"I mean, what do I even do anymore?" Sirius moaned, starting his seventh bowl of nachos.
"James I don't think I can take this anymore" Lily sighed, watching Sirius sprawl out over the sofa in their dorm, surrounded by empty food packets and crumbs, a woolly blanket Lily had provided wrapped over his head.
"Do you think I can do something about this?" James put his hands in the air in defence "Moody broke his heart"
"Don't mention that traitor's name in my household" Sirius cried out, pulling the blanket over his head and lying down flat.
"Pads it's definitely not your…" James started to argue but was stopped by Sirius launching nachos at his head from under the blanket "Fine, fine, we got froze out of the order, can you blame them?"
"Give me a second to think over that one Prongs" Sirius flung it off, sat up, and crossed his legs and exaggerated a thinking face, scratching his chin intently "YES. I'm not the idiot that got himself poisoned, maybe we should freeze out people with less than two eyes?"
"Now that's just unreasonable" Lily huffed, but regretted it as soon as she saw the look of horror on James' face.
"Dear God" He muttered, slowly turning to see Sirius' reaction and wincing when he leapt up.
"Lily my dear I don't think you're seeing the bigger picture" Sirius smiled worryingly and walked over to Lily, putting his arm around her shoulder "I don't have the chance to be a kickass fighter of evil anymore. You know what's on the horizon for ol' Sirius Black?"
"… Exams?" Lily suggested uneasily.
"Exactly. Exams. Not even exams and fighting" Calmly Sirius patted Lily on the head and turned away, waiting until James breathed a sigh of relief to whip back around and pour a bowl of nachos onto Lily "Unreasonable. I think not" Sirius fake wept and ran from the room leaving a quietly seething Lily.
"Hey actually doesn't this remind you of…" James started to chuckle
"Don't even dare" Lily put her finger to his mouth, but ever the Marauder James could resist.
"The guys turned you blue and dumped those peelings on your head!"
"Oh Potter darling, don't let me keep you from fully enjoying this nostalgia" Lily smiled evilly, shaking her head onto James.
"You started a nacho war with the wrong person" James laughed, readying the next packet.
"Umm Lily I hate to break it to you but you seem to have a piece of nacho in your hair?" Marlene pointed out as the four teams lined up in their Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson.
"Oh yeah… New diet" Lily muttered, picking it out and flicking it in James' general direction.
"I won" He mouthed over to her, grinning as the nacho went no-where near him.
"The final group competition" Gargorus announces, spinning around the blackboard by his desk. Since the last group task rescuing muggles Lily's group had won the quick-fire spell block challenge after Sirius broke the equipment on his go for being too enthusiastic leaving James, Remus, Dedalus, and Benjy fighting off hundreds of manic spells; landing them in last. The last task was to recover stolen ministry wands and catch the thieves in a fake ministry set, Gideon's training from his brother landed group 2 in first, with Remus excelling in revealing charms, with Sirius' knowledge of Death Eater escape techniques scraping him in front of Lily's team. This left the scores at
Group 1 (James, Remus, Benjy, Dedalus) - 20
Group 2 (Gideon, Timothy, Caradoc, Reginald )- 17
Group 3 (Lily, Marlene, Emmeline, Dorcas) - 25
Group 4 (Sirius) – 12
"To make it interesting, the team with the highest amount of points will get a clue for the end of year exam" Gargorus announced, grinning at the sudden look of panic on everyone's faces.
"So he throws it in as soon of I can't win" Sirius groaned, flinching as he waited for Gargorus' usual attack, but instead he just got a knowing smile.
"Actually Black I'm in an impatient mood today, points will be deducted for failure in this challenge, today you will be seeking out and safely destroying a dangerous weapon in a death eater base, catch is if done wrong the weapon will detonate and four points will be deducted for every team member in the room. As usual other than that quickest time wins"
"An easy one to see us off then" James laughed, moving to form a group with Remus, Benjy, and Dedalus.
"As with all Ministry operations each team will get a floor plan of the base and prep time. 'Death Eaters' are patrolling the rooms, if you are spotted by one you're out, and two points lost for each team member caught" Gargorus explained as he unlocked the door to the training room for the last time and leading the groups to a table each with floor plans and pins laid out.
Whilst James' group were going over plans he nudged Remus, slipping out part of shimmery silver material from his ropes, winking as he did. Catching on Remus grinned, and quickly changed the plan to get James on his own around the most death eaters.
