By Admiral Albia
Malfoy winds Sirius up and Remus rediscovers prejudice.
Note; All quotes and songs will be marked. If it's not marked (and this
applies to Chapter 1 too), then I wrote it. Just to sort out any problems
which may arise with people saying `That's not Shakespeare!` when they
read Chapter 1, for example. I know it's not Shakespeare, I wrote
it. ^_^
On the same note, I'm going to try to make sure
Sirius sings songs that are in keeping with his timeline. That unfortunately
means that he will NOT be singing `Who Let the Dogs Out` unless someone
introduces it to him. You can expect 50's/60's rock and roll, though. ^_^
OK, so it's a little out, but I don't know much 70's music.
Disclaimer; If I owned Harry Potter, I would be working my arse off writing TOOTP(Book Five), not this crap. Sorry.
Warning; This chapter; Angsty, lots of swearing (Siri's talking about Peter).
Chapter Four; The Sorting Hat's Mistake
After the feast, Sirius sighed and got up. "See
you tomorrow, everyone..."
"Night," Remus replied as the great mass of Gryffindors began to move towards the door. "Same trick as before?"
"Yeah... don't forget to give me your timetable..."
"I won't." Remus grinned slightly as Sirius shoved his way through the Gryffindor mass, then groaned as Harry appeared in his line of vision, looking confused.
"Where's Sirius going?" The werewolf suppressed a yawn.
"Can I tell you in the morning? We're all tired..." Besides which, he added silently, you might listen to the whole story in the morning rather than jumping to conclusions. Remus had no illusions about the rumours running around Hogwarts right now; after Dumbledore's notice at the beginning of the feast he, and Sirius in particular, had been the subject of many curious stares and whispers.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Malfoy had latched onto Sirius and was babbling into his ear about something. Sirius was doing his usual good job of hiding his emotions, but Remus knew his friend and he could practically smell the anger rolling off him. No, wait. He could smell it. That wasn't good; even a werewolf shouldn't be able to smell anger across this kind of distance.
They'd got the extreme provocation bit down to a tee.
Someone had packed his pyjamas. Remus rolled his eyes; obviously someone who didn't know he slept naked. He didn't even know why he had pyjamas. It'd probably been his mother again, she'd never understood the implications of `but Mum, I can't sleep in clothes!` He rolled his eyes, and stripped inside the confines of his bed's curtains.
Something nudged him. He blinked. Something... wrong... something he had to do. Lessee, now... it was a Marauder thing... he had to... something to do with James... hold it.
Something to do with Harry. That was better.
From the dormitory outside, he heard the dual click of a pair of glasses being folded and put on the bedside table for the night. And he remembered.
He checked the time. It was five-thirty. Good, he'd always thought that habit was unbreakable.
Now... there was a reason he'd got into the unbreakable habit of waking up this early... it'd happened at school... what was it, now?
A Marauder thing... he had to... something to do with Remus... ah.
Quietly, so as to not wake the other incumbents of the dormitory, Sirius dressed and slipped out of Slytherin and into the main school.
They weren't there. Confused, Harry reached a little further out of the bed. And further. And fur-
THUD.
"Ow."
"H'rry?" Ron peered out from his own bed, as the sounds of boys waking up filtered through the dormitory. "You OK?"
"Yes... but I can't find my glasses..."
"Oh.... wait, is that them?" Harry bit back a cutting answer along the lines of I don't know, I can't see and sighed instead.
"Is my name on one of the ear-pieces, on the inside?"
"Yes," Neville's voice said.
"Then they're mine. Could I have them please?" Someone handed them to him; he put them on and the room swam into focus. "Thanks. Where were they?"
"On Lupin's table," Neville said worriedly. "He's not here..."
"What the hell were they doing on Lupin's table?"
"Hang on, there's a note here," Seamus offered. "Gone for a run, I'll be back for breakfast... if Harry wakes up let him blunder around for a while before giving these back, it looks hilarious. And say I'm sorry if he looks angry."
"Oh, that's nice."
"How did he know it'd look funny?" Dean asked. The other four digested this.
"Blimey," Ron said eventually, "this dormitory must've been a madhouse when your dad was here, Harry..."
Sirius had been at the Gryffindor table when Harry, Ron and Hermione had arrived, but was refusing to answer any questions on where he'd spent the night until `the Marauding day officially starts`, whatever that meant. When asked about that, however, he was more than happy to talk.
"Oh, it's an old tradition," he told them, grinning. "Each of us starts by doing something to one of the others..."
"My glasses went missing this morning," Harry said helpfully. His godfather nodded.
"Yeah, that was always Remus' trick, nicking James' glasses. It used to take him ages to find them, too... he usually had to wait until Peter had disentangled himself from the apple-pie bed..." he smiled reminiscently, lost in another time. "And then of course there was what we did to Remus..." he chuckled. "He was always the last one to get caught, and until he did the Marauding day hadn't officially started, see?" Thinking of something, he checked his watch. "Should be starting any... second..."
