Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognize belongs to me. If it did, well…there would be a few changes in my life, wouldn't there?
The four of them woke early the next morning, each of them anxious about the coming lessons. They trooped down to the Great Hall and sat down at the Gryffindor table. Professor McGonagall was pacing up and down the table, handing out schedules to the Gryffindors.
James looked at it curiously then slumped back on the bench. "Double potions with the Slytherins, first thing in the morning… rotten luck,"
Sirius nodded slowly while Remus read the next one.
"Defense Against the Dark Arts after that…. paired up with the Hufflepuff…" he muttered "Then History of Magic."
"Well, that'll be fun…" Sirius said sarcastically. Even the first years knew that History of Magic was the dullest class. The professor was old and never changed his lesson plan. It was always lecture, but his voice droned on so that nobody paid attention.
Remus knew that History was important. After all, if you don't know the mistakes made in the past how will you be sure not to make them again?
"It might not be that bad, they probably just don't like History." Remus said hopefully.
Sirius looked at him in disdain, "Remus, the whole school said that!" he exclaimed.
James had been watching this ordeal from his seat at the table, "Let's just go to Potions," he said quickly, trying to avoid conflict.
Peter stood up immediately, and waited a moment while Remus sighed, then the four of them headed off for their first lesson. The castle was not only enormous but very confusing. There were hundreds of staircases, and most of them had some trick about them: vanishing stairs and the like.
"It's like the people who built this place were trying to confuse us…" James complained as they wandered the halls. They had asked directions of a ghost a few minutes earlier, but he had ignored them and walked away so now they were truly confused. "We should draw a map… once we figure out where anything is…" he added.
Sirius was gazing around the castle stupidly, looking down halls and up dangerously high staircases. "We should," he agreed. He and James thought along the same lines almost all the time.
Remus looked down a dark set of stairs and said "I think I heard somebody say that Potions was in the dungeons." James took his advice and turned down the stairs.
Peter was huffing and puffing already, complaining every once and awhile until one of them told him to shut up.
"This…is too…many…stairs!" he puffed.
The three boys that weren't out of breath glanced at him then shouted "SHUT UP!"
Their words echoed off the dank walls well enough for them to understand that they were coming up to the end of the corridor.
There, at the end of it lay a door, a not very clear door, but a door. Sirius pushed it open and muttered "Finally,"
He walked inside with three boys following him. They had reached their potions room.
It seemed that everything in this castle was made out of some stone of another, and the whole room was not an exception. There was even a stout stone statue of an older man in the front of the room.
Sirius walked up to it and poked its ear.
"Hey there!" the statue barked. Sirius jumped and stared, open mouthed. The statue had just spoken to him.
"Oh, um… Sorry, I-we were looking for the Potions room…" Sirius babbled stupidly.
James saw this whole thing and while finding it extremely funny, decided to go help Sirius out. "Hello," he said warmly, "Are you the professor?"
The statue laughed at James' attempt at manners, but answered "Oh, no. You've reached the Room of Expectation. You expected a dark, creepy Potions room and professor, and that's what you got!" it said cheerfully.
Remus looked at the thing knowingly, "Excuse me, sir? Could you tell us where the Potions room is?" he asked quietly, James didn't understand this kid. Why was he so bloody nervous?
The statue beamed, "Why, of course I can! You just go back up the stairs and three doors down on the left, there's some stairs in there, go down them, you'll end up in a tunnel, go down that, you'll end up here, then go out the door, and into the one you missed when you came here!" he said simply.
Sirius frowned, "Wait, we missed a door?" he asked.
Remus gave Sirius a 'duh' look, then thanked the statue and made his way to the door that was, indeed, right there in the open. Peter was completely clueless, and didn't know or care what had just happened.
"Congratulations to you all, for finding my class!" a voice boomed from the front of the room they had just entered, "I am professor Slughorn, Potions extraordinaire. Welcome!"
The class went as well as could be expected. It was pretty much an introduction day so they didn't really do anything. There were a number of dirty looks and smart remarks from the Slytherins, but Slughorn pretended not to notice. Then they were done and headed off for Defense Against the Dark Arts.
This class was much easier to find, and passed almost the same as their first, then they were done for lunch, where they talked in more detail about drawing their map.
Their History of Magic class was a dull as they anticipated, and only Remus could pay attention enough to take notes, which Sirius and James said they would copy later.
Peter was still sort of in a daze. He was just as clueless as ever, and the other three had to wonder if he was always that way.
James and Sirius grew ever closer, and were talking like brothers by the end of the month. Remus had grown ever sicker and said something about visiting his mother then left without another word. He was back later in the week, and looked awful.
Sirius took one look at him and exclaimed "Merlin, Remus. What the hell happened to you?"
There were long gashes down his neck, and James was certain there were more under his robe, which Remus was taking careful measures to make sure covered as much of his arms as it could.
Remus looked nervous and said "My… my mum… She's sick, I told you." then rushed off to catch up on his homework.
Remus was brilliant, so he had no troubles getting back on track after he visited his mother, which he did frequently, each time looking more terrible than when he had left.
Sirius and James were suspicious by October when Remus said he was going to see her again, over Halloween, but since they were all reasonably good friends, they didn't say anything about it, even to each other. Peter, on the other hand, being the clueless little boy he was, didn't suspect a thing, which Remus seemed grateful for.
