The first week of Hogwarts passed slowly by with no great incident. The Marauders even refrained from attacking Snape as often as they used to but all were certain that this calm would not last much longer. They were becoming restless and James and Sirius in particular itched for some sort of action. However, with time spare from when he would usually be hexing Snape, James could afford to spend more time with Lily and it was gradually becoming clear to him that something had changed in Lily's view of him over summer. Or perhaps it had been him that had changed? But either way the fact that James was no longer displaying his skills by regular use of tarantallegra put something in his favour to Lily.
"This is getting bloody ridiculous!" Moaned Remus, slamming a rather large pile of books onto the table infront of James and Sirius in one of their regular frees the following week. With Wormtail currently residing in a Charms classroom somewhere the four, as was quite common now, was reduced to three.
"I've got three eighteen inch essays and a test on 'The uses and political opinions of the uses of fleisgrout within the United Kingdom as the main ingredient in tissue healing potions.' I mean I can't say it let alone do it! What the hell is the point in that?"
"You got me Moony," grinned Sirius. "To bore and prevent the population of Hogwarts from doing anything remotely interesting ever again?" he attempted.
"Probably" muttered Remus, ignoring the obvious efforts Sirius had put into that sentence and instead staring, disheartedly, at the rolls of parchment and the pot of ink infront of him as if willing them to do his homework for him.
"We could ... just ... not do it." James suggested, cautiously. "Yeah, O.K, I know!" He responded to Remus' dark look. "It's seventh year and if we don't do our homework we'll all end up selling poorly made potions off a cart in Hogsmede - I get it!"
"Speak for yourself" said Sirius quickly. "My potions won't be poorly made!"
James smiled but it faded quickly. "Suppose we'd better get started then..." He suggested, fully unenthusiastically.
Half way through his third sentence something that appeared to interest Remus intensely in the corner of the common room caught his eye and nothing he, or anyone else could do, could divert it back to his parchment. Sirius had also given up, his reason merely being pure boredom, and, whilst looking for something to entertain himself with, found the spot which Remus was giving his full attention to. This spot consisted of a curly, dark haired girl and a tall, well-built boy who Sirius immediately recognised as being the Griffindor beater for the past three years, Michael Calaughal. They were deep in conversation over by one of the rooms many arched windows.
"Isn't that er ... Delling?" Sirius asked of Remus tentatively.
"Wha- ? Oh ... er - her?" Lupin said and Sirius noticed his cheeks flush just enough to tell him that he was correct in believing what he did. "Yeah. Raven Delling - I think." Remus faked. He knew perfectly well who she was.
"Yeah, thought so." Sirius said, a smile flitting across his face.
"I - I wasn't sta- looking at her. I was er - just checking out the weather - Quiddich tryouts soon and all."
"Sure Moony. Speaking of tryouts ... James who were you thinking of picking?"
"Dunno. Haven't seen 'em all play yet, have I?" He said, scanning the common room for future stars of the Quiddich pitch.
"Yeah but you should have an idea though. Lots of responsibility, Prongs!" Sirius winked and James knew exactly what he meant by it.
"You know there's a lot more power to abuse with being Head Boy than being Quiddich Captain," he hinted.
"And I expect that neither will be tapped into, James." Came a voice from behind him.
"Heya Lily!" James grinned, turning his whole body around in his chair to meet her.
"It's my reputation as well as yours now, James. Being Head Girl is supposed to give me some kind of authority over you, so you can't just go around abusing power!" She said, a stony seriousness flooding over her face.
"Well, for a start there isn't much power to abuse! I'm not exactly Minister for Magic, am I?" He questioned. "And even if I was ... " He trailed off, completely forgetting his point as he looked into Lily's enquiring eyes. He couldn't lie to her anymore, no more than he could risk things between them. "You can trust me." he added eventually, completely forgetting that, within current company, these words would never be forgotten and used to torment him for years to come. Sirius looked stunned that his friend owned such sincerity but immediately started to formulate, within his head, a million and one witty comments to bombard James with after Lily's departure. Sadly, he wasn't given the chance to put these to good use as, when Lily finally did leave for bed, James too decided that he was extremely tired and withdrew to take a bath before heading up to their dormitory. When Sirius drew himself away from the warm fire of the common room and drifted off to bed James was to be found, already fast asleep, enclosed in a multitude of blankets and so Sirius' onslaught would be forced to wait until the morning.
