First Day Fuckery
Sleeping in a magical castle is easy. Being awake in one is considerably less so.
At seven a.m. sharp, a loud, droning wail resounds through all the dormitories, prying open students’ eyelids with its banshee-esque racket. By eight o’clock, the entire school is chewing tiredly on toast, eggs, and various other breakfast foods down in the Great Hall. Most people are bleary-eyed and mildly grumpy, only mollified by the food on their plates, but the first years of each house are a wide awake and mentally curdled mix of excitement and nervousness.
James and Sirius are among the more excited students, chattering loudly to each other and animatedly discussing their schedules, which are two pieces of wood magically hinged together with a timetable etched into their polished surfaces. One had appeared on each of their nightstands earlier that morning, along with their robes, now cleared of the leftovers from their food fight the previous night.
Remus, who now dons the school uniform, provided as well by whoever laundered James’ and Sirius’ robes, is a bit more on the nervous side. And, though he doesn’t address it aloud, Peter, who has a case of first day jitters as well, offers him the last piece of cinnamon French toast as a silent condolence. Remus takes it with a small, grateful smile and gnaws at it quietly as James reviews random facts on mountain goats on a tangent he had reached from discussing a class called Charms.
Sirius, who had just bounced off to the Slytherin table to hound Regulus about his class schedule, comes racing back to his seat with a grin on his face just as James reveals that mountain goats aren’t actually goats at all and in fact associated closer with the gazelle and the antelope.
“We’re doubling with the Slytherins this year,” Sirius says happily. “I’ve made Reggie promise to try and sit next to us in class.”
“Great,” says James brightly, promptly forgetting about mountain, not-goats, goats. “We’ve got Potions first, haven’t we?”
“Yeah,” Sirius nods. “Some bloke named Slughorn is teaching it, he’s Slytherin’s head of house. Who finished the French toast?”
“I did.” Peter says. “Who’s our head of house?”
Sirius pouts, ignoring Peter’s question, and stands up on the bench, peering down the long table in search of more French toast.
“McGonagall’s head of Gryffindor,” says Remus.
James frowns at him. “How’d you know that?”
“I asked the paper on the bulletin board.”
“Oh.”
“Did you happen to ask it where Potions is?” Sirius asks through a mouthful of French toast he’s just nicked from a plate farther down the table. “I forgot to ask Reggie.”
“It’s somewhere in the dungeons,” Peter says. “We can just follow the others or something.”
“Sounds good,” Sirius shrugs. He scarfs down another piece of his breakfast, and the ever-present redhead, who they now know to be called Lily Evans, huffs in annoyance from a few seats down and makes a face at her plate.
“What’s her problem,” Sirius grumbles.
“You stole her French toast,” Remus quips in amusement.
“It was not her French toast,” Sirius whines.
“She was reaching for it,” says James.
“She was not,” Sirius protests.
“Her hand was all the way out,” says Remus.
“She was practically touching it, mate,” adds Peter.
“Traitors, the lot of you.” Sirius bites furiously into his last piece of stolen toast.
Remus salutes with a flourish. “Anytime.”
They laugh merrily as Sirius pulls a face and resolves to eat with extra relish, just to shove it in their faces that, Evans or not, it’s his toast now. Evans sniffs haughtily and stands up, marching past them to the Slytherin table, presumedly to chat with Severus Snape, though not without side-eying Sirius sharply.
It’s not much of a surprise that she doesn’t like them, specifically James. He did antagonize someone who, judging by the way they link arms and leave the Great Hall together, seems to be good friends with her.
Still, James feels unabashedly guiltless for his row with Snape. In his mind, the oily git shouldn’t have been bad-mouthing his new friends if he didn’t want problems.
He does think it’s a shame that she now dislikes him, however. She is, after all, very pretty.
A loud noise, not unlike the wail that woke the school that morning, announces the end of breakfast. The tables clear of food instantly and students start flooding to the exit, anxious to be on time to class.
