All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

Fifth Year : Plannin' and Dreamin'

“Something big,” Sirius insisted, lying across James’s bed, “A party—in the common room. We can invite everyone—well, everyone worth inviting.”

“D’you think they’ll let us get away with that?”

Sirius snorted. “They’d better. What’s the point of being mates with a prefect if you can’t bend a few rules?”

His sixteenth birthday was coming up, and Sirius wanted something lavish, excessive—a real blowout. It had been ages since they’d had a party. And besides, everyone could use a bit of fun, what with how bleak things had become around the castle.

He’d noticed it more, now that he was spending time with Mary. Sirius had understood that the war was getting worse, that it was bleeding increasingly through the walls of the castle—but he’d never actually heard someone hiss the word mudblood in the corridors, and he hadn’t quite expected the sheer number of dirty looks they’d get from Slytherins. He and Mary weren’t even officially dating yet; he’d just been walking her to classes, carrying her bookbag in an effort to “act like a gentleman.” Whatever that meant.

Sirius had complained to the other marauders about it when James asked him how their Hogsmeade date went. “A gentleman!” He’d scoffed, taking his toothbrush out of his mouth to talk, “I speak five languages! I have a family motto! I can ballroom-bloody-dance! I have twelve sets of dress robes! What more does she want???”

“Now you know my pain,” James responded, sighing.

“She wants you to respect her,” Peter said, in that infuriatingly condescending tone he seemed to use whenever he talked about girls, nowadays.

“I do respect her!” Sirius replied, with a haughty sniff, “She’s got the best tits in the year. That’s very respectable.”

Remus, who was listening to this conversation, buried his head in his hands in exasperation. Sirius grinned.

Still, despite his complaining, he’d decided to give it a go. This had resulted in Sirius spending quite a bit more time with Mary, trying to prove just how gentlemanly he could be—after all, a Gryffindor never backed down from a challenge. And Mary Macdonald was certainly a challenge.

It almost felt like a game, sometimes. He’d say something cheeky, or make a stupid joke, and Mary would roll her eyes, complaining about how he needed to get his act together and stop behaving like an idiot even as she tried to hide an amused smile. Sirius would tease her right back, and she’d make a show of being exasperated, but he knew from the way she smirked and looked up at him through her lashes that she thought it was just as much fun as he did.

Currently, one of his favourite ways to tease her was by acting with such overdone chivalry that anyone else might have been embarrassed—but Mary loved the attention. It was something they had in common. So Sirius would dash ahead of her simply to hold open the doors of classrooms, or insist on carrying every single one of her books in addition to his own, or bow as he pulled out her seat in the dining hall, flourishing and saying in an exaggeratedly plummy accent,

“Please, my lady, do make yourself comfortable!”

Today, she’d smacked his arm as she sat down, saying tartly,

“You’re ridiculous!” But she’d been smiling, cheeks flushed.

He laughed as he took his seat beside her. “Yeah, but you love me.” This only made her blush more, and she rolled her eyes in an effort to hide it. Sirius smirked, feeling very chuffed—he’d finally cracked the code to flirting.