A/N: Beware, I'm on a publishing rampage! I'm not sure if this will go further or what, leave me a review and let me know how you like it. I've always been interested in the Marauders, so this is just a little branchild, very petite.

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A Rat's Tail: A Very Average Breakfast

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"They just had sex," Sirius said, eyes glinting.

"What?" I was completely bewildered. Sirius was absolutely deranged.

All was right in the world.

"You are so, completely, mentally unhinged," Remus replied, punctuating each word with a pause, sparing me the need to respond.

"No, look," Sirius insisted, practically pointing at James and Lily as they meandered in to the hall. I watched them, unable to see his supposed point. They were holding hands as they walked, and Lily was leaning in to James ever-so-slighty. They were both smiling (James rather goofily) and they looked to be in their own little bubble.

There was absolutely nothing discernibly unusual about the situation.

"I see nothing," Remus said, looking at me for confirmation. I nodded, shrugging. As usual, Remus was thinking the exact same thing that I was, and Sirius wasn't thinking at all.

"You know," Remus began, and from his tone of voice I knew he was going to start hypothesizing about something. "Sometimes I wonder, Sirius—"

"Padfoot," Sirius hissed, but Remus ignored him, continuing.

"Sirius, sometimes I wonder if you're actually completely insane, or if your brain is just on a totally different wavelength than ours and you are, in reality, a genius."

There was silence for a moment as we all tried to digest this piece of information.

And then: "Here come the newly deflowered couple," Sirius announced. Remus sighed. James and Lily walked up to the table.

"Hey guys!" James said, and we all winced. You could practically feel the exclamation point in his sentence.

"Hey," Lily said too, as they slid, almost shyly, in to seats across from Sirius and Remus.

Remus and I looked at each other.

"Genius," Remus mouthed, while I shook my head emphatically and drew my fingers across my throat in the universal death motion. Obviously Remus missed the memo on that, though, because he proceeded to announce. "Genius!" In a normal tone.

"Sirius, you're a genius!"

"Padfoot," Sirius muttered around a mouthful of egg, and then nodded at Remus. "Thanks, Moony, I always knew you'd come around." He stood up, stepping up on to the table.

Lily, looking upset, tugged ineffectively on his trousers. She could sense what was about to come. "Sirius, get down," she hissed frantically.

We knew it was all over when he opened his mouth. Remus looked stricken, frozen with panic at the monster he'd created. "Remus Lupin has officially proclaimed me as a genius," Sirius announced casually to the great hall at large, "for correctly deducing that James Potter and Lily Evans officially consummated their future marriage this past night."

He sat back down, where he was abruptly hit in the face by three oranges thrown with deadly accurate aim in quick succession.

"YOU ASS!" Lily cried in a hushed shriek, bright red, and looking as if she was torn between tears and an utterly insane rage. "You completely insensitive ass!"

She stormed off.

"Maybe she's Catholic," I suggested.

"Too bad," Sirius said. "That means she's probably pregnant."

James looked confused. "I'm confused," he said.

"You're girlfriend's pregnant," Sirius supplied helpfully. "You should probably marry her."

"What's Catholic?" James asked.

"A religion," Remus explained. "Sirius—"

"Padfoot."

"Whatever," Remus sighed. "How do you even know what a Catholic is? And that they don't use contraceptives?"

"What's a contraceptive?" James looked, if possible, even more confused. "I'm confused," he said again. Everyone ignored him.

Sirius looked at Remus as though he were speaking Greek. "Yeah, whatever."

"Why is Lily pregnant?"

It was my turn to sigh. I turned to James, who was looking rather plaintive. "She's not. Sirius thinks you guys are having sex and so he is making you uncomfortable by suggesting she's pregnant. Probably, you should follow her and comfort her right now, because she looked a little upset by his whole 'let's announce my theory to the great hall' thing."

"So Prongs, spill. Did you or did you not start have sex with Lily last night?"

"Dude," James said. "Remember that really huge fight we had in fifth year?"

There was a pause as we all looked at him curiously, wondering where he was going with this. Remus voiced all our thoughts. "Which one?"

"You know, the one involving Snivellus," James said, with a hint of a sneer.

Sirius shook his head. "Naw, man."

"Yes, so?" Remus prodded.

"Oh, right, well that was the first time we had sex," James said.

"What?" Sirius actually looked shocked. "What?"

"You slept with Lily in the fifth year?" Remus's mouth was gaping. "How? Where? When?"

"You didn't tell us!" Sirius demanded.

James looked awkward. "It wasn't really planned," he said. "It wasn't how I wanted it to be—romantic and stuff, you know, like, for her. It was, well, it was angry. Besides, I knew it probably wasn't going to happen again or whatever, so I decided to just kind of wait it out."

"Let me rephrase," Sirius said icily. "You had angry sex with Evans and you didn't tell us!"

"I'm telling you now," James protested, just as I said, "I knew it."

"How?" Remus demanded.

"They didn't fight for like three weeks afterwards," I said. "She avoided him like the plague, and James moped and mooned even more than usual. She'd never done that before after their other fights, and they had blowouts like that at least every week."

"Your name should be Moony instead've Moony's," Sirius said, "because of the way you mooned after Evans for six years."

James turned red. "If you ever call me Moony, especially in front of Lily, I am telling every fourth year Hufflepuff that you have a massive crush on them."

Sirius went absolutely white. "Fine, but I'm suspending best mate privileges for two hours because of your unfaithfulness to our promise to always tell each other everything."

"What!" James mimed horror, while mouthing at me "what does that even mean?" I shrugged, and Sirius looked suitably smug, and continued eating his breakfast.

"So, Sirius," Remus began, after a moment of silence.

Sirius looked up from his pancakes. "I have decided I will no longer respond to the name of Sirius," he said calmly to the group at large. "From now on, if you wish to speak to me, you must call me Padfoot."

"That's a rather dramatic measure," James noted.

"Dramatic times take dramatic measures," Sirius sighed. I hid a smile.

"I think the phrase you're looking for is drastic times take drastic measures," Remus corrected in a self-suffering sort of way.

"Sorry, who messed up that phrase?" Sirius asked.

Remus rolled his eyes.

"Wormtail," Sirius segued smoothly. "Got a lot of work this afternoon?"

I shrugged noncommittally. I had a ton, but I wasn't about to be left out of whatever Sirius was planning.

"Feel like a trip to Honeydukes? I feel like that witch statue has been lackin' some lovin' of late." He winked suggestively.

"Hey," James complained. "I want to go as well, why didn't you ask me?"

Sirius sniffed at him. "Best mate privileges are currently inactive. We won't even get you anything." James looked so pitiful that he hastily amended that statement. "Well—not much, anyways."

James grinned.

"Moony, don't you want anything?" Sirius asked, too-casually.

Remus looked blank.

"Moony?" Sirius prodded, looking at Remus.

"Sorry, who's Moony?" Remus asked. "My name is actually Remus." He stuck out his hand as if to shake Sirius's.

James looked confused. I sighed.

Altogether, it was a fairly average breakfast.

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