I've been saying this quite a bit, but I'm truly sorry for the wait! I actually got back from band camp just a week ago after leaving right after my last update, and I had no access to my mobile or the Internet. When I returned, I was just about dead and slept through an entire day, and after that I've been madly catching up on all the work I've missed.
On the bright side, things have finally calmed down a little and I just celebrated my birthday (I'm finally fifteen :D), for which I got butterbeer, which puts me in a very Harry Potter-y mood so I should be able to fall into some semblance of a schedule in my updating. Or at least update more frequently.
Please review! I'll consider it a belated birthday present :P.
Disclaimer: this world and its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
Lily Evans was suspicious.
As a studious girl, she spent what her friends suggested was an inordinate amount of time in the library—now, she didn't shut herself up in there, and definitely wasn't averse to having fun of the more common type with kids her age, but she was in there enough to know the regulars.
Remus Lupin, for example, was rarely ever in the library, but as quite a studious boy himself, and a lover of books on top of that, she happened across him every so often perusing the gloriously well-stocked shelves.
James Potter, on the other hand, was not someone she expected to see in there, especially without Remus Lupin with him. In fact, not only was the only semi-decent boy of their obnoxious group not present, but the leader of said group was also alone.
That was right. Alone. James Potter was in the library without an awed Peter Pettigrew and grinning Sirius Black in tow.
Someone call the Prophet.
"What is he doing here?" Lily demanded of Alice, who had offered to accompany her to the library as she needed to revise for the next day's Defense exam.
Alice sighed and looked up, eyes widening in shock when she saw James Potter of all people standing with his back to them, running a finger along the spines of the books. "Maybe it's not really him," she suggested unconvincingly.
He might have his back to them, but there was no mistaking the mutinously misbehaving black hair. Lily sniffed. It was a mark of the boy's utter disobedience that even his hair appeared as if it was an anarchist.
Potter turned around then, and they saw that it was indeed him. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he thumbed through the pages of an impressively fat tome. Lily grudgingly conceded that it was a daunting task to digest that particular volume; she recognized it as a book she'd found too advanced to comprehend and to dry to bother learning to understand.
Potter, however, appeared as if he understood everything in it. After a moment, to the astonishment of both girls, he sat down at a nearby table and began to take notes.
James Potter, taking notes! "That's a Defense book," Alice observed. "Maybe he's revising as well?"
Lily snorted. As if. The idea of James Potter revising for anything was ludicrous. (Then again, so was the idea of him in the library taking notes, and yet there he was). It was a source of constant consternation for Lily that he managed to earn brilliant marks without trying. If there was anyone who didn't deserve it, it was James Potter. "He's probably just looking up some nasty hex to use on the Slytherins again."
Alice gave her a look. "Give him some credit, Lily. Just because you're friends with Snape—"
"The way they treat Severus is awful!" Lily interjected heatedly. She turned back to her book. "It doesn't matter, anyhow. Shall I ask you questions from our last lesson?"
While the girls stopped speculating what he was doing and carried on, James Potter himself was getting increasingly frustrated. He, Sirius, and Peter had consulted an innumerable amount of books and weren't getting anywhere. It was ridiculous!
Sirius, Remus, and Peter were stuck in detention, so James had come back to look at some of the more advanced texts. They would have gone over his head had he not had an Auror for a father.
Ever since learning about Remus, they had been struggling in vain to discover some cure, some miraculous panacea that would fix their friend's problem and spare him from his unfathomable monthly pain. All the books said the same thing, however—lycanthropy was an affliction that could not be cured.
James wondered furiously if this was due to the lack of a solution or for want of witches and wizards who tried to find one. They had unlocked the secret of alchemy! They had done practically everything, but they couldn't find a solution to a problem as severe as this?
James slammed his head on the desk, closing his eyes unhappily. Perhaps . . . perhaps there was something from the Potter library that could help them out. They had such a wealth of information at their fingertips; how could he not find a solution?
James couldn't bear to simply sit back and watch Remus suffer. If need be, after scouring the Hogwarts and Potter libraries for information, they could turn to the darker Black one for help. Sirius was more than willing to risk his health to act obedient and be allowed into the library if it would ultimately do Remus good.
Remus had told them that the Lupin library was extremely enormous as well, but James was certain that Mr. Lupin would have turned every page of every book there to search for a cure—especially since he was a renowned Dark creatures expert.
