VII. Dirt and Dung
"You've still got ink on your nose, Lily."
"From yesterday? Seriously?"
Lily wiped vigorously at her face as she and Remus walked to the greenhouses. It turned out that while James and Sirius had very much intended to drench someone in ink yesterday, they'd wisely chosen to run for it the moment they saw Lily coming. According to Peter, who had arrived just in time to see it all happen, Lily might have even walked away cleanly from the situation if it hadn't been for an inkwell dislodging itself from James' bag and shattering at her feet.
At least one good thing had come of it, Remus thought privately: he and Peter had devoted their afternoons to helping Lily wash the ink from her belongings, and by the end of the day Remus had remarkably found himself with a new friend.
Lily seemed a little surprised, though not upset, when Remus said he'd try partnering with Peter during class today.
"You're sure?" inquired Lily. "But Pettigrew's not very—well, okay. I'll work with Stebbins, then."
Lily wandered over to one of her male Hufflepuff friends, who gave a visible nod before they went down a few rows to find an empty table together. Peter Pettigrew waved as he met with Remus, and then they went to find a table of their own.
"Good morning," Professor Sprout said to the class, coming into the greenhouse with a container full of seed packets. There were scattered replies of "good morning, Professor Sprout" as she began to pass them out to each pair of students.
"Now I hope you all did the reading on the Herbivicus charm?"
"Yes," the class chorused.
"Very good. Now, these here are just regular flower seeds, but I want you all to plant them in those trays over in the corner so that they're nice and cozy. Then use the charm to help them grow. I want to see lots of pretty flowers by the end of the period, everyone, so go on and get started!"
The class hurried to grab the supplies they needed. Remus and Peter got on pleasantly together, working dutifully but also finding the time to talk. The entire greenhouse soon filled up with happy conversation as Professor Sprout went around telling groups when they hadn't added enough earth or had managed to drown their seeds.
"You know, Lily's been spending a lot of time in the library lately," Peter was saying. He'd spread their potting soil much too thickly on their third tray, so Remus set about discretely removing as much as possible. "Do you think she's getting an early start on exams?"
"Exams are months away still," said Remus. "No one's mad enough to start studying for them now."
Actually, Remus was fairly certain that Lily had been spending all this time in the library to meet up with Severus. It was the only place she felt she could speak to him without being bothered by some of Severus' creepier friends.
"That's true I guess. Still, James tells me he's seen her in the library every day this week."
Remus frowned.
"What, is Potter spying on her now?"
"Everyone, look here for just a moment!" exclaimed Professor Sprout, and everyone's heads popped up to see. A tiny leaf and stem had just appeared in the perfectly level tray of earth she held in her arms, and continued to grow exponentially in size until it bloomed into an impressive display of buttercups. The first years applauded with enthusiasm.
"Perhaps Mr. Potter has a side which appreciates beauty after all," Professor Sprout told the class warmly, and Remus' eyes widened as he saw James Potter take an exaggerated bow, claiming the first success of the class period solely for himself. Sirius Black was grinning behind him, and did not seem at all bothered to let James take the credit for their decidedly unmanly accomplishment.
"Five points to Gryffindor!" proclaimed the gleeful Professor Sprout, and she set the tray back down at their table. "Yes, just wonderful. Now, carry on everyone, let's see who manages it next!"
"HERBIVICUS!"
The entire classroom jumped. Lily had just jabbed her wand into the tray in front of her, causing an explosion of daisies which easily dwarfed James' buttercups.
"Oh my," said Professor Sprout, and Lily spun around, glaring. The rest of the first years began to laugh at how easily she'd beaten James, and soon larger and larger flowers of every type were springing up all around the room, until the greenhouse had turned into a garden that reminded Remus of Alice in Wonderland.
"In any event," said Peter, waving his wand at their own seeds unsuccessfully, "James hasn't been doing any spying on Evans that I know of. He and Sirius are just spending a lot of time in library themselves lately. Supposedly they've been doing research on Hogwarts."
"Why on Hogwarts?"
