heather: (laughs) I'm really sorry you got bored! I hope you're attention span improves ;) If you have any suggestions you want to give as to how you think I can make this more interesting, by all means fire away - I'm always open to any advice for improvement on my work. Thanks for leaving a review regardless, m'hunni :) I hope you find the rest of the story more enthralling!
A-is-for-Amy: Well, the pleasure's all mine! Thanks for leaving me such a great review. It's nice to get praise much of the time, but it's even nicer to get some good C.C. from someone; I'm also flattered that I have an adult who's enjoying my work!!! I'm glad that you found Astrea a comfortable character to get to know - she's come a long way from how and who she was when I originally drafted the basic ideas for this fic, but I'm pleased with the developments she's made. Hopefully I'm taking her in the opposite direction from a Mary-Sue (though please warn me if she starts to creep back again!); it's both amusing and frustrating to find that even OCs can come out-of-character sometimes! As for where I'm taking this story, well, I'll just have to leave you in suspense there, m'dear ;) Thanks for such a lovely review, and I hope I hear more from you soon.
Werewolf's One(): Aha, do I detect, from your name, that you are a Remus fan? :) Yes, don't worry - there's plenty more where that came from! Thank you for your praise, and I'm really pleased that you enjoyed the first chapter; I'm also relieved that someone thinks I have the canons in character!!! Here's the third bit: hope you enjoy it as much as you did the first.
Disclaimer: Astrea, Tryn, the Nox gang, Flaxen Greenwood and Venera Ravenstone are my dirty work - everything else belongs to the wonderfully talented Mistress Rowling!
Spoilers: PoA and OotP
Pairings: Test your grasp of subtlety and see if you can figure it out...;)
--
Then
"Potions first thing on a Wednesday?!" Peter quailed.
Remus frowned at his timetable, and swallowed his mouthful of toast.
"That's nothing compared to History of Magic first thing on a Monday."
"Well, I always say it's good to start the week with a sleep-in." Said Sirius, stretching so that a few girls eagerly craned their necks to cast his admiring looks.
"It is our O.W.L. year, Sirius." Remus said reprovingly. "It's important to be staying awake in lessons."
"Oh, come on, Moony. I could wing History of Magic if I was blindfolded and the paper were backwards."
"If you were blindfolded, then the fact that the paper was backwards wouldn't matter."
"No one likes a smart-alec at breakfast, Moony."
"Then I suggest you leave quickly, Sirius - you're upsetting people."
"Shut up."
"Certainly."
"Hey hey!" James grinned, suddenly pointing at something on the timetable. "We have Herbology with the Ravenclaws this year."
"Moony can have a rumble with his girl in the flowerbeds."
Remus glared at Sirius.
"Remind me to hex you later."
"Will do," Sirius glubbed through his goblet of orange juice.
The volume of chatter down the table suddenly flared as a someone came and sat down amidst a group of chattering girls. James' hand was at his hair within an instant: it was Lily.
"Morning, Evans." He said.
Remus felt the corners of his mouth twitching as Lily turned her head to give James a long, level glance.
"Morning." She said flatly.
"You hear what happened to Snape on the train yesterday?" James asked nonchalantly, barely able to stay cool.
Lily selected a piece of toast.
"Oh yeah - some pathetic owl-brain hexed him." She replied uninterestedly, ignoring the look on James' face. "Old news, Potter."
James' mouth opened and closed several times, so that he vaguely resembled a goldfish.
"Nice going, mate." Sirius whispered in his ear.
Someone down the other side of the table snorted.
"Something funny, McTaggart?" James sniped nastily.
A girl with short, deep purple hair and dark eyes adorned a sympathetic tone and gazed sorrowfully at him.
"So many women...so little charm."
"Go harass a toad, McTaggart." James growled. Tryn McTaggart smirked at him over her coffee cup. "I don't know if you noticed who got Captaincy of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team this year."
McTaggart's face darkened.
"Just 'coz you're a stinking Seeker..."
"Still got it though, didn't I?" It was James' turn to smirk.
Down the table, Lily rolled her eyes and murmured:
"He's so immature."
"Wha-?"
James whipped round to look at her. Sirius was siphoning his mirth into chasing a pickled onion round his plate with a fork; Peter was watching the exchange like a tennis match, and Remus was laughing into his apple juice.
"I! Bu-j...I..."
"Oh, forget it." Lily said to her friend, dropping her napkin on the table and getting to her feet. "I'm not hungry."
James watched her go with a kind of horrified gormlessness. Sirius raised his eyebrows as he shovelled a forkful of bacon and eggs into his mouth.
"Good luck asking her to the Hallowe'en Ball." He said.
--
Now
"What?" Lupin exclaimed.
Kingsley Shacklebolt frowned.