Potions turns out to be a lot of fun. It starts with Professor Slughorn, a pudgy, balding man with perpetual dark circles, giving a rather short and uninspired speech about the majesty of potion-making, which leaves no one in doubt that he doesn’t much like his job.
For their first assignment, they are instructed to mix just about anything together and write down what each ingredient does according to their keen, first year sensibilities. This goes about as well as a rhinoceros singing opera to a crowd of fine-tuned critics.
A few things are made clear as the class progresses.
One, that Slytherins and Gryffindors are supposed to be, in the melodramatic movie cliché sense of the phrase, bitter rivals. Which is made crystal clear by the dirty looks being shot at Remus and Regulus, who pair up as enthusiastically as near-strangers can and create a vile concoction of eel livers, fruit-fly hearts, and ordinary beans (among other equally fetid ingredients) that spews an odor like dung and is highly reactive to any sort of environmental or ingredient change.
Two, Slughorn, the unbiased saint of a man that he is, strongly favors the students in his own house.
He lingers longer around their tables, offering subtly veiled hints of advice, and awards ten points to Slytherin for “keen sense in garnering physical reactions” after a boy called Enoch Wilkes adds one too many chicken teeth to his cauldron and accidentally makes it explode, even though James manages to blow half his eyebrows off within the first five minutes of class.
Three, that Lily Evans is an accidental suck-up.
Mistakenly a teacher’s pet, an unintentional know-it-all, a subconscious kiss-ass, if you will. She smiles, and laughs, and asks a million questions, and seems to know exactly how to compliment Slughorn and the subject of Potions in a way that has him beaming in delight almost constantly.
Accidental because, as Peter says, “She’s just as nervous as me, you know. I think she’s just glad he doesn’t think she’s a stupid Muggleborn.”
A suck-up because, as Sirius says, “It was my bloody French toast.”
And whether it’s accidental or not, the fact remains that Lily Evans seems to enamor Slughorn in a way that no other student, never mind a Gryffindor, or even a Slytherin, has so far managed to.
The class ends after two hours of juvenile experimentation, leaving the classroom looking a little worse for wear, as well as leaving several more students than just James with less hair than they had arrived with.
Slughorn dismisses them with a bit of well-practiced cheeriness, his eyes clearly screaming with relief as everyone bottles up a bit of their mixtures and hands them in. At least, those whose potions are still a workable liquid, for many students’ concoctions have either congealed thickly or completely evaporated.
Remus scoops some of his and Regulus’ mishmash of putrid ingredients into a vial for Professor Slughorn, then lingers as the rest of the class begins the arduous task of cleaning up their disasters.
James, Sirius, and Peter ignore their own messes to crowd around Remus’ and Regulus’ cauldron of radioactive, brown soup and eye it curiously. Remus turns away for a moment and Regulus stirs the potion a few more times with the blackened stump of a wooden spoon, most of which has already dissolved into the writhing depths of sludge.
Regulus shakes his head at Wilkes, who’d just motioned for him to follow the other Slytherins, the majority of whom have persuaded Slughorn to vanish their potions instead of scrubbing it out of their cauldrons, and goes to help Remus, discarding what is left of the spoon, who is ladling their potion into little bottles with a metal cup (which is smoking ominously) and stowing them in his bag.
Peter leans down and drops a loose bean into the pot. It froths menacingly and releases a thick puff of brown steam. The boys recoil and pull their robes up over their noses, trying to block out a pungent scent of rotten eggs, manure, and all that is wrong in the world.
“How the hell did you manage this?” asks Peter incredulously. “It’s practically alive!”
“And absolutely rancid,” Sirius says, his awe-filled voice slightly muffled by the fabric of his robes.
“My dad would love this,” James grins, cautiously tipping another bean into the pot and setting off another cloud of foul-smelling perfume. Regulus bats his hand swiftly away when he reaches for another one and shoves two more bottles of the stuff into Remus’ bag.
