CW: Little bit of toxic masculinity and internalised homophobia

James became the captain of the Quidditch team, so naturally, the Quidditch practices took place every single afternoon. Sirius joined the team as a beater, meaning that two out of my three best friends were gone every afternoon. James was glad to be doing Quidditch every day of course, and Sirius took it as a handy distraction from the whole sectumsempra situation.

When Sirius wasn't playing Quidditch, he was in detention. He and Snape were in detention every night until the end of third year and served detention together after every Quidditch practice. The only times I ever saw Sirius, he was either doing schoolwork or complaining about having to spend time with the guy who he hated more than anyone else, and soon enough, he was begging us to do a prank on him.

It was hard to organise a prank when James and Sirius were always so busy, but we managed to stay up until midnight one night in late April to plan, and when we were done, we were very proud of ourselves and decided that the prank was to take place on the first Saturday of May, during lunch.

So, when the first Saturday in May finally came, we snuck into the bathroom closest to the Great Hall. We all entered a cubicle each and muttered a spell that would go off as soon as someone sat down on the toilet. We then rushed out of the bathroom and up to the Great Hall where everyone was eating their lunch. I pointed my wand towards the Slytherin table, directly at where Snape was sitting and muttered the spell I'd been working on under my breath: "Plena vesicae."

Snape's eyes widened, and his hands moved towards his crotch, but then he stopped and quickly stood up. We followed him under the invisibility cloak as he rushed to the bathroom and listened to the sound of his pee. But then we heard what we'd been listening for. As the toilet exploded, Snape let out a scream and rushed out of the cubicle, still half pulling up his trousers.

Then, just as planned, we took the cloak off so he could see us, and I was grateful that he hadn't noticed our feet poking out before. He spun around angrily when he heard James make a taunting noise.

"Potter! What are you and your stupid friends doing now?!" he shouted, fumbling to pull his trousers up. At least he already had his underpants on, saving our eyes from burning to a crisp.

"Want the toilet seat, Snivellus?" James laughed. "As our gift to you?"

"I'm going to get my revenge for this!" Snape cried, crossing his arms, and marching out of the bathroom. Sirius just laughed and walked into the cubicle that Snape had just been in and looked at the ruins.

"Gosh, we were careful that he didn't get hurt, he needs to take a chill pill!" he cried.

"Destroying school property now, Sirius?" came a voice. We all looked around to the bathroom entrance to see Regulus standing there, cold grey eyes piercing through all four of us. We hadn't seen him since he'd been attacked by Snape two weeks ago, and it seemed Sirius hadn't either, as he seemed surprised to see his younger brother, but he quickly brushed off his surprise.

"What's it to you?" he yawned, stretching his arm, and placing it on the side of the cubicle.

Regulus just closed his eyes and then opened them again. "Doesn't matter. Anyway, um, thank you for helping me out the other day, or other month, whenever it was…"

And then he left.

"He's mental, I swear," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "Whatever, let's just go and get some food… I think it's pies today."

Two days after the toilet prank was the full moon, and when I got to the shack, Professor McGonagall was already there waiting for me. She was smiling, obviously trying to help, but it didn't make a difference. She would think I was weak when it happened, she'd hate me… what if I hurt her?

It was embarrassing as the familiar pain started and I clenched my jaw tightly to stop myself from screaming. I think I must have cried at some point during the night, because the next morning when I regained consciousness my face was wet, but not from blood, according to the mirror.

"Mr. Lupin, it's OK," said Professor McGonagall, her voice hoarse. I turned around to face her and then gasped. She was bleeding from her neck.

"Professor! I… I… I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll get Madam Pomfrey for you, I'm so, so, so, so, sorry," I cried, spinning around, and feeling tears appear in my eyes. Why was I like this?

"Mr. Lupin!" she cried, placing a hand on my shoulder. "It's OK, I'm fine! It's just a little scratch! And look at you! You're not hurt!"

She was right. I couldn't see my legs, as I'd put trousers on straight away, but the rest of me was only old scars.

"Alright… you should go up to Madam Pomfrey, go on," she said, smiling.

"But Professor…" I said. How could I just leave like normal after injuring her?

"I assure you, I'm fine," she said. "Instead of being sorry just go so you can study for your Transfiguration exam."

OK, if she was talking about schoolwork, she must be fine. I gave her a short nod, then left the shack and walked back to the castle. I came to the Hospital Wing, but Madam Pomfrey said I was free to go as soon as she saw that I was fine, so I went to the common room to find my friends, who were just chatting by the fireplace. Sirius smiled brightly at me when I arrived.

"How did it go?" he asked. "You know, with McGonagall there?"

