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Hooked on a Feeling


Sirius woke bright and early on 1 September, crawled his way out from beneath Remus’s arm, which flopped over his chest, and made his way downstairs to the kitchen to find Gideon and Fabian Prewett, at the kitchen table with Charlus Potter. Fabian was grinning and waving about a wizarding photograph of a fire-haired baby wrapped in a blue blanket. “Named him Percy!” Fabian was boasting. “Percy Ignatius Weasley. Mornin’ Sirius… You want to see our new nephew?”

Gideon took the photo and waved it at Sirius, “Brand spankin’ new and adorable as could be.”

“I’m not much of a baby person,” Sirius said. He got got a bottle of pumpkin juice from the fridge and settled himself into a seat at the table.

Sirius’s warning wasn’t enough to keep the baby photo from being waved under his nose. A little pink bean shaped person with hair twice as red as Gideon and Fabians blinked up at him and waved tiny baby fists at him. “Looks like a Percy, dunn’t he?” Fabian asked, grinning.

“Sure,” Sirius said, still unimpressed by the gooey, smushy little thing staring up at him from the photograph.

Gideon was beaming with pride. “Only just born a week ago,” he said.

“Still can’t believe she hasn’t named one of her kids Fabian after my fabulous self.”

“Before Molly’s named one Gideon? Don’t be mad.”

They prattled on for several minutes, arguing over whose name was more appropriate for Molly’s next child and why - until finally Gideon broke it off with a - “Bah!” and turned to Sirius, just as Sirius was finishing off his pumpkin juice. “Oi, look, my reason for comin’ -- not at all to fight over the future generation of Giddy and Fabulous… It’s like this… here…” Gideon reached into the pocket of his unbuttoned auror’s uniform and jangled a key hanging on a hot pink rabbit’s foot keychain. He held it out, the key dangling from his index finger. “Here you are.”

Sirius hesitated, staring at the key hanging from Gideon’s hand. “What’s that?”

What is that?” Gideon echoed. He glanced at Fabian, “Not terribly bright, is he?”

Fabian shook his head in disapproval.

“The key to your motorbike, of course!” Gideon said. “I finally was able to pull it out of Ministry custody today… good as new, out in the carpark waitin’ for you.”

Sirius snatched at the keys, only have them yanked away. “Ah-ha,” he said, “Couple ground rules first. You absolutely - under no circumstances - are to fly this motorbike to Iceland.”

“Done,” Sirius said, smirking.

Sensing there was a catch to Sirius’s quick agreement, Gideon added, “Or anywhere else that muggles will see you for that matter.”

Sirius grinned again. “Also done.”

Fabian’s eyes twinkled as he looked between his brother and Sirius. Gideon sighed and dropped the keys into Sirius’s palm and Sirius brought it to his chest in victory and whispered yessss under his breath and Gideon sighed, “Going to regret that, I am… aren’t I?”

Fabian and Charlus nodded, smirking, but Sirius said, “Not a bit!” ….but he, too was smirking.




“...very impractical… I mean, where are we supposed to put the trunks, perhaps another time? Another time when we aren’t toting loads of stuff about?”

“Told you already, Mr. P is gonna bring the trunks - and James.”

“Yeah, okay, but…. I mean, don’t you think we should - should go with them? I mean…”

“And spoil an opportunity for quality family time? ….Here, put this on your head.”

Remus looked down at the shiny white helmet that Sirius had just jammed into his hands. Straps hung down from the two sides and he turned it over in his hands. Quarter inch of plastic and five small foam padding things inside. That’s all that would be between his skull and the cement when he was sure to fall off this bleeding thing…

“You’ve been on it before, dunno why now you’re so bloody afraid of it,” Sirius was saying. He was leaning over the red motorbike, stroking it’s side with a wash cloth.

“Yes but that was different. That was in the sky where you couldn’t crash it into things and also I was high on a feeling.”

Sirius started singing instead of answering - “I- iiiiiiii- IIIiiiiiiiii-I II - I’m hooked on a feeling…. I’m high on believvvving… that yoooooou’re in looooooove with meeeeeeee….

