Sirius was in a foul mood after talking to his dumb brother and didn't think anything would cheer him up, but that was before he re-remembered the plans that the Marauders had for tonight.
"Come on Sirius, hurry up!" James called happily as soon as Sirius stepped back into the dorm after moping around for a bit. He blinked in surprise at his three friends already dressed and ready for an adventure.
"He tells us we better not forget and then he goes and forgets," Peter teased with a laugh and Remus gave Sirius a warm smile that made him feel inexplicably better. He loved his mates.
"I was just giving you guys some extra time since in the past you all took so long. I would never forget about such an important operation. Now look alive men we have to figure out what the second task is going to be to help Gideon win. For Hogwarts!" Sirius cheered letting himself get caught up in the excitement, pulling his thoughts far away from his family.
"For Hogwarts!" Remus, James, and Peter shouted in union and off the Marauders went. They hung out with each other as if they hadn't all been doing their own thing for awhile now. Peter tried to dominate the conversation by talking about the subjects he had been catching up and improving in but only Remus seemed genuinely interested and pleased about that. So after patiently waiting a whole two minutes Sirius interrupted loudly and changed the conversation to pranks, which was something they could all talk about, even if Remus still pretended he wasn't interested from time to time. Soon the conversation was steered by James who presented the three ideas he and Sirius had narrowed down on for the grand finale prank before the end of the school years as they walked. They were making their way through the newest secret passageway, speaking loudly with the confidence of explorers who knew their recently discovered hidden location had not been discovered.
It was thanks to Peter that they had found the passageway leading right to the Quidditch pitch which had resulted in him being proclaimed the Most Amazing Marauder for several days. As far as Sirius could tell no one ever had even heard of such a passage which could be accessed by crouching behind a large tapestry of the Hogwarts emblem off the third floor. Sirius hadn't quite believed Peter had actually found such a passageway, even with James' assistance who had been using it to get some more sleep before practice. But now Sirius found himself walking down the creaky wooden steps that he was pretty sure was making it sound like there was some ghoul living in the walls of Hogwarts, and he had to admit Peter really had a knack for finding secret passages. In fact he had found the most out of all of them with Sirius coming in second place. But it's not like it was a competition or anything….
"For the last time, we can't actually transfigure the Slytherins into a herd of geese," Remus laughed as James started throwing out random suggestions.
"I say we just use good old stink bombs. It was effective last year," Peter piped in, flinching as Sirius gave him an incredulous look.
"You mean when we got caught by that mental professor?" Sirius asked in amusement and Peter blushed.
"Well it did bother the Slytherins." James pointed out in amuesment, causing Peter to grin.
"Where's the creativity? The ingenuity? If we fall back on our old tricks we will never progress. No, we can do better than that, mates!" Sirius exclaimed, rallying the troops who all grinned with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
"Let's just stick with operation Slytherins are Slimy Evil Dicks," James decided.
"Subtle," Remus huffed sarcastically as Peter stopped walking and crouched down moving a panel to the side, revealing they were directly beneath familiar steps.
"No way," Sirius gasped, looking up into the tangle of wooden bleachers.
"Pretty cool, yeah?" Peter asked eagerly and Sirius begrudgingly admitted it was as they all stepped out onto the steps on Ravenclaw's side of the stadium.
"Figures they would be the house that needed a secret passage to make it to games on time." Sirius pointed out his voice loud against the silence, the usually packed stadium taking on an eerie atmosphere in the middle of the night. "Race you to the top James," Sirius goaded hopping up the steps two at a time as James followed suit.
"I thought we were here to help Gideon," Remus called out in exasperation but they both ignored him. After Sirius won the race and James tried to egg him on into racing on brooms they headed back down where Peter and Remus were nowhere to be found.
"I won!" Sirius declared proudly nearly toppling over as James tripped him but caught his wrist so he wouldn't actually fall. "I would have kicked your arse if you had dropped me, you oaf." He grinned at James finding his balance once more, then addressing the absence of the other two "Where did they go?"
"Guess they got bored and left," James pointed out, sounding unworried.
"Yeah, guess so. They are actually probably following the mission. Hey James?" Sirius felt now was the time to bring up what had been gnawing at him. There was something about the calm emptiness of the Quidditch pitch that led to Sirius feeling able to talk about what he otherwise never in a million years would have discussed. He settled down on the stand knowing that James would take his cue.
"Yeah?" James asked, settling beside him and looking over at him expectantly.
Sirius knew there was a lot he should tell James, perhaps starting with the fact that whatever big prank they decided to pull it could in no way be traced back to them. There seemed to be a lot going through his mind and James was one of his best mates. Even if Sirius found it harder to talk to James about some stuff he also knew there were just some matters he couldn't mention to Remus.
"I don't know...if I'm completely over….Remus...um, you know….," Sirius trailed off awkwardly feeling that the shame of admitting it might choke him. James punched his shoulder.
