Celestial | Sirius Black Love Story

Summertime with James pt. 2

A cold shower is excellent on the most stifling summmer days, but makes shaving your legs a considerable challenge thanks to one of the bodies more useless reactions; goosebumps. Should I perhaps have turned up the temperature to finish the task; yes. Did I? Of course not.

I towel dried my hair, whipped it out of my face, and looked disappointed into the mirror. Perhaps if I just got rid of the bags under my eyes. I'd leave the dark rings, just get rid of the puffiness. Or make my eyes just a little bit bigger. No.

I would not use my metamorphosis for vanity. It would be very easy, though.

I put on a thin black, short sleeved shirt, and a pair of brown corduroy shorts, which were my favourite because they were so soft. We had had an excellent day; James, Sirius, and I had awoken early to go fishing in the stream a small walk away from the house, and brought with us sandwiches for breakfast. When the sun became too warm, we sat down under the old apple tree in the garden and drank iced tea, and James fantasised about everything he wanted to do when he grew older. "Of course, I could always just become a quidditch player, they earn money by the bucket!" Which then led us on to play a game of quidditch, which carried us on along the afternoon and only stopped when rain began to fall hard and we heard the distant rumble of thunder. We had already dismounted our brooms when Euphemia had run outside to tell us to get out of the sky.

Someone knocked on the door, "Ollie, we're going soon!"

I sighed, unlocked and opened the door. James stood there wearing a nice printed shirt and corduroys. His hair looked wet in a way that convinced me that Euphemia had tried to make it lie flat using Fleamonts Sleekeazy hair potion. Instead of looking smart, his hair just looked wet and sticky. 

James rushed into the bathroom to put his head under the sink and wash out the hair potion.

"What time do you think you'll be back?" I asked.

The Potters were going out to eat with some family friends, and after insisting all day that they could just bring us along, or even cancel on their plans (!), Sirius and I convinced them that we would manage on our own for one evening. Now, however, my stomach twirled and fluttered and every now and then my heart would pound so hard in my throat that I almost jumped. Things had been more normal since Sirius came to us that evening, but we hadn't actually been alone for longer than a few minutes at a time, and those moments were often stiff and silent.

"James!" I said indignantly, "Stop drowning yourself for a moment."

James pulled his head out from under the sink, grabbed a towel and rubbed it with the extreme vigour of a four year old and the considerable strength of the sixteen year old he was. When he pulled the towel off his head, his hair stood up in all ends, and he looked in the mirror, "fixing it".

"I reckon we'll be back before too late, but the Beltals do like their drink, so maybe around one?" He finally answered.

"Are we convening in the bathroom?" Sirius walked in, too. I was suddenly aware that my dirty pair of knickers were on the floor, and hurried to pick up all my old clothes. As I stood up, I instinctively looked towards Sirius, to check if he'd seen, and found him watching me, and small smile playing upon his lips.

"The bathroom is the most private, and the cleanest room of them all. Perhaps we should convene more in bathrooms," James thought aloud, "Hark! Henceforth, all secret meetings concerning the Marauders shall be conducted in bathrooms."

"What a great idea, Prongs," Sirius said, "Because a bunch of people going into the same bathroom at the same time isn't dreadfully suspicious, especially considering one of them is a girl going in with a bunch of boys. We don't want anyone to think our dear Ollie is a lady of the night, do we?"