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Mirror Talk


“What in bloody hell happened to you?”

Sirius’s face twisted with concern as he stared up into the mirror in his palm.

Beside him, Remus was asleep, curled up with his nose pressed into the nape of Sirius’s neck. Pomfrey had kicked him out after a time, but Sirius had snuck back with James’s invisibility cloak, which he was laying beneath now. How odd it would look to anyone that went past - seeing Remus hugging on seemingly empty air.

Talking empty air no less.

James stared back from the glass, his face was blotchy and red and his lip a bit swollen and the start of a bruise on his jaw, but his face was euphoric. “Evans give you a bloody lip?”

“Sirius,” he groaned, “Oh Sirius. It’s happening.”

“What’s happening? A restraining order? How many meters do you need to keep back, mate? How big a kink is this going to throw in our class schedules?”

“Nooo, Sirius -- it is happening! What’d you call it again? The Jily.” He breathed the words in a tone as though he was telling Sirius he’d looked upon the face of God.

Sirius blinked in surprise. “Wait… what?”

“Sirius it was perfect. I got to her house and her mum answered the door and her mum bloody loved me and then Evans showed up and I gave her the snow globe and she loved it and then her sister and her boyfriend were there being rude and I told ‘em off and Evans suggested we go for a walk… We walked to a burger shop not far from her house and we ate dinner together, Sirius, and then she was talking about wishing she was at the Yule Ball so I magicked a tree for her and some Christmas music and we danced. I danced with Lily Evans, Sirius! Me! James Potter!!! And then after… Sirius it was her that suggested we kiss and --”

Sirius’s eyes were widening through this whole thing and at the word kiss he perked up so much he turned in bed and shook Remus. “Moony, wake up. Moony. You’re about to owe me a galleon.”

“Bad dog, lay down,” murmured Remus in his sleep.

“Sirius -- wait -- don’t wake him up,” James said, “I didn’t kiss her.”

Sirius’s hand dropped away from Remus’s shoulder, who wasn’t seeing to want to wake up anyway, and he hissed, “What the fuck do you mean - you didn’t kiss her? Lily Evans suggested you kiss and you said no?”

James nodded.

Sirius stared at him for a really long time.

Like a really long time.

Then:

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!!?!”

“Siriuuuuuuuuus,” moaned Remus, “Sleeeeeeeep.”

“Moony, my love, I’m sorry, but James has done the most idiot thing you’ll ever hear, and when I tell you what he’s done in the morning you will be equally appalled.” Sirius turned back to the mirror. “You’re mad.”

James shook his head, “I just couldn’t, Sirius. I mean, she was really vulnerable… I could see it in her eyes. She was so bloody sad, mate. I just felt like if I kissed her… that it would forever be in both our minds that I kissed her because her father was gone and that she’d hold it against me one day. You know? Like I’d taken advantage. I wanted to so ruddy bad, but I just couldn’t. But I told her, real clear, that I love her and what I intend. I told her when I do kiss her I want it to be forever.”

“Listen to you, practically married.”

“I know.”

“Blimey.”

“Double blimey.” James’s eyes were glistening with excitement and his face flushed.

“So… uh… that doesn’t explain the fat lip, Potter?” Sirius pressed.

James sighed, “Well. That part’s less good. See, we walked home from the burger shop and we were just getting to her house and who walks up? Severus Snape.”

“Fuck. You didn’t duel at a funeral did you? Potter, tell me you didn’t duel at a funeral!” Sirius groaned.

James shook his head. “We dueled after. Well sort of. It was after I left Lily’s… see, I went ‘round to the park from Lily’s house to summon the Knight Bus - couldn’t very well do it at her house, her sister’s bleedin’ muggle boyfriend there and a few other guests to the funeral, you know - so I went off to the park to go and I get there and there’s Severus Snape waiting for me and he turns off all the lights on the whole street and he waits in the dark and --”

“He attacked you?”

James nodded. “Yeah.”

Sirius’s face clouded.

