Chapter Six: Remus the Lone Arranger

The feast was over and the students of the four houses had gone their separate ways to their different common rooms. Up in Gryffindor Tower, most had retired to bed, but the Marauders and Lily's group of friends were the last to remain, sitting in the squashy armchairs before the warm fire. Sirius, much to Peter's jealousy, had made sure he was sat next to Adriana on the settee, and she was currently his centre of attention, not surprisingly.

"So what do you think of Hogwarts so far?" he asked her with a smile.

"I thought the food was lovely," she said, showing her white teeth in return, "and of course I'm happy to be in Gryffindor."

"Of course you are, it's the only place to be," he assured her.

Meanwhile James had plonked himself between Lily and her friend Bethan, and interrupted their conversation.

"Are you looking forward to this year, Lily?" he asked, putting his arm round her.

"That depends on whether you're going to insist on being this annoying all the time," she replied, pushing his arm away. She did notice with some gladness, however, that he had stopped calling her 'Evans'.

"Well I don't know what you call annoying," James said, "but I'm certainly not giving up on you easily, you can depend on that."

"Oh good, that's put my mind at rest," Lily said dryly, and, to annoy him, turned to the other girls. "Did you see the new Astronomy teacher? Is it just me, or was he fine?"

Her friends nodded and agreed heartily with her. "I've always thought we needed some proper eye candy around here," Bethan commented.

The Marauders spluttered and made their confusion clear. "Excuse me?" Sirius asked loudly, doubly dismayed as Adriana had also put forward her admiration of the new teacher.

"He's gorgeous!" Sarah, another of Lily's girlfriends reiterated for them.

"Stop saying that!" James said, looking scandalised. "He's a teacher!"

"So?" Lily asked, clearly enjoying herself. "He was only young – didn't you see?"

"Apparently not," Sirius grumbled.

"I'm feeling a bit tired," Remus said, looking at the others. "Why don't we go up now?"

Sirius and James thought this a good idea and disentangled themselves from the girls. "This isn't over," James declared, pointing an accusing finger at Lily as he followed Remus and Peter up the stairs.

"Night-night, boys!" Lily called at their retreating backs. "I don't know about you, but I really hope we have Astronomy tomorrow!"

The Marauders made no reply as they trooped up, trying to ignore the laughter below them.

The next morning the group sat in their usual seats at the Gryffindor table, looking over their new timetables as they chose between bacon and eggs, cereal, porridge, toast and many other dishes.

"Too bad, Lily!" James cried triumphantly across the table. "We don't have Astronomy till Wednesday!"

The girls ignored him, but they were obviously disappointed.

Sirius put a huge forkful of bacon in his mouth and asked James, who was opposite him, "Sho when's our firs' Qu'itch trainin' seshun?"

"Sirius, that's disgusting," Bethan told him, wrinkling her nose as she poured herself a goblet of orange juice.

Sirius swallowed the bacon with difficulty. "Sorry," he said, in a much clearer voice.

"I don't know yet, Padfoot," James answered; he had long since learned to translate Sirius' food-in-mouth speak to English. "We'll have to work out a programme."

"Are you in the school team?" asked Adriana admiringly, from Sirius' right.

He turned to her, looking pleased with her interest. "Why, yes we are," he said. "I'm one of the beaters and Prongs is seeker."

"He's also Captain," Peter added squeakily, half wanting to talk to Adriana and half in awe of James' skills on the Quidditch pitch.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed, "But we've recently appointed Moony here, "he thumped Remus on the shoulder, causing him to choke on his toast, "Oh, sorry, mate - as team manager."

"Isn't that your job?" Adriana asked James.

"It was, but I wasn't very good at it. I'm better at team morale."

Sirius snorted. "What he really means is the bullying and waking us up at the crack of dawn."

James ignored him and, adopting a superior expression, told Adriana, "Some of my team are very unprofessional. So I leave the organising things to Moony."

"He's the Lone Arranger," Sirius added.

