— or not" he changes his mind after one look from Ursa. He takes a seat on the counter, his legs dangle below him "need any help?"
"I'm good, thanks"
"Couldn't sleep?"
"Didn't try. You?"
"You weren't lying about Sirius talking in his sleep" he hums
"You two share a dorm, shouldn't you already know that?"
"Probably. But I'm a sound sleeper and he's usually not sleeping right next to my ear" Sirius and Remus used him as a living pillow barrier to keep them apart as they slept. He wonders if he’ll get back to find them curled up into each other
“Kicking him works sometimes. And if it doesn’t, you still have the comfort of knowing you kicked him”
“That’s mean” he says, swallowing down on a tiny laugh
They stay in silence until she's done cooking. He can feel every second ooze by and stretch into another. She sets a steaming cup of tea and a waffle topped with fresh fruit in front of him "thanks" he squeaks. He stares at the food in front of him, it looks good, but he isn’t hungry anymore. He dives in anyway, grateful with the excuse of a full mouth to not talk.
She leaves him to it, curls herself up on a sofa in the library until sleep finally takes her. He stops eating a couple of minutes after she’s gone, half the pancakes remaining. He sets the food away with a warmth preserving charm. It comes out a little wonky, he doesn’t usually do them.
He drapes a blanket over her tiny body before heading back to James’ room for a fitful sleep and she tucks them closer to her body for warmth, watching him go when he doesn’t notice.
Come, come one, come all
You must be this tall
To ride this ride at the carnival
It takes less than a second after the girls are gone for Ursa to round up on Remus with a smirk and a glint in her eyes “so, you speak Welsh…”
“Uh… I want to say no” he doesn’t look up from his coffee
“Too late, come on a walk with me” she holds a hand out but he doesn’t take it
“‘m good”
“And your chances of staying that way depends on whether you follow me or not” she beams at him and bats her lashes innocently. With a sigh, he rises off the table and follows her out the kitchen door towards the garden. The sun shines bright over their heads, she cuts right to the chase “You’re taking Ancient Runes, right?” That’s not where he was expecting this conversation going, but it’s early and he knows Sirius well enough to know it’s easier to just let Blacks talk
“Yeah”
“Are you any good at it?”
“Decent” she raises her brows at him and tilts her head to the side, a silent nudge for him to talk more “I got an O in my Owls”
“Okay. I hear you have a study group. I want you to tutor me on Ancient Runes and DADA, Sirius mentioned you’re brilliant at it” a few too many times. She definitely didn’t need to know about her brother’s kink for watching Remus during Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Especially not before he realizes it
“You can come to the study group”
“I want you to tutor me in Welsh”
“You don’t speak Welsh”
“yet”
“That sounds like a horrible idea. You’re not gonna understand anything”
“No, not at first, but I’ll learn, I’m a quick learner”
“Okay, I won’t lie, I’m kind of curious as to if you can actually do that”
“Ich habe es schon einmal gemacht, wie habe ich wohl deutsch gelernt?” I already did it once, how do you think I learned german?
“I don’t even know what language that was”
“Well I that wasn’t Welsh”
“Weren’t you already trying to learn Hindi?”
“I can multitask” she nods and he laughs
“Maybe you’re more like Sirius than I thought”
“Don’t let him hear you say that”
“Look, I’ll might tutor you, but I’m not promising anything”
“You should know, it’s hot when people talk in another language, I just thought you might like to have an excuse to do it” she glances at her older brother “think about it” she winks at him before she’s gone. Remus sighs and runs his hands through his hair, the other twin is on him before his hand reaches back to his side
“What did she want?” the frown on his face is more pronounced than usual
“Tutoring on Ancient Runes and DADA”
“Then she can go to your stupid study sessions”
“Hey,” Remus kicks him “they aren’t stupid”
“Of course they are, why would any sane person want to talk to people while they study?”
“Because different people have different types of learning?” Remus offers and Regulus scoffs
“Whatever, just don’t teach her Welsh”
“She wants me to give her tutoring sessions in Welsh, even though she doesn’t know the language which I’m not sure what good that would be”
“I’ll come too”
“I haven’t even agreed yet. And don’t you two have better things to do? You’ll have to take the Owls this year, wouldn’t you rather study in a language you understand?”