“He did this funny thing, though, Pads… It was the oddest thing… He started going off at the mouth about how Evans was his and he’d earned her and put time in - like she was some kind of possession or something - but then he started… started almost reading my mind. Like he’d say things as though he were answering my thoughts, and then he outright told me he could read my mind and he literally answered my thoughts, and -- it was sooo weird, Sirius.”

“Okay but he bleedin’ attacked you in the dark?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bloody attack him! Pondscum sample! Hippogriff dropping! Turdwaffle!”

“Turdwaffle?”

“Yes, it’s what I’m calling people these days.”

“Alright.”

Sirius’s eyes were dark and angry. “It’s one thing if he wants to go… bloody attacking me… after what happened, I understand that… but bleedin’ attacking you… that’s not alright… fuck him. Slimey little death eater!”

James said, “Have you ever heard of somebody that could do that? The mind reading bit?”

Sirius paused in his tirade of insults and he said, “Never, but I’ll bet Moony has.”

James said, “Ask him in the morning for me.”

Sirius nodded.

“I gotta stop him doing that. He - he nearly found out about us all being animagimorphs.”

“Wow that’s the worst one yet, Potter. It’s animagi, why is it so hard for you to remember what you are?”

“Dunno, mate, I reckon I’ve said it wrong so many times now I’ll never remember how to say it right.”

Sirius said, “It would be right awful if Snape of all people found out about us being animagi. Literally I can’t think of a single person at Hogwarts it would be worse to have find us out than Snape.”

“Nor can I.”

“Bleedin’ idiot’s gotta stay out of your head. And out of Lily’s life. He’s a real prize pack ain’t he? A regular cracker jack.”

James nodded. “But you know, he doesn’t matter. Not in the grand scheme of things. I don’t give a bloody damn how many curses and hexes that ugly bat casts my way - my lip may be busted open but Sirius - Lily Evans wanted to kiss me. And when she’s feeling better, when she’s on her feet and in a less vulnerable place, I’m going to ask her out again and I’m going to get that bloody kiss and I’m going to marry her, Sirius, and we’re going to - to have lots of babies and a cat named Roger.”

Sirius laughed and shook his head. A warm smile played on his lips, “Yeah you are, Potter.”

“I’m so bloody excited.”

“I can see that.”

James smiled and his lip hung up on his tooth as he sank back onto his bed and stared up at the mirror, which he held out in front of him. “Sirius, is this fuzzy warm feeling what love feels like? When your whole insides feel like they’ve been filled up with hot popcorn? And your skin’s all cold and hot and sort of melty around you and your heart just feels so… so big… like it can’t even fit inside you anymore if you think about her even one more time…?”

Sirius laughed, “Yeah, something like that.”

James was falling asleep on his end of the mirror. “I hope I feel like this… the rest of my life…” he murmured.

Sirius rolled onto his back and pulled Remus’s head onto his chest. “I know what you mean, mate.”

But James was already asleep.

Sirius sighed and slipped the mirror onto the nightstand and wrapped his arms about his Moony, leaning his cheek again Remus’s forehead. “Come to sleep,” Remus murmured.

“I am,” whispered Sirius.

“Good. No more barking now, Snuffles.”

Sirius smirked. “Woof,” he whispered, and he licked Remus’s forehead playfully.

“You’re not really a dog Sirius,” Remus murmured, “Keep your tongue in your mouth.”

Sirius laughed.

Suddenly the doors to the ward opened and a gust of chill air from the hallway flurried in. There was a rush of people - Dumbledore and McGonagall, Sirius recognized even in the dark, and they were carrying someone between them and there was a third person - in a long wool coat and wild auburn hair that Sirius could only just see through the dark… “Bring - bring her here… I’m sorry to bother -- I can’t do it myself… just, uh, just please. I - I told her I wouldn’t leave her. Please.”

Sirius sat up, not caring that he’d been hiding under the invisibility cloak - not caring that Pomfrey had kicked him out hours ago. “Mr. Scamander!”