Disclaimer: I own nothing but the very weird plot. I'm not giving my sister even partial ownership of this one, as she did nothing.

Author's Note: Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? As a Chri…Holi…ah, who cares. As a Christmas present to all of you, and a celebration of Christmas vacation for me, I'm trying to update all my stories before Christmas. Now lets just see if this works…here it is, the long awaited (yeah right)…

Hogwarts Room of Records

Chapter 3

Going Back

"Let's watch this one," Hermione said, holding up a reel from a folder labeled 'Hogwarts Express.'

"Sure, whatever," Ron said, taking the disk and putting it in the projector.

"Did you have a good summer?" Remus Lupin asked his best friends, Sirius Black, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew, as the Hogwarts Express pulled away from Kings Cross Station.

"Yeah, it was fine," Peter said. "How was yours? You went to the States, right?"

"Yup. You wouldn't believe one of the stupid things I heard," Remus said. "At one of the cafes we ate at, there was a group of teenage girls doing their summer homework. One of the girls actually said, 'Hey! I should call my aunt! She's from England, she should know this 1!' The other girls stared at her for a moment before bursting out laughing. I didn't get what was so funny until they started packing up, and I saw what they were studying."

"What were they studying?" Peter asked. "And were they muggle or magical?"

"They must have been muggle, because they were studying Grammar or English, as one of the girls called it," Remus said. James and Sirius found this quite amusing, although Peter was having a 'wait, what?' moment.

The four friends continued to chat about their summers. "Do you know what my cousin asked me?" Peter said at one point. "She was over at my house and she asked if dragons were real 2. Eleven years old, currently on the train to start Hogwarts, raised in the Wizarding World her entire life, and she wanted to know if dragons were real." They talked until the lady with the food cart came through.

"Aren't you getting anything, Moony?" Sirius asked when Remus didn't immediately jump up.

"Nah. I've had enough sweets for a while," Remus replied, taking out a roast beef sandwich.

"Ew! How can you eat that? Lunchmeat isn't supposed to be brown unless it's rotten!1" James exclaimed.

"I've had worse," Remus shrugged, taking a big bite out of his sandwich.

"Like what?" James asked in horror.

"Like dead pig."

"Ew!" James exclaimed again. "That's disgusting! That's-"

"James," Sirius cut him off. "He means pork chops.1"

"Oh."

"Wait a second," Peter said slowly. "Do you mean to tell me that pork comes from a pig3?" The other three Marauders stared at him for a moment before cracking up.

"I'm going to read my Transfiguration book," Remus stated, hoping to put an end to the mind-numbing conversation.

"Hand me mine, will you?" James asked as Remus stood up to rummage through his trunk.

"Yeah, mine too?" Sirius asked. Remus sighed but nodded anyway.

"Hey! Look at this!" Remus exclaimed once he had all three books in hand.

"What?" James asked, coming to look over Remus's shoulder.

"The books are different colors!"

"That's great," James said, rolling his eyes. "Can I have my book?"

"Oh. Wait," Remus said sheepishly. He grabbed the middle book, flipped it right side up, and then looked at them. "Maybe they aren't. Never mind.1"

"Oh my god," James laughed. "Moony, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one!"

"It must have rubbed off," Remus said, tossing Sirius his book and walking back to his seat. Peter rolled his eyes as he dug out a random book. It turned out to be one on geography.

"Wow," Peter said, flipping through the pages. "Did you know there's a country in Africa called Djibouti? And a mountain range in Asia called Hindu Kush? And there's also countries called Sri Lanka and Bangladesh there, too."

"Wow," Sirius said, glancing up, astonished. "You can almost make a sentence out of those!4" His eyes shown mischievously, and he opened his mouth, apparently to enlighten them with just what that sentence was, when Remus clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Read," he ordered. Sirius, amazingly enough, did so, although not without quite a bit of grumbling. The next thirty minutes were spent in silence as each person became absorbed in their book or fell asleep.

"I knew you had to be in here," was the sneering voice Sirius woke up to. He opened his eyes to find Severus Snape standing in the doorway to the compartment. "I swear, you can feel the I.Q. level drop as you near this part of the train."

"Huh?" Sirius asked, brain still to fuzzy with sleep to be able to function.

"There's your sign," Snape said, rolling his eyes.

"Where1?" Peter asked, confused, glancing around.

"My point exactly," Snape sneered before apparently deciding that staying here longer wouldn't be worth the effort he would have to put forth.

"We're almost there," Remus said, glancing out the window and seeing the lights of Hogsmeade in the distance. "We should start getting dressed. Not much more was said until they reached the station.

"We need to go a little to the this way1," Remus said, seemingly picking a direction at random.

"'A little to the this way?'" James asked, amused. "Well, as long as you're positive…" They climbed into one of the waiting carriages and were soon seating themselves in the Great Hall. Quickly enough for a normal person but nowhere near quick enough for four teenage boys, the food appeared.

"Why do they call this chili mac5?" Sirius asked as he scooped some of the pasta onto his plate. "There's no chili in it."

"I don't know," James replied. "Why do they call it key lime pie? There's lime, and it's a pie, but there aren't any keys."

"Aren't you kind of glad there aren't shepherds in shepherd's pie, though?" Remus asked, spearing a lamb chop and putting it on his plate. "Now Peter, you know where lamb chops come from, right?"

"Of course I know where lamb chops come from6," Peter said indignantly. He stared intently at his plate before glancing up, looking horrified. "You mean people actually eat lamb?"

INSERT BREAK

"Wait, you mean people actually do?" Ron asked Hermione, looking extremely worried.

"Yes, Ron, but that's not important right now," Hermione said, flipping through the folders. "Ah, here we go. Hogwarts, 19761977."

Author's Note: All of the quotes with the superscripted numbers were actually said by people I know. It was inspired at our class party, when we were comparing the stupid things various people had said.

1-stupid remark without a need-to-know-to-understand follow-up story

2-asked from the other perspective, obviously, and not by an eleven-year-old, but by a fifteen-year-old, in science class. I believe there were questions about whether or not unicorns were real as well.

3-Some of you might not find this funny, but imagine if you lived in a small farm community, and the dad of the person who said it raises pigs. This is another one from science class. You would honestly think we're all failing, wouldn't you? Hehe

4-I'm not meaning to be offensive to anyone. Just imagine how those sounded to a roomful of 10th graders who had never heard them before at 9:45 in the morning, especially when you've never heard some of them before.

5-another science story. Actually, the teacher started this one. If you've never had chili mac (which is one of our school lunches), it's elbow macaroni, ground beef, and seasonings.

6-follow-up to the pork story.

Thanks for reading, please review!