Author's Note: Note that this is a side fic for "October" and if you aren't a decent way through that you'll be hopelessly confused.
"This class is bollocks," Sirius, in the library, threw his book down, and appeared to give up entirely, "I thought it was supposed to be about motorcycles."
James looked at his own essay as well as his own text book, one of the dozens that Professor Riddle had passed out, with the claim that nothing in the library would likely be useful so they'd better come to his classroom or office if they needed anything, and let out his own long-suffering sigh.
"Guess it wasn't," James muttered rubbing a hand across his face and then sharing a long-suffering look with Sirius, "If this is my first A then I swear to Merlin I'll have to kill myself if my parents don't do it first. Muggle Studies, you think it'd be easy."
"Does anyone even like this class?" Sirius asked and then both turned and found themselves staring at Arthur Weasley, with his own stack of books in the library, who had gotten way into the class for anyone's good. Merlin, he'd even started dressing like a muggle.
"Yeah, well, besides that freak," Sirius muttered under his breath.
"Lily does," James said, almost defensively.
"Well, sorry James, but your hell-flower's a bit of a nerd," Sirius said almost apologetically, "And we all know she has bad taste, she hangs out with that greasy Slytherin Snivillus all the damn time."
They both stared silently at Arthur Weasley, digging through text books, writing with reckless abandon that only comes from someone who gives a shit what they're writing about…
Suddenly, Sirius snickered, "Watch him become the first Muggle Studies apprentice,"
James balked over at his best friend, "Oh, come on now…"
"No, I'm serious, he's like, less terrifying Riddle junior. Or like, if Riddle was a ginger puppy. I mean it's that or what… starting some useless branch in the ministry that no one takes seriously."
"What like… Muggle Transportation Regulation?" James asked but Sirius, dark eyes shining, beat him to it like always.
"Misuse of Muggle Artifacts! Watch him spend his life…" Sirius broke down laughing, covering his mouth with his hand and trying to avoid the glare of the librarian, "Watch him spend his life chasing down runaway toasters!"
And James started laughing too, desperately covering his mouth and trying to stifle the noise, failing miserably even as Arthur looked up from his notes and across from them, brow furrowed and blinking in confusion while Sirius and James just waved to him.
Nothing to see here, Arthur, just picturing you middle aged, running down the street as a ministry bureaucrat, trying to catch that stupid toaster before it tears through all of bloody London.
Thankfully, luck was on their side, and the librarian had only glared at them slightly, giving James enough time to calm down and say to Sirius, "You, are going to get us thrown out, asshole. And I still have a bloody paper to finish."
"Right," Sirius said, "What's yours on, anyways?"
"I already bloody told you," James said and then looked down at the title of his paper, "It's on… some bloke named Karl Marx."
"Oh, what'd he do?" Sirius asked.
"I have no bloody idea," James said blinking, "Think I might have slept through that lecture… Do you think Riddle will buy it if I say he invented some kind of cheese?"
"Prongs, if you slept through the lecture why don't you pick a topic that you didn't sleep through?" Sirius asked.
"That the trouble, mate," James said with a sigh, "Think I might have dozed through all of them, it's like bloody History of Magic, except, you know, if Binns was terrifying."
James gave Sirius' rather empty paper a significant look, "What's yours on then?"
"Easy," Sirius said with a grin, "Jesus bloody Christ."
"Jesus Christ… Wasn't he a wizard?" James asked but Sirius was shaking his head.
"No man, the muggles are all about him, I remember Riddle saying that much… And he's all over these books. I'm telling you, with this topic, I'm golden."
Well, damn, James really had picked a bloody stupid topic then.
"Think I can write about Jesus Christ?" James asked.
"No! Get your own topic," Sirius scoffed before motioning to James paper, "Stick with cheese guy."
James didn't want to bloody stick with cheese guy, especially since he probably didn't make cheese, "Well what have you got for Jesus then?"
Sirius looked down at his paper, "Jesus Christ was very important in muggle history, one might say he's the most important person in muggle history."
James waited, then waited some more, then blurted, "That's it? That's all you've got?"
"Well, it's better than what you've got," Sirius said, "I, at least, have a sentence, and an actual important muggle topic thing."
"When's this paper due?" James asked, but he already knew it, it was due by tomorrow. Merlin, they'd procrastinated hard on this one. But there'd been quidditch, and hanging out with the gang, and a full moon had happened and… He'd just had too much shit to do to even worry about muggle studies.
James looked up, caught himself looking at Arthur again, and gave Sirius a significant glance, "Come on."
They walked over until they were hovering over Arthur's shoulder, casting shadows over his paper. Arthur blinked, his weird muggle quill (the kind that apparently didn't need to be dipped in ink all the time, something he called a pen) paused over the page, and he looked up towards Sirius and James, "Oh, hello, um… Can I help you with something?"
"Look, mate, you're really good at this Muggle Studies business and Sirius and I are totally stumped," James said, "What's your paper on."
"Oh, cryptography," Arthur said.
"The bloody hell is cryptography?" Sirius asked, and James would have too, because he was pretty damn sure they'd never talked about whatever the hell that was in class.
"It's essentially the study of encoding things and decoding them," Arthur said, stretching and setting down his pen, before adding, "It was very big in the muggle second world war, well, before Ubik ground the war to a halt out of nowhere."
"So that's what your paper is on?" James pressed and Arthur nodded.
"Well, it's on the importance of codes during the second world war, I mean, what we've got from the muggle declassified materials. I suppose in the end it doesn't matter all that much, but I think it would have been a very large deal, you know, if Ubik hadn't intervened." Arthur said before blinking and then asking, "What are your papers on?"
"Jesus Christ," Sirius quickly blurted out.
"That's… a large topic," Arthur said after a moment.
"Karl Marx," James said and Arthur looked slightly more enthusiastic about that.
"Oh, I was talking with Lily Evans earlier, and I think she's writing about Lenin. You should talk to her about it." Arthur said, gesturing and smiling, like James had any bloody clue what he was on about.
"Right," James said, "I'll have to do that."
It'd be good excuse to talk to her, course, she'd probably just throw a book at his head again.
"Right, well, we'd better get back to it," James said before clapping Arthur on his shoulder, "See you tomorrow then."
Arthur just cheerfully smiled back and began to gather all his papers and books leaving James and Sirius to smile blandly after him.
"We're going to fail this paper, aren't we?" James asked.
"Yup," Sirius said, "But I know what class I'm not taking next year."
"Right," James said, "Next time, you and I are taking divination."
(Neither could find themselves surprised, when, years later, Arthur became the first Muggle Studies apprentice.)
Author's Note: Written for the 1500th review of October by Smalker13 who asked for an in depth study of a student besides Lily whose life has changed due to Muggle Studies... So I guess we have nerdy Arthur here, who isn't chasing rogue toasters.
Thanks for reading, reviews are appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter