James snuck out of the infirmary as soon as he woke up from his two hour nap. The pain in his chest wasn't entirely gone but he could feel his arm and that's all he needed to check himself out, crawling to in front of Madam Pomfrey's desk to avoid being seen. He ambushed his friends as they made their way out of the greenhouses after their Herbology class.
"Code red, code red," he hissed at them from behind, making them all jump.
"James!" exclaimed Remus. "Padfoot was ready to tear the whole castle down to look for you! Where have you been?"
"Around," replied James dismissively, trying his hardest to look innocent. "There's more important. Code red."
His fellows Marauders looked at each other with a confused expression before turning back to him. While Sirius and Peter were obviously trying their hardest not to laugh, Remus seemed extremely concerned.
"Prongs," he said softly, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. "We do not have a colour based code. And you are sitting inside a bush. Have you been Confunded by any chance?"
James slapped an adventurous leaf from his face and crawled out of said bush slowly. The Sleeping Draught Madam Pomfrey had administered was stronger than he had anticipated, as he could not seem to remember why he had found camouflage, of all things, to be such a great idea. He felt a little dizzy.
"Not Confunded," he replied, getting up from his knees and brushing the dirt from his robes. "Robbed."
He stared into Remus's eyes dramatically and tried to steady himself. He had never noticed the ground was so far away from his head.
"From my most prized possession," he continued, lowering his glance. He was just now realizing the full extent of the effects of the potion. It was a wonder he made it out of the castle.
Peter dived forward and managed to stabilize James at the last second. Sirius' look of amusement was slowly being replaced by the same concern Remus had been displaying from the start.
"Potter, you are a real drama queen," he joked, with a faint and fake smile.
"You're one to talk," grunted James, grasping at Peter's shoulder as if it were the only thing keeping him afloat in a stormy sea.
"Are you drunk?" asked Remus suspiciously, placing a supportive arm around James' waist.
"I wish," sighed James. He tried coming up with a somewhat believable explanation to his state, but he fell short. His knees were heavy and he had to drag his feet to move.
"He's drunk," concluded Sirius, helping James prop his arm over his shoulder.
Peter scurried in front, keeping a look out for teachers and making sure the pathway to their common room was empty while Remus and Sirius half carried half dragged James, who was slowly falling back asleep. Through all the foggy thoughts spiralling inside his mind, one kept coming back over and over again, clearer than the others: 'I have the best friends in the whole world'.
He couldn't believe his luck to have found those boys who completed him perfectly, and understood him to his core. When he was a small kid playing alone in his backyard, blowing on dandelions wishing for siblings, he never would have imagined he would one day have three brothers who would do anything for him. He would do anything for them.
"Why is he smiling like an idiot?" The voices were muffled and seemed to come from far far away, but they were so familiar and were assimilated with a feeling of safety, warmth.
"Because he is a bloody idiot." Maybe James was dreaming but Remus's tone was affectionate despite hints of worry. "Getting trashed at school, in the middle of the day. Where would he even find the alcohol? I just hope it isn't another breakdown provoked by some Lily related event, that boy doesn't deserve to get his heart broken."
James could barely feel his face but he was certain his smile had grown considerably wider. His heart was not broken, it was as whole as could be. For a second, he allowed himself to forget about his missing book and a certain Slytherin nemesis, and focus on the wonderful feeling it was than to be cared for by the people who meant the most to him. He might never get Lily's love but he was fine with it, knowing he would always be surrounded by the purest friendship he could ask for.
He wanted to say something, tell Remus and Sirius how much he loved them, but his mouth moved slower than his brain so it wasn't words that came out but rather an unintelligible mess of syllables.
"Shut up and climb," was the only answer he got, and he diligently dragged himself through the portrait hole, onto the floor of the common room. It was miraculously empty but a faint residual smell of Dungbombs still floated in the air. Peter had done what was necessary to insure them a safe and undisturbed travel and James took a second to fully appreciate the most underrated Marauder.
He staggered up the stairs to the boys dorms, Sirius pulling him and Remus pushing him. Everything was spinning but his grin hadn't disappeared. He closed his eyes and blindly trusted Sirius to lead him to his bed, and Remus to take off his glasses and tuck him in gently. He heard Peter close the curtains around him, an intense hushed conversation then pure silence.
James woke up the next morning utterly confused. It took him a few minutes to recognize his own bed and his body rid of pain. After grabbing his glasses, he sat up and opened the curtains, trying to be as silent as possible to not wake up his friends. The sun was just peaking above the horizon and the soft light of dawn was casting a golden glow across the entire room. Absent-mindedly, he slid a hand underneath his shirt and traced his scars with his fingertips.
The events of yesterday were particularly blurry in his mind and it took his best efforts to go through everything that had happened. There was the pain, the Potion class, the Calming Draught, Lily, her voice and her emerald eyes, Lily following him in the hallway, talking to him, biting her lip, then the infirmary, Madam Pomfrey, the Sleeping Draught, the strong strong Sleeping Draught. With a smile James remembered crawling into a bush and drunkenly annoying his friends as they carried him across half the castle.
