Hope's Children

Chapter 4: Italian Nursery Rhymes

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"I'm a morning person." James spun around to see a small chubby boy with big round pale blue eyes looking at him. The boy held out his hand. "Good morning. I'm Peter," he said, still smiling. James just smiled back and went down to breakfast. Peter followed him, talking all the while.

This Chapter

The two boys were just finishing up breakfast when Remus came downstairs and sat down across from them.

"I'm really sorry, I'm not much of a morning person."

"No shit." James said it in a fake mad voice. To his surprise Remus looked scared. "Relax, I didn't mean it." Remus' scared expression became only slightly less so. James wondered what was up with that kid, but put it aside for another day and tuned back in to Peter's chatter.

"…To come to Hogwarts and to get out of that godforsaken town. My mum wanted to hire that sick little boy from Mona across the street to, she wouldn't let us of course…" James let Peter keep talking but tuned it out; he wasn't very fond of people who would tell their life story to a complete stranger.

When Sirius came to sit next to him it was about two minutes till class started, and James stood up.

"Where you going?" Sirius said through a mouth full of bacon.

James scrunched his nose. "Class, and you have the worst table manners I have ever seen," he said, walking out. To his surprise Sirius caught up with him fairly quickly.

"What class have we got?" James gave him a strange look.

"Ten minutes ago you were not a morning person, now you're all preppy."

Sirius shrugged. "So I'm different and I got some food in me." They entered the classroom.

Remus came shuffling into breakfast very tired, he hadn't expected to have to wake up so early, and so soon after the full moon was torture. Sitting down across from the boy who had tried to wake him up he smiled shyly and said:

"I'm really sorry, I'm not much of a morning person."

The boy glared at him. "No shit." Remus must have looked scared because the boy's expression softened. "Relax, I didn't mean it."

Remus took him in warily, he couldn't afford to make friends and have them discover anything. Without excusing himself he stood up and went to the library to get the books he would need for his classes.

It wasn't that he wanted to be mean, but if these boys found out his secret than he would be in for it for sure. Remus made it through his classes without talking to them, though in Transfiguration he had been paired with Peter and had to talk a bit. To his surprise the boy was bright and he caught on to the concept quickly. By lunch Remus was very hungry and glad to eat. After lunch they had double Defence against the Dark Arts. It was, much to his surprise, Remus' best class. It wasn't till the evening in the dorm room that anything happened…

"So if we put the bucket on this balcony," James was saying; he and Sirius had decided to combine their efforts to prank other people and not each other. "And he'll walk right under it."

"And we'll dump it on him," Sirius said with a flourish.

Remus was itching to intervene; where were they planning on hiding and what was their alibi when whoever it was they were pranking told a professor? And why not use a time-release spell so they didn't have to lie? He had been staring at the same page for the last ten minutes and he had no idea what it said. Not here to make friends, not here to make friends, he repeated over and over in his head. Another voice spoke up: what's the harm, it said, why not make friends and just keep your secret. If I make friends with them they'll notice me, and this is stupid, I'm arguing with myself.

"Perfect, and there's no way anyone will know it's us," James said triumphantly.

"What about an alibi?"

They both turned to look at him and he winced. "What?"

"Do you have an alibi for when your prank victim tells a teacher?"

"What's an alibi?"

"I don't know how to define it in English." He mumbled.

"In English." Sirius raised an eyebrow. "What language can you define it in?"

"Italian." He mumbled.

"I know a bit, try me."

Remus eyed him and said very quickly and quietly. "Una forma di difesa per cui un difensore tenta di dimostrare che lui o lei era altrove quando il crimine in questione si ommesso." 1

"Little slower please."

"Una giustificazione o una difesa o un posto in cui dite siete in modo da una gente penseranno che didn't facciate qualcosa."2 He said much slower though just as quietly.

"That was something different though, I understood that."

"So do you have an alibi?"

"No, would you mind?"

"Not at all."

"Um as interesting as this is, would someone mind telling me what you two are talking about?"

"An alibi is like a excuse that someone makes, or that you make when someone thinks you did something, and Remus says he'll be ours."

"I understand that part, I didn't know you spoke Italian."

"It was a family thing, we went on vacation to Italy and my parents made me learn basic Italian. But what about you, Remus? How do you know Italian? And it seems as if you know more than basic Italian."

"I was born and lived in Italy till I was like, seven," he said, going back to his book.

"Really?" James said in amazement. "Say something in Italian."

"Um…what?"

"I don't know, do you know any nursery rhymes or anything?"

"I miei genitori mai mi non hanno detto che rime di scuola materna,

nessuno facesse il mio fratello. Tranne uno, ma il relativo childish."3

"I didn't know you had a brother. And tell us the childish one, we are childish."

"Only if I can remember it, it's been years since I heard it, I haven't chased lucciole in years."

"Well say it."

"Lucciola lucciola, gialla gialla, metti la briglia alla cavalla, che la vuole il figlio del re, lucciola lucciola vieni con me."4

"What does it mean?"

"In English? I don't know."

"Do you, Sirius?"

"No, but lucciola is firefly."

"Firefly?" Remus said, testing the word on his tongue. "Firefly, I like that."

"Like what?"

"The word, I like the word firefly. Sorry, I'll let you get back to your prank planning."

"Do you want to help?"

"Help what?"

"With the pranks?"

"Oh um... OK, sure. In that case what if you used a time release spell…"

The three of them spent the reminder of the evening planning pranks and learning bits and pieces of Italian. Remus's vow to not make friends lay forgotten in the depths of his mind.

1A form of defense whereby a defendant attempts to prove that he or she was elsewhere when the crime in question was committed.

2An excuse or defense or a place you say you are so

People will think that didn't do something

3 My parents never told me nursery rhymes, neither did my brother. Except one, but its childish.

4 Firefly, firefly, yellow and bright, Bridle the filly under your light, The son of the king is ready to ride, Firefly, firefly, fly by my side.

A/N you will notice (or maybe not) that the style changes a bit, I wrote most of this chapter ages ago, well about half of it. Than I was working on a later chapter, and I couldn't find a site to translate a spell in to Latin and I tried Italian it was Remus saying the spell and I thought people always make him French so I made him Italian. Thank you fro reading sorry about the long wait. Review on the way out please.