The next morning began with a good amount of grumbling.
"I forgot what getting up early feels like," Sirius said unhappily.
"Can we just skip breakfast?" James said.
"No!" Sirius looked scandalized.
"You know how he is about breakfast," Peter said.
"We can't skip breakfast," Sirius said. "That would be a tragedy to rival even the stealing of my eggs."
"Woe is you," Remus said dryly. "Come on, we've got to get downstairs for schedules anyway."
It took a few minutes of corralling before the boys made it down to the Great Hall, just in time to receive their schedules from McGonagall.
"Minnie!" Sirius exclaimed when he saw her. "How are you? It's been months! I haven't heard from you in ages!"
"Mr. Black," McGonagall started, but Sirius continued.
"Why Minnie, are those new robes? You look absolutely splendid-"
"Mr. Black-"
"-doesn't she, James?"
"Thank you for the compliments, Mr. Black, and I'm glad that you're back at Hogwarts. Here are your schedules." McGonagall passed each of the boys a crisp piece of parchment, then briskly made towards a clump of seventh years.
"Hey, we have Transfiguration first!" Sirius said. "We'll see you in a few minutes, Minnie!" he called after her.
"Transfiguration, History of Magic, Charms, Divination- hey, Professor!" James ran after McGonagall.
"Yes, Mr. Potter?" she said, turning.
"It says on here I have Divination- I only signed up for Care of Magical Creatures," James said, pointing to the schedule.
"Over the summer a decision was made to make two non-core classes mandatory," McGonagall said. "That is why you are in both Care of Magical Creatures and Divination."
"Alright." James headed back to the others. "Are you all signed up for Divination, then?"
"Yeah," Peter and Remus said.
"What?" Sirius asked.
"Are you signed up for Divination?" James repeated.
"Oh, yeah," Sirius said. "Did they take out History of Magic?"
"No, they're making us be in class for an extra hour," James said, then continued reading off the schedule. "Lunch, D.A.D.A, Potions, and Care of Magical Creatures."
"Wait- we have to study for an extra hour?" Sirius said incredulously.
"Yeah, but I've heard Divination is an easy pass," James shrugged. "I bet we can pull a History of Magic-"
"A whole extra hour? This is slavery!" Sirius exclaimed. "I refuse to stand for it-"
"Speaking of classes," Remus said, "We should eat or we won't make it to Transfiguration."
Transfiguration began with McGonagall briskly stating that they would be using the first few days of term for a review..
"Today and tomorrow we will be reviewing the basics of transfiguring the properties of objects, such as turning an apple to stone or changing the color of a hedgehog," she said. "Next week we will review our work on human and animal transfigurations, followed by…."
When McGonagall let the class go, they had a ten inch essay to be turned in the next day.
History of Magic was just as boring as it had been the last year. Their teacher, Binns, kept his eyes strictly on the chalkboard as he droned on about the vampire revolts of the fifteen hundreds.
"Why haven't they fired him yet?" Sirius asked.
"Dumbledore must see something in him," Peter said.
"What?" Sirius said. "He's a ghost, which would be cool if he actually was a good teacher."
"He's not that bad," Remus said.
"Not that bad? Have you gone mad, Remus?"
"I'm quite sane, actually."
Charms was a review as well. Flitwick gave them a short talk on what they would be covering for the year, then quickly began instructing the class to break into pairs and practice the various spells they had learned the previous year.
Divination was next; most of the fourth year Gryffindors had it. As a group, they hurried to the North Tower, pausing at the top of the stairs, looking about for a door.
"Are we in the wrong spot?" Hestia Jones said, peering out one of the windows.
"Not unless the schedule was wrong," Remus said.
"We're in the right spot," Lily said. She pointed towards the ceiling.
A round trapdoor with a plaque reading 'Divination' was directly above the group.
"Loads of help that is if we can't get in," Sirius said. "There aren't any stairs or a ladder."
He had a point; there was no ladder in sight, nor did there appear to be any way up to the trapdoor.
"We can get it," James said.
"How?"
"Wingardium Leviosa!" James said, wand pointed in Sirius' direction.
"Oi! Put me down!" Sirius was rising through the air toward the trapdoor, which was still closed. "James, I don't have anything to grab onto- ouch!"
The door swung open and hit him on the top of his head. A ladder unfurled from the now open trapdoor, which Sirius grabbed onto.
"Thanks a lot, mate," he said, rubbing his head.
"Anytime," James said.
One by one, the class climbed the ladder and pulled themselves up into the Divination classroom.
The classroom had several short round tables around which were various cushions. Each cedar table had a brightly colored burning candle atop it, as well as a bowl filled with water and a leather-bound book.
In the front of the room was a woman. She had black, frizzy hair and large, owlish eyes. Her sapphire blue robes rippled as she gave her wand a flick, shutting the trapdoor as the last students hurried inside and began seating themselves.
"Welcome," she said softly, "To Divination. I am Professor Scio, and I will be your teacher for this term. Divination is one of the most precise and imprecise branches of magic. There is a fair bit of guessing involved, and a fair bit of fact involved. It is a difficult thing to interpret and easy to misunderstand, despite the fact that when you have studied it for long enough, it makes perfect sense."
Much of the class exchanged confused looks at this pronouncement.
Scio continued. "I do not expect you all to be able to know with absolute certainty at what day the world will end, nor any other matters of this sort. I do, however, expect you all to try and understand, even if you cannot do. Now, enough with my talking. We will be starting with Ceroscopy. There will be a candle on each table. One of you will pour the wax from the candle into the bowl of water. Watch how the wax settles and interpret it using pages ten through sixteen in your books."
