Chapter 18

"…Told Lily not to worry about it. 'Course, she doesn't know the whole story, or at least not from me. She was all ready to go storming back to Hogwarts when she got the note from Dumbledore; I managed to talk her out of it, but still… it'll be a scene when term starts again." Sirius sighed and rubbed his eyes wearily.

"I'm sure it will be. Not just because of Lily, either. Look, Prongs, I've got to go, I'm sure Ra is waiting for me. I'm late even by her relaxed standards." The head of his best friend nodded in the fire.

"Yeah, I should probably make sure everything's set for Evans, too. Have a happy New Year's Eve, mate. My mum and dad give their best, and I'll see you in a few days, yeah?"

"Yeah. Happy New Years to you too Prongs. G'night." Sirius heard a slight pop behind him as he turned away from the fire to face the Common Room, glancing around for the jacket he could've sworn he'd brought down from the dormitories. He had a date to get to.

"Oh come on, I even persuaded one of the portraits from the kitchen to pop over to the sweet shop in Hogsmeade to get you some of the chocolates off the labels. That has to count for something, right?" Rani paused in her apparent supplication to the Fat Lady as Sirius swung the portrait open to clamor out into the hallway of Gryffindor Tower.

"I thought we were meeting in the Hall?" he said, raising an eyebrow curiously.

"I figured I'd better make some sort of amends to the Fat Lady, so I came up to meet you," she said by way of explanation, jerking her head towards the painting, from which was emanating a muffled reprieve—or perhaps noises of contentment with the gift, it was difficult to tell. "Besides," she added in an undertone, "You never know when you—we—might want that one on our good side. Easy access, and all that." She grinned lopsidedly at him, and Sirius grinned back suggestively.

"Well then. On that note, shall we?" He held out his elbow to her in a grandiose gesture. Rani looked him up and down, sneered at the offered elbow, grabbed his hand instead and, sliding her fingers between his, started off towards the stairs.

"We shall," she agreed, casting him a sideways smile.

They lasted through one round of butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks before the sheer noise of the place drove Sirius and Rani out.

"Shall we try Madam Puddifoot's?" Sirius suggested halfheartedly. The evening hadn't exactly been filled with sparkling conversation—certainly nothing compared to the long discussions they'd shared when he was coaching Rani for her Keeper position. It was partly the fault of the noisy atmosphere, and partly because they had both become gradually stiffer the closer they'd gotten to Hogsmeade and an 'official' date setting. Now they were standing on the street, their hands relaxed in each other's grip but with ramrod straight backs and a wand's length of space separating them.

Sirius looked around at the lack of response from Rani and found her staring back at him with a look somewhere between horror and disgust on her face. "What? What is it?" he demanded, glancing over his shoulder to see what could possibly be eliciting her reaction.

"Madam Puddifoot's? Dear Merlin, and I thought you were one of the properly disreputable ones. Sirius Black, suggesting Puddifoots"—she snorted and shook her head—"I ought to tell James on you."

"Well, sorr-y," he huffed, "It's the place that all the—" He cut himself off and fell silent.

"All the other girls you've seduced want to go?" Rani finished for him, looking shrewd and tossing her mane of dreadlocks over one shoulder. "C'mon, Black, do I really seem like the tea shop type? I appreciate the gesture," she gave his hand a squeeze, "But let's head to the Hog's Head, shall we? I bet we can weasel a Firewhiskey out of the bartender." Sirius nodded and set off down the street in step with Rani, his initial confusion at her reaction changing swiftly to an appreciation of his luck.

The Hog's Head was sparsely populated in comparison to Madam Rosmerta's place, but still fuller than Sirius had ever seen it. There was the usual dodgy clientele, but it was mixed with a few recognizable faces and a fair number of Hogwarts hats and scarves. He was grateful to find a fire in the usually empty grate as he slid onto a stool at the bar, pulling out one next to it for Rani. The bartender seemed to be occupied at the other end, so the two of them settled in to wait.

"Word's getting out," Rani said in a low voice, bending her mouth near his ear. Sirius shot her a quizzical look. "About the Aurors. And—and Regulus… and me." She jerked her head towards a table of Ravenclaws behind and a little to the left of them. Sirius glanced over his shoulder as subtly as he could; the entire table was staring intermittently at the pair of them, looking away as soon as they were caught. Sirius turned back around and rubbed his eyes tiredly. As Regulus' brother he'd been attracting a certain amount of extra attention in the past week or so, and he knew that plenty of the children of Aurors had been experiencing the same since the Christmas attack.

