Epilogue
A couple weeks after Lily’s post, Sirius and Remus made their own, on Remus’s account. Sirius knew better than to post pictures of him and Remus to an account his family followed, no matter how much he didn't want them to.
He had blocked them at some point but his family overruled him and told him that because they were family there was nothing to hide and that they shouldn't be blocked. That argument almost made them take the password off his phone for the same reason, so he unblocked them in favour of keeping the password on his phone.
Sirius and Remus had added a few more pictures to their polaroid string, one of them kissing on the ice while it was snowing, and two of them cuddling on the couch.
Remus posted a picture of the polaroid string, and their matching rings and necklaces, with the caption ‘he is my Star, I am his Moon, we are the night sky’. Sirius thought it was really sappy and poetic but that's why he loved it.
Some of their friends commented on it about how cute it was and how perfect Sirius and Remus were together.
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All the figure skaters were on the ice for the last practice before the end of the season. Which meant everyone was just killing time by playing around with fun jumps and weird combinations and obscure field moves.
Sirius was messing with flying camel spins because he didn't have anything else to do and Filius was offering to help him get better at them.
Sirius had done a couple a while ago, around the beginning of the season, but he wasn't particularly good at it, it felt awkward and he couldn't spin for very long afterwards either.
Sirius glanced to the boards and he could see Remus and James watching, they gave him a double thumbs up, he gave them both a smile and looked at the ice to mentally prepare.
He tried it a few times and fell a few times, Remus and James being there threw him off a little. Sirius knew they meant well and were there for support but knowing people were watching him didn't help.
It was nearing the end of the session and various other members of the team came out to watch. Filius gave him a little break and skated with him to the boards where the team was.
“You got this Pads” Twig encouraged, Sirius held a thumbs up through the glass and Remus fist bumped it with his own thumbs up.
Sirius turned to Filius “you ready? You're almost there, I feel like you’re gonna get it” he said. Sirius gave him a single nod and tried again.
He landed it and managed to keep his speed for another few rotations.
Filius was smiling “there you go!” he said, Sirius heard cheers from the boards and saw all the guys clapping and banging on the glass. Sirius gave them an embarrassed smile because he knew their commotion would cause everyone else to look at him.
Lily crashed into him with a hug “yes Padfoot!” she exclaimed, “that could've been a fluke Lily, I don't know if I can do it again” Sirius said, “yeah but you know what it feels like now so it'll be easier” Lily said.
Filius agreed with her statement and told Sirius that keeping his head and chest up would help him even more
Sirius smiled and thought about what he had said. Lily gave him another hug, this time for encouragement, Filius watched and shared their joy.
Sirius glanced at the clock, one minute until the end of practice. He would give it another shot.
This time he had more confidence in having done it properly once, he gave himself more speed while going around the circle preparing for the spin.
He stepped into the circle and started spinning, then jumped onto his other leg and kept spinning. He even had enough momentum and confidence to crouch down after the first few rotations to do a broken leg spin.
As he came up to finish off the spin with just barely one rotation of a backspin, the buzzer went to indicate the end of the session and for everyone to get off.
Lily gave him another hug and Filius gave him a smile “proud of you, Sirius, you've improved so much and next season you'll be even better”. The hockey team was cheering and banging on the glass even more now and Sirius beamed at them.
He had just landed the jump part of the spin properly, but it felt like he had won the Stanley Cup with the way everyone was reacting.
“All he did was a fucking spin, nothing special” Bellatrix called from the other end of the rink as she was getting off.
The zamboni door started to open as Sirius peeled Lily off of himself so he could grab his water off the boards. The hockey team seemed to be called to the dressing room. As they parted ways, several of the boys shouted to meet them in the lobby after.
Sirius took his and Lily’s bottles off the boards and sped towards the door to get off as the zamboni came on the ice to flood it. He handed Lily her bottle as they walked into the dressing room together “thanks Si” she said.
Bellatrix started her usual nagging of Sirius as soon as the door opened, Narcissa chimed in every now and then. “Sirius, with the way they reacted you’d think they were impressed but I’m pretty sure they all just wanted you to get the fuck off their ice” Bellatrix said.
Sirius smiled to himself but knew better than to admit to Bellatrix that he knew a lot more about that hockey team than she ever would. “Yeah I guess so” he muttered, “he even agrees now, looks like he's starting to see reason” Narcissa commented.
