Chapter 6: Christmas at Hogwarts
James Potter
James woke up the morning of Christmas Eve feeling tired and happy. He had all of his friends, the Marauders, he was having fun with them, and he knew they would never betray him. Remus was sleeping in the common room after a long night of talking to Lily, Sirius was dozing in the bed beside James, half falling off, half hanging on, and Peter Pettigrew was putting on a pair of boots quietly on his other side.
"Where're you going so early?" James asked sleepily, stifling a yawn.
"Oh, nowhere," Peter replied, jumping slightly as he noticed James lying there.
"Yeah, and I'm Sirius' uncle…" James replied sarcastically.
"No… no mummy… no, don't feed me to the petunias…!" Sirius muttered in his sleep, tossing and turning and, as a result, falling completely onto the cold, stone floor.
"Well, I'm glad your mum didn't let those flowers eat you Sirius," James joked, "would've been a nasty mess for the house elves to clean." Peter chuckled as Sirius glared darkly at the two of them.
"Watch yourself, Potter," Sirius muttered, picking himself up and yawning loudly, stirring the entire dormitory.
"Was that a threat?" James asked, pulling his wand from his bedside table.
"No… just… come on, man…" Sirius stretched and began to get changed into his robes and such. James followed suit and a few moments later, they were in the common room, prodding Remus awake with their wands.
"Stobbit!" Remus groaned, batting them away with his hand.
"Wake up Remus. It's Lily…" Sirius said in a mock-girl voice. The other Marauders stifled their laughing fits. Remus smiled and relaxed. "Remus… I'm pregnant." Remus sat bolt upright, and seeing his friends, scowled hatefully. Peter was on the ground, clutching a stitch in his side as he laughed his little heart out.
"Pull yourselves together," James said, trying to contain himself as well, "we're going out."
Sirius BlackThe Marauders arrived outside in the chilling cold of winter a few minutes later. Snow was falling from the gray sky above, coating the ground in a blanket of white. Several students were running around in glee, bewitching snowballs to fly at each other or, in the case of younger students, throwing them the old fashioned way. Sirius frowned as a second year's snowball spiraled out of control and hit him in the side of his head. He felt perfectly justified in bewitching that boy's clothes to up and fly away, leaving him shivering in his undergarments.
"Good one," said James, who watched as the clothes flapped higher and higher like birds, finally perching contently on the room of the tallest tower.
"I'll get you for that one, midget!" shouted the second year, sprinting off to the castle angrily and clutching his trousers as though worried Sirius might bewitch them next.
"Where'd you learn how to do that?" asked Peter, who stared at the castle doors, having not taken his eyes from them when the boy sprinted in.
"I figured we could do that to Snape when we get the chance, and I read it in a book." Sirius grinned, ignoring the genuinely shocked gasp from Remus, who stared at him in wonder. "Shut it, Remus."
"Oh, that put me in my place," Remus muttered sarcastically, turning to face James and Peter, "honestly Sirius, it's like you aren't even trying anymore. It's no fun when you don't retaliate well enough. I feel like I failed as a tormenter…"
"Still more encouraging words from the brilliant Remus Lupin," Sirius responded, shaking his head and scouting for Snape. Remus smiled and patted him on the back brotherly.
"See, now I feel like you care! I really felt the sting of that one! Great job Sirius," said Remus proudly, assisting Sirius in his search. "Where is Snivellus, anyway?" he asked, subtly plugging his new nickname into the question.
"Snivellus? Good one," said James, raising his eyebrows in amusement. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen him recently… Remus?"
"No, Lily hasn't told me. I think she wants us to lay off of him for a little while… or at least, not be so cruel," said Remus, shooting a pointed look at Sirius.
"What?" Sirius asked, giving him an innocent look in return. "Oh come on, just one more time? This one's really good! I actually read a book for this one! It only had three pictures in the whole thing!"
"All right, fine, but if I don't come back tonight, you'll know why," said Remus, sighing and rubbing his eyes exasperatedly. A snowball went whirring an inch from his face and he turned to punish the culprit, wand out, only to find that it was a far larger Slytherin with long, blond hair and a cold stare.
"Hey, Sirius," James said, tapping him on the shoulder, "isn't that Narcissa's boyfriend? What was his name… Lucius?"
