Fifth Year
September 13th, 1975
It had been two weeks since the marauders arrived Hogwarts and everything was too quiet. At least to Sirius. No parties, no quidditch matches, and most importantly, no pranks. Sirius didn’t like the start of a new year, the only thing they did was get up to attend to classes. They didn’t get hogsmade weekends that soon so they couldn’t get out of the castle (sometimes they use James’ invisibility cloak but only in specific situations like birthdays or to get chocolate frogs for Moony when it was close to a full moon)
The weather was slightly colder than their first week back at Hogwarts, the trees were starting to lose their leaves, turning them into red, orange and brown shades. Sirius liked the autumn, he had an excuse to have hot tea and wear his leather jacket. The only problem is, he didn’t exactly adore having classes at seven in the fucking morning with an electric James Potter, Especially when the mentioned one woke him up shouting and opening his curtains without a previous warning.
“The early bird gets the worm, Black!” James shouted, maybe in attempt to make Sirius stand up just to punch him in the face. He wasn’t sure, his warm and comforting bed was quite distracting. The raven haired boy groaned in response, “Who said i want a bloody worm, you lunatic?” Sirius attempted to throw a pillow at his friend but James got out of the way before it reached him, grabbing the pillow and throwing it back at Sirius. “Don’t be mean, Wormtail is a good boy” James said, messing Sirius’ hair playfully. He obligated himself to sit up and start getting dressed before Remus yelled at James to shut up.
Except Remus was already gone.
“Where is Moony?” he asked, standing to pick his clothes from the wardrobe. He picked a white button-up shirt, his Gryffindor tie, trousers and his brown leather jacket. Pete, across the room trying to do his tie, answered him “He needed to grab a book to study for some test he has at ten” Sirius hummed and entered the bathroom to get dressed, brush his teeth and do a braid on his hair, Marlene and Mary taught him how to do it and the weather was a bit too hot for the leather jacket but he never cared about the weather, afterwards.
He got out of the bathroom and asked, “How do i look, Prongs?” he blinked dramatically, James looked at him up and down and said “Like a handsome son of a bitch”
Yes, that was one of their inside jokes.
They were late so they walked to class with Mary and Dorcas who over slept too, they had classes with Slytherin sometimes, mostly Potions, Charms and History of Magic. Dorcas was a pureblood and a Slytherin but she was against their prejudice with muggleborns and queers, so she preferred to be in their group of friends and hang out with the girls. Even if he wasn’t exactly friendly with most Slytherins because of the way they are convinced they are superior, Sirius admired her. She was bold, fun and had style. She wore Doc Martens, a deep shade of purple nail polish and long skirts when they didn’t have to use their robes (Sometimes she would stay in the Gryffindor common room with them, go to their parties and stuff).
When they opened the classroom’s door everyone’s head snapped to them, Remus, Peter, Marlene and Lily were already there and Mary apologised, “Sorry, Professor. May we go sit?” she always save her most charming smile when she needed to. Binns nodded with the most unpleasant look on his face. They walked to the back of the classroom and since James and Sirius couldn’t sit together in most classes (Sirius just knows it was all Minnie) Sirius sat beside Dorcas and Mary and James sat next to each other.
Sirius (not so accidentally) overheard Lily whispering to Mary, “Why did you get late?” and Mary said, “Love, if i said i wasn’t getting ready to meet Nick after class, would you believe me?” she winked to Evans and she chuckled, “No, i believe i would not.”
A little paper flies onto Sirius’ table, it was Remus’ handwriting. he picked it up and opened it. It read ’I would have done a braid on your hair myself if i knew you would show up in the middle of the class’ Sirius nearly laughed, since when could he do a braid? maybe the girls taught him too.