There was a loud bang as the doors were flung open, and the entire school turned their heads to see an annoyed-looking Remus Lupin, clad only in his birthday suit.
"SIRIUS BLACK WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY CLOTHES THIS TIME?" Half the teachers smiled reminiscently, the other half looked confused; Snape just glared harder at his porridge, causing it it spontaneously combust out of pure embarrassment. A small spark leapt off it and hit his nose.
"...now," Sirius finished happily. "What clothes, Moony?"
"The clothes I left by the lake when I went for my run, because I can't do a voluntary Change with them on!" [1] Sirius bent down and pulled a set of robes out from under the table, looking very surprised.
"Oh, are these your clothes?"
"Yes!"
"You should take more care of them," Sirius joked as he threw them to his friend, who caught them one-handed and left the room. As he left, it seemed that the major part of Hogwarts' female population breathed out for the first time in minutes, and it was at this point that Harry and Ron noticed Hermione was drooling slightly. Ron snapped his fingers in front of her face, looknig a little put out.
"Herm?"
"Hmmmm?"
"She's gone," Sirius pronounced after nearly five minutes of concentrated waving, snapping and, eventually, as a last resort, whispering `You failed Charms last year` had all failed to produce a reaction. "Oh... hello, Professor."
"Black, could I have a word please?" McGonagall asked.
"You never minded him before."
"I still don't mind Lupin running around naked, it's not that I'm talking about."
"Ooooh, Professor!" The teacher Looked at Sirius.
"That's not what I mean and you know it, but I'm not going to fall into that old trap again. We just want to know who you'll be taking lessons with."
"The Gryffindors."
"Thank you. And I suppose you will also be petitioning to switch house?"
"Yes." Sirius scowled darkly. "They found out it was a mistake last time anyway, and Malfoy's driving me up the wall." He considered this. "Again. Wow, I've been annoyed by two generations of Malfoys!"
"Mr Malfoy drives us all up the wall, as you so kindly put it."
"By constantly admiring something which you (a) didn't do, (b) never even considered doing, (c) blame yourself for, and (d) haven't got over?" McGonagall studied him for a minute, then sighed.
"No, not exactly. Gryffindors and Sirius! Timetables!"
"Promise you'll let me finish the story before you jump to conclusions?" They nodded. "Right. I was originally Sorted into Slytherin." He held up a hand as three mouths opened. "You promised, remember? Anyway, this was in the good old days when broomsticks couldn't be cushioned and Confundus spells couldn't be detected, and it took about five years for them to realise that every year for a while before that, as well, the first student to put the Hat on had always ended up in Slytherin." He grinned wryly. "I'm a `B`, it was bound to happen someday... anyway, they eventually traced it back to Lucius Malfoy, his parents had been so anxious to get him into Slytherin they bewitched the Hat and conveniently they forgot to counter the spell. and even then, they'd got it wrong because there was no way in hell was a Malfoy going to come first." He snorted. "So I just psent all mny time in Gryffindor, and when they eventually got it all sorted they re-Sorted the students who'd been first each year and I switched to Gryffindor. But because they're working by House we were in in first year, I'm stuck in Slytherin. Again. Now do you understand?"
"I think so," Harry said slowly. Sirius smiled.
"Good.... hey, Hagrid!"
"Mornin', Harry." Sirius rolled his eyes mentally and went to play with the Augureys which Hagrid had apparently managed to catch; this September day they were shrieking their heads off, and causing several Slytherins to go temporarily deaf as punishment for standing too close. A part of him - the part he didn't like, he had decided - got out his mental list of `people who still like me` and crossed the huge man off it.
Malfoy came up. Sirius ignored him as politely as was possible while at the same time deperately longing to rip the boy's head off for what he was saying, and concentrated on the Augurey in front of him. It looked cold, something which Sirius could identify with only too well after years in Azkaban.
"Poor baby," he crooned to it, all too aware that he was meant to be listening to Hagrid telling everyone about how to handle the birds. "You're cold, aren't you? Come on, let's get you warmed up..."
"D'yeh mind?" Ah, so Hagrid was talking to him now. "They'll be warm as toast in a few minutes."
"But right here, right now they're cold," Sirius said pointedly. "Ever been in Azkaban? It's boiling in the summer, but that doesn't help with your frostbite in the winter..." he looked at Hagrid's face and realised that he'd hit a shared memory. "Oh, you have," he continued more quietly. "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let these poor birds get cold, or this one at least."
"All righ', ev'ryone inside!" Hagrid bellowed suddenly, nearly deafening Sirius. "Bring an Augurey wi' you!" Sirius grinned as he picked up the bird he'd been trying to warm up. "I'm not doing this for you, understand. For the birds."
"Of course. Thanks, Hagrid."
Aww, Hagrid's cracking ^_^ Next time; Remus in Divination! And the one you've all been waiting for; Potions!
Some angst will be developing, I'm warning you now, but I have to get them into detention with Filch first. Fortunately, it's wet weather at Hogwarts right now ^___^
Review!