Year Two
I. Surprises

"Alright gents, this is the stuff." James grinned devilishly at the sight of everyone kneeling around his trunk. "I promise you that it's the very best of what I managed to nick."

"Yeah?" Sirius had grown so impatient with James that he seemed halfway to exploding. "So we finally get to see the one you've been teasing about all bloody summer?"

"Oh yes," James said, readjusting his glasses much too casually. "That's in here too."

"You're making it sound an awful lot like you're just putting us on," said Remus. Sirius and Peter nodded affirmatively.

"It's supposed to be a surprise, you idiots. And it isn't a surprise if I tell you about it, now is it?"

"I don't care about surprises. Just get on with it, would you?"

"Fine, Sirius, just ruin everyone's fun—"

"Your fun, more like."

"Fine," groused James, but pulled the first latch on his trunk. Peter was so excited that he was barely breathing; Sirius quite forgot his irritation as James opened the trunk's lid with a dramatic flourish.

James Potter, showoff extraordinaire, had proudly spent his summer break on a sort of treasure hunt inside his own home. The Potter household had always been filled to the brim with enchanted objects, he said, and it was amazing what there was for him to discover now that he knew the Unlocking Charm. Though his family's most valuable heirlooms were all locked up at Gringotts, James kept hinting that he'd 'borrowed' one object in particular which was so amazing it was going to change their lives forever. He'd teased them about this for so long, and in such an infuriating manner, that Sirius had apparently gotten fed up and sent him a Howler.

My hearing came back today and it got me thinking, James had written in one of his letters. I doubt Mum and Dad would notice if I brought a few things to Hogwarts with me...

Sounds like a bad idea, Remus had written back. Probably illegal, too.

I asked Sirius and Peter and you have been sadly veto'd. See you September 1st! HAHA

JAMES DON'T.

But James did, of course, and now his trunk lay open before them with a magnificent collection of odds and ends inside. Many of these items appeared perfectly normal, even boring, but this was typical of magical artifacts: it was camouflage. The creators of these objects—the responsible ones, anyway—designed them to blend in and go unnoticed, even if they were one day forgotten by wizards and found their way into Muggle hands. Remus had heard from his father that the Ministry of Magic had an entire department devoted to sorting out the messes that became of this on a regular basis.

"It looks like a bunch of old rubbish," said Peter.

"Rubbish?" James' face fell. "They're supposed to—"

"Don't explain what the rest of us already know," Sirius complained. He swept up the first object within reach—an ordinary penknife, by the looks of it, but who knew what it might be capable of.

"Might I suggest," began Remus, and jumped when Sirius flicked it open without concern.

"So what's this one do? Y'know, besides shiv people?"

Sirius Black was James Potter's best friend and partner in crime. They were very alike in every category but outward appearances: James, for example, seemed eternally young for his age while Sirius had come back from his summer looking—and acting—like a beaten-down teenager.

I'm an idiot, he'd written to Remus. Dad asked if I liked my head of house and I thought he meant McGonagall for a second. Couldn't talk my way out of it and had to tell the truth.

Sirius had successfully dodged a sentence to Durmstrang, at least, but he said that his parents were now treating him no better than an unsightly stain on the family's honor. Don't worry though, his letters had said, because Andromeda Black had made every excuse to take Sirius out to London's various wizarding establishments and make sure he was well. Andromeda, however, had finally been caught on something herself: she'd found herself already pregnant by her Muggleborn boyfriend some time in August, and so the cousins' merry tour of the city had ended.

"That, my friend, is extremely useful. That penknife can bust any lock and unknot any knot. It's also got probably a thousand attachments in there for everything you'd ever need."

Sirius closed and reopened the knife. A nasty looking hook had replaced the blade.

"Brilliant."

"Then it's yours."

James' best asset, Remus thought, was his kindness to those who needed it. Though James might've been an arse the rest of the time, and might've looked rather silly with his glasses that were too large for his face and his hair that had never been introduced to a comb, Sirius—so often inclined to insult others for little reason—refused to say a word against him. Well, most of the time.

"Really?" asked Sirius, eyes brightening. "You'll give it to me?"

"Take it," James insisted. "Anything for my best mate."

"Is it really yours to give away, though?" Peter asked dubiously.

"Sure it is. If it belongs to the Potters it belongs to me."

"I don't think that's quite how it works," said Remus. He, unlike Sirius, chosen to devote his attentions to something far more harmless looking: a quill made from an eagle feather. "Where's the one you've been dying to show us, James?"

