The Dog Ate My Homework
Disclaimer: Would J K Rowling come up with such a corny title?
AN: Sirius does his homework on the Marauder's Map! Read and... guess what?... review!
"I can't Padfoot – I've got homework!" Remus Lupin called in reply to his friend's question. "So have you, for that matter!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'll do it a minute," echoed the excuse. "Prongs? Wormtail?"
Remus stopped listening and turned back to his homework, but Lily Evans, with whom he was working, wanted to ask him something. "What's with those nicknames, anyway? Where did they come from?"
Remus had been asked this before, but this time he had an answer ready. "Prongs is because of James' 'devil horns'," he lied, smoothly. "Padfoot, because it suggests quiet, and Sirius is anything but. Wormtail because Peter's always 'got his tail between his legs', and Moony because I'm a bit of a dreamer."
The lie seemed to satisfy Lily, so Remus turned back to his homework, before retreating to his dormitory to revise. The end-of-year tests were coming up soon and he wanted to be ready for them.
In his dormitory, he found Sirius Black, finally sitting down and doing his homework. James Potter was nearby practising the Protean Charm. Peter Pettigrew was lying on his bed, reading through his Herbology notes.
When Sirius triumphantly slammed his books down on the table (breaking his quill in the process), Remus jumped and looked up from his Advanced Potions book.
"Finished!" grinned Sirius. "Would you check it, Moony?"
Remus was about to ask, 'Why me?' when he saw the heading – 'The Werewolf by Sirius Black'.
"All right."
Remus quickly read it through, but before he could hand it back to Sirius, James, who was rooting around in his trunk, asked loudly, "Has anyone seen the Map recently? I left it on that table, but it's disappeared…" He trailed off when Sirius snatched the sheet of parchment Remus was holding, peered closely at it, and swore colourfully. Peter came over, curiously fingering the tear in the top left-hand corner.
He smiled at Sirius and exclaimed, "And you say I'm thoughtless!"
Sirius had done his homework on the Marauder's Map.
"I still can't believe you did your homework on the Map," blurted out James for the hundred and seventy-third time that evening. The four Marauders were sitting in the library, talking, and, in Remus' case, skimming library books.
"Here's something!" muttered Remus, scanning the page. "Oh, no… we can't do Horcruxes… and that won't work either…"
Peter had managed to wipe the werewolf essay off the map, but Remus wanted some way to prevent anyone accidentally writing on it again.
James was getting bored. "Are you going to lend me your Transfiguration notes or not?"
"I'm not," snapped Remus. "Why don't you help me, Wormtail? Padfoot, stop lounging around and pick up a book. Prongs, go and check the Charms section. I'm going to ask Professor Flitwick for something." As an afterthought, "Incidentally, Prongs, do you know where Lily is?"
"Lily?" James looked blank.
"Lily Evans."
"OH! She's visiting Hagrid, but she's about to go up to the Common Room, where she'll get her homework. Give her 7 and 5/8 minutes and she'll be in the Potions section here."
"Thanks," Remus said.
"How do you know that?" asked an incredulous Sirius, but his question went unanswered.
Remus, meanwhile, had left the library.
"Moony!" hissed Sirius. "What're you doing in the Restricted Section?" He was standing on the opposite side of a bookshelf to Remus and peering between the books.
Remus, who was following the fierce Madam Pince, silenced him with a glare.
"Advanced Hexes… Moste Potente Potions… A Guide to Animagi…" Remus caught Sirius' eye and grinned. Sirius, James and Peter were illegal Animagi – a large dog, a stag and a rat respectively – and that was the book Remus had taken out, thanks to Professor McGonagall, in their third year, when they were learning how to transform.
"Advanced Curses and Counter-Curses… Werewolves: A Guide…"
Another familiar title: Remus himself was a werewolf.
"Breeding Nundu… ah, here you are. This is the one, isn't it?"
Remus peered at the scratched and dusty cover. "Yes, that's it. Thankyou."
"Hmph," replied Madam Pince, but her mouth was not twisted into a scowl – in fact, she was almost smiling. She quite liked the quiet, intellectual Remus, although she would never understand his choice of friends.
"Thankyou," Remus said again, and took the book with him as he left the library.
Remus let Soulful Thinking: Writing with a Mind of its Own crash open and quickly scanned the contents pages. Meanwhile, Sirius came waltzing into the dormitory, closely followed by Peter. James pulled his head out of his trunk long enough to say, "'lo," before returning to his search for his Invisibility Cloak. Peter produced the map and Sirius goggled at the size of the book.
"How many pages are there?" he demanded.
"Five thousand and sixty-two," Remus answered, absently.
Sirius choked, and Peter thumped him on the back so hard that he fell over.
"Sorry," grinned the small, rather fat boy, clearly not sorry at all.
Sirius groaned and grabbed Peter's legs. The two of them rolled around on the floor for a while, and Peter pulled James out of his trunk. Remus, meanwhile, had been knocked over by Sirius.
