Chapter 96

Cooking Conundrum

"Remus! You're back." Sirius said brightly when they climbed up to the dorm still shivering their bums off.

"Why are you soaking- No! Don't!" Remus fought tooth and nail to keep the soaking wet and freezing cold teenager from hugging him. "No, I don't want your hypothermia! Go away, you git!"

"Oh, come off it, Moony. It's not that cold." Sirius teased tossing his hair around and spraying the room with little drops of melted snow.

"Did you go outside? You're not even wearing a coat."

"I'm taking a hot shower, you two have fun." James teased.

"No! Don't leave me alone with this air head! I just got out of the hospital wing, I don't want to go back in," was all that James heard before he closed the bathroom door behind him and Peter.

Sirius walked in a few minutes later chuckling to himself and James smiled to himself, he was exhausted, burnt out of books entirely, and he had to go to class in maybe four hours, and fail a test in his best subject which would get so many people on his case. McGonagall, his parents, Remus...

Yet he found he wouldn't trade any of it for the world, exhaustion included. They would harp on him for what they saw was rebellion or laziness, but he knew, he, Sirius, and Peter knew, for the first time in longer than he could remember he was being truly selfless. It was a good feeling. And besides, Remus was worth it.

Climbing out of the shower he debated for far too long on whether he should put his pajamas on, or just go ahead and change into his class robes it was a hard decision but in the end he decided that if he changed for class now he'd be able to sleep for a few more precious seconds when he actually had to get ready for class.

It was ingenious.

Climbing out of the bathroom and heading straight for bed he was pretty sure Remus said something to him but his sleeping brain wasn't going to function enough to interpret it into human speech.

Sirius came out of the bathroom in a similar but not so drastic state, and they were pretty sure Peter just fell asleep in the shower.

"What in the world have you lot been doing that's caused you to be this tired?" Remus asked Sirius after making sure that the latter was still conscious enough to hear him.

Sirius sighed, "Quidditch practice mostly, Peter came to watch a couple times too. It put us all ridiculously behind on homework. Of course, me dragging them out in the snow at, what time is it, one in the morning might have had something to do with it, but probably not."

"Of course not, everyone loves playing in the snow at one A.M in short-sleeve tees. At least wear a jumper next time, you'll get frostbite."

"How does frost bite? It doesn't have teeth."

"Was that an a joke or do you really not know what frostbite is?"

"It was a joke."

"Oh, good." Remus smiled and Sirius clambered off to bed. He entered the bathroom to wake Peter up and lug him off to bed as well, choosing to turn the shower on full cold with magic from the other side of the room and laughed quietly when Peter screamed. He exited the room and climbed into his own bed, so Peter wouldn't know it was him who did it, it was just funnier that way.

The Marauders slept well that night, too well in fact judging by the looks on their faces as they frantically ran into transfiguration class the next morning.

McGonagall wasn't impressed with any of their excuses except Remus' admission that he was sick. Though she had to suppress a smile when Sirius gave a perfectly ridiculous excuse including, but not limited to, being kidnapped by ninjas and something about a vampire. At least they were creative with their excuses, it was a better than all the 'I overslept' or 'I got lost' excuses out there.

Merlin help them if they failed the test because of their late night 'adventures' though.

After class Peter split off from the group to go to the library and pretend to be researching plimpies for care of magical creatures while actually researching exactly what species of rat he needed to become. The others headed upstairs to the muggle studies classroom. Remus following only because the project they were working on promised to be amusing.

They had to cook one meal, the muggle way.

Between Sirius' short attention span and James ability to get frustrated at the tiniest of failures, it promised to be an eventful project.

The muggle studies professor was there working with a few other fourth year students on the same project, one of them was a muggleborn so James accused them of cheating when they got it right the first time and was able to leave before the Marauders even got settled in.

"Why would a muggleborn even take muggle studies? Sirius asked low enough that only James and Remus could hear him.

"Easy O?" James shrugged.

"It isn't exactly like it would be in a muggle home." Professor Curtis explained as she passed them a recipe book. "Muggle appliances don't work at Hogwarts, of course, but I've managed to replicate it almost exactly. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner?"

"Eh..." James said looking through the cookbook, "This looks tasty, lunch then."

"Are you helping?" She asked Remus with a smile, for reasons he couldn't explain he found himself blushing. She was pretty, and young with long loose black hair that had a thin, yellow, not blond but bright Hufflepuff yellow, braid along the side of it and had blue eyes. Her cloak was also blue, a color that brought out the color in her eyes from behind her thin glasses.

"N-no, No, I'm just here to laugh at them when they inevitably fail." He said, rubbing his neck. She laughed. James sighed, mumbling about traitors while Sirius laughed for entirely different reasons.

"That's the usual result. I used to grade on performance before I realized ninety percent of my students failed it. Now it's effort and participation, and suddenly the average grade rose spectacularly."

