Picking New Subjects
The second-years were given something new to think about during their Easter holidays. The time had come to choose their subjects for the third year – a matter that Gryffindor house's resident bookworm, Remus Lupin, took with a strangely melancholic seriousness.
Confused and worried, a thoroughly anxious Peter Pettigrew sat reading the subject lists with an ever growing pile of empty sweets wrappers by his side, asking people which subjects sounded easiest. Mary Macdonald, a pretty and friendly but rather average Muggle-born student, ended up following a similar route, crossing Arithmancy and the Study of Ancient Runes off as definite no's. The vivacious and popular (not to mention, clever and talented) Lily Evans had signed up for the same classes as her best friend. That friend happened to be a particular sallow and greasy dark-haired Slytherin, so naturally this was done to the great annoyance of her bespectacled male housemate with the insufferably inflated head.
Young Sirius Black, quite possibly the most notorious – most handsome – most notoriously handsome boy ever to step through the huge oak doors of Hogwarts Castle, was sent feet of meticulous copperplate to ignore. The contents primarily comprised of warnings and not-so-thinly veiled threats on what the precious Black heir – who most of his family vainly chose to believe was going through a fleeting phase of boyhood rebellion – was and was not allowed to take. His mother had actually sent him (yet another) Howler. It was as if they had all suddenly forgotten that he took great personal pleasure in doing the exact opposite of what they told him to do. Muggle Studies? HELL YES!
James Potter's primary concern was, predictably, Quidditch. He'd been the only second-year to make a house team last term – a statistic which he was nothing more than humble about, of course …
Yes, Quidditch was the only thing that James felt he really cared about. In the end, he chose the same new subjects as Sirius, feeling that if they turned out to be rubbish, at least he'd have someone with whom he could terrorise classmates in their boredom.