Boy Talk
They were at a stop sign at the end of James’s street. As Sirius was looking left and right, he could see Lily’s smile and her gently shaking her head, in what he hoped was a happy way.
“What?” he asked, “I’ll show you when we get home” was all she said.
They drove the rest of the way as normally as possible, not much conversation but still going all out on singing along to all the songs on the radio.
“Come in with me, we’ve got lots to talk about” Lily said, Sirius hesitated for a moment, “it's not like your family is gonna care if you're at home or not” Lily reasoned, “you're right, I’d rather not be there anyways” he said and shut the car off in Lily’s driveway.
Lily took her bag out of the car and the two of them walked to the house together.
Lily’s parents were there to greet them as they came in, Lily’s dad was on the couch reading the paper and her mom was folding some laundry.
“So how was it?” her mom asked as she stood up to give Lily a hug, “good.”
“Didn't cause too many problems did you? The Potter’s house is still in one piece?” “Of course, you think we could cause that much destruction at someone else's house?” Sirius chimed in.
They laughed “I was only teasing, I’m glad you guys had a good time” Lily’s mom said, Sirius and Lily were still standing on the doormat and had taken off their shoes.
“So what's James’s house like?” Lily’s dad asked from the couch. “Spacious, high ceilings and stuff” Lily kept her answer short as Sirius could see she was itching to end the conversation and go to her room.
“Alright, you two can go but I want a more detailed description of the house after Sirius goes home” Lily’s dad joked and Sirius and Lily went to her room.
Lily tossed her bag to the ground when they walked in then plopped herself onto her bed. She patted an area on the mattress beside her for Sirius to sit down on.
Sirius closed the door and sat next to Lily.
“Alright so what is it you wanted to say that you couldn't while we were driving?” Sirius asked, Lily shook her head. “I wanted to show you something, not tell you, and you were driving, frankly I am concerned for our safety and wanted to make it home instead of take a trip to the ER”
Sirius laughed “is it that bad?”
Lily opened her phone and swiped around a few times until she got to what she wanted to show him.
It was a picture of Sirius and Remus on the couch, the lighting of the living room made it really easy to get a good picture which surprised Sirius considering it was mostly dark when he woke up the first time.
“Are you kidding?” Sirius asked, “this has to be fake”, Lily shook her head and Sirius took her phone into his own hands to get a better look.
Remus was curled against Sirius, under the very warm blanket. It was hard to tell based on the picture but it looked like Remus had his one arm slung in front of Sirius, like he was giving him a side hug, because his head was tucked against Sirius’s chest and shoulder area.
Sirius sat speechless for a while, just looking at the picture. He looked back at Lily, “there's another one” she said and swiped the screen again to flip to another picture.
This one was of Sirius snuggled into Remus’s side.
“As much as I wanna be mad at you for taking creepy pictures of us sleeping, I’m gonna thank you for proving to me that it wasn't a dream” Sirius said at last and handed back Lily’s phone.
“What do you mean?” she asked as she turned the phone off and placed it beside her on the bed.
“This might sound crazy but don't tell anyone else” Sirius started, Lily nodded and motioned that her lips were sealed.
“I woke up and you and James were gone, I had no idea what time it was but I saw that Remus was sleeping up against me under the blanket. I went back to sleep cause it was still dark out and when I woke up the second time cause you guys were making breakfast, Remus wasn't there so I assumed I had dreamt that he was” he explained.
Lily nodded and took that into consideration. “That makes sense, do you wanna know what Remus did when he woke up?” “yeah”
“I was sneak watching from around the corner cause I didn't want to ruin the moment and James was upstairs. Remus moved very slowly so you wouldn't wake up, then tucked you back into the blanket and whispered something but it was too quiet for me to hear what he said, then he walked off pretending nothing happened” she said.
“If only I could remember what he said but I have no idea” Sirius thought out loud. “I think he likes you, Sirius” Lily said.
“Really?” “yeah”
“But I think he's scared too cause he was very purposeful so that he wouldn't wake you or alert us so I think he thought we didn't know and he wanted to keep it that way” Lily reasoned.
“That makes sense, I’m not Remus but if I had a crush on someone in my friend group, I would want to hide that from the rest of the friends” Sirius said.
“So how was James, why weren't either of you there when I woke up?” Sirius asked, wiggling his eyebrows to show that it wasn't a super serious question so she wouldn't feel as embarrassed if it was something weird.
Lily’s face went a bit pink, “no, it wasn't that bad, stop giving me that look” she said and they both laughed. “James offered for us to sleep in his room cause you guys were already passed out on the couch and we thought it would be weird for you guys to know that we know so we left. I took a sleeping bag up and slept on the floor and James slept on his bed” Lily said.
Sirius nodded really slowly, “sure I believe you” he said.
Lily hit him with a pillow, “it is true, or at least it was” “now you have to tell me” he said, “no I don't” she said grinning.
“Oh come on, you witnessed me cuddling with my crush, now you have to tell me about you” Sirius bargained. “Alright fine, at some point James came down to sleep next to the sleeping bag then complained he was cold, I told him to go back to his bed and he asked if I wanted to join him and I did, there, happy?” Lily said.
Sirius nodded, “look at us go” he said.
So the sleepover went better than I expected
They sat and talked for a while before Sirius decided it was time to go home.
*The Ice Kids*
Lily: so whens the next sleepover??
Remus: no idea
James: Rem has a pond in his backyard, when it gets cold enough do you guys wanna go skating on it?
Remus: did you just invite yourself and everyone else to my house?
James: yeah, whatcha gonna do about it
Remus: nothing for now, but teaching you guys hockey would be fun, and maybe you guys can bust out some figure skating stuff too
James: yeah but no toe picks, wouldnt want everyone to drown
Sirius: sounds like fun, skating, not the drowning
Lily: sounds like a plan, maybe sometime over christmas break? If its cold enough for the pond to freeze over
Remus: alright fine
---
The snow stopped coming down as much the next week, it seems to happen a lot. It snows hard for the first time in November then kind of stops until late December, January drops all sorts of snow and then it ends in March or April.
It's Wednesday and to varying degrees of delight and surprise, it had snowed a lot overnight. The roads were pretty bad and even though Sirius doesn't take the schoolbus to school anymore, he still checks the website to see if they’re cancelled.
This morning was in fact, one of those mornings when the buses were cancelled.
Lily: you going to school?
Sirius: have you looked outside recently? Of course I’m not going, I’ll freeze to death within 2 minutes
Lily: thats what I thought, see you at skating then
Sirius: yeah, if it calms down by then
Sirius spent the morning in avoidance of his mom and trying to do some schoolwork, Regulus was also at home because nobody felt like driving him to school.
By lunch the storm had calmed down so Sirius’s parents went to their jobs, leaving Sirius and Regulus at home.
They each kept to their respective rooms until Sirius left for skating.
When Sirius sat down next to Lily in the dressing room, he said “man, I should have stayed home, had to brush a mountain of snow off the car”
Lily was midway through tying her first skate “it's only gonna get worse from here so might as well get used to it” she said.
“Aww is baby Sirius too weak to brush a light dusting of snow off the car?” Bellatrix mocked from the other side of the dressing room.
Sirius didn't respond and instead worked on putting his skates on. “What, you're not even gonna respond, since when did our Sirius change so much that he won't even try to talk back” Narcissa said.
He really wanted to say something but anything he could come up with wasn't good enough or would be too confusing, he stayed quiet and kept his head bent over his skate.
“You're turning into a girl, you know. Like I’ve always said, Narcissa, Walburga should have forced Sirius to do hockey, he's turned into a girl from having to hang around them all the time and play the girliest sport around” Bellatrix said to Sirius and then Narcissa. The dressing room was so quiet that it wouldn't have made a difference if she was talking normally or whispering, he would have heard it anyways.
Sirius took his anger out on tying his skates really tight, both because they needed to be tight but also because he didn't want Bellatrix to see she was getting to him.
“Do you guys not have anything better to do?” Lily asked, Bellatrix and Narcissa went silent. “Always, but this is more fun” Narcissa said, “Sirius is getting a girl to fight his battles for him now, how much lower can you sink” Bellatrix whispered to Narcissa.
Luckily for Sirius and Lily, a few minutes later it was time to get on the ice so they left and began skating as usual.
Towards the last half an hour, hockey kids started to trickle in. It may have been a bit sooner than that but the last half an hour is more noticeable.
Sirius had his lesson with Filius in the last half an hour too. They went over some stuff, he did a run through of his dance and skills which he would be testing at the next test day.
Sirius brought up that he wanted to work on his double salchow.
Filius brought out the harness and Sirius buckled it around his waist. The harness is connected to a cable that goes through a pulley system up at the ceiling that runs along another cable so they can skate the width of the ice while in the harness.
Sirius started by doing normal jumps and warm ups for the real jump, then when he was ready, Filius let him try the actual thing.
Sirius waited for a moment while a girl went by in front of where he needed to be, then went.
He jumped and rotated in the air properly, Filius pulling on the other side of the harness to keep him in the air for longer, but he still didn't quite do enough rotations before landing and fell. Filius softened the blow by still pulling down slightly on his side.
This happened a few more times before Sirius could hear the laughter.
This has just not been my day has it
While Filius was explaining what he could change a bit to make it so he would rotate faster and land properly, Sirius hazarded a glance at the boards by the dressing rooms.
About eight hockey players, all lined up at the boards in their gear, laughing at Sirius. He knew they were laughing at him because he was the only person they were looking at.
Another thing caught his eye though, Remus standing behind them but he wasn't laughing, he was just looking out at the ice with a neutral face, almost as if he wasn't really there.
“You ready to try again?” Filius asked after he had explained it, Sirius nodded and they got ready to do the jump again.
Sirius had set himself up properly and was going the right speed but right as he took off, one of the hockey players yelled something at him.
It threw Sirius’s focus and he didn't even try to do the full rotations.
Filius and Sirius skated back to the other side of the boards, then Minerva skated over to the hockey players.
Minerva basically told them to fuck off and leave us alone until we got off, Sirius silently thanked her for it.
“You're gonna get it this time” Filius assured him, Sirius waited until every hockey player had gone through the rubber things. In his heart he hoped Remus would leave too so that he wouldn't see him do so badly.
Sirius could tell he was standing right by the separation though.
He wants you to land it too
Sirius went down the ice, prepared for the jump, took off, squeezed every part of his body as close together as possible, hoped he had enough momentum, then put down his one foot to land on and it worked.
“There you go!” Filius exclaimed, Sirius saw the figure behind the rubber jump into the air with a fist pump, then disappear.
He did it two more times in the harness.
Filius took him out of the harness so he could try it normally, now that he knows how it's supposed to feel.
He didn't land it but he got much closer so they called it a win and then their ice time was over.
*The Ice Kids*
Sirius: why didnt you guys tell us you had a game today
James: its not, its a practice so its less exciting
Sirius: I see
James: you guys could stick around if you wanted, we cant stop you
Lily: I’ve got nothing better to do so I’ll stay
“Are you guys texting each other? What is so important and secret that you can't talk about it in front of all of us?” Bellatrix asked as soon as she saw Sirius and Lily on their phones in the dressing room.
Sirius put his phone down and began untying his skates, Lily typed another message then did the same “none of your business” she said.
“If it's about boys or girls, it's all of our businesses” Narcissa chimed in. That was true for everyone's crushes and getting into relationships in the dressing room up until today.
“What makes you think it was, I was texting about math homework” Lily said, now facing Bellatrix and Narcissa. “Prove it” they said in unison with evil grins on their faces.
Lily fully untied one skate before hobbling over to them on one shoe and one skate, phone in hand.
She held the phone out to show them what the screen said. Sirius watched as their evil expressions fell from their faces and Lily turned around to rejoin Sirius on their part of the bench.
There was a moment of silence in the dressing room as everyone watched what was going to happen next.
Bellatrix and Narcissa seemed to be conspiring, given the way they were whispering at each other. Sirius and Lily went back to untying their skates, Lily brought her phone down between them to show Sirius what she showed Bellatrix and Narcissa.
