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The Dancing Queen


Sirius would never have told anyone but the Disapparating class was the most terrifying thing he’d ever done. He was very, very glad that Frank Longbottom was in the class with him. If Frank hadn’t been, he probably would’ve chickened out for real and ended up waiting to go with James and Remus during the second term. But with Frank there it was a teensy bit better.

Even on the very first day, though, Frank was busy hanging about with Andy, Jackson, and Tobias, all of whom were in the class as well. Sirius couldn’t blame him, he knew if the tables were turned and the other Marauders were in the class that they would have accidentally overlooked including Frank, too, and so Sirius didn’t complain when, although Frank did his best to include Sirius with them, it wasn’t quite the same as Sirius had hoped.

Top it off, when the doors opened to the Great Hall and the examiners from the Ministry came in. Sirius nearly choked to see the stout, round figure of that toad of a woman, Dolores Umbridge, and a short, nervous-looking man who glanced about as they walked across the hall.

“Well shit,” Sirius had murmured, seeing her.

“What?” Frank had turned around to see what had made Sirius swear.

“That toad woman, she’s horrible,” Sirius had hissed, nodding toward where Umbridge now stood looking at a clipboard.

“Isn’t that the woman who gave the O.W.L.s and the N.E.W.T.s last term?” Jackson asked.

“Does she really look like a toad?” asked Andy.

“Toads are better looking,” Sirius replied.

The lot of them laughed.

But even as he laughed about her, Sirius couldn’t help but feel a bit unnerved by her presence. He could still feel her leaning over the desk and glaring at him and counting down his time to complete his Transfiguration O.W.L. over the summer in her office. He started sweating in his palms. What if she decided to do something like that to him again? What if she purposely taugh lt him how to do it wrong so that he ended up splinched? The idea of splinching made Sirius Black’s stomach knot up.

He had hoped she would go away once she’d had a quick look about. But there was no such luck as Umbridge stood at the front of the room being intimidating for the rest of the time, too, glancing over the students as they were commanded to grab two great big plastic hoops each from the back of the room and to spread out in the available space throughout the Great Hall and stand inside one of the two hoops.

Now it was the second class already and Sirius was dragging his feet through the entrance hall. He grabbed the two hoops from the stack of them by the door and went back to his spot in the center of the Great Hall, tossing down the two hoops.

The lessons themselves weren’t hard and Umbridge did seem to only be there for observational purposes. She had yet to speak during the class. Instead, the twitchy short man taught them the steps of thinking - deliberation - and turning with determination to reach their destination. They were supposed to be disapparting from one hoop to the other - which seemed a rather boring first disapparation experience, really, but the little fellow had been very adamant that the not try to disapparate anywhere else as Dumbledore had lifted the anti-apparition spell only partially and only in the Great Hall and if they tried to go out of it, it would be a very painful experience.

“Like hitting a cement wall!” warned the little wizard.

So far, two classes in, nobody had managed it yet.

“I feel like there’s got to be some trick to this that Professor Twycross isn’t telling us,” Frank said in the corridor when they left their second lesson. “You can’t tell me that we’re al just bad at it.”

Sirius wondered if it wasn’t the fault of that Umbridge woman being all intimidating.

But he still joined Frank and the other seventh year Gryffindors that night hanging about the fire in the common room, looking through a couple books on apparition that Tobias had pulled from the library that afternoon as they tried to find if there was anything more than “The Three D’s” to moving about from place to place.

Sirius really fancied being the first to figure it out, and he asked Frank if he could borrow the book and stayed up late into the night, reading it by wandlight while Remus fell asleep with his head in Sirius’s lap, muttering how backwards it was that Remus wanted to cuddle and Sirius wanted to read.




Like any good dog, the sound of crinkling paper made Sirius stir in his sleep ever so slightly. He shifted his weight against the pillow he was face-down in.

“Careful. He’s sensitive to that sound.”

“Of course he is.”