"Get off me!" came a muffled cry from underneath Peter.
"No," replied Peter, jokingly. James groaned.
Suddenly, Sirius leapt on top of Peter, and Remus landed on top of him.
"Aaaaargh!" yelled James, wriggling madly, and persuading the pile of people to topple over. Remus wasn't quite quick enough to dodge Sirius landing on him. Peter climbed on top of them, and James' weight was soon added to the others'. Remus was getting severely squashed.
All at once, three of the boys found themselves on the floor with Remus sitting on Sirius' bed, looking up page three thousand, seven hundred and nineteen.
"How did you move so quickly?" Sirius looked amazed, but Remus just smiled mysteriously.
A creak on the boys' staircase made them all look up. Peter struggled to his feet, James jumped up and messed his hair, and Remus opened the door a crack.
"Oh, hello, Lily," he said.
"Hello," she replied, "Have you seen Potter?"
James frantically shook his head and Remus, noticing this, told her, "No, sorry. Have you checked the library?"
Lily laughed. "Are you serious? When was the last time you saw Potter there?"
Just this morning, thought Remus, but didn't say so. "Maybe he's playing quidditch."
"Maybe," agreed Lily. "Thanks, Remus." She shot him a rare smile and her green eyes sparkled.
Remus shut the door as her back retreated.
"And why was she here?" he demanded of James.
"Er-"
"I think I can answer that, mate," interjected Sirius. Remus looked at him expectantly, and he added jokingly, "But don't expect me to tell a prefect like you!"
Remus rolled his eyes and turned back to Soulful Thinking. He read the page quickly, then turned to the others, excitement lighting up his amber eyes.
"This is it! This is what we need! Look – read it…" He turned the book round and pointed out the passage.
Sirius peered over James and Peter's shoulders, and the three boys read what it said.
James frowned. "That looks really difficult…"
"I think we can do it, replied Remus, reasonably confidently. "And it would certainly improve our Charmwork."
"As if yours needs improving!" grinned Sirius.
Remus replied with a modest smile.
"Lily might help," said James, suddenly. "She's good at Charms."
"Really?" Sirius raised one eyebrow in obvious disbelief. "What are you going to tell her?
'Hey, Evans, we're doing some serious rule-breaking here. Only problem is, we can't master the Charms we need to do it. Will you help us? Incidentally, the book we're using is from the Restricted Section and I'm sorry about what happened this morning.'" He rolled his eyes.
"Dream on, mate. She hates you! What was it she said last year when you asked her out?"
"'I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,'" answered James, glumly.
"The giant squid's quite pretty really," joked Remus, "and a great dancer," he added.
"When was the last time you went out with it?" Sirius asked in mock fascination.
"Her," Remus corrected. "I was going to go the week before last, but it was a full moon, and then you did your homework on the map last week, so if you'll excuse me-"
"All right, ENOUGH!" bellowed James above his friends' voices.
"OK," replied Peter, meekly.
James smiled at him gratefully, and turned back to his trunk. That was a mistake.
He yelled again as Peter not-so-meekly dived on top of him and once more as Sirius joined the compact weight. Remus looked up, mildly interested, then turned back to his book and the Marauder's Map, rolling his eyes in the process.
James rolled his eyes at Remus rolling his eyes, Sirius at James, and Peter at the three of them.
"We should really learn to do synchronised eye-rolling," James mumbled to the floor.
"Hmmmm…" replied Remus.
"Sirius! Get off me!" squealed Peter, interrupting Remus' 'hmmmm'. Sirius didn't, of course, and as Peter squirmed around, he knocked over James' bedside table.
The resulting crash brought the Head Boy running, ordering them to 'set a better example'.
"After all, you're in sixth year now, and that might have been acceptable when you were eleven, but it is most certainly unacceptable now!"
Of the three boys who were being addressed, Peter was the only one looking remotely embarrassed: a trick which had often got him out of detention. James had pretended he'd had nothing to do with it, searching his trunk again, and Sirius had yawned, rolled his eyes, and, stretching his arms, rolled under his bed. This was where, unknown to James, he had secreted the Invisibility Cloak. Of course, when strange and mysterious things began to happen, James quickly picked up on what was going on.
Jack Bones spun around when he heard something fall over. It was the round table where the boys were supposed to do their homework. He suspected that Remus Lupin was the only one who ever used it. Come to think of it, where was Remus Lupin?
That didn't matter very much, however, when the table started to move towards him. With a quick, "Peeves!" he sped out the room, towards Professor Dumbledore's office. Here he reported, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, that, "Peeves has been causing trouble again, sir."
"Thankyou, Mr Bones," replied the headmaster.
Meanwhile, Sirius was standing in the middle of the dormitory, the Invisibility Cloak hanging over his shoulders, and a table held in front of him. Gradually, he eased it down onto the floor and gave James back the cloak. Wordlessly, James took it.
