"Hey Padfoot," James Potter emerged from the bathroom wearing
nothing but the towel wrapped around his waist. He was bent slightly forward,
rubbing his hair vigorously with a small hand-towel.
"Hey," Sirius said grumpily. He was lying flat on his bed,
staring at the ceiling. He hadn't said anything besides "sod off"
to Peter for over an hour.
"Um," Peter said, his voice thick in his throat. He perched
tensely on the edge of his bed, watching James with bright, hungry eyes.
James ignored him, but Peter didn't mind. It was a privilege for someone
like him even to be allowed to look at someone like James. He kept his
head down, pretending to read the book in his lap, peering up at James
through his lashes.
James was beautiful. He didn't have Sirius' streamlined, conventional
beauty, of course. James was all knees and elbows, a loose, carelessly
thrown together pile of limbs. But the easy grace with which he carried
himself was nothing short of breathtaking, and his angularity only seemed
to emphasize his long, elegant muscles, tense in his arms and legs, sliding
and rippling under the smooth skin of his back as the rubbed the last
drops of moisture from his hair. His torso was sculped of fluid lines
and planes, each one flowing harmoniously into the next, drawing the eye
lazily along the graceful arch of the neck and across the sloping collarbones;
over the round, pebbly nipples to the flat solar plexus; past the navel
and the subtly tilting hips; and down the fine trail of hair that disappeared
coyly under the towel.
Peter swallowed hard and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. He dropped
his eyes quickly as James gave his head one final, brisk shake and carelessly
tossed the hand towel on the floor. When Peter looked up again, James
was gazing at Sirius with an expression of thoughtful concern. Sirius
was still scowling at the ceiling.
"Wormtail, get lost, will you?" James said without looking
away from Sirius.
Peter knew better than to object. He picked up his book and walked toward
the door, fighting the hard, hot feeling of unfairness rising in his throat.
He closed the door on James, who was staring inquisitively at Sirius,
who was staring stubbornly at the ceiling.