See chapter 1 for explanations and disclaimers.
Undomiel2007 – Glad you enjoyed. I'm sure Lily had her reasons. Sometimes it's just best to wait until they grow up a bit… Yeah, waiting for a ride that you can't get on does suck. But it happens. Splash Mountain was built in the nineties, I believe, so, no, no Splash Mountain.
Freakyfairy – Glad you're enjoying it. We didn't know there were any other Marauder/Disney stories. Are they on ?
6 - Together Again
Reunited, the quartet made their way out of the Saloon once the show was over, talking and laughing. Dusk had fallen, and most of the walkways seemed rather deserted. James took a glance at the guidebook to find out why. He had to flip through a few pages before the answer appeared. He showed it to the others. "Hey, look, mates. It says they have a parade right about now in Main Street. Let's see if we can go catch it."
Peter frowned. "But I wanted to see the Country Bear Jamboree!"
"Come on, Pete, we can do that tomorrow! It's open all day," Sirius wheedled. "I want to see that parade!"
James shrugged at Peter, "Sorry, mate. I'd rather do the Parade, too." Then he turned to Remus. "What do you think, Moony? Yours seems to be the deciding vote…"
Remus glared at him for a moment, a sour look on his face. Then he glanced between Sirius, who was making puppy eyes at him, and Peter, who looked about ready to throw a tantrum. James hated making him the bad guy, but he knew Peter would take it better coming from Remus than either him or Sirius. "Peter, Sirius is right. We're coming back tomorrow. We can make the Country Bear Jamboree first thing we do here tomorrow. Okay?"
Peter shrugged sulkily, his face dark. "Fine. 'Snot like you guys ever listen to me anyway." James rolled his eyes at Sirius, and the two led the way through the park to Main Street, where they could now hear music, and a found a great crowd of people watching the passing floats.
Sirius elbowed his way through the crowd, the other three following closely behind him, and they ended up right at the curb, with a superb view of all the people and floats passing by.
Sirius grinned at all the passing floats. There were people dressed up as different characters prancing around on the floats, their costumes all adorned in small electric lights. He recognized several of the people as characters they'd seen on the rides they'd been on that day, and he could hear people pointing out their favorites to their children as they watched the parade go by as well. He specifically recognized Snow White and Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty and Mickey and Minnie Mouse, at which Peter went into paroxysms of delight. Silly circus-type calliope music played while the floats moved down the path.
The parade went on for about twenty minutes and the boys were having the time of their lives. They laughed and pointed and waved at the characters. "She winked at me! Snow White winked at me!" James cried out to his friends at one point, a vague, dreamy smile on his face.
Sirius high-fived him and as he looked back at the floats his face broke into a huge smile. "Pirates!" he called out to his friends, pointing to a float with Peter Pan and Captain Hook on the Jolly Roger. The pirates and Lost Boys were fighting one another while Captain Hook chased Peter around the ship. Every once in a while, Peter would fly up into the masts, away from Hook, taunting him all the while. Sirius hooted and clapped at Captain Hook, who was brandishing his hook in frustration up at Peter. "You tell him, mate!" he cheered him on.
Remus nudged him. "Sirius! Hook's the bad guy!"
Sirius stared blandly at his friend. "So? Hello? Wizard from a dark family here!" Remus shushed him at that, but Sirius just laughed. "Come on, Moony, no one's paying any attention to us at the moment." With that, he turned back to watch more of the parade.
When Sirius next looked at his friends, he was shocked to see one of the characters, in her lit-up sky blue dress, trying to get Remus to join her in a dance. Remus had blushed deeper than seemed humanly possible, and was trying to refuse her by shaking his head and trying to pull away from her, but she would have none of that and gently led him to the front of the crowd and proceeded to dance with him for several minutes before curtseying to him and rejoining the parade, waving to the crowd as she departed.
Sirius and James crowed and clapped Remus on the back as he rejoined them. Peter smiled and hopped up and down excitedly. Remus was still blushing furiously, but couldn't quite restrain himself from grinning, either.
It felt like it was way too soon for the parade to end, but it finally did. The crowd began to dissipate somewhat as Peter tried to hurry the group to the side of Sleeping Beauty's castle by the entrance to Tomorrow Land. "Come on mates, I heard someone in the crowd say that this is one of the prime spots for watching the fireworks. We only have a half hour until then," he called out to them as he wormed his way through the crowd, ahead of the others.
The four found a bench that was quite close to the fireworks and oohed and aaahed as they went off. They'd been thoroughly amused to watch somebody dressed up as "Tinkerbell" "flew" down from the Matterhorn to the top of Sleeping Beauty's Castle to signify the start of the show. The fireworks lasted quite a while, and were very impressive, for Muggle fireworks. Once they were over, the boys headed towards the main gate. Remus smiled to himself. This had been a good idea. Maybe Sirius wasn't so nuts after all. Or at least there was method to his madness.
