Golden (Fourth Year: November 4th)
It’s been over a day and a half and Sirius is very tired. This weekend has been incredibly exhausting. It’s clear that it’s all he thinks about. It’s all he talks about. And he won’t stop talking.
He agrees that James catching the Snitch less than one minute into the game was impressive as hell. He also agrees that it was bullshit that the Hufflepuff Team Captain had tried to get the catch thrown out because ‘the Snitch hadn’t had a chance to fly far enough away yet’ - which was just a wishy-washy whiny way of saying they had cheated. He would even go so far as to agree that James only managed to make that capture because of the excessive amount of training he had been having them all do after all of the research he had done on World Cup strategies over the summer.
What he didn’t agree with was things like Peter saying that James deserved an award for special services to the school and James agreeing with him, even in jest. His head was already swollen enough with self-importance that he needed to be talked down a bit now that he’s had his fun, not built up like he’s the next Ikumi Marata. The capture had been amazing, and yes, James was the youngest Team Captain Hogwarts had seen since 1751, but he’s a bloody fourth year student who doesn’t even have a professional coach and this constant talk of how brilliant he is isn’t becoming in the slightest. The sheer amount of secondhand embarrassment is making Sirius very angry both for and at his friend. James doesn’t seem to realize that some of the older students were just going along with it to make fun of him - laughing when he sits with them then laughing at his immaturity behind his back. James seems to think that he’s as important to Quidditch as Quidditch is to James.
By the time dinner of the second day is over, Sirius has had more than enough talk about Quidditch in the past, present, and future. James makes it sound like the rest of them weren’t even there - it’s like he was some kind of hero, going up against an entire team by himself. He hates to think it about his best friend, but so far James is turning out to be a pretty shit Captain, even if they won their first game of the year. As the students start to pack up at the cleared tables in the Great Hall, Sirius quickly gets to his feet and sets off for the dormitory alone. He’s more than halfway there before he feels a gentle hand tugging on his shoulder, and he turns to see Remus frowning behind him. He had forgotten how fast he could be if he really wanted to get somewhere.
“Are you alright, Sirius?”
“Ay, just grand.” Remus sighs at the dig at his accent and claps him on the shoulder, urging him to keep walking so they can beat the crowd headed up the maze of staircases below them.
“I’d appreciate some honesty,” the tawny-haired boy says, bright brown eyes locked onto his face as they walk. “Is this about the botched transformation the other day? I’ll admit that you flying for Quidditch the day after had me worried.”
“No, no. I promise I’m fine. Honestly. It wasn’t that bad of an accident and you fixed it up. Just shocking.” Sirius hopes that he drops the subject because he doesn’t want to think about those feelings anymore. He catches himself looking down at the floor as they walk, and he forces himself to redirect his gaze. They reach the middle landing of the final set of stairs and he glances up at the portrait on the wall, a sudden idea striking him as he sees the usual jolly orange-haired man in his acid-green silk robes with his prominent purple codpiece on full display. “Moony?”
“When we get upstairs, can you keep James out of my hair for a bit while I finish working on something?” Remus hesitates but relents with a soft sigh.
“Oy, Sirius. Where’ve you been?” Sirius is sitting cross-legged on his bed with the curtains drawn, trying to concentrate while what-ifs and maybes and visualizations of his prank repeatedly flash through his mind. It was only a matter of time before James tried to corner him again, so he knew it was best that it happened up here in the dorm away from where the rest of the House could see. So far, it’s going according to plan. James taps the pillar of the bed with his wand and the curtains draw themselves open while Peter sneaks over to his own bed to hold his pillow in his lap, as always. Sirius sets his reading glasses in the middle of the pages of the book in front of him, then he rolls his neck in irritation and the game begins.
“I’ve been working. There’s this terrible thing that’s just been invented - truly a travesty to mankind. It’s called ‘homework’ - not sure if you’ve heard of it before.” Remus gives a breath of laughter and continues eyeing them closely over the top of the book propped up on his thighs. Sirius has noticed that he hasn’t left this room since they got here together after dinner hours ago, undoubtedly to keep an eye on him like the mother goose he is. He hopes that he enjoys the show.
“Unfortunately. I’ve got loads to catch up on, but first, I wanted to talk with you about splitting your drills to train with the Beaters for the game against Slytherin, now that we’ve got Cam as back-up for Chaser. I want to make sure we can pull off the spin-overhead pass combo we were practising last time.” Sirius doesn’t like the implication that his friend doesn’t think he’s a competent-enough flier to pull off his asinine acrobatics. He wasn’t sure about his prank before, but he feels justified in his pettiness now.
“Are you sure you want to talk about that right now?”
