The Rink
It was a crisp November evening, Sirius walked into the arena and made his way to the dressing room, checking the board for which one he should be in. When he opened the door, Sirius was met with the sounds of dressing room chatter and general banter, along with the sound of coats being hung up and shoes being discarded.
Sirius made his way to a spot on the bench next to his best friend Lily, after briefly greeting everyone. Lily had her head bent over her left foot to tie the skate, she looked over at Sirius when he sat down beside her “how’s it going?” she asked, returning to the laces. “Good” Sirius said as he unzipped his bag and took off one shoe.
The other girls in the dressing room were talking about some boys at school while Narcissa was asking Bellatrix about homework, Peter was sitting in the corner, which is where he usually was.
Sirius began tying his skates and Lily moved onto her second one “did you finish the essay?” she asked.
The essay, in essence, wasn't that hard, write 3 pages on a book from the provided list. Sirius had read the book and done about half the writing but had run out of ideas by that point.
“Not quite” he answered, “not quite? Its due tomorrow” Lily said, “I know, its over half done now though and it isn't due until midnight so I’ll be fine” Sirius assured her, “if you say so, but don't expect me to edit it at 11:45, you're on your own at that point”, they laughed to themselves and continued tying their skates in silence.
Lily was done first and walked to fill her water bottle up at the water fountain while she waited. They had plenty of time anyways, it would be five minutes before the zamboni would be done anyways. Sirius was tucking the leftover lace into his skates then rolled the ends of his pants down to cover the skate neatly. Lily put her gloves and water on the bench when she came back then took the hair elastic off her wrist and tied her red hair back so it wouldn't get in the way on the ice.
Sirius dug around for his gloves and eventually found them, he put them on and got up. “Come on let's go wait by the ice” he told her and opened the dressing room door, at this point a few other girls had also left to wait out there.
“Soon you're gonna have to put your hair in a ponytail too” Lily joked and threw some of Sirius’s hair in the air for effect. “Maybe I’ll do pigtails, or a french braid” he responded, they laughed again while watching the zamboni get off the ice.
Sirius’s hair had been getting long, he noticed while looking at his reflection in the glass. He had considered wearing a hat or headband so then at least it would also keep his ears warm but he figured he could get away without it for now.
The zamboni door closed and Narcissa opened the door, about 10 skaters made their way onto the smooth surface of freshly flooded ice. A couple coaches came on with them and everyone did a few laps to just warm up before doing anything else and make sure their skates were well tied.
Everyone was still in their cliques while warming up, doing edges and stretching their legs on the boards. A few girls came on a bit later and everyone went to do what they felt like.
Lily got called over to do a lesson so Sirius was on his own, he wanted to practice jumps so that's what he did. Sirius had figured out how to do axels by this point, so he tried some variations on jumps and fun combinations, and did some that he had yet to land properly.
When he got tired of falling, Sirius went over to the boards to both wipe the snow off of himself and watch some of what else is going on. Lily and her coach, Minerva, are going over a part in her interpretive that was a little tricky for her, Bellatrix and Narcissa were hanging out by one of the circles and practicing various spins.
Sirius went to join Narcissa and Bellatrix, mostly because he didn't know what else to do and so that he wouldn't be bored or yelled at for doing nothing.
“Hey Sirius!” Bellatrix greeted, “hi guys, what are you doing?” he asked when he stopped beside her, Narcissa was doing a sit spin. “Well Cissy here is trying to get better at camel sit spins and I’m helping, but I’m trying to figure out flying camels, we go back and forth and when we get bored just do easy or funny spins, you?” Bellatrix explained, by this point Narcissa had joined them on the boards.
“Well I was trying to do a double salchow but it hasn't been working out so I came over here to see if I could join you, it might've been a bad idea to start with jumps that I knew I would fall on a lot though cause now my pants are gonna be soaked for the rest of practice” Sirius said, “happens to everyone” Narcissa empathized, “try not to fall then” Bellatrix commented, this made Sirius roll his eyes.
Bellatrix went to spin next and it wasn't that bad, she just ran out of speed too quickly. Sirius and Narcissa gave her some pointers like to try and keep her head and chest up so her weight wouldn't be on the toe picks. It helped but she still stopped really fast.
