A/N:
Hello everyone! Another update in the same month, yay!
Fortunately NaNo is going very well for me this year, and I've already cracked the 50k words on this project that was my goal, so I'm going for as many as I can get now.
This is probably still fillerish, but you signed on to read a life story and life isn't always all exciting and dangerous. If you hit back immediately, fair enough.
To all the rest of you, I hope you continue to enjoy my Marauders Era AU.
It was just about time for a late lunch when James, Peter and Remus slunk back into the flat above the defunct chocolatiers. Sirius had spontaneously decided to 'cook some actual bloody food in this damn kitchen for a change', and his infectious enthusiasm had carried Rose along. The fact that they didn't really have much in the way of ingredients didn't appear to phase Sirius one iota. He hummed happily along with the wireless (currently phasing in and out as it tried to tune to the muggle radio). Rose rolled her eyes, tapped the intransigent wireless with her wand, and smirked in the immensely self-satisfied way of Marauders as the wireless tuned properly into Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Sirius danced (because really there was no other word for what Sirius was doing) from cabinet to stove top, cracking eggs into a bowl and multitasking with frying bacon and absently sniffing milk to see if it had gone off yet. Rose, for her part, poked her head into the fridge (or at least the wizarding version of it) and dug about to see if they had any more of those nice sausages Peter had discovered at a butchers over in muggle London. Habit had them preparing enough to feed a small army - experience has taught them that their fellow Marauders wouldn't be able to stay away for much longer, and that they all tended to pack away quite a lot when they had the luxury of sitting down for a nice meal. Sometimes it was so hard eating regular meals when pranking indiscriminately.
James cracked the door open a smidge, creating just enough room to stick his right arm through, a clean white handkerchief hanging from long fingers. The hanky flopped half-heartedly in the air, accompanied by James's disembodied head floating around the side of the door. "Cease-fire?" James suggested, craning his head around to assess the damage of the flat. Rose could swear that he actually looked disappointed to find it all in one piece and undamaged - the fact that Sirius was unharmed seemed to depress him even more.
"You're about an hour too late for that, Prongs" Sirius drawled, snatching the hanky out of his hand and using his free hand to slap the back of James's head. "Moony, Wormtail, stop loitering about outside. Are you lions or mice?"
"Technically, Padfoot" Peter began, shuffling behind James into the flat. Sirius' unamused glare shut him up mid-sentence. "Right, shutting up now, Padfoot."
James stuck his hands in his pockets and loped casually up to Rose. His hazel eyes twinkled with mischief, as did the smirk he shot Sirius as he passed. "So, you couldn't have even maimed him a little bit?"
"I'll maim you in a minute" Sirius warned, but it utterly lacked bite. James was instantly on his guard.
"What in the name of Merlin's sock drawer is going on?" James asked, peering from Rose to Sirius and then rather worriedly over at Remus.
"Lunch" Rose replied innocently. She had the sudden and uncomfortable feeling that James was not going to appreciate the deal she and Sirius had agreed on the Marauders' behalf.
"Excellent!" Remus grinned, rubbing his hands together. "I'm famished."
"Yeah, yeah" James grumbled, sliding over the plate of cooked bacon. "Now, can't you try and get her to, you know, explain?"
"Explain what, Prongs?" Sirius asked. His tone might almost have been called innocent, except for the shit-eating smirk he wore.
"What, precisely, happened here after your - I'm assuming still current - girlfriend chucked us unceremoniously out on our ears" James replied, just short of huffy.
Sirius smirked in a way that would have been guaranteed to test the patience of saints. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Yes, I bloody well would, you bastard" James growled, advancing on his friend. Sirius winked and turned his attention back to the stuffed omelette he was attempting to make for their lunch. The Marauders were big proponents of all day breakfast. Rose rolled her eyes at the pair of them, gently elbowing Sirius away from the pan.
"Go tell Prongs before his already oversized head explodes and ruins our kitchen" she sighed, hiding her grin as she turned back to the pan.
"Oi!" Remus protested, as James followed Sirius presumably into one of their bedrooms for the chat. "What about Wormy and I? Don't we get to know too?"
Rose gave him a pitying look. "Oh, Rem" she chided, shaking her head. "Ye of such little faith."
Peter frowned, mentally working out what had been said. "So we do get to hear it then?" Rose merely held up a finger, sliding the last omelette onto its plate and then down to Peter. Just as Peter began to tuck in, James's voice boomed from his bedroom.
"YOU DID WHAT?!"
Rose inclined her head in consideration. "He took that better than I expected."