“Why not?” He probably didn’t mean to insult Sirius, and he knows this, but his nagging persistence is really pissing him off. He wishes his friend wasn’t so damned clueless and stuck in his world of daydreams all of the time.
“Are you very sure?” James purses his lips and leans his hand against one of the wooden pillars on Sirius’s bed.
“Why are you acting all pissy with me? You’ve been blowing me off all day and now you don’t want to talk.”
“I think we should give the Quidditch bit a rest, mate,” Sirius says quietly, his eyes locked on James’s as the shorter boy crosses his arms defensively.
“I thought you’d be happy about the win - you know, like a good teammate. What crawled up your arse in the night and died?”
“Your sense of decorum and self-respect, apparently.” Sirius hears Remus sigh from his other side, and they all turn to watch the other two Gryffindor boys creep quietly out the door to avoid watching another Black-Potter war. It isn’t like this happens all of the time, but like most friends they do argue every once in a while, albeit louder than most others do. Sometimes Sirius wishes that his friends wouldn’t take these relatively minor disagreements so personally, but he guesses that they don’t understand since all three of them are only-children. They’re just trying to work things out on equal footing and get things off of their chests - he used to do this with Reg all of the time, though his brother usually got quieter and colder instead of louder and more hot-headed over the course of the conversation. James has a peculiar talent for getting Sirius more and more worked up, which was just as fun as it was dangerous.
“What, are you jealous of someone else getting all of the attention for once?” James retorts as he shifts his weight to his left foot, subconsciously moving closer to Sirius.
“Oh, no. You got me.” He gives a snort of laughter that only seems to piss James off even more. “Yey, James! You caught the Snitch! Since you’re being such a prick…” He looks on in irritated confusion as Sirius reaches behind himself for something stashed under his pillow and slides his shiny black wand out from his messy bun. “Why don’t you catch this dick?”
Sirius turns back around with his fingers wrapped around the shaft of a somewhat large, veiny gold-coloured dildo. It wiggles gently in his hand as he taps it with his wand, wordlessly enchanting it to make it just a little harder for the others to disenchant it. Once it’s in motion, it won’t matter much, anyway.
Sirius grins wickedly as he releases the dildo and it flies up toward James’s face at least as fast as a Golden Snitch, and the curly-haired boy only just manages to duck out of the way as the glistening member soars past. It bounces pitifully against the ceiling by Peter’s bed with a thud, and the blonde boy holds his pillow over his head like a shield. Sirius can’t stop himself from breaking into hysterical tears at the look on his friend’s face as he stands up again, too preoccupied to continue glaring at Sirius for now. The projectile prick zooms after James as he scrambles over toward the closed door, but he turns and gets into a wide stance, prepared to try to catch it, indeed. He underestimates the force of the cock and the strength of the Bludgeoning Charm his friend had put on it. The danger dick slips through his hands and slams viciously into the side of his face with a loud slap. Sirius can hear Remus wheezing quietly behind his book.
James reaches up to rub his cheek as he stares after the metallic monster circling the middle of the room, preparing for another round of punishment. He seems to have realized that it was charmed to aim for his mouth after the first pass because he braces himself to duck in case he doesn’t manage to catch it this time. The dreaded dong attacks again and the tip tries to stab at his lips, only just missing and crashing into his nose with a soft clap. James’s head snaps backward from the thrust and his glasses fly off of his face - he just barely manages to catch them before they hit the floor. He quickly puts them back on just as the persistent plonker comes back for another joust - but he has learned how to play its game and he defeats it with a seasoned snatch.
It wriggles sadly in his hands and he holds on for dear life as he storms over to Sirius’s bed to silently demand that he disenchant it. Sirius is still crying laughing as he looks over at Peter’s wide blue eyes, his face paler than usual as if the scintillating slugger was the scariest thing he had ever seen. James is breathing heavily as he stands before Sirius again, and he isn’t sure if it’s from his effort or his anger. He sighs and obliges as he wipes away his tears, holding his left hand over his discarded reading glasses to protect them as he points his wand at the golden gouger. As expected, James chucks it at him as hard as he can, choosing to aim for his crotch in a small act of revenge, and Sirius accepts his penalty with the straightest face he’s ever made.
“Sirius, where did you get that from? Why do you even have that?” Peter mumbles with a pink blush, his eyes still locked on the dangerous dildo as if it might come for him next. Sirius looks pointedly at him with his head cocked to the side and just blinks at him patiently. By the age of fourteen, Peter should know better than to ask questions he doesn’t want answers to. He should definitely know better after the conversation he had with them in September.
“You did wash it first, didn’t you?” Remus asks with a note of amusement in his voice, and he turns to look at him with his lips pressed tightly together.
