Silver Chains and Iron Rings
Chapter 1 of my Wolfstar long ficc
Monday, September 1st, 2009, 7:07 a.m.
The diner was quaint and almost fully empty in the early morning, just the way Sirius liked it. It was quiet, possibly the only quiet he’d get all day, and the usual diner crowd wasn’t here yet, so no one would question the muddled purples left on his brow by his mother's silver rings, nor would they pay any mind to the beat-up pickup that permanently sat in the diner’s parking lot, constantly at risk of being towed.
Right now, it was only Eileen, a woman in her early 40s who looked worn like she’d been hung out to dry by someone, but always managed a smile for Sirius, who worked, and that was fine by him. The two of them were kindred spirits in a way; they shared the same weathered feeling about the world, and Sirius, for all his arrogant facade, felt known by someone in a way more crystalline than even James Potter, his pseudo-brother since he moved here in the 6th grade. James, much like Sirius, was an outsider in their backwards town though James, who was by far the kindest most charismatic guy that Sirius knew (I mean for Pete's sake, he could even stand Mulciber's Gang and the rest of the Football team) was subjected to outsider status, by the fact of his skin and family, and subjected, mainly in middle school but even now sometimes, to the kinds of jokes usually buried in the depths of 4CHAN due his Pakistani heritage.
Eileen was sitting by the counter, the ding of the register chiming as she input money and tallied last night's sales. Sirius smiled as he opened another packet of sugar and emptied it into his coffee, black not by choice, but by necessity at this point. “Excited for your first day, love?” Eileen called, not looking up.
Sirius sighed and slumped against the booth. It was the dawn of his senior year, and nothing seemed to fill him with more dread than being reminded of this fact. Another year stuck here in Knoxville, Indiana, possibly the smallest, most bumfuck midwestern town in the USA.
“Not particularly.”
Eileen laughed, breathily, and caught his eye. “My Sev would have to agree with you, he’d like anything to get out of here, thinks it’s ‘too backwards’ and ‘too small.’” Sirius grimaced at the thought of Severus Snape, Eileen’s greasy, smarmy asshole of a son who’d, despite his atrocious social skills and abysmal sense of personal hygiene or style, figured out to get “in” with the most rapey guys at Knoxville High and promptly abandoned any self-respect. Sirius hummed in agreement, taking another sip of his coffee.
“I should probably be going now…” Sirius sighed, getting up and grabbing his fraying backpack from the booth and chugging down the rest of his coffee, wincing at the bitter aftertaste. He saunters out of the diner and flashes Eileen, a fake but incredibly charming smile. “ See you tonight Ma’am!”
Eileen smiles, graciously. She knows this facade he performs all too well. “Have a good day, Sirius.” She said in an exasperated but fond tone that only mothers seemed to do. Sirius could only imagine how Snape felt on a daily basis with Eileen looking at him.
Sirius walked outside the diner, soft beams of light hitting his pale face as he walked to the old beat up pick up trunk where he currently resided. It was pretty dirty in there seeing as he tossed all his junk: old band tees thrifted, take out boxes from the only asian food place in town, and obviously his school stuff, onto the floor of the back seat. But that was a problem for future Sirius.
Current Sirius though, wasn’t looking to hot either. His usually messy but wind swept curls fell drably forming curtains rather than ringlets, his eyes were permanently sunken from the sleepless nights in his car, and his clothes were wrinkled beyond belief. All in all, the previously great Sirius Black, looked like a hot mess.
He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. It wouldn’t do not to go to school today. Despite what the general student body might believe, Sirius Black really was a good student! Well, an okay one at the very least, and even if Sirius would like to bunk school for a day, James would surely be pissed and blow up his phone.
And so Sirius sadly, had to put his stick-shift into drive and head to Knoxville High in order to be only marginally late and not risk the disapproving glance by James Potter.
—
Monday, September 1st, 2009, 8:17 a.m.
Their school looked horrendous today like every year. Their usual drab brick main building was decked out in colors of purple, white, and gold for the first day parade, the budget blown on this day and the parade instead of replacing the little white trailers on the fringes of the school for all those pesky subjects their students hardly took like Spanish or Latin.
Sirius sighed, bracing himself for another year of hell as he pulled into the massive parking lot of Knoxville High, filled with teenagers loitering and chattering before the school bell rang, and parked his inconveniently sized truck.
Knoxville High School was a mammoth of a high school, with nearly 3000 students, all the surrounding areas of town, farmvilles, and the wealthy neighborhood by the cliffs, sent their pimple faced kids to Knoxville where they’d get fed a subpar education by teachers who hated it there and then, if they were lucky, got to escape town.