“Beans,” said Remus. “Thats what makes it so reactive. The eel livers help with the smell. I think they might’ve been from an electric eel, because it shocked me when I added them.”
“Kidney beans?” Peter inquires. “My brother stinks up something awful whenever he’s had those.”
Remus shakes his head. “Pinto. And a bit of Garbanzo. I wanted to be classy.”
Peter hums in approval and throws another bean into the potion’s bubbling depths. “Can I add some Kidney to one of those bottles? For research purposes?”
Remus shrugs, “Sure.”
It’s Sirius who knocks the next stray bean into the cauldron, grinning almost manically at the stench it emits. “You’re a right genius, you are, Remus. What’s it for?”
“I helped make it too, you know,” Regulus says icily. “Stop knocking stuff in, we’re past the point of improving it. It disintegrates everything.”
“I’d say that’s as improved as it gets,” James agrees.
“But what’s it for?” Reiterates Sirius.
“Marauding,” says Remus promptly. “You got me started, so I hope you’re ready for my full support.”
“I like you better and better every second, Remus,” Sirius proclaims.
“What the hell is “marauding” supposed to mean?” asks Regulus suspiciously. “Don’t tell me you’ve started a gang. Oh Merlin, are you in a gang, Sirius? Am I in a gang?”
“This can’t be a gang,” Peter says a bit worriedly. “I promised not to join any gangs.”
“You promised not to join gangs?” James asks curiously, at the same time as Sirius says, “Why the bloody hell would you not want to join a gang?”
“You’ll be flayed alive if this is a gang,” Regulus declares. “And I will not be attending your funeral.”
“Oh, come on, Reggie. Have a bit of fun!” Sirius exclaims. He dumps about ten more Pinto beans into what’s left of the potion. It fizzes with a smelly malice that forces everyone to take a step back from the rim of the cauldron. Slughorn lets out an audible sigh from the front of the classroom.
“This cannot be a gang,” Peter presses.
“No one is in a gang,” Remus says exasperatedly.
Peter sighs in relief, but Sirius frowns. “Not even a little gang?” he whinges, pouting dramatically.
Remus raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him and hoists his bag, which is now full of little, clinking bottles of dung potion, over his shoulder. “Not even a little gang.”
He says it with such finality that Sirius looks a little impressed.
“Sir, yes sir,” he salutes with a grin.
Remus rolls his eyes emphatically, but something akin to gentle fondness twinkles behind the annoyance.
One of the Gryffindor girls, Donna Kingsley, walks over with her face pulled into a scowl and says, “Are you lot done stinking up the classroom? None of us much fancy smelling like rot for the rest of the day.”
“Have you got experience smelling like rot for extended periods of time, Donna?” Regulus asks lightly.
“Very funny, Black,” she retorts, plainly unamused. “Just hurry up and clean your cauldrons. You’ll be late for Transfiguration at this rate.”
It’s James who answers her as she walks away, smiling unfailingly. “Thanks, Donna, will do.”
They do clean their cauldrons, though Sirius grumbles all the way, and they are not, in fact, late for Transfiguration. They arrive a bit early, against all odds, thanks to Peter falling through a tapestry and discovering a hidden staircase.
The Transfiguration classroom is very neat and prim and tastefully draped with emerald velvet. The students enter and seat themselves in the neat rows of desks set out for them, only to glance around and realize that there is a distinct lack of a teacher.
There are shelves of books and smaller shelves of tea leaves and even a basket of yarn on the absent teacher’s desk in which a pretty, tabby cat lies, eyes sharp and tail flicking, as if daring puny mortals to see what happens if they pet her, but the only humans in the room are the first year Slytherins and Gryffindors.
There are whispers and questions and a few suggestions to leave, but, before anyone can move from their seats, the clock strikes the hour and the cat leaps off the desk and disappears.
A person appears in its stead in the tall, imposing figure of Professor McGonagall, earning startled gasps of awe from many of the first years, mostly from the Muggleborns.
