The Mysteries Of The Marvelous Mr. Moony
Snow is drifting lazily past the tall, glass windows of Hogwarts Castle, occasionally being blown into a wild, sparkling dance by stray puffs of wind.
Peter can’t stand it.
It’s not the snowfall that’s the problem, it’s the fact that he’s stuck looking at it in detention with a foot-long piece of parchment in front of him waiting to be filled with as many lines of “I will not” as he can fit on the page.
“I will not hang weaponized holiday decorations from the rafters” is too specific, he supposes. As is: “I will not change the branches of any Christmas tree to bloody, dismembered fingers because I prefer Halloween to the winter holidays”. So what he’s been instructed to write is “I will not” in the feeble hope it might convince him in the future to just... not.
James and Sirius are beside him, sitting in their seats with their own parchment still rolled up in front of them. Neither of them has even begun to write a single line. Instead, they’re attempting to make paper airplanes with some of Peter’s printer paper. It’s a Muggle activity that they’ve both become quite fond of recently but haven’t quite mastered yet, which means that most of their work results in another crumpled ball added to the ever-growing pile at their feet rather than anything capable of sustained flight.
They’re quite distracted, which is both a blessing and a curse, because it means Peter can zone out and stare listlessly at the snowflakes swirling past the windows and imagine they might be boring little fairy ballerinas dancing home after a long, boring day of building snowflakes with their ice powers (a fantasy that is less far-fetched now that Peter has been introduced to magic, which only makes it more boring), but it also means that if his mind drifts off with the snowflake ballerinas for too long, the entire classroom might be set on fire.
In this case, it might be more likely that everything will only be severely littered with failed attempts at printer paper airplanes, but that might result in fire too, because in the highly destructive minds of Sirius Black and James Potter, evidence of a crime is best disposed of by incineration, as proven by their attempt to melt rubber balls in the fireplace of the Gryffindor common room, which did not end well.
Peter particularly misses Remus in this moment because he’s usually their little friend group’s version of damage control. Remus has made himself comfortable with a lot of nerve-racking behavior from his friends, which Peter takes part in many a time, but at times like this, when they’ve already pulled off something that has landed them in detention, Peter’s head starts to feel slow and uncooperative to deal with things like noise and spells and even simply doing things. Remus senses this in him and will usually sit nearby in comfortable silence or let him go off on his own, but James and Sirius always seem to need to be doing something, and Peter, though he loves getting up to all sorts of mischief in their company, often feels as if he can’t say no to them, even when there’s a need to wind down with a short nap, a shower, or an early bed.
Peter’s comfort lies in thing like providing snacks, a listening ear, or a witty comment now and again, but he isn’t quite up to par in the department of dealing with James and Sirius’ habit of accidentally on purpose destroying school property in the process of trying to tamper with other school property, which in turn often tamper as well with his (and Professor McGonagall’s) peace and quiet. Blame his confidence, blame his disposition, but Peter is a yes-man in nearly all questionable situations that don’t involve things like death, the government, or violations of the Geneva Convention.
A deep-seated guilt sometimes crawls its way into Peter’s head, whispering that it shouldn’t hurt him to give a little. He’s always been made aware that he has an excess of all leisurely and unnecessary things. A boy who has too much, who is too much, is what he’s always felt like. Too many brothers, too many pounds on the scale, too many toys and trinkets and sweets to spare.
So he lets his friends use his printer paper to fill the room with airplanes as he procrastinates on his writing because a part of his mind tells him that if he doesn’t, they might not want to be his friends anymore. It’s stupid, surely, and he feels bad for even thinking those things about the kind, good people who just happen to have a slight penchant for trouble and a few hyperactive tendencies.
The dainty ballerinas swirl even harder, whirling past the window in the bare blink of an eye. The snowstorm frosting the grounds of Hogwarts is intensifying, and Peter has only written ten lines.
He picks up his quill and scrawls down another few halfhearted iterations of “I will not” before he gives up completely. The teacher overseeing their detention is the shimmering facade of boredom that is Professor Binns, who is snoozing in midair, bobbing up and down with every droning snore.
Peter wonders again vaguely where Remus is. It was Remus, after all, whose idea it was for the finger-trees, and it was Remus who was with him when the new Defense teacher, whose name evades Peter for the moment, set their detentions. Remus, for some unknown reason, had gone off to see McGonagall about his own detention, mumbling something washy about needing to get out of it.
Peter hadn’t understood then, nor does he understand now, why Remus was so unwilling to take on a punishment. An appeal had been his first conclusion. Maybe Remus would argue for all of their innocence and miraculously raise them from the dregs of detention. But here they are, sans Remus, in a room strewn with at least one hundred and fifty botched paper planes made out of sheer boredom, and thirty minutes left on the clock before they can leave.
“Peter, my airplane won’t fly right,” James pouts, poking him gently in the shoulder.
Peter looks over to inspect the plane and chuckles, taking it from James’ hands and refolding it. “The wings need to be the same size. Here, look.” He lifts the newly folded paper and throws it gently into the air. It sails neatly to the far wall and falls to the ground after bumping to a halt with a soft thump.
“Whoa,” Sirius blinks. “Teach me how to do that, Pete!”
Peter laughs and takes Sirius’ deformed piece of paper in his hands, no longer feeling quite as bored or drained as he was only seconds ago.
In the last half-hour of detention, Peter teaches them to properly fold themselves an airplane, and in turn they teach him a simple charm to make the tips of the planes stick to whatever they land on first, be it a wall or the back of someone’s head.
Remus is still missing that night, and his bed remains noticeably empty the next morning, so Sirius takes the initiative to tell him all about their detention as soon as he pops up for Herbology class in the period preceding lunch.
He looks infinitely tired, and his jawline bears a new scar that is thin, raised, and starkly pink against his freckled skin, but he smiles brightly when Sirius describes the very confusing point system they used for their newly invented game of sticky-plane-darts, and the fatigue in his eyes is gone by the time they’re filling their plates with lunch in the Great Hall.