“Do you have any Welsh books from when you were younger?”
“Maybe? I don’t know, I’d have to ask my mum”
“Okay, bring me whatever you have” he nods to the chimney and Remus notices he’s walked him over to the floo
“Are you kicking me out?”
“Yes?” Regulus frowns at him in confusion, like he doesn’t understand the reason behind Remus’ amusement “Do you want me to go with you?” with a chuckle and a sigh, Remus tells him not to bother “Come back when you got it” he urges
“I’ll see you on the train” Remus doesn’t cave under Regulus’ glare “Tell everyone goodbye for me, yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah” Regulus brushes him off and Remus leaves mid chuckle
This horse is too slow
We're always this close
Almost, almost, we're a freakshow
Peter rushes back to his house as soon as he wakes up. He brings along the rest of his pancakes shielded from the soot and dust by magic. His older sister snatches it off his hands the second he materializes in the chimney, Peter wacks her on the head as she rushes away from him
“Peter!” His mother yells at him from the kitchen “I told you to be home before lunch! You didn’t go out drinking, did you?”
“Of course not mum, you know I wouldn’t do that”
“Stinky little liar” his sister speaks through a mouthful of his food, he snatches it off her greedy hands with a swat “swot” she reaches back for it but he fights back
“Palmer, leave your brother alone! Pete come give me a kiss” with a sigh he follows his mother’s orders, she’s sitting on the kitchen table eating lemonies. She gives him a loud, sonorous kiss on the cheek and her eyes narrow on him, she sniffs him “You stink”
“Love you too mum” he deadpans, maybe he’s been spending too much time with Remus and Regulus.
“Don’t give me sass” she scolds him with a rag and he smiles innocently at her “Come sit, eat some” she practically shoves the food into his mouth
“Did you hear about the Black twins?” his sister Polly rushes in “Is it true?!”
“Uh, I don’t know what you heard but yeah?” he isn’t done with the first lemonie but he’s already popping another one into his mouth
“Are you serious?! Why didn’t you tell me?!”
“Because I'm not loose-lipped and I thought you didn’t like gossip” he tells her, she’d said that in front of Sirius before they went home for the summer. He always made her nervous, thanks to her not at all subtle crush.
“Oh, fuck off!” she shoves him and he chuckles
"Language, Poppy!" Their mother waves a rag at her
“Remus has also been going to the gym this summer, I thought you'd like to know” he pokes her rib and she turns a deep shade of crimson
“Shut up!" She pushes him and pulls out one of the chairs on the table "Do you know what happened?” she props her elbows on the table thirsty for gossip
“I heard one of the twins had an overdose, it was fuzzy as to which one of the two, but supposedly they’re both in rehab now”
“You did not hear that!”
“I did!”
“Wait, so you know what actually happened?” their mother is quick to to join in
“Yeah, they've been staying at James”
“But what happened?” their mother literally sips on her tea
“They refused to get the dark mark so they kicked them out, it wasn’t pretty" he says in a sobering tone
“Ugh, that family is awful”
“Yeah, James said it was a gruesome sight” Peter agrees “but they’re alright now” he adds on a cheerier note
“Well then, we should go over there, offer them our sympathy and whatnot”
“Regulus is in your year. And cute” Palmer grants her
“Also not single. And gay.” he cuts her off and she deflates “And he hates people”
“Dammit” she sulks into her hand and Palmer laughs
“Well, Ursa’s fit too” she pats her sister in reassurance and her mother huffs “kidding mum” their mother sighs and walks off with a fond smile mumbling about this new youth’s humor “I’m glad the Potters took them in”
“Yeah, they’re saints”
“Don’t think mum and dad would’ve”
“Wait until they find out who he’s dating”
“Muffliato”
“Who?” Poppy leans forward on the table
“James” he says and Poppy’s jaw drops
“I didn’t know he swung that way”
“James is a bloody carousel, he swings all the ways”
“Can’t argue with that” Peter nods
Round and round like a horse on a carousel, we go
Will I catch up to love? I can never tell, I know
Chasing after you is like a fairytale, but I
Feel like I'm glued on tight to this carousel