Brotherly Love (year 2)
At dinner that evening James casually turned towards Remus and asked, “What did you and Lily talk about?”
Remus looked up from his pork pie. “Oh, nothing. Just...the charms homework.”
“There was charms homework?” Peter asked, looking at them like a deer caught in the headlights. “I didn’t do any charms homework.”
“Well then that’s no different from usual anyway.” Sirius teased.
“You talked about the charms homework for so long?” James insisted.
“Aww, James,” Sirius grinned, “Are you jealous of our little Remu?”
“No!” James cried out, turning his attention down to his food, “Of course not!”
“You are!” Sirius laughed, “Merlin’s beard you really are.”
“No, no I'm not. Stop!” James looked around the great hall, his hand in his hair, but no one was paying them any attention.
“Remus, will you help me with the homework?” Peter asked quietly.
“Yeah, of course Pete don’t worry about it.”
“Who cares about homework?” Sirius yelled exasperatedly slamming his fist on the table. “It’s Saturday! We’ve been here almost a week and we still haven’t pranked the Slytherins.”
“He’s right.” James said nodding. “Very right.”
“Oi!” The other three all yelled at the same time. A few students turned to look at them.
“You don’t get to say anything, Potter.” Sirius said, “Even if you’re agreeing with me.”
“You lost that privilege,” Remus explained. “It’s basically your fault we haven’t done anything yet.”
“You said the- !” Peter lowered his voice, “You said the invisibility cloak was still at home! You said so yourself.”
“I know! We’ve been over this.” James moaned, “I just wanted to scare you guys! It was funny!”
“It wasn’t funny! Couldn’t you have waited until McGonagall was out of the room? Or until we were out of the room?”
“But I waited for so long!” James whined.
“Look, this is why you always get caught and I never get caught.” Said Remus simply.
“Anyhow,” James said quietly and he suddenly looked almost bashful, “If you ever happen to talk to Lily about...charms homework again, maybe….you could put in a good word for me.”
“OOOH!” Peter, Sirius, and Remus chorused.
“You like Lily Evans!” Sirius grinned, “Fabulous!”
“But Lily….is so mean.” Peter said.
“No, she isn't!” James cried, “when has she ever been mean? She’s possibly the kindest witch our age!”
“Alright, alright, no need to go so far,” Sirius said holding his hands up palms facing forward. “Besides, have you met every witch our age?”
James ignored that statement, “Well, remember in first year when she helped this Ravenclaw find his way to the charms classroom? Or when she helped a Hufflepuff, fourth year with her muggle studies homework? Or- ”
The three of them stared at him.
“No.” Sirius deadpanned simply, “We do not remember that. Because we’re normal fucking human beings.”
“And frankly,” Remus added, “It’s kind of creepy how you remember all these things about her.”
“No it’s not!” James insisted.
“Yeah it is…” Peter raised his eyebrows. “It’s very creepy.”
“You know what? I hate all of you.” James started to get up stuffing some bread into his mouth and wiping his hands on his trousers, “I have to go to detention. Adios!”
“Bye, bye!” Sirius called after him merrily, “have fun, traitor!”
“Shut up!”
_ _ _ _
The following day Sirius woke up to a loud stomping sound.
Once he opened the drapes around his bed it took his brain a few seconds to comprehend what was happening before his eyes. James was standing in the middle of the room doing an assortment of different stretches, touching his toes, rolling his neck, jumping jacks, push ups, some weird arm movements that looked slightly painful and lastly some triumphant shoulder rolls.
“What on earth are you doing?” Sirius yawned.
“Stretching!” James answered, excitedly. “Gotta get ready for my Quidditch tryouts!”
Sirius fell backwards onto his bed. “That’s today?”
“Yup!” James wiped his forehead.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to arrive, sweaty, smelly and tired?” Remus asked from the bed next to Sirius’s. He had also just woken up and was now rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I will ignore that comment because you’re tired,” James said and started to do some lunges.
“But we were going to practice the itching spell for the Slytherin Prank today!” Sirius said. “We don’t want to do that without you.”
“You’ll have to.” James said panting, “I’m sorry, lads.”
Remus sighed, “Just don’t get hurt. I don’t trust brooms.”
“I know you don't. But you’re forgetting one small thing,” James said smirking, “I’m the greatest flyer this school has ever seen.”