Then the memory hit him. Snape. The book. James ran to his school bag brought back by the house elves and dug through it once more, hoping he was wrong and that his dad's manual was here waiting for him. But it wasn't and he was forced to admit the truth a second time.
Defeated, he collapsed on his bed and grunted, forgetting about his sleeping dorm mates.
"Hangover?" yawned Sirius, popping his head through the curtains surrounding his bed.
"Uh? Erh I mean, yeah, massive," answered James, rubbing his forehead in a way he hoped was convincing.
Sirius hopped out of bed, quickly followed by Remus, and James tried not to blink at that fact. It had never occurred to him before that the couple would share a bed, and he kicked himself for not having realized it sooner, though he knew how careful and discreet the two boys could be. Remus was the proud inventor of the Muffliato Charm after all.
James sat up suddenly, remembering he had wrote down the instructions for the charm in his copy of Advanced Potion Making, now in the possession of Severus Snape. The definition of 'in the wrong hands'.
"You okay?" asked Sirius, looking at James over his shoulder. "You look a bit grey."
James stiffly passed a hand through his hair and sighed. He hesitated telling his friends about the theft of his dad's book. The Marauders would without the shadow of a doubt seek revenge, and Lily's words were still sharp in James' head: 'Leave him alone, will you?'.
And although first-year James had promised himself he would never do anything to provoke the wrath of Lily Evans, present day James settled on revenge. The promise had already been broken about a million times before, so what was one more? Besides, he needed to create a distraction for his friends so they wouldn't question him about his alleged drunkenness the previous afternoon.
"Snape stole my book," he said. "Advanced Potion Making, the one my dad got me."
"That old thing? The one you always doodle on?" asked Sirius, raising one eyebrow. "Why on earth would he want that?"
Remus slapped the back of his boyfriend's head with an offended look on his face.
"It's called taking notes, Pads. Not that you would know anything about that," Remus looked up and stared at James, alarmed. "We have to get it back. Snape cannot know about some of the spells in this manual."
James gravely nodded his agreement and threw his shoe at Peter's bed to wake him up. The three boys that were already awake sat in a circle on the floor of the room, joined a couple of minutes later by a slightly disorientated and dishevelled Peter.
"Marauder's Council this early?" he yawned, stretching his arms above his head.
"It's important," said Remus.
"We need to break into the Slytherin dorm," continued Sirius. Peter opened wide eyes, suddenly very awake and James almost broke his neck with how fast he turned to his friend.
"Hey who said anything about that? We just need to get the book back!"
"Which we cannot do without sneaking into Snape's dorm!" argued Sirius, "He may be ugly, but he's not that dumb, he would never carry with him something he stole another student."
"There's some truth to that," said Remus, his eyes staring into nothing. He looked extremely focused and James knew he was about to come up with another one of his perfectly engineered plans. "It might be time to put that Polyjuice into good use again."
They agreed together that the sooner they acted the better, and despite Peter's protests, they decided on skipping breakfast and heading straight to the Slytherin dorms while everyone was down in the dinning hall. As tall as they all were, the time where they could all fit under the invisibility cloak were far behind them, and they drew straws to know who would have to assume the appearance of a Slytherin.
After a few failed attempts at summoning hairs from unsuspecting students, a greyish looking potion and some very painful seconds for Remus, they were finally on their way. To take less space under the cloak, Peter had taken his rat form and nestled deep inside James' pocket, nibbling on some leftover candy from the Valentines Day prank.
As for James and Sirius, they were having the time of their life whispering nonsensical instructions to a very grumpy looking first year Slytherin boy.
"Don't walk so fluidly, you need to look like there's a broom up your arse."
"Put your chin up. Higher. Higher. Slytherins are too pure to even see the ground."
"Think dignity, class, elegance and blood supremacy."
James was shaking so much from holding in his laughter, Peter's muzzle came out of his pocket to check out what was happening.
"I'm going to kill you both once this is all over," Remus said, grinning his teeth. "Now shut up, we're here."
They came to a stop in front of an apparently bare stone wall, in the dungeons. They were far underneath the castle and the temperature had dropped a few degrees since the Gryffindor tower.
"I can't believe they can stand living like this," shivered Remus, looking above his shoulder to assure no one was around to hear him talk to seemingly no one.
"Snakes are cold-blooded creatures," whispered back Sirius. "A bit like my mum."
James snorted and was quickly silenced by Sirius's elbow digging in his ribs. Footsteps were echoing down the corridor. Someone was coming.
Remus adopted the most innocent looking face he could with the body he was given and opened wide terrified eyes as James and Sirius pressed themselves against the wall, trying to take as little space as possible in the narrow corridor.
Regulus Black stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing the minuscule blond boy standing alone in the hallway. James felt his best friend stiffen next to him at the sight of his brother, and without thinking he took his hand in a reassuring gesture.
"What are you doing standing here?" Regulus snarled.
