Marauder crack

The secret language of dogs

In the dining room, students and professors drink goat's milk with gossip or pumpkin juice, also with gossip. There is only one topic of conversation since Monday morning. Daniel. Nothing about his health, of course. Or how's he going. (Much better, apparently, and "recovering splendidly" in McGonagall's words). But that doesn't matter. The morbid details of the attack are the important thing.

- They say he was attacked by fifty men.

- They say they were Muggle gangsters.

- They say that he actually made the wounds himself for being an attention whore.

- They say that Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall sleep together!

Lily doesn't like that kind of rumor. It's one of the reasons why she never really got along with the other girls in her class. Sick and used to long talking about who had looked at whom in Divination class and how the older girls wore their robes. Passing little notes written in invisible ink during class and drooling over the Quidditch pitch, more concerned about the players than the game itself. It is not only that Lily finds it wrong to stick her nose into other people's lives. It is that, among other things, it seems to her a huge waste of time. Plus, it bores her sovereignly. Who cares, for example, that James Potter has been dedicated almost half a page in the latest issue of "Witch's Heart" among the most promising players in magic schools around the world, flying on the broom, in the middle of a match against Slytherin, reaching out to catch the snitch, hair blown back, and that intense expression of restrained strength?

Not her, of course.

The magazine is not even hers. She found it over the dining room table the first hour in the morning. But just so no one can draw wrong conclusions, she keeps it under her Occlumency book as soon as she sees Sirius out of the corner of her eye, approaching the Gryffindor table. To know what he might think if he saw her looking at a picture of the future Quidditch star. No way.

- What's up, Evans. - Sirius sits right in front of her, leaning on her seat, arms occupying half the table. Something in his way of being, just being, is invasive. - What are you doing?

- Eating.

Sirius mutters "interesting" and taps his fingers on the table. He then looks at one side of the hall, then to the other, as if he were expecting something. He's probably bored by her inactivity. He probably always gets bored, except when he plans something evil. Three years of mental age. Four at maximum. Although he physically looks a few more than seventeen. The Hell Angel attitude infatuated with himself makes him look older. Long hair, the shadow of the beard, those things that make the girls in his class melt to his feet.He keeps drumming. He is slightly maddening.

- You're starting to make me nervous, Black. Can I help you with something?

- No- he assures. -Well, yes..- he corrects himself. - No- again negative. - Well, maybe.

- At least you have it clear now.

Smiles. But it is not a frank smile. It's his smile of "I want something from you and for that, I'm trying to be nice but since I'm never nice out of courtesy, I don't know how to do it." As a smile though, it's not bad at all.

- You're amusing, Evans, you know? I've never told you, but I admit it. You are quite amusing. And you are smart, right? One of the smartest in school, all the world knows that. - He seems so focused on his string of easy compliments that Lily is starting to have fun imagining what the heck is going to ask him. - And you're not just smart with books - he continues - you're smart with people. You think about it clear. Come on, you know what happens to people. Like your friends. Don't you?

Just when she wonders what he's coming for, Sirius finally lights up her path.

- Remus, for example.

So that was it.

- You know more or less what happens to him or what he does and let's say, you could know what he wants or what he is thinking or ... all that stuff, right?

Men. The older, the stupidest.

-Sirius- she tries to be understanding, the truth is that she does not want to admit it but it causes him some tenderness to see him so worried about Remus but tried to disguise it - if you have argued with him, and want to fix it, I am sure that instead of talking to me it is more reasonable that you go and do it with him.

- Do what?

- Talking.

- Talking, yes, of course, I know... Very well.

It doesn't seem like a "Very Well" to him. He seems strange. He seems serious and that, on Sirius, is more than strange. Perhaps they have bewitched him. He gets up to leave but he sits back down immediately after, changing his mind.

-Did Remus told you that we argued? Did he tell you that?... Only that we have argued? - He bombards Lily with questions, one after another, without taking any time to breathe. -Didn't he tell you ... anything else?-

He seems curious. No, he seems pissed off. Who knows what bug he has bitten them.

- Well yes, basically that's it. I can't follow all your fights in detail, Sirius or I wouldn't have time to study.

- Hasn't he told you anything else? Are you sure? - He insists. He bolts.

He is tiresome but heartwarming.

Lily feels a kind of deep current of sympathy towards him, a lil gently verging of affection. So when she talks to him again, she tries this time Sirius really listens and behaves like an adult and stop making Remus suffer from that bad dog character.

- You know what I'm sure of? I'm sure whatever it is that happened to you this time, Remus would love to turn the page.

She wants to say more things. That Remus will forgive him immediately and that it is absurd that they love each other so much and do not know how to speak to each other. But she says nothing because as soon as she utters the last sentence, Sirius completely changes that anxious expression and turns to look deadly sulky.

-Turn the page?- He asks. Mortally offended. - Yes. Right. Turning the fucking page- barks, rather than talk.- Remind me never to ask you again for advice, Evans.

And he says no more. He leaves without further ado and Lily spends ten minutes trying to figure out what the hell she said to offend him so much.

On the way to her room, she decides to get rid of the hidden shameful magazine as soon as possible. She wouldn't risk being seen with it. Of course, on the other hand, if someone sees her throwing it out could lead to the same wrong conclusion. They might think that she is interested in James Potter. Or worse. That she fancies him.

"It's much better if I hide it and take it home to throw it to the bin safely".

Yes, much, much better. She doesn't have to look at Potter's moving photo. She might just throw it away immediately.

For sure.