"What are these names you use for each other?" Adriana asked. "Moony, Prongs?"

"That's just them being stupid, sad boys," Lily told her from her other side. "They like to think they're special, so they made up those nicknames."

"That's a nasty way of putting it," James mused.

"She's right though," Remus admitted absently as he examined his timetable. "Oh no," he said, sounding horrified. "We've got History of Magic first thing today."

"That's alright," yawned Sirius, "We can just go back to sleep for an hour."

"Professor Binns is so old," James commented. "Don't you think he should die soon?"

"That's an awful thing to say!" Sarah exclaimed.

"No it's not, he's had a good life," Sirius said, "And now it's just time for him to... move on." He demonstrated the motion with a sweep of his hands. "Knowing him, he'd probably just carry on teaching anyway. Not much can stop that man from droning on about fights between goblins and giants that happened a million years ago, even death – me and James should know."

"You're saying he'd carry on teaching after he's dead?" James asked sceptically. "As a ghost?"

"Yeah."

"Bollocks. You're always talking bollocks."

"It's better than hearing it," Sirius shrugged.

The first week of September passed amid bright sunshine, and the summery weather reflected on the atmosphere at Hogwarts, and the behaviour of its students. No one was tempted to do any work so early on in the term, or partake in any strenuous activity, and everyone chose to laze about the grounds instead, only coming inside for lessons and when it got dark and cool.

The Marauders, keeping to their tradition of causing a ruckus as soon as possible to celebrate the school year, had this time chosen to upset the whole school's schedule, with a grand-scale stunt the success of which they were very proud of. This was to enchant the moving staircases so that they became jammed in the busy period between lessons. So as not to give themselves away, the four sixth years did their best to appear innocent, by complaining loudly every time they got stuck in a group of people on a stationary staircase.

"Oh, come on!" Sirius yelled on the first Wednesday after lunch, though he could not keep the laughter out of his voice, this being the sixth time that day that day that they had caused timetables to run amok. "Haven't they fixed these bloody things yet?"

"Yeah, I'm getting really angry now!" James agreed, craning his neck to see over the heads of the crowd before him. "I want to get to my lessons, Padfoot!" His eyes shone with his own daring, before he was pushed forward by an impatient someone behind him.

"Oi!" he shouted, turning to retaliate. But he stopped on hearing a scream. He spun back round to see that Lily has been forced off the staircase in the confusion, and had only not fallen because she had managed to grab onto Remus' outstretched hand. To James' horror, it looked as though their grip on each other was slipping.

"Remus, don't let go!" Lily cried, desperately clinging to his hand as her legs flailed in midair. She made the mistake of looking down, and screamed again as she saw the marble floor of the Entrance Hall far below her.

Remus was straining with the effort of holding on, and reaching forward, tried to gain more leverage with his other hand. Failing this, he pulled his wand out from his pocket and held it ready. "Lily, don't worry," he told her, and let go.

The gathered students gasped as they watched Lily plummet down, screaming with terror.

"Remus, you fool!" James shouted in panic.

"Immobilus!" Remus cried, pointing at Lily's fast-departing form with his wand. She stopped dead, floating in midair, her screams still terribly audible. "Wingardium Leviosa!" Remus said, and guided Lily back up to where they were standing.

"Fuck, Moony, you scared me to death!" Sirius breathed, his eyes wide.

"Scared you to death?" cried Lily, one hand over her heaving chest. "I've never been more terrified! And you!" she turned furiously to James, who looked anxious, "I hope you're happy – I was nearly killed as a result of your stupid, childish prank!"

"I'm sorry, Lily," he whispered, "I didn't mean it." But she had turned away from him, and was thanking Remus for saving her.

"I suppose I'll have to trust you from now on," she told him, smiling now that she was getting over the scare, "even though you gave me the fright of my life." Remus smiled back.

Sirius glanced at James; he looked anguished. "Hey, what d'you say we take off the enchantment, Prongs? I think this prank has lost the original spark it once had."