Peter’s eyes bug comically out of his head, and Lily Evans says, “Oh!”
A Gryffindor girl called Mary MacDonald nearly screams, earning a glare from Dorcas Meadowes, her Slytherin desk mate.
Remus looks impressed, but not very surprised, and he even laughs a little when Peter turns to him and says breathlessly, “Did you know people could do that?”
Professor McGonagall lets them marvel for a moment, then clears her throat and calls the room to attention.
“Welcome to Transfiguration,” she says, her lips unsmiling, but her eyes twinkling happily. “I am Professor McGonagall. In this class, you will learn to change, transform, and alter yourself and your surroundings by use of spells and incantations. In shorter words, you will be turning something into something else. Transfiguration, which is defined as a subsection of Wizardry, is among the most difficult magic you will learn at this school. Some are more naturally talented than others, of course, but do not be discouraged by failure. Practice does not make perfect, but it does make improvement. I’d like you all to write down what I just said, please, and then take out your wands and we will get started on our first assignment.”
She waves her wand at the wall behind her desk and a neat summary of the words she just spoke appears in neat writing. There’s a scramble of noise as everyone digs into their bags for parchment, quills, and ink.
Remus makes a face as he starts writing and accidentally spills a bit of ink. He leans to Peter, who is just as inexperienced with a quill as he is, to whisper, “Honestly, ink is so messy, why can’t we just use pencils?”
Peter stifles a giggle and says, “Because that’d be way too convenient, obviously.”
Professor McGonagall throws them a sharp look and they quickly return to wrestling with getting the ink on their quills to behave, smiling to themselves behind their parchment.
When everyone has finished copying notes, set their quills to rest, and excitedly drawn out their wands, the words fade from the wall and McGonagall produces a box of matches from the depths of the basket of yarn on her desk and passes each student a match.
When everyone has been properly armed with a match, (it gets extremely easy to tell who has so far been raised exclusively in the wizarding world, because many students don’t recognize the object), new words write themselves on the wall.
Mutare Lignum Acus.
And below that, they spell themselves phonetically.
Mmoo-tah-rray Lihn-yoom Ah-kooss.
“This is a spell that, when performed correctly, should change your matchsticks into needles,” says Professor McGonagall, not bothering to explain what matches are actually used for to those who are confused.
“In the coming years, you will learn to not require such specific spells to perform small tricks like these. You will rely mostly on the vividity of your mindpower instead of the specificity of the spell. And, eventually, magic as little as this will be as simple as snapping your fingers. For now, we rely on precise wording to control the results of a spell, but with enough practice in visualization and technique, you will be able to produce a needle with just the first word: Mutare. I’d like you to all repeat after me, please. Mutare Lignum Acus.”
The entire class echoes her loudly, “Mutare Lignum Acus!”
“Very good,” she nods in approval. “One more time. Mutare Lignum Acus.”
“Mutare Lignum Acus!”
“Excellent, now, place the tip of your wand to the wood of the match.”
Professor McGonagall moves behind her desk, procures a match for herself and demonstrates for them to see. The class carefully mirrors her movements.
“And recite the spell.”
All goes to chaos as everyone attempts, for the very first time, to change their matchstick into a shiny needle. A few achieve it on the first try, James and Sirius among them.
Dorcas Meadowes smiles proudly as she picks up a thin glint of metal from in front of her. Mary MacDonald’s match is a dull, gray color in contrast.
Lily Evans succeeds too, much to the chagrin of Enoch Wilkes, who is sitting just behind her and glaring daggers at the back of her head, evidently jealous that the Muggleborn gets more than a bendy bit of wood, which is what his first try gives him.
Remus ends up with a metal matchstick, something he frowns at, and Peter achieves a wooden needle that draws a laugh from the back of his throat when it bursts into flame as soon as he tries the incantation again.
The rest of class is spent repeating Mutare Lignum Acus over and over and over again, even for the few that had managed a needle on their first try. By the end of it, all the first years are thoroughly tired and ready for lunch in the Great Hall.
