Chapter 146

Girlfriend

"I don't wanna go to defense," James whined flopping down on one of the couches in protest.

Remus sighed as he searched through the piles and piles of books for their defense textbooks. Sometimes he truly felt like he was a nanny, taking care of three oversized toddlers.

"Then don't." Remus countered, he never said he was a particularly good nanny.

"What are you doing?" Sirius asked looking up from the cushion he was attempting to extract himself from.

"I'm looking for our textbooks. One of us at least has to be semi-responsible." He growled back.

"Um, Moony?"

"What?" Remus snapped back.

"Accio defense textbooks," Sirius waved his wand and all four books stacked neatly in his open arms. Remus blinked at him.

"Oh, right." He said frustrated with himself now.

James laughed himself silly, but Sirius at least had the sensitivity to keep quiet.

" Let's go." Sirius nodded at the door and they half-dragged James out of the room of requirement, Peter tagging along behind.

None of them were really looking forward to the class, Defense against the Dark Arts had been horrendously boring all year long. Memorizing passages in books, essays, and the like. Nothing like it had been last year. Remus thought Sirius was right. That it had something to do with the Puca's absence but he couldn't fathom how to do something about it. Or even find out the truth. They couldn't just ask her about it, they were no longer allowed to talk in class and she never answered any questions that didn't directly pertain to the lesson. She'd even given detentions to people who'd tried asking her about it. They'd asked Frank and it appeared it was for all her classes rather than just the fifth years. He'd been hoping it was because of their owls or something, but no such luck.

"Potter!"

They turned at the sound of someone calling. James and Sirius were the only ones to recognize the Ravenclaw that ran up to them. Though Remus had the faintest impression that he was on his house's quidditch team.

"What's up?" James asked, not exactly surprised by the sudden intrusion.

"Did you see the Prophet?" The boy looked excited and started walking with them to class. Remus thought it would be nice if someone would at least tell him this kid's name.

"Not in a while, no. Why?" James asked intrigued by his excitement.

"I guess Fabius Watkins got hit by a muggle helicopter at some point. He died, so the Magpies are down both a captain and a chaser." The boy's grin did not match his news.

"You're joking!" Sirius replied now adopting a similar smile. Remus was beginning to wonder if he was friends with sociopaths.

"Not even a little, here." He gave Sirius and James a cutout article of the newspaper.

"Brilliant!" James exclaimed upon reading it.

"Yes, let's all celebrate this man's death. A joyous occasion to be sure." Remus rolled his eyes at their insensitivity.

"Of course it is, now Ireland is going to be in the finals for sure!" James cheered, hugging Remus awkwardly.

"And people think I'm the monster," Remus mumbled to himself, only Peter seemed to hear him judging from Wormtail's laugh and the others celebrating in their own little corner.

"I like the Puddlemere better anyway." Peter shrugged.

"Puddlemere is regional, they're talking world cup." Remus elaborated as the two walked to class on their own.

"Oh… Can I vote for England?" he asked hesitating a bit. Remus thought that he probably didn't follow any quidditch that didn't involve Hogwarts. Strange for someone whose been James friend for so long.

"Yeah, if you wanna lose," James called back, apparently having overheard them. Peter's face went pink. Remus nudged the rat with a grin and a wink.

"At least you're patriotic."

Peter smiled at him as they entered the classroom, they were one of the last students to enter.

"Turn to page 394," Svalinn stood from her chair and waved a wand at the pictures around the room and various images appeared on them. It quickly became clear what they were studying. "I'm bored so we're skipping ahead a bit."

"A bit?" A Ravenclaw behind Remus whispered to her friend. She had a point it was only the second month of classes, they weren't even a fourth of the way through the textbook and now she was having them skip all the way to the last chapter.

"Werewolves are the cause of more controversy in the ministry of magic and it's creature divisions than any other dark creature found in this country. Interdepartmental wars have been fought over whether they should be classified as beast or being, or what the legal repercussions of a werewolf attack should be. No matter what your stance, if you choose to stand on it, you will lose friends, family members, the respect of a portion of your community… possibly even your job or your life."

Remus looked around at the class and the pictures on the walls. The class looked interested, for the first time all year he thought. The pictures were on werewolves, some of the wolves, and some of the human, and one of the transformation itself.

Remus watched the painting transform back and forth from human to the wolf. On the walls, there were pictures of the wolf feeding, pictures of one first receiving the bite and bloody and horrible battles between the wolf and another human, yet he found this one horrified him the most. Not because it was violent or bloody or terrible, not even because it reminded him of his own pain…

The problem was it didn't.

