“Never in my life have I been so disappointed! To have four prefects involved in a fight! I hope detention together will have you all seeing eye to eye.”
Professor McGonagall’s rang out across the otherwise silent hallway. The two groups of students in front of her nursed injuries and looked at their feet, even the onlookers appeared ashamed by her outburst.
“Any of you who don’t need to go to the hospital wing should stay and clean up the mess you’ve left here. I’ll see all of you in my office after dinner. Oh… and Lily, Remus, Regulus, and Dorcas, your prefect privileges will be suspended for one month.”
She turned on her heel, dispersing the crowds that had gathered to watch the fight. It had started with Barty taunting Remus, Sirius had fired the first hex, and soon the entirety of both groups were fighting.
“I can clean!” Lily offered, her clothes were covered in ink, but she was otherwise unharmed, having spent the whole fight playing defense and trying to break them up.
The other Gryffindors had not fared so well, the Slytherins played dirty. Sirius was bleeding from multiple cuts across his body, Remus held his stomach, having been hit hard with a flying helmet, James was covered in swollen pustules. Although the Slytherins and Ravenclaws weren’t doing much better. They were all drenched in water, Evan had just come back to consciousness on the floor, and Pandora was growing feathers.
Dorcas went to help up Evan. “Come on, you should go to the hospital wing.”
“I’m not going with them!” He eyed the group of Gryffindors. The boys had split off to head for the hospital wing, leaving the relatively uninjured girls and Peter to pick up the mess.
“Fine, I supposed your brain couldn’t get any more damaged anyway, but Pandora’s coming with me.” She grabbed Pandora’s feathered arm and lead her, she didn’t resist.
In the hospital wing, Madame Pomfrey was tutting and fretting over the Marauders’ injuries. When Dorcas and Pandora entered, Sirius gave them a very dirty look. Dorcas rolled her eyes. “Merlin, you’re such a child.”
“If you didn’t notice, I’m about bleeding out from you lot.”
“You started it, I was just defending my friends.”
Sirius opened his mouth to say something else, but Remus put a hand on his arm. “Leave it, Pads.” He pulled the curtain across the bed they were sitting on.
- -That Evening- -
They filed into the potions classroom as one group, as Professor McGonagall had instructed, and found Professor Slughorn waiting readily for them, with cauldrons and ingredients set up around the room.
There were two chairs at each cauldron, James and Sirius moved to claim the one closest to the door.
“Not so fast, boys, I will be choosing your partners today.”
An unhappy murmur went up from the group.
“Mr. Lupin and Mr. Black—Regulus that is.”
Remus tried to halfheartedly smile at Regulus, who ignored him as they both sat quietly.
“Sirius and Mr. Crouch.”
Sirius groaned and Barty huffed, but neither complained further as they sat, side-eyeing each other.
“Mr. Potter and Mr. Rosier.”
“Alright mate?”
James extended a hand, but Evan did not shake it.
“Miss McKinnon and Miss Meadowes.”
Marlene widened her eyes at Mary, who grinned back and wiggled her eyebrows.
“Mr. Pettigrew and Miss Rosier.”
Pandora appeared strangely alarmed, and kept a wary eye on Peter as they sat.
“And of course, that leaves Miss Evans and Miss MacDonald.”
“Why do they get to work together?!” Cried out Sirius. Regulus put his head in his hands.
“Now, Mr. Black, if you want to work with your friends, you shouldn’t allow yourself to be seen throwing the first curse.” Slughorn laughed jovially.
Sirius frowned and leaned back in his chair.
“Now. Madame Pomfrey is running low on pepper-up potions and it seemed a waste to have all my best students in detention without putting their talents to use. Of course you all had better learn to get along fast because this potion requires collaboration.”
Across the room everyone glanced nervously (or suspiciously) at their partners.
“The instructions are on the board.”
He turned to his desk, evidently signifying that they were to begin.
- -Barty and Sirius- -
“Look, it’s easier if I just make the potion by myself and you stay out of my way.” Barty began to inventory the ingredients on the desk.
“I thought it was impossible to make with just one person.”
“Not if you know what you’re doing.” Barty shot Sirius a dirty look.
“How old are you, thirteen? What do you know?”
“Of course it will probably be harder if I’m being bothered by a FUCKING OBNOXIOUS—“
His raised voice caught Slughorn’s attention, “Mr. Crouch! Be civil! Do you need me to come over there and get involved?”
“No, sir.” Sirius and Barty spoke in unison.
“You know, you remind me of myself at thirteen,” Sirius hissed, “and that is not a compliment.”
In front of them, Remus and Regulus both fought to contain laughter.
“What?” Sirius barked.
“I just, I didn’t know you could be self-aware.” Regulus giggled.
“I think that must be the most offensive insult I’ve ever heard.” Grinned Remus.
“Whatever,” Sirius slouched back.