Sirius jumped out of his truck, miserably and sauntered over to the front of the school where his usual group of friends sat on a blue picnic table with benches. Usually there were more of them but today, only James and Peter lounged on one side and Lily, James’ new girlfriend and the girl he’d been infatuated with since he moved to Knoxville sat there.
James and Lily sat across from one another but they acted like they were fused together making gooey eyes at each and holding hands. Sirius could only imagine the kinds of sappy sweet things James would be saying to her right now, calling her his “Lilypad” and he her “Jamie Bear.” Sirius shook his head in disgust, ridding himself of said mental image.
“What’s going on guys…?” Sirius walked up to them, hands left in his pockets. Peter looked up briefly from where he was playing some kind of tetris game on his new phone, and gave Sirius, the five finger salute. Lily smiled at him and gave him a nervous little wave, like she was unsure of whether he wanted her to be there.
And James, well James jumped up in excitement, finally breaking his cosmic connection by eye contact and smiling widely at Sirius.
“Padfoot!”
James walked over to Sirius and enveloped him into a great bear hug. Sirius sighed contently and for once in his life didn’t care about how this looked and instead reciprocated the hug and melted into James, his brother, his real brother. James had grown up quite a bit over the summer it seemed, gaining a inch or two on Sirius and definitely was now more broad, he was no longer the skinny glasses wearing kid Sirius met and now was a full grown man, complete with the broad shoulders, thick eyebrows and glasses, and his new girlfriend hanging off his arm.
Sirius detached after a moment, not wanting to look too gay or something. Not that he was, but people used to talk about him with his long hair and love of Bowie and grunge music. Sirius didn’t want a repeat episode of that kind of bullying that stuck to him like the burrs of a tree on his jacket.
“So Prongs,” Sirius smirked, speaking in a mocking voice. “It seems you had a good summer,” He gestured to Lily, behind him and both Lily and James reddened. “So how’d you pull that one off?” Sirius took a seat next to Peter, who scooted over and finally put down the game to enter the conversation.
“Well…” James begun, entering his theatrics. “Me and Lilyflower started to get along better at the end of last year, you know? And after summer let out, we ended up both going to debate camp together and we really hit it off there. I mean, Lily can really talk.”
Lily grinned. “So can you baby, I mean you’re really eloquent…” She turns to Sirius and Peter who just mimed gagging at their words. “And so we just started to enjoy each other's company more..”
“And more, and one thing led to another and I asked her to be my girlfriend last summer.” James exclaimed.
“And run with him as co-class president this year!” Lily added, finishing and glancing lovingly at James, who simply scratched his head nervously. Sirius fixed James with a stare.
“Co-class president, Prongs what are you talking about?” Sirius looked bewildered. This was James’ dream, what did Lily have to do with it?
“Yes well, I just thought it would be better if me and Lily ran on a ballot together, I mean we agree on basically everything already and together we could beat anyone else out of the park! Emmeline Vance, doesn’t even stand a chance!” James hastily defended his idea to Sirius and looked at Lily determined, then he looked back at Sirius with a jaw that dared Sirius to object.
Sirius sighed and got up, grabbing his bag.
“Sure James, sounds great.”
—
Monday, September 1st, 2009, 10:02 a.m.
“I mean Pete, I get that he has a girlfriend but we were supposed to run on the ballot, together!” Sirius ranted, moaning loudly and causing countless freshmen's heads to turn then snap back, terrified. Peter hummed in agreement, still playing his gameboy.
“It was supposed to be Padfoot and Prongs for President. Us three, ruling the school for one final year of pranks, mischief, and throwing ragers! When did Lily “Prissy” Evans get involved with this plan? Plus she’s honestly a stuck up dork, Peter.” Sirius turned to Peter, spinning around dramatically and slamming his lithe body against the locker in romeo-like despair.
Peter put away his gameboy and opened his locker, sensibly shuffling away his calculus binder and grabbing his notebooks for history. He turned to Sirius, dead on and stared. “Look Sirius, if this is bothering you so much just talk to James, for once instead of bitching about it” And now, again, Peter who always gave sound advice really left Sirius speechless at his locker.
“And stop acting like such a girl about it, is James your boyfriend now too? Or did I miss that when I was playing tetris.” Peter slammed the door and walked away. Moment ended.
‘What did Peter know about Sirius and James’ relationship anyways’ thought Sirius, irritated. It’s not like he was ever as close to either of them as they were and he was never really that close to anyone, the slimy idiot. Peter, was too nervous, too in his own head, and too insecure, to take charge or to be on the ballot with the two of them. His nickname was even Wormtail for pete's sake, named after how much he used to freeze up and hide from social interaction, just like a mouse.