After ten minutes of discussion group 2 were called up to the house and the whistle was blown.
They immediately split into two, with Gideon and Caradoc diving left under a window, and Timothy and Reginald shuffling right and slipping around the side of the house.
"Clear" Reginald called out, allowing Gideon and Caradoc to unlock the window and climb into the front room.
The room was full of chairs around a huge board of made up plans. Gideon glanced out of the room and gestured for Caradoc to follow him up the flight of stairs opposite. Before they reached the top shouts of anger came from the back of the house from Timothy and Reginald were caught trying to get in.
"Looks like we better hope this thing is upstairs then" Caradoc sighed, motioning for Timothy to check the rooms to the rights as he nudged open the left door, immediately coming face to face with a robed mannequin, the room went red as soon as he was seen.
Even more cautiously now Timothy stopped dead in front of the door he was about to open and eased it open, getting down on the floor and peaking around the edge, seeing three death eater models in the corner around something. Creeping underneath a table that stretched up to the end of the room, he moved quickly, firing a freezing charm at the three death eaters, jumping up and searching the whole room. After finding nothing he walked back out and cursed the scale of the task, gasping as the landing turned red as a death eater appeared at the bottom of the steps.
Back with the class Gargorus whipped out his notes on the task "You had a good start but your tactics are extremely flawed. Just walking around bases aren't going to find you anything. All four of you were caught, that's eight points deducted and you're down to 12 points. Group four up!"
Sirius gathered up his maps and readied himself in front of the house, jumping up onto the porch roof as soon as the whistle blew. Checking the room in front of him was empty he used the window ledge to jump up onto the roof. Checking the maps he found the spot he was looking for and removed slates from the top roof and kicked it in, jumping down into the attic.
"Hello dusty attic, also known as where every single shady death eater is trying to hide something" Sirius laughed to himself, remembering childhood summers searching through his family attic.
Following the tracks of disturbed dust Sirius found a large black crate with four locks. When he tried Alohomora the lock blasted him back, turning the whole room red.
He burst back out of the front furious "Death eaters are not clever enough to put protection on their locks" He vented, punching the table.
"Underestimating the other side, Black, your biggest flaw. The device detonated and you just killed yourself. Congratulations. You're down to eight points"
After patting his team on the back, James' group moved to the house. James, Remus, and Dedalus waited on the ground as Benjy also jumped onto the porch, and entered through the top window. After peering down the stairs and seeing the empty corridor he signalled the other three who went in through the front door, sweeping through the bottom floor. Checking the others weren't around, James slipped on the cloak and entered the back room which was swarming with death eaters, taking out each one without a problem before meeting Benjy up on the top floor with the others. Each taking a different door on the landing, they took care of the upper rooms and met back outside.
"No damn device" Remus sighed, routing through the maps "Right I didn't see a hole in the roof, Sirius had to have burst into an upper room"
"We've just got to get up there then. Where could there be a secret passage?" James gasped, pointing at a spot on the floor plans "There top floor is a metre smaller than the bottom floor on the left side"
"So?" Dedalus frowned.
"Well, did you see a wonky side of the house?" James raised his eyebrows as Benjy caught on "Brilliant, everyone check the ends of the rooms on the left side of the house"
James ran into the room opposite and immediately started the hauling the bookcase out of the way, calling the others back when he revealed a dingy, barely used staircase.
Following the same track Sirius had they came across the black crate. As James raised his wand to open it Remus pushed it out of the way "It's not going to be this easy" he pointed out, spinning around the chest and feeling around the back for a latch. When it clicked open James pulled him into a hug and looked down at the weapon.
"So how on earth do we disarm something when we have no clue what it is" Benjy frowned, spinning the crate around to get a better look.
"We can't, so we're not going to listen" James came to a conclusion "Let's just contain and remove so it can get back to the ministry and done safely"
"Great plan, boss" Remus smiled at him, producing a protection spell which surrounded the device as Dedalus levitated it out of the house.
"Your weapon Gargorus" James announced as they laid it on the ground "Done a lot safer than the briefing"
Gargorus stood in silence staring at the group, slightly nodding "I can't actually argue, Potter, your team passes" the team burst into cheers as Lily stood in disbelief "Right so as the first group to actually finish the task you're in first with eleven minutes twenty"
Finally, group four walked up to the house and waited for the whistle blow.