“You also have the greatest ego.” Peter, who had also just awoken, said. “Don’t let that drag you from the sky.”
“Alright, i’m off!” James got up and wiped his hands on his shirt. “Wish me luck.”
“Don’t die,” Remus said, dryly.
“Good luck!” Peter exclaimed and gave James a thumbs up.
Sirius wiped an invisible tear from his face, “My little boy is all grown up.”
James put a hand on his chest, “Let me just say that I can always count on you three to be there for me and suppor-”
“Go!” Remus interrupted, “You’re never going to get the part if you're late!”
“Probably right,” James considered, “Oh and happy birthday, Pete! Ta’ lads!”
And with that he hurried out of the dorm room, flashing them one last grin before tripping out of the doorway.
“What an idiot,” Remus said fondly.
Sirius jumped up from his bed and rugby tackled Peter making them both fly off of the bed, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PETE!”
With a shrill cry Peter landed on the floor with Sirius on top of him.
“Merlin's beard, you two.” Remus got up and reached out his hand to help Peter up, but the smaller boy just pulled Remus down with surprising force.
“Gah! Is this revenge for not saying happy birthday cuz I was about to!” Remus yelled.
Peter laughed and pushed the other two boys off, “Well I should go meet Enid. She’s really bloody excited--don’t know why, I’m practically as interesting as a log of wood, but...well....”
“Presents first!” Sirius exclaimed.
Peter turned red, “You didn’t have to get me anything..-”
“Oh don’t flatter yourself, Pettigrew it’s not like it was too expensive; Remus and I got it for you together. It was his idea too.”
Remus blushed, “Just give it to him, Black.”
Sirius rushed over to his trunk and pulled out a fairly small, rectangular, wrapped present. Peter ripped open the wrapping to reveal a polished black box. On the front in the centre it said in curly gold letters, 1888 Wizard Chess Box Set.
Peter grinned at them eyes going wide, “I...I don’t know what to say...thank you. This is my favourite box set. How did you know this is my favorite box set?"
"You pointed at it in a magazine once, and said this is my favourite box set," Sirius said mocking his voice.
“Now you can teach me properly, eh?” Remus smiled.
“Now you can beat him properly, more like.” Sirius grinned, winking at him.
Peter laughed, “I’ll be beating you too, Black.”
“Many have tried,” Sirius said mysteriously.
“Yeah, and they’ve all succeeded.”
“Oi!”
“Alright let’s see then.” Remus said eventually, “You vs him and we’ll see who is truly better.”
_ _ _ _
That morning was spent playing game after game until Peter had beat both Remus and Sirius multiple times. Finally, when they grew tired of playing, Peter left to meet his sister and Sirius and Remus went to the library together to practice a new shrinking solution that Remus had read in one of his most previous books, that he had brought to school from home.
“This doesn’t work,” Remus said tiredly after a few minutes. “All this does is make an object all prickly right then and there. What we want is a gradual, slow...prickle.”
Sirius laughed teasing, “Gradual slow prickle?”
“You know what I mean.” Remus mummbled.
Sirius sighed. He did. But it was a lot more difficult then it seemed, “Yeah...but how do we do that?”
“I don’t know….that’s what’s difficult. Maybe if we….hold on.” Remus jumped up from his chair and ran off to a different section of the library returning a few minutes later with a large emerald green book in his hand.
“If I remember correctly…” He muttered to himself flipping through the pages. “Then….” Suddenly he looked up at Sirius. “Can I try something?” He asked timidly.
Sirius shrugged, “On me? Sure.”
Remus hesitated, then flicked his wand. “Cedo, uhhh Lupin!”
They looked at each other.
“Say Lupin.” Remus prompted.
Sirius shrugged and then said, “Lu-OW!”
Remus’s eyes widened, “Are you ok?”
Sirius stared at him in confusement, “Yeah….Lu-ouch! What? Why can’t I say Lupi-ow?”
“Whenever you try to say the word ‘Lupin’ the spell inflicts a quick shock of pain. Nothing too horrible but enough to make you stop. You can also use multiple words,” Remus explained, “Like uh… ‘Remus’ and ‘Lupin.’ But you can’t categorize. Like...all students' names at Hogwarts. Because that would confuse the spell.”
“Ok…” Sirius said. “So if we can change the spell to not inflict pain but instead...prickle...”
Remus nodded, “Then it would work.”
“Can you focus it on only one particular thing?”
