#prankingmasters

This wasn’t right, and not because it was unfamiliar--but because it was too familiar. The sharp light of the room had dimmed, all of the harsh questions from reporters sounding suddenly more cheerful--or at least less grating--and the room was pleasantly hazy around the corners. When Tony had come here tonight, he’d expected to be pushed, to be tested. All of his competitors in one room, every journalist out to find holes in the Avenger’s strategies, in Stark Industries’ global green-energy initiative, every fat cat who wanted him to invest in their latest weapon of massive stupidity--and everyone else that just wanted to take a shot at the fact that he was happier now than he ever had been before. And it was all because of her. 

Tony spotted Lily across the room, mingling, doing her job while he did his, before she headed off to the bathroom, but they’d come to this shindig together, arm in arm. And they’d be leaving together. If he hadn’t just managed to screw everything up exponentially. 

“What’s in this?” he asked the bartender. “Vodka soda, like you ordered,’ came the reply, eyebrows raised, like Tony was the one asking the dumb questions around here. The nerve of this guy. “I didn’t order this.” But maybe he should have. One of the reporters had found him and was launching her attack at full strength: Are the aliens coming back? Have you prepared for another invasion; how do you plan on protecting the people of New York? You brought Ms. Evans tonight--is this the longest relationship you’ve ever had? Do you really expect the public to believe you’ve changed your ways? Does she know the truth about your sordid past?

Pamina in all her might, she hated the days after the full moon, she was tired, exhausted, her body hurt and she had probably run a fever by the time she managed to get into Defense Against The Dark Arts, at least she had a nice teacher, not that Professor Lupin would let her sleep, but he would also not snap at her for being well not as active in class. Something between them made them silently acknowledge each other on terms of being different than the rest.

For now Pamina was leaning over the table, trying to concentrate on the topic at hand, some sort of water demon thing. She forgot the name, seriously why couldn’t she have History of Magic after the fullmoon, she could sleep there like a stone. Her eyes were almost closing as the Professor continued to talk about these creatures.

It had always been expected that River would be sorted into Slytherin. Her mother had made sure that she knew that that would be her place when she went to Hogwarts, she was expected to spend her years here making connections. It wasn’t what River had wanted, but it is what she would do.

Sitting on the bench she didn’t know where to start with the feast that had been placed in front of them. When everyone else started eating she took the time to look around smiling slightly when she saw her other ‘newbies’ turning to one of them she tried to act confident and put her hand out to shake.

(*)

Coming back to Hogwarts was just an awful experience, though to Draco, maybe not as horrible as it could have been. He survived being in Voldemort’s clutches didn’t he? Even if he was scarred and a bit worse for wear in the end of it all, his parents being under house arrest and a good majority of the castle shunning him like a pariah. As long as he kept his head down, maybe if he survived until winter break, he could beg Narcissa to let him drop out again.

What he hadn’t expected was Remus Lupin standing in as the new -- and permanent -- Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The man had been offered the job after the war was over, to provide for his son, and he had accepted, returning to Hogwarts with the same air of kindness and compassion as he always had, though he seemed more tired than ever. He greeted his classes with pieces of chocolate, and positive messages, and he taught the students with the same excellence in which he taught then when Draco was in third year. 

Under normal circumstances, Draco could at least be pleased that they finally had a competent teacher. But he knew, when he and Remus made brief eye contact that first morning, that the professor knew he wasn’t the only werewolf within Hogwarts’ walls.

It wasn’t until three months into the term, after they had run into each other during the full moon, that they finally had to confront the situation head on.

Remus blinked owlishly, cocking his head to the side in confusion; whatever he was going to say before died in his throat. Brown eyes glanced inquiringly down at their intertwined fingers for half a second before quickly looking away. He could feel the heat steadily creep on his cheeks, flustered by the touch as they continued to walk down the hall enjoying the weekend.  

“Maybe if I hold onto you like this I’ll be able to keep better track of you and pull you out of trouble,” he teased trying to sound confident. In reality, he was anxious unsure of what it meant. Was he overthinking this- should he just let this happen and not question if it was platonic or romantic?

Sirius noticed Remus out of the corner of his eye, looking at him in confusion. Sirius, however, did not meet his questioning gaze. If he didn’t make a big deal out of it, then surely Remus couldn’t either. Besides, James did this sort of shit all the time, so he should be able to as well. Even if holding hands with Remus felt a whole hell of a lot more significant than holding hands with James.

Sirius was never late to anything but class, and even then, it wasn’t because he didn’t know the time but because he and James were still huddled in a too-dark secret passage, chest to chest and stifling their laughs, eager to find out where the tunnel led while Sirius tried desperately not to stare at James’ lips under the soft glow of his lit wand. He took a long inhale now on his cigarette and let the smoke burn out the memory, the longing. It had worked before--at least he told himself it did--so he was sure it could work again. The minute turned over, and as the hour hit, Sirius dropped his cigarette and stomped it out in the snow, moving from his hiding place behind Three Broomsticks and in through the front door. 

As always, the building was packed with Hogwarts’ students, and the fire glowed warm and orange in the center hearth, while Madam Rosmerta fluttered around, filling goblets and making small talk with her patrons. Sirius ordered two butter beers, evaded her questions about James-- “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here without Potter. I thought you two had a permanent sticking charm between you.”--and then took a seat at the back to wait for a glimpse of bright red hair. 