Remus, while Sirius was doing this, had noticed that the table was not where it should be. He picked it up with one hand, put it back where it should be, and sat down on Sirius' bed again, behind the door.
Peter stared at Remus, then turned to his Transfiguration homework. It leered malevolently back at him. "James…"
A triumphant cry broke the silence. "Got it!"
Peter jumped, wide-eyed.
James whirled round.
Sirius fell backwards off Peter's bed.
"What?" said the three of them in unison.
Remus, however, had already left the room at a run, the Marauder's Map in one hand and Soulful Thinking in the other.
"I can't – pant – run – much – pant – fur-pant-ther!" panted Peter. "I – think – pant – I'm – going to – pant – die!"
And James skidded to a halt.
"Oh... pants!"
Peter crashed into James, Sirius crashed into Peter, and they fell over like skittles. Remus dashed out of the Room of Requirement, and fell over. Before he could leap up again, Sirius grabbed his ankles.
"Mr Padfoot wonders exactly what Mr Moony has got."
"Mr Moony replies that Mr Padfoot is very nosy and his long annoying nose should be cut off."
Sirius grinned.
"However, Mr Moony will tell Mr Padfoot on one condition." Sirius raised his eyebrows. "That he lets go of Mr Moony's ankles."
Cautiously, Sirius let go of Remus' ankles, and the four boys walked into the Room of Requirement.
Barnabas the Barmy, having given up on ballet lessons for the day, glared at the World Beyond balefully.
Stupid trolls. Stupid, heavy, clumping trolls. The males were too ugly; the females too large. Why did he even attempt to complete this ridiculous mission? Because it might work. That was always what drove him on. It might work.
Four boys passed his painting. Normally, Barnabas took little notice of what went on in the World Beyond, but these boys were prime ballet material, and, as if to confirm this, one of them was doing a pirouette, followed by a pas de chats, and finishing with a beautiful arabesque in second position.
Barnabas stared hungrily at the four boys, wondering if he could somehow force them to change their ballet teacher. He ran after them, shoving fellow painting-dwellers out of his way.
Sirius pranced along the corridor towards the shortcut to the Gryffindor tower. James skipped after him. Peter scurried behind, skipping every so often. Remus leapt past him, long legs very straight. Barnabas panted along in the boys' wake, desperately trying to catch up.
Sirius slipped sideways into the secret passageway, just as Barnabas finally caught up. Such a perfect jeté, Barnabas caught himself thinking. And he's so much smaller than the trolls. Just the perfect build for a ballet dancer. He jumped as he realised he'd said this last sentence aloud.
Sirius whipped round, dropping the Marauder's Map in the process.
"Who's your ballet teacher, boy?"
Sirius grinned at James and replied, "Mr Padfoot. Of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs." And with a swift pas de chats, he disappeared into the depths of the passageway.
As Remus, James and Peter followed Sirius, they picked up the Map.
Barnabas glared barmily at nothing. Who were Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, anyway?
Remus read.
Peter was fed.
James fled.
Sirius… thumped.
Remus stared.
Peter looked scared.
Sirius glared.
And… continued to thump.
Remus groaned.
Peter moaned.
Sirius, alone,
…Stopped thumping and said, "Oh, I'm fed up with this poetry rubbish. Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
James' head poked out from under Peter's bed. Peter carefully clambered out of Sirius' trunk. Remus dropped down from the top of the wardrobe and landed on… James.
"AAAAAAAAARRGGHHmmnnffhhh!"
"And stop dancing, Sirius," added Remus. ""The floor's shaking."
"Siiiiiriuuuus! Time to do your hooooomewoooork!"
Sirius dragged himself up the stairs and into his dormitory, reeling off a seemingly endless string of moans as he did so.
"Whatisitnow,Moony?Homework?Ihatehomework!Whycan'tyoudoitforme?IshouldbeplayingQuidditch,notwastingmytimedoingstupidessaysforstupidteachers.McGonagallgivesustoomuchhomeworkanyway.Whydoesshehavetogivememore?I'vegotenoughessaystodo.Whoinventedhomework,anyway Ihopetheydiedoftoomuchofit.Servesthemright,too-" His eyes alighted on the blank sheet of parchment with a tear in the top left hand corner. "Oh."
Severus Snape is an ugly git, says Sirius Black.
Mr Moony knew this already, although sometimes it is pleasant to have confirmation of the fact.
Mr Padfoot agrees completely and utterly with everything Sirius Black says, since Sirius Black is almost as dazzingly handsome and dizzyingly intelligent as Mr Padfoot himself.
Mr Prongs can only roll his eyes.
Mr Wormtail suggests that next time Sirius Black includes 'greasy' in his description of the Ugly Git.
Sirius Black grinned, better than any Cheshire Cat, hi-fived Remus who had, of course, been 'quite helpful', although Sirius had, he admitted modestly, done most of the work, and sped out of the room, hollering, "Prongs! Wormtail! Come 'ere! You've got to see this!"