The morning Sirius and Lily were meant to go shopping for a birthday gift for Minnie, James cornered Sirius in the hallway of their flat.

"Oi, I need you to do me a favor."

Sirius raised his eyebrow. "Prongs, if it's to try to tone myself down so that Lilith is able to resist my magnificent, glorious self - you'll have to understand that I simply cannot turn all of this -" he waved his palms up and down the length of his torso, "- off. It's a deeply attractive animal magnetism that calls people of every gender to knock-knock-knock upon my door... I can't control it. I've tried, and it is just simply not possi--"

"Will you shut up? Blimey, you do talk a lot of hippogriff shit don't you?" James rolled his eyes.

Sirius grinned.

"Look, listen, be serious a -- no don't make the joke, alright? Be serious a second. Seriously."

"I'll - do - my - best," Sirius said slowly, trying to suppress himself, poorly.

James said, "Try to figure out what sort of -- of things Evans would like."

"Things?" Sirius's eyes twinkled.

"Stop - serious, remember? ...and yes, things. You know. For the house."

"Things for the house."

"Furniture and such."

"I have an idea, why don't you tell her about the house and let her furnish it with you?" Sirius asked.

"It's going to be a surprise," James replied. "But it has to be perfect."

Sirius sighed, "You know whatever you put in there, Lilith is going to adore it anyway. You could fill the place with rocks and she would say it was the merriest little place ever there was."

"Please?"

"Chairs made from thorny vines so that they went pricking you in the arse every time you settled yourself onto a surface," Sirius continued. "Lilith would find it charming."

"Sirius..."

"The floor, it could be molten lava, so that you needed to perform acrobatic feats each time you moved from one surface to the next - fly upon a trapeze to cross the living-dining room - and she would oooh and ahhh at the creativity of your brain...."

"Will you please just --"

"Or even - Merlin's nuts save us now - WICKER FURNITURE."

James stared at Sirius.

Sirius shuddered. "Wicker furniture, Prongs. Even that most terrible, horrid abhorrent affront to the art of furniture making... Lilith would still love it. Because you gave it to her."

"Are you finished?"

"Yes. I suppose I am."

"Good."

Sirius said, "You'll owe me for this."

"You're going shopping anyway, you're not stepping a toe out of line of what you'd be doing anyway. You're just reporting back to me," James argued.

Sirius sighed as though James was taxing him a very great deal. "Prongsy," he said, "I'll be made to look at CURTAINS."

Sirius kept his mission discreet, as requested -- for exactly five minutes.

"What do you think about these?" he asked, half wrapping himself in a display of full-length curtains on a display in the shop they'd gone into. He coiled the fabric around himself as he spun. "Are they fabulous?"

Lily laughed, "As what? A gown? Sure."

"No, Lilith, not as a gown," Sirius rolled his eyes and untangled himself, tripping on his boots and nearly ripping down the display as he staggered out from the fabric. Lily laughed and Sirius gave the curtains the finger, then turned back to her. "As curtains."

"I dunno, they're curtains." Lily shrugged.

"But do you think they're nice?" Sirius pressed.

Lily raised an eyebrow, "I dunno. Why do you care about curtains all of a sudden?"

Sirius shrugged. "Just because. You know. They're... there."

"Uh huh. Are you getting Professor McGonagall a nice set of drapes, then?"

"Bugger no," Sirius answered, "I'd never dream." He paused, then snatched up a tartan pattern fabric sample. "If I did, though, I'd definitely go with these."

Lily giggled. "Yeah, that'd be a safe bet with Minnie."

Sirius put the fabric down and followed Lily forward through the store. "What about - you know - these tables and such?" he waved a palm at a whole selection of dining room tables. "Aren't these fancy?" he put his hand on a gaudy dark wood table with carved pineapples on the seatbacks. "Reminds me of Costa Rica and my wedding pineapple."

"They're alright," Lily said slowly - thinking they were actually quite awful.

"You could go more modern." He pointed at an olive-green formica table set with pleather-cushion seats to match.

Lily made a face. "Gods no."

"Well come on, Lilith," Sirius whined, "Play with me here. If you were furnishing a house, what the bloody hell would you put in it?"

Lily looked at her watch. "Sirius, we haven't got all day - I think we should focus on Minnie's present."

"Okay but -" Sirius sighed. "Look, I just - I need your opinion on these things."

"Now?"

"Yes now."

"Why now? Are you and Remus thinking about getting a house?"

Desperate, Sirius blurted out, "Yes."

Lily looked shocked, "What? Really? Since when?"