"Any luck, mate?" Sirius called, coming up from behind him and dropping into the seat beside him.
James looked at him in surprise. "How come you're out of detention so early?"
Sirius shrugged. "Peter is shockingly good at cleaning. I knew he had some sort of hidden talent somewhere."
James rolled his eyes. "Lay off him. Where are Remus and Peter?"
"They went back to the common room. Peter 'forgot' the new common room password and I came here to drag you away from your revisions." Sirius grinned. "Imagine Remus's surprise when he hears you're in the library of all places. 'Is he researching for that prank we were going to pull day after?'"
James gave him a shrewd look. "You said yes, didn't you."
Sirius shrugged. "Of course. I was throwing the suspicion off our real endeavors. So did you find anything?"
James scowled. "No," he muttered darkly, "and I doubt I ever will. I'm considering burning the library down."
Lily Evans, who chose that moment to walk past with Alice, froze abruptly and marched back towards them. "Excuse me?" she hissed, green eyes blazing. Good Godric, they were actually blazing. "If you can't respect a place as sacred—"
Sirius snorted but immediately rearranged his expression into one more appropriate for a funeral when Lily directed her blazing eyes at him. "—sacred as the library," Lily continued vehemently, "then you shouldn't be hear at all! Honestly, I knew you weren't in here for good purposes. You're absolutely awful, James Potter! You're just the sort of despicable person who'd walk into a library just to discuss the desecration of books! You disgust me!"
And then she spun on her heel and stormed off, red hair flying behind her, leaving a stupefied James in her wake. There were several seconds of silence in which all James did was blink once, stunned.
Then he turned to Sirius, opening and closing his mouth several times soundlessly. Sirius spoke for him. "She's insane, honestly! Traumatizing my best mate for no reason—"
"I should have known it was you two!" Madam Pince stood there, looking livid. "This is a library, Mr. Black, Mr. Potter, not a zoo! How dare you make such a racket? Students are trying to study."
Sirius opened his mouth in outrage while James glanced surreptitiously around the library, where not a single student other than them had remained. "But it wasn't us—"
"Ten points from Gryffindor!"
"It was clearly a girl—" James protested.
"And detention for both of you!"
James deflated.
"Why does Madam Pince keep giving me suspicious looks every time I enter the library?" Remus asked. "Honestly, it's exam time! It isn't as if this is an unusual occurrence."
Actually, it was. Potions was the only exam Remus ever bothered worrying about, because it was the only one he couldn't be sure of passing. But still—he often visited the library from new reading material, and not once had he done anything bad.
Except that one time he'd brought Sirius along and they had accidentally set a Quidditch magazine on fire arguing about whose team was better. But really, she needn't act as if he was a criminal.
Looking up just in time to see the look James and Sirius exchanged, he folded his arms and asked flatly, "What did you do?"
"Nothing!" James immediately answered. Remus gave him a disbelieving look.
"Does this have anything to do with your detention the other night?"
"Maybe," James admitted. "But really, it wasn't our fault! It was Evans!"
"Lily?" Remus asked doubtfully.
"That girl has got a few screws loose, mate," Sirius told him. "Really, it wasn't our fault. It's just that teachers hate us because we have devoted ourselves to the liberation of rule-bound students—"
"—the ruthless plundering of Flich's office—"
"—the defiance of that evil bat we've got for Defense this year—"
"Oi, I'm trying to study here!" Frank said exasperatedly from his bed. "Just because you lot never have to . . ."
"I study!" Remus protested. He really did; he always thought it was unfair that James and Sirius earned their marks without trying.
Frank scoffed. "Flipping through a book for half an hour and calling it done doesn't qualify as 'studying,' Remus."
James sighed dramatically. "Fine," he said. "Boys, shall we amuse ourselves outside of the common room?"
"We shall," Remus answered immediately. He was bored out of his mind.
That was how they found themselves outside the Defense classroom, snickering madly after successfully pranking Peeves by pretending to be the Bloody Baron. "Fifty points from Gryffindor!" a voice snapped suddenly, and they spun in astonishment to face Professor Forrest, the Defense Professor for that year.
She was a tall, severe woman who hated children and had outlawed laughter in her classroom. Her motto was "This is a classroom, not a circus." She had said it to the four of them on as many different occasions as galleons James had in his own vault at Gringotts. (This was a fancy way of saying "an astronomically high number").
