I own no rights to Harry Potter, all original characters and opinions are my own.
March
"TWO HUNDRED POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR?" Gideon yelled, his eyes bulging as James, Sirius, and Remus joined the other Gryffindors for dinner.
"It was fifty each, it's not bad if you look at it that way," James argued bravely in the wake of the Head Boy's anger.
"Are you out of your minds? This close to the end of the year?" Fabian asked only slightly more calmly.
"Seriously guys, we can't lose again, it's embarrassing enough having my little sister kick our arses in Quidditch, but now Slytherin is back in the lead," Rodger said mournfully. It wasn't often that he was on Gideon and Fabian's sides when it came to the Marauders, but seven years is a long time to not know what it feels like having your colors adorn the Great Hall at the end of the year feast.
"Maybe if you four weren't so keen on getting into trouble we'd have an actual chance of winning the House Cup!" Lily yelled, happily joining the group of people ganging up on the Marauders.
"Evans, has it ever occurred to you that Prongs and I always win those points back in Quidditch?" Sirius drawled. It was true, Gryffindor's quidditch team had a reputation of heavily outscoring the other teams once Sirius and James had become chasers. Even with Ravenclaw beating them in the last match they still had enough points racked up to be in the lead for the Quidditch Cup. Apparently there was more motivation to James and Sirius's sportsmanship than Lily could have guessed.
"Well, maybe if you could behave for more than a minute we could be in the lead rather than breaking even!" Lily said huffily. "And you!" Lily said turning on Remus who was minding his own business with his nose in a book. "You're supposed to be helping me reign them in, but instead you're lighting up Fillibuster's wet-starts in the courtyard in the middle of the night when you told me last week you were finally all out!" Remus looked up with slight fear in his eyes. "Remus, have you been using the secret passages to go to Zonko's? I've kept my mouth shut for a long time-"
"It was Moony and Prongs' seventeenth birthdays! What were we supposed to do have a quiet and respectable evening indoors?" Sirius shouted.
"Lily, do you want me to win the House Cup for you? Is that what all this is about?" James said changing the subject in hopes of shutting Lily up. It was more or less effective because she calmed down slightly and started playing with her food.
"Would be nice to win it just once in seven years, we've only got one more try after this." Lily had fully deflated and finished up dinner quietly before heading off to the library with Marlene and Moira. Everyone else had given up on lecturing the boys and went their separate ways as well. James, Sirius, and Remus had a wide gap on either side of them after their friends had gone because everyone else in the house was furious with them, not that their friends weren't also furious.
"Pad," James said looking rather serious.
"What's wrong Prongs? Evans got you thinking?"
"Are we getting a bit old for the pranks?" James mused. Sirius put a hand to his heart and dropped his jaw, looking terribly offended.
"I think we are," Remus said from behind his book, clearly bored.
"You two can't be serious!"
"No," James said gravely, "we can't be. You're doing such a fine job on your own." James narrowly missed a fork to the face and was grateful that Sirius hadn't chosen a knife. It had been a long time since he had walked himself into a serious-Sirius joke.
"Look at us! We're all of age, Remus is a Prefect, Peter's off gods know where-"
"Reckon he's gotten sick of your ugly mug, Prongs." This time it was Sirius's turn to duck out of the way of a flying spoon aimed right between his eyes.
"Honest, we're only the Marauder's once a month!" James said, desperately trying to make his point.
"Actually I've been meaning to say something about that," Remus spoke up again, though a lot more nervously than before. "You know I love you guys, and our little excursions each month really help me, really they do, but it is very reckless what we've been doing. What if one of us gets hurt, what if someone gets bit- or you know-"
"Worse?" James finished for Remus.
"Padfoot, you're already on thin ice with Dumbledore after what happened last year," Remus said more quietly and Sirius grumbled something involving certain people keeping their big noses out of things that didn't involve them. "I really can't let down Dumbledore, not after everything he's done for me. No other headmaster would let a werewolf come to Hogwarts. I owe him more than the recklessness we've been up to."
"I'm not saying hang it all up!" James continued at the sight of Sirius's downtrodden face. "We can still have parties in the Common Room after we win the Quidditch Cup and maybe even the House Cup?" James said suggestively, knowing that Sirius always did well when he had something to focus on.
"I guess it's like Professor Dearborn said about having tough things to face when we're done here," Sirius said soberly. Remus and James could tell he was slowly giving in before his face brightened, "and we're easily the smartest blokes in school-"
"Easily!" James interjected.
"Maybe that could be the biggest prank of all," Sirius said with a wicked grin on his face.
"What?" asked James and Remus together.
"Showing those sick son-of-Slytherins what we're made of."
"I feel pretty terrible about yelling at James at dinner last week," Lily sighed.