"I forgot the password," answered Remus with a candid smile that wasn't his. "What is it again?"
Regulus lifted his chin and passed by the small boy without looking back.
"Pouvoir," he said to the wall, which opened, revealing a passage to the darkest and gloomiest place James had ever seen. It was a thousand worlds away from the warm and homey Gryffindor common room. Silver chains were hanging from the stone walls and ceiling, and carved chairs had been carefully arranged around a fireplace no fire burnt in. The dark green rugs and wood cupboards made the entire room seem cold and unwelcoming.
James wondered too late if this part of the castle had a way of recognizing intruders, but Remus was already climbing the stairs to the boys dormitories and he had no other choice but to follow him. James squeezed Sirius's hand to prompt him to move. His friend was uncharacteristically stiff, and James could tell from the way he was standing that running into his brother had thrown him off.
The marble staircase was loud and James and Sirius had to move slowly and quietly. A quick look at the map assured them no one was in the fifth year boys dorm, so when Remus pushed the door open carefully, they followed him and took off the cloak.
"Bloody hell, imagine sleeping in that!" James said, trying to diffuse the heavy atmosphere. The walls surrounding them were high and covered with Medieval looking tapestries, depicting famous Slytherins defeating all sorts of monsters and blood covered enemies.
"Looks like my house," shrugged Sirius, barely fazed by the environment.
James winced at Remus as soon as Sirius looked away. They never had truly known how to deal with the subject of Sirius' family, given how dismissive he always got when it came up in conversation.
Unaware of the discomfort in his friends, Sirius raised his wand and casted an attraction spell to draw the book to them. Nothing moved, but it was to be expected, as a lot of student put protective charms over their items to prevent from having objects flying across the room at all times, or discouraging theft.
"Let's start looking, shall we?" said Remus. James could tell he was trying to sound enthusiastic but it was clear that none of them wanted to be here. "Pete? Can you help us please?"
James gave his robe a little shake but the rat didn't move. Worried, James reached a hand in his pocket and pulled out a sleeping Peter by the tail.
"Great. Well at least someone is feeling safe here," smiled James. He didn't have the heart to wake up his friend a second time, so he just slowly put him back in his pocket. Although James would never trade his dear form for the world, he had to admit Peter being a rat was extremely convenient at times.
The two other Marauders were already searching the room and James quickly followed Sirius's example, levitating things left and right to check underneath, throwing pillows and blankets across the room and unleashing overall chaos. Remus was more neat and organized, folding and piling up things he was done examining.
After a few minutes of tearing the whole room apart, James lowered his wand and sat on the closest bed. His book was nowhere to be found and he couldn't help but feeling like it was lost forever. He could always confront Snape about it of course, but the slimy bastard would just deny everything and run to Lily to complain about Big Bad Potter. And although James couldn't care less about Snape's opinion, he cared very deeply about Lily's.
James ruffled up his hair and sighed. He didn't want to lose Lily's respect nor the somewhat bound, as frail as it was, they had formed since the beginning of the school year. For the first time since the infirmary, he started accepting that his dad's book was truly gone.
Remus sat next to him on the bed, quickly joined by Sirius, who put an arm over his shoulder.
"What do you want to do?" asked Remus softly. His hair was darkening and he was slowly turning back into himself. "We have to be in class soon."
"Let's go," said James as he got up. "Forget about it, I'll get another copy. I doubt Snape will be able to decipher my handwriting anyway."
Remus got up as well but Sirius stayed decisively planted on the bed.
"Wait. We're in his dorm. Might as well take advantage of the opportunity, right?" he said with a mischievous smile.
Remus smiled back at him and nodded, while James hesitated at the door. The smiling faces of his best friends convinced him after a few seconds of thinking and he nodded his agreement too.
"Perfect," whispered Sirius, rubbing his hands together. "What should we do?"
At this instant, a light snore elevated from James' pocket, disturbing the quiet atmosphere of the room. The sound seemed to trigger something in Sirius' brain because James saw his eyes lit up.
"I know! Let's turn his pillow into a rat!" he said excitedly. "Oh it's brilliant. With one of Moony's timing spells, we can delay the transfiguration and make it so it only goes off once his head hits the pillow!"
James bit the inside of his cheek to not laugh. It was the most ridiculous idea he had ever heard, but it was also somehow perfect regarding the situation. Remus turned to him for approval and James nodded once again
"Let's do it."
It was a complicated bit of magic, but combining their efforts, the three of them managed to obtain something they were proud of in only a few minutes. Remus had returned to his usual appearance by then, and they had to squeeze up against each other and bend their knees so their feet wouldn't appear under the cloak.
They snuck out of the Slytherin common room not without difficulty, but fairly certain to have been unnoticed. They celebrated silently once they reached the dungeon's corridor, with a performance of their famous victory dance, still concealed under the invisibility cloak.
"Mischief managed," whispered James, and surrounded by the smiles illuminating his friends' faces, he forgot all about what he had lost, and recognized everything he had.