Sirius wrote back, teasing ‘that desperate to touch me, moonage daydream?’ and made the paper fly to Remus’ table, he turned around and saw the boy roll his eyes and write something back, the paper flew onto his table and it read ‘Hm, no, too much competition.’ Sirius scoffed in disbelief and wrote, ‘I knew you loved me ;) And since when do you know how to braid hair?’ and made a little plane flying to Remus’ table, when the paper was back onto his table, it said ‘My mum taught me how to, now pay attention to class, you insufferable prick.’ Sirius turned his head to look at Remus and saluted, obeying him and pretending to pay attention to whatever Binns was saying.
They had an assignment to write about the ‘dark creatures’ situation in the ministry in the previous years, which Sirius did not even think twice about not writing. He wouldn’t go into that library (He barely goes to the library to search anything but that we don’t need to mention) to search about old prejudiced rules about werewolves. They were wizards too. They were people in the first place. The thing is, his teacher did not think the same way. After the class delivered their parchments onto Binns’ table, he walked to Sirius’ and Dorcas’ table.
“Mr. Black, i hope you have a great excuse to not deliver the assignment” he said
“Actually, i do” Sirius didn’t know Binns could have a more disgusted face than before but somehow he was wrong.
“Which was?” he asked, with a not so polite tone anymore, Sirius shot his eyebrows up and replied “Well, i don’t agree with the Ministry’s policy about werewolves, vampires and stuff. They are people who have the same basic needs as any other person, and ‘dark creatures’ is a rude way to call them-“
“They are dangerous, and certainly aren’t people” Someone said across the classroom, it was Snape. He was giving Remus a disgusted look and Sirius wanted to curse him there, in the middle of the class.
“That’s rich coming from you, Snivellus. Your smell is more dangerous than any human being” James said, flipping him off.
“Mr. Potter, this type of behaviour is not tolerated in my classroom!” Binns said turning red as he snapped his head to James.
“How is that any fair? Snape offended a whole group of people and interrupted Sirius, James only-“ Marlene stood up to defend them but she was cut by their teacher “Ms. McKinnon, that’s enough. Three of you are going to stay after class so we can discuss your detention”
“Prongs, McKinnon, you prefer firewhisky or wine?” Sirius asked sarcastically.
”I said enough, Black!” The old man yelled at him and the class was dismissed.
- ✧ -
It was after lunch, the marauders were resting beneath a tree, Sirius was laying down, feeling the warmth of the sun on his arms and his head laying on Remus’ lap, the boy was reading some novel while James played with his golden snitch and Peter was half-asleep laying barely beneath the tree and the sun hitting his face. Sirius was thinking about the fact that the pre-colonial human being they call ‘professor’ gave them detention on a weekend.
“Don’t you think we should do something about today’s class?” he asked the marauders, opening his eyes and looking at James, who was staring at his golden snitch. Sirius was convinced James had a thing for that snitch, it was turning out to be an obsessive relationship between him and that tiny ball.
His gaze was on Remus, “What do you think, Moony?” he asked, Remus looked up from his book with an indifferent look on his face, “What?” he asked, clearly paying attention to his novel and barely listening to their conversation.
”About today’s first class, don’t you want to do something about it?” Sirius asked with a softened tone, if Remus didn’t want to do anything about it, he wouldn’t, but Sirius cared a lot about his friends, no exceptions towards Remus.
Moony sighed and glanced between him and James, “Yeah…” he said unsure, Sirius looked at James who shrugged, Sirius sat beside Remus and asked, “But?”
”But nothing directly to Snape, you know he knows about… my lycanthropy” he said quietly releasing the tension from his shoulders and closing his book. James and Sirius nodded in understanding.
”What should we do then?” Peter asked, the other three marauders slightly jumped from their seats and snapped their heads to Peter in surprise.
”What?” Peter asked, confused and they were quiet for a few seconds when Sirius broke the silence, “Godric, Wormtail, you sound like Miss Noris showing up from nowhere” he said and James laughed.
“Alright, but what’s the plan?”
Three heads snapped to Remus and he gave them a deep sigh, “Always the werewolf.”