Professor McGonagall dismisses them for lunch with tidings of good work and a request that they practice the spell in their free time as a sort of unofficial homework.
She halts James and Sirius on their way out (stopping Regulus, Remus, and Peter by extension) and says authoritatively, “I hope you two haven’t forgotten about your detention next Monday. Seeing as how you both ended up in my house, you will be completing it in my company. I’m trusting you to be on time. The paper in the common room should be able to tell you how to find my office.”
She then sends them off to lunch with a wave of her hand and a strange, knowing look in the direction of Remus’ bag.
Remus adjusts the bag full of explosive bottles of potion and trails after his friends, careful not to giggle until McGonagall is out of hearing range.
It’s after lunch, during a painfully mind-numbing class called History of Magic (which, much to many people’s amazement, is taught by a ghost of all things), when the potion is finally put to good use.
Most students have gone glassy eyed and sleepy as the pale, shimmery form of their teacher reads from his papers in a flat, droning tone. His voice has a siren-like power, though less in the sense of being beautiful and more in the sense of lulling its victims into a trance of such boredom that only few can withstand.
Regulus is taking notes on Professor Binns’ introduction as diligently as he can manage when he feels a jarring point of pressure in his back.
He ignores it at first, suspecting Sirius of fooling with him as he has done so many times previously, but the poking stays annoyingly consistent until he just can’t bear it anymore. He snaps his head back to look behind him, ready to give his brother a sharp pinch on the leg for bothering him, but it isn’t Sirius jabbing his foot into Regulus’ spine, it’s Remus Lupin.
Regulus nips the offending leg anyway, or he at least tries to, but Remus is quick to avoid the brunt of his attack.
Remus smirks and teasingly hovers his leg back within Regulus’ reach, but Regulus rolls his eyes and resumes writing notes. Remus is having none of this academic nonsense apparently, because he shoves Regulus again almost immediately.
“What do you want?” Regulus hisses impatiently, turning to try and punish the leg that poked him, and succeeding this time.
Remus is unaffected by the assault on his leg. In fact, it amuses him a bit, because, for all the dramaticism, it barely hurt at all.
“How would you feel about putting our potion to good use?” Remus asks with quiet eagerness. His eyes glint with a subtle shine of mischief.
“I suppose you fancy a detention too?” Regulus says irritably. His spine aches a bit in the place he was shoved.
“Not really,” says Remus, “but I’m not planning on getting a detention.”
“So, you’re blaming a poor bystander then? I can’t say I’m opposed, but I’d prefer it wasn’t me.”
“It won’t be you, don’t worry. You’re not the only one whose help I’m enlisting.”
Regulus’ eyes narrow, and he looks hastily to where Sirius is sat with Peter at his side. He’s holding a small, glass bottle that is full of brown potion, and there’s a familiar smirk curling its way around his mouth. Peter’s hands are clasped tightly around an identical bottle, and when Regulus looks to find James, who is sat just behind Remus, he sees another container of potion clutched in his fingers.
“No,” he says firmly. “As if I’m going to help my idiot brother get in trouble again .”
“He’s already in trouble,” says Remus matter-of-factly. “Besides, this class is so boring my brain is practically melting out of my ears. How are we supposed withstand an hour and forty-five minutes of this without causing a little mayhem?”
“We’re supposed to be learning, not blowing stuff up.”
“As if we’re going to be tested on the things we’re taught on the first day,” Remus says passively. “In any case, if you’re not going to help, at least promise you won’t blab.”
“Of course I won’t blab. I’m a heathen, not a buzzkill.”
“You’re an accomplice too, you know. You helped me brew the stuff. I wouldn’t have gotten it so potent if it wasn’t for you.”
“Of course I am,” Regulus sighs. “Of bloody course I’m an accomplice.”
He puts his quill down and stares at the notes he’s managed to jot down before his vision had started to blur from the sheer monotony that is Professor Binns’ introductory lecture.
