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A Good Show, At Least


“NO! No! Please, no, please! Stop it!” Lily Evans shrieked, grabbing at James and Sirius as Sirius launched himself at James in the wake of the punch to the mouth. He grabbed at James’s glasses and James caught Sirius’s hair up in his fist and yanked - hard - and Remus jumped back as the pair of them knocked each other over onto the floor and rolled toward him as Peter squealed and dropped a waffle that James and Sirius rolled right over - strawberry jam sticking to the back of James’s shirt. “Stop it!” Lily cried and she grabbed hold on James’s elbow, trying to pull him off Sirius, “Stop hitting him!”

Sirius and James both were shouting at one another - incoherent curses and name-calling that nobody could understand but was a constant stream of obscenities and threats, accentuated by punches, cracking noses, and spurts of blood.

“Separatum!” shouted Slughorn, and Sirius and James were split apart like they were opposing magnets, thrown in two different directions rather violently, each landing on their arses a couple meters apart. “That is quite enough!” Slughorn grumped and he glowered at them as everyone in the room stared with dropped jaws at the torn shirt sleeve on Sirius Black’s shoulders and the crooked glasses barely hanging onto James Potter’s ears. Lily was crying and Remus was staring in awe at them. Peter was eating nervously, just shovelling sausages into his mouth. “Good friends!” Slughorn admonished them, “Fighting! And over what?”

“Carly Shaw’s legs,” offered Peter.

“Carly Shaw’s fucking mouth,” Sirius corrected.

“Sirius Black’s idiocy,” James corrected again.

“James Potter’s jealousy!” Sirius corrected again.

“I’m not jealous!” James shouted.

“You are too!” Sirius said, “Because Lily Evans will pay me attention and she never did you!”

“Fuck you!” James cried and he got up, dusted himself off and left the room.

Carly Shaw squeaked in frustration at Lily, then rushed after James.

Sirius watched them go and when the door had banged shut, he stood up carefully, cleared his throat, trying at regaining dignity, and he turned to Horace Slughorn. “Really, a great party, sir. Truly bang-on. After this display, I truly expect to never be invited again, and so I should like to express my true gratitude. Adieu.” And with that, Sirius turned to the door and stepped out into the corridor as well.

Lily looked at Remus, her mouth gaping like a fish.

Remus sighed, “Thanks for the brunch, Professor. Sorry.” And he, too darted out.

“Yeah, me also,” Lily added, and she followed along.

Slughorn looked flabbergasted.

Peter hesitated and as a house elf walked by he stopped the little creature and took up the whole tray of waffles and said, “Sorry,” and bolted out after his friends.

Silence fell over the room.

“Well,” said Regulus in as bold a voice as he could muster. Everyone turned to look at him. Then, “You can’t ever accuse the Black family of not giving a good show, at least, ey?”

Several nervous laughs erupted around the room and Maryrose squeezed his fingers.




James went straight to the dorm room. Carly Shaw followed after him, squeaking and squealing for him to wait up the whole way from the dungeons up to the Portrait Hole. Several heads turned when he banged his way through the common room, and slammed the dormitory door as hard as he could - so hard that a portrait outside fell onto the landing. Carly ran into the room after him and closed the door much more gently.

James threw himself face-down on his bed. “UGHHHHHHHH!” he cried into his pillow.

Carly stood awkwardly by the desks, looking around at the room.

She bit her lips.

She’d been to boys rooms before - sure - but never The Marauders room. It was hallowed ground. Everyone in the school made wild guesses about what sorts of horribly mischevious things might be hidden in those four walls. After all, there had been rumors of trunks being transfigured into dragons, and desks turnd into reindeer, and furniture on the ceiling. But it was just like any other boys’ room, really. Messy and slightly scented of dirty laundry and quidditch things laying about everywhere… It was sort of a let down, really.

James put his glasses on the night stand.

Carly took a step closer.

James was still face down on the bed.

Carly gingerly stepped ‘round discarded joggers and untied trainers and candy bar wrappers and open textbooks ‘til she reach James’s bed. She hesitated, then sat down beside him and he jumped at the sudden movement of the mattress, having not realized she’d followed him to his bedroom.

Carly hesitated, then drew her wand and aimed it at the door. “Colloportus,” she whispered and the lock clicked.

James looked over at the door, then back up at her. His heart was slamming about so hard he could feel his pulse in his temples. “Carly, I don’t --”

“Shhh,” she whispered, pressing one finger against his lips to silence him. She waited a moment ‘til he looked like he wasn’t going to speak. Carly reached up and drew the clips from her hair, the feather-cut blonde curls falling down ‘round her face, bouncing as they framed her, and she bit her plump lower lip, which was painted bright red to match the dress she wore, and she crawled up on to the bed, swinging one knee over James’s waist so she was straddling his pelvis and James swallowed because the motion had hiked Carly’s dress up so that, although he couldn’t see it, he was extremely aware of the fact that the only thing between Carly Shaw’s bare body and him was her underwear.

