ink - sirius black

alliances and adjectives

September 1, 1976
11:01 am
Hogwarts Express

The Marauders were more ready than ever for their sixth year at Hogwarts. The last year had been full of mischief and pranks that McGonagall had thought she had seen the most of, and then they proved her wrong with the amount of damage they caused.

Sliding into their compartment on the Express that not another soul would dare to go into upon the fate of severe targeting of pranking for the rest of the year, or at least the first few months, they were already full of things they planned to do to make the lives of students and professors more entertaining for better or for worse.

"What color do you reckon changing Snape's robes to will make him the most like a tomato?" James asked thoughtfully as he shut the glass compartment door behind him with a click. "Purple or orange?"

"He already looks like an albino tomato," Remus pointed out in a mild tone. "A dehydrated, albino tomato."

"What do you think, Pads?" James asked, turning to his best friend curiously. "You're the one who- not again."

The three boys all turned to him with a sigh.

Sirius had his forehead pressed against the glass window of the Express as the scenery flew by, watching the lush, mossy hills and towering mountains pass by with unusual observance. He was always the first to insult Snape, so this was most certainly something very recent.

Or, to be exact, recent to the previous night at the Leaky Cauldron.

"He's thinking about that southern girl again," Peter declared, having heard James say it earlier. "Aren't you?"

Blinking a few times, Sirius snapped back to reality and shook his head.

"Nope," he said firmly. "What girl?"

"Sirius, come on," James teased with a wide grin as he poked his friend in the side. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I don't even know what you're talking about," Sirius said with a falsely snooty tone, holding his chin up to James.

He opened his mouth to say something else and then closed in in reconsideration.

Remus and James exchanged a grin, the balloon swelling in Sirius's head with the pressure of wanting to get it all out ready to pop at any second. Sure enough, Black tried to bring her back up as casually as possible.

"I mean, it was probably just some stupid dare or something," he shrugged, looking between his friends, hoping they would confirm this. "Besides, all women love me. She probably just couldn't resist."

"Yea, no, I definitely do not think that was it," Remus said, still in a mild tone like he was only half listening. "She said 'you're my boyfriend.' I think some dude was bothering her and she probably just wanted to get out of trouble."

None of them could deny that this was highly possible.

"Okay, maybe that's true," Sirius muttered, then brightened. "But none of this really matters, because there is no chance that I'm ever going to see her again. She had a southern accent. She was probably just visiting family briefly, not staying."

"Right before school starts?" James scoffed with a raised eyebrow. "Tough chance, mate."

Remus glared at James scoldingly, giving him a silent message that they needed to just leave this alone before Sirius never stopped talking about it.

"And it meant nothing," Sirius repeated to himself.

"Right," James said, nodding along with Remus, who was doing so very forcefully.