“Sirius --”

I can’t stop this feeeeling…. Deep inside of meeee… Moony, you just don’t realize…. What you do to meeee....”

“There’s no seat buckles!”

When you hold me… .in yourr arrms so tiiiight… you let me knowwww… everything’s alll riiiiight....”

“Do you have any clue how to get to King’s Cross Station?”

Iiiiiiiiiiii-ii-iiii-IIIi-Iiiiiiiiiiii…. I”m hooked on a feeliiiiiiiiiing….. I’m hiiiiigh on bellllieeeeeeeviiiiiiiing…. That you’re in LOOOOOOOOOOVE WITH MEEEEEEEEEEeee……

“And do you even know how to drive? Aren’t you supposed to have like, I dunno, a license from the government or something? What if we get stopped, what if --”

Ooga-ooga-ooga-chaka! Ooga-ooga-ooga-chaka!

“Sirius please…”

“Yes -- PLEASE --” James said, coming up behind the pair of them in the driveway, dragging his new school trunk full of all his new uniforms and textbooks and stationary and potions kit and cauldron so that it was quite heavy. “Stop singing, you sound like a drowning kneazle.”

Sirius stopped, “Bugger you Potter.”

Remus watched James shoving the trunk into the motorcar that Charlus had borrowed from a friend at the Ministry to bring the boys to King’s Cross Station that morning. James dusted his hands off after flinging the trunk into the boot and turned about. Remus was staring longingly at the car as Sirius continued on whistling and muttering ooga-ooga-ooga-chaka as he wiped the motorbike’s body down. “S’matter, Moony,” James said, “Scared of the motorbike are you?”

“Less the motorbike itself and more the… riding… of the motorbike…” Remus answered.

“Especially with a nut job driver like Padfoot,” James said - taking the words right out of Remus’s mind (not that Remus would have ever admitted that).

Sirius looked up, “I’m a good driver, thank you.”

“Says the man that once drove one of those things into a house and blew it up...” James said, smirking.

Remus looked even sicker.

“Oi now, I’m having a hard enough time coaxing him onto the back of this thing without you being a help, mate,” Sirius said, chucking the cloth he was using on the bike at James, who laughed and caught it and threw it back.

James relented, “He’s really not that bad, Rey. The bike’s not that scary, really… drove it from Godric’s Hollow to Hogsmeade once. King’s Cross is loads closer than that. You’ll be fine.”

Remus didn’t look any better.

Sirius swung his leg over the body of the motorbike and put on the black helmet, clipping the strings and tightening them up beneath his chin. He stared at Remus with raised eyebrows. “C’mon Moonshine, we haven’t got all day.”

Remus looked pleadingly at James.

James laughed, “Yeah, go on, Moonshine.”

With a hesitant sigh, Remus stuck the white helmet onto his head, “If I die, I’m haunting both of your arses and I’m going to be even more annoying than Peeves.”

“What’re you gonna do, Moonpie? Fold everyone’s socks?” Sirius asked, smirking, “Fucking terrifying ghost you’d make.”

“Wake up to find your entire under garment drawer’s been organized by colour,” James said with mock horror.

“Not by colour!” Sirius said, slapping his palms to his cheeks, “Anything but that!”

Remus was climbing onto the leather seat behind him, “You lads are blighters.”

Sirius grinned, “Grab onto me, Moony.”

Remus said, “What?” stupidly, but figured out why really fast when the bike suddenly shuddered to life and he realized they were about to move and James laughed as Remus flung himself against Sirius’s back, his arms clinging to his pecs like they were handlebars, fingers knotted up in his shirt.

Sirius laughed, “That’a boy, Moony-kins.” And the bike slowly started rolling backwards.

James waved and snickered as Remus clung onto Sirius all the harder.

“Tell Mr. and Mrs. P we’ll see them at 9¾!” Sirius called as he turned the bike about at the end of the car park.

“IF WE LIVE THAT LONG!” Remus added in a wail as Sirius lifted his feet from the ground… and squeezed the accelerator, and off they went… James waving until they were ‘round the corner and out of sight.