September 14th, 1975
Remus was fucking brilliant
It was seven in the morning, they would have detention in thirty minutes so Sirius and James waited for Marlene in the cold common room floor, it was boiling hot at Hogwarts, and their Gryffindor Tower was known as the most warm common room of the entire castle. Which was like experiencing hell when it was hot.
“What are you two doing on the floor?” Marlene asked, she was with her hair on a bun and her Gryffindor tie was loose on her neck, almost falling down. James sat and Sirius ran to her, laying his hands onto her shoulders.
“Where the fuck have you been? one more minute in this room and we would die melted” he said breathlessly.
“I can’t even argue, i took a shower just an hour ago and my bangs are sticking onto my forehead” Marlene told him. It was relatable.
They got out of the common room and started walking to detention and Sirius was literally jumping and hiding his face to hide his grin, Remus told them not to get Marlene into their prank, since she already had detention because she defended them.
“Black, you look like you’re going to Top of The Tops, not detention. What are you going to do?” she asked, holding his shoulder so he would stop jumping.
Sirius scoffed at her, “You have so little faith in me, McKinnon, it’s devastating” he said, avoiding her question.
“It’s ridiculous, you are jumping while you walk, it seems like there’s flowers where you step and Potter is grinning so wide he looks like Lily just proposed” she chuckled glancing between them. She was evil.
James gasped, “You never know whether Lily proposed to me or not” he said, pouting.
Marlene and Sirius laughed at that, “You’re avoiding my question!” she said, drying her eyes from laughing.
James and Sirius looked at each other, they could tell her about the detention part, but not about the actual prank.
Sirius looked at Marlene, who was waiting for an answer.
”We’re going to do a tiny surprise for Binns, you will see soon.” he said that and nothing else.
They arrived the classroom and started cleaning the room, James cleaned the walls, Marlene mopped the floor and Sirius cleaned all the tables. It was hell to clean a classroom while you are melting, especially when there were no windows open.
When they finished everything, James and Sirius looked at each other, their eyes shining with mischief, James grabbed his wand from the back of his trousers and Sirius wrote in the blackboard all the rights the werewolves, vampires and centaurs had, Sirius and Peter spend their afternoon searching about it while James and Remus learned how to do the spell correctly. It was a dozen times more worthwhile doing that prank than doing the assignment. James mumbled a spell that made the words Sirius wrote stay in the blackboard permanently, unless someone used the spell to undo it (the blackboard was stained for two weeks).
“Did you search all of this to do a prank but not to write the assignment?” Marlene asked chuckling at the blackboard
”Principles” Sirius said smiling proudly.
- ✧ -
It was lunch, the Marauders were waiting anxiously for someone (or something) to burst into the Great Hall. Sirius was barely eating, James was cleaning his glasses constantly, Peter was biting his nails and looking around like Hogwarts was going to explode any moment and Remus was… eating normally.
”You are up to something.” Lily said suspicious, James raised his hands in redemption and Sirius shrugged.
Lily looked at Remus, hoping he would admit it, Remus only shrugged.
But someone bursted into the Great Hall.
the marauders were kicking themselves under the table when Binns bursted in with Dumbledore, he had massive horns onto his head and his body covered in grey fur.
”Oh, Merlin!” Marlene laughed covering her mouth while Lily hanged her mouth open.
Dorcas and Mary giggled uncontrollably trying not to laugh loudly, which was a bit hard when Binns looked like a fur ball with colossal horns.
Sirius couldn’t help anymore and laughed loud trying to cover his face, Remus kicked him under the table while he giggled.
Peter snorted, “He looks like an elderly lion with giant horns” and James laughed a bit, almost losing self control like Sirius, who was laughing hysterically.
Marlene looked at them trying to recover herself, “So this was the actual prank?” and Lily snapped her head to her in disbelief, “You knew?”
James smiled with pride.
”Never underestimate a marauder”