A/N: Okay... This chapter is a little bit longer, but I can't help it – I'm having way too much fun with these boys. So, even if this seems super dull, please just bear with me, okay? Also, I'm sorry if I make Lupin seem like a party pooper; it's just that they can't all be scatterbrained blockheads and unfortunately the job of being the mature one falls on Remus. Like... always. But that's how it goes. So... yeah. I apologise in advance.

English is not my first language.

Disclaimer: Marauders mine are not.
Beta: Beta I don't have.

James almost choked on his baked potatoes when Sirius told he had given Remus a massage in the library the day before. The two of them and Peter Pettigrew, a rat Animagus extraordinaire, were sitting in their usual seats at the breakfast table in the Great Hall, stuffing bacon, eggs and the aforementioned baked potatoes into their mouths as though they had never seen food before.

Lupin, for his part, was doing something Peter liked to call his 'alone werewolf time', but in reality he was chatting with his Muggle Studies professor in the corridor because apparently he had nothing better to do that early in the morning.

"Are you kidding me?" Potter coughed and tried to get the food out of his lungs. His eyes watered a bit as he managed a dry, "A massage? You mean like a backrub?"

"You gave Moony a massage?" Peter asked Sirius, who nodded like an idiot in response to the both of them. "Why?"

"I did." Sirius smiled contently at them. "It was magical."

Taking in the twitterpated look the bloke had on his face, James sipped some water from his glass, and continued, "Sure it was. This whole school is, imagine that." As Sirius didn't stop sighing, James shot a scowl at him. "Tell me, what step was that again?"

"Step?" Sirius asked, and after a moment of just staring at his best mate, he remembered. "Oh, a step!" He shrugged as he poured himself a glassful of juice. "It was the first one, I guess. Purgatory?"

"What blooming steps are you guys talking about?"

James stared at Sirius. "No, panegyric. Did you make a speech? Did you talk about your good qualities?"

Nodding eagerly, Sirius grabbed a handful of bacon from the plate and placed them neatly on his slice of toast. He smiled lopsidedly at James. "I tried, but as it turns out, I don't really have that many good qualities." Regarding the situation, his grin was way too wide. "I never would've guessed!"

"You could have made something up," Potter whined at him, pressing his palms on the table. "Like that you're great with old people, or you give money to charity! Anything!"

"Or that you give money to old people," Peter said. He selected the biggest chicken leg from the dish in front of him, and hoisted it onto to his plate. "Old people should have more money. Old people are brilliant. Just like... Dumbledore." He turned his eyes from the chicken leg to his friend. "But don't give money to him. I think he already has enough, and if he gets any more, he might turn into an egoistic lunatic."

Ignoring Peter, James stared at his best friend. "Did you at least say something which he could have taken as a good quality of yours? Anything at all?"

Sirius contemplated that. "I did tell him that I'm pretty?"

"Are you serious?" James asked with a lazy blink. "You're serious, aren't you? Oh lord."

"Oh!" Sirius pointed a finger up. "I did mention the fact that I make killer dungbombs! He was pretty impressed by that."

"That's it, everything's ruined," James groaned and rubbed his face with his bacon-greasy hands. His glasses hiked up on his nose and all the way to his forehead. "I should've just pushed you down the stairs."

Peter munched on his chicken leg.

On the other side of the table, Black frowned and huffed at James. "I couldn't help it, okay? He was staring at me with those gorgeous eyes. I wasn't able to concentrate on anything else besides him. And... Also... I got sort of super distracted when he started rubbing himself."

Peter inhaled the chicken leg he was gnawing and Potter shrieked something outrageously nasty about goblins whilst he smacked Sirius on the head with the full soup ladle he just had picked up. "I don't want to hear that!"

"Ah, it's not what you think!" Black yelled, trying to cover his head. "Stop hitting me with that, you bastard!"

"You're the bastard!" James shouted and tossed more soup on Sirius. "And can't you remember that I told you I don't want to hear anything about your sex crusades with the bloody bibliophile!"