“That’s the wrong way, it has to go so that brown tape stuff is on the right.”

“Make sure it’s Side A.”

“Alright! There we are.”

There was a hissing as the stereo was turned on, the speakers empty for a moment… and then James pressed the play button Remus pointed out and the tape began to hiss as it was unspooledr and finally… music began to play.

You can dance
You can jive
Having the time of your life
See that girl
Watch that scene
Dig in the dancing queen

Remus, James, and Peter grinned at each other and turned to their attack.

With a great FWUMP the three of them landed on top of Sirius Black as the music blasted loudly, bouncing the bed to wake him up. “Wake up wake up wake up!” James yelled, bouncing the hardest of the three.

Friday night and the lights are low
Looking out for a place to go
Where they play the right music
Getting in the swing
You came to look or a king
Andybody could be that guy
Night is young and the music’s hiiiiigh

“It’s my birthday, what do I have to wake up for?” Sirius asked, then he heard the music, “What the fuck is this?” He sat up and stared at the stereo.

With a bit of rock music
Everything is fine
You’re in the mood for a dance
And when you get the chance…


“It’s ABBA,” answered Remus.

“Yes and shut up because your part is coming up,” James added quickly as the chorus started and all three of them started singing along with it, serenading Sirius.

“YOOOOOOOU ARE THE DAAAAAANCING QUEEEEEEN
YOUUUUNG AND SWEEEEEEEEEEET
ONLY --- SEVENTEEEEEEENNNNNN!!!
Daaaaaaaaaaaaancing Queeeeeeeen!
Feel the beet from the TAMBOURINEee - OoOh Yeeeah
Youuuuuuu can daaaaaa-aaaaaaance
Youuuuuuu can jiiiiiii-iiiiiiive
HAVING THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE
See that BOY
Watch that scene
DIG IN THE DANCING QUEEN!!”

Sirius laughed, “You guys are arseholes.” But he was grinning quite widely, watching as all three of them swiveled about, mocking some of Sirius’s more ridiculous dance moves and flailing their arms as they sang. “I should hex you all.”

“Go on and hex us then if you’re gonna do it,” James dared, “It’ll make the dancing look even more like yours!”

Sirius laughed and lunged at him, knocking him back and the pair of them wrestled, rolling right off the bed as the song continued on playing.

Downstairs, Frank Longbottom groaned and rolled over, the disco music travelling through the ceiling. He tugged a pillow over his head. “Bleeding Marauders,” he muttered.

Jackson Maw grabbed his wand and aimed it toward the ceiling, “Silencio.”

“Too bad that won’t work with the ceiling in the way,” murmured Andy Woodhouse from his bed.

“We really ought to soundproof their room,” said Tobias Clement.




All the boys in Gryffindor house had the song stuck in their head all day, and as they interacted with other students, humming the song as they went, it became rather contagious and soon the girls had it stuck in their heads and then it caught onto other houses and within just a few hours, at any given moment you could be walking down the hallway and hear Dancing Queen being hummed. Sirius laughed when Lily Evans turned up to Defense Against the Dark Arts humming it absently. “What?” she asked, “What’s funny?”

“You’re humming my song,” he announced.

“Your song?”

“Yes, the lads have given it to me just this morning.”

“Dancing Queen?” Lily asked - but even as she asked it, Sirius spun about on the ball of his foot, his arms out to his sides, grinning as his hair flew about him in a storm of black waves. She laughed, “I suppose it fits.”

“Youuuung and sweeeeeeet… only seventeeeeen…” Sirius sang merrily as he spun.

“He’s enjoying it a bit more than we reckoned he would,” James said, watching Sirius go.

Remus said, “I guess that serves us right for trying to annoy him on his birthday.”

Even Elphinstone Urquart had the song stuck in his head, though, and he came to class only a couple minutes late, humming away as he flicked his wand to close the doors to the room behind him. Sirius grinned about at the others.