"Fifty?" Sirius demanded. "Professor, it's the end of the year—!"
"And why should that mean you are exempt from following the rules?" Forrest asked stonily. "I am not one of your other teachers. I will not tolerate the disobedience and rowdiness you four have displayed repeatedly throughout the year because for some unfathomable reason you are well-liked. Question my punishment and you will lose more points."
Sirius paused before doing the very thing that drove his mother over the edge every time he got in trouble at home. He mouthed off.
He had scarcely uttered more than a few words before Professor Forrest turned a scarily bloodless shade of white and gave them all detention every night until exams ended, refusing to listen to their complaints about lack of study time. "You should have thought of that before you decided to go marauding 'round the castle like the miscreants you are and talk back to me when I punished you for it!"
Her nostrils had flared. She looked absolutely livid. Recognizing the look on his friend's face, James hastily grabbed Sirius and spun him around, and the four made their escape.
Sirius scowled. "We have to get her back for this. One last prank before we leave."
"It has to be brilliant," James agreed. "Something to remember us by."
Remus nodded, the beginnings of an idea forming in his mind. "What all has she outlawed, again?"
"Laughter."
"Talking."
"Happiness."
And they began to plot . . .
The Defense exam was their last one, falling the day before the final feast. Gryffindor had no chance of winning the House Cup anyway, so they weren't particularly concerned about points. Besides, they ahd won the Quidditch Cup.
And so it was that when the last student's exam was turned in and Professor Forrest leaned back, demanding utter silence, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter met each other's gazes and waved their wands in tandem.
Nothing happened at first. Then, all at once, in a brilliant display of advanced magic, the desks were transfigured into clowns, the chairs became fire jugglers, parrots squawked loudly, imitating human voices, and the classroom dissolved into pure, beautiful mayhem.
The classroom had become what she had been fighting the entire year—a circus. Students were cheering loudly, things were being thrown across the room, and even the Slytherins had let loose their own brand of wildness that gave the Gryffindors a glimpse of what their parties were like.
They were dancing on the remaining un-transfigured tabletops, producing green and silver fireworks from the tips of their wands, and one of them had at some point smuggled in firewhiskey—firewhiskey, of all things, which they hadn't even ever had—and generally acting with the kind of reckless abandon only the sort of students who reveled in chaos could achieve.
It was a party, and the doors were locked so it couldn't escape or end. It worked all the better because it was the Slytherins and Gryffindors in the room; Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff wouldn't have been quite as willing to spite the rules.
The finishing touch, a signature, had been Remus's idea, sparked by something the professor had said when she gave them all detention and docked the points that put them permanently out of the running for the House Cup.
With hopes that she remembered them and a mocking salute, their final creation for the year was proudly presented to her:
In thanks, the Marauders.
And thus, a legend was born.
To their dismay, when they walked into the Great Hall the next day, it was decorated in green and silver, and Slytherin banners hung from the ceiling. Slughorn was positively beaming, but none of the other teachers looked particularly pleased, and Professor McGonagall had her lips pursed.
Even Professor Dumbledore, who was supposed to be impartial, did not have the customary twinkle in his eye when he announced Slytherin House as the winner of the House Cup that year, and his smile as he said his congratulations did not reach his eyes.
James looked at Sirius glumly as the Slytherin table erupted into wild cheers and the Gryffindors glared at them sullenly. The Ravenclaws were clapping politely and while some of the Hufflepuffs had rueful looks on their faces (they had gotten second place), most—particularly the first years; they were so ridiculously enthusiastic about everything—were applauding the Slytherins as well, but some of the Gryffindors flat-out of the teachers bothered scolding them; it was the last day, and besides, even the teachers didn't like the Slytherins. James wished Dumbledore and McGonagall would favor them the way Slughorn favored his students, but it never happened. It wasn't fair. "Cheaters, the lot of them," he muttered to Sirius, scowling.
Lily Evans frowned at them disapprovingly. "They won because they deserved it," she snapped, glaring. "And Gryffindor would have won if you four hadn't lost us so many points hexing the Slytherins."
"As if they didn't deserve it," James snapped back. "Besides, they're just as bad, and they never lost any points for it. They're bullies, the lot of them, but do they ever get any flack for it?"
"Yes!" Lily answered, before turning away with a huff.