At this point, everyone in the Great Hall basically thought Sirius was having a rather intriguing (and undoubtedly one-sided) love affair with Madame Pince.

"There are no crusades! And stop using those pompous words, Potter!"

"Pompous, my arse! How dare you!"

Apparently the situation didn't differ from a normal Marauder breakfast at all, since none of the professors bothered enough to even silence them. A few students had moved away from them once the curse words and food started flying, but other than that, the peace of the Great Hall was not overly disturbed.

"Stop smudging my hair with the soup, you wanker!"

"No, don't throw the bacon! DON'T THROW THE BACON! I can eat it, but don't throw it! No, Sirius, wait! Throw the bacon in my mouth! Aim at my mouth, you prat! Are you deaf?"

Whilst this was happening, Peter tried very hard to breathe. Granted, he had been choking on things since he was a little boy, so he knew his enemies, but damn that particular chicken leg was a tough one.

He scanned the room to find some sort of help, but before he could do anything drastic to save his own life, he saw something on the other side of the room. Naturally, being the good friend he was, he also tried to mention that something to his fighting mates, but failed for obvious reasons.

So, the only thing he could do was to flail his arms towards the double doors and wish that the twits next to him would be troubled enough to take a look.

Fortunately the twits did, and once they realised that Remus was walking towards the table, they stopped fighting. They didn't really want Lupin to cause a snappy werewolf scene in the middle of the breakfast.

Because, you know... That would be crazy.

Sirius tried to clear the courgette soup from his face and hair, but in vain. He glimpsed at Lupin and suddenly seemed to have a shocking epiphany. He quickly turned towards Peter, who was growing bluer and bluer next to him, and growled, "Keep your mouth shut about the massage, or I'll eat you for dessert!"

Naturally Peter said nothing.

James on the other side of the table tried to remove the bacon strips and beans from his hair so he would seem less wacky.

He failed.

Lupin had already trudged to the table, and he lowered an enormous pile of dusty books and one very pathetic looking pot plant on it. He yawned, and started to rummage through his satchel without even glancing at them. "How are you lot?"

Potter mumbled something that sounded like, "We're just hunky dory."

Now Remus looked up and frowned at his friends.

A very pale and soupy Black stared back at him like he'd never seen a living human being before; Potter's bacon-laced hair and askew glasses made him look like that loony owl they saw every Tuesday, and Peter...

"Peter, oh my god!" Remus yelped. "Are you all right?"

Pettigrew shook his head and pointed at his swelling throat. Remus scowled at James, who was now eating the beans he had found in his hair, but refused to look at Sirius, who was still staring at him like a kook for some reason. Remus huffed tiredly at everyone in the table, whilst drawing his wand from the satchel.

The rat could have now passed as a blueberry.

Lupin rushed over to Peter, and flicked the wand at his throat. "Anapneo."

The half-eaten chicken leg flew from Peter's mouth instantly and landed on some unfortunate Hufflepuff's plate, who instantly started wondering if there really was an entire roasted chicken, who was missing a leg, flying over him in the Enchanted Ceiling. Peter, on his part, inhaled air with such vigour that he looked like he was about to pass out. Remus patted his back reassuringly and turned towards the other boys.

"You two seriously couldn't help the guy?" He seemed rather annoyed. "He was choking."

"What?" James asked mouth full of beans and studied Peter's now red face. "He didn't say anything to me."

"Or me," Sirius piped in, and as soon as Remus replied his gaze, he tore his eyes off the werewolf only to stare at his own, very interesting lap. "But I guess we could have done something."

Peter wheezed, "Cheers, Moony."

"Don't mention it, Peter. Just..." Lupin tilted his head at the boy. "Try not to choke today, all right?"

At times like this Peter was very lucky to have at least one mate, whose brain was running on at full capacity.

"I'm just amazed that you three are still alive," Remus said, shoved the wand back to his schoolbag, and slumped on the bench next to James. He stared at all three of them equally long. "For you are impossible. I cannot leave you alone for five minutes because you're off to wreak havoc. I am not your babysitter."

