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A Play Out Of Your Book


“It’s quite sad, really, that even with the Map you’re going the wrong direction.” Remus came up behind Sirius and fell into step beside him, grappling the air for his hand. He pulled Sirius into the turn down a corridor that Sirius had nearly missed.

Sirius smiled, “You came.”

“Of course I came. I’m never going to pass up a chance to go hang about in the library with my boyfriend. Blimey, you’ve just described my dream date.”

Sirius laughed.

“So… tell me the truth,” Remus said as they walked, “Why do you want to go to the library all of a sudden? After six years of avoiding it?”

“Up to no gooood - up to no goooood! Pffbbbttt! Are my Maura-ra-ra-raduuuuuuurs up to no gooooodies?” Peeves the Poltergeist suddenly swept out through a closed classroom door, cackling, having heard their voices in the hall. As they passed the door, they could hear a good deal of smashing and banging about in there.

“Peeves, is there a room in the castle you haven’t destroyed at one point in your death or another?” Remus asked.

Peeves cackled, “If Peevsy has founds it, then Peevsy has breaks it!” he spun about and hung upside down, grinning and hovering in Sirius’s face. “What are my ickle bad-deed-a-deers doing this evening?” he asked.

“We’re going to the library,” Sirius answered.

Peeves stared. “To the library!?” he demanded, and then, “Sneaky Snoopy Sirius -- going to the li-berry!? THE LIBERRY pfbbbbbttttt.”

A bit of ectoplasm flew from his tongue and onto Sirius’s face.

“Sure Peeves, we got to the library all the time,” Sirius answered.

“Name one time!” Peeves challenged.

Remus smirked.

“Ferfuckssakes.”

“Peevesy is ohsovery disappointed!” he announced, shaking his head, “Gooooooone are the days when my Marauders were always up for no good! AH they always grow so quickly. They grow and they forget their old friend Peevsy! Go off and become teachers and ADULTS... Well Pbbbbbbbbttttt!”

Remus was still smirking.

“Well if it helps any, the reason for going to the library is no good so--” Sirius declared.

Remus looked at Sirius with a bit of concern. “It is?”

“IT BEST BE! Peevsy Peevsy - stopping Marauders trying to study! Peevsy Peevsy - keeping their minds soft as putty!” the ghost sang.

“We’re not going to study, Peeves!” Sirius said.

“We aren’t?” Remus asked, eyebrows raised in the question.

Sirius looked at Remus. “Merlin no! What’d you think? I’d gone daft. Of course not! Me! Studying - mad, you are.”

Peeves, satisfied with this answer, blew one last raspberry, then spun off through the wall, back to the classroom he’d set to destroying.

“What are we doing then?” Remus asked then, wary, uncertain he wanted to keep moving forward...

“Research,” Sirius said.




Lily sat down on the couch in the empty common room next to James Potter, tucking her legs beneath her, facing him.

With Sirius and Remus gone to the library, and everyone else in classes, the free period left the Gryffindor common room good and empty for the sixth years. Peter was upstairs playing about with his crystals for Divination and James had fancied the fire and gone down to warm his feet by the hearth.

He was regretting that decision now.

James was reading a book about a famous Quidditch player and had an unlit cigarette tucked over his ear, his glasses sneaking down the bridge of his nose to the end, knees bent, feet braced against the coffee table and beside him in midair floated one of his signature blue tea cups, steaming slightly.

She stared at him for several long moments as he ignored her, and then she reached into her pocket, took out the little bird note from the day before’s Transfiguration class, tapped it with her wand, and it became a snitch with fluttering wings and she blew it from her palm, watching it fly about before him, zipping left them right before him, taunting him…

James couldn’t resist catching a snitch, no matter how angry he was.

Finally, his palm shot out and his fingers wrapped around the little note, drawing it from the air, the little wings going limp and poof -- it was a note.

He glanced at it as it unfurled in his palm.

I’m so sorry.

He stared at it for a long moment.

“I mean it,” Lily said.

James folded the note and tucked it into his jumper pocket, but he didn’t say anything. He looked back at his book instead, though he was no longer reading, he was just staring, trying to will her to go away.

Lily felt her eyes get rather warm, “Please don’t stay cross with me.”

He bit his lip.

“James. Please.” She whimpered it.

He looked at her, his eyes searching hers for a long moment. “What do you care if I’m cross with you?” he asked, “What difference does it make to you?”

“Because… you’re… you’re James and --”

“Yes well, all the more reason it shouldn’t matter to you, isn’t it?”

