James' parents arrived at the school to discuss the matter of James (indirectly) putting someone in hospital and Sirius was too angry during the meeting, so the four teenagers got shoved out of the headmaster's office to let the adults talk. It ended well enough after a hefty donation to the school to hire some more competent teachers.

Voldemort has taken the situation as the jump off point for a political manoeuvre about better protecting muggleborns by visiting them as soon as the first case of accidental magic happens. Harry, wisely concerned, sent a letter to Tom asking to know the details.

(No one tells older Sirius in case he tries to kill the professor. The poor man won't be leaving St Mungo's anytime soon regardless.)

Harry, having faced so many -so many- awful teachers, is firmly on James' side and doesn't even consider perhaps James went overboard, or maybe he wasn't as panicked as he let on, or even that he might have spent some time mocking the professor in between breaking the wand and shoving the man into the closet that he knew full well held the boggart.

James regales Sirius and Remus of the tale after, and they laugh themselves silly.

It's twenty minutes into quidditch practice and the balls are all released into the field, so there's loud yelling as the other players dive around each other.

Sirius and Harry are crouched by the quidditch box. James and Remus stand back and watch the two others fumble around trying to fix the box they broke because Sirius threw out a dare and so Harry summoned it from inside the storeroom.

"Maybe try shoving it back into place again, it almost worked the first four times you tried," James scoffs.

"Either put up or shut up," Sirius complains, wresting with the box and trying to mend it with progressively Darker spells because he's about to just vanish the entire thing and make a new one.

Harry stares at the broken hinge and sighs heavily. The entire construct is magical to hold the playing balls so they can't just whip out their wands and transfigure it.

"You'll need to undo the warding on it," James begins.

There's a cry far off, too far to make out the words, and the bludger is coming from a blind angle behind the group, Sirius' head down and Harry sitting back on his heels with a confused tilt of his head, so they don't see it careening straight towards the four of them.

"Try yanking up the inside strappy part or whatever," James suggests.

The bludger hurtles towards them at close to terminal velocity and rams into Remus' palm, blowing it back until it catches, not three centimetres from the back of James' head, and then Remus hurls it down where it bounces off the sandy field and shoots back up and away.

"Maybe you'll find the runes - what was that?" James turns and looks around. "What was that sound?"

"Bludger," Remus says lazily, shoving his hand back into his pocket, palm stinging a bit.

"Did it almost hit someone?" Harry asks with a frown. "What are those beaters doing up there?"

"Exactly what they do every game; fucking nothing," Sirius mutters, pulling out the inside compartment and finding the runes like James guessed. "I'll need a bloody healer for my back after how hard I'll be carrying in the game against Slytherin."

Quidditch practice ends late and they all troop back to their dorms. Remus headed back early, and they find him in the common room with a book. James and Sirius give him enthusiastic high-fives as they pass by.

Harry breaks off, heading up to the seventh-year dorm for a shower. James kicks off his shoes, protective pads and outer robe but gets distracted walking around looking for that one very specific top he wants to wear after he has his shower, and he can't remember if it's his or if he stole it from one of his friends.

James accidentally steps on a squeaky toy half tucked under his bed and his eyes go wide in panic. He whips around just in time to see Padfoot, already airborne, tongue lolling out and a big doggy grin on his face, right before he crash-tackles James onto the bed.

James gets out of the shower, hits his head with a quick dry charm and jogs down to the common room to find the others. He hops over a stack of books, ducks around a gaggle of first-year girls and stubs his toe on the low table Harry and Remus are playing chess on.

The chess pieces complain when they get bumped, a few falling over, but James hunches over and just tries to breathe through it, waiting a moment for the pain to subside before taking a seat on the loveseat with Sirius.

"You good?" Remus asks.

"I'm a big boy, I can take it," James says confidently as he tries to yoink Sirius' magazine on motorbikes but he grabs it wrong and it slips out of his fingers and flops down onto Sirius' lap.

James looks at the others sadly. "My life is so hard."

Harry purses his lips. "Yeah. Yeah, come here."

James flops over the arm of the couch and into Harry's open arms where they hug it out until James feels better.

"Dumb deer," Sirius sighs fondly and when James sits up again, he manoeuvres them around to cuddle.

Sirius is lying over the loveseat, one knee hooked over the armrest, back against another, with James lying over his chest. Sirius' arms are around James so he can read the magazine but James is watching Harry and Remus go toe-to-toe in being so garbage at chess the pieces are teaming up to rebel against them.

The radio is playing softly in the background and the chatter is at a manageable level. Sirius props his chin onto James' shoulder as he sings along in a quiet murmur. "And my dick takes over, and I'm thinkin' 'bout your lips." He turns his head, lips brushing James' neck. "But we're too damn sober, for mis~takes like this."

They spend a few more hours in the common room not doing homework and then head upstairs. Harry goes to the seventh-year dorms but the Marauders just shut the curtains around Remus' bed and flop down, half on each other, talking about nothing in particular because they're waiting for the package to be delivered.

A pop sounds out and James quickly pulls open the bed curtains, flinging his arms out and closing his eyes. A stack of warm, fluffy laundry just out of the dryer slaps into him and falls into a pile on the bed, which James then plunges headfirst into.

"Thanks, Boop," Remus says politely and pulls his jumper out from under James, pulling it over his T-shirt and settling into the warmth.

"Thanks, Boop!" Sirius says happily, shoving James over and then rolling around in the laundry with him.

Boop nods graciously, delivers the other stacks by floating them over to the other beds and then the house elf disappears with a pop.

James pretends he doesn't notice Snape never made it back to Hogwarts after the winter holidays.

He wonders who did it.

Doesn't particularly care.

.

A/N: For those of you who forgot; Snape nearly killed James before the break. Everyone conveniently chilled out and now Snape is never showing up again.