Introducing the Purveyors of Magical Mischief & the First Two Years
Again the woman paused, this time to quell the mad laughter that rang clearly from her swollen red lips. Regulating her laughter to uncharacteristic giggles, she fell back to her task and pressed ahead.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" a loud, rumbling voice called.
"Sweet Merlin!" James gasped.
"I've never seen a bloke that tall in my life!" Remus exclaimed as he and James ran ahead of us.
"Sweet who?" Lily asked.
"Merlin." Peter replied, seeing the blank look on her face he continued, "You know, Merlin … greatest wizard of all time?"
I picked up where Peter left off. "Honestly, Lily! I know Muggles have heard of Merlin."
She shook her head slightly.
"Legend of King Arthur ringing any bells for you?"
She looked at me with wide eyes, her mouth forming a delicate 'o'. "That's not real though," she said slowly.
"Lily," I giggled, "Look where you are!"
Peter nodded in agreement. "We use his name as … well, as an oath, really. You can swear on Merlin's beard or his knickers are my favorite. Or you throw in Morgana when you're especially miffed."
"Isn't that disrespectful?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at us.
"Nah … he rather enjoyed it, actually. Barmy old codger that he was." Sirius said nonchalantly.
"You've met Merlin!" Peter asked excitedly, "How!"
"I'd swear on Merlin's knickers that he hasn't …" I replied dryly.
Sirius grinned and slung his arm about my shoulders. "S'only what I've heard. He was an old friend of the family … back in the day."
"You. Are a smarmy bastard." I replied calmly, stating a well-known fact.
He smirked at me. "Why tha- whoa …"
Before us stood the largest man I'd ever see in my life. No exaggeration. James and Remus were already standing with him, chattering on excitedly.
"Oi, Sirius! Tacey! Over here!" James called, beckoning us forward, "These are my friends I was telling you about. This is Sirius Black, Tacey Clearwater, Peter Pettigrew, and Lily …" he faltered.
"Evans," she said softly, staring up in awe at the man.
James nodded. "Evans. Evans."
Remus picked up the distracted James's narration. "This is Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Grounds and Keys here at Hogwarts."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Hagrid." Lily said primly.
"Bah, nobody calls me 'mister'. Hagrid's just fine." He replied jovially.
"Wotcher, Hagrid!" Sirius laughed, clapping him on the arm, "We might just be your worst nightmare in years to come, so I suppose it's best to buddy up to you now. Good job, Jimmy-boy. Way to think ahead."
I elbowed Sirius in the ribs. Hard. "What d'you think you're doing! Giving us away before we even pull a prank!"
James clamped a hand over my mouth hurriedly, but Hagrid just laughed. "Another group of pranksters yeh are, ey? Good. S'been too long since we had some quality entertainment 'round here."
James, Sirius, and I looked at him skeptically.
"It's not me yeh have to worry about!" he cried, "It's tha' Filch, the caretaker, and his ruddy cat you have to look out for."
James smiled up at him. "Thanks for the tip."
"Any time." Hagrid replied, "Now could the lot of yeh get in the boats for me, Four at a time."
We obliged, of course, and the four boys piled into one boat, leaving Lily and I to clamber into the boat next to theirs. The empty space was soon filled by two boys, one had light brown hair and hazel eyes, the other had soft blonde hair and dark eyes.
"Hullo!" the brunette boy sang, "I'm Amos Diggory."
The other boy gave a cheerful wave. "Lennox Davies."
We all introduced ourselves and fell into the generic chatter that all firsties engaged in on upon their arrival. Even then Lily seemed to be enamored with Amos. Much to James's dismay, of course. Despite all that was going on, each one of us fell silent as we sailed across the lake and Hogwarts, in all it's majestic glory, came into view ahead of us. I had never seen Hogwarts before and although my parents and my brother had tried to describe it to me, they never did it justice. Upon seeing it for myself, I realized that they hadn't done it justice by miles. Bathed in the pale light of the half moon reflecting off the water it almost looked like a mirage. But the tall towers and strong arches proved to be quite solid upon further inspection.
I clambered out of the boat on shaky legs, awed by the vision of the castle. Lily came to stand beside me on the shore of the lake, the both of us too amazed to move. I quietly took her hand and tore my eyes away from the castle towering above us to look at her. She flashed me a quietly confident smile and we set off towards the school with our heads held high. The boys followed us close behind, still gawking like village idiots. We made our way into the castle to be greeted by a stern woman who introduced herself as Professor McGonagall. She gave us a short speech on the houses. Lily quietly glared at James and I for giving her a slightly (alright, extremely) stilted version of it back on the train.
One moment I was sniggering with James and the next we were all filing into a large room with an enchanted ceiling. I suddenly felt the eyes of the Hogwarts student body pressing down on me and fell silent. Our Sorting positively flew by. All I can recall is poor Sirius still convinced he'd be a Slytherin 'til the very moment he was pushed towards the Gryffindor table by McGonagall.