She blinked back tears, “You don’t understand.” She put her hand on his shoulder.

James shrugged it off and stood up, throwing his book onto the coffee table and waving his wand to disappear the teacup. “I do understand, Evans. I’m your friend -” he held his hands up in the air like they were quotation marks, “Your dirty little secret that you can snog, but only so long as nobody finds out because what a scandal if Lily Evans was caught liking James Potter, what a horrible-terrible-awful thing. I’m so grotty and such a toerag and so egotistical and a bully - but shiiit, I must snog good, so - so I’m good enough for that, but not good enough for actually liking. I’m good enough to be the sucker that holds you all night long when you’re crying over boys you do like. But that’s it. That’s where you draw the line. Because Merlin forbid you actually care about me.”

Lily was blinking very quickly. “It isn’t like that,” she said quietly.

“It is, though, it’s exactly like that,” James replied. “And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being used and of loving you and getting my heart smashed about like a bloody badminton birdie. My heart’s battered enough so stop.”

Guilt filled her up. “I didn’t mean to… James, I’m sorry.”

“Well… Evans, I’m taking a play out of your book now… and I don’t care.” Shrugging, James shook his head and turned, pulling the cigarette from his ear, and hurried for the common room door, leaving her kneeling there on the couch as the Fat Lady swung open and he climbed out.




Remus followed Sirius through the rows of books, his eyebrows raised as Sirius led the way through row after row, looking up at the parchment nailed to each shelf describing what was on the shelves there. They passed students bent over potions books and a couple snogging in front of the Arithmancy texts and Remus saw there was a new collection of books on the ancient runes shelf that he made a mental note to come back to borrow at some point and they were making their way into -- “History?” Remus asked, “Why history? You hated Binns’s class.” Remus had wanted to continue on in Professor Binn’s N.E.W.T. classes, but since nobody else in the whole school had opted to and the classes had been cancelled. He stared at the spines of books that he’d read many of and ran his fingers over their dusty leather covers as Sirius walked along, looking about.

“Well. Old stuff is usually in history, yeah?” Sirius said.

“As the name suggests history is historical, yes.”

“What about historical records?” Sirius asked.

“Historical records? What sort of historical records?”

“Old Hogwarts yearbooks.”

Remus stared at Sirius for a long moment, then, “You’re looking for Mia Black.”

“Yes.”

Remus sighed, “Sirius - McGonagall didn’t want you going looking for her, remember? She said --”

“She said she wouldn’t discuss it with me. She did not tell me not to go looking for her,” Sirius argued.

“The sentiment was there,” Remus answered.

“But she didn’t say it, and I want to know who Mia Black was… or is… or whatever.”

Remus said, “There’s got to be a reason Minnie’s not telling you.”

Sirius said, “Maybe Mia died, maybe it hurts to talk about it. Minnie has a good deal of secrets. She’s amazing but she doesn’t talk much about her past, does she, even when you ask her on it? Urquart said she was best friends with this Mia person in school. If Mia died then maybe she doesn’t want to dig up old pains or something.”

Remus shifted uncomfortably.

“Rey - she was a member of my family - I have a right to know who she was.”

Remus sighed and said, “The old yearbooks are over here. They’re in reference…” he ducked down the aisle, away from the books on the Goblin Wars and the Giant Uprisings and into the rows across the aisle, where there were a good many dictionaries and books of lists of things like wizengamot members of the 1700s and a historical record of the first 500 Ministers and that sort of tosh. And he pointed -- lining the bottom shelf of the thing was a wide array of Hogwarts yearbooks, spanning back over the past one hundred years.

Sirius sat down on the floor and dragged his finger along the spines of the purple leather books, years embossed upon the edge in gold foil. “What year do you reckon?”

Remus did fast math in his head, “Minnie’s first year would’ve been 1946 or 1947… Probably ‘47 because she turned eleven in October ‘46.”

Sirius plucked the volume labelled 1947-48 from the shelf.

Remus had to admit he was curious now too, and it was sort of genius to consult the Hogwarts yearbooks. He leaned closer to look over Sirius’s shoulder as Sirius flicked through the pages to the pictures of the Gryffindor students.

Smiling up at him were old black and white, sort of slow-moving photos that moved with jerks to them, like a film with too few frames for smooth motion. Under each photo were names in gold foil. Sirius laughed, pointing, “Minerva McGonagall,” he said. “Just look at that hair.”

