Hi- I hope some people got the AVPM reference last time! I should probably say that I do not own Starkid, and only in my dreams do I own harry potter and everything and everyone in it. Anyway keep reading and keep reviewing. Thanks guys.
"Is Sirius not coming down?" asked Remus as James took a seat opposite him and Peter at breakfast on the morning of Hallowe'en.
"No, he'll probably be up there sulking the whole day," replied James.
"I kind of feel bad about going to Hogsmeade without him though, don't you?"
"Kind of," said Peter, "but we'll bring him back some stuff from Zonko's and Honeydukes."
"I bet we could get him some firewhiskey as well, I'd love to try some of that stuff."
"Potter!" said Lily Evans sharply, "that's illegal!"
"Aw, pwetty pwease," said James, batting his eyelashes at Lily Evans, "it's only a little bit illegal."
"There is no such thing as a little bit illegal Potter, and honestly I'm disappointed in you."
"Why? You really should know me well enough by now not to expect any better."
"No, not that. Of course I know I can hardly expect any better from you with regards to living by the same laws as the rest of us mere mortals, but I did expect you to show a bit more loyalty to your friend."
"Come on Evans, it's our first Hogsmeade trip, we couldn't possibly burden poor Sirius with guilt that he made us miss out on this rite of passage!" argued James melodramatically.
Lily snorted, she knew Sirius to well to believe a word of what his best friend had just said, everyone did, everybody knew Sirius Black and James Potter.
"Well I still think you three shouldn't go, especially you Remus."
"What?" exclaimed Remus, almost choking on his pumpkin juice, "why especially me?"
"Well you had to go to the Hospital Wing again a couple of days ago, and I don't care what you say but you still look ill to me."
"I'm fine, so what if I had a fever a few days ago, it's only Hogsmeade I'm not going to climb Mt. Everest or something."
"Oh I give up, it's your stupid decision to make anyway, I'm going to find Severus."
"Have fun with your boyfriend!" teased James loudly, "phase one complete," he added in a low voice to Peter and Remus, they all grinned.
After an especially tasty Hallowe'en breakfast the three boys left the Great Hall feeling pleased with themselves, Mission Get Sirius Into Hogsmeade was going perfectly. Not only had they successfully put out the story that Sirius was sulking in their dorm, which would provide an alibi for his absence all day, but they'd also succeeded in putting what Peter kept calling "the red heron" in place.
"For the last time, it's a herring not a heron," Remus had said for the billionth (but not the last) time the night before.
"What's the difference?"
"A heron is a bird, a herring is a fish, you know, 'god bless us and save us said old mrs davis i never knew herring were fish'?" said Remus very fast, searching his friends' faces for any trace of recogonition, meanwhile James, Sirius and Peter where searching his face for any trace of sanity.
"What the hell was that?" asked Sirius, bursting out laughing.
"It's a saying, really Sirius, you and James should have taken muggle studies along with Peter this year."
"Yeah, you never know it might've impressed Evans," said Peter, the comment had earned him a bat bogey hex.
As Remus pointed out, the red herring was essential, because otherwise everyone would think James was up to something, which he was. But now for phase two of the plan. They walked reasonably slowly, and separate from the crowd through the Entrance Hall, giving Sirius, who was waiting for them under James's invisibility cloak, a chance to catch up with them, now all they had to do was get past Filch's excessive security measures. The caretaker, who had taken over from Apollyon Pringle when he'd retired at the end of the boys' first year, had instantly began waging war against the students, and subscribed to the philosophy that a student looking anything less than borderline suicidal was a student up to something. Filch's Secrecy Sensors would be bound to detect an invisible person if they passed too near it, something that was bound to happen if Sirius walked through the narrow door while Filch was standing there, so it was up to James and Remus to distract him, letting Sirius slip through quietly, with Peter there to make sure the three boys didn't lose track of their invisible friend.
"Why on Earth did I agree to this?" asked Remus as he and James approached filch, their pockets full of dung bombs.
"I think you were on drugs," smirked James, "ok on three... THREE!"
The two boys tore past Filch and his Secrecy Sensors 'accidentally' dropping a few dung bombs in their haste.
"Oi, you two, get back here and empty your pockets!"
"But we haven't got anything," Remus protested, and the Secrecy Sensor glowed bright red.
"You filthy lying little... detention, tomorrow night for the both of you, and I'll be asking the Headmaster to remove your Hogsmeade privileges as well, students... ungrateful little sods the lot of you... if I had my way..."
"Sirius you owe us big time," said Remus as they rejoined Peter, and, they assumed though they couldn't see him, Sirius.
"How many detentions have you got then?" said Sirius, so close to Remus's ear that it made him jump.
"Just the one," said James.
"Really! That's not too bad," said Peter, "I expected you to get more, he Filch hates you."
"He's going to try and ban us from Hogsmeade as well," said Remus.
"Relax Moony, Dumbledore'll never agree to that, it was only a few dung bombs, besides, he likes you," said James, "but still, the sooner we find a secret passage or something the better, there has to be one hasn't there?"
