"Come on guys! We've been studying for this for nearly 3 years." James belted out in frustration. They'd been going through how to apprehend the mandrake leaf the entire evening and yet their plan was nowhere near being finished.
"Homework's too difficult for you, Potter?" Lily Evans voice spoke smugly behind them. She leaned over mockingly, her red her brushing over his shoulder in the process. James blushed. Sirius however, still level-headed instinctively slammed the Animagi book shut, hitting James hand in the process. Of course the covers didn't say The book of Animagi any longer but one could never be too careful.
"Aoutch!" James yelled irritably, retracting his hand. Sirius ignored him.
"What are you boys making anyway?" Lily asked sounding somewhere between taunting and curious. "Terms nearly over you know, so starting to study for your exams is a little late."
"It's a love potion." Peter said quickly to everyone's surprise.
"A what now?!" Lily looked at James with disgust stepping away from him at once.
"It's not for you of course!" James said at once, slightly red in the face and aiming a kick towards a petrified Pettigrew that hit Remus instead. Lupin ignored it, thinking he somehow probably deserved it.
"It better not be Potter, or I'll make sure to have you expelled!" Lily snapped and strode off, nose in the air and with an expression of pure disgust on her face. James gave her a painful look as if torn between running after her to apologise or taking his anger out on Peter. He chose the latter.
"You IDIOT!" he shouted. "Lily is going to think that I'm trying to poison her now." He pulled his hair in despair. This evening was not going to plan at all.
"Well, at least she doesn't know what we're actually doing." Remus said quietly but the boys heard him all the same. He was worried about his friends and what could possibly happen to them if they got caught trying to become illegal animaguses or worse, if something went wrong during the process. Surely he wasn't worth all of this trouble. Still, he appreciated it never the less.
"Coming to think of it, that was actually some quick thinking from your side Peter." Sirius said sounding rather impressed, although he mainly did so to tease James. His friend let it slide. "Maybe I should make you carry the leaf in your mouth for a month during the school year after all." James said cruelly. "That way you wouldn't be able to come up with any more clever ideas. It's very out of character for you Peter. Someone might get suspicious." Peter winced.
"As tempting as that sounds.." Sirius butted in before Peter started to take actual offense by James lady frustrations, "having an actual reason not to speak to my family all summer is too good to give up." He tossed his black locks of hair out of the way with and threw Remus a reassuring smile as if to tell him that he was actually up for doing this. One hundred percent. "I'm looking forward to it."
"Well the rest of you better come up with some good exudes." said Remus anxiously but he returned Sirius smile. "Not that I'm forcing you to." he added quickly.
"Lupin." James interrupted, his focus finally back where it belonged. "We're doing this mate. One hundred percent." Peter nodded enthusiastically. "Even If my future wife disowns me before we're even married." Everyone sighed loudly. "you're worth it mate."
"Besides" Sirius butted in before James started going on about Evans again for the billionth time. "I could just tell her that the love potion is for my brother, trying to make him fancy our house-elf or something." He grinned and the others laughed, thinking for a second that that might not actually be such a bad idea after all. Lily didn't like Rugulus , so that she probably wouldn't mind.
"Alright." James said finally dropping all thoughts of Lily. "Let's go over the plan once again." They all huddled together. "Peter, before the diversion you need to sneak into Professor Slughorn and nick the leaves. Do you know how many pieces you need to get."
"Yes, six. Once each and then one backup just in case. I do remember that you know, since you told me like a hundred times." Peter said irritably. "I still don't understand why I have to be the one to do it. I get so nervous when stealing stuff."
"That's probably a good thing." Remus muttered but they all ignored him.
"It has to be you, since you'd be the only one he'd believe if you told him you got the wrong thing out of the cupboard, getting mandrake leaves mixed up with snakeskin." James interrupted.
"Sorry Professor, they're both sooo shiny!" Sirius said mockligly.
"I'm not that stupid!" Peter protested but laughed with the others all the same.
"We know." James assured him. "But considering how your potions exam went, old Slughorn's bound to think so."
"I misread the instructions." Peter muttered. "It wasn't my fault that my cauldron exploded." he said bitterly.
"What we need to focus on now is what kind of distraction to use." Sirius interrupted before James lost his focus again. This was a serious mission. They couldn't mess it up. They needed good cover if something did went wrong but nothing too obvious to be remembered by. He looked at Remus. Full moon had not been that long ago. This was important. Their most important step so far.
"We could just hex Snivulus." James suggested. "One needs to use the opportunity, soon we won't see him every day after all." Sirius laughed loudly.
"I don't think that will get you back into Lily's good book." Remus pointed out.
"Alright, alright, here's what we'll do…"
"Lily, please!" Remus begged her. "We're partners, we need to co-operate or we'll never finish in time." She remained silent, making it very obvious that she'd refuse to talk to him for the rest of the class. "Oh, come on. Are you really going to let me stand in the way of you getting a perfect mark?" She sighed.
"It's just hard for me to believe that you would agree to this." Lily said sternly.