"Well that's new," Marlene said raising her eyebrows, "Lils are you sure you don't still have the flu?" Lily's face reddened at Marlene's suggestion. All of Madame Pomfrey's potions couldn't get Lily better in time for her date with James at the end of February and she hadn't found the chance to make it up to him yet. James had gone to Hogsmeade anyway and picked her up a care package from Honey Dukes and sweet talked Madame Rosmerta into charming some butter beers to stay warm for her. He really was rather thoughtful, when he wasn't thinking about himself.
"Oh, I wouldn't say it's that new," Moira piped up in a knowing tone. Lily had been getting help in Astronomy from James for months now and had spent most of their late night lessons with Professor Dearborn together. Marlene, who had gotten a new boyfriend from Hufflepuff, hadn't been around enough to notice.
"He's really quite alright," Lily insisted, feeling the need to justify herself, "He's certainly smarter than I ever gave him credit for and I think he's finally starting to apply himself."
"I like James," Moira stated simply. Lily wanted to roll her eyes out of habit, but stopped herself, as she too was starting to see the Marauders in a new light. Their magical prowess was a bit misguided, but at their core she knew they were good.
"He's getting better," Lily conceded. She continued on to tell Moira and Marlene about the date she had missed and James's visit in the hospital wing.
"I really need to come up with a way to make it up to him," Lily said with determination.
"Ooo something really romantic!" Marlene said excitedly, the wheels in her head clearly turning.
"I say you appeal to his interests," Moira said knowledgeably. Lily crinkled her nose and Moira cut in as if she had read Lily's mind, "Not like Quidditch, Lil. I'm saying appeal to his bad boy nature."
"Ew, Moira, don't say 'bad boy nature' ever again," Marlene said laughing.
"What I mean is you should take a little risk for him. He'd really appreciate it. Maybe go out after curfew, I know a great place you can go," Moira continued, paying Marlene no mind.
"A nice broom closet?" Marlene interjected again, waggling her eyebrows.
"Stop it! I was going to say you could show him how to get into the kitchens. Dave showed me last year," Moira said curtly and Marlene stopped laughing to herself. Moira knew talk like that always made Lily uncomfortable. Lily wasn't exactly inexperienced, she had spent some time holding hands with Amos Diggory in the halls back in third year, but he had been a little pushy when it came to anything more and Lily had promptly broken up with him. In the past two years there had been rumors going around that James would give a hard time to anyone who showed any interest in Lily, but she had never believed it. She had spent the first four and a half years with her head leaned in towards Severus or a book, she never really noticed if anyone else was paying extra attention to her, least of all James.
Lily marveled at how different sixth year was from fifth. Right around this time last year, her and Severus had been spending countless hours in the library and in Slughorn's classroom trying to figure out the most effective way to squeeze, cut, and crush ingredients. They were always pouring over bits of parchment crammed with personal notes on making the potions in their textbooks more efficiently. Lily remembered how much they used to laugh when they imagined publishing books with all their helpful hints and becoming rich and famous. She knew Severus was keeping up with the annotations because he was always scribbling in the margins of his Advanced Potion Making book in class. Slughorn had been so disappointed when Lily stopped spending a couple days a week in his otherwise empty classroom, perfecting potions and practicing trickier health potions that she would need to know to become a Healer. Slughorn had mentioned on more than one occasion that he was absolutely crestfallen that his two star pupils were no longer collaborating, or even speaking. It was always unbearably awkward when he did that.
Potions was still very important to Lily because she needed potions for her career, but lately Severus seemed to be focusing a lot more on Defense Against the Dark Arts, or perhaps just the Dark Arts parts. He had always been very aware of jinxes and curses, more than any young boy deserved to be. Lily was always having issues with her snarling sister, so she didn't mind that Severus almost never wanted to be home with his father. She wondered what he did when he wasn't at Hogwarts now. Did he fight back? Did he even go home anymore? She didn't need to worry about Severus, he could take care of himself. If he wanted to spend time with future- oh what had Dumbledore called them?- Death Eaters or gods, become one himself, it really was't Lily's problem anymore. Though, the fear of exactly that happening still pulled a little from the back of her mind.
Gods James had been working so hard to get Lily's attention and to impress her. He was speaking up and volunteering in class and him and Sirius both had been on a rampage to earn back every point they had lost that year. There was something thrilling about seeing the results of his efforts in class and seeing his teachers take notice. Sirius had always known he was a gifted wizard, hell he had become a full-fledged animagus by the time he was sixteen, when hardly any wizards in the world even bothered to try. It was honestly very rewarding to be recognized for his skill and he was starting to see the benefits of keeping his mouth shut and getting his work done. The most recent full moon transformation had been their easiest so far, even Peter was showing improvement in Transfiguration, not that McGonagall would ever notice, she was always so hard on Peter.
