Marauders - Always - Part One

The Halloween Party

"Let me get this straight," Frank Longbottom said, one arm over Alice's shoulder, the other clutching a glass of pumpkin juice, which sloshed in his palm as he talked animatedly, gesturing at James and Lily. "You idiots are so bloody meant for one another that you actually came to this shindig in matching costumes... without even bleedin' discussing it first?"

Lily laughed, "I rather worked quite hard to keep it a secret. Unless Sirius told? I did tell him this morning." She looked up at James expectantly. He was standing directly behind her, arms wrapped around her, hands clasped over her belly, resting on the gold belt at the waist of the spangled leotard she wore. He swayed them both side to side gently.

"I only wore what I knew you liked," he answered, winking and smirking. "Sirius didn't tell me anything."

Frank laughed, "I mean, wouldn't put it past him if he had," he said, glancing in Sirius's direction. Sirius was talking to a bloke Frank didn't recognize who was dressed as Van Gogh.

"Everyone's costumes are so great, everyone was so creative!" Alice said, running her fingers over her strands of Miss. Piggy pearls.

Frank turned back to Lily and James, "Somebody tell Sirius I love he managed to get not just himself and Remus matched, but Marly and Em and Jasper and Pete all in on it, too. Brilliant costume idea."

"Tell him yourself," James suggested.

Frank snorted, "Yeah, he would just pretend not to hear it anyway."

Meanwhile, across the alley, where Sirius was refilling his pumpkin juice, having spray-spit about half of the previous cup Remus had fetched for him, Spencer was standing nearby, staring the other direction to the Grecian Goddess that was Lula. He chuckled an ice cube roughly into his cup, clearly frustrated.

"That ice piss you off?" Sirius asked, smirking.

Spencer tore his gaze from Lula, "No, no it's not the ice."

Sirius's eyes followed Spencer's trajectory to where Lula was talking with Marlene, Em, and Remus. "Troubles in paradise?" he asked.

Spencer sighed, "Paradise has been decimated by hurricane force winds at this rate."

Sirius took another sip of his drink. "What happened?"

Last he'd known, Spencer and Lula were as rabidly in love as he and Remus were - all handsy and excitement and giggles at the art show, where Sirius had realized that Remus's infamous Stewie was the same as Sirius's Spencer of long ago. Remus hadn't mentioned any troubles among them - at least not that he could remember? But then again, Sirius would be the first to admit that he had a fairly awful memory  for things like that - particularly when they didn't really concern him at all.

Spencer sighed and Sirius ladled some of the pumpkin juice into his ice filled cup. "Thanks," Spencer said. He looked wistfully back across the room at Lula and then back to Sirius. "I want to protect her from things and I just can't. It's just impossible to tell her anything - she always has to be right and I mean she usually is but -" he sighed, "I'm mostly just -- jealous."

"Jealous of what?" Sirius pressed. He smirked, "Of her always being right?"

Spencer said, "Well that, too..."

"Welcome to my life story, mate. Remus is always, always, always right. We call him the Remcyclopedia on account of it. And on the extremely rare occasion in which he wasn't right, he's a very sore sport about being wrong. I love him to death but he doesn't handle being wrong well."

Spencer was quiet.

"Now don't get me wrong, I'm right even less than he is wrong - most of the time if he's wrong he was still more right than I  was," Sirius said, shaking his head. "Except about music. Music is the one category in which I positively blow him out of the water." He smirked, then, "But Remus is smart, is what I'm saying, he's very smart and I tend to be fairly dumb and I don't blame him that he doesn't like being wrong. He's the way he is. And that's what I fell for in the first place, isn't it? Him the way he is?"