Sirius had been curled up as a dog for so long, that when he finally jumped off the edge of Harry’s bed, padded out into the living room, and transformed into a man, his bones took longer than normal to feel right again, and his head cleared slowly. It was not a pleasant feeling--it never had been--to see the world come back into technicolor, for worry to sink back in, for the noise in his mind to clatter back like a thousand horses dropped from the sky--and in a thunderstorm to boot. Being a dog was easier: his mind was quiet, soft, and his decisions were easy: protect, guard, survive. Being a man meant facing James--truly facing him, his heart pounding behind his thin chest--for the first time in thirteen years. 

If Sirius had not watched Harry speak to his parents, if he had not heard Dumbledore confirm and explain and theorize for over an hour about how it had happened, Sirius would not have believed his eyes even now. In truth, he still wasn’t sure he believed it had happened, that he could be standing here, that James could be standing before him, Lily asleep beside her son in the other room. Sirius had not been in this house since he was a teenager, and yet the moment they had stepped inside the Potter Manor, every memory he’d ever had of it--wonderful, happy--came flooding back. That, at least, he was used to: the memories he had forgotten, the pieces of himself the dementors had stripped away, smacking him over the head when he least expected it. James’ face was far harder to comprehend. 

Sirius had never thought he’d see that face again. 

All he wanted--every last fiber of his being, every cell down to his very bones--was longing to run across the room and drag the man into his arms, to hold every part of him, to know he was real, to touch his chest and feel a heart beating inside, to erase the image he’d carried with him for thirteen years of a broken body on the floor, eyes still open and unseeing; and replace it with this: James, alive and real before him. James, young as Sirius remembered him. James, strong and whole. James. 

Sirius hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep--not that he’d expected to. After years of sleeping at James’ side, his body was unaccustomed to being alone, and the couch in their new house was not exactly ideal for a night’s restless tossing and turning: everything in America, it seemed, was simultaneously larger than in Britain (the food, the stores, the arrogance), and at once terribly small: the housing in the city, how far their money took them. Then again, it was just as likely that it was all in his head, that the room felt small, that the walls seemed to be closing in, the heat turned up too high, the ceiling too low, simply because Sirius felt too large within it, felt every inch of his body too acutely when all he wanted was to escape it. For the first time in a lifetime of friendship, a few more as lovers and a handful married, he knew he could not go to James to make the suffocating feeling go away, that James’ hand in his would not make the icy grip lesson around his heart, make it stop squeezing. That James had never truly understood--and he never would. 

All his life, Sirius had known there was something dark inside of him. James didn’t want to believe it, or perhaps he just wasn’t able. And Sirius had never blamed him for that. In fact, he had had always loved it about him: his relentless hope and positivity, his faith in Sirius, whether or not it was deserved. Arrogant and optimistic, James had always seen the best in him, always believed Sirius could be whatever he wanted to be, that he was more than where he’d come from, and it wasn’t surprising that James could believe the lie; he had been raised to know what love looked like, to see it reflected in the Potter’s eyes every time his parents’ smiled at one another. Sirius himself had fallen for that spell the summer he’d stayed with them. And he had wanted to believe--wanted so desperately to give in to James’ way of thinking--and pretend the monster in him could really be defeated, that it would not rise up one day and strike, that the madness wasn’t spiraling always in his gut, waiting to pounce. James had made him believe it was possible. Made him believe he could be more than he’d been made to be, bred to be. 

But there was a madness. He had always known it--the voices he’d heard as a child, the figures that hovered in doorways, whispered to him, always the same thing: burn. That was the legacy of his blood: beautiful and crazed--shining stars spiraling toward supernova, toward black hole. Sirius might have escaped his house, escaped Slytherin, the Death Eaters, would never stand by Bellatrix’s side, in love with evil, would never touch, harm, his child as his mother had, his father. But he could not outrun his own head. So he had turned it inward: smoked until his lungs were more ash than flesh, let the cigarettes burn his fingers. He had learned to tune out the madness, make it a dull ache, an infrequent visitor, found that James’ touch could chase away the screaming in his brain, that the perfect ache of his love, the brightness in his eyes when he looked at him--looked at Sirius and saw good, saw someone worth tying his life to--made it all worth it. He could fight anything, he knew, with James by his side. 

Or at least, he’d thought he could. 

Sirius sighed and ran his hands over his face. He sat at the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, staring into the fire place where the flames he’d lit--protected by a gate, by the chute, by all the modern conveniences, the magic that kept maddened flames tame--flickered and danced. For a time, he had let himself believe he’d won. That he really was more than he’d been raised to be, that he could be some exception. That if there truly was both light and dark in everyone, the light had won.  

And now he was stitched together with dark. He touched the scar on his chest, the one he’d been made to believe he’d healed from. But he knew the truth now: it was the scar that had killed him. And he was patched back together with the deaths of countless men--evil men, yes; death eaters and the cruelest at that, but their sins (and James’, he thought, hating himself for even the thought) were etched into his flesh. He had been born to dark wizards once before, and now he been reborn with dark magic. There was no escaping it. There was no world where he was not made of monsters.

Footsteps behind him made Sirius pull his gaze from the flames and look over his shoulder. He always knew if it was you or not just by the sound of your footsteps or your breath; he never would never have been fooled by polyjuce. Remus’ words echoed in the back of his mind as Sirius stood up to meet his husband in the hallway. He knew the same, would have known it was James’ entering the room without ever having to look, to check. It was the warmth; he’d never been able to properly explain that to James either, the way his very presence in a room, his fingers on Sirius’ skin, brought a warmth that wasn’t fire, that didn’t burn, a warmth that carried no threat, no danger, no sharp edges. Just James.