"Have you been telling people?" he muttered into his palms.

"Of course I haven't!" Rani answered indignantly, not bothering to keep her voice down. "It's the damn Slytherins. They're fucking proud of it." She curled her lip in disgust. "The Daily Prophet hasn't helped matters either. There've been more skirmishes with Deatheaters they've been milking for all they're worth." Sirius shook his head. As though the fact itself wasn't hard enough on her. And everyone. "He wanted me to tell people, you know," Rani said after a brief silence, drumming her fingertips on the bar and looking at a point somewhere near the ceiling.

"Who did?"

"Dumbledore. He wanted me to spread it around. Said people ought to know." Sirius wrinkled his forehead, bothered by this piece of news.

"Did he? Well… I suppose he's right. It is Dumbledore—if we can't trust him, who else have we got?" Rani made a noncommittal noise in her throat.

"I dunno. I don't like it. And he seemed… worried. Really worried, but he wouldn't entirely let on. This 'Dark Lord' rubbish… seems like there's really something to it now, doesn't there." It was a statement, rather than a question, and Sirius was left with no other response but to nod morosely. He had hoped to keep Rani from brooding for at least a few hours tonight, but she'd been nearly as bad as her brother for the past couple days. With good reason—Kingsley was taking the betrayal of his best friend just as hard as might be expected. Still, the evening was beginning to take a positively downward turn. He glanced around for the bartender again, thinking some sort of alcohol might perk them both up, but he was nowhere in sight now.

"What in the name of Merlin's left testicle does a guy gotta do to get some Firewhiskey around here?" bellowed a particularly drunken, older wizard as he lurched up to the bar not far from where they sat. He was not the only one beginning to get disgruntled; mutterings up and down the place had started to escalate, and still no sign of the owner of the pub that had been so attentive to Sirius the night he had run for help for Rani.

"Do you want to leave?" Sirius asked Rani, as she was jostled on one side by a rather large witch and on the other by a pair of rowdy fourth years that had decided to join the gathering crowd.

"No, I really want a drink," she answered, "I'll bet you anything old Aberforth is in that back room of his, doing some sort of dodgy deal." She glanced up and down the bar, and a little glint came back into her eye. "Dare you to snag a handle."

"What?"

"A handle. Of Ogden's Olde."

"Firewhiskey?" She nodded. Sirius stared at her for a minute, then started to grin. "Only if you provide a distraction. I'm sure it's spelled against Accio charms; I'll have to grab it by hand." Rani flashed him a devilish look.

"Deal. I'm sure I can manage some sort of diversion. Meet you outside in ten minutes?" Sirius gave her a cheeky wink in response and eased off his barstool, trying to melt into the modest-sized crowd around them. He glanced back over his shoulder as he edged towards the end of the bar, curious as to what sort of diversion Rani would manage. His look back was just in time to see Rani stand and lean around the wizard in front of her, deliver a swift punch to the kidneys of the wizard standing next to him, and then duck down as the wounded man gave a roar and swung around in search of his assailant.

It was instant mayhem. Rani was laughing as she crouched beneath the lip of the bar, observing her handiwork as the punches started flying, closely followed by jinxes.

Sirius stood with his mouth open for about two seconds before he composed himself, dropped to his knees and hastily crawled behind the bar. Aberforth was a shrewd enough barman that he knew the dispositions of his patrons tended towards the more thieving, but very few in the wizarding world expected any attack that was not magical. So, instead of bothering with his wand Sirius simply reached up, groping for the glass bottle of Ogden's Olde he knew to be on the lower shelf.

No sooner did he remove the handle from its place than a wailing noise began, loud enough to pierce the ears of anyone within twenty yards, theoretically deterring any sticky-fingered Hogwarts student whom might be after the liquor. Not a Black, however. The brawlers barely looked up at the noise, but he didn't wait around to see if and when Aberforth would emerge to reclaim his property. Sirius bolted with the Ogden's, pausing only long enough to slip the money he'd had at the ready ever since Rani suggested this stunt beneath the edge of the cashbox on the way out.

"One of us," Rani declared with a slur, "Is going to get frostbite. This is ridiculous."

