CW: Sexism

I was going to vomit. My head was spinning, and I thought I would pass out. Sirius grabbed my hand as I clutched the side of the sink with my other hand.

"Is it… is it poisoned!?" he cried, and I shook my head. "Oh! Oh! It's working, Moony!"

"W-whaa…?" I couldn't even remember why I was feeling like this.

"You're growing a beard!" Sirius cried.

"Really!?" It all came back to me as I felt my face and looked in the mirror. "Woah."

My voice came out deeper than my own voice. Dumbledore's voice.

"I… I have blue eyes, Sirius!" I cried, looking in the mirror.

"That's great, but we only have an hour, remember!" Sirius cried. "You need to get changed!"

"Right, right," I said, taking the clothes from him. "Damn, my voice! I'm an old man!"

"Get changed!" Sirius cried, and I smiled at him, then went into the bathroom. I walked out of the cubicle a minute later wearing Dumbledore's purple robes and feeling ridiculous.

"Don't forget the hat, Moony!" Sirius cried, then took the purple wizard's hat from my hand and shoved it on my head (or Dumbledore's head). "No one's going to know it's you, don't worry."

"Alright," I said, "let's just go to the Great Hall."

Sirius walked into dinner before me and sat beside James and Peter at the Gryffindor table, then I walked through the crowd towards the teacher's table, then sat in the head-high spot, feeling superior.

"Good evening, Minerva," I said to Professor McGonagall.

"Good evening, Albus," McGonagall responded. "I thought you were going to Bathilda's today?"

"I'm going tomorrow. I just need to address the school tonight," I said, and she nodded. I stood up and made an unnecessarily loud and dramatic coughing noise to get everyone's attention. "Good evening students and teachers! Firstly, ay I please have some music?!"

I watched Sirius fiddling with the needle of the record player, but nothing happened, and he just shrugged at me. James then took the record player from him and played with a few buttons. Eventually, as I was still standing there feeling stupid, I saw Lily roll her eyes and turn the music on for them.

"Where it began, I can't begin to knowing," I sang along with the song as it started, then bopped my head along with the music. McGonagall looked up at me strangely but didn't say anything. I was dying with embarrassment, but also loving it at the same time. "But then I know it's growing strong."

I tapped my feet to the beat and smiled down at my friends. James flashed me a thumbs up. "Was in the spring… and spring became the summer. Who'd have believed you'd come along?

"Haaaands… touching hands… reaching out, touching me, COME ON YOU KNOW THE WORDS! Touching youuuu!"

Some of the muggle-borns sang along to the chorus, "Sweet Caroline… BUM BUM BUM… good times never felt so good!"

I couldn't keep the smile off Dumbledore's face as I watched the school: some people laughing, some singing, and others still in shock that their headmaster was doing this.

"I've been inclined… BUM BUM BUM… to believe they never would, but… now… I…" the school screamed.

"Look at the night," I continued, joined by fewer students now the chorus was over, "and it don't seem so lonely. We filled it up with only two. And when I hurt…"

I started slowly moving my arms around in the air, then continued with the song, "hurtin runs off my shoulders. How can I hurt when holdin you?"

The rest of the school joined us when we entered the chorus again, "Waaaaarm… touchin waaaaarm… reachin out… touching me… touching yoooouuu!"

The entire school body then jumped to their feet, led by Sirius, James, and Peter, and everyone was unashamed and unquestioning at this point, "Sweet Caroline… BUM BUM BUM… good times never felt so good… I've been inclined… BUM BUM BUM… to believe they never would… oh… lord… no…" I started to do a stupid dance at the instrumental, and Sirius, holding a video camera, gave me a huge smile.

"Sweet Caroline… BUM BUM BUM… good times never felt so good…" everyone was practically screaming the lyrics now. "Sweet Caroline… BUM BUM BUM… I believed they never could… Sweet Caroline… BUM BUM BUM… good times never seemed so good…"

Everyone started screaming as the song started faded out, and once it was over everyone cheered, and a first-year shouted, "You rock Professor Dumbledore!"