"We're still building up to that. Interested in the Backwards Quill, are you?"

"Backwards Quill?" Remus inspected the quill and saw nothing backwards about it at all. "Not in particular."

"I might as well give something to everyone, Remus. Don't want anyone to feel left out, do I?"

Remus still felt faintly embarrassed whenever James' affection extended to him as well.

"Well—tell me what it does first, at least."

"I can't really describe it too easily," said James. "The Backwards Quill isn't the real name of it, if it's even got one, but I've been calling it that because that quill isn't one you can write with. Its more like you can use it to find the words in things, I guess. Stories and spells, you know?"

"I'm not following," said Peter.

"The damn thing repels ink if you ever try to use it as an regular quill, basically. At first I thought maybe it was just cursed or something, but come on, who curses a quill to repel ink? Whoever did that must have been an extremely passive-aggressive sort of bloke. Anyway, so then I accidentally touch the quill against my broom while I'm packing, and that's when I thought I'd gone mad or something. It was like, I was hearing this complete history of my broom in my head, all the spells that were used to put together, all the people who touched it before me, and just a whole bunch of other stuff."

Remus examined the quill with increased suspicion. He wondered if something powerful enough for that sort of effect could be entirely harmless.

"So its got an effect like Priori Incantatem?"

"Something like that, but stronger. I tested it out on a lot of other things and I think it what it technically does is read the traces of magic in things. I don't know what it would've been used for originally, but I bet it'd make studying easier if you touched it to a textbook, at least. "

"Does it work on people?" Remus asked, and prodded Peter in the forehead with the quill. Peter gave it a cross-eyed look.

"It's not going to work if you're trying to read his thoughts, he doesn't have any," Sirius said, and snatched the Backwards Quill from Remus so he could tap it on his penknife. His eyes widened after a moment's pause.

"Whoa."

"See?" James looked smug. "You get its whole history, don't you?"

"That's actually pretty neat. A bit too nerdy for my tastes, personally, but I can imagine Remus getting some use out of it—"

"I'll be taking my quill back now, thank you," said Remus, and smiled as he stole it back.

"So now that you've all had a go at me," said Peter grumpily, reaching into the trunk, "how about I take whatever this is?"

He held a small, square mirror in his hands.

"Not that one you can't." James snatched the mirror back away from him. "Here, take it, Sirius. I was saving these for us to use."

"A mirror? Well thanks Jamie, can't wait to carry it around in my purse—"

"Shut up and pay attention for a second, will you? I'm not giving it to you so you can put on your makeup."

James had produced a second, identical mirror from his trunk and put it up to his face.

"Sirius Black."

"Christ!

Sirius yelped and dropped his mirror. Peter was the only one with the presence of mind to go scrambling after it before it hit the stone floor and shattered; Remus was too busy knocking himself back into James' bedpost and James himself was choking with laughter.

"It's his face," gasped Peter. Indeed—even with Peter holding it, the mirror reflected only James.

"Wanker," muttered Sirius. He took the mirror back and squinted like there had to be a trick to it besides what he saw. "What, I'm supposed to watch you put your makeup on?"

"The mirrors are communication devices!" James cackled. "Just say the name of the person who's holding the other one and you can talk to them—we could use them in detention and no one would ever cotton on!"

Remus now noticed that everything James said was repeated by Sirius' mirror with only the slightest delay. Sirius now regarded his mirror in a new light.

"Well, if you put it that way—that's not a bad idea, James."

"I also had a few other ideas for them," said James, waggling his eyebrows, "but most of those ideas involve plans which I have yet to reveal."

"Well hurry up and reveal them, why don't you?"

"Because I've still got to build up the suspense first, obviously!"

"I think I've had enough of your suspense to last me a lifetime already, thank you..."

"What can I have?" asked Peter.

There was also Peter Pettigrew, mousy haired and socially awkward, but someone Remus could trust not to laugh when he had awkward moments of his own.

How long do you suppose I should wait to write to James or Sirius? Remus had written to Peter on their very first day of summer break. Trying not to look too desperate here.

Write them right away, of course, came Peter's reply. What's the worse that could happen (besides being made fun of for the rest of your life)?

Peter was also an excellent student who happened to be a very poor wizard, though he did try very hard to keep up with his friends, and Remus couldn't say there wasn't any valor in that. Peter was the third addition to this group which Remus had mentally begun to call "the Marauders."