It wasn't violent or bloody, there was nothing even remotely frightening in that picture. There weren't any horrible bones sticking out or limbs going off in the wrong direction. It was clean, like watching the pictures in their books of animagi transformations, just slower. The only sign that it wasn't a willful transformation was the look of pain on his face.

It made him unreasonably angry. There was no sign of suffering, no terrible pain. He felt it lessened his suffering to see such a clean transformation. He didn't want pity, far from it, but when people saw something like that, it wasn't sympathy they felt.

He turned away, unable to watch it any longer when Sirius nudged him with a grin. Remus had stopped paying attention to the teacher in front of him. He didn't need her to tell him what werewolves were like, he could guaranty he'd done more research on the subject than she had, and that wasn't including first-hand experience, so he had no idea what Sirius thought was so amusing.

There was no pity in the ex-auror's voice, it was informative and unbias, but when he paid attention he could see hints of anger when she mentioned the werewolf hunts back in the day, or annoyance when the werewolf registry was brought up. He also had the impression that she wasn't all that frightened of them either. She taught them to recognize a werewolf, both as a human and as a wolf, emphasizing how faulty the methods for identifying one while it was human was, taught them to identify the signs that there was a transformed werewolf nearby, and possible spells to defend you and others from the same. It was an interesting lesson or would have been if he'd learned anything, and was the only rememberable lesson they'd had thus far.

The class was talking about it as they left the classroom an hour later.

The Marauder's headed down to the great hall for their break, it was closer than the room of requirement and they intended to work on homework anyway. The sat in their usual seats getting to work as the two popular boys amongst them fielded off interruptions by people wanting to chat. Most wanted to know why they hadn't been seen much lately, others were asking about how prepared the quidditch team were for their first game, but all of them were quickly dispersed by coercion (James) or outright threats (Sirius) all but one.

Alice threw herself onto the bench, forcing her petite self in between Sirius and James.

"Heard you guys had an interesting Defense class for once." She said as though it was normal for her to invade on them like this.

"Um, hello?" Sirius half glared at her, Remus had always found Sirius and Alice's relationship to be interesting. He was different with her than with anyone else, male or female alike. He didn't know how long the two had known each other, didn't know much about Alice at all really, but he knew she was pure-blood. It made Remus wonder if she was one of the few friends his parents had allowed that wasn't a bigoted tart. How much had her presence in his life had affected his world view? Was she part of the reason he was a Gryffindor now?

It was an interesting theory.

"Maybe there's hope left for the class after all." She ignored him.

"Any rumors on what happened? Why's she so weird lately?" James asked, surprised by her intrusion, but more able to openly accept her presence.

Sirius sighed, resigned to her presence, but the almost invisible smile on his face told Remus a different story.

"Well, it's obvious it's got something to do with little Trixy right? I mean the poor thing." She said, scooting closer to the table to lean on it.

"What about Trix? What happened to it?" Sirius asked closing his notebook when she tried to read it. They weren't working on anything illegal, for once, so mostly he was likely just trying to annoy her.

"Her, not it. Puca's are highly intelligent creatures, as intelligent as humans. When they're human though they're as smart as the human they became, anyway. When they're not a human they're not quite, but as smart as an eight or nine-year-old at least. More emotional than we are, though, when their little glowing balls."

"Oh, I thought it was like a pet or something," Remus added.

"No, not at all. They have their own language and everything." Alice corrected shaking her head.

"That never came up in my research."

"I asked Professor Svalinn herself. Trix is the only pucca we've ever managed to study thoroughly since they're usually dead by the time we realize they're not human. So most of our theories about the creatures were recently debunked by Professor Svalinn herself."

"Really?" James asked, sounding interested. "But if that's the case then how did she find Trix in the first place?"

"No idea, but the two were really close. I heard from a couple ravenclaws that Trixy died saving Professor Svalinn's life. But they didn't have any details, so I don't know how true it is."

"Maybe Svalinn's part of the Order too," James suggested looking around her at Sirius, their homework now abandoned in light of the conversation.

"Order? What order?" Alice asked.

"None of your business, pixie girl." Sirius stuck his tongue out in response and she pouted.

"Why do people keep calling me that?"

"You didn't come here to talk about Professor Svalinn, did you?" Remus asked they should probably start trying to get back on track soon.