"Sorry." Sirius pouted and pointed a finger at James like he was five years old. "It was his fault!"

"Oi!"

Then Peter thought of something. "Moony... Are you saying that you're not going to have your alone werewolf time anymore?"

Remus yawned as he watched Peter. "Sorry?"

Sirius kicked Peter in the knee.

"Oh... nothing."

Lupin sighed and started lazily scooping some scrambled eggs on the plate in front of him. "You know... You three pull this kind of stuff on daily basis, and I'm the one who has to reprimand you lot for it, because the professors have given up. Even McGonagall has given up. Do you know what it makes me feel like? Having to be the one who always grumps?" He looked at his friends. "A mother hen, that's what."

Sirius' eye twitched for he tried very hard not to imagine Remus in high heels and a feather-covered apron.

"You seem like a mother hen, all right." Potter gestured towards the pot plant. "Carrying that pathetic twig around doesn't exactly make you manly, you know."

"You're a pathetic twig," Sirius noted him quietly from the other side of the table. No one heard him.

Remus snorted at his eggs, yet evidently addressed James. "Well, that pathetic twig will get me at least an A in Herbology. Now, back to –"

"Wait, what?" The Pathetic Twig hurried before Remus could continue. "The professor didn't assign me one!" He looked at Sirius, and then Peter, all the way returning to ogle at Lupin. "Why is that? I can nurse a sodding pot plant for a grade!"

"You can't even keep your head alive if it falls off your shoulders!" Sirius tittered, having revived from his earlier coma.

"Good one," Peter told him.

"Forcefully returning to the earlier subject," Lupin said with a loud voice as he poured himself a glass of orange juice. Once his friends' eyes were on him, he sighed again. "Look. All I'm saying is that I should be able to leave you three alone without constantly having to think whether or not you have killed yourselves while pulling your godforsaken pranks." James was about to say something, but Remus didn't give him a chance. "However, I cannot be with you every single second either, for I can't get any work done when you are around." His tired eyes glanced quickly at Sirius.

"A hen that needs alone werewolf time," Peter mumbled to himself and took a full mouthful of bread. "What's to become of this world? It's rotting. In the summer, my gran was planning to add a few flower beds to her garden, but guess what? Snakes had taken over the whole bloody plot!"

James watched him seriously. "Bastards."

Next to him, Sirius kept his eyes on Remus. After a while of thinking, he said, "But yesterday you were –"

The werewolf shot an intent look at him and shifted nervously in his seat. His neck was reddening a bit.

Black noticed nothing. "Yesterday you told me to go find James and do pranks. I am 300% sure you said that to me. Don't you remember? I do!" He frowned. "I think."

James quit staring at Peter, who was telling an elaborate story on how he and his grandmother had turned the snakes into bunnies so they wouldn't have been so scary, but all hell had broken loose for them bunnies had started eating Peter's grandmother's rose bushes. Apparently Peter had forgotten all other spells he had learnt in school and he had been forced to haul bucketfuls of water into the garden as a way of trying to shoo the rabbits out. His grandmother had as good a memory as Peter and together they had tried to drown the bunnies by splashing water on them. Naturally tuning off to this, Potter turned his eyes to Remus. "You sly thing! Obviously you want us to do shenanigans! What!"

"One of the bunnies started speaking about a doomsday –"

"No, I tried to study," Lupin explained, emphasising the word tried, and rubbed his neck again. Sirius stared at him feverishly and unconsciously licked his lips – or he might have done it consciously as well, preparing himself for... er, something. Remus slowly continued, "And, I don't mean to sound catty, but Sirius was kind of distracting me."

As he had finished with his story, Peter grinned at him. "I heard that!"

In a nonobvious fashion Sirius smacked him in the jaw and then turned to Remus. "Is your neck still aching?"

Remus shook his head a bit. "It's a bit stiff, but don't worry about it." His eyes dropped on the table. "Thank you."