"So they can find out secrets about the school, you know? Herbivicus," Peter added, and prodded the soil with his wand. Nothing happened.
The bell rang across the grounds, so the first years stripped off their dragon-hide gloves, washed their hands, and began their march back to the castle for lunch. Peter promptly took off to meet up with James and Sirius, so Remus purposefully lagged behind to wait on Lily—there was no need, however. Lily, the last one to leave the greenhouse, now sprinted up the sloping lawn, not only catching up to Remus but passing him by with a swish of her robes.
"Oi!" Remus shouted after her, but now he could see why Lily had hurried ahead. She caught up to James and seized him by the collar.
"YOU ARSE!" she yelled.
"Geroff me!" James shouted back, and pushed her, causing Lily to stumble.
Potter's done it now, Remus thought, and ran to the scene.
"Stop, you'll get in trouble!" cried Peter. "Do something about her, Remus!"
But there was truly nothing that could be done. Not only was Remus not yet capable of stopping the fight by use of his wand, he was also less than willing to step in between them and have his eyes scratched out. It really said something about how quickly the fight escalated that even the onlookers were choosing to get away quickly, rather than stand and watch.
"Cut it out!"
It was Sirius' voice that reached them at last. They froze with James' fist about to connect with Lily's stomach and Lily poised to punch James in the throat. Lily was the first to come to her senses—she retreated to Remus' side while James coolly brushed back his hair.
"What the hell was that, James?" Sirius demanded.
"She attacked me, you saw!" There was a large bruise forming below James' eye—he touched it gingerly to test how bad it was. "She just came up and attacked me for nothing!"
"Ha!" Lily said. Her face was bright with anger. "So now you're a liar, on top of it all?"
Sirius tried his best to frown at James but seconds later the facade had already cracked. He laughed out, "what'd you do this time?"
"Dunno what she's talking about," said James, innocently.
"Oh yes you do!" Lily hissed. "I saw you hiding something behind your back just before Professor Sprout looked! You tell us what you did!"
James glanced momentarily at Sirius.
"Alright, alright," James admitted. "I nicked a bit of mooncalf dung before the bell rang and mixed it in with the dirt on my tray before Professor Sprout saw me do Herbivicus. Happy?"
"No," snorted Lily.
"That's stealing," said Peter, stating the obvious.
"Look," James said, pointing an accusatory finger at Lily and ignoring Peter all together, "I just needed a bit of leg up. I'm pants at Herbology, I kill every plant I touch, and I'm tired of getting bad marks because of it. Who cares if I stole a little dung?"
"Do you not have any shame?"
"Nope," said James, and Sirius laughed again. "Don't have a cow, Evans. I just don't feel like doing extra practice for a stupid class, is all—"
"Are you a Gryffindor or not?" Lily shrieked, and Remus caught her arm just as she was about to take another swing at him. "Professor Sprout might've given you points but you know very well you didn't deserve them! What happened to the idea of Gryffindors being noble, Potter?"
For someone who had only been a Gryffindor for a short time, Lily was certainly very proud of it—Remus had a feeling that she was disgusted with James more so for disgracing Gryffindor House more than anything else. He had to admire her convictions in trying to keep James honest, at least, lost cause though he might be.
"Let's just let it go for now, Lily," said Remus softly.
"No! Absolutely not!"
"Then let's at least be reasonable, okay? Potter, hand it over if you've still got the dung. We'll give it back to Professor Sprout and tell her one of us picked it up by mistake."
James gave Remus a doubtful look, but reluctantly produced a small burlap sack from inside his robes. Remus took it from him and unthinkingly opened the sack to peer inside—he immediately regretted having stuck his nose anywhere near its rancid contents.
"Th-that's—definitely it." Remus shuddered and closed the sack. "Right, then let's go take this—"
"No, Remus!" Lily shook him with more violence than probably intended. "Either we make him admit he's done something wrong or we turn him in!"
"No way!" James yelped.
