Title: Friendly Intervention (Part 1)
Author: cleverboot
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Sirius/Remus (pre-)slash, minor James/Lily
Timeline: Autumn of the Marauders’ 7th year
Summary: In which James is highly obnoxious, Sirius doesn’t quite get the point (and frankly has no intention of trying to get the point), Remus is just a little bit confused, and Lily’s hypothesis that all boys are dumb is proven correct.
Disclaimer: Not mine, which makes me sad.
Author’s Note: Posted to remusxsirius. So, this is sort of a sequel to Confessions Between Friends. You don’t HAVE to read that first by any means, but it would probably be helpful. This story… got longer than I though it would. I’m thinking it might need to be posted in two or three parts…
Feedback: is loved and cherished like a small and adorable pet! ^___^


*****


“You really should tell Moony that you fancy him,” James said one night, as he lay on his back on the cold flagstone floor on the top of the Astronomy tower. Sirius snorted.

Amazingly enough, the two of them were actually on the Astronomy tower in order to do Astronomy. Their most recent night-time practical class had been during the full moon and, not willing to miss Moony’s transformation, his three friends had claimed a deeply unpleasant and – due to a collective lack of imagination – very contagious illness and skived off. Remus and Peter had done their make-up assignment a few nights back, but Sirius and James had gotten detention on short notice and hadn’t been able to make it out until tonight.

“For the sixteen-hundred-and-thirty-second time, I don’t fancy Moony,” Sirius protested emphatically. Yet again. For all the good it did. Which was – apparently – none whatsoever. He always endeavoured to be very firm when saying it, despite the fact that it may not have been precisely honest. Per se. “You’re the one who seems to want to keep bringing it up,” he observed, in an attempt to change the subject. “I’m starting to think YOU might fancy Moony.”

James grinned. “Oh, Pads, you needn’t get yourself all worked up and enraged with jealousy. I would never do that to you. I’m a nice guy. I wouldn’t steal the boy you’ve so obviously had your eye on right out from under your nose. Even though I totally could, if I wanted to. That’s not gentleman-like behaviour.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. James eyed him critically. “Well, if you’re going to be that way, what’s wrong with Moony, anyway? Is he not good enough for you or something?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sirius muttered.

As was par for the course, James went on ignoring anything Sirius might be saying that he didn’t want to listen to, despite the pretence that he was asking his friend a question. Sirius figured he just wanted to hear himself talk, most likely because he still seemed to be under the delusion that he was actually funny.

“I mean,” he continued, pretending he hadn’t heard Sirius say anything, “aside from his furry little problem, his occasional annoying rule-abiding tendencies and the fact that he becomes an obnoxious Scottish nationalist whenever he’s drunk, what in particular is so unappealing about him as to put him so far beneath your notice?”

Sirius sighed, highly irritated and utterly, completely unwilling to discuss this particular topic. “You are a pillock, and I am ignoring you now,” he announced.

“Yeah?” James replied, rather snootily and childishly, in Sirius’s opinion. “Well, I think you’re a pillock and that you’ve got the hots for Moony, but you don’t want to admit it because you’re SCARED to. Like a little girl. So there.”

“I am too busy ignoring you and mapping out constellations like the good and studious young man that I am to have any idea what you’re talking about,” Sirius declared, somewhat louder than was necessary.

“Like a weeping little girl with pink ribbons in her pigtails,” James added cheerfully.

“You’re a bastard. And also, I’m not scared of anything.”

“Pink ribbons AND holding a lollypop,” came the conclusion.

“I will kill you, Prongs,” Sirius said, eyes narrowing.

And that only succeeded in making the obnoxious, obnoxious grin bigger than ever. “If you kill me, I’ll just come back and haunt Moony so that I can tell him all about how much you looove him.”

Sirius didn’t reply, but he did glare venomously, fighting against the eye twitch he’d started developing recently whenever James started mentioning “love” and “Moony” in the same sentence. It had been happening rather a lot lately. He turned back to his star map, fiercely and tensely marking and labelling the relevant constellations, while James continued grinning at him. Eventually, he softly starting to sing: “Padfoot and Moony, sitting in a tree; K-I-S-S-I-”

Sirius abruptly stood up, which actually succeeded in making James shut his stupid mouth.

Content that he’d done all that he could map-wise on top of the tower for tonight, Sirius rolled up his parchment and put it in his bag. “You about done?” he asked James as he slung the shoulder strap over his head. The other boy was still stretched out on the floor, parchment and other belongings scattered around him, having been too busy being an annoying fuckhead to keep up with his work for the past few minutes.