"I said...is that portrait still in the Main Hall?"
"Oh," Lupin pinched the bridge of his nose. "I thought...never mind. Yes, it is, unfortunately; we've not been able to get it down. Molly and I have been trying all Summer."
Kingsley gave a deep laugh.
"Good luck, Remus - 'looks like the old crone's planning to stay here for quite some time."
"Mmm."
They drifted into the kitchen, and the weight in Remus' chest lifted slightly as his eyes alighted on the fire burning cheerily in the hearth.
"Can I get you anything?" He asked, slinging his cloak over a nearby chair-back.
"Coffee, please."
Remus nodded and busied himself with a couple of mugs. Kingsley glanced around the chamber.
"You've done some cleaning out." He noted with approval.
"Much-needed cleaning, too."
"I notice the elf-heads are still up on the staircase."
"Well, I find myself growing strangely attached to them..." Remus gave Kingsley a twisted smile over his shoulder. The black wizard returned it somewhat more incredulously.
"You're not, are you?"
"No." Remus chuckled, reaching for the milk bottle. "Er - black or white?"
"White, please, Remus."
There was the sound of milk being added to the coffee, followed by the chinking of a spoon. Lupin turned from the work surface and passed Kingsley a mug across the table.
"I gather Potter'll be arriving in a few days." Kingsley said after taking a long sip.
Lupin nodded.
"And his O.W.L. results will follow him about a week after that, I should imagine."
"No guesses as to how he'll've done." Said Kingsley.
"No. Very bright young man," Remus smiled reminiscently. "Much like James was, of course."
"I'm still surprised Dumbledore didn't make Potter a prefect. Did he ever end up saying why?"
Lupin shook his head.
"Dumbledore very rarely explains his ways and means, but I'm sure they were for the best."
"I'm not saying they weren't, Remus. I was just surprised, that's all."
"You shouldn't be so negative about surprises, Kingsley; they're fun!"
The two men looked round to see Astrea wander into the kitchen. She still looked pale and shadowy-eyed to Remus, but she was smiling broadly at the sight of her old schoolmate. Kingsley blinked.
"Astrea?"
"Yes indeed, sir." She came forward and peered into Kingsley's face as she shook his outstretched hand.
"How long has it been, now? Sixteen years? You're looking old, Shacklebolt."
Kingsley grinned.
"Well, we don't all age as gracefully as yourself."
"Some more clumsily than others, in fact." Lupin remarked over his mug with a wry smile.
"It is possible to age clumsily?"
"You're looking at someone who did, my dear."
Astrea made an 'oh' with her mouth and smiled.
"What you lost in looks you gained in wisdom, Remus." Said Kingsley in his deep voice.
Remus laughed.
"I was never fortunate with my looks to begin with; unlike Sirius..."
He suddenly went very quiet. Then after a moment, a smile crept over his features, and he met the gazes of his friends.
"I remember in Charms, how-"
"How the girls all used to stare at him." Astrea finished, wearing the same slightly sad, reminiscent smile.
"You remember that?"
Astrea looked up at Remus and nodded.
"Mhmm; it was a little hard not to notice, wasn't it? Elenna Gascoigne," She interrupted herself, and looked at Kingsley. "Didn't you go out with her for a while?"
"In the sixth year, yeah." Said Kingsley.
"Yes, that's right. W'I remember," She laughed. "I remember he was always flirting with her. Dropping lines, that sort of thing; he really used to string those girls along."
"He loved it." Smiled Lupin. "He and James were such a pair."
"And James and Lily." Said Astrea.
Remus chuckled.
"How could I forget?"
"You, Sirius, James and Peter," Said Kingsley. "Used to drive McGonagall crazy."
Astrea summoned the coffee jar and an empty mug to the table with a commanding note.
"I remember hearing something about people tripping over in Transfiguration once." She said, digging a spoon into the coffee powder. "What was that all about?"
"Oh, that was..." Lupin clicked his fingers as he waited for it to come back to him. "Yes - James put tripping hexes in the aisles between every desk."
Astrea raised her eyes from filling her mug.
"I knew it had something to do with you four."
Lupin's eyes twinkled as he sipped his coffee.
"Most every suspicious prank that went on at Hogwarts had something to do with us..."
--
Then
"Mr Malfoy, are you unable, for some reason, to maintain control over your feet?"
Lucius Malfoy glared up at Professor McGonagall from where he lay sprawled on the floor in a mess of robes. The whole class was giggling from the security of their desks - some craning their necks to see, wearing grins that nearly split their faces in two - but no one was finding the 'accident' more amusing than the four boys seated at back of the chamber: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.
"It's 'cos of that massive head of his," Sirius was snickering. "He finds it hard to keep his balance."
