Severus was rather astonished at how quickly October passed. Just before the end of the month, Remus had to return home again and, this time, Severus wasn't at all concerned that James and Sirius would turn against him in his absence. Nor did they. All the same, Severus was happy When Remus returned. Outside of Lily, who had found her own group of friends that consisted of Gryffindors and a few Ravenclaws, Remus was still the person Severus felt closest with. Had it not been for Remus, Severus might not have risked asking the Hat for Gryffindor, and ended up in Slytherin. Possibly trying to ingratiate himself with the other Black family, who seemed to hold the power-and wield it accordingly. Sirius was certain that his oldest cousin was just counting down the days before she could officially join You-Know-Who, and only a bit less certain that Narcissa would follow her almost fiancé to kiss his feet. Slytherin might have a few good people, and he knew that his own mother didn't hold the same views as most of the Blacks (she had, after all, married a muggle), but the house never looked less appealing.
Now, three days had passed since Remus returned, and he was only starting to gain back his usual countenance. For the second time, he'd arrived looking exhausted, spending the entire day in bed, and neglecting the plate of food they'd brought him from the Great Hall. The following day, he still looked very tired, but had managed to eat, attend classes, and do his homework before nearly collapsing into his bed. It was a good thing he was feeling better today, Severus thought, because it would be a shame to miss out on the Halloween Feast. Everyone with a parent who had attended Hogwarts had reminisced about this feast, and all five males of Gryffindor were eagerly anticipating it.
One downside of it being the end of October was the chilly weather. It had become so cold that students could hardly leave the castle (which, at a minimum, was necessary for entering the greenhouses for Herbology and the Astronomy Tower for their weekly midnight class) without extra socks, and warming charms for their robes. Even the castle halls felt drafty. Severus was glad that his mum had warned him about the chilly falls and even colder winters before he'd left, and made sure he knew how to perform a warming charm before almost anything else.
Not that it was particularly advanced-about the same level of difficulty as the hover charm. The other marauders managed it easily enough, but Peter still struggled with it, and often needed one of his roommates' help. He was improving, though, and Severus thought he'd be able to cast the spell without any difficulty within a week or so. On the day of Halloween, once everyone was well equipped for the drafty castle, they headed downstairs and remained in front of the closed kitchens to savor the smells of the feast that they would enjoy later that day.
"Mmm. I smell treacle tart," James observed, getting a dreamy look on his face.
Severus nodded, feeling his own mouth begin to water. "I think I smell eclairs."
"Oh, I can smell those. Wonder if there will be jam tarts," Sirius added, grinning at Remus, who smiled back.
"Oh, there's little there won't be," James replied with confidence, taking another deep breath. "Mum and Dad would tell me all about the Halloween Feasts here. They've told me it's the best feast of the year."
"Move on, first years!" one of the older students called. "The feast won't arrive any faster with your drooling over it."
"We're not drooling," Peter protested, half-heartedly.
However, reluctantly, they moved away from the heavenly wafts and in the direction of the delicious, yet not quite heavenly, odor of the Great Hall. They sat down in their usual group-Peter on one side of James and Sirius on the other-with Severus and Remus across the table from them.
It felt so natural, now, that Severus couldn't believe they had nearly become enemies on the train. The girls of their year sat near them, but distinctly apart. Lily was in the middle of two girls, Marlene McKinnon and Alice Longbottom, both from pure-blood families, but whose families had a history of being Sorted into Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.
He helped himself to his own porridge, savoring the taste. It was much better than the undercooked porridge his mother had prepared. The raisins and sugar certainly enhanced the taste.
"Muggles celebrate Halloween too, you know," Remus murmured, after taking an appreciative whiff in the way of the kitchens.
"Oh, really? What do they do?" Sirius asked, now helping himself to porridge from the bowl.
"For the kids, trick-or-treating. Costume parties and the like for the adults," Severus answered, as Remus had just taken a mouthful of food and couldn't reply. At the look of confusion on James' and Sirius' faces, he further explained. "Kids get dressed up in some kind of costume, then they go house to house in their neighborhood and yell out, 'trick or treat!' The adults give them each a candy bar or some kind of sweet. Goes on for a couple of hours, and the kids return with bags loaded with sweets."
"That sounds fun, but why the 'trick' part?" Sirius wondered.
Remus, who had swallowed by now, answered for Severus. "You'd like that bit, Sirius. James, you as well." He waited, rather dramatically, before explaining further. "If the adult won't give you a treat, that gives you free reign to play a trick on them. Some kids toilet paper the house of an adult who won't hand out treats."
"Wicked," Sirius grinned, rubbing his hands together. "Ohhh, that does sound like fun."
"The tricks sound like fun, but I don't fancy having to do all that work for sweets," James said, thoughtfully.
Sirius shrugged. "Any holiday that allows playing pranks on people gets my vote."