Remus nodded again, his eyes seemingly glowing with excitement. Sirius couldn’t help but grin.
He had once heard Andy say something about the eyes being a gate to a person’s soul and he remembered thinking that that was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. But now, when he looked at Remus’s eyes as they glowed bright like stars in the night sky, sometimes a caramel brown and some days a bright orange he thought that maybe there was some truth to that myth.
“Here,” Remus said, encouragingly, “Look through that and see what ingredients are needed for the potion. I’ll see what we need for the spell.”
For the next few hours, Sirius and Remus flipped through more books, trying different spells on each other and stealing a few supplies from Professor Slughorn's cupboard which deemed itself a task that seemed to just keep getting easier the more they did it. By the end of the day, while everyone was making their way towards dinner, Sirius and Remus sneaked down to the dungeons, to the Slytherin common room.
“Too bad we don’t have the cloak right now.” Remus muttered, “How are we supposed to get in?”
“I don’t know but I’ll murder James,” Sirius growled.
Remus sighed, “Alright...I might have an idea. Just give me your tie.” Sirius took off his tie and handed to it Remus. Remus took off his own as well and hid them both behind a gargoyle statue. Then he took off his robe and turned it inside out, trying to hide the red in the fabric.
“Ohhhh…” Sirius said, copying Remus’s movement.
Remus sighed again loudly, “I think we just have to wait until someone comes.”
“Do you hear that?” Sirius asked. Remus was about to say no when Sirius clamped his hand on his mouth and pushed them both behind the same gargoyle that hid their Gryffindor ties. A small, blonde, first year, girl entered their vision.
“Copperhoppers.” She said, and the portrait hole swung open. Quickly before it could close again Remus and Sirius stumbled after her, trying not to look out of place.
“You go left I go right,” Sirius whispered to Remus as the blond girl disappeared up to the girls' dormitories. Remus nodded, and they began.
_ _ _ _
The next morning all of Slytherin house arrived late to breakfast.
“What did you two do?” James asked, astonished.
“Shhh…” Remus muttered, looking down at his toast, “Don’t let anyone hear.”
“I can’t wait to see their faces.” Sirius smirked, “It’ll be hilarious!”
Lily, who was sitting a few seats away leaned towards them, “Do you four have something to do with this?”
“No.” Peter said, innocently.
“To do with what?” Sirius asked pleasantly.
Lily huffed, outraged, “You know exactly what, Black-!”
“Come on Lily,” Marlene rolled her eyes, “Let them be.”
“It’s not like anyone is missing the Slytherins.” Dorcas continued, pouring herself and Marlene some coffee. “It’s monday morning. No one cares.”
“I care!” Lily cried.
“Come on, we’ve talked about this,” said Marlene. Just then a few Slytherins stumbled in, tugging on their robes uncomfortably. By now there were about twenty or so sitting at the Slytherin table, all appearing in packs of three or four every few minutes.
“What words did you use?” James whispered eagerly. “How are their clothes already so uncomfortable this early in the morning?”
“Well let’s see,” Remus spread some butter on his bread, “Mudblood, Slytherin, uh...filthy, muggle,” He smirked before saying the last one, “Marauder...”
“And a whole bunch more that we won’t be able to remember right now.” Sirius concluded happily.
“Amazing,” Peter laughed as more Slytherins stumbled in looking embarrassed and uncomfortable.
“What did you do?” Lily snapped once again as if she was trying to catch them off guard.
“Nothing!” James insisted.
From the other three houses people were starting to stare, not only at the Slytherins, but also at the spot in the middle of the Gryffindor table where Sirius, James, Remus and Peter were sitting.
“Everyone knows it was you four!” Lily said shrilly.
“Red, I swear….” Marlene said, leaning her head against Dorcas’s.
“Brilliant.” Said, Fabian Prewett who had just arrived with his twin Gideon. “Absolutely Brilliant.” He pointed his finger at the marauders, “You bewitched their clothes to do something every time they used a slur.” He said in awe. “What does it do? I can’t tell!”
Sirius’s eyes widened, “Oi!”
“Say it even louder will you!” James said looking around at Lily, but luckily she was now talking to Marlene again. “It just….it makes their clothes all prickly and itchy. It’s horrible.” He explained happily.