The weather steadily grows colder, bringing layers of snow to settle thickly over Hogwarts, blanketing the castle and the grounds and turning the place into a picturesque recreation of a generic holiday card one might find at a gift shop. The air fills with a sort of cozy, cinnamon-scented feeling that inspires many a late night spent up in the library working on the slowly progressing map with only warm cups of cocoa and a cheerfully hooting and hopping Toby for company.
It being November, Christmas is fast approaching, and though most people have been floating through class high on the excitement of soon being able to see their families for the holidays, many more students than average seem to have decided to remain behind this year.
James thinks this is absolutely marvelous and immediately begins planning a joke that involves spoiled eggnog, confetti, Hagrid, and a reindeer, though he says he’ll settle for a moose if a reindeer is too hard to come by.
Between the preparations for this most elaborate holiday prank, their constant involvement with the map, Quidditch practice, classwork, and detentions, James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus find themselves pleasantly busy for a group of preteens.
Regulus, however, hasn’t been having the best time.
Everyone aside from the four inhabitants of Gryffindor’s second year dormitory has been relatively kept out of the know of “The Map” endeavor and the live reindeer Christmas prank loop, including Regulus, which leaves him feeling a bit cast aside and has him wondering if he and Sirius have been drifting in different directions lately.
Despite them both already having finished a whole year and then some at Hogwarts, being in a different house than his brother is still an adjustment for Regulus. He’s spent nearly his entire life expecting to still be sharing a room and a schedule with Sirius for all of their time at school, so when he notices that Sirius is spending more and more of his free hours whispering in not-so-discreet huddles with James, Peter, and Remus, he starts to feel a bit neglected and, even worse, mildly replaceable.
Though he would never admit it, not if the world exploded and all the stars went out, Regulus has been dependent on Sirius since the day he was born.
His mother, Walburga, hadn’t expected to have twins. An heir first; that was always the plan. But when the hired healer had said, “Two heartbeats, Madam, and damn strong ones,” Walburga resolved that it was better this way. Two brothers at once meant no need to entertain her husband’s ridiculous attempts to copulate for both an heir and a spare. And indeed, when she informed him of her dual pregnancy and said he could seek pleasure elsewhere, he had agreed without pause.
Regulus was only born five and a quarter minutes after his brother, but sometimes it feels like years instead of three hundred and nine seconds. Sirius has always been the one more doted on by staff and family members because to ensure they remain in the Black family’s good graces in future, he’s the one they’ve had to kiss up to.
Sirius will eventually get the glory, so Sirius gets the love, or at least their family’s version of it, and Regulus loses his dinner if he can’t properly conjugate Latin verbs or name the twelve known variants of Grindylows off the top of his head.
Regulus knows that in some other distant world he might fully commit to a bitter sibling rivalry, and he can sometimes feel a vague sense of resentment bubble up inside him on quiet nights when he can’t sleep, but he can never convince himself that he could truly commit to a life unsupported, and even embittered, by the existence of Sirius Black.
He can’t, not even for a moment, despise the brother that would crawl into bed with him and sing silly chants and soft lullabies so his whipping scars might stop smarting. Not the brother who would recite potion ingredients and names of constellations with him late at night through the circulation vents that connect their rooms so he wouldn’t be without food the next day. Not when he can still remember all the times Sirius would stand in front of him to act as a shield between him and a dozen of Walburga’s blister hexes and leg-locker curses.
Regulus is almost sure that the brother who snuck sandwiches to him (when he forgot the name of the wizard who proposed the Decree of Carpet Sales in 1456 and thought he would have to go to bed on an empty stomach) could do nearly anything short of murder, and he would still want to lean on his blood-stained shoulder.
He can’t hate a brother who is just as scarred as he is, with even more expectation and pressure weighing on his shoulders. He can’t hate a brother that he loves over shaky promises from parents who he is almost positive have never loved him for even a day in their life, and who likely never really bothered to try in the first place.
Sirius is, and always has been, his only stable lifeline, but when the Sorting Hat had bid the brothers to wear different house colors for the seven vital years that would form them into grown wizards ready for the upper echelon of magical society, Regulus was given a slight tease of what it might be like to finally be acknowledged as more than an prunable branch on the Black family tree.
Walburga had pulled him aside before their summer trip to France and warned him with frightening sternness that he was to be on his best behavior, even in completely private solitude.
“Consider it a test,” she’d said. “Aside from the fact that your brother is a Gryffindor, he has not exemplified proper behavior for quite a long time now. His existence may very well become a stain on our reputation, and if that should happen, your birth into this family will not be completely for nothing.”
At first, Regulus was angry at her harsh words against his brother, but he managed to be angry quietly. The rage itself didn’t last very long. It was soon replaced by a dull pain in the corners of his eyes and the back of his throat. This, too, faded quickly, and afterward all that remained was an ugly spark of hopefulness.
The lasting impression left by his mother’s message was enticingly simple. If Sirius fails further at his duties, the position as head of the family will go to Regulus. The title, the power, the money, the property, and the coveted legacy that a few of his more ambitious ancestors have risked killing for, will all belong to him.
Regulus has known for years that neither of his parents are actually any good at being parents, but in that golden moment of opportunity, the temptation of being their son was almost too much to bear. For the very faintest of moments, Regulus had felt the urge to pledge his intentions of becoming the sole heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, if only to keep himself safe. But his brother’s innocent face had flashed to the front of his mind so painfully, it had hurt to think of putting him out to pasture. And so, Regulus had said nothing.
He’s long dismissed this ugly hope from his heart, knowing deep down that he would enjoy being the apple of Walburga and Orion Black’s eye about as much as Sirius does. Which is to say he would likely prefer being digested alive by a dragon. But something else he turns over and over in his head is something his father had said to him just before the commencement of second year.
