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Who Do You Think It Is?


“Who do you reckon he’s seeing?” Sirius asked, staring at Remus’s back as he ran ahead of them down the path to Hogsmeade. Remus was laughing and calling for them to hurry up, his face was flushed as he looked back, his blonde hair hanging floppily over his forehead.

Sirius felt as though every detail of Remus had been magnified. Why was it, he wondered, that he’d been perfectly fine holding Rey at arm’s length all summer, all through September, and then this… Rey finds a boyfriend and suddenly Sirius could think of a hundred thousand times he should’ve told Remus exactly what he was thinking, how he felt. A thousand different reasons why he’d been stupid to wait.

One of the reasons right at the moment was the way his hair was flopping over his forehead.

Last night, it’d been the little sigh that Remus made in the back of his nose when he’d laid down in the bed for the first time.

And just before that, it’d been the way he’d kept tossing his head to keep the stray hair from falling in his eyes while he was reading a textbook… the way he was dragging his finger along the page, mouthing the words as he read…

Sirius looked at James imploringly.

“Where do you reckon he even met whoever it is? Rey never goes anywhere without us, does he?” Sirius rubbed his chin, feeling the scruff that he really hadn’t gotten rid of for Remus’s sake yet. “Except the common room to study now and then… But, I mean, it can’t be any of the other Gryffindors, can it?” Sirius said, “Surely we would’ve noticed…?”

James shrugged, “I still don’t think it’s anybody,” he said. “I think Regulus was being the right little prat he is and trying to get a rise off you and it worked.” He’d posed this theory to Sirius at least twenty times in the last twelve hours since they’d run into Regulus on the grounds, but Sirius still had yet to fully listen when James said it. Every time it had been the same - he’d just stared off at Remus for a few moments, then --

“But who do you think it is, though?”

James rolled his eyes.

Hogsmeade was bustling with people, all the Hogwarts students that had been more ambitious than the boys were already running about and filling up the shops. Remus had been the only one of the four that had been raring to go right at dawn, the other boys had dawdled and taken their time at getting ready until it’d been rather late in the morning and everyone else had already gone. Now, as they reached the square, Remus turned back, “See? We should’ve come earlier, when the first shops opened, now everything’s crowded.”

“Yeah, but Sirius needed his beauty sleep,” James said. It had, indeed, been Sirius that had taken the longest to get ready, which was funny seeing as he was the one who had put on the least amount of effort into getting ready (he was still wearing the same shirt he’d slept in all night, a black shirt emblazoned with lavender letters reading Deep Purple).

“It’s not easy being this good looking,” Sirius replied. “I don’t just wake up like this, you know.”

“Actually, you literally do,” Peter said. “Which is why it’s so annoying.”

Sirius grinned. He glanced at Remus to see if he was going to weigh in, but all Remus said was, “We need to go to Honeydukes first. I swear, if they’ve run out of double fudge bars… I’m going to kick you in the arse, Sirius Black.”

They mulled about the candy shoppe for some time, Remus was pleased to find the double fudge bars and Sirius selected a pack of jelly slugs. James and Peter meanwhile bought practically the entire inventory between them, planning for future nights in the Shrieking Shack and just lazing about the dormitory. They were looking over some taffy bats by a display of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans when James suddenly said, “I have a brilliant idea for a prank sometime.”

Sirius looked up with excitement. “Yeah?”

“We buy loads and loads of Bertie Botts and we switch out all the good beans for nasty ones untli we have gobs of boxes that’re nothing but nasty gross beans and then we either sell them or give them to first years… and watch their little faces turn to grotesque expressions. Help me, help me, I’ve just bitten into ear wax!” James did the high-pitched squeal of a voice for the first year he was torturing in his mind.

“You’re positively awful,” said Sirius, pretending to be shocked. And then, “Let’s do it.”

Peter looked around. “What are you doing with all the good beans?”

“Eat them obviously, why let them go to waste?” James asked, grabbing up about twenty boxes of Bertie Botts into his arms.

Remus laughed, “I always get pepper or something to that draw when I eat those things.” He shuddered.