"I'm impressed Mr. Black," McGonagall said one day when he fell behind the others leaving class, "Lessons with Professor Dearborn seem to have finally gotten you in the right mind set." There was the faintest hint of a smile across her thin lips and he could tell that was a compliment, there was however one thing-
"You know about that?" Sirius said completely surprised.
"Of course, Mr. Black. I was the one that recommended you and Mr. Potter to Professor Dumbledore. You know, when you two aren't messing around you are both very strong transfigurists."
"You mean it?" Sirius said unintentionally letting his excitement seep out like a child being told they were the teacher's favorite. James and him loved to try to make McGonagall laugh, or do something slightly human, but she was without a doubt the most steadfast woman he had ever come across.
"Yes, but don't tell Mr. Potter. I don't think his ego could handle it," McGonagall said with an actual smile breaking briefly across her face. It looked out of place, but Sirius appreciated it none the less.
"My, my, Minnie, you oughta smile more often," Sirius said with a wink. McGonagall's smile was instantly replaced with a tight frown.
"Don't push it Mr. Black." Sirius gracefully bowed out of the classroom, but simply could not stop beaming as he headed down the corridor and back to the seventh floor to drop off his books in the common room. He was waiting on a landing for a staircase to swing his way when Moira climbed up the stairs behind him.
"Hey," she huffed, clearly out of breath as she reached the landing. He knew she had Advanced Potions with Slughorn in the dungeons and they were already at the sixth floor, that's a lot of stairs.
"Hey!" Sirius said, his grin only growing bigger. "Haven't seen you in a while," he said brightly, gods he could carry the image of McGonagall smiling at him like a trophy for the rest of his life. Moira looked at Sirius oddly before saying, "I saw you last night at the Order of Phoenix, remember? We practiced fighting off the Imperious curse, kind of hard to forget." Moira shuddered briefly and followed Sirius when their staircase finally arrived.
"Oh, right," Sirius said distractedly.
"I had breakfast with all of you the other morning too," she said a little defensively.
"Ah, Moira I'm sorry. James and I have been really focused on our marks lately, as well as other things…"
"Yeah, Lily told me about her and James, sort of a thing now, aren't they?"
"Yeah," said Sirius thinking happily about his best friend. His mind wandered to his other friends; Peter was getting better at practical magic and Sirius had had the good fortune of being paired up with Remus for nearly every Order of Phoenix meeting.
"Sirius?" Sirius looked round at Moira, she had been talking and he hadn't been listening.
"What?" he said unintelligently.
"I was saying that I'm that way," Moira said hooking her thumb back in the direction of Ravenclaw tower. Sirius would have to go to the complete opposite end of the floor to get to Gryffindor.
"I suppose this is where we part," Sirius said smiling fondly at Moira.
"Yeah, hey, it's been a while since we've had a good chat and you seem to be really happy about something," Moira sort of trailed off as Sirius seemed to be spacing out again. But he was perfectly present because he said, "The weather's been real nice lately, wanna stroll around the grounds on Saturday? You can talk your pants off-" Sirius stopped at the sour look that had crossed Moira's face "-or keep your pants on. I'll keep mine on as well." They both laughed and Moira agreed to meeting him outside the Great Hall before they went to their respective houses.
Sirius met Moira on the steps out to the grounds and she was happy to see him alone. They hadn't had much time alone since the beginning of the year.
"Good morning!" Sirius said to Moira when he spotted her at the foot of the steps. He was still contagiously cheery and the weather was absolutely perfect, dry, breezy, and a little warm. They took off towards the greenhouses and walked along the Forbidden Forest, passing Hagrid's Hut.
"Alright, Hagrid?" Sirius called as they passed the Gamekeeper. Hagrid had been bent down in his pumpkin patch and he stood and waved his arm enthusiastically. Moira waved back hesitantly as the hand Hagrid had chosen to wave was holding a massive dead rat.
"Want ter see somethin' special, Sirius?" Hagrid called, his black eyes twinkling over his great big beard, which was probably hiding a grin. Sirius looked at Moira and she shrugged, so he led the way over to Hagrid's pumpkin patch.
"Hagrid, this is my friend, Moira! She's in the Order of You-know-what," Sirius said with a wink. "Moira you know Hagrid?"
"Don't believe we've met properly," Hagrid said switching the rat into his left hand and offering his right for Moira to shake. She knew it would be rude to refuse a hand shake and she could always wash her hand later, but she definitely took a moment before taking Hagrid's hand. Hagrid shook her entire arm enthusiastically.
"Come with me! Though maybe I should wait ter show yeh when you've got James with yeh," Hagrid said looking to Sirius almost guiltily.
"Well, let's see what it is and James can come down and see it himself if he wants, he's a big boy," Sirius said the last bit forcing himself not to laugh. Hagrid clapped his hands together excitedly and gestured to Moira and Sirius to follow him into the forest.