"Obviously. Just try not to be a git, would you? Things are going pretty good with the Marauders, let's keep it that way yeah?" James ventured, sounding a bit awkward himself. Sirius punched James' shoulder back feeling better somehow. The daunting prospect of spring break and summer and behaving for his family seemed bad enough without him bickering with any of his mates.
"But, we'll still help him, won't we?" Sirius asked quietly the words falling flat. He knew extremely deep down that fixing Remus had been more for him than Remus but he couldn't deny that he still felt like he had to do something. James sat quietly for a while.
"I wrote to my mum about it….not everything but just that our mate was struggling and we wanted to fix things for him. But…..my mum said sometimes what helps the most is doing whatever Remus says will help him. It sounds rather bollocks but we both know my mum isn't wrong about anything," James concluded matter of factly.
Sirius considered the sentiment more than he would have had it come from any source other than the Potters. Before he could think of some way to answer, Peter came rushing back into the Quidditch pitch and jumping up and down to get their attention from the stands. Sirius snickered and pointed him out to James.
"Look he missed us," Sirius teased.
"What are you guys doing? Hurry! Remus found something," Peter hollered at the top of his lungs then rushed back out. James and Sirius shot each other a look knowing that nothing had actually been resolved quite yet between them but that some things were more important than the awkward semi-mature discussions that every so often sunk into their usual conversations.
"Wait for us, Pettigrew!" Sirius shouted leaping to his feet with James following suit. He couldn't help thinking that while Euphemia Potter was one of the best mum's in the world she still had not met Remus, because Sirius doubted that their friend had the foggiest notion of what help he wanted and even less of what he needed.
They caught up to Peter soon enough in time to find Remus hunched over digging in the dirt.
He's finally gone mental, was Sirius' first notion but he brushed it quickly away, noting the clumps of charred paper slowly piling up beside Remus crouched over in the dirt.
"Someone burned a book and buried it but Remus found it," Peter explained happily as they caught up to Remus whose hands were covered in soot and whose cheeks were smudged with it.
"How the bloody hell did you find it?" James asked in astonishment, crouching down and picking up a piece of blackened paper only to drop it quickly. "Ow!"
"Careful, it was recently burning beneath the ground. Someone didn't want there to be any smoke so they quickly covered it up with dirt. But I…." Remus hesitated and Sirius watched as he looked away from James' curious face. "...found it…."
"It was brilliant!" Peter insisted, "we were looking for clues in the dark and Remus suddenly stopped and just started digging. I have no idea how he saw it!"
"These pages are still really hot. That means someone could still be nearby," James pointed out, looking around quickly as if hoping to apprehend the trespassers out of bed. Not even considering the fact they too had no legitimate reason to be out here.
"It could be one of the professors?" Peter questioned, the realization dawning on him and he paled considerably.
"Nah. They wouldn't care about smoke and try to cover it up. What do they say?" Sirius asked impatiently, crouching down beside Remus.
"I haven't read any of it yet. Most of it seems so charred I don't know how much information we will be able to gather," Remus pointed out, wiping his arm across his perspiring forehead as he pulled out the last big piece of charring paper from the buried smoldering pit.
They sat watching Remus unfold the pages. Their friend's pain tolerance they had long since learned was high, but the reminder it was certainly wasn't a pleasant one. Sirius wished he had thought to grab the charring papers while they were still smoldering so he could gauge if they actually were painful or if James was just a wuss. But Sirius had been too preoccupied with how Remus had even found this clue. It was too dark to see any difference in the dirt though perhaps the glowing eyes made Remus able to do so. But Sirius had the rather uncomfortable realization that Remus probably could smell the burning pages beneath the earth. The more Sirius thought about it the more he realized there had been clues all along of Remus' unnaturally heightened senses, no matter how hard Remus tried not to bring attention to it.
"It says…..most of it is utter gibberish…." James sighed, poking at the paper with a twig he had picked up from the ground.
"I think it's a different language. That would make sense as it was probably one of the champions from the foreign schools out here. But look….this seems to be the name of something," Remus pointed out tracing his finger across the top of the page. "It's hard to make out but I think it's... Maapallo Krieger Och?"
"Maapallo Krieger Och? Sounds like a bunch of gibberish," James commented, crouching down as well to get a better look. Now all four of them were sitting in the dirt next to the soot-covered werewolf. Sirius kept his focus on Remus' glowing eyes reminding himself if Remus had heightened senses that it would be really cool. It wasn't a bad thing. He kept reminding himself though having another reminder of Remus'...condition….was rather hard for Sirius to swallow. As James comically read the bits of foreign language no doubt butchering them all tremendously Sirius kept the chant of "not all dark creatures are dementors" going in his head until he could internally calm down some. Sirius noticed Remus glancing at him worriedly and he realized he had been far too quiet for far too long.
"We have a clue to look into thanks to Messr Remus!" Sirius shouted exuberantly trying to cover up his momentary uneasiness. He could still feel Remus' eyes on him. It was like his soot-covered friend had a very good idea what Sirius had been thinking. "I reckon it's some sort of spell and if we figure it out we can discover the second task and alert Gideon. To the library!" Sirius bellowed, getting Peter and James laughing at him in response.
