Remus eats all the stuff on the table in front of him, part of James' food, and then turns around and starts eating his way through the Hufflepuff table.

"Where do you put it?" Sirius mutters in shock, staring at the massacre that's taking place across the table from him.

"His legs are hollow," James complains.

"I'm a growing boy, leave me alone," Remus complains between stuffing his face full of eggs and sausage.

"You do still grow a bit more until you hit adult Remus," Harry chimes in. "Sirius and James don't."

Sirius splutters.

"Not that you don't grow at all," Harry says quickly.

James reaches across the table and paws at Harry's hands. "It's a weekend today, we can sneak out of the castle."

Slughorn pauses, literally right behind James, thinks about saying something - and then walks away.

"Could go to the park," James muses. Remus has been extra twitchy lately, it's best to get him out before it gets too bad.

All four of them head down to Hogsmeade and catch a Knight Bus over to the closest muggle park. Sirius shifts halfway across the quiet street and goes left instead of the playground, bounding straight over the chest-high fence to the dog park as Padfoot, barking excitedly as he runs through a group of tiny yapping dogs and makes them whimper in fear.

"No!" James cries, chasing after him and struggling through the double gates to the dog park. "Padfoot! Padfoot, no!"

A Labrador wants to play and just gets absolutely wiped out when it jumps excitedly at Padfoot and rebounds to the ground off his bulk. A tennis ball goes flying over head with a Kelpie chasing but Padfoot leaps up, catches it in his mouth and tears it to shreds.

"Padfoot, you're a bad boy!" James yells, running across the park.

Padfoot barks madly and runs away, going slow enough that James catches up, before he turns around and body checks James to the ground so Padfoot can leap onto the human and give him slobbery licks.

James wheezes pathetically, the air pushed out of him when he hit the ground and he can't recover with a giant dog on him. Remus walks up with Harry and wraps his arms around Padfoot's neck, hauling him off James.

"He's so big!" calls out a nearby dog parent in athleisure with a bumbag for dog treats, the one who threw the now destroyed ball - at least she doesn't seem upset about it. "Such a shiny coat as well."

Padfoot looks pleased, wagging his tail hard enough that it creates an air current. He uses conditioner religiously.

"What breed is he?" asks the man standing next to the first owner.

Harry looks down. "He's...a black dog."

"Oh, a rare mutation?"

"Uh..." Harry struggles.

"He's a Wolfhound," Remus says because Padfoot is big enough to be one. "Purebred."

Padfoot barks at him for that.

"What breeder did you get him from?" the first owner muses.

"He just walked into my house and won't leave," James huffs, pushing himself up using Padfoot's back, then swings a leg over to basically ride him so he won't go terrorise the little dogs.

"That's a bad idea," Harry states.

Padfoot takes off like a shot and James rides him like a fucking pony around the park until Padfoot bucks and James goes tumbling into the wet mud around the water tap and dog bowl.

After James gets cleaned up by ducking into the public bathrooms and using magic, they mess around in the playground, James and Sirius doing tricks as they jump off the swings at the highest point, throwing out backflips or demanding Remus catch them.

They then wander around the place in search of the specialty pet store the dog parent recommended to them and James drags them inside, ducking around aisles until Harry finds the stronger toys and calls the others over.

"I want that one," Sirius says and points at a giant pair of antlers to chew on.

"That's so morbid," James complains and vanishes it right off the wall rack.

"There could be cameras," Harry hisses.

"No one's here and they're definitely not holding a camera," James scoffs, not understanding the problem.

Remus is the one to put a reassuring hand on Harry's shoulder. "The magic will make the recording skip. Although it is very suspicious, we don't exactly have a bag to hide a pair of antlers so it should be fine."

"Moony, you want this one?" James asks and grabs a hefty metal ball wrapped with thick red rubber, a rope with a core of steel going through a hole in the middle.

"Moony is sleeping, do you want to leave a message?" Remus deadpans.

Sirius leans over to Harry. "Before, when we couldn't spend the night with him, we'd owl-order or transfigure toys to keep him company."

James leans over as well with a smirk. "The first few times, Moony lost his shit and ended up barking the whole night probably thinking they were intruding on his territory - I mean he wanted to play, but the anger stopped him."

"Don't tell Harry that," Remus tsks. "Tell him about when Prongs got a plushie toy stuck on his antlers the whole night."

"None of you would help me get it off!" James complains.

They end up buying three hefty toys for Moony, a squeaky pig toy for Padfoot to annoy everyone with, a little bell made for cat collars but they'll put it on Prongs' antlers instead to decorate him, and three collars with their names engraved on them because Sirius and James think that's funny.

It's going to be a nightmare getting a collar on Moony with no opposable thumbs but the Marauders don't back down from a challenge.