"Nah. You can't possibly get frostbite when you're this warm and… fuzzy on the inside." Sirius put his hands to his flushed cheeks, imagining he could feel their warmth through his gloves. In reality his fingers were probably too numb to feel much of anything. Rani actually giggled.

"Fuzzy on the inside. That would feel rather odd, wouldn't it? Your intestines would be cuddly." They looked at each other in silence for a second, then burst out laughing, nearly falling off the fence they perched on. The Firewhiskey was buried at their feet in the snow, half empty.

"We should go explore," Rani declared abruptly as their chortles subsided.

"Where?" Sirius replied, with a slight hiccup. Rani jerked her head at the ominous building looming on the hilltop behind them.

"There, silly. The Shrieking Shack. I've always wanted to go in, but I never managed to convince Andy. It'd be wicked creepy. And possibly warmer," she added as an afterthought. Even in his drunkenness Sirius blanched at the suggestion. His thoughts flashed to Lupin, and he shook his head.

"Mmm. Doesn't sound that interesting to me."

"Why not?" It was the first time Sirius had heard Rani speak in a tone that resembled a whine, and he raised his eyebrows at her. She pursed her lips in a pout, but kept slipping up and nearly grinning so that her mouth merely looked as though it were twitching. "I always sort of wanted to have, like, a concert there."

"A concert?" She nodded unsteadily and adjusted her grip on the railing before answering.

"Guitar, you know. Stuff doesn't work around Hogwarts, but if I got some blokes together, came out here, and sort of commandeered the Shrieking Shack… Nightclub style, you know. It'd be quite awesome, wouldn't it? Shenanigans at the Shrieking Shack: Come prepared to scream your head off." Sirius tilted his head to one side, considering.

"One," he said, attempting to scoot closer and causing the fence to wobble dangerously instead, "It is incredibly sexy that you play guitar, and I demand a personal concert in the near future. Two," here he started snickering and was unable to stop, "Your concert title sounds rather like a Muggle porno." She opened her mouth indignantly, then relented.

"Alright, fair enough. Though how you know the titles of Muggle pornos I do not want to find out. But I still say we go explore—c'mon, it'll be an adventure!"

Sirius pulled a disgruntled face, scooting closer still. "I want to celebrate the New Year in the traditional way," he insisted, raising his eyebrows suggestively. She wrinkled her nose, the sapphire stud of her piercing glinting in the moonlight.

"Traditional?"

"Yeah. Isn't there something about kissing at midnight?"

"Oooh." Rani broke into a grin, her adventuring temporarily forgotten. "Well, I suppose that would be sort of wicked too…" She trailed off as the two of them leaned closer. Their lips were less than an inch apart when Rani suddenly lost her balance, pulling Sirius down as they fell backward into the snow.

"Oooow," she groaned, feebly sitting halfway up.

"Are you alright?" Sirius asked anxiously, struggling to sit up himself. Rani stared at him, and for a minute Sirius thought she'd seriously injured her head. Then she started to giggle again, the slow amusement of one who is completely sauced.

"The snow… It looks as though you're St. Nick!" She started to cackle, rolling in the snow as though making some sort of demented angel. Slowly Sirius began to laugh again too, and the two of them huddled in the frigid damp of the snow, howling with mirth. Gradually, slowly, their laughter died. Sirius looked at Rani, soaking wet, her eyelashes crystalline with melted snowflakes and her hair a mess beneath its woolen cap. She stopped chuckling and looked back at him, the smile fading from her lips. Sirius leaned forward and kissed her.

It was quite a nice kiss, warm and wanton and completely forbidden, out there in the frigid yard of the Shrieking Shack. All in all, it was a fine way to bring in the new year. But Rani yelped as Sirius put pressure on her ribs and he pulled back, putting space between them.

"Sorry!" he exclaimed guiltily. She didn't answer, just lay where he'd left her, staring at the stars and holding her ribs. Her face had lost all expression as she blinked upward.

"I wonder what Mum and Dad are doing. And Kings. And Regulus," she said, almost inaudibly. Even in a sober state, Sirius would not have known what to say to that. He could only sit and wait, watching her and absentmindedly tracing the outline of her mitten in the snow.

"Sirius," Rani said, after a long silence. Her eyes were half closed in a drowsy sort of way as she finally turned to look at him. "Can we go home now?"