"I suppose so," said Remus.
"Hey did you bring any food by any chance I'm starving?" asked Sirius.
"Yeah, here you go," said Peter, retrieving a bacon roll from his pocket, Sirius looked mildly disgusted for a second as it had pocket-fluff on it, but then shrugged and took a huge bite.
"All in all I think we pulled that off quite smoothly," mused James.
"Yeah, except that now Lily thinks you're even more of a prat than she already knew you were," said Remus.
"Yeah, for that you really do owe us Sirius," said James, "she was even annoyed at Moony, and those two are study buddies."
Sirius laughed, and Remus raised one eyebrow, "study buddies?" he scoffed.
"Ignore him," said Sirius, "he's just jealous that Evan can actually stand to be in the same room as you."
"Shut up. Merlin that girl is just so annoying sometimes, you should all stay behind, especially you Remus," said James and a squeaky voice that sounded nothing like Lily's, nor in fact any human being they knew.
"Why especially Remus?" asked Sirius.
"She thinks I'm ill," said Remus, rolling his eyes, "it's my own stupid fault, she said something about me getting ill a lot and that I should go and see something called a doctor, and that sounded scary so I panicked and told her I had a weak immune system."
"What on Earth is a doctor?" asked James.
"I looked it up afterwards, they're basically muggle Healers, but anyway the point is now she thinks I'm going to suddenly drop down dead if I go outside in the cold or something," said Remus exasperatedly.
"See, even her study buddy agrees," said James, "Lily Evans is the most irritating, show-offish, nosy person in the whole world."
Meanwhile, in the Three Broomsticks, Lily Evans was sitting at a small table with Severus Snape, who was happily listening to her abusing James Potter.
"Honestly, that boy, even Remus agrees with me, he told me the other day, I swear James Potter is the most irritating, show-offish, nosy person in the whole world."
"Why do you care what Remus thinks so much?"
"Well he's his friend, isn't he? So it just goes to show that..."
"I don't think you should be friends with him."
"Sev, we've been through this, we're best friends, of course we are, but I've got to have friends in my own house as well, you've got friends in Slytherin after all."
"He's weird," said Severus, completely ignoring what his best friend had just said.
"Well I could say that about some of your friends, but I don't because it's your choice who you're friends with. Remus is really nice to me, he's never been mean to me because I'm a muggle-born like some of your friends have."
"He's a werewolf!" snarled Severus.
Lily sighed, "you can't just go around saying stuff like that Severus, I don't know how you came to that conclusion and I don't want to know, so can we please just talk about something else, I've heard the Shrieking Shack is meant to be haunted, maybe we can go and have a look at it later."
Severus glared at her for a second, not wanting to drop the subject until she had listened to his suspicions, which, he would have her know, where founded on a lot of evidence and research. But alas, he could never disobey Lily when she looked at her like that, with her lovely eyes that reminded him of the smell of the grass by the river in Spinner's End, their secret place.
"So, where to first?" said Sirius when they arrived in Hogsmeade.
Remus and Peter said "Honeydukes" but James said "Zonko's" louder than either of them, so Sirius, wanting to go to Zonko's first anyway, said "Zonko's it is then" and they made a bee line for the joke shop. James, Sirius and Peter were overawed by all the mischief making materials that filled row upon row of shelves, even Remus had to admit it was pretty impressive. After blowing half their money in the joke shop the crossed the street to Honeydukes, where they blew most of the rest of their galleons, sickles and knuts. For thirteen year old boys Hogsmeade was simply heaven.
"What shall we do now?" said James, as they left Honeydukes with their sugary purchases.
"We could go to the Shrieking Shack?" suggested Peter.
"No," said Remus flatly, causing James to look at him with a strange mix of curiosity and concern, and Sirius to hit Peter in the head, "well, if you really want to we can, but I mean, there's not much point is there, you all know it's not haunted."
"I know," said Sirius, "let's go to the Three Broomsticks, butterbeer's on me."
"Oh no you don't have to..." started Remus.
"No, I do, like you said, I owe you one. I'm really grateful that you're doing this for me you know."
"I was only joking Sirius, honestly if you want to go by that logic I'll be in debt to you my whole life if you insist on going through with... you know."
"Don't worry about it Remus, if you think about it we're just repaying our debt to you for letting us copy all your work in history of magic."
"Oh yeah, because that's the same thing as putting all your lives in danger just to help me! Listen you don't have to do it I wouldn't mind honestly..."
"Merlin!" said James, "will you two stop acting like old women and let us go and have a butterbeer, we're friends right, and when one of us needs help, the other three will always help them out right? No one owes anyone anything, and they never will do."
In his head Remus said 'you're wrong James, I owe you three and Dumbledore everything' but he didn't voice this opinion because he knew James was too much of a Gryffindor to be having any of it. Besides, they were getting cold standing outside and Remus agreed they could all do with a nice warming butterbeer.