Lucius was now attempting to struggle to his feet, his pale face flushing with embarrassment as he angrily swiped his robes out of the way; but Crabbe, Goyle and Avery chose that precise same moment to enter the classroom and come trundling up behind him. They were so absorbed in the shock that the whole class appeared to be laughing at them that they quite neglected to pay attention to where they were walking; a second later, there was a sudden cry of alarm, several loud thuds, and the pile of bodies in the central aisle of the classroom had doubled in size. And so had the amount of laughter.
James and Sirius were practically weeping, the latter banging his fist on the table, whilst Remus and Peter leant on one another for support. James tried to say something, but his sobs were stealing all the air from his lungs; the most he could manage was a high-pitched wheeze. McGonagall surveyed the winded Lucius and his cronies with an expression of stern disapproval; and yet, strangely, the corners of her mouth were twitching.
"I would think that Slytherins might have more dignity." She assessed, pursing her thin lips. "Now would you please remove yourselves from the floor, and get to your seats?"
Lucius growled something under his breath, but was quickly silenced as he had the wind knocked out of him for a second time by Goyle, who had stumbled as he rose and collapsed back down ontop of him.
Sirius sighed contentedly at the back of the class, turning a few heads, and wiped the remaining tears from his eyes. McGonagall's piercing gaze quickly turned on him.
"Do you have something amusing that you wish to share with the rest of us, Mr Black?" She asked sharply.
"No, Professor. Of course not." Sirius replied with a remarkably convincing straight face.
Professor McGonagall kept him fixed under her stare just until he started to quail. Then she turned her attention the registry scroll.
"Ace?"
"Yes, Professor."
"Aines?"
"Yes, Professor."
"Aswell?"
"Yes, Professor."
"Stroke of genius, Jamsie, m'boy," Whispered Sirius, leaning across. "Waiting until dear Lucius arrived."
"I try, dear Padfoot; I try." James smiled back. "Crabbe, Goyle and Avery were just a bonus."
"I must commend them on their perfect sense of comedic timing." Remus grinned, opening his text book. "I thought winding Lucius a second time was a particularly nice touch."
Sirius cackled and gave James a high-five. Across the classroom, Lucius scowled at them from his desk, and openly fingered his wand as though contemplating a hex.
The Marauders - such as they had named themselves - had quickly discovered that Slytherins were worthy subjects of their 'affections', as Sirius liked to refer to it; especially the members of the Nox gang, who had a wonderfully entertaining habit of harbouring embarrassment grudges, which were endless fun to play on. Providing, of course, that they never caught up with you afterwards. The Nox gang was a group of students from the upper years, mostly from Slytherin, all of whom shared some funny ideas about blood (their motto being 'Summasanguis - superior blood): among their members were Lucius Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Avery, Lestrange, Rookwood, Dolohov, two of the Black sisters, a particularly nasty piece of work called Flaxen Greenwood and her friend Venera Ravenstone. Other than Snape, there were no people at Hogwarts whom the Marauders loved to see suffer more.
At the front of the chamber, Professor McGonagall concluded her register and slipped it back into a desk drawer with a flick of her wand.
"Today, class," She clasped her hands in a business-like manner. "We are starting your revision sessions in preparation for your O.W.L. exams. In the next few months, we will be recapping on everything you have learnt over the past four years, so I shall be expecting double the amount of concentration I normally receive from you all - which won't amount to much, in some cases." She added, throwing a deliberate glance at the four boys in the back row of her class. James, Sirius, Remus and Peter exchanged grins. "Let's begin, then. Would you turn to page 43 in your textbooks, and have your wands to hand, please."
It was a boringly easy lesson, for certain students in the class. The task was to transfigure a candlestick into a snake and back again; Sirius scoffed.
"This is the sort of stuff we have to do at Ordinary Wizarding Level?" He asked, staring disdainfully down his nose at the tea-green coloured candle infront of him. "Pathetic. A first year could do this!"
Peter, who was looking rather less self-assured, cast him a slightly resentful look.
James' subject flickered back and forth between snake and candlestick for a while, until eventually he tired of showing off. With a flick of his wand, he stopped it at the half-way point, the result being a beautifully detailed and realistic wax snake with a wick protruding from its mouth. He casually slipped into his robe pocket, and then turned his attention to watching his friends' work.
"First Hogsmeade weekend's coming up in a few weeks." He said quietly.
"Excellent." Said Sirius, idly transfiguring his snake which was making an escape-attempt off the edge of the desk. "I need to go to Zonko's and stock up on Dungbombs again. I can't believe how low I'm running!" He added, making a face.
"Well, if you hadn't got so boom-happy when we were raiding Filch's Office..." Said Remus.
James and Sirius both made rueful noises of reluctant agreement.
"It was worth it, though." Sirius amended with a grin. "Filch's face when he came round the corner; he couldn't get rid of the stench for days!"