The words swim around him, his perfect script melting into unintelligible streaks of black ink. Binns says something vague about unlocking secrets of the past, and some carefully crafted, obedient part of Regulus fractures inside of him.
He turns back to Remus and says, “Give me a stupid bottle.”
It goes marvelously.
James takes the most risk, choosing to throw his bottle first. It crashes on the wall behind Professor Binns and explodes in a smoky cloud of tangible nastiness. The entire class shrieks in surprise, having been rudely shaken out of their stupor, then groans in disgust, almost in unison, as another bottle, Peter’s, shatters near the first one’s crash site and doubles the strength of the odor emanating from the brown smog.
Professor Binns doesn’t even look up from his papers.
Sirius aims his bottle at the right wall of the classroom, sending the bottle on a straight beeline for the peaked glass windows that illuminate the murk of the ugly, brown mist with rays of sunlight. No windows break, but the bottle does, and it spews more rotten miasma onto the students, thickening both the rank fog around them and the general feeling of irritation toward marauding as a sport or pastime.
Regulus chucks his bottle when he’s absolutely sure nothing can be traced back to him through the dense fog. He aims for the same spot as James and Peter, but it ends up a bit off. Instead of breaking against the wall behind Professor Binns, who has since looked up from his notes and is desperately trying to gain control of the situation in his dull, droning voice, it sails neatly through his head and explodes behind him like a forgotten land mine.
Binns notices this one, but he doesn’t get angry. His transparent face doesn’t change expression. He doesn’t even use his dull voice to try and reprimand whoever he thinks might have committed the juvenile offense of nuking his classroom with a potion that smells like a sewer on a hot day. Come to think of it, he might not be able to smell it at all, what with the whole “being dead” thing.
What he does do is blink his round, colorless eyes at the class of first years and the dissipating smoke of the potion they’re all trying to shield themselves from with their sleeves and robes.
Then he turns a full one hundred and eighty degrees and floats through the wall, out of the classroom.
The class seems to take this as an order, because as soon as Professor Binns’ ghostly back has disappeared, there’s an upsurge of movement toward the door, and the classroom is cleared in about thirty seconds of rushing and scrambling.
The smoke slowly dissipates into faint wisps of fetid mist, revealing that only the perpetrators of the crime have remained inside.
“I think that went quite well,” Sirius says happily, removing his sleeves from where they’re covering the lower half of his face.
James coughs a bit and wipes off a thin layer of grime from his glasses where the potion has condensed in sizzling, brown droplets. “I believe I’m inclined to agree with you,” he declares.
“Did we just make a professor quit?” Peter wonders incredulously. “I’m not really sure what him floating through the wall is supposed to mean, honestly.”
“Neither am I,” Remus laughs, “But I’d say we’ve achieved something. God, that man was about to bore my ears off.”
“Yes, it’s quite the achievement,” Regulus nettles, his arms folded over his chest. “Truly an accomplishment to beat all others. Making a teacher quit on the first day”
“Wasn’t your bottle the one that went through his head?” Peter asks quizzically. “If anything-”
“That was an accident,” Regulus mutters, quickly gathering up his abandoned notes and shoving them into his bag. “Now move along, will you?”
He turns to Sirius and says, “We’ll be late for dinner.”
James cocks his head and furrows an eyebrow. “Dinner isn’t for ages.”
Regulus sends James a venomous glare, as if willing his head to explode, and reiterates his words to his brother. “Sirius, I said, we’ll be late for dinner.”
Sirius groans. “But Reg, they’re not even-”
Regulus grabs Sirius on the arm and hauls him out of the classroom before anyone else can get a word in, ignoring his brother’s whining protests on the way.
Remus and Peter eye each other with a strange look in their eyes but choose not to comment as they too pack up their things and leave. James blinks, a bit baffled, and says quietly, “But dinner isn’t...” before shrugging it off and trailing after his friends.
