Prologue - Luck
September 3rd, 7 months prior…
Sirius adjusted his feet in careful precision, hunching over himself and letting strands of his fringe fall in front of his face. He bounced the ball with measured strength in front of him three times ( bounce, bounce, bounce… ) and then two more times ( bounce. Bounce ). He tapped the toes of his right shoe against the wooden floor, straightened himself, and with immeasurable grace he positioned the ball in his hands; arching his arm in an almost automatic motion, a gesture he had done so many times before.
Careful of not jumping, he threw; and the basketball passed cleanly through the hoop.
“Nice shot, Pads.” James, his best friend, called at him as Sirius went to retrieve the ball. His hair was mused with sweat, towel hanging around his shoulders, and he was gripping a water bottle in his hand.
It was some sort of tradition, staying late after practice. Coach Weasley always let them stay behind, and a lifetime ago he had handed the duo a spare key of the gym with a sigh. Sirius liked to practice shots while James ran drills and suicides and sit-ups and other things. The guy was ripped.
At that time, being September, the sky had darkened quickly, and the moon could be seen peeking shyly from between the clouds, over the ceiling. Hogwarts Stadium—as some called it—was the gym belonging to Hogwarts Primary and Secondary School, and a very special one at that; the ceiling was made of glass which allowed people to look at the sky, but, for some unknown reason, it never seemed to break.
Some said it was a cause of magic. Sirius liked to call that magic luck, because, in all honesty, how was luck not magical?
In the bottom of his brain, Sirius was aware that luck wasn’t really magical. It was math; it was chance; it was a question of quantum physics and probability, something so investigated that surely people should make their minds on the question: was luck real?
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Sirius’ life hadn’t been so lucky. Or, maybe, it had.
In the end it was all points of view.
Sirius considered himself unlucky to be born in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. An old family of old money like any other; incestious and cruel and so damn ancient that Sirius heavily questioned if Walburga had been right all along, going back to the Cambrian Period or some bullshit, and his great-grandfather surely could be five million years old.
Point is, his so-called family was awful. Cruel, soulless people of British descent (how dare you think they had descended from the Native American instead of the great and mighty English colonizers?!) that despite being filthy rich had a massive, worldwide company of international lawyers. Sirius hated every single one of them.
Or maybe not. He had been lucky that—despite his parents never being at home, let alone America—he had had the opportunity of going through the torture of posture coaching and ettiquete training like some messed-up prince along with his brother, Regulus. As children, they had been inseparable, Sirius acting as the poster boy of an older brother; protecting and guarding him like a guard dog.
When Sirius started Middle School, they had slowly drifted apart, as it was inevitable, in the end. Sirius’ life had changed the moment he had met one James Potter, the boy entering Hogwarts in Middle School as a small though energetic boy.
Sirius, despite having gone to Elementary with a lot of the current students of his age, didn’t really have any friends. During lunch break he usually sat on his own, on the grass instead of on the picnic tables like his mother constantly insisted.
One of these days, he was hit with a ball.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” a bespectacled boy had said to him, when going to retrieve the ball. There was dirt smudged on his cheek. Sirius had never seen him before. “Oh, are you all alone here? D’you wanna come play with us?”
He had grinned at Sirius with a sunny smile Sirius was sure he would ever forget. To the present day he didn’t understand how an eleven year old could possibly be so kind.
Since then, they had become inseparable. They were spoken as a unit, James and Sirius , Black and Potter . James, being the sporty kid since he was young, had been the one to introduce him to basketball, which Sirius had taken a liking almost immediately as he stared at the older students gracefully dribbling about with the ball between their hands.
Despite being filthy rich, James wasn’t terrible. And, his parents weren’t either. The first time Sirius had gone over to the Potter’s had been, sadly, the first time he had actually seen a healthy family dynamic. Every time James had said something snarky to Euphemia, even as a joke, Sirius flinched. Effie just laughed and smiled and patted her boys on the head.
And despite being filthy rich, James was also very, very brown. Which the Black’s disliked immensely.
“A gold digger, that Euphemia Potter. Surely scampered off here and married Potter just for the money.” Walburga had mused once over dinner. They rarely talked during meals.
“Actually, Mrs Potter comes from a very rich family in India,” Sirius piped in. Orion glared at him.
“Well, but what about him? Why would he ever marry someone so distastefully? Surely, a middle class woman would have been better than tainting the bloodline?”