“I hear from your teachers that Sirius has made a few juvenile friendships in the past year,” Orion relayed to him, “and I’ve heard as well that you follow him around like a lost sheep.”
Regulus had then looked shamefully at the ground, unsure what to say.
His father, apparently not being in a very vindictive mood that night, simply stirred a lump of sugar into his tea and continued calmly. “Mind who you keep friends with, Regulus. And do try to stay away from any Gryffindors. I’ll allow you friends from other houses, Pandora and that Mckinnon girl, for instance, but your brother is to be avoided, if I’m being frank. I hear whispers he’s made nice with a Mudblood.”
Regulus had seethed silently at the use of the derogatory term “Mudblood” but couldn’t do anything except nod and tell his father that he would be careful, for the fear of receiving a punishment if he expressed any anger in resistance to the belittlement of Muggleborns bore a very immediate precedent.
At the end of it, it doesn’t matter that he thinks what his father said is a load of shit on a cracker, because when push comes to shove, Orion has the upper hand in controlling who he can and can’t see.
Regulus has no doubt that Evan and Barty are surely approved of. They’re both rich, pure-blooded Slytherins, which are just about the only solid requirements that need to be fulfilled. Unfortunately, many other boys who it would be favorable for Regulus to befriend because they fill out these requirements are the most obnoxiously pompous and pigheaded knobs in Slytherin House.
There are also a number of people at Hogwarts who are in more neutral territory when it comes to knocking options off a list of who is worthy of being associated with the Black family, but Regulus has decided that connections like these aren’t worth the frivolous effort.
Severus Snape, for one, has become established at Hogwarts in Pureblood circles as a bit of an eccentric weirdo with a questionable bloodline and a healthy keen on the dark arts. A friendship like this would prove useful for the grouping of resources and a body between Regulus and, as callous as it sounds, any dirty work that might need doing, but something about the boy puts people off him. Regulus usually wouldn’t mind a bit of eccentricity (he’s friends with Pandora Lestrange for Salazar’s sake) but Snape has a particularly foreboding air about him, even when he’s laughing and joking with socially prominent older students like Mulciber and Selwyn.
There is also the tiny detail of Sirius absolutely despising Severus Snape’s existence. Regulus hasn’t been informed of why his brother’s petty dislike has grown into such a strong hatred over just one year, but Sirius’ attitude does put him off Snape even more than the boy himself does. Regulus is always polite, if not mildly cordial, but given the circumstances, that’s about all the effort he cares to put in when it comes to Severus Snape.
Snape, as it happens, is the tamest of the lot.
The entire Slytherin Quidditch team, for example, though quite competent in the air, is a flaming mess anywhere but the pitch.
They’re rude and rowdy and wildly unhygienic most of the time, and Regulus staunchly avoids them in all situations not involving Quidditch simply on principle. There are no girls on the team this year, and many of the members comment on this as often and loudly as possible. Shame they won’t get a peek at anyone interesting in the changing rooms, they say, which is a sentiment that breeds anything but an air of potential friendship, let alone allyship. Regulus despises it so much that he gets very near to quitting the team every time one of them opens their mouth. In fact, he often has to spend at least ten minutes before practice fantasizing about kicking them in the balls and then off the team when he undoubtedly becomes captain in order to maintain some sense of composure. “Composure” here meaning that he isn’t sending them to the hospital wing for being painfully insufferable jerks.
The only other Slytherin he’s friends with is Dorcas Meadowes, who is a Pureblood as well as being a regular attendee of many of the stuffy parties Regulus so despises. They get on quite well, but everyone Dorcas surrounds herself with are the people that Orion has made quite clear he would chuck out of his house on their ass without a second thought, so that presents a slight problem as well.
The rest of Regulus’ Hogwarts house, and the rest of Hogwarts in general, is largely irrelevant to his day-to-day social life, and seeing as he prefers to keep any interactions with the populus as brief as necessary anyway, his list of potential friends is nearly nonexistent.
Regulus doesn’t enjoy having to make friends, and he especially doesn’t enjoy the kind of friends where he has to power through dull conversations just because their fathers do business together. The headache of undesirable company is something he has bare amounts of energy for on one of his good days, and good days become few and far between as Christmas draws nearer and nearer.
It all comes to a head one day when he stumbles on Sirius in the library with James, Remus, and Peter. They’re poring over a large piece of parchment spread out on a low table and laughing as Peter attempts to guide James’ hands, in which are clutched a Muggle contraption he’d presented on the train a while back as “scissors”. Some ugly emotion roils deep in Regulus’ stomach as he watches them.
“No, James, you’re holding them wrong. Here, let me-”
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it. Like this?”
James snaps the scissors shut a little too firmly and Peter yelps, “No!”
Remus and Sirius, sitting opposite Peter and James, collapse further into laughter, nearly falling off the beanbag they’re sharing.
“You’ll cut my bloody finger off if you keep doing that,” Peter admonishes James, pulling the scissors from his hand and flicking him lightly.
“You’ll never get it bloody with an attitude like that,” Regulus cuts in sharply. It’s not his best dramatic entrance, he considers, but right now he’s too angry to care.
They jolt in their seats and turn to face him, caught thoroughly by surprise. Remus pulls the parchment off the table and shoves it away, as if on reflex, and the others smile welcomingly at him, which only manages to tick Regulus off even more.
“Reggie!” James greets him, beaming amicably. “What brings you here?”
“This is a public library, Potter. I’m allowed in.”
James’ happy expression stutters slightly, and he glances to Sirius with a puzzled look on his face, then looks back at Regulus. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you’re perfectly fucking dandy, Potter,” Regulus snaps. “Sirius, I’d like a word.”
“Er, right,” says Sirius hesitantly. He lifts himself off his beanbag, shooting an awkward smile at the others, whose faces have morphed into expressions of confused indignation.