"You know what," Potter said loudly and despite talking to Remus he stared at Sirius. "I think... Moony, you do a grand job studying, even if you're being distracted by –" He lowered his voice. "An amorous puppy." He grinned at Remus, who watched him. "Studying is hard and you do it well. Good man."

Black inclined his head questioningly at James. Remus was now stuffing food into his mouth. "Well, I try," he said after swallowing. "Thank you for noticing."

James made a few overly obvious gestures at Sirius' direction and mouthed the words, "Compliment him."

A lazy light bulb lit above Sirius' head.

"Oh yeah," he started as he followed the example, turning to look at Remus. "Yeah, Remmie, I think you do... a splendid job at everything you do." He licked his lips again. "You're brilliant, and you can never do anything wrong, ever, even if you tried. And I'm sure you're so smart that you wouldn't even try, I mean, if you think about it, only stupid people do stupid things and you're not stupid." He spared a nervous glimpse at Potter who was now shaking his head in disbelief.

"No."

"No... What I mean is," Sirius went on as the three Marauders all stared at him. "Is that..." With every word his voice got more power. "There's nothing wrong with you!"

Remus was baffled. His fork was resting against his plate. "Did someone say otherwise?" He looked around them and tried to find the culprit. "Who?"

"No, Remmie, what I meant was that..." Sirius kept ogling at the guy and licked his lips. "That you are perfect in your own way, and I don't care what anyone else thinks, you should never ever change, even if someone says you should, because you shouldn't, because they are just stupid, them people suggesting something like that, because that's just majorly stupid and –"

"Sirius," James said sternly. "Shut up."

The boy fell very silent very quickly and turned his gaze to his lap again. Peter was cackling into a handful of bacon strips.

Lupin was utterly confused. "Has someone been talking about me? I don't understand." He frowned. "I know I'm not perfect, but no one is. If someone has a problem with me, they should come to me and tell me."

"Don't worry about it, Moony, no one's said sanything about you." James grinned soothingly and swung his arm around the werewolf. He swept something off Remus' shoulder. "We like you just the way you are, even if you are a bit of a nagger."

Peter and the bacon strips nodded simultaneously. Remus smiled tiredly at James and gave Peter a nod.

The bacon strips he ignored.

Sirius shot up from his seat. "That's what I meant to say, Remus! Not that you're nagger, but if you were, I wouldn't mind at all if you would constantly nag at us because I just –"

"Sirius."

Black sat down.

Remus watched as Sirius shut his mouth once again and turned to look away. Then Remus looked at James, who just kept grinning manically beside him, and lastly at Peter, who had finally finished eating everything he had piled in front of him. Lupin blew out some air, sipped the last of his orange juice, and rose from the table, pushing his plate away. "So... Obviously you lot have finally gone bonkers. That's just brilliant."

"You're brilliant," Sirius muttered. James made his worst a face at him.

Of course Lupin neither heard nor saw anything.

As Peter crammed a few muffins into his sleeve before getting up, Sirius gestured silently at James that he wanted to talk to him.

Potter said to Remus, "Er, you two go ahead, we'll follow you." He glanced at Sirius, who was gesticulating as though he was swimming and then diving. "We need to check the, er... Dolphins under the table." He frowned. "Apparently they're having a bonfire and we need to bring the booze."

"All right," Remus said slowly – probably knowing that contradicting James and Sirius was absolutely futile – and hoisted his bag strap on his shoulder. He waited as Peter was ready to go with him, and then lifted the huge pile of books from the table, without forgetting his precious pot plant. After yawning he muttered to James and Sirius, "Just don't be late. The class starts in five and you know Slughorn likes to give you detention."

Sirius muttered under his breath, "Don't worry about us. You're so pretty that you shouldn't worry about anything..."

James made a gagging noise and rolled his eyes. Peter rolled towards the double doors.

Idiotically smiling to himself, Black watched contently as Remus disappeared into the crowd. Peter also disappeared into the crowd but Sirius was not staring at his backside. Then he turned his eyes to James. "I'm hopeless!"

"That you are." James nodded in a manner he knew what he was talking about. "It's comforting to know that you realise that."