"You can only play the prank if they don't give out sweets," Severus pointed out, with a wry grin.
"Aw, why can't I do both?" James complained, but his twinkled.
"The adults would get rightly angry if they spend pounds on sweets for kids only to get their houses egged and toilet papered in exchange," Severus remarked. "They can't fix it with magic."
"Yeah, I suppose you're right," James answered with an affected sigh.
"Have you ever been trick-or-treating?" Sirius asked, glancing at the others.
"I did, some years," Remus answered. "But there weren't many homes in my neighborhood. Besides, we always had chocolates at home."
"I went last year, and the year before that," Severus recalled. "I went with Lily Evans both times. I had fun."
His mum had agreed to let him go, and his father had gotten drunk (as usual) after his work had let him off. Severus had taken a few of his sweets home and hid them under his mattress, but let Lily have the bulk of them. Better she enjoy them than they end up with the rubbish. And receive a beating for participating in a trivial holiday. Or, nearly as bad, his mum being beaten for not encouraging him to act more normal.
His father's views were often inconsistent when it came down to Severus and his wife, but most of what they did would result in his violence.
Thinking about this filled Severus with anger, and he forced himself to breathe slowly.
He thought about having spent the time with Lily, instead. Her mum had taken the both of them. One of the few disappointments she'd had, over discovering that she'd be at Hogwarts for most of the year, was missing out on Halloween. Even though Severus reassured her that the Feast had every kind of sweet she could imagine, she said that part of the fun was going house to house for them. Severus, despite participating in the muggle version of the holiday for two consecutive years, couldn't see why she was so disappointed.
"My dad took me before Hogwarts," Peter put in. "My mum went once, too."
"Doesn't sound like the type of thing my family would let my brother and me do, unless other pure-bloods were involved," Sirius noted. "They'd say we were begging for sweets, and that's unbecoming for a member of the House of Black."
"I reckon my dad would have allowed it, had he known about it," James mused. "He loves that sort of thing, although he likely would have teased me about 'begging' for sweets."
That seemed to end the conversation, and they went ahead and finished their breakfasts.
The students in years three and up had been excused from classes to attend Hogsmeade for the first time that year, but the first and second years had their morning classes. Afternoons were free, it being a Friday, but it felt a bit unfair to be left out of the festivities that nearly the entire school was a part of.
"We'll go next year," James promised. "Dad says there are seven passages outside of the castle to Hogsmeade, but he wants me to learn them on my own. Says it will be more fun that way. And Mum agrees, although I reckon she'd prefer I wait until I'm old enough."
That made having to go to class a bit easier.
Fridays meant Charms, where they learned how to make objects fly (and of course, everyone except Peter was an expert at this), and Transfiguration. In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, Professor McGonagall stunned them all by turning into a cat in front of them, and then spent the next fifteen minutes explaining about animagi, or witches and wizards who could transform themselves in an animal at will.
Sirius raised his hand. "Can it be any animal you like, or just one?"
"Only one, and you can't choose it, Black," she explained. "Once you complete the process, you turn into the animal that best matches your personality and abilities. It could be anything from a lion to an insect. So, if you're thinking of undertaking the process once you're of age, you'd do well to keep that in mind," she added, warningly.
James raised his hand, then, and spoke once McGonagall called on him. "Can you find out before completing the process what your animal would be, so you know if you want to finish it?"
The Transfiguration teacher smiled. "A complex question, Potter. There are tests that you can perform to determine which animal you are likely to become, but you know nothing definitively until the process is complete. Now, let us turn our attention to our marbles, and try to turn them into butterflies."
As they worked, the five of them chatted quietly. McGonagall didn't usually like people to talk in her class, even her best students, but she must have been feeling generous, it being a holiday.
"Would any of you want to go through all that? Becoming an Animagus?" James asked, as his butterfly flew around the room.
Sirius shook his head. "Not if I found out I'd end up a tick or something foul like that."
Severus shrugged. "I'd prefer to know what animal I'd become before going through all the work. Some kind of bird would be best."
"But you don't even like to ride a broom!" James protested, with a laugh.
"Because you can fall of those," Severus explained, for only the tenth time. "Animals with wings know how to use them. I wouldn't be afraid."
"They still fall, if there's a predator on the loose," Sirius pointed out, with a grin.
"Then I'd use my superior human brain and get out of the way," Severus smirked. "Might not work on your end."
"Hey!" Sirius protested, but he was laughing.
"Peter? What do you think?" Remus asked.
He shrugged. "I'd just be happy to make it to that point, but I suppose a lion or a tiger would be pretty neat."
"You don't want to fly, then?" Severus asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Well, most birds are prey animals, and lions and tigers are at the top of the food chain," Peter pointed out. "I'd feel safer, there."
"McGonagall did all right with a house cat," James murmured under his breath. "No predators, and every kid who doesn't know any better and sees her tries to pet her."