On cue Lily ran around the back of the house whilst Marlene, Emmeline, and Dorcas went in through the front and started incapacitating death eaters on the ground floor. As they went through, Lily started scaling the side of the house, her wand in her mouth as she used the ledges to boost herself up.
From the floor plans they figured there were no rooms with good enough places to guard something so important, so there had to be a secret part of the house. Dorcas was checking the ground floor for basement entrances, and Lily was trying to find a way in through the top without causing the same sort of noise Sirius did.
Finally she found a rotten part of the roof, so all she had to do was use her wand to blow out a big enough hole for her to climb in. After finding the crate and getting it open she levitated the device out of the box and checked her watch. She didn't have enough time to get it out of the building and still beat James, so had to disarm in there. Lily inspected it closely, using some charms to see how it reacted, when she realised it released a gas that would bind the breather to the maker's command. Remembering the counter spell, Lily shot it at the device and braced herself.
The room turned green and she skipped down and out of the house celebrating, patting James on the head as she joined her team.
"Ten minutes dead" Gargorus called over to them, Lily threw sparks up into the air with her wand and watched as James dropped to his knees.
"Making the overall winning team Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, Emmeline Vance, and Dorcas Meadows"
After dancing around the other groups in celebration and consoling a close to tears Sirius, they ran up to Gargorus to receive the piece of parchment with the final exam clue.
"One more day to go, one more day to g-" Lily's watch started singing before she dumped it into a pot of tea "Turns out I've been singing it in my sleep" She explained as everyone removed their fingers from their ears in relief.
"Like I need reminding these damn things are coming up" Remus stressed, shuffling around the masses of parchment he'd strewn over the table.
"Moony I don't want to question your filing technique, but your goblin essay is currently dipped in jam" James pointed out, laughing as Remus gasped and madly dabbed at it with a napkin just as the morning post flew in with letters dropped in front of Lily, James, and Remus.
"Well don't those look familiar" Sirius grinned at the grimace from James as he eyed the golden lettering on the front.
"Don't be like that Sirius" Lily smiled as she pulled out her Slug Club invitation "Professor Slughorn means well"
Sirius readied his next comeback when an owl dropped an identical letter in front of him. Grinning, James swiped it from the table and twiddled it in front of him face.
"Look at this" He gasped, pulling it away from Sirius' snatching hands "Oh Pads, you must celebrate your good fortune" James laughed, tearing open his own and glancing over the message inside.
'James,
I would be delighted if you would join me for a bite of
lunch in compartment C tonight
Sincerely, Professor H.E.F Slughorn'
"The brown nosing expertly hidden until we get there, as usual" James pointed out, chucking his letter onto the table.
"You can be as sarcastic as you want, I need to go and prepare" Lily ran over the plan in her head and skipped out of the hall.
Lily wandered around the school grounds trying to find the patch of flowers she needed, finally coming across the Lily bush by the Great Lake. She picked off a couple of heads and headed back up to the Head Dorm to the bowl of water she had waiting. Plucking off a single petal, she whipped out her wand, muttering a charm to herself making golden sparks fly out of the end, enveloping the petal and pulling it into the air. In a split second the petal was gone, in its place a small fish. The fish lowered into the water, as soon as it touched the water it transfigured back into the lily petal and rested on the surface.
"Perfect" She smiled to herself.
"Pads for the love of God put on the bowtie" Remus groaned as Sirius escaped his headlock for the fourth time "Remember how much you wanted to be in Slug Club in fifth year?"
"Dammit Moony, only because I thought you guys were part of an actually FUN secret club" Sirius grimaced at the memory of falling off his broom where it was hovering by the ceiling above the table the club was eating at.
"It's actually quite commendable the amount of bowls of pasta you've fallen in during your time here" Remus pointed out "Now put the bowtie on and prepare yourself for a night of terrible anecdotes Padders"
"Sounds like my sleepovers with you" Sirius dodged Remus' fist and snatched the bowtie from his hand, reluctantly tying it around his neck "Fine let's go"
"Behave yourself Wormtail!" Remus shouted over his shoulder as they left the dorm room "And put that third slice of cake down"
Just as Remus and Sirius shut the painting behind them they bumped into James and Lily, James looking like he'd gone through the same battle with Lily with his bowtie.
"Ahh you guys look adorable" Lily laughed, straightening Sirius' tie as he batted her off.
"Ok, Slug Club Crew, let's get this over as soon as possible!" James slapped Remus and Sirius on the back and nudged them on down the stairs.