"Well, James isn't that great at potions." Remus couldn't help himself. He liked Lily. Not the way James did, although considering how he behaved a part of him hoped that he never would fancy anyone that way anyway. She was always very kind to him and could be quite funny and she was definitely a more brilliant potions partner than Peter had ever been to him. She'd helped him loads this year. "It's funny!" he explained. "Cos, you know he's family are really famous potions makers after all. Being good at potions is supposed to be in his blood."
"Well I wouldn't really know about that sort of thing." she muttered, obviously still angry and threw in some more dragonroots into their cauldron that nearly made its content splatter over them.
"You know that's not the thing I was talking about." Remus gave her an endearing look. Surly she knew that her blood status wasn't something that would ever bother him. She sighed.
"Stir a little more please." she finally gave in. Remus did as he was told. He checked his watch. Seven more minutes until distraction time. His task was to distract Lily, just in case, as she might be clever enough to figure out that they were up to something and he had made it his personal mission to make her like him again.
"Look, I know you're not going to believe anything positive I'd say about James..." he began carefully, not bothering to dance around his friends supposed mistake any longer.
"That would be correct." Lily replied coolly.
"But he wouldn't try to win you over with a love potion. That's not his style."
"It's awful, just like he is. See how I made those two connections." It was awful, he thought to himself as he hadn't quite thought about it before. Being forced into fancying someone with no power to say no didn't seem like something very pleasant. Suddenly he felt for her for being so upset.
"It's not James's style." he defended his friend, though thinking he'd use him for curse practice if ever would be. "He'd want to win you over properly, so that he could boast about how his charm finally one to everyone that would be near enough to hear. Not cheat with some potion. It wouldn't count." He explained. "I'm not saying that that's a great thing." Remus added quickly. Lily laughed, finally.
"You're such idiots." She concluded. "I think you can stop stirring now." She added. "It's supposed to simmer for a little bit." He did as he was told.
"So what are you boys up to if you're not planning to poison me then?" she asked sternly.
"Well." Remus leaned towards her. "we were planning to play a little prank on Sirius younger brother, as punishment for him being such a pureblooded git, by making him fancy their house elf during the summer." Lily giggled. "Of course, it's turning out to be tricky since they're not the same species. Not that he's too worried over something going wrong." They both laughed.
"They're really scary, his family, aren't they?" Lily asked, lowering her voice.
"Can't say, I've never really met them properly. He'll be fine tho." He threw Sirius a look. Sometimes he did wonder just what kind of horrors he had to endure back home. He was always so sarcastic whenever he spoke of them, but as Remus knew all to well himself sarcasm could be a good defence mechanism.
"Well I make sure to avoid them." She admitted. Their eyes met and he noticed that she actually looked quite worried. "I know that's not very Gryffindor like of me, but in times like these you can't be too sure, considering what my parents are and so on." Remus understood what she meant. Scary things we're going on outside the walls of Hogwarts. "I think it's brave of you to act on behalf of what's best for them." he told her honestly. "I don't think you'd have to worry too much about Sirius's parents tho. They're not the type that would enjoy getting their hands dirty. Not that you are." Remus added quickly. Lily gave him an reassuring look. It must be difficult for her, he thought to himself. If something were to happen, if they came, not that they would, but if they did her muggle parents wouldn't being able to help defending her and defending them would be entirely up to her. Of course nothing would happen. Not yet at least. "I'm sure you'll be alright." Lily nodded.
"Interrupting something?" Sirius asked teasingly. Lily sighed.
"Don't let James hear you use that kind of talk." Remus looked at his watch again, cursing himself for worrying too much about Lily's deatheater problems to remember to keep track of time. Sure enough, he could see Peter sneaking off towards the ingredients storage just like they had planned.
"Mind if I borrow these?" he said before snatching Remus's newly cutup roots right in front of him.
"Are you serious?" Remus said annoyingly. He'd spent a long time cutting up those. His arm aced from an ugly cut his other self had obtained the previous full moon and hiding it from Lily had only been possible do to her efforts to ignore him.
"I am Sirius." he answered. Both Remus and Lily rolled their eyes. "Please, I need them to rescue our potion before Peter shows up and destroys the entire thing again." He nodded towards their table. "He's off getting more snakeskin since the last piece he tried to add accidentally caught fire." Sirius said rather loudly. Their potion would be the distraction but only because Sirius had gotten the permission from James to complain loudly about it so that it wouldn't affect his grade.
"It took me ages to cut up those!" Remus protested, stretching after the roots as Sirius quickly jumped out of his reach winking at him.
"What happened!?" Lily almost shouted. Remus looked confused. Then he realised that his sleeve had slid down, exposing his wound.
"Oh, nothing." he tried to ensure her. "I just injured myself."
"Yes, I can see that." Lily said sarcastically. "Here, take my roots. I prepared them last lesson, but I was too mad at you to not let you chop your own." she said looking rather sorry about that now. "It looks really bad."