"Months, more like." Said James. "I'm sure I still get a whiff whenever I'm walk past."
"Nah - that's just Filch."
When the bell finally went, the usual palaver of everyone jumping up and cramming themselves into the aisles commenced, and being nearest the door, the boys were able to slip out quickly amidst the chaos before they came a-cropper of Lucius and his gaggle. Crossing the courtyard, Remus checked his timetable.
"I have Astrology now, so that means that you, Sirius and Peter have Divination." He said to James.
Sirius groaned.
"Why'd I take that?"
"Because James did." Said Remus with a slight smile.
James gave him a confused look.
"I thought Astrology was an after-hours class?"
Remus shook his head.
"No: that's Astronomy. Anyway, I've got to go this way," He indicated down the left-hand corridor of the T-junction they had come to. "I'll see you later."
"See you, Moony." James gave him a wave as he, Sirius and Peter turned up the other passage. Remus hefted his bag and started walking.
The school grounds were definitely starting to take on an autumnal gild; the virginia creepers that swarmed up archways and walls had turned a deep, vibrant scarlet, and the leaves on the trees were a colourful mix of green and golden-yellow. The sun was mild, and the sky a warm blue, with little puffy white child's-drawing clouds ferrying across it. Remus closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath - the breeze smelt crisp and earthy. Yes, today was a good day. Or, so he thought...
"There he is."
Remus glanced back over his shoulder, and promptly felt his blood freeze. Lucius Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Avery and Rookwood were advancing on him with faces like storm clouds; Malfoy had his wand out.
"Your sense of humour is amusing, Lupin." He snarled.
Remus kept a calm face.
"I'm glad you think so."
"Perhaps you won't be finding things quite so funny now that your big friends Potter and Black aren't here to save you."
"We'll see." Said Remus; his hand was quietly slipping inside his robes for his wand.
Then something caught his eye that paused his hand where it was - something moving by Lucius' feet. Remus chanced a quick glance down. He saw that the laces of Malfoy's shoes were gradually unknotting themselves from their neat bows, and retying themselves together of their own accord. Behind him, Crabbe, Goyle, Avery and Rookwood's shoelaces were doing the same. Remus began to smile.
"What are you smirking at Lu-"
Malfoy's sneer cut off abruptly as he went to take another stride, and found he couldn't. His eyes widened in surprise as he teetered on the edge for a moment, frantically windmilled his arms in an attempt to stay upright, and then came crashing down onto the flagstones. His goons, with exclamations of surprise, were not far behind him.
Laughter erupted in the passageway from the students who had been passing and stopped to watch, and some even started applauding at the sight of the five Slytherins lying crumpled in a heap. Two figures in the crowd caught Remus' eye: Astrea Ravenstone, standing next to Tryn McTaggart who still had her wand out, flashed him a smile. Remus felt a blush rise swiftly to his face as he smiled back and gave her a nod.
Then, turning his attention back to Lucius, he collected himself and met the seething Slytherin's glare calmly.
"Second time that's happened today, isn't it?" He asked lightly, stooping forward a little to look down. "I'd be more careful if I were you, Lucius - you want to watch your step."
And with that, he straightened up, turned on his heel, and continued coolly on his way to Astrology, leaving Lucius to recover what was left of his tattered ego.
--
Now
Astrea and Remus' laughter sighed to depletion, whilst Kingsley wiped the remaining tears from his eyes.
"Oh, those were the days, eh?" Remus smiled.
"If only we could get away with doing that to Malfoy now." Grinned Kingsley. "The world would be a better place."
Astrea gave a little hiccough of laughter, and examined her empty coffee mug.
"Well, you'll never guess what happened to me this morning." She said.
"What?"
"I found a dead house-elf under my bed."
"Really?" Kingsley straightened up interestedly.
Remus frowned slightly.
"Kreacher?"
"That's what Molly said." Nodded Astrea.
Remus sighed.
"Yes - it would be. He was the Blacks' old servant; Sirius hated him with a passion."
There was a thoughtful silence.
"Well, I guess that's effectively the last remnant of the Black family gone from this house, then." Said Kingsley in a soft voice.
Looking up from his mug, Remus gave the wizard a wry smile.
"Not quite..." He said.
As if on queue, there came the sound of the doorbell, quickly followed by a hideous shrieking out in the hall. Astrea clapped her hands over her ears and screwed her eyes shut.
"What the hell is that?!" She exclaimed.
"Oh, of course!" Lupin smiled cheerfully as he got to his feet. "You haven't been introduced to the dear Mrs Black yet, have you?"
Astrea looked at him, and then glanced out at the hallway.
"Erm...it's alright Remus," She said, as a rather harried-looking Tonks appeared in the doorway. "I think I'll pass on that one for now."
--