“Oh, I’m pretty close,” he answered blithely, unconcerned.

“Good,” Sirius said. He promptly pointed his wand at James’s parchment and calmly said, “Incendio.” He then turned around, strode down the stairs and left the tower, heading back towards the common room and ignoring his friend’s shouting and cursing behind him as he attempted to put out the fire that was devouring his already-late schoolwork.

“You utter, utter bastard! Bloody, fucking hell, oww! I am going to feed you your own head, Black!”


*****


Sirius huffed his way into the common room, not nearly so calm and collected in appearance as he was telling himself he was. James Potter was really starting to piss him off. So what if he enjoyed spending time with Moony? Or if he found him attractive? He was gay, he was allowed to appreciate the aesthetic appeal of his friend in his own mind if he fucking well FELT like it, and it was none of Prongs’ goddamn business, thank you very much.

Remus noticed Sirius enter from where he was sitting on the floor by a low table in front of the fire, studying with Lily Evans. He waved and smiled in greeting, which Sirius responded to by nodding in his direction with an obviously-forced smile in return before he hurried out of the common room and up the stairs to their dormitory. Remus frowned. “Am I paranoid or is there something up with Sirius?”

Beside him, Lily was going over her Arithmancy notes, thoroughly absorbed as she studied in anticipation for the quiz they would be having the next day. “Hmmm… yeah,” she replied, obviously not paying attention. Remus rolled his eyes and rapped on the edge of her text with his knuckles and pulled it a few inches away from her. It caused her to actually look up at him, but she didn’t appear pleased about it.

“What do you want?” she demanded. Clearly, she wanted him to get to the point of whatever he was bothering her about quickly, so that she could get back to her notes.

“I was asking if you know what Sirius’s problem might be?” he asked with exaggerated slowness.

Lily snorted and snatched her book back, immediately burying her nose in it again. “He’s insane,” she stated simply.

Remus sighed. “No, I meant besides that.”

He put his arms up on table between them, folding them down together and propping his chin on top of them. He looked at Lily expectantly, but said nothing more. Exasperated, Lily mentally damned his non-intrusive and frustratingly effective methods of getting attention, and slammed her book down on the table again.

“Well, I don’t know, Remus,” she said, making no effort to hide her irritation. The interruption in her study time was quite enough on its own. Interrupting her studying in order to talk about Sirius Black... Well. “He’s a childish maniac who has got most of the school hypnotized into thinking that he’s hilarious,” she said decidedly. She shrugged. “What do you expect me to say? I can’t say as I’ve taken particular notice of any peculiar activity on his part recently, but as I usually endeavour most whole-heartedly to ignore him as best as I possibly can, that’s not really saying much.”

“Yeah, but…” Remus sighed, not really sure what he was trying to get at. He leaned back, away from the table and scratched the back of his head as he thought it over. “He’s been acting very strange recently,” he attempted.

Lily shrugged again, unconcerned. Her attention was clearly straying back to her notes. “If you’re that worried, ask James. The two of them do tend to share just the one brain between them.”

Remus’s brow furrowed with something that was almost like confusion, but with a touch of irritation as well. “I would ask James, but lately whenever I try to talk to him, he just grins at me madly and cackles to himself and doesn’t really answer anything I say, except occasionally in riddles only he seems to understand.”

“This is different from the usual… how, precisely?” Despite the words, however, it was clear that the mention of her boyfriend’s behaviour had finally succeeded in catching Lily’s attention.

All Remus could do was shrug. “I dunno, exactly. It’s like he’s teasing Sirius about something, but Lord only knows what. They’ve both been uncharacteristically close-mouthed on the subject.” Lily was actually looking mildly curious now. Remus glanced around, ascertaining that no one was paying very close attention to them and leaned towards her across the table again, speaking more softly than before.

“I told them that I, er, am not overly picky as to the gender of my potential partners recently.” He paused, looking at her closely to gauge her reaction. He was mildly surprised at feeling disappointed at the complete lack of one altogether. Clearly, this wasn’t a fact that came as a surprise to Lily.

“Uh huh. And?”