"Unlike Mrs. Norris," Severus noted, with a smirk. "Who would bite the hand off of any student who tried."
Potions was equally enjoyable, but Severus always enjoyed that class the most. Slughorn was known to choose favorites, but in spite of being the head of Slytherin, he didn't necessarily favor that house. Of their year, Severus and Lily were his pets, but James and Sirius weren't far below them in his eyes.
They spent the afternoon finishing their weekend assignments, and then James convinced them to explore the castle with him.
"We won't need my cloak, since it's nowhere near curfew," he told them, "and with just the first and second year students, it won't be at all crowded. Maybe," he added, with a grin, "we'll stumble upon one of the entrances to Hogsmeade!"
The castle was certainly colder than the Gryffindor Common Room, but after reapplying heating charms to their robes, everyone was comfortable.
"Without seeming like a spoilsport, I'm rather glad that we're here and not in Hogsmeade," Remus commented, after the charms had been applied. "It's bound to be nearly freezing."
"Not in the shops, though, and butterbeer warms you right up. Besides, they're likely wearing cloaks and scarves, not just school robes," James pointed out, as they climbed one of the staircases.
"What's butterbeer?" asked Severus, pausing at the top to catch his breath.
"It's amazing, even better than hot chocolate," James explained, helpfully. "Dad bought me some for my birthday. Tastes delicious, warms your whole insides. My mouth's watering just thinking about it." He paused. "Maybe I can ask him for some for Christmas. I'll share with you, of course."
"I'll believe it's better than hot chocolate when I taste it," Remus quipped, but he was grinning.
"You will," James said, with confidence.
"Say, d'you know if we have to get new robes for the winter months?" Remus asked. "It's only going to get colder from here on out."
"Our shopping list didn't specify anything for the different seasons," Severus answered, "and I'd think Mum would tell me if she needed to buy me new ones."
"We should be fine, just as long as we apply those heating charms," Sirius said, with confidence. "Anyway, I don't expect the castle will get too much colder. Andromeda says they'll make more fires as it gets chillier."
"Woolen robes would be awfully uncomfortable," Peter put in. "We'd be scratching ourselves nonstop."
"Not if we wore our regular ones underneath, you prat," James reminded him.
"We'd look like mummies if we did that," Severus mused. "Not to mention, we wouldn't be able to move our arms nearly as freely. Say, let's try that door!"
They were having so much fun exploring that they only barely made it to the start of the Feast on time, and it was quite magnificent. All of the first years looked around in awe, even some of the Slytherins who pretended to be above that. But the decorations were nothing compared to the food. Every sort of dish that had been at the Sorting feast were there, and then some hearty dishes that tasted incredible in the cold weather. Not to mention, the desserts included all sorts of sweets, many of which Severus had never seen before.
"Careful with some of those," James warned him, before he could take a red lollipop. "Dad says that those are blood lollipops."
Severus immediately withdrew his hand. "How can you tell?"
"See the way the color reflects on the wrapper? That's how," James explained. "And you don't want to eat those, as they're acid pops. They'll burn a hole in your tongue."
He nodded towards another red lollipop.
"Why would they serve them, if they're not meant for us to eat?" Remus asked, gingerly putting a few of his treats back to the center of the table.
"Because you're meant to know, or be told by older students," Sirius returned. "Everything else is fine, though, right?"
James nodded. "Well, the cockroach cluster tastes nasty, but yeah, the rest is all right."
Severus was about to point out that muggle treats were a good deal safer, but realized that wasn't entirely true. He'd nearly burnt a hole in his mouth from an Atomic Fireball as a kid. His dad had given him milk to drink, which was meant to be better for the heat than water. It was one of his few good memories of his father.
He wondered how his mum was getting along. He hadn't heard from her since her owl at the start of the term, even though he'd written back almost immediately. If she didn't write in another week, he would send another owl.
Thinking about her hurt. She was still with his awful father, likely being hurt even more, while he was at Hogwarts, enjoying good food and having real friends. He knew she would be happy for him, and that she was an adult, and yet...
Severus pushed these feelings down and focused on the feast and his friends.
Stuffed with good food, and pockets filled with more treats to enjoy later, the five of them headed upstairs and slept especially soundly that night.
The next morning, the Slytherin table was positively gleeful. Before Severus could guess why, Bellatrix strode over with a copy of the Daily Prophet, looking like a rather darker version of her younger sister.
"Look here, Sirius!" she crowed, placing it in front of him. Tossing her hair to the side, she added, "And don't think you're safe because of us. He can smell blood traitors from France."
They all studied the heading: Halloween Prank or You-Know-Who's Work: Five children of prominent witches and wizards go missing, then found dead.
Author's note:
Next up: Severus receives unexpected news from his mother, and the Christmas holidays draw near.
As always, constructive feedback is most appreciated!