Fabian shrugged and poured himself some pumpkin juice, “I can’t believe you would prank a whole house! I mean we do these things too...but never that big! Just a dungbomb or two every once in a while, ya know? Just enough to disappoint our parents.”
“You hear that, Rem?” Sirius nudged Remus’s who was now looking down at his plate, his cheeks a light pink, “Our pranks are making us famous.”
Remus just nodded slightly, avoiding his eye contact.
Sirius stopped and whispered, “Remu, you alright?”
“Yeah…” Remus whispered back, hesitantly.
Sirius looked at the Prewett twins then at him, “Is this because you think they don’t like you?”
“No. No, it’s fine.” Remus shook his head, but he still wasn’t looking up from his plate.
“Remus I know you avoid eye contact when you're nervous.”
“No, I don’t,” Remus said quickly.
“Yeah, you do.”
Remus grunted then shrugged looking out at the Slytherin table. Sirius hesitated for a split second before tackling Remus from the side, wrapping his arm around his neck and ruffling Remus’s hair.
“Oi!” Remus cried, holding his hands up. Sirius laughed maniacally, continuing to mess up Remus’s hair until the smaller boy finally looked up from the ground and into Sirius’s eyes.
“There ya go,” Sirius said smugly, letting go of Remus’s hair. “That’s better.”
“Wanker.” Remus grunted, pushing Sirius away and shaking his head.
_ _ _ _
Throughout the day many of the Slytherins stumbled through the halls in itchy cloaks, trousers, shirts, and skirts that were just getting pricklier. None of the teachers seemed to understand what was going on, but a few of the students had guesses on the type of spell and had stopped talking completely in hope that this would save them. Some students, of course, like Andromeda Black seemed completely fine as they never spoke any slurs anyway. Others like Tom Ramos were red all over their bodies and wouldn’t stop scratching at their skin every few minutes.
“I could get used to this.” Sirius grinned, as Jack Goyle scratched at his arm so much that it started bleeding.
“I’m almost starting to feel guilty…” Remus countered anxiously.
“Oh stop.” James said, starting to pack up his things. “It’s funny.”
“It’s not like anyone is getting real hurt.” Peter agreed. The four of them left the classroom as the last students and started heading up to their common room.
“Oi! Sirius!”
The Marauders turned around and saw Regulus Black running towards them at full speed. He stopped in front of Sirius, panting with his hands on his knees. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Sirius said back and they stared at each other for a moment.
“C’mon.” James said, pulling Remus and Peter away. “I need to start my homework.”
“How...uh how have you been?” Regulus asked once the others had gone.
“Good. Pretty...good.” Sirius said nodding, “Uh, you?”
“Yeah, good….Yeah.”
“Good.”
“Are you...are you the reason Mulciber hasn’t shut up about his itchy robes today?” Regulus asked slyly.
“Yeah.” Sirius answered, “So what?”
“Nothing.” Regulus said quickly, “I think it’s funny.”
Sirius perked up, “You do?”
“Yeah,” Regulus smiled.
“Well, you could help with another prank sometime.” Sirius said, “It’s even funnier when you’re the one that made it happen.”
“That would be cool.” Regulus said grinning. The two brothers looked at each other for a moment drinking in all the little details. Sirius noticed Regulus looked older. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light. It was hard to believe that this was the same boy he had grown up with. Somehow Regulus looked completely different in Slytherin robes in the midst of the Hogwarts halls, then he did at home, in his grey pyjamas sitting crisscrossed on Sirius's bed.
Sirius’s eyes shifted to the ground and he sobered up, “I’m sorry about...I’m sorry that I was…”
“That you were avoiding me?” Regulus asked weakly.
“....Yeah.”
“I’m sorry too.”
“You are?” Sirius looked up.
“Yeah.” Regulus laughed, “I don’t know if I have anything to be sorry for. I mean...It’s not my fault after all, but….I think I know how you feel.”
“I’m sorry I’m a jerk.”
“I’m sorry I’m in Slytherin.”
“I’m sorry your friends suck.”
“I’m sorry our mum sucks.”
They smiled weakly at each other. “Ok,” Said Regulus, “I think those were enough apologies for now…”
Sirius smiled sheepishly.
“See you, later, I guess?”
“Yeah.” Sirius said, “See you later.”
Sirius watched as his younger brother staggered off, running back in the direction he came from and down towards his common room in the dungeons. Sirius let a small smile play on his lips.
Maybe he still had a brother after all.