Remus felt somewhat disgruntled at that and wasn't sure why. Perhaps he’d just come to expect drama about the revelation at this point - his mother had stared at him blankly for a full minute before smashing a glass against the wall and then, acting as though she hadn’t done anything unusual at all, very calmly saying, “That’s lovely, darling,” and requesting that he hold off a while on telling his father. Pushing that feeling aside, he continued. “Well, Sirius has been acting oddly ever since. I mean, he’s said that the liking-boys-thing doesn’t bother him at all and James swears up and down that he’s telling the truth, but nothing else has changed since then. I can’t think what else it might be.”

“Hmm.” Lily’s eyes had narrowed and the look on her face had become calculating. “Interesting.”

Remus cocked an eyebrow. “Not quite the word I was thinking.”

“That’s because you’re male and therefore simple-minded in matters of behavioural observation,” Lily explained patiently. She gave him a comforting pat on the arm. “It’s okay, it’s just your nature. It isn’t your fault.”

He took a moment to consider whether he should feel offended by that or not, but decided to leave it be. “What do you suggest as a course of action then, oh Wise One?” he asked.

She smiled. “Oh, that’s easy. Exactly what I said to do, only I’ll be the one doing it instead of you.” At his confused look, she rolled her eyes. “I’ll ask James,” she clarified.

Remus was sceptical. “What makes you think he isn’t going to just act like a lunatic at you, too?”

The look Lily gave him this time showed very clearly that she considered him very dim for asking that question in the first place. The portrait hole across the room opened again as she replied, “They’re called breasts, Remus.”

“SIRIUS BLACK, YOU BLOODY, FUCKING FILTHY EXCUSE FOR A BEST FRIEND, GET YOUR CONCEITED, SELF-RIGHTEOUS, PANSY ARSE DOWN HERE THIS GODDAMN INSTANT SO THAT I CAN KICK THE FUCKING SNOT OUT OF YOU!!!”

Lily and Remus, along with the few other people who were still hovering around the common room this late in the evening all turned to stare at James Potter as he stormed across the room to the foot of the stairs to the boys’ dorms and bellowed at the top of his lungs. A distant but still clearly audible reply of “Fuck you, Potter!” came echoing down.

James glared up the stairs, made a rude gesture and abruptly gave up, apparently not in the mood for arguing anymore tonight. Instead, he turned, gave no notice to all of the people openly staring at him, spotted his friend and girlfriend, and came over to drop himself down to sit next to Lily.

“You know, I write home to my mother everyday, telling her how very lucky I consider myself, what with being courted by such a charming, elegant, mature young man and all,” she said wistfully. James grinned, put his arm around her shoulders and made an attempt to kiss her. She shoved him away and glared. “Get your filthy hands and your filthier mouth off me.”

Remus, too, gave him a look of disapproval. “You realize you’ve probably just woken up most of Gryffindor tower and all you actually succeeded in doing is most likely getting us both locked out of our dormitory for the night.” James shrugged, apparently unconcerned.

“I’m sure Lily would put me up for the night.”

Lily snorted and muttered, “In your dreams.” James leered at her and started to say something in reply, but Remus put his hands up in protest.

“Please stop talking. I’m begging you.”

James pouted in disappointment, but Lily and Remus both gave him very firm looks. “Oh, fine then. Be no fun.” He leaned back and made himself comfortable against the base of an ottoman. “So, what were you two talking about?”

“Breasts,” Lily replied easily. “Mine, more specifically.” James’ eyes widened impressively and Remus felt the heat flare on his face as he flushed red, but Lily didn’t pay either of them any attention. “As in James Potter will never be allowed to see them until he learns some proper manners,” she clarified. Mouth gaping, James stared at her as she stood up and gathered her books off the table. “And with that, I’ll be going to bed. Sweet dreams, dear.”

She smiled sweetly at James before turning her back on him to face Remus. She bent down, swaying her hips slightly as she did – and most certainly on purpose, since there was no conceivable way that she could not know that James was still gaping at her and blatantly staring at her ass – and gave Remus a chaste kiss on the cheek.

“Initial target is engaged,” she whispered to him. Remus raised an eyebrow at her questioningly, but she merely smiled back and winked. She then turned and strolled across the room and up the stairs to the girls’ dormitories.

As soon as Lily disappeared up the stairs – or perhaps more honestly, as soon as her backside did – James sighed, obviously still slightly dazed, but happy nonetheless. “I’m going to marry that girl,” he announced proudly.

Remus sighed and rolled his eyes. “For the record, you are also insane,” he stated.

James gave him a confused look in return. “Huh?”

Remus just shook his head. “Never mind.”


*****


To be continued...