“I’ll be right back,” assures Sirius.
“Oh, you will, will you?” Regulus scoffs.
“Er, won’t I?” Sirius falters, now looking even more confused.
Regulus huffs and grasps his brother’s arm tightly, leading him away. He pulls him out of the library and into an empty classroom nearby, keeping a firm grip on Sirius’ arm until the door has shut behind them, at which point he shoves him away, as if burned.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” Sirius demands angrily, rubbing at his arm, which is throbbing slightly.
“Why don’t you tell me?!” spits Regulus. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re always whispering about with James and the others? Why don’t you tell me why you’ve been avoiding me?”
“Avoiding you?” Sirius laughs incredulously. “I have not been avoiding you. You’ve been acting funny all year, and now you’re upset because I’ve been doing things with my friends?”
A tidal wave of jealousy rolls over Regulus, and he realizes at once it’s what he’d felt when he found Sirius laughing so carefreely at James’ attempt to use scissors in the library.
“I thought they were my friends too!” he shouts, his voice echoing painfully in the empty room. “I thought maybe instead of running into you in the library like an estranged cousin, I’d have been invited to join you! I thought they liked me! It’s colossally unfair, you know, that you get to muck around with your mates while I’m stuck worrying that Father will hex me if he finds out I let you get yourself another detention! If I’m going to be in trouble, I might as well have some fun throwing things or destroying things or whatever it is you do!”
There are tears pooling in Regulus’ eyes now, and his throat clenches up painfully as he forces out his next words. “I’m not supposed to be their friend, Sirius, and I’m not supposed to be your brother now either. Mother said that if you keep- If you keep being a f-failure, then it all goes to me. The title, the house. Everything. I don’t want it, Sirius. I don’t want to spend my time pretending I like talking about ministry policies and whoever’s last been disowned. I thought I could do it because I didn’t want either of us to get in trouble, but I can’t.”
Sirius’ eyes are watery now too, and the only thing he gets out is, “If I keep being a failure?”
“Oh Merlin, Sirius, is that all you heard? It’s always about you, isn’t it?”
“No!” Sirius shakes his head rapidly, eyes widening. “No, I just- I'm sorry. You- You don’t really think I’m a failure, do you?”
“Right now? A little bit.”
“Reg.”
“No, I don’t.”
With this reassurance, the rest of Regulus’ words slowly work their way into Sirius’ brain, and his face slowly dawns in understanding.
“Father threatened you,” he states defeatedly.
“Doesn’t he always?”
“Yes, well, what are you going to do?”
“Why do you think I’ve been avoiding you all, you pea-brained dolt!”
“So you admit it then! You’re avoiding us, not the other way round!”
“That is completely beside the point!”
“Reggie,” Sirius sighs, all previous anger deflating from his body. He reaches out to wipe the tears off his brother’s face where they’re still falling silently. “Are you planning on listening to Father? Do you care what he thinks of your friends?”
“Of course not,” Regulus sniffles, batting Sirius’ hands away and folding his arms across his chest, “I care about being punished. I care about you getting punished. I care about you .”
“We’d get punished anyway, Reg, you know that.”
“I do know that. I do. But-” Regulus breathes in shakily and lets his arms fall limply to his sides, “Why didn’t you come after me? Why didn’t you come to me first? Why didn’t any of you?”
“I- We’ve been busy,” says Sirius, quickly rushing to explain further when Regulus shoots him a very unimpressed glare. “We’ve been working on something- Not a prank, something else. It’s taken a lot more time than we thought, what with lessons and Quidditch, and besides that, the others thought you just, I don’t know, got tired of them, I think? I know they all miss you. The girls do too. Lily has resorted to asking Pandora if you’d like to try something called a Cadbury Egg because you’ve been running from her like she’s the scene of a nasty crime.”
Regulus lets out a slightly hysterical waterlogged giggle, realizing for the first time in weeks just how much he’s been shutting himself behind the curtains of his four-poster bed in his state of mental exhaustion. So much so, in fact, that he’s barely spoken more than a few words a day to Barty and Evan, who share a room with him, let alone his own brother.
He takes a small step forward and buries his head in Sirius’ shoulder, as he always does when he wants physical comfort but feels too ashamed to initiate it. “Don’t let me do that,” he whispers forlornly, “Don’t let me shut down again.”
Sirius promptly wraps him in a hug and whispers, “I won’t. I promise. And from now on we don’t think about Father at Hogwarts, alright?”
“And I’m to be invited everywhere.”
“You’re to be invited everywhere.”
“And I won’t be replaced.”
“Never in a million years.”
After a sweet moment of comforting silence, Regulus wriggles out of Sirius’ hold and says, “Alright, enough. I’m all out of affection for the day.”
Sirius laughs lightly at his twin’s endearing predictability. Regulus always gets finicky and ashamed after experiencing too many emotions at once, so the dark flush that creeps over his cheeks and the little twitching movement in his fingers as he looks anywhere but Sirius’ face are expected reactions.
“Come on,” Sirius intertwines their fingers and shoves their shoulders together, “The lads and I are planning something especially spectacular for Christmas. Want to help us out?”
“Only if you tell me what the parchment you’re always whispering about is for. Is it a hit-list? Did one of your pranks go a little too far?”
“Nah, don’t be silly, we’re too classy for criminal activity.”
Regulus snorts as they exit the classroom and amble their way back to the library together. “Liar.”
“Yes, well, we’ll tell you all about it when it’s done. It’ll be a surprise.”
“Alright,” Regulus concedes, “But I want to know every single detail of this Christmas fiasco you’re cooking up in those evil little brains of yours.”
“Ahahaha, dear brother, I’ve got two- no, one word for you. Reindeer.”
“Just one? That’s new. Your holiday ventures usually have layers to them. So, what are you planning? A tree made of antlers? Piles of irresponsibly sourced dung on the Quidditch pitch?”
