At the Opera
by Rainsong

A/N: Back from vacation! Sorry for the long wait for a new chapter, and thanks so much to everyone who reviewed!! By the way, quotes have been stolen from pretty much everywhere. Hope that doesn't make me less-than-creative or anything. And "Mr. Stealthy Pants" belongs to an episode of Buffy. See how delusional I get while waiting for a new season? Especially one in which Spike has a soul.. I'm rambling. Anywho, enjoy the story!


~~~~~
Interlude
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LILY: Hmm.. looks like it might be awhile until they have everything sorted out.

SIRIUS: Maybe they'll get on with the actual story line, if such a thing exists.

LILY: In the meantime, we could go visit my grandfather. He's got a box just over to the left.

REMUS: The last time we attempted to have a five-minute conversation with your grandfather, we ended up listening to his stories of "life on the sea" for the remainder of the day.

LILY: Well, it was a nice thing to do for him. No one will listen to his stories anymore.

SIRIUS: Gee, I wonder why..

JAMES: No offense, Lily, but three hours of bluff seaman's talk about picking the weevils out of biscuits and drinking urine is not my idea of entertainment.

LILY: *sighs* I suppose you're right.

SIRIUS: Snack Man should be returning soon.

REMUS: Give the poor guy a break. He's still got 17 minutes.

PETER: I agree with Sirius, food wouldn't be too bad right now.

JAMES: Then why don't you whip something up yourself?

LILY: No, you can't! Muggles everywhere, remember?

JAMES: He could be stealthy about it...

LILY: Oh really? As you always are?

JAMES: Well, I wouldn't call it something I pride myself at, but you have to have a bit of skill to pull off the kind of stuff we do back at school.

LILY: Fine, Mr. Stealthy Pants, lets see you 'whip up' some food.

SIRIUS: Mr. Stealthy Pants..that one's gonna come back to haunt you, Prongs.

JAMES: *weakly* It is?

SIRIUS: Big time. But don't blame me, blame Lily, at least for now. After you hear all of the ways the phrase "stealthy pants" can be twisted, then you can blame me.

JAMES: Now look what you've done! He'll be harassing me for the remainder of the year.

REMUS: Or your lifetime, give or take a few decades.

LILY: Don't blame me! He could have ignored that one!

JAMES: Sirius can't ignore anything! His mind is just programmed that way.

LILY: You know perfectly well that he can tune things out as well as the next person. He prefers to annoy people.

JAMES: Well, what if he enjoys annoying people so much that it slowly becomes a programmed mental disorder? Irreversible and such.

LILY: You're beating a dead horse, James. Face it, he just likes annoying you.

JAMES: You're probably right. But we can't change him. We might as well stop saying anything that we know will be turned against us.

LILY: No. I refuse to stop speaking because Sirius can't control himself.

JAMES: Thats not what I said.

LILY: Thats what it boils down to.

JAMES: Does not.

LILY: Does too.

SIRIUS: Now, children...

LILY and JAMES: Shut up!

PETER: Hey, would you look at that! The opera's starting up again.

REMUS: Actually, I'd rather sit here and listen to Lily and James argue about Sirius'
brain waves than return to that monotony.

JAMES: It wasn't an argument.

LILY: It was an exchange.

JAMES: Exactly.

REMUS: Sorry. But I do agree with Lily. Sirius, why can't you leave things in context?

SIRIUS: Context? I laugh in the face of context!

REMUS: Don't we know it...

SIRIUS: Oh, like you don't?

REMUS: My life has been one long descent into respectability. First there was the whole "top of the class" thing. And now I'm a prefect. So in answer to your question, no, Padfoot. Lately I have found myself taking things out of context less and less.

SIRIUS: You mean..you're losing your edge?

REMUS: My out-of-contexty one, yes.

SIRIUS: I didn't think I'd see this day.

REMUS: I'm still a Marauder, you know.

SIRIUS: That's debatable

LILY: You boys don't take your silly little secret club lightly enough.

JAMES: Its not a secret club. There's no club in the first place.

PETER: Yeah, we're just a group of friends.

SIRIUS: Pete, you make us sound like Quakers.

PETER: Not intentionally.

SIRIUS: True.

LILY: Then what's with the whole "Marauders" thing?

REMUS: Its just used because we're a bunch of crazy waifs that happen to hang around each other.

SIRIUS: Well put, Moony.

REMUS: Thank you, Padfoot.

JAMES: Doesn't it sort of go.. deeper than that?

REMUS: What?

JAMES: Calling ourselves The Marauders. Doesn't it sort of represent a brotherhood? A bond? Anything?

SIRIUS: James, maybe I should remind you of the fact that we are males. We're emotionally constipated, and shun displays of affection for each other.

JAMES: Then lets forfeit our intelligence and pride for the duration of the next thirty seconds.