"Oh, yeah, that's Lucius… don't tell her I told you, but she calls him Luscious… I think it's quite funny," Sirius smiled, waving at Lucius, who only sneered in return and turned back to his friends, a group of rather large Slytherins, much like himself. A tall Hufflepuff sixth year leapt backward into the Slytherin's, catching a Quaffle that had been thrown in their direction, and Sirius turned grimly as the sky flashed hundreds of colors while the Slytherin's hexed every inch of the poor boy.
"Never stood a chance," Peter muttered, turning around slowly and gasping, "it's Snivellus! Look, there, on the lake!" Indeed, as Peter had said, Severus Snape was skating on the ice of the frozen-over lake below. Sirius grinned, unsheathing his wand again and walking down towards the lake. Remus sighed and followed reluctantly, while James cracked his knuckles and made his way down beside Pettigrew.
Every student they passed turned to stare at them, as the face on Sirius' face was bloodthirsty and intimidated some of the older students, as well as causing a small Ravenclaw boy to wet himself in fear. Peter watched in disgust as the snow around him turned yellow and the boy began to cry. Remus shuddered.
"Avius!" Sirius cried when they got close enough to see Snape's face, waving his wand purposefully. Severus' pants tore themselves from his unwilling legs, throwing him face-first into the ice. His winter robes unbuttoned themselves as he tried to stand up, fluttering a few feet above his head along with his pants, and his shirt and sweatshirt joined them soon after. So there Severus was, nearly naked, sitting on his scantily clad behind on the frozen lake. Chill set over him seconds later and he stared wide eyed around as students all around him began to point and laugh at him.
He began to feel a fear and anger so deep that it mixed and became a hatred of the Marauders so pure that he swore he would murder them in their sleep. It was too late that he realized he had imitated the poor Ravenclaw boy and made banana-flavored ice. Sirius pointed at him and laughed louder than everyone else. Remus was the only one who wasn't laughing. He was watching Lily's infuriated expression as all of this unfolded, finding that as far from funny as anything could be.
"What did I tell you about doing your laundry, Snivellus?" Sirius asked mockingly, still laughing aloud. That was the last straw. Lily Evans walked angrily towards the Marauders and reached them in a matter of seconds. Everyone stopped laughing immediately.
"Remus, a word!" she demanded, pulling him away from his friends rather powerfully. Remus had no choice but to follow. At that moment, everyone turned away in disgust as Severus' underpants slid off of his person and floated up with the rest of his clothes, which had begun circling him like vultures.
Remus Lupin"I'm sorry, Lily!" Remus apologized, pleading with her in futility. She glared at him worse than she had ever glared at James. Lupin stopped talking immediately, deciding it was better to wait it out and not make it any worse than it was already.
"Sorry? SORRY? You're sorry, Remus? I told you to lay off of him! You deliberately disobeyed me! This has to be the worst thing that you've done to Severus yet! What do you have to say for yourself? Huh!?" Lily's fury was penetrating every corner of Remus' being and tearing apart every nerve he had that helped him stand there without keeling over.
"Ah the hell with it… might as well explain myself," Remus thought, taking a deep breath and preparing for the worst he could think of.
"Well, in my defense, I didn't do it, Sirius did," Remus replied. Lily opened her mouth to retaliate further, but Remus spoke again quickly, "but! We didn't even think that much was going to happen. We just thought his cloak was going to go off, maybe his sweatshirt. Sirius must've done something by accident… trust me, we had no intention of doing that much. Nobody wants to see Severus Snape naked." Lily gave an involuntary huff that sounded like a short giggle. She let out a deep sigh before responding to Remus.
"Alright… but you still shouldn't have done something like that in the first place! Go and apologize, okay?" Lily looked at Remus hopefully, and he stepped back reproachfully.
"Apologize? To him?" Remus looked at her, and her face didn't change in the slightest. It still looked at him solemnly, pleading for him to say two simple words to the boy whose life they had just ruined. The face he was looking at looked beautiful in the snow, her blazing red hair stood out in the white snow around them. "Okay," Remus said finally. How could he refuse to that face? "I'll do it, but I know they won't…"
"That's all I ask…" said Lily, smiling for the first time that day. Remus adjusted the fastenings on his cloak and bit his lip thoughtfully.
"So… when do I have to do it? Please don't tell me now… I have a sort of policy about talking to naked, crying, urine soaked people… especially if they're people who've recently wronged my friends," Remus said, looking around the snowy grounds nervously, hoping to Merlin that Snape's unclothed, soiled body didn't come running for Lily's console.