“We would never disgrace Quidditch like that, how dare you.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit, you so would.”
“Alright, we would, but no. I meant an actual reindeer.”
Regulus stops short just before the opening archway of the library. “A live reindeer? Where in Salazar’s name are you going to get one of those?”
“You mean we, Reggie. Where are we gonna get one of those.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. Jamie will explain the rest. Come on.”
After an utterly mortifying apology to James and a rushed but detailed explanation of his behavior that earns Regulus three more hugs (that, most horrifyingly, he finds some deeply repressed part of himself to be enjoying), the five of them settle back comfortably into their beanbags and start finalizing all the details on the reindeer, filling Regulus in as they go.
Quite unexpectedly for a school full of teenagers, the holidays approach with much less of a general hubbub than usual. The students of Hogwarts are particularly wrung out for some reason this year, so instead of loud, spontaneous caroling or grand scale snowball fights, the atmosphere shifts calmly, like a cruising ship on a quiet sea, into sweet pecks under the many leaves of mistletoe strung up around the castle and soft renditions of Silent Night in an otherwise dead of sound library that even Madam Pince doesn’t immediately shush into silence. Although it must be said that this air of peace does nothing to stop anyone from pranking Filch, the prickly caretaker, by filling his office with snow.
This lax, innocent atmosphere, as Peter points out, not only goes easy on everyone’s eardrums, but also works well in favor of an attempt at a grand practical joke because there won’t be as clear a perpetrator.
James, gleefully bolstered by the prospect of getting away from causing trouble without even a detention, takes the lead on instructing his friends on how to assemble a variety of holiday themed bombs, all of which are filled with things that are either shiny, sticky, or grotesque to a certain degree.
The bombs are simple and pleasant enough to create, especially given how the boys’ affinity for borderline pyrotechnics has only increased since the creation of the legendary dung potion (patent pending). The real challenge comes in the reindeer, and, by extension, learning to perform a proper enlarging charm before the feast arrives.
Because it’s considered a somewhat advanced spell, they make time before the holidays have officially begun to practice and improve their skills. They employ the use of a whole bunch of inanimate objects (like quills, fruit, and one unfortunately smelly sock) before moving on to spiders, rats, and other small animals they find roaming the castle.
It’s Sirius who does most of the finding, somehow managing to see and hear the faintest rustlings of movement from as far as ten feet away. “It’s what makes me good at Quidditch,” he says proudly, dangling a hapless Daddy Long Legs between his thumb and forefinger. “Seekers aren’t the only ones who have good eyesight.”
Regulus, feeling slightly petty about the mention of his team position, enlarges the spider suddenly. It swells to nearly ten times its original size and gets about ten times more panicked as well. Sirius squeaks and drops it, hopping jerkily backwards as it scuttles away from him at lightning speed. Regulus laughs and dodges the obligatory halfhearted swipe of retaliation Sirius throws his way.
“You could be a Hufflepuff,” James grins, neatly sidestepping the now giant spider as it passes him by in an agitated flurry. Peter, who is clinging to the back of James’ robes, shrieks and hides his face in the fabric, not even daring to look.
“He’s like a greyhound. They have very good eyesight,” says Remus, which prompts Regulus to say, “Well, our mother is a bitch.”
Sirius snorts in laughter, and Peter giggles a bit into the hood of James’ uniform. Remus just nods absently, patting Sirius’ head and saying, “Yes, precisely, good dog,” as he points his wand after the spider, which is still running up and down the long corridor in confusion because it can’t fit into any of its old hiding places.
Remus points his wand after it and takes aim. “Engorgio!”
Nothing happens. The spell bounces harmlessly off the stone walls and dissipates in a beam of chilly sunlight streaming in through a large window. Remus huffs and gears up to try again. The spider, evidently having decided that the corridor isn’t worth hanging around in, makes for one of the connecting hallways leading deeper into the school. Just as it goes to disappear around a corner, it collides with Mrs. Norris, Filch’s cat, and, unfortunately, so does Remus’ spell.
Remus, feeling keyed up and frustrated after missing the spider the first time, has managed to produce a very potent spell indeed that turns the small and spritely Mrs. Norris into a nearly leopard-sized beast that looks about one violent altercation away from eating a child.
Being a group of five such children who would very much rather not be eaten, Remus, Regulus, Sirius, James, and Peter take one look at the newly transformed cat and make the snap decision to run for their fucking lives.
It’s Peter who phrases it best.
“Shall we run for our fucking lives?” asks Peter in a deceptively calm voice.
“Yeah, alright,” agrees Regulus genially, turning on his heels and breaking into a sprint, followed closely by the rest as Mrs. Norris pounces on the spider, disposing of it with a sickening crunch, her claws scraping loudly against the marble floor.
They put extra effort into learning a few reversal spells after this incident, and all for the better, James says. Enlarging a reindeer is an excellent idea, and by all means harmless, but it would be a pity for the reindeer to be left an outcast among its regular-sized reindeer peers when Christmas is over.
“And who knows,” James shivers, “Maybe reindeer get more carnivorous, too. And we wouldn’t want that, would we, lads?”
When the moon rises near midnight on the 23rd of December, James slips out of bed and shakes Sirius awake. Sirius, who has spent all his free time either practicing spells or drifting in and out of naps, is at first very disgruntled at being woken up. He mumbles some presumably rude words in muffled French and throws his pillow at James, nailing him right in the face, before letting himself be dragged out of bed.
James leaves him on the floor to go poke Peter awake, paying little mind to the way Sirius is staring daggers at him from beneath a mop of properly ruffled hair. Peter too wakes with a groan of sleepy reluctance, but this is more because James is fully on top of him and using his full weight to jostle Peter into wakefulness.
“‘S too early for this,” Peter mumbles, haphazardly shoving on a pair of slippers and beginning an unsuccessful trudge in the direction of the bathroom as James repeats his wake-up routine on Remus.