“Well, see? Buy one of our certified only the good flavor boxes and you’ll have a pleasant experience at last!” Sirius said. “Somebody take note, that’s an excellent marketing slogan.”

“Stop being bamboozled by bum beans! Get ours and savor the flavor of never losing at Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor game!”

Peter asked, “How much are they?”

Sirius answered, “Five sickles.”

“Blimey, that’s mad, they’re only two here.”

“You pay extra for the unmixed box,” Sirius explained.

“Yeah,” James said, “We have to make money on this, can’t just put in work and then break even. Don’t be foolish, that’s not how businesses succeed.”

Remus had wandered off a bit and picked up a pack of sugar mice, which he was contemplating, reading the back of, and Sirius came up beside him, running his arm ‘round Remus’s shoulders. “Sugar mice, huh? Thought you were a purely chocolate kind of guy?”

“I am,” Remus replied, putting the sugar mice back.

“I see,” Sirius answered, looking at the pack he’d just replaced to the shelf. “Thinking of buying for somebody else, are you? Somebody special?”

Remus stared at him like he was mad. “Only reading the package, rather.”

“Oh, right, yeah,” Sirius nodded.

Peter said, “I got some sugar mice… somewhere in here…” he rummaged through the bag he’d filled. “You can have one of mine if you’d like.”

Remus answered, “Thanks. But I really was only reading the package.”

James popped in, “Do you reckon twenty boxes is enough to start our business?”

Sirius nodded, “Well. How many people do we all know that would buy it?” He looked at Remus, “Who do you know that might buy our product? Harry Warbeck?”

Remus gave Sirius a funny look, “Harry Warbeck? Blimey, I think I’ve only talked to the bloke once, and it was at the Slug Club.”

“The Slug Club!” Sirius looked at James, “Of course. Meet lots of good people at the Slug Club, don’t you, Moony?”

Remus blinked at Sirius with narrowed eyes.

“Executive decision,” James announced, “Twenty boxes is plenty.” He waded off to the counter with half the Bertie Bott’s inventory teetering in his arms.

“You’re being odd today,” Remus announced, “Odder than usual,” he clarified.

Sirius laughed. “What’s so odd about me?”

“Dunno, just… you are.”

They continued on through the shops, looking at the joke shop (where Sirius asked at least four times who Remus would most like to prank with various gadgets), and then off to the Three Broomsticks. They each had a large pint of warm butterbeer and were just leaving the pub when they heard a boy walking along, talking...

“They say it’s haunted! Makes strange noises in the dark… you get too lose and you’re likely to get possessed or maimed!”

“But it just looks like an ordinary house!” said another boy that was chomping on a box of fresh popped corn from a vendor by the fountain.

“Yes, but they say that people have died in there and their spirits are very hostile and they shriek and moan all night! That’s why it’s called the Shrieking Shack.”

James smirked as the boys walked off down the street. “Blimey, Rey, you’re a hostile spirit.”

Remus laughed. Being probably the least hostile person on the entire planet, the irony wasn’t a bit wasted. He tossed his head as a bit of his fringe fell into his eyes again and he said, “I’ll try not to possess and maim you lot.”

Peter snickered. “Would rather prefer if you weren’t shrieking and moaning all night, too, thank you very much.”

Sirius tossed his arm about Remus’s shoulders. “Probably wouldn’t mind a bit of shrieking and moaning all night, would you, Rey?” he asked with a smirk and a wink.

Remus turned as red as a tomato and hurried off on the way to the next shop.

“Why don’t you just tell him?” James asked quietly when Remus sped off down the way ahead of them, followed by Peter.

Sirius shrugged.

“I still don’t think there is anybody, Sirius,” James said, “I can’t imagine Remus sneaking off to snog with some boy behind the greenhouses without telling us about him. That’s just so not like Remus. And he was at the try-outs with Peter for most of the time - I saw him when you were trying-out. He was there with a big banner, cheering you on.”

“Who’s that Ravenclaw boy with the funny nose? Do you reckon it’s that bloke who Rey’s been seeing?”

James sighed.