"I… I scratched her," I said, "she said it's fine, and she told me to study for Transfiguration, so that sounds fine for her, but…"

Silence stirred until James squeezed my shoulder reassuringly.

"If she says she's fine, I'm sure she's fine," he said, nodding to me. He gave Sirius and Peter pointed looks, and they both nodded as well. "Alright, we've got Charms first, come on."

After Charms was Transfiguration, which came with a shock: Professor McGonagall was limping.

She was obviously trying hard to hide it, but I could tell, from the wincing with every step to the fact that her right leg was slightly dragging. But she taught the lesson as usual and gave out three detentions to people who had not completed their homework. When the bell rang, I knew I had to talk to her, but what was I supposed to say?

I told my friends I'd catch up with them, then stood at the door for a good minute, trying to think of what to say, until she called my name. I jumped, then turned around.

"Are you alright there?" she asked.

"Er…" Now was my chance! Just ask her why she was limping! "…nothing. Sorry, I'll be off."

I was internally screaming at myself. What if I'd badly hurt her? But I was so selfish that I wouldn't even ask? But she was a teacher! I wasn't supposed to ask her those sorts of questions!

I shook my head and continued walking until I caught up with my friends in the Great Hall and sat next to James, who turned to me.

"What did you stay back for?" he asked.

"She was limping," I whispered, "I was going to talk to her about it but…"

"But…?" Peter prompted.

"I chickened out," I said, looking down at my food.

"Well, that's OK," said James. "She might not want to talk about it anyway."

"Plus, I'm sure when we become Animagus that'll never happen," said Sirius proudly.

"Oh, no…" I said, looking at him, "I think you guys should back off with the whole Animagus thing. And McGonagall. I don't want anyone to be around me on a full moon, animal or not."

"But Remus…" James started.

"Please can we not argue?" I said, trying not to sound as bossy as I felt. "Let's just… let's just move on. Go back to how it was in first year. No Animagus talk."

Sirius opened his mouth to say something, but just put a forkful of chicken salad in it instead. The bell soon rang, and we went quietly to History of Magic.

Thankfully, Sirius, James, and Peter didn't hold a grudge against me asking them to move on from their idea of becoming Animagi, and that night we were having a conversation about haircuts. Apparently, James' and Peter's mothers took them to a magical hairdresser where they would pay someone to wave their wand and style their hair how they wanted it. Sirius's mother cut his hair through magic herself. And my mum would just grab literal scissors and trim my hair whenever it got too much in my face.

"Really?" Sirius said curiously. "Without magic? But what if you want your hair longer?"

"I wait for it to grow," I shrugged.

"Why doesn't your dad do it, then?" Peter asked, "He's a wizard, isn't he?"

"He is, but I'm not sure, to be honest," I said, "I don't think my mum wants everything to be done by magic. Plus, if I see my muggle side of the family, they don't know about magic, so if my hair is mysteriously a lot longer than the last time they saw me, that would be suspicious to them."

"We cut our hair without magic back in first year, remember?" James said, looking at the ziplock bag that contained our hair.

"Oh, yeah!" Sirius cried, "We should do that again, but all get matching haircuts."

"Oh no… I don't want to sit around for an hour doing my hair, we're not girls!" Peter cried.

"OK, we'll do it with magic, then, but… a muggle haircut?" Sirius suggested.

"Muggles have the same sort of hair as us," I told him.

"But they have different hair trends to us," Sirius said.

"How do you know all this?" Peter asked.

"Muggles are quite interesting… I like to watch them," Sirius said proudly. "How about that mullet thing… a few muggles had them last summer when I was with Andromeda, Ted, and Nymphadora."

"I think I've seen that actually," I said, thinking hard. A year or so ago my mum had pointed out some muggle teenagers with that hairstyle, saying it looked awful.

"So, we should all get mullets!" Sirius cried.

"Yes!" James cried. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

The process took quite a while before we were all happy with our hair and looked in the mirror of the bathroom. Sirius had done the spell, 'cappilus radi' on the sides of our hair, just leaving the top and back of our hair still long.

"Tomorrow," James said, dramatically, "we will strut into the Great Hall with our new hair, and all the girls will be looking at us, and Lily will be looking right at me!"

"I look so dumb," I said.

"No, you don't, you look great as usual," said Sirius, giving me a friendly punch and causing my face to heat up.

Oh, no. Oh god no. He gave me one compliment and I begin acting like a total girl over him? I turned away from the mirror and walked back to the beds.

"Well, the sooner we go to bed, the sooner we can show off our hair," I said to the others, and soon we were all going to bed and slept peacefully.

Until the fire.

Mullets have become popular again over the last few years (at least where I live), and they were popular in the 70s so why not have the marauders get these atrocious haircuts?