Black pulled his hair as they stood up. "I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do here! He probably now thinks I'm some blooming idiot now and will never take me seriously! This is rubbish."

They headed the corridor. Craning his neck from the Great Hall doors towards the corridor that lead to the dungeons, James rubbed his long nose as he made sure the object of their conversation wasn't in a hearing distance. "You talked to him yesterday, yes?"

Sirius nodded at his back.

Turning back to Sirius, James asked, "And he has known you for over six years now, hasn't he?"

"Yeah."

James patted his shoulder, saying, "So he probably already thought you were an idiot... you know, before today. No harm done."

"You are not helping."

Naturally James ignored that, and pulled a piece of parchment out of his pocket. "Don't know what to do? Let us brush up your memory, shall we."

"I know what it says on the bloody paper, Potter. What I meant was that I don't know how to proceed with Remus," Sirius mumbled as they started to make their way towards the dungeons. "I don't know how to compliment him. I thought it was easy, but it's really difficult. Birds never needed any flattering, because they were always very willing to... er, go out with me even if I kept my mouth shut. And... Most of those birds weren't even as half as smart as he is, so I'm kind of lost here." He lifted his hands up as though he was defending himself. "Yeah, I know you're probably the most unfit person to guide me since you're still stuck on the first step of your own program, and let's face it, you're a bit thick, but you're also the only one who can help me, James. Please help me."

"Kind words," Potter snorted as he shoved the paper back into his pocket. "Now, let me start by saying that what you did back there was a marvellous example of what you should not do under any circumstances. Ever again."

Sirius glanced at his friend. "Look, I tried. Lately his presence has made me act all... stupid. Believe it or not."

"I do believe you, since you always act stupid. But... when you say things like 'you're brilliant, Remmie'," Potter imitated him with a squeaky voice. "Or 'you're perfect, Remmie. I could listen to you nag all day long, Remmie' – it's not complimenting, it's embarrassing. To us all."

"You can't do any better yourself, you git." Sirius tried to smack his friend, but James still had quick reflexes. "I told you, I'm not good at that stuff, not with him."

Potter made another face; it was the one he got as a present on his 8th birthday. "By the way, what's with that bloody nickname anyway? Did you come up with that by yourself? I bet you did, because it's moronic."

"Your face is moronic," Sirius muttered, glaring at the boy. "Remus likes that name."

"I'm sure he does." James ran a hand over his face. "Okay, let's see. Remember how the goal was to compliment him occasionally, yeah?"

Black nodded beside him. "I do."

"It means you should do it only sometimes, you know, and in a way he doesn't get too suspicious. Be subtle. Remember that word, subtle?" Sirius didn't show any signs of life next to him. James huffed at him. "And I don't mean to freak you out or anything, but he probably got a bit scared just now when you started complimenting him at the breakfast table."

Sirius frowned. "Was it really that bad?"

"You're lucky he's got no frigging idea," James said. Nodding rather smugly, he went on, "Also you should thank Merlin that you have me, for I shall now bestow you some of the world's most brilliant pointers on how to compliment someone without coming across as a complete nutter."

"You should use them on Evans at some point of your life."

Remus sat quietly in the back of the classroom, peering at the blackboard, and jotting lazily down professor Slughorn's notes about poison vegetables.

Usually he found the professor's monotonous voice rather soothing, but now he was having some severe problems in the staying awake department. Remus reasoned intelligently that it probably had something to do with the fact that he hadn't slept at all during the previous night. What a brilliant deduction! It was 10am and he already considered taking a nap.

"Remus."

Remus put the quill unconsciously down, and closed his eyes slowly as the tiresome voice and the thick dungeon air made him even drowsier. Somewhere in his brain he knew that he should be taking the notes down, but at that moment he really couldn't care less.

He rested his head against the backrest of his uncomfortable chair whilst every single voice in his head shouted to open his eyes and study. But somehow it was bizarrely difficult for him to move his muscles once they had relaxed.