- -Regulus and Remus- -
Regulus and Remus were shocked by how well they worked together, without talking they each seemed to know exactly what the other needed and when. Initially, Regulus ignored any attempt at friendliness or conversation, but they began exchanging glances whenever Barty and Sirius began arguing again, and particularly when Sirius said something stupid.
They were first to finish their potion and each pulled out a book to wait for their friends. Regulus tried to inconspicuously sneak a look at Remus’ book, but Remus noticed. He showed the cover “Beginner French.”
“I’m trying to learn.”
Regulus tilted his head, “Pourquoi?”
“Uh- oh, parce-que—“ He said very slowly, Regulus winced slightly at the pronunciation, “Sirius keeps saying things to me in French, and he won’t tell me what they mean.”
“Like what? Maybe I can translate.”
“I haven’t been able to pick up any words yet, I don’t think they’re the kind of thing to be in a beginner dictionary.”
“Hmm. Well it’s really useful if you can learn, Panda and Evan and I use it all the time to talk privately around others.” Regulus had turned toward Remus and was talking more animatedly.
Remus smiled at him, “What are you reading?”
Regulus appeared to catch himself and retreated back a bit into his book. “Poetry.”
“What kind?”
“You wouldn’t know it, it’s in Latin.” He turned away, cutting off the conversation.
- -Evan and James- -
“So, which part do you want to do?” James asked the back of Evan’s head where it lay on the table. Evan just grunted.
“Okay, how about I cut and you stir.”
Evan sat up, revealing a knife in his hand which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. “Non, I cut.”
“Fuck, man, where did that come from.”
Evan shrugged, “It’s my lucky knife.”
“Mm, I have a lucky snitch, haven’t lost a quidditch match since I got it.”
Evan rolled his eyes and began to cut ingredients. Mary asked James a question and he carried on conversation with her as he worked, Lily staunchly ignoring him and his constant attempts to include her in the conversation as she had since the fight. Eventually Marlene declared that she had to use the bathroom, and Mary quickly volunteered to escort her.
After a moment working in silence, James asked, “So did you, like, grow up in France?”
“Huh?”
“The accent.”
“Oh, yes, it’s tradition in my family to send the children away for primary school.”
“What, so you don’t get to see your parents for like five years?”
“Six.”
“Whoa, that must be sad.”
Evan turned toward him, looking confused, “Sad how?”
Just then Barty came up to their table, closely followed by Sirius.
“Why are you following me?”
“If you get to talk to your friend, I want to talk to mine.”
“Finished already?” Asked James.
“Light work,” Barty flashed a grin at Evan, “Want a cig?”
“Help finish this and I’ll give you something better.”
Barry’s eyes lit up, “Harvest season?”
Evan pushed the mortar and pestle toward him and he began to grind the ingredients within.
Sirius’ attention had been piqued by the comment, “You sell?”
“You buy?” Barty looked at him suspiciously.
“We have a quidditch game next week, we could use something for the party when we win. Or to get over the loss, I suppose. What kind of stuff do you have?”
“Anything that grows.” Replied Evan, hunched over the leaves that he was finely mincing.
“That’s magical and muggle.” Barty cut in, “guaranteed widest stock at Hogwarts.”
Sirius smiled at James, who kept his attention squarely focused on his cauldron. “We’ll talk later.”
- -Pandora and Peter- -
Pandora flinched as Peter grabbed the knife, Peter jumped back on instinct, “What?”
She didn’t respond, just kept her large brown eyes trained on him. He turned to give James an incredulous look, which was met with a shrug and an apologetic smile.
They worked in tense silence for a while as the others finished their potions around them. Suddenly their potion began fizzing and turned a sickly greenish brown. Pandora shrieked and Regulus seemed to materialize next to her.
“You’ve added the peppermint leaves too early.”
“So do we have to start over?” Peter slouched down at the idea of having to stay even longer.
“No, there’s a way to neutralize it. Only…” He put his hand to his face. “I don’t remember it so we’ll have to ask Barty for help.” He said sullenly, “You can go, we’ll finish it.”
Peter nodded at him appreciatively and scurried to meet James and Sirius.
- -Dorcas and Marlene- -
Marlene sat watching Dorcas measure out ingredients. Then quickly looked away as Dorcas turned to her, pretending to check on the temperature of the fire.
“So… make any progress on your patronus yet?” They had been sitting next to each other in defense against the dark arts all year, but had barely talked.
“No.”
“Me neither, but Professor Bullion said most NEWT students can’t do one properly so I’m not too worried.”
“Hm.” Dorcas appeared intently focused on slicing the bark in front of her evenly.
“Have you seen Remus’ though? You can see every detail in its fur. He said he’ll show me how over the weekend, so hopefully I’ll figure out then. You can come if you want, we can figure it out together.”
Dorcas turned to look at her. “Yeah, ok.”
“Really?” Marlene’s face turned quite pink and she quickly tried to hide by bending over her cauldron, letting her hair fall in her face.
“I think that would be helpful, yeah.”
“Ok, cool! That would be really cool.”