The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Sirius's Addiction

Sirius's Addiction

The last two weeks of July were a blur.

In them, Sirius discovered he had an addiction to tattoos.

He came home with the rune for wolf blazoned across his sternum one night (like the one they'd found on the Lupin's front door when they'd cleaned it up for the Potters) and the words WOLFSTAR between his shoulder blades on his back, written in a thick black gothic style font in nearly exactly the place that Remus had once been branded by the Slytherins in their third year.

Another night, Sirius came home with lyrics to the song Imagine by John Lennon tattooed in a spiral around his right bicep, the way a tribal arm band might have been.

Remus laid on the bed that night running his fingers along the tattoo reading, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one - I hope someday you'll join us - and the world will be as one." He stared at Sirius. "Are you going to mark your entire body up, then, until there's no more Sirius, there's just loads and loads of tattoos?"

"Don't you like them?"

"I do," Remus said. "But I like your skin too."

"My skin's still there. It's just a different colour is all," Sirius said practically.

Another night, he came home with two thick, black, parallel lines that wrapped around the underside of his arm, just above his elbow, near to where the Imagine lyrics ended.

"What is that?" Remus asked.

"The equal sign," Sirius answered. "Because we're all fucking equal. Muggle-born, pureblood, king, peasant, straight, gay, stupid, smart, rich, poor. We're all fucking equal."

That one was Remus's favorite because of the passion in Sirius's voice when he explained the meaning of it. Aside from the full moon one, of course.

And Sirius wasn't done, either. Rather, Sirius spent a week working at translating various songs from English into Runes that he found in books he found on the shelves in the living room that once belonged to Lyall Lupin, trying to decide which ones looked cooler.

"Please leave some of your skin," begged Remus. "Don't become one big inkspot."

"Don't worry Moonykins," said Sirius, kissing Remus's nose.

The first week of August, the Potters were quite excited because Charlus was feeling much better than he had been - and he was sent home from St. Mungo's - well, to the Lupin house - and Dora fretted about him the entire time, worrying when she sent him through the floo, worrying as she had James help him up the stairs to bed, worrying when he insisted he was well enough to come downstairs and sit at the dining room table with everyone else for dinners. James worried, too, but Charlus seemed strong, seemed truly well again and the effect made James marvel and he wondered what else he could barter seconds for with Mopsus...

"Don't be daft," said Sirius when James mentioned this idea to him one evening as he, Sirius, and Remus sat on the back porch of the Lupin house drinking butterbeers. Sirius lay on the rail, his back against one of the beams that held the porch roof up, one leg up, elbow across it, the other hanging over the rose bushes...

James and Remus sat much more civilized, in actual chairs.

"I'm not daft," James said, "I just think it's quite a handy tool. I mean, really. If you live to be say a hundred years old - and Merlin knows most witches and wizards are older than that - just look at Albus Dumbledore, nearly a hundred already and still going strong as could be - then what the bloody hell does a few seconds matter at the end of it? Think of the good you could do with, say, a year off your life? I mean are you really going to miss even a year?"

Remus looked at James like he was mental. "Alright, calm down there. Enough playing the hero. It's grand you've saved your Dad, but you needn't be giving away your life for every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes along."

James said, "It's just a thought."

Sirius leaned back and took a long swig of the butterbeer as though he were drinking something far harder. "I can't fucking imagine being a hundred years old, can you lot? Imagine having a one hundredth birthday?"

"Bloody start a bonfire with the candles on your cake," said Remus, chuckling.

"Could see that cake from space," James said. "The martians will think it's a new star been just lit up."

Remus guffawed. "They think it's an explosion and try to set up protective shields against the coming fire."

Sirius's smirk deepened, "Oi. Do you lot reckon there's martian wizards?"

"Of course there are," James answered, "How do you reckon they bloody got to Mars in the first place? Wingardium leviosa!" he waved his wand and Sirius's bottle floated in the air. "Certainly not one of those bloody rocket things the muggles have been playing at."

"Got them to the moon, those rockets, didn't they?" Remus pointed out.

"So they say," Sirius said, then he grinned, "You know I reckon it's more like one of the muggles farted and that's what powered the engines." The other two burst out laughing at this and Sirius, encouraged by their humor, added, "Some great lunk of a muggle - like Vernon Dursley. I reckon he could fart himself to the moon."

"Fart himself clear across the galaxy, more like," James said, snorting with laughter, "All the way to Uranus."

"That great walrus would never go anywhere near my anus," Sirius replied.

James literally started choking he was laughing so hard.

Remus had tears in his eyes, "Great bloke would have me to answer to if he did!"

Sirius grinned and grabbed his still-floating butterbeer from the air beside him and said, "He wouldn't stand a chance, Rey. You're a bloody force to be reckoned with when you're pissed off! I still remember Evan Rosier running from the boys loo like a fucking little baby that day he cut my hair." He ran his hand over his head as he said this, as though making sure that the mere memory of the day couldn't remove all those hard-grown locks again.

Remus said, "I've never been so infuriated in all of my life as I was that day."

James was still crying-laughing over the idea of Vernon Dursley farting himself across the universe. "Bloody hell, my stomach. I can't."

Remus looked over and laughed at James, "Too much butterbeer, mate?"

James wiped the tears from his eyes, "I swear to bloody hell, I haven't laughed this hard in ages. You lot are the best mates a lad could ask for." He smiled. Then his face sort of clouded and a concerned look came over him. "...what's today?"

"Sunday," Sirius answered.

"No, the date," James replied.

"8 August," Remus answered and even as he said it, the same thing that had just occurred to James occurred to him, too.

"What?" Sirius asked, seeing them all turning pale. "What is it?" Then, "If you lot are panicking because I've got the Transfiguration O.W.L. tomorrow at the Ministry, don't you be worrying about it because I've not only studied but I've talked Dorcas Meadows into taking me down to meet that Umbridge woman for the test. I'm fairly confident I'll get an Outstanding on the test, too. I reckon I'll kick some serious arse and truly impress Minnie with my incredible skills at Transfiguring ---"

"No you idiot," James interrupted him. "It's Peter's birthday!"