"Are we going into the forest?" asked Moira nervously.
"Yeah, but it's fine as long as we're with Hagrid," said Sirius happily. "Me and James have served plenty of detentions in the forest with Hagrid, most of them were at night, too."
"We won't be goin' in too far," Hagrid assured Moira. Sure enough they had reached the thing Hagrid intended to show them within a few more paces. There was a bright white unicorn tethered to a tree.
"Oh my," Moira said, raising her hands to her mouth.
"Ollivander, yeh know the wand maker, he wrote Dumbledore, said he needs more unicorn hairs for wands." The unicorn's hair was so purely white that its black eyes looked like voids when it turned its head to look at Moira.
"Now they don't take to boys, sorry Sirius, but Moira you can pet 'im." Moira looked at Sirius with wide eyes as if asking permission.
"Go on then, not everyday you get to pet a unicorn," Sirius said grinning he looked at Hagrid and Moira was sure she saw them wink at each other. She narrowed her eyes and intended to ask if she had been setup, but the unicorn whinnied behind her and she didn't care much if Sirius had planned this or not. She stroked the unicorn's soft coat and patted his nose as it looked at Moira with his fathomless eyes.
"That was really romantic, Sirius," Moira said after they said their goodbyes to Hagrid and continued their walk along the lake.
"Yeah, shame I wasted it on you," Sirius said with a cheeky grin. She suppressed the urge to hit him and chose to just laugh instead.
"So who would you have rather show the unicorn to?" Moira asked. There was a long pause before Sirius responded.
"I think- you know the answer to that already, don't you?" Sirius said, his mood dropped a bit, but he still sounded friendly.
"I think, that maybe I'm not the only one who fell for Remus," Moira said slowly. She turned to look at Sirius who was being very quiet. His face was bright pink and Moira was certain she had never seen him flustered before. He neither confirmed, nor denied what Moira had said, but he did give Moira a meaningful glance. They walked fully around the lake in silence, but Sirius made no moves toward the castle, so they started another lap.
"You're the only one who knows," Sirius finally spoke as they reached the far side of the lake for the second time.
"You don't think any of the other boys suspect anything?"
"I don't know, maybe. Peter makes jokes, but I don't think he'd actually expect to be right and James and I have been fighting about… girls lately. And Remus, I don't think he's capable of thinking anyone could like him."
"Why not?" Moira asked, clearly confused. Remus was quite popular and easy to get along with, he was by far the kindest and most accepting of the Marauders.
"He's, well- he's," Sirius treaded lightly when talking about Remus, it was hard to explain the way he was without giving away what he was. "He's very self-conscience, sometimes, even after all these years, he's still surprised we're friends with him."
"Do you think he could like you back?" Moira pressed. And what a question to ask. Sirius was silent again for a long moment, and Moira watched him clearly going over instances in his mind. His final conclusion left him looking rather crestfallen.
"I don't know." There wasn't much more Moira could get out of Sirius without potentially killing the good mood he had seemed to be in all week. They turned the conversation to Dave and how he was doing outside the Order. Moira really wished he had stayed, but was proud of his honesty and for knowing himself well enough to decline the offer. Dave really was off to do great things, he was full to the brim with ideas on how to alleviate stress between the magical races, and ways to improve creature rights. There was a bright light that would ignite behind his eyes every time he got the chance to discuss the thing he was most passionate about. Moira rambled on and on about Dave, which was more than Sirius had expected. He looked at her with a knowing smile, and she was never one to miss something like that.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Moira asked, narrowing her eyes.
"How do you feel about Dave?"
"Well, he's great. Weren't you listening to anything I just said?" Moira answered suspiciously.
"Yeah, is that all?" Sirius goaded.
"He's been Rodger's best friend since their first year, he's like a brother to me," she defended herself, realizing what Sirius was implying. "It's not like that! Sirius, don't you smirk at me- it's not!."
"Moira, please I think my secret's a little heavier than yours," Sirius said shaking his head, unable to shake off that stupid grin.
"There's no secret, Sirius, I don't like Dave." Despite what Moira was saying out load, the thoughts racing through her head were completely new. Did she like Dave? Where had that come from? Had it always been there? How could Sirius have realized before she had? It didn't matter anyway because Dave just saw Moira like a little sister.
"I, er, have to talk to Marlene," Moira said realizing her face was starting to flush.
"Yeah, she'll know what to do," Sirius said laughing. This time Moira didn't suppress the urge, and punched Sirius in the arm. She glared at him as he was still laughing, but he threw his arm around her shoulder and guided her back towards the castle.
"I think we should promise to keep the contents of this morning's walk between us," Sirius said offering a hand for Moira to shake. She took it and shook, but now that it was confirmed, Moira thought Lily might like to help her get Sirius and Remus together.
Thanks for reading, this was a long one!
Please review :)
mayzie
