the cadence of part time poets

Chapter 10: An Unwilling Accomplice

I once had a dream,
So I packed up and split for the city;
I soon found out that my lonely life wasn't so pretty,
I'm glad I went now I'm that much more sure that we're ready...

- "That's Not Me" The Beach Boys, 1966

Sirius Black may have claimed to be a well-adjusted, gracious, young man with a decent head on his shoulders, but he held grudges like Lyall Lupin's hounds hunted prey; fiercely and with little mercy.

It had been several days since the Communion-concert incident and Sirius still hadn't let his humiliation go. He blamed Headmistress McGonagall of course, after she'd neglected to thank him for putting the "fun" back into "fundamentalism", and also Mrs. Buchanan, for her cruel and unusual punishments, which she tended to favour over a typical detention. This was evident by the fact that Remus had had to watch Sirius receive a reprimand from her twice more since Sunday, once in forms for locking Barty Crouch in the broom cupboard and again in music for taping Alexander Flutwarts' hands to his accordion after he wouldn't stop trying to use the instrument to imitate the sound of a dying cat. Between watching Sirius clean out the spit valves of every brass instrument in the music room and then singing once more in front of the entire class—with Alex's mediocre accordion-playing for back-up—Remus had steeled himself to stay on Sheila Buchanan's good side. He clearly hadn't the voice for her particular vein of punishment.

Perhaps the most startling revelation about the whole Holy affair—beyond Sirius' frustratingly good voice—was that Remus was also being blamed.

"It's almost your fault, you know," Sirius had said bitterly, as the four boys made their way back to the dorms after Communion.

"What?"

"It was. You're the one who wasn't singing the right song."

"I wasn't singing at all," Remus snapped. "You're the one who started bleating like the bloody Osmonds in church! And then you got up on the pew—did you really think you weren't going to be caught?"

Sirius mimicked Remus with the shake of his head. "It's like listening to my mother. I swear Londoners are about as exciting as sawdust."

"Oh, because the great countryside of Bath is known for being so daringly anti-religious," James said, coming between the two of them and slinging his arms around their shoulders and holding them tight. "Why don't we just think about something else, hey? Like how we're going to get them back?"

Though Remus was pretty sure James had been joking, Sirius seemed to take the suggestion to heart. His mischievous brain shifted instantly from tormenting his brother to how the four of them were going to stick it to those dusty priests and rhadamanthine teachers—Sirius had actually used this word—which left them pitching ideas to one another of how to best go about disrupting the Lord's next Supper. It was decided that laxatives in the communal wine were too dangerous and, well, too gross; and not everyone drank the wine anyway, which turned Sirius off of the idea entirely. James had the suggestion to fill the priests' bibles with images from dirty magazines, but that too had been dismissed.

"We're not thinking big enough!" Sirius complained.

Remus did his best to keep mum around the others, filling his time with the books Lily and Marlene lent him or otherwise slipping away for some quiet. The common room wasn't a bad place to be when he wanted a bit of peace, but the room tended to fill quickly, which made for bad reading and worse ignoring; so he continued making his way about the grounds, using his map to mark off the quietest and most secluded spots on campus. Sirius, it seemed, would not have it. It had grown harder to shake the other boy since Sunday, despite his continued aversion to Remus' presence. It felt more like Sirius wanted him to get in equal amounts of trouble rather than be his friend, and was determined that Remus be an accomplice whether he wanted to join in on the antics or not.