Remus carefully finished off his mouthful, took a sip of butterbeer, and dabbed at his lips with a napkin. His eyes fixed on Rose, now opposite him at the table, with a patient if intense gaze. "May we be informed now?"
Rose looked mournfully at the cheesy-bacon goodness of her omelette, and nodded cheerfully. "But of course, Remmy" she agreed easily, buying just a moment of time with a sip of cherry soda. "From the beginning?"
"If you please" Remus nodded, Peter just waving his fork in agreement.
Rose nodded herself, settling back in her seat. "Sirius explained that they were being overprotective and that they didn't have anything truly concrete until yesterday, which was confirmed this morning. They apparently went into the Cursed Dagger - which I'm not sanguine about you not telling us, Pete, even though I understand. The long and the short of it is that we can trust them to tell us things."
"What promise did you ring out of poor Padfoot?" Peter asked shrewdly, his blue eyes twinkling with amusement.
"Three days" Rose said, knowing that would confuse her friends more than just smirking enigmatically. "If it's important and time critical, happening immediately or within the day - they tell us immediately, and we give them the same courtesy. However, if it can stand to wait a while, or it needs further investigation and isn't urgent, then they have up to three days to inform us. No more."
Peter let out a low, impressed whistle. "You got Padfoot to agree to that?" Rose nodded brightly. "How?"
Rose shrugged, she wasn't really sure herself. "Trust goes both ways. We're all in this together, and it's about time we laid some ground rules for when all this secret squirrel stuff becomes our lives."
"I get it" Peter replied, sharing a dubious look with Remus. "But, how did you get Sirius to agree to it, especially without a focus group and debate with James?"
"I agreed because it was the right thing to do" Sirius replied calmly, emerging into the kitchen with James at his heels. "As I've spent the last five minutes trying to get through Prongs' thick skull."
"We should have been consulted" James muttered sulkily, removing the heat charm from over his plate of omelette.
Rose fixed him with a sharp glare. "My point exactly." Sirius smirked into his lunch, seemingly enjoying the fact that it was now James's turn to squirm.
James glanced - more glared really - at Sirius and nodded once, as if confirming or agreeing to something they had discussed in private. "I apologise. It was wrong of us to keep things from you. Especially now."
"Yes it was" Remus agreed, gifting James with one of his rare glowers. "Very wrong of the pair of you." Rose had to fight to hide her grin at Remus' rather professorial telling off of the pair. "But, since I take it you have also agreed to this new Marauder-wide rule, I forgive you."
James's mouth worked silently for a moment, defeat spreading across his handsome face. "Fine, fine. I give in. Yes, I solemnly swear."
"As do I" Remus agreed, for the formality.
"Me too" Peter chirped, seemingly enjoying James's misery.
"You lot already know I do" Sirius smirked, digging in their fridge for another butterbeer.
"I solemnly swear too" Rose added, enjoying the sweet taste of victory. James flicked his eyes up, reluctant amusement dancing in his hazel orbs. Once again, it was rather psychedelic.
Remus looked at them all with a rather worrying smirk on his face. "I'm glad that we've got that argument out of the way. We have homework to do."
James and Sirius shared a look, and proceeded to prove that all was once again right with the world, booing and pelting Remus with the butterbeer caps.
The rest of the day passed in typical Marauder fashion. Bickering, butterbeer, and random boredom-induced shopping trips into London or Diagonal Alley. The next morning, however, brought with it the unwelcome realisation that the spring holiday was now upon them. With the holidays would come a veritable barrage of slimy snakes released from semi-captivity at Hogwarts. James held court on this issue in the living room, after breakfast at the Cauldron. "With Voldemort now deciding to recruit at Hogwarts, our course is clear" James announced, hair messier than ever from his hands carding through it.
"It is?" Remus questioned dryly, barely looking up from whatever book had caught his fancy this time. Rose tilted her head and smirked. Of course Remus would be reading a book on Invisible Magic, he already knew where James was going with this.
"Yes, it is" James replied, heaving out a gusty sigh. "The minute those death worshipping, blood racist Snakes come slithering out of their family holes, they're going to make a beeline straight to the Cursed Dagger! We have to be there, ready to find out what in Merlin's name is going on."
"Prongs" Remus began, cutting across Sirius' nodded agreement. Too eager for action, the pair of them, they really were. "Are you forgetting how suspicious the Slytherin students are? Not just in actions but in paranoia?" Remus set aside his book to stare James in the eye. "Even supposing that they do go to the Cursed Dagger, which I doubt, the door to that private room will be locked down so tight, you'd have more chance of getting Lily to agree to marry you tomorrow than you would of getting in and out of that room." Sirius' bark like laugh echoed through the room.