There really wasn't much of a story behind the name, sorry to say. He really might've thought of a better one if he'd known it would eventually stick.

"You can pick yours out later," Sirius told Peter impatiently. "Right now James is going to show us the thing he's been harping about all summer or else I'm putting this penknife in a place where it wasn't intended to go."

"Alright, alright—"

James dove back into his trunk and withdrew something from the very bottom.

"TA-DAH!"

"That's a—!"

"Blimey!"

Remus had no idea what the others were excited about besides the thing in James' hands being very impressive looking. It looked very much like fabric woven from water, and when James unfolded it the impossibly smooth cloth was so enormous that it poured right onto the floor.

"Erm," Remus began, "excuse my ignorance, but—"

"Don't recognize what it is yet?" James shook the fabric like it was a matador's cape—was it actually a cloak? "Watch this."

James swished the thing over his shoulders vanished. Remus himself had been Disillusioned by Madam Pomfrey many times, yet he had never seen the full effect of invisibility on someone else—it was exactly like a giant eraser had come along and wiped James from existence.

"That's—an invisibility cloak?"

"However did you guess?" laughed James' voice. "Shall I model it for you all? Feel free to request any poses in particular!"

Remus laughed helplessly with the others as James' feet made a circular path of indentations in the rug.

"That is ace," Peter sighed.

James tugged the cloak back down around his shoulders so that only his grinning head reappeared.

"Extremely ace, innit? I almost couldn't believe we just had one lying around. Can you imagine the possibilities?"

"Oh my god," said Sirius, dropping his hands and gasping, as though he had just realized this. "You're right."

"He's right," Peter echoed.

"No more sneaking," James said, nodding. "We could waltz right past Pringle and he'd never know..."

"Just imagine," said Peter, dreamily. "We could go out whenever we wanted!"

"You were already doing that," Remus pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but now it'll be even easier! And we could split up even, if we wanted, and use those mirrors to talk back and forth—"

"Exactly," said James.

"Exactly." Sirius stood up only to collapse backwards back onto his bed in a fit of glee. "Oh my god. This is going to be amazing! Is this what love feels like?"

"Are you referring to me or the cloak?"

"Whichever makes it easier to sleep at night, I guess. Christ—we need to break this cloak in!" Sirius bolted upright again, a fire lit behind his eyes. "We should go out tonight!"

James and Peter nodded furiously at one another. Remus looked anxiously between them all—it was now or never.

"Er."

"Don't worry," James assured him brightly. "We'll still bring back snacks for you like always."

"That's not it. I was going to ask—since you're all going out tonight, then—would it be too much of a bother if—?"

"If?"

"Well." Remus breathed deeply to calm himself. "I was thinking that I might want to go with you, maybe. To give it a try, like."

The other boys stared at him with alarm.

"Did you hit your head or something?" Peter sounded almost motherly with concern.

"I haven't hit my head," insisted Remus. "It's just—it doesn't seem very likely that we'd be caught anymore, right? So there's less risk involved now."

"You are not the Remus that I once knew," Sirius told him, with a delighted sort of confusion. "You do remember that the last time we asked you to come with, you told us you refused to start down a path in life which could lead only to Azkaban?"

"I may have been a touch dramatic last time," said Remus. "But it's not breaking the rules that I mind, so long as it's not doing any harm. It's the part where you get caught that I'm not fond of."

"He's come so far, our little Remus." James looked just as motherly as Peter earlier. "And here I thought he didn't have a rebellious bone in his body..."

"Let me guess," teased Sirius. "You just don't want to be left out?"

And here was Remus J. Lupin, the least Marauder-ish of them all, still vertically challenged and still struggling to accept his right to have friends. The knew the risks were mounting, yet if he could only feel that he belonged, if he could only experience some semblance of inclusion...

"Maybe Remus just wants to see what the school looks like at night," Peter offered helpfully.

"Maybe he's given himself head trauma and doesn't remember it because of the head trauma," James offered, rather less helpfully.

"Look," Remus said. "I don't know what's wrong with me—maybe I've finally come down with the same sickness as the rest of you—but I do want to come. I want to give it a chance."

"We're not trying to stop you," Sirius told him. "I'm not, at least."

"Me neither," Peter said. "I'd be great to have you with."

"I wouldn't mind either," agreed James. "You sure you can handle the risk, though? McGonagall might behead us all if we're caught, you know."

"I know," said Remus, determinedly. "But I still think it sounds like fun."