"James, do you even know what that is?"

"No, but it's got a fun name..."

"It's cooked snails."

"Oh... let's not do that."

Remus chuckled at the conversation, while the professor just smiled.

They turned back to the two who seemed to have decided on an appetiser of finger sandwiches rather than escargot. Along with the main course of pizza, roasted red potatoes, and mini cheesecake. With coffee to drink.

It wasn't a normal lunch, but it would do at least. Though Remus wasn't entirely confident he wanted Sirius anywhere near coffee, and when did the two decide they liked coffee to begin with?

"So we make the appetiser first? Right?"

"Um, yes?"

"You cut the potatoes, that'll take forever, I'll do the sandwiches." Sirius told him pointing to the sack of potatoes in a basket on the counter.

"Do I get to eat what you make?" Remus said sitting himself on one of the desks and pulling out his potions essay for revision. "I don't think the main course will turn out, but it would be hard for even you to mess up sandwiches."

Sirius threw an olive at him behind the professor's back. To their great surprise Remus caught it in his mouth. Sirius cheered catching the Professor's attention.

After that it became a game for them, tossing random ingredients at Remus behind the teacher's back. The werewolf missed more than he caught, but quickly picked it up and ate it anyway. Sirius was grossed out by it, but not enough to make a difference.

"Why are there so many potatoes?" Sirius asked staring at a huge bowl of sliced potatoes, he'd just finished the sandwiches only to find an army of potatoes waiting to be covered in the other ingredients and thrown in the oven.

"Shut up! You gave yourself the easy job, you've no right to complain, Black."

Sirius raised an eyebrow at him.

"I cut myself... multiple times." James complained and Sirius rolled his eyes, they both ignored Remus' almost silent laughter. "Besides, one can never have enough potatoes."

"Truer words have never been spoken." Sirius laughed, and Remus' got louder, even the professor giggled from where she sat grading papers. "We'll just need more garlic, I think, how do you increase a recipe?"

"Multiply each of the ingredients by the same number." Professor Curtis looked up, for a moment before returning to what she was doing.

"But- but- That requires maths..." James complained.

Sirius rolled his eyes and sighed. "I'll worry about the maths, you just start on something else."

"I'll do the coffee!" James said excitedly. The professor and Remus just stared at him trying to understand why the coffee was a higher priority on his to do list than the actual food. Sirius didn't seem to think it was weird the slightest, even telling him to make a lot.

"How do you know how much coffee to put in it?" Remus asked, deciding on a question that actually had a rational answer.

"I just fill it up? Why?"

"All the way?!" Remus exclaimed, horrified by what he was hearing.

"Yeah."

"And you've drank it like that?" The Professor asked this time her expression matching Remus.

"Yeah?" James looked at Sirius who seemed just as confused as him.

Remus' head hit the desk loudly. And Professor Curtis seemed beside herself with laughter. Sirius shrugged and James continued pouring coffee into the faux coffee machine and pushing the button.

"Now what?" James looked at Sirius.

"What are you looking at me for? I've never done this before either." Sirius barked at him, failing at doing mental maths in his head and putting entirely wrong amounts of ingredients into the potato mix.

He didn't know that though.

"I don't know, you acted like you knew what you were doing."

"Well I don't, I just watched Kreacher do it a couple times." Sirius turned away from his friend and poured a full cup of salt into the mix, the teacher noticed but it was too late to stop him. She felt an immense amount of pity for their friend.

"That's more experience than me."

"He used magic!"

"My point still stands."

"Uhg, fine. Just start the pizza, and do not! I repeat do not! deviate from the recipe. I'm already having trouble figuring these potatoes out."

"I'll try." There was about a minute of silence as the two worked on their separate tasks. "Sirius, how much is a cup and a half of all purpose flour?"

"James, if you make me multiply the olive oil one more time I will dump all of the olive oil AND a cup and a half of all purpose flour on your head." Sirius said through his teeth glaring at the future-stag.

"You wanna just measure all this crap out for me then? Cuz I will end up asking you about every single one." James shrugged, replying honestly.

Sirius cried out in frustration, pushed James aside and measured each of the ingredients for him. "There! I did all the work for you, you baby."

"Thanks." James said resisting the taunt and getting to work on making the pizza crust.

Remus wanted to cry when they put both the potatoes and the pizza in at the same temperature for the same amount of time.

"Cheesecake next?" James said, trying to placate his still seething friend.

"Yeah." Sirius said, and they collected the ingredients. Sirius measured them and James did everything else. Nearly an hour in and they finally found a method that they could actually handle.

Remus actually lost a few tears when they put the cheesecake in at the same temperature as the pizza and potatoes.

They both breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the hard part to be over. James started cleaning up but Sirius just stared at him.

"Why are you covered in flour?"

A/N) Ah, I missed these guys. They are so much fun to write! Poor, poor Remus.