The Marauders Year Five Part 2 #Wattys2017

Smoking On the Beach

Smoking On the Beach

"Look at you, playing with a stick." James smirked.

Sirius was carrying a broken bit of tree branch and hitting things with it as he walked through the woods along the edge of the Black Lake. He'd successfully rerouted James away from the hot afternoon sun-covered pitch and into the shady coolness of the forest, and he had a cigarette hanging from his jaw as he walked along. His hair getting shaggier and shaggier, officially longer than James's was, and bits of it hung in his eyes, even with his Gryffindor scarf tied up in knots as an attempt to hold it back from his face. He grinned around his cigarette and murmured, "Sticks are the best."

"And you wonder why your animagesty is a dog."

"Animagesty, huh?" Sirius laughed, "That may be the best one you've ever said. It's animagus, by the way."

James picked up a stick, too, "I've said it wrong so long that it'd be almost a tragedy to get it right now. Ungarde!" He suddenly leaped toward Sirius, brandishing his stick as a sword. Sirius's eyes danced and he turned on James quickly, slashing left and right with his own stick, smirking as he took two quick steps forward and had James on pointe within seconds. James laughed and dropped the stick.

Sirius smirked, "Mother made Regulus and I practice fencing when we were wee bairns." He tossed his own stick and watched it disappear between the brush. "I always won."

"Wee bairns, huh?" James laughed. They had reached the little beach shore where the Marauders often went, and James looked about for a rock to skip over the water, Sirius standing behind him, looking away toward the castle, smoking earnestly now. James found just the right stone - smooth surface, flat and even, and he frisbeed it over the water, watching it touch down four times before sinking.

"Two more years," Sirius said.

James looked up. He'd been looking for a second rock. "Hmm?"

"We're done with this place in two more years," Sirius clarified.

"I love it here." James looked around and spotted the old log that Snuffles liked to drag up and down the beach by it's branches and he sat down. Sirius stayed standing by the water's edge. "I can't imagine being anywhere else, really," James said.

Sirius said, "Neither can I."

"So what's with the done with this place bit?" James asked.

Sirius shrugged. He drew a long drag from the cigarette.

"You're coming back to my house this summer, yeah?" James asked.

Sirius turned 'round, "Did your parents ask me?"

"You have your own bedroom," James pointed out, "Do you really need to be invited?"

Sirius looked happier than he had in awhile - in either timeline, James suspected. "Eating Mrs. P's roast and playing Wizard Chess with your dad..."

James laughed.

"Do you... do you reckon Remus will go live with Veigler in his bloody Icelandic castle?" Sirius said with disdain.

"Dunno," James answered. "Why? Are you jealous?"

"Of what? Living in a castle?" he waved his hand at the school across the lake, "Got a fair bit of experience living in castles, haven't I?"

James said, "No. Of Veigler."

"The fuck would I be jealous of him for?" Sirius demanded. "Did you see his ruddy hair? Man needs to be introduced to a bleedin' comb, and a scissor while we're at it! Wilder than Hagrid's hair! Ferfuckssakes - we should start swearing Veigler's beard instead of Merlin's beard..."