"Since... since we talked about it and decided a house would be... great." Sirius replied. He turned and grabbed a ridiculous looking ornate lamp with great glass baubles hanging off it like it was trying at being a chandelier and just hadn't succeeded at it.

"I thought you liked living at the flat in East London?" Lily pressed. "And what about money? How are you lot going to afford it? With Rey going to school and all?"

"I make money," Sirius replied.

"I mean, yes, but not enough for a house."

Sirius shrugged.

"And what about James? He likes having you lot living at the flat."

"I mean - we can't all live together forever," Sirius replied, feeling heat rising up his neck.

Lily stared at Sirius. "Is this because of us getting married?"

"Me and you are getting married? My love, I do apologize but I am already wed."

"Sirius."

"Lilith."

She sighed, then stepped toward the sea of furniture to play along with his latest idiotic whims.

"You're a terrible liar."

Sirius leaned back against the wall, feet up on the metal rail of the stair, and took a long drag off his cigarette, then opened his mouth wide, letting the smoke drift blissfully away into the night. He stared at the tendrils as they rose, curling away toward the waxing moon above. "I am actually a brilliant liar," Sirius said. "It's a gift and a curse. But in this particular instance, my harem, it is not a gift I am using."

James sat on the top step beside Sirius, leaning against Sirius's legs. He was staring down into the alley, watching the muggle man from the restaurant below dragging his rubbish out to the dumpster. His arms hung over his knees, a cigarette lazily clutched between his fingers, burning but barely spent.

Sirius's was nearly gone.

"It was as though she heard our conversation earlier. Barreled right to it like a moth to flame. Absolutely wild about the stuff. She went on and on and on about how classic and lovely it was - all that wicker furniture - and how it was all she'd ever dreamed of owning."

James shook his head and flicker the ash off his cigarette.

"I, of course, pointed out how bleeding ugly that rot is. Its like living in a basket, I said to her, and I pointed out how horridly uncomfortable the stuff is - how you can't stretch out on the couch, so no snogging there, and how creaky the bed is. There will be positively no more uncreaky humping for you, my friend. You do the dilly-dong-dangle and you'll be a creakin' so loud the world will know." Sirius made a noise then that imitated bed springs. "Eeree-eet err-ree-eet!"

James waved to the muggle man below as he turned and spotted the boys in the stairwell and waved first. They didn't have much of a relationship with the man or his family, but the few interactions they'd had, the man had always been very friendly and cheery. James rather liked him. It was clear that he loved his family, and that they were close. It made James happy to think about.

Sirius was still making the bed springs noise.

James put his cigarette to his mouth, refusing to acknowledge Sirius's crude sounds, letting him tire himself out.

Finally, Sirius stopped, and silence fell over them.

"Actually," he said, "She had rather good taste."

James looked over his shoulder at Sirius.

"We'll go have a look and I'll show you what she picked out."

"Brilliant."

Sirius took another long drag from his cigarette, and when the plume of smoke had disappeared in the sky above, he asked, "How did you know I was lying?" His cigarette spent, he flicked the butt into the alley.

"Because you're a terrible liar," James answered. He held up his barely used cigarette and Sirius snapped it up, putting it to his lips. "So, did you get Minnie a gift?"

"Yeah, but it's not all that great. I really wanted to get her something special."

James yawned. "I'm sure she will love whatever you got her."

"A special tin, for her biscuits," Sirius said, "So she doesn't have to use the boring one they come in."

"Is it patterned with tartan?"

"Of course."

"She'll love it."

Sirius took a deep breath. "Yeah. She can serve all the Hogwarts delinquents biscuits during their detentions from it for years to come."

"And think of you, her favorite delinquent, every time."

Sirius grinned, "Yeah."

Minnie was thinking of her favorite delinquent at that very moment, though not because of her biscuit tin. She sat in her pyjamas, her hair braided and slung over her shoulder, peering across the desk at Regulus Black. They stared at one another as Regulus kept his arms crossed defiantly.

"This is the third time this week you've been caught out of bed and sneaking around this part of the school, Mister Black." McGonagall eyed him with suspicion. "What is it about the Transfiguration corridor has you so amused?"

Regulus shrugged.

McGonagall sighed. "I suppose you may tack on another detention with the others then."

Regulus nodded.

She frowned deeply. "Off to bed with you. And go straight there."

"Yes ma'm."

Regulus got up and McGonagll saw him out to the corridor, watching until he turned to go down the staircase. She shook her head, and turned back around as she went into her office.

There was silence.

Exactly one-hundred-and-one counted seconds later, Regulus Black ran silently passed, headed back to that mysterious dead-end corridor with the framed, empty painted background. Once there, he sat down, and stared up at the frame - waiting.