A Marauder's Guide to Falling Apart

Chapter One

"What do you think, Mar?"

Marlene stared blankly at the contraption in front of her. She wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to think. Her brown eyes flicked upwards to meet Sirius's gaze and she noted he was eagerly awaiting some sort of response.

"Er – it's big. I don't get why you're showing it to me though?"

"Because it's mine," his smile faltered after picking up on her hesitation. "Don't you like it?"

"You bought a motorcycle?" she could hear the disbelief in her voice. "Please tell me you're joking?"

"Why would I joke about something like that?" his brows creased together into a fine line. Marlene was pretty good at deciphering when he was playing around with her and this was most certainly not one of those times.

"What in Merlin's name do you need a motorcycle for? You're a wizard – you can just apparate places –"

"That's not the point," he waved his hand in the air to dismiss her. "You remember my Uncle Alphard?"

They had discovered a few months prior that his Uncle Alphard had passed away from some muggle infection. He had apparently been disowned by the House of Black and Sirius had wondered what he could have possibly done to merit such disgrace. "What about him?" she asked feebly, unsure of where this conversation was headed.

"Turns out he left me a decent chunk of change," Sirius shrugged. "I guess that's why mum blasted him off the family tree. Took a little while for all the paperwork to go through so Gringotts only just contacted me last week – "

"You've known for an entire week and didn't think to tell me?" Marlene interrupted him with minor irritation. True, they hadn't seen each other much in the last week as the preparations for Frank and Alice's wedding had consumed both of them. But she was still irritated that he hadn't bothered to share such an important piece of information with her.

"Oh don't be like that, Marlene," Sirius scowled. "I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Anyways, I thought there was no better way to honor his legacy than to purchase the most obscene muggle item I could think of with the money he left me. I thought you'd be a bit more impressed than this."

Marlene looked at the motorcycle. It was huge; nearly double or triple the size of any she had ever seen before. It had a sidecar attached to it and she noticed with slight disdain the extra helmet that was sitting on the seat.

"I'm not – you don't intend –" she pointed at the helmet.

"What?" Sirius smirked. "Intend for my girlfriend to ride along with me? Of course not, that would just be plain silly, now wouldn't it?"

Marlene looked at him with annoyance. "You think you're so funny, Sirius."

"Come on Mar, we're going to be late otherwise. You haven't gotten your apparition license and there's no floo connection. How else do you expect to get there?"

"If I have to walk there so be it."

"You're being ridiculous," he laughed. He moved forward and grabbed the second helmet and tossed it towards her to which she caught clumsily. "You trust me don't you? Then trust that I'll get you there in one piece."

"I trust you," she grumbled. "I don't trust that."

Sirius ignored her and when it was obvious that he wasn't going to budge she groaned loudly. She hesitantly put the helmet on and allowed him to help her tighten the strap before he helped her climb into the sidecar.

"Just relax Mar," he leaned over to give her a gruff kiss before he hopped on beside her. She could feel her hands tighten around the seat and the sweat collecting in her palms. He started it up and a large roar of the engine caused the hair on her arms to stand straight up. "Oh there's one more thing about it that I forgot to mention."

"What's that?" she asked weakly, not sure that she wanted to know the answer.

"I've enchanted it to fly. Hold on."