James turned to Sirius, only to find that his friend had his eyes fixed on someone at the Slytherin table. James turned and saw Regulus Black grinning as a Slytherin prefect said something to him. It was a nasty, gloating sort of grin that made James want to hit him. Another Slytherin from their other side heard and clapped Regulus on the shoulder, gesturing between him and the two people beside him—James vaguely recognized them as the Slytherins who had been with Snivellus when they'd hexed him at the beginning of the year—before laughing. A female Slytherin prefect joined in, a sneer fixed on her face.
James grimaced. Even between themselves, the Slytherins weren't friendly. He'd have killed himself if he'd gotten Sorted there.
"There's always next year," he said, trying to distract Sirius.
"Yeah," Sirius said grimly. "There's always next year." But as they boarded the train, Sirius slipped into his usual gloom, becoming quieter and tensed, a dark look in his eyes at the prospect of returning home.
"Come on," Remus said in an attempt to draw one last smile out of Sirius before he transformed from Sirius into a Black. "Next year's going to be great. Let's set it in stone, yeah?"
And he took out his wand and in careful script etched four words into the wall:
Long live the Marauders.
If Lyall Lupin was surprised to see the changes in his son the previous summer, he was absolutely stunned to see the boy stepping out of the Hogwarts Express just then. At first, he wasn't even sure it was his son before he caught sight of the vibrant green eyes and knew it was, indeed, Remus Lupin.
Remus was lankier than he'd been when he had left at the beginning of the year. His typically impeccable appearance was somewhat more casual, if still decent. Another boy with almost unbelievably messy hair and a charming, broad grin had his arm around him and was gesturing wildly with his free hand.
With one last word, they broke apart, and Remus yelled, "See you next summer!" Then he turned his attention towards the throng of parents, eyes lighting up when he caught sight of his father.
"How was Hogwarts this year?" Lyall asked his son, enveloping him in a hug.
"Brilliant," Remus declared. "Our Defense professor was awful; she really hated us, but I got an O on the exam for sure. She'll be gone next year, though, and I'm glad. She assigned homework as if we were O.W.L. students. She was a Ravenclaw in her years at Hogwarts."
"And how are your friends? That was James I saw you talking to when you got off, right?"
"Yeah," Remus affirmed. "They're great. By the way, have you got any chocolate?"
True to his word, Sirius behaved himself that summer. He left his parents alone, and they left him alone, allowing him to frequent the library to look for something to help Remus. He was even able to receive and reply back to some of his friends' letters.
The only problem was that Regulus spent a lot of his time in the library as well. Slytherin hadn't done his brother any favors. Sirius had caught one glimpse of his room, and that was enough to make him never want to step foot in it again—it was decorated with green and silver, and everything about it screamed Black, Pureblood, and Slytherin.
Regulus had acquired a silent sort of confidence that he hadn't had before. The emotion one had been able to read before in his face was no longer there; the masks that characterized their family had begun to fall into place on him too.
Sirius hated it; that his brother, who had been completely un-Black-like with the exception of his upbringing, was now become everything Sirius hated about his family. Sneers and smirks came more easily to Regulus now, and everything he said had a sharp, stinging quality to it. He was cold and aloof, keeping his distance.
"Too good for me now, Regulus?" Sirius had sneered one day when Regulus had taken a book from beside Sirius without even looking at him. "Can't lower yourself to acknowledge your Gryffindor brother?"
Regulus had stiffened before giving him the frostiest look Sirius had ever seen, colder than any even his parents had ever given him. And yet the intensity of his eyes told Sirius that he was not yet completely Slytherin, completely Black. They shared those eyes; eyes that could convey volumes and were almost frightening in their intensity.
"You were the one who turned your back on me," he said.
And it was then that Sirius caught the barest undercurrent of hurt in his brother's voice, and it gave him hope. "You wouldn't have survived in Slytherin if you were on good terms with your Gryffindor brother. I was protecting you—"
"Protecting me?" Regulus repeated with a cynical twist to his mouth. "You're a much better liar than that, Sirius. You didn't want your fellow Gryffindors to see you associating with someone like me." He said the last three words in a mocking tone.
Regulus placed his book on the table before looking back up at Sirius, his eyes piercing. "Do you think siblings are never separated by House? Do you think that Slytherins with brothers or sisters in other Houses stop associating with them because of a different Sorting?"
When Sirius didn't answer, he continued. "I know someone who's got a brother in Hufflepuff, and they still speak. One of my best friend's families is half Ravenclaw, and my other best mate's parents are a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw."