Neither Sirius nor Regulus even make it to dinner at all that night, which, in James’ words, is truly a shame, because he has really been looking forward to “bowling” again.
As James, Remus, and Peter exit the Great Hall after dinner concludes, they spot the Black brothers at the top of the Grand Staircase. They’re whispering unintelligible words to each other, their faces blank and stony. Regulus stands with his arms folded over his chest, as stiff and unreadable as always, while Sirius fumbles with a sealed, black envelope in his hand, his jaw tense.
As per usual, James makes the first move towards them, waving enthusiastically and calling up, “Hey! Are you guys sending a letter?”
They jolt a little at his voice and Sirius’ empty hand finds Regulus’ arm and clutches it tightly. A knee-jerk reaction, it seems, though he gets over it quickly and relaxes his grip when he sees the one calling his name.
Sirius smiles easily and nods in greeting. “Yeah, Reg and I were heading up to the Owlery.” His grin falters for a moment as he notices the direction they’re coming from.
“Did we miss dinner?”
“Yeah, but it’s no big deal,” Peter says cheerfully. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bulging lump of napkins. “I saved some sandwiches.” He holds them up with a proud grin.
“Oh, Pete, you’re an angel. I’m going to hug you right now.” Sirius bounds down the stairs and gives Peter a quick squeeze around the waist.
Peter breathes a little laugh and holds out the sandwiches. “You’re welcome.”
Sirius opens the napkin and takes a big bite, groaning appreciatively. “Oh, thank you, ” he says, trundling back up the staircase with James, Peter, and Remus at his heels. He holds out a sandwich to Regulus, who takes it a bit gingerly, but seems to find it delicious all the same.
Armed with sandwiches and looking considerably happier, Sirius and Regulus start towards the moving staircases.
Hogwarts castle, though only seven floors, belaying the many towers and turrets, takes forever to climb. Its moving staircases are an immense challenge for those unacquainted with the layout, and the castle occasionally presents new quirks in the form of a vanishing step or an entire set of stairs that sucks students in like quicksand. By the time the five of them reach the Owlery, they can’t help but wonder, though it seems to be what it was built for in the first place, if the castle likes housing an entire school within its walls at all.
The Owlery is a round, airy room located at the very top of one of the many towers in Hogwarts, and, as the name suggests, is full to the brim with owls. Large, arched windows carve out most of the space on the walls, letting in chilly drafts of wind that bring the temperature down to bitingly cold, even for the beginning of September. The floor is strewn with hay, pellets, and droppings from at least a hundred owls sitting on rows of perches throughout the entire room, all blinking widely in the dark with their luminous eyes.
Sirius strolls forward immediately to a black barn owl who is preening its feathers with an air of bored self-importance. It stops preening and stands at attention when he gets near enough, and he holds out the dark envelope to it and says, “For Mother and Father,” in a dead tone of voice. It chirps and takes hold of the letter in its beak and promptly flies out of one of the many pane-less windows, instantly camouflaging into the inky backdrop of the night sky.
Behind Sirius, Regulus stands with his arms folded, his face blank and lax as tens of owls periodically blink at them from around the room. James has disappeared between a row of perches and can be heard faintly cooing at one of the birds in another language.
Peter stands near the doorway with Remus, a fascinated expression on his face.
“Owlery, huh?” He asks.
Remus nods. “Yup.”
Peter tilts his head and chuffs a little laugh. “I suppose it would be silly to think that the post would deliver all the way up here.” He tilts his head in contemplation. “Still, though. Owls.”
Remus chuckles and shrugs noncommittally. “Eh, Wizards. What can you do.”
Regulus rolls his eyes beside them and lets crack a little smile. “It’s quick, you know. Owl post.”
“Still,” Peter counters, “they poop.”
“And your postmen don’t?”
“Not on the floor.”
“Touché, Pettigrew.”
Sirius turns toward them, his eyes looking a little less empty, and asks, “Where’d Jamie go?”