Oh! and I remember that sodding hat telling me I've too much courage for my own good and it'll get me into trouble or some such rubbish. Immediately afterwards it pronounced me a Gryffindor. Go figure, ey? I've always thought myself the quintessential Gryff, but my poor mum, she so desperately wanted another Ravenclaw in the family. I was so desperately hoping she'd pop out another kid before she pinned her hopes on me. No such luck, but I digress.
Next thing I knew Jamsie-poo was being Sorted and my brother was shouting across the Great Hall at him. Telling him to 'get a move on, Potter' because he was hungry and 'the faster you get your arse on that stool, the faster I get me food.'
Blokes. Always thinkin' with those bottomless pits they call stomachs.
I'm sure you've a basic idea of what happened next. Remus, Peter, Sirius, James, Lily and I all grew together, well … for the most part. There was a definite schism between Lily and James. Honestly, she would choose to associate with Sirius rather than James when needs be. And, I mean … really, who chooses Sirius over James!
Nothing against Sirius, Merlin knows I love him to pieces, but in the end Sirius is a vastly exaggerated from of James – give or take a few key traits. Still, it might have been the fact that James took it upon himself to start up a 'friendly' competition with Lily, which (of course) led to all-out feuding.
Aside from that, we all quickly found our niche in Hogwarts society – socially and academically. Collectively the Marauders were in a class of their own, but separately they each had their place. James was the popular Quidditch player who would transfigure you into a newt just for the hell of it. Sirius was the rowdy prankster you went to if you wanted 'ready-to-hand-in-homework' and Remus was the kid who wrote it and split the profits. Peter … honestly Peter was never much good at anything, but he had a knack for Herbology.
What? Don't look at me like that. …. …. …. Alright, fine! The bloke was bloody brilliant when it came to pacifying man-eating plants. But, that doesn't mean he was ever bloody useful.
Lily was the smart girl who would let you copy her charms homework if you promised to change the words around a bit and study. And I spent my seven year run at Hogwarts as the general trouble-maker and fighting for the number one spot in Potions. My rival was, of course, none other than Snivellus Snape. Remus swears that's why I hate him so much now, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's talk a bit about second year.
Quite a bit happened that year. The start of mine and James's Quidditch career – he became a Chaser and I joined my brother as the Gryffindor Beater. Sirius and Remus took the commentator position and started their career of being frequently threatened by McGonagall.
Second year was the year Binns died, too. Blimey … looking back on that, I have to admit that it was pretty fucking weird. I mean, really just … weird. Honestly, who can say that they were walking to class one day with their friends, and then their teacher walked bloody through them. Not many, I reckon.
Lily and I were walking to History of Magic with Amos Diggory and Edmund Prewett, when suddenly this horrid cold feeling passed through me. I froze in mid-step. It felt like a bucket of ice was thrown on me from behind. My first thought was the Marauders, but the cold went right through to my stomach and I knew they weren't cruel enough to perform a freezing charm on me in February. As I stood there completely rigid, Lily, Amos and Edmund all wore shocked expressions and kept glancing from me to something down the corridor.
"Wh-what … was that?" I managed to choke out.
"Er – Binns …" Amos said quietly.
"What?" Lily asked in a hushed voice. She was still staring with wide eyes down the hall.
"That was Binns. He's a- He just -" Edmund stuttered softly.
All further conversation was cut off by loud voices coming from behind us. Well, they were loud when compared to our whispers.
"He's sick again." James said crossly.
"Again? Something's off with him, he's sick almost every month." Sirius said, "S'not natural."
Peter made a derisive sound. "Come off it, lads. He just gets sick easy. Look how pale he looks all the time."
"No one gets sick that easily on schedule." James retorted, "I think -"
He stopped when he realized Lily, Amos, Edmund, and I were within earshot. A smirk slowly grew upon James's lips as he surveyed us, all extremely pale and standing quite still. Apparently looking very shell-shocked as well.
Sirius laughed as he gave me a playful shove. "You lot look like you've seen a ghost! Peeves get a little too rowdy for you?"
James ruffled Lily's hair. "Or maybe Nearly Headless Nick decided to give you a right scare, ey Evans!"
Contact with James was all Lily needed to snap back to the present. "Get your grubby hands off me, Potter. I'll have to shower twice tonight."
Peter waved a hand in front of Amos's face. "What happened, mate?"
"Binns walked clear through Tacey, that's what happened!" he exclaimed.
James stopped laughing. "What?"
"I always said the old codger was going soon!" Sirius smiled, then he turned thoughtful, "Don't suppose we can skive off class today?"
I smacked Sirius upside the head. "This is serio-oh…. hell."
Before he could reply with some charming witticism, Gertrude Prewett (Ed's twin sister) and Emmeline Vance came racing around the corner. Well, actually Emma was racing around the corner and Gertie was being dragged by her. She (Gertie, that is) was so pale you could almost see through her, her eyes were bugging out of her head and … well, frankly she looked terrified. Let's just say she'd had some better days.
"What happened to her?" James asked.
"Binns …he's a ghost!" Emmeline exclaimed, "He just walked through Gertie!"
I hoped I hadn't looked like that.