Beautiful

"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.

Alone in the hall, Peter waited.

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