SIRIUS: I fancy silk pajamas.

REMUS: What does that have to do with anything?

SIRIUS: We shed our dignity, remember? I thought I should warm up before moving on to stuff like "I love you" or "friends forever".

JAMES: Please don't take this too far, Padfoot.

SIRIUS: Stop being a fuss-budget, Prongs. Now, what was your question?

JAMES: Does calling ourselves The Marauders express an inner yearning for a sense of brotherhood and devotion?

SIRIUS: What shrink have you been been swapping fluids with?

JAMES: Sod off. On second thought, answer my question and then sod off.

REMUS: I personally think that we do have a bit of a..fellowship. We're all close friends, if nothing else.

PETER: I agree with Remus. I mean, we do everything together.

LILY: Including being more sappy than a maple tree?

SIRIUS: Of course, Lil. You know us too well.

JAMES: I haven't heard your opinion on the friendship issue, Sirius.

SIRIUS: Haven't heard yours, either. I agree with Remus, though. We're all good friends. JAMES: You know, that whole conversation went surprisingly well.

LILY: It did. And its so cute when you're all cuddly with each other.

SIRIUS: If you don't mind me saying so, "cuddly" is quite a strong word to use in this situation.

REMUS: And we don't discuss this that often, do we?

JAMES: Not unless we've had more butterbeer than previously estimated.

LILY: Shall we return to the opera?

REMUS: I've been watching it during this discussion. It seems that the mountain men are celebrating that they never had to eat each other. Thats why we are now watching them have a party with numerous voluptuous women that apparently appeared out of nowhere.

SIRIUS: Nice word, Remus.

REMUS: What do you mean?

SIRIUS: "Voluptuous." Its just not a Moony word, is it?

JAMES: No, its really not. And if you did happen to use it, you'd probably clear your throat first or avoid eye contact with anyone.

REMUS: Would not.

JAMES: Of course you would.

SIRIUS: You have to admit, Moony, you're very picky about your words.

REMUS: You have no proof of that.

SIRIUS: Oh, but I do. On our first train ride to Hogwarts, you corrected me for saying "who" instead of "whom". I rest my case.

REMUS: I was being helpful! Not that it really did anything. You're beyond help, Sirius.

SIRIUS: Dagger through my heart, Moony.

PETER: I remember our first time on the train to Hogwarts.

LILY: I wish I didn't. You were all horrid. Knocking people over and swinging from doorways.. You threw some sort of stool onto my robes, too. I smelled all through the Sorting.

SIRIUS: We apologized for that one.

LILY: And I forgive you. But that smell has never really left my memory. I think even the Sorting Hat had trouble standing it.

JAMES: But it still sorted you all right, didn't it?

LILY: I'm not a Slytherin, if that's what you mean.

JAMES: No, of course not.

SIRIUS: The five of us sure hit it off, though. Destiny, I tell you.

REMUS: Would it have still been destiny if you weren't there, Sirius?

SIRIUS: Absolutely not. I'm right up there with air and water on the List of Importance with this lot.

REMUS: Your ego amazes me.

SIRIUS: I can always count on my friends to be around when they need me.

PETER: Huh?

SIRIUS: Think about that one for awhile, Pete.

PETER: Bugger off, Sirius, you know it doesn't make sense.


SNACK MAN: I am here! Here I am!

JAMES: Fantastic! More oddly-shaped and unnaturally-colored food.

LILY: James, these are specialty dishes.

JAMES: Did you ever wonder why its called a specialty dish?

LILY: Not really.

JAMES: Because no one in the real world eats this stuff. Thats why we have good food in abundance, and horrible food is called a delicacy.

SIRIUS: Its quite lucrative, also. Maybe I should go into the delicacy business.

REMUS: You'd invent a new food?

SIRIUS: Can't be that hard, can it? Choose something no one would ever think of eating otherwise, like small rodents or random intestines, and throw it in teriyaki sauce.

PETER: That's sick.

JAMES: That's big in Asia.

REMUS: And you could find all of your supplies on a camping trip.

LILY: There's an idea! We should all go camping at the end of the school year!

PETER: But there are wild animals, and we'd be unprotected.

JAMES: Wormtail, we're wild animals, too.

PETER: Yes, I know. But my cousin William was attacked by a hippogriff while camping.

JAMES: Yeah, right. Is this the same cousin that convinced you that you could die from an overdose on cheese?

PETER: No! And it really happened, too.

SIRIUS: The overdose on cheese?

PETER: No, the hippogriff attack. William curled up and waited for it to go away, but it just attacked him anyway.

SIRIUS: Was he curled up like a head of lettuce?

PETER: Yeah, I suppose you could say that.

SIRIUS: There's the problem. The most basic rule for survival in any situation is to never look like food.


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Act II shall come soon, I promise!