Oliver Kent sat on his trunk, which had been deposited quite unceremoniously on a trolley by the caretaker of the orphanage he had been assigned to for the summer months. His trainers were tight at the toes and his ankles showed beneath his trousers but he had a new Gryffindor vest and striped socks that did not match peeked over his loafers. He kicked his feet to roll the trolley backward and forwards as he watched the streams of vehicles dropping off people for the trains. He wiped his nose with his sleeve and tossed his head to get the over-long hair that hung over his forehead away from his eyes.

“Ollie-Ollie-Oxen-Free!”

He looked up and there was a blur of grey sweater and black hair and the trolley rolled forward as Walter Grant landed on the trunk behind Ollie, having leaped aboard and he wrapped his arms around the narrower boy, leaning forward and pressing a sloppy wet kiss to his cheek.

Ollie grinned, feeling warmth course through his body that he hadn’t felt in months. He brought his hands up to capture Wally exactly where he was and closed his eyes. “You’re here.”

“I’m here,” Wally nodded, and he slid off the trunk and went ‘round to stand before Oliver, his eyes bright and sparkling with life. “Look at you, sitting here on your trunk like a little hobo.” Wally smirked and then inspected Oliver carefully, “Your hair’s too long.”

“Yeah, they didn’t cut it at all this summer,” he shrugged.

“And your trousers are too short.”

Ollie shrugged.

“And you’re too thin.”

“All the more I can eat at dinner, I s’pose,” he said.

Wally clucked his tongue.

“Where is your trunk?”

“My da’s unloading it. Listen, Ollie… my folks are gonna come over here in a second and if you could not mention - that I… you know, that I kiss you or whatever… that’d be great. My da’s not real keen about queers, see, and he might get mad.”

Oliver flinched at the word queers.

He’d heard the word all of the summer. The other kids at the orphanage had decided that they didn’t like Oliver for whatever reason, and they’d decided to call him funny and odd and then he’d made the mistake of having a wizarding photograph of Wally under his pillow on the bed and they’d found it and one kid had jumped on his bed, waving the photo over his head, shouting, “Queer, queer, Oliver’s a queer!” at the top of his voice and when Ollie had turned red and start to cry - out of anger - the boy had decided it was great fun to shout the word at Oliver and see the tiny boy cry. “Queer baby, queer baby!”

But Ollie had left this out of his letters to Wally over the summer, not wanting to be a downer. He’d left a lot out of his letters, really. Ollie was miserable at that orphanage in every way possible. He’d spent most of his time during the summer hiding in a small crevice space he’d found - a panel of wall that pushed aside and he could just barely crawl behind and let close. It used to be a dumbwaiter and he’d figured out if he climbed inside and curled up real small, he could lower the dumbwaiter just a wee bit and light his wand and sit there and read undisturbed by any idiot kids calling him queer.

“I’m sorry,” Wally said, seeing the look on Ollie’s face when he’d flinched at the word. “I didn’t mean to make you sore. I mean it’s just that my dad would probably whip me if he knew we -- you know, that we’d kissed or whatever.”

Ollie didn’t like the way Wally kept saying it like that.

“It’s ok,” he said.

Wally smiled. “Hey, there’s Dexter. DEXXXXXXXXTERRRRRRRRR!” he yelled, waving.

Across the lot there came a boy running, carrying his book bag, much rounder than he’d been the year before. He skid to a halt before them, grinning brightly, “Whoa guys -- this summer -- just whoa. It’s been -- it’s been a summer. Went on a trip to Spain and saw all sorts of brilliant stuff and --”

“Hang on Dex - there’s Darcy. OI… DARCY!” Wally waved his palms, but Darcy didn’t even slow down - he just kept moving, eyes focused on the ground… Wally frowned. “Hang on, he must not hear me. I’ll go get him.” He bolted off.

Dexter looked at Oliver, “How was your summer?”

“Great,” lied Ollie.

“Mine, too!” Dexter said, and he launched back into his story about Spain and all the brilliant stuff he’d seen in Barcelona - including an aquarium with great big sharks that floated all around you. He was just doing his best shark impression when Wally returned, without Darcy, a funny look on his face.

“What is it?” Ollie asked, knowing instantly there was something quite wrong with Wally from the way his eyes were sort of wide and unfocused.

“Wally...?”