Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/331787.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling
  Relationship:
      Marauders/Marauders/Others
  Additional Tags:
      Drabble_Collection
  Series:
      Part 9 of HP_Drabbles
  Collections:
      The_Quidditch_Pitch
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-02-02 Chapters: 4/4 Words: 720
****** Drunken Lullabyes ******
by Cluegirl
Summary
     A series of drabbles featuring the Marauders, and various others.
***** The Day He Asked the Question *****
Sirius always believed days like this ought to be cloudy. Thunder should pound
the heavens for emphasis while the rain bucketed down in blurry torrents. They
should be howling, scream-drowning gales, beansidhe winds and hail with frogs
in, not gently spring and sunshine with dandelions lazing about the breeze.
When the world ended, you ought to know it. You ought to have proof. It
oughtn't to look just like every other day. The shadow fell across his bared
flank, blocking out the sun and giving him a sudden wash of gooseflesh. He
didn't look. Smell told him who it was before his poor, crippled hope could
even twitch. James sat next to him, ghosted a calloused hand across his back in
achingly familiar comfort.
"Talk," his best friend ordered gently.
Sirius curled into him suddenly, hiding his face from the obscenely beautiful
day. "Remus..." he sobbed, "Remus told me no!"
***** They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is
no one who does good -- not even one. *****
"Look, I'm not saying you're wrong, alright?" Lupin, with the deliberate care
of the extremely drunk, set the empty bottle in the air next to the Astronomy
Tower's wall. He did not notice when it fell. "I'm just saying it's a bit mush,
innit? I mean it's a whole bloody quar'r of the stun't population you're
talking about, innit? I don't see how they could all be rotters."
"Are." Sirius insisted, sprawled flat out and naked under the stars.
Beside him, James nodded emphatically. "Hagrid tol' me "dere en't a witch or
wizard what went bad as din't come from Slibberin, Jamie." An you know Hagrid's
too bloody thick to lie, so where's my trousers?"
"Fecking Slyvverins..." said Sirius, then belched, "Always smirking at your
hairstyle and then nicking yr answers off the transfiggerations review. They
should all go to Afka -- Arsekebab. Nowait. S'not it."
"Azkaban, you fucking blockhead," Peter muttered, sober and hot-eyed from the
stairwell where he kept watch against the prefects. But as usual, none of them
paid him any mind.
***** Fair's Fair *****
"Hey Petester!"
He cringed, pretended not to hear, James still came into the broomshed, "So
this is where you've been hiding out!"
"L-leave me alone," he sniffed, "I'm busy."
Silence, considering, then James sat down next to him. "Pete, that's Sirius's
broom."
"I know." He knew his cheeks were burning. Then James tugged down his collar,
revealed the bite marks. "Er, I owed him," he tried, "Lost a bet."
"Oh Pete. Not the Doggie-style bet?"
He hung his head and remember how he had hated/loved it.
James sighed, took the broom out of his hands. "Well, nothing for it then.
We'll have to do the Library. Come on."
"What? Waitno!" He dragged his feet, trying to hide how his prick already
tented his weekend robes.
"Oh no," James replied, "if you gave Sirius the Doggy-style bet, then you owe
me a crack at the Public Place bet. Fair's fair, Pete."
***** His short tongue seemed to have a subliminal purpose. *****
There were a lot of things about him which simply didn't *fit*. His hands, too
long for the sleeves he could afford, his feet too dainty for the running he
needed them to accomplish, his legs too long for any one semester's robes, his
nose too...much. Even the wand he'd inherited was too short, and sparked
sullenly when asked to transfigure or charm. His temper too short, his manhood
held too cheap against the face of four (two hundred and four) more golden than
he.
But his tongue always leveled the field, didn't it? Found the armour-chinks and
sapped the defences with a subtle instinct that never needed facts to guide.
And who cared if he could outrun when he could goad such passion from those who
pursued? When it was he -- HE who could command their very worst into the
light, to reveal them all for the leaden dross they hid beneath their shine.
And when they bruised him, he wore the marks with a fierce sort of pride. And
when they taunted him, he fetched their monsters out into the sunshine, and
made them laugh and gibber like rabid apes for the crowd. And when they lay
their weakness like a trail of breadcrumbs through the woods, he followed them.
And ultimately, no matter what his broad, bladed tongue told of the matter, he
was actually not surprised at the monster he found.
Because, after all, it did rather fit, didn't it?
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