"Evans won't go out with me" James mumbled, shooting a deadly glare at Sirius.
"My point in a nutshell" Remus replied, regarding James over the rim of his mug of tea. It was patheric how easily diverted James was by the mere mention of her sister, but Rose was used to it.
"Aren't we rather digressing here?" Rose wondered, knowing she would soon regret it. "Either we do spy on the Cursed Dagger and run the risk of getting caught, wasting our time, or getting nothing out of our surveillance, or we wait until we're back at Hogwarts before the implementation of our surveillance plan."
"The latter" Peter started, nodding in thanks "would be infinitely less risky to our operation. All we'd have to do is use the Map to keep an eye out for those particular snakes most likely to 'join the cause' and then we could go and eavesdrop as necessary."
James blinked, looking rather put out to have had his conversation derailed before persuading them. "I still think it's a good idea" he muttered, turning to Sirius for help. The dog animagus inclined his head, humming a little in thought.
"In principle, Prongs makes a good point" he admitted with an apologetic frown at Rose. "But on the other hand, Moony and Wormtail both make good points. It is unlikely that we'll get in there even if the Snakes turn up."
"Pads!" James shouted, betrayed.
"Oh shut up, Prongs" Sirius rolled his eyes. "Since when have I ever listened to the reasonable thing to do? Of bloody course I'm on your side. If there's even the vaguest possibility that something is happening at the Cursed Dagger, I want to know about it. Preferably before I'm attacked by wannabe Death Eaters in the Hogwarts Corridors."
This time, it was Remus' turn to mutter. "Dueling in the corridors is forbidden at Hogwarts." Nobody gave that comment the slightest bit of notice. The Snakes ignored that rule whenever it suited them, it was hardly likely that recently recruited possible Death Eaters would share Remus' outdated scruples. Nonetheless, Rose remained on Remus' side.
"I agree with Rem" she announced, aware that absolutely none of them were shocked by that. "Not only is it a risky plan, foolhardy and reckless, but we don't have any guarantee that it will work."
"We have the Cloak, we'll be fine" James attempted to reassure her, but Rose knew better.
"Lucius Malfoy is involved in this" she reminded him. "Malfoy. You remember him, a slightly more socially acceptable version of Bellatrix. Cruel, sadistic, muggle-hating - not particularly fond or either of you or Sirius." She spread her hands, feeling her point made. "I wouldn't trust him to keep his word even to his mother, let alone trust him in a situation with so many unknown variables."
"Rosebud-"
"It's safer if we're at Hogwarts when we start spying on them" Rose insisted, warming to the subject again. "Home advantage, and our entire operation will be blown if we get Malfoy suspicious. Then they'll go to ground, and we'll have no idea what in Godric's name they're hiding."
"I understand your concerns, Rosie" James said patiently. "But this is something Sirius and I have to do. We discussed it yesterday." Now that she properly looked, Rose saw what she'd deliberately missed before. James and Sirius weren't looking to have a democratic discussion on this, they were saying what was going to happen. Rose, Remus and Peter could disagree if they wanted, but James and Sirius were bound and determined to see this through. Peter's wisdom from yesterday replayed in her mind. This was going to be their lives in just a little over a year's time. When they were 'offically' fighting this war, they wouldn't have the luxury of picking and choosing what was safe for them to do. Even though James wasn't technically of age yet, she knew that nothing could stop him from following Sirius into that pub, and Sirius had clearly made his mind up on the matter.
"If anything goes wrong in there, you'll be on your own" she reminded them. Remus choked on his sip of tea, eyes wide as he stared at her.
"Rosie-"
"The idiots have made their minds up" she replied tiredly. "Soon we won't have the luxury of not doing something because it's unsafe. They're going in there because they think they have to, and not even we can stop them."
"If we need you, we'll send a patronus" James offered in a way Rose knew was supposed to be placating for Remus.
"Oh yes?" Remus invited, the perfect image of scepticism. "And what exactly do you want us to do when we get it? Beat on the doors like Fred Flintstone?" James looked blank. "You two geniuses are the only pure bloods, remember? Peter and I are half-bloods, and Rose is a muggle-born. The Cursed Dagger has wards that only allow pure bloods to enter the establishment, remember? That's why we're so against your harebrained scheme!"