The class hurried to obey, pouring wax and flipping pages.
At the Marauders' table, James had poured the wax into the water, somehow managing to set his sleeve on fire while doing so.
Remus sighed and began helping James smother the fire before he was burned.
"Mars and something-or-other are probably in line," Sirius assured him. "It was bound to happen."
"What?" James said.
"My dad made me study astrology and astronomy when I was nine," Sirius said. "There's something about planets lining up and you getting burns…."
"Have you begun reading your wax?" Scio asked, coming up behind Peter.
"We're just about to do that," James said.
Scio nodded. "Make sure you don't bump the bowl and disrupt the patterns, that will make your readings imprecise." With that, she moved on to a group that was seated in the corner.
"Alright, so… that's a weird blob thing there… that's got to be newfound knowledge." Sirius stared hard at the water. "And that… that looks like another blob thing… so… does that look like danger?"
"No," Remus said, glancing at the book. "That's secrets…."
"You're not secretly a vampire, too, are you Remus?" Sirius asked solemnly.
"No," Remus said, looking as though he was somewhere between laughing or sighing.
"Good to know," James said. "Anyway, I think that thing there is good fortune… wait, no, that's wrong, that looks like bad fortune…. Or a sheep..."
"Why, James," Sirius said, "With your decisiveness, you could be the next great seer."
Divination ended, and with a relaxed sort of leisure, the Gryffindors made their way to the Great Hall for lunch.
"What did we have next?" Peter said.
"Defense Against the Dark Arts," Remus said.
"Brilliant," James said. "I want to see who this bloke is."
Defense Against the Dark Arts was a combined class of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. They headed into the classroom and took their seats, talking quietly all the while.
"You know what we didn't do?" Sirius said suddenly. "We haven't talked about planning a prank!"
"We haven't!" James said.
"It's got to be something big," Sirius said. "Something with a-"
The classroom door opened with a loud bang.
The class whirled around in their seats to watch Moody enter the room.
"My name," he said shortly, "Is Alastor Moody. I work for the auror department in the Ministry of Magic. Dumbledore has asked me to fill this post. That being said, I have a year to teach you-"
"This job has got to be cursed," a Ravenclaw in the back of the class muttered.
"Yep, it is," Moody said. "Been cursed for a while now, Dumbledore says. Dumbledore also says that the past few years you've covered a lot of basic dueling and various creatures. What you haven't covered is dark wizards."
This statement was met with an uncomfortable silence.
"That's what I'll be focusing on. First we'll be starting with the methods that dark wizards' normally use…. Today we'll be discussing the Unforgivable Curses."
The Marauders exchanged looks.
"Can anyone give me one of the Unforgivable Curses?" Moody asked. "You, back there, Ms…?"
"Mary Macdonald," the girl said. "The Imperious Curse."
"Yep. The Imperious Curse is a likely choice for a dark wizard to use. It will force it's victim to do the bidding of the person who cast it- very dangerous. Another? Mr...?"
"Prewett, Fabian Prewett. The Cruciatus Curse."
"Right, right," Moody said. "The Cruciatus."
Sirius stiffened ever so slightly.
"The Cruciatus Curse is a torture curse. There are few more effective ways to force people into giving information. And the last one? Ms…?"
"Alice. Er, Alice Fortescue. The Killing Curse, Avada-"
"Kedavra, yep," Moody said grimly. "Like Ms. Fortescue said, the Killing Curse. There's no way to block it; if it's thrown at you and you can't duck it, you're dead before you hit the ground. Most wizards don't duck because they don't see it coming. If you want to see it coming, you're going to have to have CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
He barked the last word incredibly loudly, causing most of the class to jump in their desks.
There was a great deal of swearing as people rubbed their sore kneecaps, and Moody continued.
"Now, can anyone tell me, now knowing about all these curses, why they have been labeled as 'Unforgivable?'"
Lily was the only person to raise a hand.
"Front row there, Ms…?"
"Evans," Lily said. "They're so cruel that using any one of them on any human being would be unthinkable."
"Using any one of them would land you with a one-way ticket to Azkaban," Moody nodded, mechanical eye whirring. "We have a good half-hour left before you're due in your next classes. I want you to turn to page seventy four of your books and take notes on the Unforgivables, and if you have time after, get started on your homework- four inches on each of the curses. That's a foot long in all."
The class worked in silence until they were dismissed, when they filed out the door, talking about the lesson.
"That was interesting."
"Interesting? I didn't even know curses like that existed. It'll be a wonder if I manage to get to sleep tonight."
"At least he didn't perform them in front of us…."
"Well, that was sure a cheerful lesson," Sirius said.
Remus rolled his eyes. "Yes, because death, absolute control over a person, and torture are, without a doubt, cheerful."
"What did you think about Moody?" James asked.
"I thought he was alright," Remus said.
"Pretty abrupt," Peter shrugged, "Introducing that on the first day."
"I don't know," Sirius said, "I thought he was rather Moody…."
Potions was, thankfully, note taking, with, not-so-thankfully, more homework.
Care of Magical Creatures was similar, the only difference being Kettleburn informing the class that he'd shipped in a couple of small erumpents for their first practical, which would be the following week.
"Remind me to write my will before next week," Sirius said as they left the class.
"You don't need to write your will," Remus sighed.
"Moony, if I don't get killed by the erumpent, I'll likely fall off a broom or something."
"Forget about your will, we have more important things to do," James said purposefully.
"What?"
"We have a prank to plan."