"No, not right now," Lily giggled, looking at Remus with a satisfied expression, "after lunch. We'll meet on the steps in the Entrance Hall, alright?"
"Yeah, okay… bye Lily… and, sorry…" said Remus, waving solemnly.
"Not to me, to Severus," Lily replied, walking away proudly. Remus watched as she marched up to the castle by herself, going off to do something she didn't want to do, just because Remus had made a mistake in letting Sirius go through with his torture.
"So, how'd it go?" James asked, coming up behind him without warning. Lupin jumped, startled by his friend's sudden appearance. He shrugged and began to trek up to the castle with the other three boys.
"Well, I have to go apologize to Severus for you three," said Remus, "and you're lucky I'm not making you three come too."
"You're apologizing for us?" Sirius asked, "Oh come on. We'll go too! We're the ones that did it."
"Yeah, but Severus is a little whiny git, and I doubt he'd want to see you guys after that," Remus replied, shaking all of the snow off of himself as they entered the warm foyer. Several decorations hung about the room, glinting gold or silver in the firelight of the many torches set around the room.
"I suppose… so, when are you going to do it?" James asked, pulling his cloak off and slinging it over his shoulder. The other three copied him and Remus bewitched them all to follow the boys up to the common room.
"After lunch," Remus muttered in response to James' question. They were all quiet until they reached the common room, where Remus threw himself onto a plush armchair and attempted to sleep.
James shook Remus awake a few hours later, telling him that lunch was about to begin. Lupin yawned loudly and stood up to stretch, trying to remember the details of his dream. He had just learned that he was no longer a werewolf, then house elves started to throw him into the air chanting his name, and the rest of the time he was being chased by a piece of toast named Gubbly.
"Do you guys know any pieces of toast named Gubbly?" Remus asked of his friends as they walked down the moving staircases to the Great Hall. James pondered the question carefully, Peter looked at him blankly, and Sirius shot him a quizzical glance.
"No, I don't think I do," James replied after several moments, "why?"
"I'll have to keep an eye out then…" Remus said, making a turn into the archway that opened up into the Entrance Hall. James opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again and shrugged, deciding it better not to ask.
Lunch went by slowly and painfully, the Marauders spent the whole time trying to come up with different ways to apologize to Severus Snape. Remus could only eat a few bites of his sandwich, and Peter snatched the rest of it up without even asking first. James told him to say as little as possible without seeming half-hearted, but Remus told him that that would upset Lily, something that they didn't want to happen. The clock chimed one o'clock and the few remaining students began to make their way out of the Great Hall to go study or play chess until dinner.
Remus waved goodbye to the Marauders and walked over to the two students on the staircase as though he was marching to the gallows. Severus glared at him reproachfully, and Lupin just stared, not giving him the satisfaction of any real emotion. Lily cleared her throat loudly.
"Remus, do you have something to say to Severus?" she asked sweetly, as though she didn't expect an answer.
"Yes Remus, you foul little cockroach! Do you have any words to say to me? Perhaps an apology is due?" said Snape sneeringly, gaining a taken aback look from Lily.
"Excuse me?" she asked. Remus opened his mouth to apologize to Severus fair and square, but Lily stopped him. "Remus came here to apologize on behalf of the Marauders and this is how you treat him? I'm beginning to think you deserved what you got, Snape! Get out of my sight!" Lily waved him away furiously, causing him to glare at Remus angrily and stomp off to the dungeons.
"Look, I could have just apologized… that was no big deal. I've heard much worse…" Remus said, staring at the spot in the air that Severus had just inhabited. Mocking calls of 'half-breed' surfaced in his mind and his face grew quiet and sad.
"He had no right treating you like that when you actually tried to apologize… you know what? I don't think I'm going to let him cry to me anymore… anytime he has a problem, it's just that, his problem." Lily lifted her shoulders proudly and Remus smiled.
"Good for you, Lily. Stick it to the man! The… greasy, slimy man… oh, did you get that spell from him?" Remus asked, remembering that he had asked Lily a favor a while before.
"Oh, yeah, I did. It's really neat… you have to give Severus some credit for that, at least," Lily said, proceeding to teach Remus how to use the spell. Remus thanked her after she had taught him how to use it, and off he went to the Gryffindor common room to teach it to the Marauders.