The next morning the four rose for breakfast in the same dreamy, sluggish way that they had done for the past ten days. It appeared now that there was no real point in getting up in the morning as there was no real fun to be had at Hogwarts anymore. Any attempt to terrorise Snape, or anyone else, had to either be first provoked or conducted a safe way away from Lily to maintain any chance of James and her getting together. At certain times when Lily witnessing these events was unavoidable, the expression of contempt upon her face was enough to tell James that this was not the way to go with her - if he didn't know this already! Lily was unlike other girls in this way and James had always known this. The dozens of girls surrounding James were easily impressed by a few hexes here and there and would flock to his feet. Lily, on the other hand hated this, would try to stop him at any given chance and used to avoid him at any cost. It was this that first attracted him to her. No-one, let alone Sirius, understood this.
Battles weren't the only thing to be restricted. Any time that they were left to believe their own was irrefutably taken up by a mass of homework. The average work load, Remus calculated, was six pieces a week and none argued that this was at all exaggerated. Remus was working the hardest out of all of them and Sirius couldn't help but suspect that this was only to distract himself from something else (or someone else ) that kept playing on his mind. He wondered exactly how long he'd felt that way, what that was and exactly what he was planning to do about it but never dared breach the subject with him. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing you talked about to Moony; but that didn't stop him wanting to.
This subject perhaps made Remus the most gloomy of all the Marauders. With Raven everything seemed to be a problem, the major one being the fact that he had been a werewolf since he was a child. This was, in the mildest terms, a bit of a turn off. The idea that your boyfriend turns into an uncontrollable murderous beast once a month isn't usually desirable. This was an old problem though, one that he had got used to and had accounted for within the realms of dating. However, this was matched with the fact that Raven appeared to be getting decidedly close to Calaughal which meant that his chances were narrowing day-by-day, as weak as they already were. These factors combined gave Remus a decided air of no hope.
They went down into the Great Hall for breakfast together, each lost in his own thoughts and contemplation's. The buzz of the hall as they entered it, with it's lively conversation and clattering of cutlery, seemed to alert them back to the present for now.
The first visitor to their seats was someone familiar to them all and one in particular. Michael Calaughal strode up to them gallantly, brushing his long blonde fringe out of his eyes. He greeted James happily with "Hey! How ya doing, Potter?" This one sentence made Remus' stomach churn. The fact that he could be so happy was the worst of all omens and he soon found himself burning a hole into the side of Calaughal's neck with his, now piercing, eyes. "I just wondered if you'll be doing tryouts soon - It's nearly a fortnight and-"
Yeah I'll post the date later" James said "I've just been a bit busy ..." Remus found great pleasure in James cutting Calaughal off mid-sentence and his face formed a grim smile.
"Don't like him much do ya, Moony?" James turned to Remus after he had watched Calaughal safely down to the other end of the table.
"I just think he's a bit-"
"I don't like him either," interrupted Peter. "He's a bit arrogant."
"Well I dunno what you must think of us then, Wormtail!" Sirius laughed.
Peter looked quite shocked at this and stuttered "I - I think your-"
"I didn't mean for you to give us a confession of love, Wormtail! Honestly!" Peter flushed but said nothing more.
"You could just hex him, Remus!" Sirius suggested, turning suddenly to face Remus.
"Being as big as that it'd be the fall that killed him," said James, jerking his head down the table at the Griffindor beater.
"What makes you think I want to kill him?"
"C'mon. You want Raven don't you?" Sirius demanded, thinking it best to make it quick and painless.
"R-Raven?" Blurted out Remus "why-?" He saw the looks on his friends faces and decided instantly that it was pointless in carrying on. They knew. "Yeah, I do" he confessed, displaying his true degree of misery in every syllable. "But it's not just that," he said, like James jerking his head at his rival "I'm a ... you know," he said as he glanced around them, nervously.
"It's only once a month!" James protested.
"Shh! Once a month's enough!" Remus whispered in reply.
"But she wouldn't have to know. You could reignite some of the old excuses," James chuckled.
"Ferlious mumps" Sirius mouthed and James, Sirius and Wormtail burst into fits of laughter. Remus looked at them loathingly but carried on, choosing to ignore them.
"She'd find out sooner or later. You lot did," Remus said, raising his voice to try and compete with so as, by the word 'did,' he was practically shouting. "For God's sake. It's a real condition," he pleaded. "For the last time ... My Great Aunt Edaran had it!"
"That's - what - makes it - worse!" James gasped and the raucous of laughter reached an even higher note. Remus came to the conclusion that it was not the time for this sort of conversation and gave up, vowing to bring up his concerns later.
When the laughter had subsided they stood up to leave. While James was searching in his bag he made the foolish mistake of asking Wormtail to hold his copy of "Advanced Potion making" and gave Sirius the opportunity of quoting "But James, you can trust me!" In a matter of second Sirius was once again in tears of laughter that echoed around the room. James put his books back in his bag and left for Potions with a rather disgruntled look. He had hoped that Sirius had forgotten about this in the mayhem.