Minnie had a good deal of hair when she was eleven - and it was horribly unruly. Her eyes were wide with mischief and she wore a smirking grin as she stared up at him.

Remus laughed. “Merlin’s beard.” He reached over Sirius’s arm to point at Alastor Moody and they both laughed. “I mean, I’ve never imagined Moody as a kid before. I sort of half expected him to have popped out exactly as he is now.”

“Eyepatch and all,” Sirius nodded, then - “And -- ohhh look! Fleamont Potter.” Sirius snickered, “Hullo there Mr. P.” Charlus’s photo was glaring down at the title Fleamont in disapproval, sighing and rolling his eyes.

There were others, too, of course, all the students were arranged in order of their age and school year across the page, starting with the firsties and ending with the seventh. But there was no Mia Black.

“Perhaps she started another year,” Remus suggested.

“But her and Minnie were friends - don’t you reckon they’d have started the same time?” Sirius protested as Remus reached for the 1948-49 book.

“Not particularly. Lily’s friends with Alice and Alice started our second year.” Remus lay the book over the other and Sirius flipped through quickly to the page of Gryffindor students. No Mia Black. “What the fuck,” Sirius complained.

Remus said, “Perhaps she’s in another house?”

So they flipped through the 1948-49 textbook to the other houses. They paused at the Hufflepuffs and then at the Ravenclaws. “Look, my Dad,” Remus said, leaning even closer to see. “Prefect, of course,” he added, pointing out the shiny badge on Lyall Lupin’s chest.

“You look more like your mum than your dad,” Sirius said. He was glad because Lyall Lupin wasn’t much of a looker. He wondered how Hope Lupin, being as beautiful as she’d been, had ended up with Lyall Lupin. He had several pimples on his chin and dark brown hair.

“Yeah, loads of people say that,” Remus nodded.

“There’s Flitwick,” Sirius said, pointing. Poor Filius Flitwick was hopping to peer over the frame of the photograph, barely able to see over it even as he hopped as hard as he could. “They should’ve given him a stool to stand on or something,” he snickered.

Remus laughed.

Sirius hesitated before flipping over to the Slytherin section. “D’ya reckon Minnie would have been friends with a dirty Slytherin?” he asked.

Remus shrugged, “They aren’t all bad. Look at Alabaster Jackson.”

“Yeah I s’pose.”

So he flipped to the page of the Slytherin students. The first thing his eyes landed upon was his dad. Orion Black the foil shimmered and Sirius felt his stomach twist a bit. Part of the reason he’d hated having his hair cut off by Evan Rosier the year before was because he’d felt like he was looking at his father every time he’d looked in the mirror. Sirius had the same dimple in his chin as Orion - the same full lips and grey eyes…

There were in fact quite a few instances of those features splattered across the Slytherin page. There were several Blacks attending school at the time. Sirius stared down at his family and he recognized names from Walburga’s library wall… And there was Eileen Prince and Walburga Black as well.

“Your mum’s maiden name was the same as her married name?” Remus sounded disturbed.

“The wonders of the Black family,” Sirius murmured, “Marrying cousins. Inbred, the lot.”

Remus let out a strangled sound. “Oh no.”

“What?” Sirius glanced at him, then followed his stare. Fenrir Greyback.

Remus shivered.

“And the hits just keep on comin’ huh?” Sirius laughed, “Bloody hell. Reckon Moldy Voldy tore this page out to get a list of recruits or what?”

Then Remus spotted it and pointed.

Euphemia Black the gold foil said.

“Euphemia,” Remus said pointedly.

Above the gold foil was the frame for the photograph… but it was empty.

“Fuck,” Sirius muttered, and he pushed the 1948-49 book aside, looking at 1947-48’s Slytherin pages but the frame for Mia Black was empty there too, as it was in 1949-50, 1950-51, 1951-52, 1952-53 and 1953-54. “Damn it!” Sirius said, the stack of yearbooks at his knee ready to topple over.

Remus said, “She must’ve been absent photo day for some reason maybe?”

Sirius said darkly, “Or someone’s erased it for some reason.”

Remus bit his lip. Then, “Well there’s loads of photos in these books. Maybe she was in a club or something that would be in here?”

“S.S.E.A.W!” Sirius said, “Maybe there’s a group photo in the books.”

“She could be in any of the photos, really…” Remus pointed out.

“True!” Sirius scooped up all seven years of books and hoisted them into his arms, struggling to his feet. “Look at this Moony,” he said, “I’m about to borrow books from the library! Pince is going to pass out from the shock of it.”