Even with their suspicions floating in their minds, the Halloween feast was wonderful. There were pumpkins floating all over, mysterious candles, live bats… everything. James had always had a knack for finding trouble, and Sirius thought that trouble of any kind was brilliant. So they staged a pumpkin war, where each house enchanted the pumpkins to fly into other table's occupants.
"Watch it!" James yelled at Sirius, who ducked just in time to avoid being hit in the head with a giant vegetable. He kindly returned the favor to the Slytherin table who returned it back to him, James and Sirius were both sending pumpkins at the table as fast as they could, with huge grins plastered on both their faces. Peter was still trying to get his first pumpkin to go where he wanted it, and probably would've figured it out sooner if everyone who had joined the fight hadn't seen him and pelted him with flying orange pumpkins.
Dumbledore had a grin almost as large as Sirius' and rushed down into the middle of the fight. Everybody froze the instant they saw him. Everybody except for James and Sirius, who hadn't seen him as they were still laughing as hard as they ever had. They feebly sent pumpkins at each other, making desperate attempts to dodge them and most of the time failing miserably. Dumbledore stood watching them for more than a few moments, then sent a pumpkin at each of them, who had still not seen him, and were both hit in the head.
"Oof!" they exclaimed at the same time. They looked furiously towards their attacker, then saw professor Dumbledore.
They dropped their gaze to the floor and stashed their wands away, Dumbledore was trying very hard not to laugh, then a great orange blob went flying, and Peter shouted "I Got It!"
There was a collective gasp, while Dumbledore wiped the goo off his face. Peter was petrified, his eyes wide open. There was a moment of silence then Sirius snorted in his attempts not to laugh. When James heard that he couldn't hold it any more. He burst out laughing. He was doubled over when he heard someone else join him and Sirius, professor Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts was laughing.
This was the best cue the rest of the school got. They laughed and started the pumpkin war all over again.
Lily Evans stood near the doors to the Great Hall, she couldn't believe her eyes; a pumpkin war. They were hitting each other… with pumpkins. She marched right into the middle of it and found James and Sirius to tell them how stupid they were.
Orange blobs were flying past James and Sirius, who were loving every minute of it, when James realized that someone was standing behind him. He recognized her out of the corner of his eye as Lily Evans. She was sort of a know-it-all.
More accurately, she was a short, very pretty know-it-all, with straight long auburn hair and emerald green eyes. James didn't dare turn toward her, but was about to ask her what she wanted.
Lily couldn't believe he was ignoring her, and was about to ask him what he though he was doing, when a giant orange blob went soaring through the air in her direction.
"Watch it!" James said, he put his hand on her waist and gave her a little shove. He had finally turned around towards her, which was very dangerous what with the pumpkin bombs in the air. His hazel eyes were bright with excitement. He was very handsome, Lily decided. James pushed his hand through his messy black hair, making sure it didn't lay any flatter than it had to.
They were being pelted with pumpkins. James dodging even the ones he didn't see. He just knew. Lily following his lead, sometimes requiring prodding from James. Soon Lily was laughing and sending pumpkins back toward the others, James was slightly in shock. Lily Evans, having fun? But he decided to keep her having fun as best he could. He had never seen it happen before and wanted her to enjoy herself.
They were working as sort of a tag team, facing each other, making sure that any pumpkin senders got a vegetable flying back at them. James wondered why the pumpkins didn't hurt but Lily knew.
"They're enchanted to be just perfect. Exactly how you want a pumpkin. Not mushy, but-"
"OI!" Sirius yelled in the middle of her explanation, "Play nice, Snivellus,"
He sent the very last three pumpkins in the Great Hall hurtling towards his least-favorite Slytherin, then strode up to James.
He threw an arm around both he and Lily's shoulders and said "That's the most fun I've ever seen you have, Lils," Lily cringed slightly at the nickname.
"Yeah," James said, "What's up?" he had a huge grin slapped across his face and was on the verge of laughing like a mad-man.
Lily had a huge smile herself. "Snivellus? Where'd that come from?" then she laughed her head off. She had a very nice laugh, James decided, not harsh but not giggly either.
Sirius was a little put off that this girl was laughing at him, but took it as a good thing. "I don't know, seems to fit him though, doesn't it?" he asked with an expression of pure innocence.
Then Lily stopped laughing and said "That's actually not very nice."
Her eyes were stern and her smile had dropped, unfortunately the two boys thought she was joking, and also unfortunately, they thought it was hilarious. It took them more than a few moments of her silence and their cackling to realize that she wasn't joining them. She had a hand on her hip and was staring them down.
"Come on, Lily-" Sirius said. James had stopped the instant he saw her, but Sirius was still suppressing the fountain of laughter.
"what?" she asked him sharply.
"Lily," James said quietly, "it was just a joke, you know we don't mean anything by it,"
Lily looked into his eyes, his perfect hazel eyes and sighed, "Well, I suppose he deserves it anyways." She said, defeated.
After that night, Lily had their friendship, and was very grateful for it. Her slightly know-it-all attitude towards school turned her away from many friends, but the boys did their best to make up for it. She was different around them. More relaxed. She knew she that didn't have to be on her guard. She was comfortable around them. They knew most of her secrets by the beginning of December, and she knew all of theirs. Well, almost all of them I should say. There was a secret the Remus kept and would keep from everyone, as long as he could.
A/N- I love the idea of a pumpkin war. Can't you just see Dumbledore jumping in on it?
Obviously, everybody has secrets that they don't tell anybody, but Remus was the only one who's secret that he kept was serious.
Love it or hate it, at least tell me why!
DANI