“It’s not early at all, mate,” James calls from across the room, and far too cheerfully, apparently, because Remus makes an extremely undignified grunting noise and fully shoves him into the red curtains of his four-poster bed with irritated vigor.
“Not early?” Peter sways slightly, looking confused. “Then why- Oh, sorry!” He’s just tripped over Sirius, who is sitting slumped against the frame of his bed and snoring softly. Sirius barely even grunts in response, though he does stop snoring.
When Remus is finally awake and marginally more agreeable, and they’re all trussed up in proper winter clothes, James shoves them under his invisibility cloak and leads them out of Gryffindor Tower and through many hallways until they reach a tall statue of a hunched-over one-eyed witch.
“Watch this boys,” he grins, slipping out from under the cloak and taking out his wand. He taps the statue once and whispers, “Dissendium.”
The stone back of the statue slides open to create a small opening.
“Are we supposed to get in there?” Peter hisses.
“I rather suppose we are,” says Sirius.
They watch as James hoists himself upward onto the witch and then down the hole in her back with relative ease.
“This feels strange and unnecessary,” Remus grumbles.
They follow after him, climbing up one by one and lowering themselves down into a narrow passageway. Sirius’ feet touch the floor last, and he hands the invisibility cloak to James as he looks around.
“How’d you find this place?” Sirius asks curiously.
“That spell Remus used for the map,” James says, tucking the invisibility cloak into one of his robe’s deep pockets. “It finds secret places too, apparently. Any place with walls will end up on the map before long. Anyway, c’mon. This is only the first part of what I wanted to show you.”
With James in the lead, they trek their way through what they find is a long, dark tunnel with rough walls and a ceiling so uneven that even Peter, the shortest of them, has to duck down a time or two to avoid bumping his head. Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, the tunnel slopes slightly upward, and, illuminated by the multicolored light of four wands, a trapdoor with a wooden ladder leading up to it comes into view.
“You lot have to promise to be quiet,” James whispers as he climbs to the top of the ladder and poises one hand to open it.
“Yeah, mhm,” Remus grumbles. “Cross my heart, hope I die. Whatever the saying is.”
Sirius and Peter nod in agreement. James reaches up and pushes the trapdoor open. When they’re all up the ladder and back under the invisibility cloak, they let themselves look at their surroundings.
Remus hitches a quiet breath, stepping out of the cloak and turning slowly in a circle, as if in some sort of trance. “Oh wow,” he whispers, “Oh wow. James, this is amazing . What is this place?”
“Bloody hell- Jamie, are we in Honeydukes?” asks Sirius excitedly, completely disregarding any attempt at volume control.
“Yes, we are- now shush! Remus, get back in here!” James hisses, reaching out to yank his wayward friend back into security. “I’m sorry, lads, I know it’s amazing, but we’re not here to buy sweets.”
“Considering how you’ve dragged us here in the middle of the night, I’d say we’re here to steal sweets,” Peter remarks succinctly from where he’s inspecting a display case of large suckers in the shape of very realistic flowers that look to actually be growing out of a bed of dirt. “I understand the idea,” he mutters, “but why on earth- oh, thank heavens, it’s just chocolate shavings.”
“No, no, we need to go outside,” hisses James. “Through the back door, come on. I think it’s this way.”
“Did you see the chocolate?” Remus squeals, uncharacteristically excited. “God, it was the size of a headstone!”
Sirius grins as Remus bounces gleefully. “Morbid, but accurate,” he acknowledges. “Remus, you know that was only the storeroom, right?”
“Shove off, you’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
Remus grins again, nearly tripping on the edge of the cloak nearest him as James, who has since located the back door and pushed it open, leads them out onto the snow covered ground outside.
“This way,” he beckons.
They make their way through the darkness by the light of their wands and the distant glow of the few streetlamps that manage to shine their way through to the back ends of Hogsmeade’s small shops and cottages until they find themselves on the edge of a path. To the left it leads back into town, but to the right it snakes toward a small, ramshackle house in the distance. James points up toward the main road, ignoring the ominous building, but Remus looks back as the start up the path, prompting Sirius to spare a glance in the direction he’s looking and shiver.
“This place gives me the creeps, Jamie,” he whispers. “How much longer is this gonna take?”
“Not long,” James says, looking back with a grin. “Just a little more- oh, look! There it is!”
Standing placidly at the juncture of the path and the main road, a shadowy mass of a reindeer is tethered to the ground. A bright red ribbon is tied around the reindeer’s neck, visible even in the dim light, and from it hangs a note that James plucks off and reads aloud.
“Merry Christmas, you little pranksters. Do me proud. And burn this note, won’t you, because my handwriting is real easy to recognize and I can’t afford to lose my job.”
“So Hagrid got us the reindeer, then,” Remus hums interestedly. “I was getting worried we’d have to use that old wooden one they keep in the dungeons.”
“How d’you know about Angus the Ghastly?” Sirius inquires curiously.
“Regulus told me.”
“Ah.”
“No Angus the Ghastly for us, mates,” says James grandly, stepping forward to bring the reindeer fully into the wandlight. “No, we use only the finest ingredients. Now come on, I don’t know how many shrinking charms it’s going to take for him to be small enough.”
Five turns out to be the golden number of shrinking charms, and the reindeer turns out to be a girl. The group decides to call her Maysilee, at Remus’ suggestion, and she takes to all of them quite well, following easily to Honeydukes’ storeroom and through the tunnel back to Hogwarts.
They keep the invisibility cloak over her until they’re back in the safety of their room. The risk of being caught out and about in the wee hours of a lazy holiday seems trivial to the risk of having their entire plan exposed by the wanderings of a mini reindeer. Maysilee doesn’t mind in the slightest. She proves to be an animal of mild temper and playful disposition, with a penchant for being stroked and coddled. Settling her in their room is easy as pie, and the boys, now being wide awake and with no immediate plans to return to sleep, amuse themselves and their new reindeer friend as the winter sun rises through the castle windows, bringing with it a pale light that glances off the fallen snow and makes the landscape glitter.