All of a sudden he felt a light jab on his right shoulder and jolted slightly in his seat. He took a hazy glance at what he thought was his killer, but the only thing he saw was a pair of light grey eyes shining next to him.

"Remus?" Sirius whispered as Remus turned his eyes away from him. "Are you sleeping?"

The werewolf closed his eyes again. "No, I'm not sleeping."

Slughorn mentioned that there were several kinds of pernicious squashes in the world and one should not eat them.

Such a wise man, Remus thought sleepily.

"Your eyes are closed."

"I'm just thinking very hard."

Remus relaxed more and more as he listened to the distant drone of professor Slughorn's voice.

"You do that a lot, don't you?" Sirius breathed. His voice now seemed to come much closer than before, but Remus rationalised that it was only because his sleep-deprived mind was playing a trick on him. Why would have Sirius moved closer to him? That was stupid.

"Sleeping?" Lupin asked his friend, never opening his eyes. Oh how warm he suddenly felt, but he didn't bother to investigate that sensation any further, for the feeling of a total relaxation... he was going to enjoy it. It was already the second time within two days he felt like that, and he couldn't help but become utterly addicted to the feeling. What was the source? Could he maybe try to find it? His hazy brain tried to come up with a sensible reason why he had suddenly started winding down in weird situations such as that at hand... The thought died the second it reached his tongue. "I like sleeping."

Something shifted next to him, and Remus felt how Sirius' voice made the warm air vibrate lightly next to his sensitive ear. "I mean you use your brain a lot, Remus."

That made Remus chuckle, and he answered drowsily, "You're right."

"That's odd," Sirius' voice said softly. It made Remus want to fall asleep so bad. Not that it was boring, Sirius' voice, it was... dulcet, in a calming manner. "Usually it's you who's right."

Clicking his tongue against his teeth, Remus said intellectually, "Hmm."

"You never doubt yourself or question what you want, you just go at your goals with the speed of a train. I've heard people call you book smart, but hell, none of them knows how you handle that knowledge you've read. It's amazing. They make it sound bad, but you bring a positive meaning to the word." Remus was certain he heard a smile on Sirius' lips as he spoke. "You are so lovely and it kills me to see you suffering, in any way. But you never are discouraged by the fact that you have less luck in life than others, and I just admire you because of that," Sirius' voice whispered. "Among other things."

Remus kind of wished in his sleepy mind that Sirius would bring his lips closer to his ear. Those lips...

Wait, what?

What was he thinking? Or was he thinking? Did that even happen just now?

No, maybe he was asleep already.

"I have doubts," Remus murmured blearily, tilting his head a bit towards the sound; towards the warmth, which his skin was itching to touch. "A lot of them, and books. We share, Pince and I. Books. Many..."

Sirius' voice chuckled a bit, making Remus think of a purring cat who was kneading a blanket. "Perhaps you do, but you never voice them, and that makes you stronger than anyone I know."

Something besides the total lack of control of his own muscles made Remus extremely warm and contented. There was an odd sensation in his stomach, something he had never felt before, but it wasn't bad – he wanted to follow that feeling and curl up next to it like a whimpering child would do... He wanted to take it in his arms and kiss it wet, he wanted to make herbal tea for it and then nuzzle it in his bed and maybe fall asleep with it. And somehow the pressuring warmth he felt emitting from his right side made the feeling even more intent.

He shifted a bit closer to it.

"Are you asleep?"

"Warm," Remus told him, smacking his dry lips together. "Hmm, yes."

"Remus, this might sound weird coming from me, but you really shouldn't sleep during class. You're going to have a sore neck."

"Hmm," Remus only mumbled again, somewhere in the back of his mind hoping that it was enough for an answer.

Sirius' voice sounded as though it was hovering on Remus' mouth. "How adorable can you be?"

And with that question the werewolf slept until the class was dismissed.

A/N: Okay, I just realised that I've been imagining Peter, James and Sirius as the three Marx Brothers. Oh, and no, Lupin does not hear voices. And yeah, I know... the ending was kind of cheesy, wasn't it? R&R!