"I'll make you, Potter!" Lily turned on him again with a ferocious enough look that James paled. "At least admit it! Admit if you wanted to be a stupid cheat then you should—have—been—in—Slytherin!"
"What was that, Miss Evans?"
The five Gryffindors had long forgotten that other students were still out on the grounds. It appeared that the fifth year Slytherins had just come up to the castle from their Care of Magical Creatures lesson, and Lucius Malfoy, whose green and silver prefect badge flashed dangerously in the noon sunlight, was unfortunately leading their group.
"Er," said Lily. Her face had turned bright red.
"Typically, three points would be taken for such rude remarks," Malfoy said, sneering. "But seeing as you're a Mudblood, let's make it five, shall we?"
The Slytherins began laughing, but Remus, James, and Sirius protested in outrage. Lily, however, looked around helplessly for an explanation, and for some reason, Peter didn't seem terribly fazed by the term either.
"She's not a Mudblood, Malfoy," growled James.
"Yeah she is," murmured Sirius, though he didn't seem to approve of the word. "Evans is a Muggle-born."
"Wait—is she really? Never would have guessed that in a million—"
"My dear Gryffindor friends," Malfoy sliced in coldly, "perhaps you didn't understand me—"
"We understood you just fine," said Sirius, with contempt. "Maybe you don't understand that having a prefect badge doesn't make you any less of a pompous twat?"
Several jaws dropped open all at once. James laughed compulsively at Sirius' nerve.
"Your poor parents must be heartbroken, Sirius," said Malfoy, rounding on him. "I see now that I should be keeping a better eye on you, now that you've chosen this wayward path…"
"And I intend to stay on it, thank you."
"Leave us alone, Malfoy," said James, emboldened. "None of us care about how many points you take, anyway. You can't hurt us, I'd like to see you try!"
Everyone around him groaned.
"Is that a challenge, Potter? Then perhaps I will just..."
And then, just as if a very bad nightmare had just turned into reality, Lucius Malfoy turned deliberately to Remus, knowing that he was the weakest of the group. The other Slytherins looked on with thirteen sneering sets of eyes.
"What's that you've got there, Lupin?"
Remus froze on the spot, realizing that he was now the one with stolen property in his hands. There could only two possible outcomes now, and neither would be pleasant: either Remus could take the blame himself—and then he could only imagine the story he'd have for his parents at the time of his expulsion (especially when the words "I stole some fertilizer" would inevitably come into the conversation)—or, conversely, if he somehow managed to prove himself innocent, that meant James would face punishment instead...
"Did you hear me?" asked Malfoy.
Remus could sense James panicking beside him.
"Mr. Lupin," Malfoy warned. "You do realize that withholding information from me could result in a detention on its own?"
"You better do what he says!" Peter squeaked, but Sirius stamped on his foot.
"Remus," Lily whispered urgently. "Say something or he'll—"
"Shut up, Mudblood," Malfoy said nastily, and that was all it took for Remus to make up his mind. He would never know why he did it, exactly—perhaps because he cared so deeply for Lily, or because Malfoy was so intensely despicable, or because he felt the maddening influence of the full moon that would come in few days' time. It was probably some unknowable mixture of all three.
"Give it to me," Malfoy snarled, thrusting out his hand.
"Fine then," said Remus. "Take it."
And without further ado, Remus reopened the burlap sack, turned it upside down, and emptied the soupy contents into Malfoy's palm.
His eyes went large as saucers. Mooncalf dung now ran down his sleeve and dripped onto the ground in sickening, smelly plops. A Slytherin beside him clapped a hand to her mouth and made an awful gagging noise.
"Lupin's done it now," said Sirius, a note of joy in his voice.
"YOU—!"
The first years wheeled around in unison and streaked up the lawn without another thought. Shouts followed clear until they skidded into the Entrance Hall and slammed the great oak doors shut behind them.
"Oh my god," Lily wheezed, but she was grinning from ear to ear.
Remus just shook his head, unable to speak. Even though he was short of breath and in a world of trouble, he still collapsed against those oak doors and laughed like a madman.