Remus points in his general direction and James, completely hidden by tall perches and ruffling feathers, yells out, “I’m back here- AGH!”
There’s a loud crash from the other side of the room, and a large row of owls squawk and flap into the air as their stands give out from beneath them.
They all rush forward immediately, carefully stepping around some owls who hadn’t been quick enough to fly upwards and are now hooting and hopping around moodily on the floor, unharmed but plainly displeased.
James pulls himself up from the ground, holding what looks like a dirty mound of white feathers in one arm and dusting the hay and grime from his robes with the other. Behind him, a familiar head of red hair flashes, even in the near-dark, and Lily Evans, apparently having fallen as well as appeared out of nowhere, pulls herself up from below a window, her hands full of little, white objects.
The fluffy mass in James’ arms lets out a loud screech and wriggles wildly. James loosens his hold on the thing, revealing it to be a mostly white owl with patches of dusty gray here and there and a crazed look dancing in its yellow eyes. It screeches again and claws at James’ arm, flapping its wings and wriggling as if someone poured itching powder over its back.
“Down, Toby, down!” James splutters, adjusting his glasses, which are skewed sideways from the fall, and spitting a few feathers out of his mouth.
The owl, Toby, yelps loudly and takes off toward a window, only to promptly fly straight into a thin strip of wall between two of them with a loud thump. She slides forlornly into a pitiful heap on the floor with a defeatedly pained squeak.
“Wow,” James blinks. “That was so stupid it was kind of impressive.”
Remus lets out a startled guffaw and immediately feels guilty. “Is he alright?” he asks quickly, silently repenting for getting a laugh out of the owl’s misery.
“She’s fine, don’t worry,” says James passively, walking over to the owl and picking her up under the wings, smoothing her feathers and cuddling her up in his arms, once again cooing in a different language. Toby lets out a sad squeak and closes her eyes against his chest, apparently too tired out by the crash to try and make a run for it.
Regulus snorts loudly. “Silly owl,” he says, a bit fondly.
Peter, who is a bit wary of owls and their claws, even more so now that they’re all hooting disdainfully at their overturned perches and the culprits that bowled them over, turns his attention to Lily, who is standing like a deer caught in headlights.
“Are you alright?” he asks softly.
She nods abruptly and answers in a carefully clipped tone. “I’m fine.”
“Ok. Good,” says Peter, smiling awkwardly. He looks down at the objects she has clutched in her hands and asks, “What are those?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly, dropping them and sweeping them out of sight with her feet. “Are you all going to clean up, or are you just going to stand there?”
“Those looked like bones,” Sirius says shrewdly. “Why do you have bones?”
“Stop deflecting,” she says testily. “You’d better clean this up you know. It’s almost curfew.”
“Definitely bones,” says Remus, who has leaned down to pick one of them up. “Some kind of bird.”
“How do you know that?” James asks curiously, still lazily petting Toby, who seems to have drifted off to sleep.
“Uh, I like birds?” Remus flounders a bit. “Does it matter?” He turns to Lily and hands her the little pile of ribs and vertebrae she’d tossed. “You’re allowed to like bones, Lily. It’s not that weird, honestly, considering this castle holds a steady supply of fruit fly hearts in a special closet in a dungeon of all things. And that we have a ghost for a teacher.”
Lily turns as red as her hair and drops the bones again. “Uh, I don’t,” she stutters. “I mean, I do. Like bones. I do like bones. Just... just not these ones. So, thanks, but- excuse me.”
She lowers her gaze, still looking flushed with embarrassment, and walks briskly out of the Owlery.
“That was weird,” Peter says bluntly. “We should probably clean up and never mention that ever again. She looked horrified.”
There’s a general consensus of, “Yeah, alright,” and everyone sets to work righting the owl stands back into neat, upright rows.
Except James, of course, because when he tries to set Toby down, she lets out a loud, caterwauling screech, wraps her wings tight around his neck like a warm, furry choker, and refuses to let go.