The walk back to the Jolly Roger that night was a long one, but they were all so excited from their first day at the park that none of them really noticed, as they talked the entire way about their plans for the next morning.
Peter fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, but Remus found himself wide awake, so he sat and stared out the window for a while. After an hour, he heard a tap from the adjoining door, and got up to open it. James stood on the other side, a crooked grin on his face. "Hey, mate. Couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd see if you were suffering one of your bouts of insomnia."
Remus smiled. He and James had often stayed up late at Hogwarts, talking long after Sirius and Peter had fallen asleep. Those two rarely had troubles sleeping, but James and Remus often found themselves unable to sleep. James because he had trouble adjusting to sleeping at Hogwarts after being home for the holidays, and Remus because he'd had insomnia off and on for as long as he could remember, due to his lycanthropy, and the aches and worries it caused him.
"Come on in, mate. Pete's dead to the world. What did you and Sirius do when we split up?"
James told him about Autotopia, and how they'd been thrown off the ride, then about the snogging couple in the Skyway car, and how they'd gone on Peter Pan, then the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. "And we definitely have to take you guys up there tomorrow. Pete'll love it," James grinned.
"Sounds intriguing, Prongs. We'll definitely have to check it out."
James also told him about Sirius scaring the people in front of them when they'd gone back to the Haunted Mansion, and Remus sighed. "He'll never grow up, will he?"
James grinned. "I hope not."
Remus then proceeded to tell James about their exploration of Fantasy Land, including their rides on Alice in Wonderland, which he said was quite interesting and rather like experiencing a waking dream.
James chuckled ruefully. "Maybe I should have let Sirius drag me to that one."
Remus shrugged. "You both might have enjoyed it. It had a lot of talking animals in it."
He also told James about the Dumbo ride.
"So it really flies, eh?"
"Well, sort of. It goes around in a circle. And it was fairly slow, too. Pete seemed okay on it. You guys'd probably get bored, though."
They talked for quite a while, trading stories about their afternoon at the park, until finally both of them were yawning quite widely, and James excused himself and returned to his room.
Remus smiled and snuggled into his bed. Sometimes Sirius did come up with good ideas.
The four boys slept in the next morning before getting dressed for their second day in Disneyland. They strolled to the park, excited for the adventures they'd have that day.
Once inside the park, Sirius suggested they eat breakfast before doing anything else. "I saw a nice looking restaurant called The River Belle Terrace in New Orleans Square yesterday. Oh, and Peter, I saw on the menu that they make Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes!" That sold Peter on the subject. The other two boys didn't care where they ate, just as long as they did so soon.
The boys strolled down Main Street while glancing in the shops on their way to New Orleans Square. It was a bit of a walk, but there was plenty to see and talk about. "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!" Peter exclaimed.
"Well, I don't think they serve horse here," James replied, "but those pancakes should fill you up."
"Did you ever wonder about that saying?" Sirius asked. "I mean really, did anybody ever actually get so hungry that they ate an entire horse? Think about it. It would take so long to cook a horse that you'd not be able to wait that long to eat it. I don't think it's possible," he stated confidently.
"Can we not talk about this please?" Remus asked. "You're going to make me sick," he said, frowning at Sirius.
"All right, no talking about eating horses anymore, got it?" Sirius called out to his companions, who nodded their heads in agreement.
After about ten minutes, they arrived at the River Belle Terrace. They entered the restaurant and picked up trays to put their food on. Sirius wasn't too hungry, so he only had pancakes, sausages, hash browns, eggs, and orange juice. Remus carried his own tray of oatmeal and bacon and grimaced at the pile of food on Sirius's. "How do you manage to eat all of the?" he asked.
"With my mouth!" Sirius replied, cackling as they walked to an umbrella-covered table outside.
The boys sat around, eating and enjoying the food. Peter said he felt bad about cutting off poor Mickey's ears and eating them. "I'd sure hate to have anything cut off of me," he said. "Sorry mate," he apologized before cutting into Mickey's left ear and stuffing it in his mouth.
"Hey, look, it's Peter the cannibal!" James chuckled as Peter swallowed his mouthful.
"What's it like to eat your own kind?" Sirius grinned.
"Are you saying Peter is a doughy food product?" Remus asked with a slight smile on his face.
"Of course I am! I've always thought so," Sirius replied.
"Gee, thanks guys," Peter cut in, frowning.
"Oh, we're kidding! You know that," James assured Peter.
The boys ate quietly after that. After a while, Sirius broke the silence. "What do you want to do first today?" Sirius asked through a mouthful of eggs. "Should we stick together or split up again?"