Her pout stayed and was joined by a fake expression of anguish.

"Frank has a girlfriend!" She cried, burying her face in her arms and pretending to sob.

"What?" four voices exclaimed in unison. James looked scandalized, Sirius amused, and Peter was in shock. Remus wasn't sure how he felt about this. Frank was perfectly at liberty to date whoever he would like, but the idea that that person wasn't, in fact, Alice… it was like reading a book where you're favorite pairing has no hope of actually getting together, heartbreaking, tearjerking, makes you want to rip your heart right out of your chest.

"Some stupid hussy in Ravenclaw asked him out and he's going out with her now." She said, though her voice was muffled as her head was still buried in her arms.

"I'm sure it's nothing, he's probably just bored." James tried, patting her on the back.

"Then he should be bored with Alice," Sirius growled, all pretense of finding her presence annoying now abandoned. He was protective of her too, Remus noted.

"Frank is free to spend his time with whoever he pleases…" Remus started, and was instantly assaulted by glares on all sides, "That being said, it is very strange and a little out of character for him."

"Git." Sirius glared in the upperclassman's general direction.

"What are you going to do?" James asked, and Remus saw a flash of a wicked grin on her face that he had to have imagined. No human could change facial expressions that fast… right?

"There's only one thing to do." She said, putting on a brave face, and Remus dreaded her answer. In his brain, he begged her to not say what he thought she was going to say.

"Sirius has to go out with me."

Well, it wasn't what he'd expected her to say… though he thought the reasoning behind it was along the same vain.

There was silence in their section of the table for the better part of a minute as they absorbed her words.

"Excuse me!" Sirius said far too loud, Remus didn't care to check if anyone had noticed. He was leaning away from her, as though he thought he could catch her cooties just by proximity and the look on his face was priceless. A mix of horror and dread. Remus hadn't expected his aversion to (was it romance or women in general?) to be this strong. Sirius cursed just to emphasize his refusal.

"Why Sirius?" James asked, shocked, but otherwise amused by his friend's reaction.

"It has to be Sirius. No one else will be believable," she maintained glaring at the pup in question as though she could mind control him into consent.

"There is no one else Frank would believe you're interested in?" Remus allowed his disbelief to be visible in his face.

"Boys are stupid," she complained.

"Not my problem."

To Remus' surprise, she started sniffling and clung onto Sirius' arm. "Please!" she whined.

Sirius freaked out, trying to pull himself away from her. "Go away, to bother someone else." He demanded and she only clung harder.

"If you don't help me I'll never get him to dump her," cried, there were even tears.

What was going on? Alice crying over something like this.

"No, absolutely not." She sniffled loudly "NO!" She whined and he cursed. "Fine! Fine just stop bawling! But no clinging!"

He pulled his arm away from her and she let him, before cheering loudly and hugging him, all hint of tears gone. He grumbled and glared but Remus could see a tinge of pink on his cheeks, it worsened when she pecked him on the cheek. He pushed her away whining about her being gross and how much he hated her.

"You're the best, Sirius!" She smiled standing up before winking at him, "I'll see you Saturday."

She left a now very red-faced puppy.

"What was that?" James asked, staring at Sirius in shock. He'd been unable to say anything throughout the exchange, all of them had.

Sirius' head hit his notebook hard. "I hate my life."

"Well that was an unexpected turn of events," Remus blinked at his friends, trying to process what had just happened.

"Wait, wait, wait. Did Padfoot just get a girlfriend?" James asked looking at Remus.

"I think?"

"But he… he doesn't even LIKE girls! How did he get a legit girlfriend before me?"

"Because Frank is an idiot? Also because you keep chasing the only girl in the school who hates you."

"Thanks for the sugar coating, Moony. I appreciate it." He looked back at Sirius, who appeared to be trying to get out of dating Alice by giving himself a concussion.

"No problem, it's what I'm here for," he smiled at James' glare, both of them choosing to ignore their soon-to-be brain damaged friend.

"Maybe I can get her to put in a good word for me to Evans."

Sirius threw his notebook at James. "You are not using my misery to flirt with Evans!"

James laughed and hit Sirius back with the notebook starting a round of roughhousing between the two. Remus watched for a while before rolling his eyes at Peter and returning to his homework.

A/N) The actual URL for the facebook page is www. Facebook the maraudersfanfic/ (Remove the spaces) I guess a lot of people have been having trouble finding it for some reason.