Slughorn sat grinning, holding up his goblet up to the rest of the Slug Club, which over the year had narrowed down to James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Damocles Belby, Tiberius McLaggen, Azire Zabini, Gwenog Jones, and Marlene McKinnon "For our final small get together, let us toast the amazing achievements of the future"
"Hear, hear!" Sirius cheered, throwing his goblet into the air, splashing droplets of the non-alcoholic juice Slughorn insisted on everywhere.
"That's the spirit Mr Black" Slughorn beamed, laying down his goblet back on the table and leaning back in his chair "It's a pleasure to have you join our club this evening, I've heard whisperings you're close to Alastor Moody of the Auror office?"
"Oh yeah we go way back" Sirius put his hands round the back of his chair and grinned at everyone.
"Yeah all the way back to about a couple of months ago" James punched him in the shoulder, not trusting Sirius to blab about the Order in front of everyone "Alastor has been speaking to us about joining the Auror office when we leave here"
"Of course, of course, lining you up for big things I suppose, eh?" Slughorn chuckled as four house elves came running in with carts of food "Roast duck anyone?" He asked before forcing slabs of duck onto Gwenog and Tiberius' plates next to him "Of course I had your talents pegged from the start Mr Potter, from the first moment you stepped foot in my potions class"
"Thank you Professor Slughorn" James muttered, digging into his meal, trying to avoid eye contact to the attention would turn to someone else.
"Yes, yes, of course it is lad, and I hope we won't fall out of contact when you're off leading defences in the Ministry" Slughorn raised his glass briefly at James before taking a swig and turning to Lily "Miss Evans, have you chosen between your many talents to choose a profession yet?"
"I've been offered training at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries to become a healer"
"That's fabulous Miss Evans! I was just talking to Matilda Wurzzle the other day, Healer in charge, taught her seventh year potions class, I was always a favourite of hers"
"Well you never know where you'll end up in the end" Lily admitted "If things in the world carry on the way they are I think I'd prefer to be part of the Auror team so I can actually fight it"
"Truly commendable Miss Evans, truly" Slughorn nodded approvingly at her "I think we can all agree no matter what you end up doing, you'll hugely impact the world" Slughorn moved on to Gwenog and started discussing her new contract with the Holyhead Harpies after her years training with Scottish Quidditch teams.
"So this is the fabulous Slug Club" Sirius muttered to James.
"Is it everything you dreamed it would be" James laughed, glancing over to Slughorn who was discussing a new potion method with Damocles "We've got to wait for him to catch up and get promises of future talks and then we can go"
"Oh brilliant, all I want is to sit here and listen to Tiberius brag about his ministry connections, I'm willing to bet a crate of Honeydukes sweets he mentions the Minister's name more than twenty times" Sirius held out his hand under the table and wiggled his eyebrows at James.
"You're on"
"I can't believe that douche said it thirty two times!" James threw a packet of Every Flavour Beans at Sirius as they wheeled the crate from the secret passage past the One Eyed Witch the next morning.
"Come on this is the least of your worries today Prongsy" Sirius pointed out, whipping out his timetable of exams and tapping the first Transfiguration exam with the tip of his wand "Our first exam"
"Yeah, yeah, I've got the amazing advantage of actually revising for these things, unlike…" James was cut short by the passage bursting open again and a flustered Peter scuttled out clutching bags of sweets.
"Guys… you left me… behind in the basement…" He panted throwing down the bags and throwing himself to the floor.
"We didn't LEAVE you Wormy, we made the executive decision to let you get some much needed exercise and carry the rest of our haul" Sirius laughed, patting him on the back and handing him an entire bag stuffed with chocolates, Peter rolled over to cradle it in his arms, wheezing a sort of thank you.
"We need to get Moony down here or Wormtail is never making this exam" James checked Peters pulse and whipped out half the mirror from his robes and was met with Remus' frowning face, parchment flying everywhere. James frantically waved to get his attention, making Remus spill an inkpot in shock when he saw him. James only had to point the mirror at the panting Peter to make Remus sigh, drop his flash cards, and run down to them, hauling Peter to outside the Great Hall next to where Lily was stood waiting.
"Ok who made Peter exercise" She frowned, sighing as James and Sirius guiltily raised their hands. Before they could help McGonagall came out and called them in.
"Let the NEWTs begin!" James announced dramatically as they walked in.