#johnnyloughran

Chapter 1 - The Astronomy of Us

Late September slipped its cool fingers through the castle stones, leaving the windows silvered and the torches burnishing everything with copper. Gryffindor Tower wore the night like a crown. Down in the common room, where the fire blazed and the rugs swallowed footsteps, the usual din was peaking—someone had nicked a plate of treacle tart from the kitchens and half the House was high on sugar and victory.

James Potter and Peter Pettigrew were halfway through an arm-wrestle on the hearthrug, elbows grinding into the old lion woven there; Remus Lupin had retreated to a wingback by the window with a book and a mug of tea; Frank Longbottom sat in an armchair nursing a butterbeer and a patient expression, as if the whole room were a rambunctious plant he intended to prune with kindness.

Over all of it, Sirius Black rose like a wildfire.

He was standing on the back of the couch—boots sunk deep in the cushions, tie knotted loosely at his throat, hair the kind of mess that looked illegal in three countries—wielding a bitten sugar quill like a baton. He cleared his throat, and a dozen Gryffindors groaned theatrically.

"Brothers," he announced grandly, "and Wormtail."

Peter looked up with the proud startle of a puppy who has just been named Best Dog. "Yes?"

"We are gathered here tonight," Sirius went on, pacing the length of the couch as though it were a stage and the firelight his spotlight, "because a terrible thing is nearly upon us."

"If this is about your shampoo again," James said without looking away from Peter's straining arm, "I told you: Evans didn't take it. She has standards."

"Not my shampoo," Sirius said. "My brother."

That lifted heads. Frank glanced up; Remus set a finger in his book and watched without watching, the way he did when he wanted you to think he wasn't invested. A few second-years fell silent, sensing that the show was about to be good.

"Regulus is turning seventeen," Sirius declared. "Seventeen, my friends. The age of legal idiocy. At seventeen, a wizard wakes up and thinks, 'I know better than gravity, tradition, and God,' and then immediately does something catastrophic like elope with a banshee or join a duelling club in Knockturn." He flung his arms wide. "Do you know what this means?"

Frank lifted his bottle. "Means he's old enough to hex you into the floorboards without Professor McGonagall stepping in."

"Means," Sirius said, ignoring him, "he's going to try to leave the castle. He's going to. I know him."

James finally tore his eyes from Peter, who was very red and very determined. "Mate," he said carefully, "your brother reads. That's his whole personality. He reads and occasionally looks at me like I'm an insect that's learned to juggle."

"Exactly!" Sirius stabbed the air with the sugar quill. "Reads. Muggle books. There is a Muggle atlas under his pillow."

Peter frowned. "What's wrong with that?"

"Everything, Wormtail! Everything." Sirius paced. "The Muggle world is dangerous. It is stupid. They burn people like Reg at the stake."

"That was the sixteen hundreds," Remus said without looking up.

"Time," Sirius informed him, solemn as a priest, "is a flat circle, Moony."

Remus's mouth tipped at the corner, not quite a smile. James looked up at the ceiling and muttered, "Merlin preserve me," which only encouraged Sirius.