Regulus sneaks into their dorm at about half past nine, carrying with him a small sleigh made of light wood and carved with tiny, ornate details. After the general confirmation of the possession of enough holiday bombs to cause a significant disturbance, a proper place to store Maysilee and the sleigh until the time comes to enlarge the both of them, and the insurance that all of them will be visible when the chaos begins, so as to deflect suspicion cast their way by any teachers, the five of them settle down to wait for dinner and end up drifting off for a nap around noon.
Truly, the most marvelous thing about the prank turns out to be the surprise factor. The Christmas Eve feast, which is usually a fairly rambunctious celebration, radiates a more subdued version of the usual festive atmosphere, even with Hagrid dressed as Father Christmas, as per Hogwarts tradition. So, when the doors to the Great Hall suddenly open as the remnants of the grand meal vanish and various cookies, cakes, and assorted sweets fill the tables, no one is expecting the absolutely colossal specimen of a reindeer that saunters calmly through the entryway and down the center of the Great Hall, pulling behind it a massive sleigh covered in suspiciously bulbous lumps of velvet.
The velvet ripples in places, as if breathing, and then the whole thing explodes in a shower of color, sending neatly packaged presents soaring through the Great Hall, accompanied by an unseemly amount of ribbons and confetti.
“That duplicating spell really pays off,” James whispers gleefully.
Peter hums in quick assent, swiping two large pies, one custard, one pumpkin, and ducking with them under the table as the first of the presents bursts open.
Many of the bombs are filled with even more confetti, but most others are filled with things like instant holly bushes, whose spiky leaves make for a cruel yet festive surprise; smelly socks that dance of their own accord, leaving muddy prints as they prance by; a wet, seeping fog with a scent like rotten eggnog and burnt hair; and even a few of just pure glitter (provided from Peter’s stash of Muggle arts and crafts supplies, mercilessly multiplied until it filled nearly three full drawers out of his nightstand).
Willow Evans, who has once again abandoned her house table so she can sit with Lily, laughs a high, raucous giggle as a dirty sock patterned with gaudy Christmas baubles splashes itself in her drinking glass, staining both her and her sister’s robes. Lily, sitting beside her sister, looks to be suppressing a smile as she makes a futile attempt to clean herself off.
The students are now exclaiming loudly as they realize there are, in fact, a few treasures hidden here and there among less desirable contents of the presents. It’s mostly small, inconsequential things that are easily obtained by the average group of children with access to random trinkets and an alarming surplus of creative transfiguration spellbooks.
Remus, James, and Sirius watch with Peter from beneath their house table as a frenzy begins, and the honorable students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry chase after things like beribboned sprigs of mistletoe, uniquely carved buttons and cloak fasteners, little paper butterflies with painted wings of all colors and patterns, and dessert that has not yet been ruined by any of the less desirable presents (namely the socks).
A few moments into this extremely entertaining sight, Willow slides smoothly under the table with mulled wine in her hair and something brown and patchy on her chin that is either chocolate or dirt. “Ooh, pie,” she says, startling the life out of the other residents of the space under the table.
“You have got to stop doing that,” Sirius grumbles, turning away from his view of the Great Hall. “Oh, there is pie!” He reaches out and grabs a chunk from the dish with his bare hands.
“Classy,” James nods approvingly, promptly following suit.
“That seems to be my job now, doesn’t it,” muses Peter from where he’s lounging against a leg of the table. “Grab us food and duck and cover.”
“We appreciate you so much, Pete, we really do,” says Sirius, his words muffled slightly by a mouthful of custard.
Peter leans back smugly and crosses his stretched out legs. “Peter the Pie-Man, they call me. Pie-Man Pete, if you will.”
“Our lord and savior,” declares Remus, digging into a lopsided slice of pumpkin pie.
“Couldn’t manage plates or forks,” says Peter, sounding slightly disappointed in himself. “It all happened so fast.”
“Our hands worked on the train, our hands will work here,” says Remus, shrugging as he slurps at the filling dripping down his arm.
“And doesn’t Maysilee look absolutely magnificent?” Sirius mumbles happily around his custard.
“Who’s Maysilee?” Willow inquires, her eyes wide.
“That would be the reindeer,” James informs her proudly.
“I see,” says Willow. “Was she always that big?”
“Nope.”
“Impressive.”
“I’d hope so,” snorts Regulus’ voice from a bit farther down. “We almost got eaten trying to perfect that enlargement spell.”
There’s a general chorus of “Reggie!” and Sirius crawls forward as fast as he can with a handful of pie held out as a welcome greeting.
“No thank you,” sniffs Regulus in French as he wrinkles his nose in disgust. “I’d rather drink Phlegm.”
Sirius sticks out his tongue and scoots farther backwards to make room for his brother as James says, “Stop speaking your fancy language and get over here. We’re having pie.”
“Yes, I can see that,” says Regulus, raising an appraising eyebrow at the mauled remnants of what used to be two full pie dishes. For all his sniffing, Regulus still has a piece, though he eats it on a plate and fork produced from a pocket in his robes rather than with his fingers, as he very much does not want to get sticky.
The chaos abides eventually, though not before both pie dishes are licked spotless and Dumbledore’s beard has been thoroughly glittered.
The atmosphere stays a jolly one as the students depart for their beds at the conclusion of the feast. Most are sporting stained robes and large smiles as they revel in the freshness of an enormously entertaining Christmas prank, trading anecdotes and paper butterflies in between bouts of laughter and yawning.
The purveyors of this marvelous prank follow the ebb and flow of the crowd out of the Great Hall before breaking off to hide in the small room used to corral the first years before the Sorting. It’s peaceful in there, with candles flickering on the walls and the roar of students returning to bed as a distant lullaby.