“Of course I washed it, Remus. That’s not the kind of monster I am.” A few seconds pass before Sirius looks away from his mirthful brown eyes and sees that James is still planted at the foot of his bed, absolutely fuming. A long, tense silence fills the room and they listen as a group of students walk past the closed door, laughing about something that Sirius doubts is anywhere near as funny as what he’s still chuckling about.
“What fucked you up in the head enough to make you do something like that?” James demands after several beats. Sirius shrugs dramatically as his fingers play over the bulging veins in the silicone cock.
“I thought you just said I was a shit Chaser and you wanted me to train to play Beater. Isn’t this how I should train?” He grabs the dildo by the balls with his left hand and starts stroking it off vigorously with his right hand.
“For some of us, crass sex jokes aren’t the core of our personality.” Sirius smirks and gets up from his bed to put the limp member back in his trunk, making a note to himself to change the colour to something less flashy later; he doesn’t need for it be any more obvious than its rigid form already is. He locks his trunk and leans his shoulder against the pillar of his bed opposite his furious friend.
“Some of us are able to survive without everyone else’s absolute adoration.” James’s nose and forehead wrinkle in anger and Sirius can almost see the steam rising from the top of his head as he looks down at him.
“Can’t you stop being a bastard for one fucking day without trying to make everyone as miserable as you? Why don’t you go slink away to the astronomy tower and sulk about it in the dark like you always do?” He’ll admit that that one stung a bit, but he knows that James isn’t exactly aiming for the kill - they’re only sparring, like they always do.
“Sirius. Stop,” Remus says gently, his chin resting on the top of his textbook as he looks between his friends. “Sit down, please.” Sirius tosses his head back and sighs, and James continues to glare up at him just as fiercely. “We’re going to sit here and talk about this like reasonable adults.”
“Stop trying to play Daddy Dearest. We aren’t bloody adults.”
“That much is obvious,” Remus replies as he points for him to return to his bed for his time-out.
“Are you going to give me detention now, Professor Lupin?”
“Do you even know how to shut your mouth?” James snarks, and Sirius sees that he has fingerprints all over the lenses of his glasses from where he caught them earlier.
“James, that’s enough. Sit down, Sirius,” Remus repeats as he gestures toward his crater of mussed up blankets and books on his bed, and he decides to go along with it. “We’re going to talk this out now. What we are not going to do is scream at each other like small children and scare the other students away.” Sirius snickers again as Remus’s inexorable finger directs James to sit on his own bed next to Sirius’s and he obliges. The Irish boy lets a few seconds pass before he looks over at James expectantly. He sighs and rolls his eyes as he turns his gaze to the area rug in the middle of the room.
“I don’t understand how we got here. I thought everyone was happy about the game and I’m pretty miffed at you blowing up at me like this. It was completely uncalled for.” Sirius takes his hair tie out and runs his hands through his hair as he takes a deep breath, searching for some reasonable words.
“We all played brilliantly and I’m proud of you for helping us kick Hufflepuff’s teeth in in the most embarrassing way possible. But Quidditch is a team sport, and sometimes that concept doesn’t come through when you’re talking about it.” James looks over at him incredulously, and Sirius looks down to his open book to keep things from escalating again, still twisting his hair back and forth with both hands until it hurts.
“Come again?” James says with the usual challenge in his voice. Remus sits up straight again and looks ready to intervene again. Sirius takes a moment to rephrase this thoughts.
“All of this reliving the moment of glory is bad for team morale. I know that isn’t why you talk about it because you know we all work hard, but not everyone sees it that way, even in our House. I don’t want people getting the wrong idea about you as Captain and thinking you only care about yourself and your own big moments.” He lets his twisted mess of black hair fall back on his right shoulder.
“Are you being se- ” James starts, shaking his head and coming to an abrupt halt as Sirius’s eyes go wide and his ears perk up at the chance for another stupid joke. “Is that honestly how you see it?
“Yes. I’m just looking out for you. I’d like to think that you would do the same for me.” Silence fills the room again as James sighs and runs his fingers over the golden lines embroidered in his dark maroon bedspread.
“Fair enough. But you didn’t need to be a dick about it.”
“Jamie, we’ve talked about this. You know dicks are the only language I speak.” James fixes his eyes on a spot on the floor and bobs his head slowly with his nose scrunched up in a grimace. “You have to admit, though - it was pretty bloody funny. You should have seen your face - ”
“Fuck off. From this point forward, you’re keeping all of your cocks to yourself.” Sirius can’t hold back his cackling and the others can’t help laughing at his loud, obnoxious bark-like horselaugh. “I mean it, or I’ll blow it up next time and you’ll have to go back to licking yourself and wanking alone.”
“At least I didn’t make it cum on you,” Sirius gasps hoarsely as he wipes away his tears.