James was his best friend and would never leave him for a girl. Would he?
Sirius sighed and rubbed his face. What a dickhead, Peter was, trying to get him to question his place with James, the only person at this stupid school who even cared about him.
“What an asshole.” Sirius muttered, not paying any attention to his surroundings. This of course bit him in the ass, when he promptly slammed into a giant mountain of a man like someone in a romance novel.
Sirius felt his body recoil as the top of his forehead fully slammed into a speed walking giant's chin. ‘Ow…’ he thought, rubbing his forehead and hissing from the pain of someone’s pointy ass chin. He looked up and there he was, someone completely unrecognizable.
The first thing Sirius noticed about the man/boy was that he was tall, taller than almost anyone Sirius had met before and clearly taller than Sirius. Sirius was not a short guy mind you, he was 6,1 and this gangly creature had to be at least 6,6.
The second thing Sirius noticed was his skin. His skin was rough and probably coarse to the touch, covered in layers upon layers of scar tissue, not the pretty kind that made one just look like a bad boy like the kind Sirius himself had. No, this guy’s scars were real scars, the kind from a life that was long and hard, maybe he was an army vet that just came back to high school or something he didn’t know.
“Who’s an asshole?” The guy said amused, looking down and rubbing his chin. Sirius looked up confused, and met the guys’ intelligent hazel eyes. This guy wasn’t handsome, not like Sirius’ pretty boy look or James’ whole jock thing, but he was very very intriguing.
“Sorry?”
“Who were you talking about when you slammed into me?” The unknown guy asked again. He was dressed in your standard small town fashion, beat up jeans and a suede jacket. He wore everything stereotypically small town, everything that sirius with his slightly too short band tees, skinny boot cut jeans, and guy liner wasn’t . Except, this guy had his ears pierced with two gold hoops. He had a blur CD (Sirius could tell) sticking out of his front pocket. In short, he was cool.
“Oh! Just… someone.” Sirius said lamely, dodging the subject. Real smooth there Sirius. But the new guy just laughed good naturedly.
“Okay…don’t tell me then. But, do tell me, is Flitwick’s class chill or nah?”
“I mean..” Sirius paused, pretending to think dramatically. “It’s pretty chill for the first semester but after that.” He shuddered. “You’re lucky if you make it out alive…” he said ominously to which the new guy laughed.
“I think I'll take my chances then,” he winked in a way that shouldn’t have been as charming as it was and motioned to go to class finally as McGonagall started to shuffle students into class. Something in Sirius made him want this guy to stay for some reason.
“It’s Sirius by the way.” It’s Sirius?? Wow how smooth.
“Huh?” Exactly, he thinks you’re some freak.
“My name.”
“Your name is Serious? Are you fucking with me?” Sure haven’t heard that one before. But the guy actually looked hurt at the notion of Sirius fucking with him.
“No it’s Sirius, like the star. The dog constellation.”
“Ohh, I guess that actually makes sense. I’m Remus.”
“Why not Romulus?”
“Sorry?”
“Nevermind.” ‘Shut up Sirius, stop putting your foot in your mouth like an idiot,’
“Okay…? Well, see you around then?”
“Sure.” Sirius internally facepalmed. ‘Come on dude, ask for his number or something.’
“Um, have fun in Flitwicks,”
“Thanks…” Remus gave him an odd look as if expecting something but then he shook his head and walked into class muttering to himself.
Sirius quickly darted around the corner, wanting to throw something or slam his head into the wall and break it in two. Why was he so stupid? And why was Remus so… ugh. Sirius Black was not a lovesick teenager girl. But right now he felt like one from the shaking in his hands, down to his legs.
James would want to kill him if he skipped AP Lit on their first day but Sirius couldn’t stomach that class right now, Slughorn blathering on and on.
Sirius shook his head and slapped it for good measure. ‘Come on Sirius, focus!’ He tried willing himself not to think about Remus. His tawny brown hair tussled in a messy but cool way. His face scarred with a past filled with something raw, something real. His intelligent eyes and the way that he looked at Sirius. The way that he looked at Sirius.
Sirius groaned in agony, causing the janitors eyes to snap towards him.
‘Fuck this,’ thought Sirius. He walked out of the building quickly, speed walking past the hall monitors who’d not say anything to Sirius’ mean glare and the threat of having their shit rocked.
And just 1 hour and 43 minutes into his senior year, Sirius left the building.