"It's nothing, Remus said uncomfortably, checking to see where Slughorn was positioned simultaneously. He found him far away from Peter, standing bent over a classmate's cauldron in the opposite end of the classroom. It's content had started producing thick, yellow bubbles that kept floating up in the air, which Remus was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be doing. "I got smacked by the Whomping Willow practicing quidditch with James." Remus explained vaguely. It wasn't the first time he had used this excuse. "Sirius was in detention." he added. "Apparently the tree a great substitute for bludgers."
"Apparently you're not very great at avoiding them." Lily said. "Here. Add these and stir clockwise whilst you do." she handed him her roots. "I'm gonna go find you some sap for your wound. Slughorn won't mind when it's me asking."
"Thank you." He said and truly meant it, although deep down he knew that there where nothing in this world that would ease the pain caused by a werewolf injury. Those simply had to heal by themselves. He watched her whilst adding the roots just like she'd told him. She passed Snapes table two rows in front of theirs. He stood up as she passed him, bumping his knee on the table.
"I'll walk with you." he said, turning slightly red. Remus wondered why he always had to put his nose in things it doesn't belonged, worried that he would eventually find out the truth about him. The thought made his stomach turn unpleasantly. Peter remerged from the storage and slipped something to James as he passed them. No one had seen. Remus took a deep breath and went back to watching Lily who, for some reason seemed to enjoy Snape's company. Maybe their little distraction wouldn't be necessary after all?
"Practicing muggle studies, Severus? Watch out or you'll get dirty." another Slytherin student called Avery shouted as he passed him and Lily talking to one another. A roar of laughter erupted. Then three things happened very quickly. Lily grabbed a nearby weighing scale standing on the table in front of her and smashed it over his face with all the force she could fathom. Remus winced at the sound of bone breaking. He knew it too well. Simultaneously James, who of course was always watching Lily, fired a curse that hit Snape instead which resulted in him flying into Avery. They collided so harshly that Avery fell into the yellow bubbling cauldron Remus had watched before. Snape, rather taken aback managed to shout PROTEGO just in time to keep him and Lily, who was still holding the brass measuring scale in a tight grip from getting splattered. Avery screamed in terror and pain, trying to get the essence of potion off him.
"Now, NOW, children!" shouted Professor Slughorn, obviously destressed over the sudden chaos that had erupted in his classroom. He made the potion vanish with a quick swish of his wand. All of Avery's hair in the areas it had touched seemed to have fallen off. The hairs that remained sprouted the same yellow colour has the bubbles had had. Everyone in the classroom started laughing at his distressed reaction to this. Lily sat back down next to him.
"Are you alright?" he whispered. "That hit was nothing less than he deserved."
"They're going to expel me." She whispered sounding very distressed. "I can't believe I just did that."
"They most certainly won't. Besides, Slughorn loves you, he'll make sure you stay the victim of this. Anyway, I think that hit was brilliant!" Remus told her reassuringly. They both winced at the sound of Avery's nose being fixed.
"Can't believe it all worked out!" James said happily. The four of them were chilling back in the boys bedroom. "And I even got to hex Snape without getting into detention." He smiled brightly. "Poor Lily tho." his smile faded at once thinking about her. "That Avery fool didn't get nearly as bad a punishment that he deserved." He muttered bitterly.
"She can fend for herself, clearly." Sirius pointed out. They'd been talking about the events during potions class all throughout the day and he didn't feel like relapsing on the topic, even though he of course agreed that what'd happened had been awful.
"And I got the leaves!" Peter added excitedly. "And we didn't even have to sacrifice my potion." He added, happy with the outcome.
"Well then." James said, handing out the leaves, two to Peter and two to Sirius, keeping two to himself. One to use and one for backup. "We all know what to do. Keep the leaves in your mouth for one month without anyone noticing. You can't take it out, bite it or swallow it or it won't work. Is that clear?" he asked them both, but mostly looking at Peter, who started to seem nervous. "Timing that with the date we go back to Hogwarts. As soon as we arrive, we sneak over to the screaking shack using the invisibility cloak whilst everyone else is busy getting to the castle, putting our leaves directly into the potion that we've prepared. After that only a few steps remain until we become the youngest animaguses in recorded history!" he smiled excitedly. Peter winced.
"And, making us able to be together every day of the month." Sirius added and grabbed Remus by the neck. "Like true brothers should!" Lupin blushed as his three best friends clinked their stolen butterbeers together. He knew they were being silly but yet his eyes started feeling a bit watery all of the sudden.
"For Remus!" Peter said.
"For Remus!" James and Sirius joined in and the three of them howled together.
"Guys! Someone could hear you…" Remus protested, although somewhat amused. All this time Sirius hadn't let go if his shoulder.
"We're with you man. I'm Sirius." he told him.
"Booooo!" shouted James and Peter together. It was nothing but reflex for them to do so nowadays whenever he told them that joke. Sirius grinned and shook his shoulder.
"One hundred percent!" Remus smiled right back at them.
"One hundred percent."