Sirius snorted. "You're making that up," he said flatly. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, first of all, were the last two houses to go together, and Slytherins and Hufflepuffs were practically polar opposites. Besides, who'd want to be a Hufflepuff?
Their parents wouldn't allow Regulus to be friends with someone like that, anyway, and Regulus wouldn't befriend someone like that himself. He bought into the supremacy things wholeheartedly. Besides, from every exchange Sirius had seen with the Slytherins, he'd noted that they didn't have friends. Regulus was mistaking allies for friends because he'd never known real friendship.
He felt a sudden rush of sympathy for his brother. He wasn't meant to be in a family like this, in a House like Slytherin. There was something genuinely good inside his brother, and it was still there, if less noticeable. Both Slytherin and their family would crush it out of him, though.
Sirius could see Regulus in Hufflepuff, if things had been different. Perhaps it wasn't the most glorious of Houses, but he could have been happy there.
"You didn't have to follow the rest of the family, you know." He caught the look on Regulus's face and quickly continued, "Regulus, I didn't; I chose Gryffindor and I'm happy here. Our parents would have gotten over it if you hadn't gone to Slytherin. They can't dictate what you do, Regulus. You could have been happy."
Regulus had stiffened. Then suddenly, as if without meaning to, he hissed violently, "Did you ever consider that I wanted to be in Slytherin? Not because of Mother or Father, not because of our family, but of my own accord?"
Seeing the look on Sirius's face, he let out a short, harsh laugh. "No. Of course not. You're such a hypocrite, Sirius. You go on and on about treating people equally, and you once yelled at me for saying Slytherin was better than Hufflepuff and told me that every House has its good points, even Hufflepuff, but have you ever once looked at Slytherin and thought maybe we aren't all evil?
"You look at our ambition and see greed! You look at how our loyalty to our loved ones overshadows all else and all you see is lack of loyalty to our morals! You see that we don't always face our problems head on and label us all as cowards but you never once stop to realize that although we don't always face them head on, we always meet them! Whether we avert them, dissolve them, or redirect them, we always meet them!
You Gryffindors preach about chivalry and nobility and have the nerve to believe yourselves unswerving practitioners and having complete monopolies of it! At least in Slytherin we're honest about who we are. Oh, we might try to make others believe otherwise, but we don't lie to ourselves."
He turned to leave but stopped and addressed Sirius directly, not speaking of his House or anything else, but solely of him.
"You condemn us—me—for being prejudiced, but you don't realize that you are the exact same." He laughed harshly again. "At least I didn't turn my back on my family for it."
And then he was gone. Sirius stared at the spot his brother had vacated, mind reeling. He had never heard his brother speak with that kind of passion, that kind of anger before. It was then that he realized that Regulus was not the weak, impressionable follower Sirius had always believed him to be.
He had been young, and now he had outgrown that, and Sirius had no idea who he was. Sirius left the library, only to find Regulus sitting in the small office opposite it. He was reclining on a couch, a book balanced on his knees, but his body was lined with tension.
Sirius meant to leave, but his body wouldn't comply. If what Regulus said was true, why did the Slytherins act the way they did? In fact, a pair of Muggleborn Gryffindors had been hexed by the Slytherins towards the end of the previous year! And nobody could say that Slytherins weren't all blood prejudiced gits.
Sirius himself came from a family like that; he would know.
"Prove it," he blurted out, and Regulus managed to tense even more. Swallowing, Sirius continued, "Prove that you're not all the evil, horrible people we think you are."
If looks could kill . . . Regulus's voice was icy, and there was a brittle tone to it that belied the barely controlled rage underlying it. "Why should we prove that we're not evil? Have you? Have the Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws?"
Sirius was silent, and Regulus turned his back on him, returning to his book.
"Then why should we have to?"
Sirius left.
James had thought that this summer would be more interesting than the last. He had a goal to accomplish this summer: scour the Potter library for anything that would help Remus.
It was nearing the end of the summer, however, and he had gotten nowhere. The only result of his efforts were a sense of increased frustration and helplessness and a few odd looks from his parents, who wondered why it was that whenever they were home their son, who had never liked to read, was suddenly spending so much time in the library.
Sirius had written. He'd had just as much luck as James had. Peter was on holiday in Venezuela and couldn't help. Even flying wasn't enough to help James's restlessness and anger.
He was counting down the minutes until September 1st.