"Thank you," I grinned. "Thank you very much."

And I sat back down in the head seat.

"Are you alright there, Albus?" McGonagall asked.

"Oh, yeah," I said, then, standing up again, "Also, until I'm back from my trip to Bathilda's house, there will be no classes!"

"Albus… we can't just cancel classes…" McGonagall started.

"And ten million points to Gryffindor!" I cried, then looked over at the hourglass where the red gems all went right up.

"Albus, you can't…" McGonagall started.

"Why not?" I asked.

"It's against the rules…"

"Ooh, you know what, we can change that, you know why?" I grinned.

"Why?" she asked.

"'Cuz I'm the Headmaster!" I cried, giving her a smile.

"Alright, Albus…" said McGonagall under her breath, "shall we have a talk? Alone? Outside of the Great Hall?"

"If you say so, Minerva," I said, grinning even wider and following her out of the Great Hall. . I was enjoying myself way too much.

"Are you imperiused?" she whispered. "Or drunk? Or high?"

"No, I'm perfectly fine," I said.

"Why are you… there's something wrong…"

"You know what, I'm just going to go to Bathilda's house now, bye!" I said, then walked back to the bathroom, checking my watch. There was still quite a while left. Just me being paranoid.

"That was epic!" Peter cried, later that night in the common room, after I'd changed back into myself.

"You were amazing!" Sirius cried. "You can't go unnoticed, everyone needs to know it was you."

"Alright," I said, then Sirius grinned, standing up and yelling out for the entire common room to hear.

"Oi, did you all see Dumbledore at dinner!?" he cried, and everyone let out a 'yes'. "Well, that was Remus! Pretty cool, right!?"

The entire common room let out a loud cheer, and, for a solid hour, I was the most popular person in the room.

"Oi, Lupin, it's my sixteenth birthday this Saturday, the first of February… and there's going to be a party in the common room that night if you want to come?"

"A party?" I repeated, looking up from the book I was reading. I was sitting in the library, and Marlene was standing over me.

"Yeah," said Marlene. "We do common room parties for everyone's sweet sixteen. And also their seventeenth, because, you know, coming of age. And also the muggle-borns insisted we do eighteenth as well because that's when you become an adult in the muggle world. Everyone in Gryffindor from 5th year and up comes to the parties, and people from other houses or younger years can come by invite. So, I'm inviting you to my sixteenth."

"I… really? OK, what do you want as a present? What time on Saturday?"

"Something from honeydukes," said Marlene. "And just be in the common room on Saturday night and we'll all wait until all the little kids go to bed."

"Alright," I said.

"Cool! I invited Sirius and James during Quidditch training, and I'm intending on inviting your friend Peter, too... I don't know him too well, but I don't want him to feel left out if his three best friends go and he doesn't…" said Marlene. "So other than you three, the only person who wouldn't be there anyway is Mary, and that should work out well… OK, sorry I'm blabbering to myself, see you on Saturday!"

"Alright, thanks," I said, as she left, and I went back to my book.

"This is bullshit. Absolute bullshit."

Mary Macdonald was furious. She was reading a poster that had just been pinned to the noticeboard in the common room.

ATTENTION ALL HOGWARTS GIRLS

It has come to the Ministry of Magic's attention that the skirt lengths of almost all female students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are far too short, which is highly distracting for their male classmates' learning, and male teachers' teaching. The school uniform requirements are, for boys, long black trousers; a white button-up shirt; a tie of their house colours; their house's jumper or vest, and their house robes. The girls' uniform is the same, but instead of the trousers, they are required to wear a grey or black skirt which is below knee length. Any girls not following this requirement will from now on receive points deducted from their house and a detention every time they are caught by a teacher until they buy a new skirt from Madam Malkin's.