“I don’t think its possible for him to see reason but it is a start, his first mistake was picking figure skating as a sport” Bellatrix said, she continued to list further reasons why Sirius couldn't see reason but Sirius had tuned them out and returned to the feeling of having finished the spin properly right at the buzzer.
It was incredible.
What does she even know about seeing reason? If skating wasn't an appropriate or esteemed enough sport for the Blacks then why does she do it too? Hypocrite
Sirius knew Bellatrix meant it wasn't a good look for a guy to figure skate but Sirius couldn't care less. He finished packing his skates away and left the dressing room. Bellatrix wasn't even done untying her skates, she was too distracted by her bad insults to focus on that.
Sirius stood outside of the dressing room and waited for Lily. Peter emerged from the dressing room next and told him to not let Bellatrix get to him, Sirius thanked him and Peter left “hey see you next season?” Sirius called, “you bet” Peter answered as he walked away.
Another girl told Sirius he did well, he thanked her and then Lily showed up so they went to the lobby together.
The hockey team just had a regular practice today but when they came through the doors into the lobby, they rushed to Sirius and Lily and engulfed them in a massive group hug.
Most of them did anyway, Boulder was still not quite used to associating with figure skaters and he left the arena.
Multiple versions of “that was so cool” went around as the hug started to end, Sirius was smiling and blushing so hard his cheeks hurt, “thanks guys”.
Remus pulled him out of the hug “that was so awesome” he said as he gave Sirius a kiss, Sirius felt his cheeks heat up again while he kissed Remus back.
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Their team didn't end up winning the playoffs but they made it to the semi finals which Sirius and Lily thought was really good, though they were already the best hockey team in their minds.
During spring and summer after the skating season ended, they could all hang out even more often because they didn't have to work around ice times anymore.
As the summer months began everyone started to miss it though. Sure they dreaded practices on days they were tired, and didn’t like going to faraway towns for games, especially when they lost. But the love of being on the ice and feeling the wind was unmatched and all of them missed it.
They worked around this a little bit by setting up a couple games of road hockey every week in James’s street. James lived in a subdivision that didn't get much car traffic, so they would all meet up and bring sticks and road hockey balls to James’s house to play.
The only real way to replicate figure skating in the summer would be rollerblading but Sirius had tried that a couple years ago and it just wasn't the same. The road didn't feel the same as the ice and there were always stones and bumps which felt weird, and the warm air just felt wrong to Sirius so he stopped rollerblading and accepted the fact he would just not be able to skate for the spring and summer months.
They would play road hockey in running shoes and move the nets whenever a car did go by. They would play for entire afternoons just enjoying each other's company and laughing at how bad Sirius and Lily still were at the game.
When it would get too dark to play, they would make a campfire and huddle around telling stories and roasting marshmallows and making s’mores.
Sirius barely saw his house at all over the summer and had practically moved in at Remus’s. Not that either of their parents minded. Sirius had brought over some of his own stuff and stored it in the spare room even though he never slept there.
He used the spare room for storage mainly because Remus’s room was already full of his own stuff and a bit messy so they kept some of their stuff separate.
---
As September and October rolled around, everyone was excited to be on the ice again and ready to support each other in every way they could.
They were all less enthused about school starting again.
Boulder eventually came around to Sirius and Lily along with the couple of others that weren’t too fond of them. Besides Remus, Sirius now had an entire hockey team to back him up if he ever got in a fight or was teased for anything.
Sirius believed he would be fine on his own, or just with Remus but it was comforting and pretty cool to know that he could have an entire hockey team come down on someone for making fun of him.
His hair had grown enough by the end of the summer that Sirius finally admitted defeat and wore his hair up for practice, which he knew Remus loved because he got to take it out and put it back to normal again after.
Blue and Moth got together at some point near the start of hockey season, or at least, they told everyone they were together, nobody has any idea when they actually got together. Though Sirius and Remus had their suspicions since they almost always shared a blanket at campfires.
They made a new group chat for the team including Sirius and Lily entitled ‘Sticks and Picks’, that chat was a lot of fun and very chaotic, in the best way.
Overall Sirius was just glad he had an amazing new group of friends. He was even more glad that he got to fall asleep every night cuddled with Remus, everything else was just a bonus, except school, school could go straight to hell and Sirius wouldn't bat an eye.