Sirius did a spin after her and did a forwards spin then changed foot into a backspin because he didn't know what else to do. Narcissa went for her camel sit spin again. And so they went in order for maybe 10 or 15 minutes until Lily came over to find them.
“Aren't you all too dizzy to keep spinning now?” she asked as she stopped beside Narcissa, “not really, that's why we’re taking it in turns, we get a break between spins to stop being dizzy” Bellatrix said.
All four of them had stopped spinning and just talked. Lily said her interpretive was going well, but she still got confused with one part, but said that once she remembered the timing it wouldn't be so bad.
Sirius got called over for his lesson at some point that lasted until the last five minutes of the practice. He returned, very tired to his friends who were all messing around with field moves.
Bellatrix and Narcissa were trying to figure out how to do a drag towards each other then catch the other’s arm and spin together, Lily was working on getting better at hydroblading.
This is usually how the last five minutes go, people get tired or bored of real practice and goof off until it's time to leave.
Hockey kids started to trickle into the arena around this time too, what was different about this week was the fact they were around the same age as the figure skaters, high schoolers. Usually they’re about 8 years old so naturally this caught everyone’s attention as much as they did their best to ignore them, sometimes it still wouldnt work.
“Sirius, what are you looking at?! Come join our spiral train!” Lily called from a little ways down the rink. Sirius turned his attention to Lily’s voice and saw her, Bellatrix, and Narcissa in a conga line waving him over, he smiled and shrugged as he skated over to join at the back of the line.
“Alright we’re doing left, right, right pump then up on your left ok?” Lily declared as she was at the front. Everyone held the hips of the person in front of them and Lily put her hands on top of Bellatrix’s hands.
They picked up speed just like how they said they would then all put their right legs in the air, Lily steering them so they wouldn't hit the boards, it always looks fancy.
Midway through though Sirius caught a look at two hockey players, black haired one with round glasses and a blondish one that was a bit taller than the other, laughing and talking to each other.
Luckily there were no disasters caused by this distraction as he was at the back of the line so he was being pulled along most of the time and none of his friends seemed to notice, they all high fived at the end because it went well.
The clock had struck six, indicating that their ice time was over, so they grabbed their water bottles off the boards and went back to the dressing room.
The usual noise of periodic sniffling in the dressing room started as everyone was taking their skates off. Some small conversations had started and snowballs were being thrown when from the other side of the room, Narcissa asked, very loudly “so Sirius, who was the girl you were looking at?”
All other conversations fell quiet and attention turned to him followed by some ‘ooo’s. Sirius’s face turned red and he went back to untying his skates “what are you talking about?” he asked, “you know exactly what I’m talking about, don't pretend like it wasn't obvious” Sirius stayed quiet.
“During our spiral line? I felt you turn your body in a weird way and don't pass it off as trying to balance, you were looking at someone” Narcissa explained, “maybe I was looking at someone but I still wouldn't know who they were, hockey player that I don't know and probably doesn't go to our school so I couldn't tell you who it was” Sirius defended.
Bellatrix and Narcissa had smug smiles on their faces but dropped the topic in favour of drying their skates. Everyone else looked back and forth between Sirius and the two girls, trying to see if one of them would say anything else, when they didn't, they all started ‘aww’ing because “Sirius has a crush on a hockey girl, how cute” and whatnot.
Lily gave him a sympathetic look and stayed quiet. Sirius was done and put his coat and shoes on before Lily had even gotten both her skates off, she was in a very deep conversation about the book she was reading.
Sirius took that time to go snoop around the arena in hopes of finding those boys again. He didn't let his hopes get up too high because the boys were probably in the dressing room or maybe on the ice by now.
He was right, he didn't find the boys and went to the lobby instead, figuring that Lily was probably going to be there soon, then they could go for pizza together like usual.
There was a lot of people milling around in the lobby guess its game day then Sirius thought as he stood up as tall as he could to try and find Lily, she wasn't anywhere to be seen yet. Which was good timing so Sirius could act as if he had been in the lobby this whole time without suspicion.
Not two minutes later, Sirius saw the top of red hair come out of the door, along with a few other skaters. “Man you take forever” he joked when Lily got to him, she shoved him gently into the wall then they both went out the door to walk to the nearest pizza place.
Once they were out in the dark, cool night, Lily brought it up again. “I thought you would have been looking around for those boys, you know the ones that caught your eye”, Sirius sighed and looked at the ground then back at Lily who was grinning.