Signed,

Harold Minchum

Minster of Magic (as of January 17th, 1975)

"So," said Mary, yanking the poster from the noticeboard. "So. Harold Minchum, fucking Harold Minchum becomes the minister and not even two weeks into his employment he decides that our skirts are distracting? I'm sorry I haven't bought a new skirt since first year, that's a waste of money, and in case Harold Minchum can't get it through his thick skull, people grow! Remus!"

Mary suddenly spun around to face me, and I almost jumped.

"Have you ever felt distracted by any girl's skirt being shorter than her knees?" Mary asked me.

"No," I said. It was true. I always looked at girls' hair.

"Exactly," said Mary, turning back to look at the poster. "This is 1975, not 1875! Alright, I'm starting a petition to get Harold Minchum fired and my man Elvis to come to England and take his place. Ooh, and I'll get some photos of Elvis to put on the petition, too."

Mary was grinning now, and, holding the poster, she ran up the stairs to the girls' dormitory.

"Who's Elvis?" Sirius asked me.

"A muggle singer or something," I shrugged. "My mum is a fan of him. I suppose Mary is too."

"Oh, alright," Sirius shrugged. "But damn, that new rule is a bit harsh, don't you think?"

"Yeah," I said. "I mean, it doesn't affect us, but I still think it's so stupid."

"Yeah," said Sirius. "I'm just going to let the girls deal with it, though. If we interfere, we'll probably do something wrong and just make it worse."

"Yeah, probably," I said.

"Talking about girls, have you got a gift for Marlene yet?" Sirius asked.

"Oh, no… I was thinking of just grabbing a couple of sweets for her on Saturday morning," I said.

"Yeah, I was thinking of doing the same thing, or get her a Quidditch thing," said Sirius. "That's the easiest thing, otherwise I dunno for hell what a girl wants for her birthday."

"Yeah," I laughed.

Music I'd never heard was blasting so loud I thought my eardrums were going to burst.

I'd seen the Gryffindor common room with more people in it than it did at Marlene's party, but it seemed so crowded it was almost suffocating, and the room stank of body odour, alcohol, and tobacco.

A few people were dancing, a lot of people were screaming out the lyrics to the songs that were playing, and a lot of people were standing and socialising and drinking their drinks and smoking their cigarettes.

Alice and Frank were snogging on an armchair, which was new, I wasn't aware they were a couple, and Marlene and Dorcas were dancing together, but most people were too drunk to say anything about it.

"Wanna drag, Professor Dumbledore?" a seventh-year slurred, holding out a cigarette to me.

"Yeah, yeah, my name's Remus Lupin, though," I said, taking the cigarette and placing it between my teeth and inhaling, then blowing it out and coughing.

"You good there, Dumbles?" the seventh year laughed as I handed her cigarette back to her.

"Ugh, yeah, it's just… eugh…" I started coughing again. My health was bad enough, I didn't need that shit in my life.

"James! Sirius! Peter! Remus!"

My friends and I turned around to see Mary running towards us, holding a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink.

"It's my petition," she said. "For firing Harold Minchum for his sexist comments on our uniform."

"Oh, yeah," said Sirius, taking the parchment, quill, and ink, and adding his signature. "Those photos… is that the Elvis guy?"

"Yes," Mary grinned as Sirius handed the petition to James, who signed it. "It's him about twenty years ago, though…"

"Er, how old is this guy?" Sirius asked.

"Well, he recently turned forty…" said Mary. "It's not like I'm going to marry him or anything, he's just attractive. Especially in these photos."

James passed the parchment and quill to me, and I added my signature, then Peter added his, and passed it back to Mary.

"Well, good luck!" said Peter, and Mary grinned.

"Oh, by the way, Sirius?" she asked. "Are you and Marlene still going out?"

"Er, no," said Sirius.

"Oh really?" said Mary. "That's a shame. Anyway, have a nice night, I'm going to get more people to sign the petition."

And she left.

If you don't know, the song in this chapter was 'Sweet Caroline' by Neil Diamond (1969)