"Marlene is a pureblood" Rose said quietly, getting up to make more tea. Tea was, after all, the answer to everything. "If it comes down to it, we can ask her to go in and see what's going on."
"We're not getting McKinnon into this" Sirius stated flatly, shaking his head. "She hasn't made enemies of that lot yet."
"Fighting in this war is our choice, Siri" Rose called over her shoulder, glad not to have to have this particular discussion face to face. "We all agreed a long time ago that we'd be fighting, so did everyone else; Marlene, Mary, Alice, Frank, Benjy, Emmeline, Hestia - heck, even Caradoc is in this all the way. If you guys get into trouble, it'll be Marlene's choice to get involved or not."
"And we can't ask fairer than that" James agreed, glaring pointedly at Sirius as Rose returned to the living room.
Remus frowned heavily, his disapproval as obvious as his resignation. "I take it that this will work out much as before? You lot away at all hours and poor Wormy running between us like a post owl?"
"Pretty much" James grinned, his expression falling rapidly into readiness. A loud wailing sounded from all around then, Sirius and James both leaping to their feet.
"Someone's downstairs."
With wands raised, Rose and Remus followed James and Sirius to the front door of their flat. The subtle sound of cursing (the swearing kind not the magical one) echoed up the stairwell with amazing clarity in the relative silence now that the perimeter alarm was silenced. James shrugged at Sirius, now apparently relaxed now that they didn't appear to be in immediate danger. "Who goes there?"
The reply was, frankly, something that James really should have expected. "Who the bloody hell do you think 'goes there'?! How many people have you given this address to, huh?" There was a few moments of rather pointed muttering. "Honestly, it's no wonder Dumbledore calls you lot geniuses."
"Ah" James grinned, brightening. "Hello, Marlene! Watch out for our additions down there!" A splash made James wince briefly, but Sirius' smirk only broadened.
"Merlin, I should have expected to get pranked by your flat" Marlene's voice snarked, echoing up the stairwell from the ground floor. "Can I come up, or will something else try and attack me? A rabid dog, perhaps?"
"Nah, don't worry" Rose called back, grinning brightly. "We only have Sirius, and he's mostly house trained by now."
"You think you're very funny, don't you?" Sirius asked, the tense atmosphere of the previous conversation dismissed.
"Why yes I do" Rose agreed, winking cheekily across Remus. The werewolf gagged and stepped away, muttering to leave him out of this.
"I think I'll stay down here until they're finished flirting" Marlene teased, James looking wistful for such an option.
"You'll be down there a while, McKinnon" Sirius called, flicking his gaze towards the door where Marlene was now visible.
"Long time, no see" Peter offered, waving lamely from his position on the furthest armchair from the door.
"Like the digs?" James asked, spreading his arms wide in an all-encompassing gesture.
"Meh" Marlene hummed, her sparkling gaze fixing on Remus of all Marauders. "Of course you would live above an old chocolatiers, Lupin."
"You're just jealous" Remus replied cheerfully, smirking at the scoff Marlene made in reply.
"Not that I'm not happy to see someone new and interesting for a change, Marley" Rose began, ignoring the immediate protestations of her friends. "But what brings you here?"
Marlene's expression (a cross between a wince and a smirk) let Rose know that she would really regret asking that question. "We have, formally, been drafted in to help with the first horse to walrus wedding preparations" Marlene announced, not even blinking as the clock made a rather rude noise behind her back.
"And by 'we', you mean?" Rose invited, praying to any deity that cared to listen that the 'we' in question would not include her.
"Well" Marlene smirked, drawing out the word. "Mr Evans gave me a little list to memorise."
"Spit it out, McKinnon" James snapped, his patience apparently waning.
"Spoilsport" Marlene huffed, not actually looking all that upset. "In addition to Lily and myself, the list includes: Rose Evans, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and - if they're not too busy being incredibly idiotic - both James Potter and Sirius Black."
"Jim asked for us?" Sirius checked, sharing a wordless discussion with James.
"Specifically, by name" Marlene agreed, smiling almost sympathetically. "I think he misses you." Her expression turned suddenly, startlingly serious. "He said he needs you there."
James and Sirius shared another look and said as one: "And so we'll come."
"Hold on" Rose interrupted, unable to believe her ears. "What?"
"Jim said he needs us" James explained like it should be obvious to her. "Even if it's just to share the misery, we're going to be there. Because he asked us to."
"Remus reached across and patted her arm, his expression one of complete sympathy. "We really should have chosen better on the Hogwarts Express."
Thank you for reading.
As ever, if you have the time, a review would be appreciated.