Sirius opened the trunk of his car and put his bag in it, Lily did the same a few cars down.
“Was it really that obvious?” he asked, Lily shrugged and said “not from where I was but I know you, and everyone else could have seen you look”
“Fine” he said, seeing as she wasn't going to drop the subject. Sirius looked around before crossing the street and making sure nobody would overhear at the same time. “I did look for them but to no avail, it's a game though so they were probably busy planning or whatever hockey players do before a game” he continued.
“Why don't we go back and watch the game then?” Lily suggested, Sirius gave her a look of confusion, she rolled her eyes and gestured more erratically while explaining it fully. “We go get pizza, come back to the rink and watch the game. Maybe we can catch him on his way out of the lobby” Sirius nodded then shook his head, “what would I say to him?” he asked. Lily slung an arm over his shoulder “we’ll figure it out when we get there” she said and they walked the rest of the distance to the pizza place in comfortable silence.
After acquiring their pizza, Lily and Sirius began walking back to the arena.
They ate and walked at the same time because then at least they would have some warm food in them and Sirius could avoid having to talk about that boy again.
The arena was really full, not packed but definitely full with more than just families of the players, which Sirius was grateful for so that he wouldn't be as noticeable in the crowd, assuming either of those boys saw him on the ice and remembered.
Sirius and Lily found a spot where they could stand and watch from the top, it even had a tall table where they put what's left of their pizza so they wouldn't have to hold it the entire time.
They were only part way through the first period. Considering they have warm up for about 10 minutes before the game actually starts and the pizza place was a five minute walk, and there were people in line in front of them, they had done pretty well at being back on time.
Neither team had scored yet so it wasn't like they had missed much.
Lily leaned closer to Sirius, “which one is he?” she asked. Sirius took a moment to glance around the ice to no avail. “No idea, it's hard to tell when they all have helmets and gear on” he said, Lily nodded then asked “was he on the home team or not? That would at least narrow it down a bit”.
Sirius thought back to the few seconds he had seen the boy and tried to remember what colour jersey he had on or something else that would indicate what team he played for.
Sirius shook his head and said “I don't remember, but he and his friend were walking to the farther dressing rooms and usually the home team gets the farther dressing rooms out of courtesy to the incoming team so I think he's on the home team”. Lily nodded and turned her attention back to the ice.
They watched the game together and ate the rest of their pizza, by the end of the first period the pizza was gone and the home team had gotten a point.
“You would think that we would know this kid if he's on the home team, we live in the same town, we must've seen him before at some point right?” Lily thought out loud. “Yeah I don't know, maybe he moved here recently?” Sirius reasoned, “maybe” Lily paused as there was a bit of a fight on the ice that led to one of the players being put in the penalty box.
“He could be going to the other high school in town or just be a year older or younger than us so we wouldn't cross paths very often” Lily offered. That made sense, “yeah I guess, I feel like I would have remembered what he looked like if I had seen him in the hallways before though so he probably goes to the other school” Sirius explained, Lily nodded.
---
The home team ended up winning 2-1, they were tied for most of the last period until some guy with the last name ‘Potter’ sent the puck straight into the net from the blue line.
Lily dragged Sirius with her to the lobby to wait for the players to get off the ice.
“Why though, we’re in a crowd, this isn't gonna go over well” Sirius complained once they got into the very crowded lobby. “Because you might never see him again, hockey players our age don't usually play after us remember, this is your only chance to at least try to be friends with him” she told him.
Sirius looked around the room at all the people wandering and trying to get through to where they wanted to go. “And if it goes as badly as you think it will, then you won't have to see him again” Lily tried to make it a positive but it only made Sirius more nervous.
“You're right, I can just go up to someone and talk to them and be nice” Sirius was trying to find his confidence, “I’ll come with you so you don't have to worry” Lily said, serious now but still cheery.
They waited in the lobby for what felt like forever but was actually more like ten minutes when some hockey players started to come out the door and into the lobby, heavy bags on their shoulders.
“Tell me when you see him cause I can’t hardly see over all these people and I don't know what he looks like” Lily told Sirius, he nodded and busied himself by looking over the crowd in the direction of the door.
Then there he was, the dirty blond boy and his friend with glasses.
Sirius lowered his voice and said “that's him” which was Lily’s cue to start walking towards the boys.