Sirius had gotten up and stomped away angrily.
And James had helped him over those arguments, growing up. He had helped when Sirius hurried to the Potter’s overnight because he didn’t want to be at the house when it was dark. He had shown him the scars on his calves and lower back, he had been there when Sirius had had trouble figuring out his sexuality. When Walburga and Orion, inevitably, found him making out with a boy at a dark corner merely two years ago, at the ripe age of fifteen, and Sirius had left the house for good.
He had always been there; to calm him down, to make him laugh, to cry with him, to shout angrily at the right people that weren’t really present.
He had helped Sirius so much.
So yes, maybe Sirius had been unlucky in the past. But, he had also been lucky in some other things.
“Oh, I heard that Lupin apparently quit. Did’ya hear that?” James' voice brought him to the present.
Sirius freezed, and the ball sadly bounced to the floor, until it rolled away.
“Wait, for real?”
“Yeah man, he quit the Wolves and hasn’t joined any other team, that I’ve heard of.”
And because Sirius wasn’t sure how he was feeling, let alone react, he said; “Huh.”
Sirius had met Remus Lupin at fourteen, during his very first game of the season. He was an excited teen with raging hormones and had just made out with someone (the wonderful Miss Marlene McKinnon who was, undeniably an proudly, a huge lesbian) for the first time.
He remembered little from the game, and less about the warm up; he just remembered how he had gotten that random assignment to defend this gangly kid who, at the time, was the same height as Sirius.
The Wolves were an independent basketball team who weren’t associated with any school from the town next to Hogwarts. The team which they were playing against had the age range of fourteen to eighteen, and surely this kid was quite new. They were good, and they—and the media—knew it.
Again, Sirius didn’t remember that much about the game. Not the final scores, or even who won. He only remembered running with Remus Lupin at his side.
He also remembered what he first said to him, also. The Gryffindor Lions—one out of four of Hogwarts School’s teams—stepped on the pitch first. They circled the middle of it, preparing themselves for the jump ball.
Sirius, not being the tallest, was at the side. And then, a thin, freckled kid with scars on his face joined his side.
Sirius glanced up, and was met with striking eyes which were an odd mixture of colors. Their gazes met in silent communication, but, because Sirius was young and inexperienced, he decided to talk to him.
“Good luck,” he grinned at the other boy, in a playful manner that could have seemed sarcasm to the outsider.
The boy had looked at him with an unimpressed look. Oh , Sirius often laughed, when thinking about that first time, if you had only known how many times he would look at you like that .
It’s funny, really, the way that that interaction could have been altered and could have reached so many different outcomes. So many different moves, so many different plays. Maybe they would have been friends. Maybe they wouldn’t have been rivals, enemies. Maybe they wouldn’t have spared eachother a second glance and never would have spoken to each other again.
Or maybe not. Fate was also, a funny little thing.
Sirius would never forget the line one-liner delivered so perfectly by Remus, worthy of a villain speech. The boy had scoffed, and with a sharp Welsh accent, avoided Sirius’ gaze, saying;
“There’s no such thing as luck.”
Remus Lupin had been a mysterious entity. As they grew older, their relationship had evolved, taking the shape of petty rivalry, and, since it had been fed up by the media and the players and the young spirit of a growing teen, into something close to misguided hatred. Enemies.
Again, the media had loved it. High school basketball rivalry.
Sirius had loved it too. Even if he wouldn’t admit it outloud.
Now, Remus Lupin was apparently gone, and Sirius felt oddly hurt. Betrayed, almost. He felt like, as stupid as it felt, Lupin had abandoned him, left him behind. Maybe Sirius had valued their, what—relationship? Much more than he did.
Sirius felt like a used toy, thrown into the floor, forgotten, stomped over. He hated it. With every fiber of his being.
“Dude, are you okay?” James did the motion of pushing his glasses higher on his nose bridge, but, since he was wearing contacts, simply pushed air. He peered at Sirius worriedly.
“Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine.” Sirius said distractedly, frowning.
He ran up to the ball and scooped it out of the floor. Heading to the free shot, he repeated the motion he had done so many times before. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Bounce, bounce. Toes on the floor. Arm stretch. Neat shot.
In the end, everything was fine. Because Remus Lupin hated Sirius Black and Sirius Black hated Remus Lupin.
Right?