"You've really gone mental haven't you," James mused, flicking a bit of soot at Sirius. "I never thought I'd live to see the day where the great Sirius Black shouted "to the library," James mimicked Sirius' shout and received a fist full of soot smeared against his cheek in response. "Soot Fight!' James yelled with gusto and knocked Sirius backward, dirt and soot flying at everyone as Remus scooped up the only truly discernable page of text and watched in amusement. Then Sirius grabbed Remus' ankle pulling him into the jumble of flying dirt and Peter leaped in as well. Soon all four of them were chucking dirt, as there hadn't been much soot from the get-go, at each other and tussling on the ground.
It was only the loud creak of the stadium steps that finally got them to stop. Remus stiffened and reached for his wand so fast that Sirius was tempted to think he had always been in that alert position. Sirius grabbed his own wand and stood beside him and James and Peter who hadn't brought there's looked around for the source of the noise. Then Sirius heard it again but he got the impression whoever it was didn't want to be discovered. It was a slow hesitant creeping sound that Sirius had sometimes caused himself while sneaking around Grimmauld Place.
"We should pursue them. I bet it was whoever was burning the book," Sirius whispered to the others. Remus shook his head.
"Sirius, if it is a foreign student they are much older and know a bunch more spells than us," Remus explained warily. James seemed to be considering what Remus was saying but Sirius still wanted to charge forward. It was four against one after all even if it was an older student which he pointed out. "We don't know if it will be only one foreign student though," Remus pointed out, sounding rather stressed.
"What do you think James?" Sirius asked expectantly, sure that James would take his side.
"Sounds like Remus has a point but so do you. We can't really let them escape can we?" James asked, itching his nose which was covered in dirt like the rest of him.
"They aren't breaking the rules any more than we are. Some of us really can't afford to be in trouble. If we see who they are they see us and then we might get in trouble," Remus stated pointedly with a look at James. Sirius' face heated knowing they were referencing him and how much trouble he'd be in with his family.
"Well can't you just smell them Remus?" Sirius shot back. He had meant it as a genuine question but his embarrassment at them not being able to find out whoever it was because of him left his tone rather sharp. He obviously regretted it immediately, Remus' golden eyes widened slightly then closed his voice sounding pained.
"It….doesn't work like that," Remus replied flatly, the edge of annoyance obvious. Then their upset friend walked off rather quickly, clearly having no interest one way or another in the matter anymore.
"Guys!" Peter shouted, sounding as if he had been trying to get their attention for eons. Sirius turned to look at him, anything to avoid the angry look that seemed to say "now look what you've done" that James was shooting at him. "I've been trying to say we have the invisibility cloak," Peter huffed and Sirius was pretty sure he had never felt more stupid.
"Great thinking Peter," James said though the enthusiasm had left his voice, "you and I will go look into it and Sirius will go and apologize for being a git," the owner of the invisibility cloak stated sharply. Sirius didn't bother replying and he didn't dare argue so he took off after Remus.
"Remus, wait," he called loudly, not thinking of the potential of being overheard by whoever was in the stands.
"Be quiet!" Remus hissed in alarm, clearly not forgetting this himself.
"I just….I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out like that," Sirius interjected quickly, hoping he and Remus could make up fast and catch up to the other two.
"It's fine I know I'm a freak," Remus replied in a defeated tone that managed to sound quite certain of the fact.
"You aren't a freak," Sirius hissed fiercely.
"You think so. I'm a monster and a freak."
"No you aren't. I'm just a tosser, Remus. I don't think that though...I mean yeah I did but that wasn't me really it was my parents and we all know what 'bloody brilliant' people they are. You being a…"
"Shhh," Remus cut him off rudely, "if you have to reference it say furry little problem," the paranoid boy explained quickly.
"Really?' Sirius was caught off guard by this. He found it more than a bit surprising Remus was okay with them referring to his condition like that.
"It's better than the alternatives and it makes it sound….I don't know….less threatening. More like….we're talking about some sort of funny problem rather than….well….." Remus trailed off.
"Fine. Furry little problem it is then. So why didn't you tell us you had a super nose?" Sirius asked, careful not to sound accusatory. Remus seemed so pleased by Sirius agreeing to call his lycanthropy James' silly incognito reference to it that he actually answered genuinely.
"Because it's not always like this. I think...it's something to do with getting older and the moon," Remus mumbled with deep embarrassment then admitted, "I didn't want you looking at me strangely."
"We all look at you strangely but it's because you're a swat not a freak."
Remus gave a slight chuckle and Sirius realized it wasn't just James who could talk to Remus about this stuff. Sirius could as well….just not as easily.
"James and Peter are coming back," Remus pointed out and Sirius strained to hear but couldn't pick up on anything. Remus must have felt his questioning eyes on him because he mumbled, sounding embarrassed. "It's not just a super nose."
As James and Peter pulled the cloak off and their shadowy figures appeared closer to the stands Sirius was left rather stunned at his friend the werewolf.