Carly leaned forward and swept his hair off his forehead and when she did, the low cut of her dress made the curve of her chest extremely evident and James felt his mouth go very, very dry.

“Carly…” he said quietly, “I --”

She took his hands and laced her fingers through his, pushing his arms up over his head. “Quiet, Potter,” she whispered in a low, commanding voice, just like Annalee had told her James Potter probably secretly wanted her to do.

James could feel all his muscles tightening.

She leaned down again and her mouth found his and she gyrated her hips so she was grinding against him and he started to forget himself…

Then Carly’s hand touched his thigh.

And it just felt….

Wrong.

“No, no. No.” James sat up and pushed her off him. Carly looked shocked and a bit hurt as well. “I’m sorry, Carly,” James said, “You’re brilliant. Bloody brilliant. But I can’t. I just can’t. You need to go. Please.”

“But --”

“Carly.” James stared at her. “Please. Go.”

She stood up, her lower lip trembling.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

She stared at him for a moment, then stood up, tugging the hem of her short little dress down as far as she could, and she pursed her lips, angry, and stormed toward the door. She paused, her hand on the knob and she looked back at him. “You know,” she said sternly, “You really are stupid.”

“What?” he asked, turning so his legs hung off the bed.

“Any idiot could see what that fight was about today.”

James said, “What? Me defending you when Sirius Black mocked you?” his voice was sharp.

Carly said, “C’mon, James. Please. You know better. You didn’t once actually stand up for me, you just screamed that Lily Evans wasn’t Sirius Black’s girlfriend.” She paused and when James opened his mouth to start to protest, she held up a finger to stop him. “Don’t, James. We both know better.” And she turned to the door and let herself out, leaving him to wallow in the knowledge.




“I CAN’T BELIEVE HER!” Lily was saying. She was pacing in the alcove off the Trophy Room Passageway, which was where Sirius had gone to lick his wounds. Figuratively. He was a human at the moment, though if he was a dog he would’ve been licking them literally. But for now it was only figuratively.“Just because she bloody looks like Farrah Fawcett...”

“What?” Sirius looked up at Lily from the couch as though she had three heads attached to her one neck.

“What what?” Lily asked, pausing in her pacing long enough to stare at him like he was mad.

Sirius, confused, asked, “Does she actually look like a faucet? Is that why they call her that? Because that’s very rude.”

“What? No… No not like a faucet - she doesn’t look like a sink. Like Farrah Fawcett. That’s her actual name. She’s only the most beautiful woman in the entire world,” Lily explained. “How do you not know about Farrah Fawcett?”

“Hullo? Gay?”

Lily sighed, “Yeah well, she has boobs out to here and hair down to there in these gorgeous blonde curls and all the boys love her, so…”

“Not all the boys Evans,” Sirius said gently. “Right, Remus?”

“Well, I mean. She is a rather handsome woman,” Remus murmured.

“Filthy traitor,” Sirius accused.

Remus shrugged.

Sirius sighed, “Well I s’pose it’s a good thing, with a name like Farrah Fawcett you have to be pretty or you’re going to get mercilessly mocked… ‘course you can get mocked with any name. Punched in the mouth if you’re a Sirius Black.



“You might say you suffered a serious injury,” muttered Remus.

Sirius smirked.

Lily wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, bleeding hell,” Sirius said, “It isn’t your fault!”

“Isn’t it, though?” Lily sniffled. “Just be careful that a bloody piano doesn’t fall from the sky and crush you.”

Sirius looked confused, “Why in hell would piano fall from the --”

“It’s a muggle comedic reference, Padfoot,” Remus explained.

“What the fuck’s funny about a piano falling from the sky?! That’s impossible!”

“That’s what’s funny about it,” Remus replied.

“Unless there was a shipment of pianos on an aeroplane…” Sirius said, rubbing his chin, “And the hatch is opened by accident by a student pilot that’s grabbed the wrong lever!”

Remus shook his head, “Bloody hell. Your imagination has reached new heights.”

There was a pause. Sirius eyed Remus.

“New heights,” Remus repeated. “Because you made a joke about a plane. Get it?”

“I fucking love you,” Sirius declared and he grinned and gave Remus a big wet kiss on the cheek as a reward for the pun.

Lily sat heavily beside the two boys and tucked her knees up to her chin, hugging them. Sirius sighed and, leaning away from Remus and into Lily, he put his arms about her. “You’re not a jinx, Evans. I really wish you’d stop thinking like that.”

Remus said, “Wait, what?”

Sirius looked at Lily.

She closed her eyes.

“It’s a long story,” murmured Lily.

Remus said, “I’ve got plenty of time.”