It was a conversation that Lily was actually having in the math group chat at the same time Sirius and James had been texting about the hockey practice. Sirius smiled and gave her a fist bump.
“Isn't it sad Narcissa, Lily is so lonely that she's never had a boyfriend before?” Bellatrix was talking to Narcissa in a way that she wanted everyone to overhear their conversation. “Yeah, Lily must be so bored all the time and has to make fake boyfriends out of pillows so she can pretend to be dating someone” Narcissa responded.
Lily let out a sigh of anger and frustration but held her tongue.
“Don't even get me started on Sirius, choose the girliest sport and expect girls to fall for him, never gonna happen” Narcissa said. Sirius could see a few of the other girls went a little pink and tried to hide their faces as they were packing up and putting coats on.
I beg to differ, not that it matters
Sirius and Lily stayed quiet and let them run their course, once they were ready to go, Sirius and Lily left together.
“I think I’m gonna go home” Sirius said, “why? Don't you wanna stay and watch with me?” Lily asked.
Sirius looked around the hall, seeing a few hockey players make their way to the ice through the hallway behind them, far enough that they wouldn't hear the conversation.
“I would but I don't want to deal with them, plus Bellatrix would make fun of me for forever if I did stay to watch a hockey practice, I’ll catch the next one maybe” he explained. Lily nodded in understanding “I’ll let you know how it goes, I probably won't stay the whole time though”
They had made it to the end of the hallway and into the lobby, “see ya” they said as Sirius walked through the door to the outside and Lily walked up to the windows in the lobby to watch from the warmth.
Sirius walked out to his car, it had snowed a bit since he got here so he begrudgingly got the brush out of the backseat.
He turned on the car so it could warm up while he brushed off the snow.
Remember it could be worse, it could've been freezing rain
When Sirius decided that enough of the snow was off the car, he sat in the driver's seat and looked out the window at the streetlight illuminating the parking lot.
A group of people walked out of the arena and into the parking lot, and shortly thereafter, the two figures of Bellatrix and Narcissa followed.
Sirius waited until they all drove away, then turned the car off and went back into the rink.
He poked Lily in the back “hey! Wha-” she cut off as soon as she turned around and saw it was Sirius. “What are you doing here, I thought you went home” she said, “I just didn't want Bellatrix and Narcissa to see I was watching, plus from the lobby I can’t hear their insults anyway” he explained and gestured to the hockey players on the ice.
They were doing some kind of exercise where they would weave the puck through a row of pylons on the blue line then shoot it at the net.
“Why is it always so hard to pick out who's who” Sirius wondered aloud, “cause they're all wearing the same thing and helmets don't help” Lily answered.
The team did look a bit more diverse than at games because they were all wearing different colours and numbers on their practice gear but it's hard to tell who’s who when most of their face is obscured.
The other half of the team was on the other blue line doing the same drill.
This whole, line up, go through the pylons, shoot on net thing went on for a couple more minutes until the coach called for them to stop.
There was a brief conversation between the coach and the team, they picked up the pylons and moved them to be in a different arrangement for the next drill.
The team was gathered by the boards on the side of the ice right in front of the lobby while the coach explained what they were going to do next.
“This kinda looks like what happens at stroking” Lily said absentmindedly, “yeah, just with more people” Sirius said.
A couple of guys were talking to each other, most were paying attention to what was being said, and one of them bumped another in the arm and tossed his head in Sirius and Lily’s direction.
It didn't take long for Sirius to recognize Remus when he looked over, Remus did a similar thing and bumped James to get him to look.
The boys looked between their coach and Sirius and Lily while doing their best to sneak closer to where they were behind the glass.
They weren't too far so the coach didn’t take notice and James and Remus fist bumped the glass.
They all tried to mouth words back and forth but it was no use. The coach had finished talking and told the guys to line up and start the drill.
James hit Remus on the helmet in a friendly way and Remus did the same back when it was their turn to go.
“I thought that they had to kneel when the coach is explaining stuff” Sirius said, “yeah, I don't know, maybe they're just different or it's only for certain things” Lily said.
They stayed and watched about half the practice then went home.