fatal love

chapter 106

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOONY!" Sirius, James and Peter all screamed at Remus, who actually wasn't as asleep as he was pretending to be. He'd woken up when Sirius had crept into his bed an hour ago, after giving him a more 'personal' birthday present. The other two didn't seem to notice, though, that Remus was faking his startled surprise.

"Thanks, guys," Remus grinned.

"Now, we can't wait here, Moony," James said self-importantly, "I'm on strict instructions from Evans to get you down to the Great Hall as soon as possible, so that she can see you."

Remus snorted. "Course you are," he laughed, stretching as he got out of bed.

Remus' birthday fell on a Wednesday that year, which was, in Sirius' opinion, the one of the worst days of the week to have your birthday. And if that wasn't bad enough, Sirius knew that today was supposed to be the day that Remus signed the registry. He still wasn't entirely sure what Remus was going to do. But he was reluctant to be the one to bring it up, so there was nothing to do but wait.

As soon as the four of them went down to the Great Hall, Evans immediately started to monopolise Remus' time. She'd gotten him a book on apparition, because their lessons were supposed to start soon, which Sirius would have found ridiculously boring and practical, but Remus, of course, was genuinely pleased with it.

When the morning post arrived, an owl dropped a small package in front of Remus, along with a thick letter. Remus didn't open either of them, stowing both of them away in his bag.

"Don't wanna open your parents' present, Moony?" Peter asked.

Remus shook his head. "We need to go to Transfiguration, I'll open them later."

They weren't actually in that much of a rush, but Sirius didn't argue.

Sirius sat through all his lessons that day bored, with everyone else paying Remus far too much attention. Still, when lessons were finally over, it was set up to be a good day. It was the middle of the week, so they couldn't do anything too crazy, but Sirius and James had planned together to sneak the Marauders plus Evans into Hogsmeade.

They showed Evans the secret passage to Honeydukes, and Sirius wanted to take a picture of her face when they told her that they had been using it since Second Year. Then Remus gently tugged Sirius to the back of the group as they walked through the tunnel so they could hold hands, and Sirius forgot all about Evans, grinning at Remus instead.

They didn't go to the Three Broomsticks - as lovely as Madam Rosmerta was, Sirius didn't quite trust her not to call McGonagall. The five of them went to the Hog's Head instead, and got Remus to order the first round.

"Why did I have to get it?" Remus complained, as he came back to the table with five firewhiskeys. "It's my birthday, and I have the least money of everyone here."

"It's your first opportunity to legally acquire booze, Moony!" Sirius exclaimed, "we couldn't deprive you of that!"

Remus grinned, rolling his eyes. "Whatever," he said, "Aberforth doesn't even care if you're of age. You're buying next."

They ended up drinking a lot. They were by far both the youngest and the loudest patrons in the bar, and three hours later, Sirius was sure they were getting on everyone else's nerves, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Anyone want a fag?" Sirius asked, standing up.

"I do," Remus said immediately, and Sirius grinned, leading him out of the pub quickly, before anyone else could join them, and to a darkened corner of the street.

He took out his pack of cigarettes, that he'd had to start buying off of Hufflepuffs now that he wasn't seeing Benjy three times a week, and lit two of them, passing one to Remus.