James PotterRemus arrived in Gryffindor House a few minutes later, deciding not to take shortcuts in order to practice the spell on unsuspecting passersby. It worked wonderfully the fourth time he tried it, and he felt confident in his abilities again as the portraits on the walls all stared in amusement at the random students who were now hanging in midair by their ankles.
"Hey Remus!" James said, pushing an open chair towards him with his foot. Remus shook his head and brandished his wand.
"I've got something to show you guys! We have to wait for everyone to leave though," said Remus. They waited an hour for the common room to clear out, and once it was Remus stood up and pulled his wand back out. "Pete, come here a moment, please." Peter obliged and stood still as the other three boys looked at him.
"What?" he asked, watching Lupin carefully. Remus pointed his wand at Peter and blinked, and the next moment Peter was dangling from his ankles. "What just happened?"
"Whoa! Is that Snivellus' spell? The one he used on me?" James asked, rushing over to Remus excitedly. Lupin nodded and taught them all how to use the spell.
"Just point at your target and think Levicorpus." James pointed his wand at Sirius and thought "Levicorpus." Sirius Black's hair was touching the ground, and James likened him to a dirty feather duster.
"It's like Christmas has come a day early!" said Sirius, grinning happily.
They all practiced the spell for the rest of the night, even going through dinner without noticing it, and used it on passing Gryffindors as they entered the common room after their meals. Since it was a nonverbal spell, nobody suspected them of using it, except for Lily who held her shirt down and chewed Remus out.
"Sorry," he replied apologetically, "didn't realize…" They all went to bed that night feeling fulfilled and excited for the next morning, which brought even more surprises.
"Wake up, Jimmy!" Sirius' voice pierced the darkness of James' sleep. James Potter opened his eyes reluctantly and looked at the pile of presents at the foot of his bed. He leapt into them and tore at the wrapping paper like an animal, finding several interesting books, a few letters from family (containing a few galleons), sweets, and some clothes.
"Hey, James, why don't you open that one?" Remus asked, pointing to a large white box beside him. James shrugged and picked it up.
"It's just clothes…" he said, shaking the box and examining it half-heartedly. He looked around the room and noticed that Peter was just watching them, sitting on his bed with his arms around his knees. "You already open your presents, Pete?"
"Huh?" Peter asked. He had been in a sort of trance-like state, staring at them. James could've sworn he saw a sad envy in his eyes before he snapped out of it. "Uh, yeah. They were great… I got… uh… clothes… and, uh… books…"
"Pete…" James muttered. "Here, you can open this if you want." James threw the white box at Pete, who grinned and tore the string off of the box greedily. James bit into a pumpkin pasty.
"Whoa!" Pete said loudly, "James! You're so lucky!"
"If it's something you like and it fits you, you can have it… I'm sure my mum won't mind…" James said, not looking up from his candy. His mother would understand that he gave it to a friend who hadn't gotten any presents for Christmas.
"You're gonna want this!" Peter said excitedly. "It's an invisibility cloak!" James started to choke on the candy that was just in his mouth. Remus waved his wand and James was in the air, which actually helped the pasty slide out of his throat. Once he landed, James turned to look at the pudgy boy who was quickly crossing the room. James grabbed it when Peter held it out to him and swung it around himself. His lower body disappeared as the silky robe fell around it and he marveled at the stone floor that used to be his feet.
"Whoa! My dad must've had to pull a lot of strings to get this…" James' mouth hung open in amazement, and he handed it to Peter, "here. You can mess with it for a while. I don't mind."
"Really?" Peter asked, looking at him in disbelief. James winked.
"Yeah, if you aren't too busy with your other presents, that is." James smiled and Peter mouthed 'thank you' before he donned the cloak. "Hey! Don't try going into the girls' dorm."
"I won't, bye!" And Peter was out the door to cause trouble that he couldn't be blamed for. Remus smiled at James and put his book down.
"That was really nice of you, James…" Remus said, "I'll be sure to let Lily know about that… She'll be really pleased."
"Yeah?" James asked, looking up from his cauldron cake.
"Of course," Remus replied, grinning, "one good deed deserves another, right?"
"Right," James said, smiling at his friend. All the while, Sirius had his fingers in a cardboard tube that his brother had sent him and was unable to get them out. His fingers were trapped in the Chinese Finger Trap the entire day.