“Think the kitchens are free?” whispers Sirius into the pocket of silence the room creates. “I kind of want more pie.”
“Definitely not,” says James, “but there’s no need to bother the kitchens. I got us something.”
He walks over to a far corner where a few heavy, wooden tables are stacked on top of each other for storage and reaches underneath the one touching the floor. His hand comes out clutching something small in size that’s been wrapped in the invisibility cloak, and he gestures everyone over to crowd on the floor near the table.
It turns out to be a bottle of eggnog. Real, true eggnog, embittered with the foreboding tang of alcohol.
“I thought we could celebrate our... endeavor.” James grins almost nervously as he pops the bottle open. “Erm. Any takers?”
“You’ve gone daffy,” deadpans Regulus, and James falters, thinking he’s offended, but then Regulus says, “I’ll have some, obviously,” and all his worries are assuaged. Regulus leans forward to snatch the bottle from James’ hands, nearly letting himself grin at the wide eyes watching him as he takes the first swig.
“Here.” He shoves the bottle at Sirius, who gives him an incredulous look. Regulus huffs a laugh. “What are you, a coward?”
“No!” Sirius exclaims, grabbing the bottle at once. “No, I am not!”
It goes rather quickly after that, but they all manage a fair share of the eggnog, coming out the other end of the bottle flushed and giggling as they listen to the faint sounds of the teachers trying to get the residual chaos left in the Great Hall under control.
Eventually, however, the castle quiets down. Everyone is curled up in their bedrooms, dreaming of presents and sugarplums, baring the building of any bustle or noise. Not even the air seems to move as Christmas Eve fully descends over Hogwarts. Indeed, the only ones still out of their beds as the moon rises through the stars are four unruly Gryffindors, one prim and proper Slytherin, and possibly Mrs. Norris, who has since been returned to her regular size and is stealthy and silent as ever.
The five children are still on the floor in the little room off the Great Hall, but their giggling has worn away into whispered conversation. The inebriation brought on by eggnog has faded to a faint buzz, leaving them coherent, but feeling rather silly.
Every now and again, James will look at Sirius and say, “Your face is funny, Reggie,” which sends both Black brothers into giggling fits riddled with hiccups. The fourth time this happens has James frowning and saying, “No, don’t laugh,” while sounding very offended indeed. This, of course, only furthers the reaction. Regulus falls backward against a wall, his head reverberating off it with a loud, painful, thunking noise, and Sirius falls into Peter’s lap, hiccupping all the way.
“Oh!” exclaims James excitedly as Regulus groans and rubs his bruising temple, “Oh, oh, oh! I see now! There’s two of you!”
Remus’ mouth quirks up in an amused grin. “Good on you,” he says, “You’ve figured it out.”
“Only took you ten minutes,” Peter giggles. His eyes are surprisingly clear for how flushed his face is, as if the eggnog affects his complexion more than it does his mental function.
“Mph.” James attempts a sentence, pauses halfway through to reassess, then starts again. “Nice- Nice. ‘S a nice face.”
“Thank you,” the twins chorus in unison.
Sirius narrows his eyes from where his head rests on Peter’s knee. “He meant me,” he says petulantly.
“Of course,” Regulus concedes, nodding graciously. “Whatever puts your head at rest.”
Sirius, not being of a clear enough mind to deign his brother an audible response, simply sticks out his tongue and blows a raspberry.
Peter furrows a brow. “I like his face," he says, "Lupin’s,” and points at the boy in question, who has started to blush.
“Yes!” Sirius nods enthusiastically, sitting up and pointing as well. “His face! I like it too. We have good taste, Pete.”
“I agree,” commends James, nodding seriously.
Remus nearly laughs in disbelief as he asks, “What are you all talking about?”
“They think you’re handsome,” Regulus summarizes.
Remus blinks, utterly bamboozled. “No you don’t,” he says matter-of-factly.
“Yes we do,” insists James.
“But- but I’m-” Remus splutters for a moment, caught in between the lingering alcohol and the fascination that anyone could look at him and think they liked his face. “I’m too skinny,” he tries.
“And I’m too fat,” Peter shrugs. “Try again, mate.”
“I- I’m too tall.”
“That’s an advantage,” says James. “Besides, we were talking about your face.”
“No girls like me.”
“We’re eleven,” scoffs Sirius. “Who cares.”
“Some of us are twelve, actually,” says Regulus primly, though the effect of the attempt at primness is put off by the purpling bruise on the side of his forehead.
Sirius waves a hand in dismissal. “Semantics.”
“I- I’m-” Remus stutters his way through half a dozen more reasons, but each one is shot down in record time. It seems none of his friends are going to let him be convinced he is ugly. Still, Remus is persistent.
“I have scars!” he all but shouts. “I have ugly scars! Everywhere!” His eyes are tearing up slightly now, but the usual effect of a crying friend is lost on the drunken minds of those present.
“Scars fade, Remus,” James says good-naturedly. “And even if they don’t, they give you rachater.” He shakes his head. “No, Tha’s not right. Charater. Crater.”
“Character,” Peter helpfully supplies.
“Yes!” James whoops. “Yes! That! They give you chater- that!”
“They won’t fade,” mutters Remus, almost inaudibly, curling himself up against the wall. The first tear drips onto his knee.
“What was that?” Regulus asks.
“They. Won’t. Fade.” The words come out tense and gritted, pushed from unwilling vocal cords through reluctant teeth. “They won’t fade,” Remus repeats. “Not these. Not ever.”
“What?” Sirius blinks. “Why not?”
The haze of liquor still clouds the air, but Remus’ tears are out in the open now, wetting his cheeks and dripping into his mouth. His friends slide closer, slightly awkward and unsure what to say or do. Remus isn’t usually the one who cries. More often it’s James who gets teary, and occasionally Peter or Sirius, but seeing Remus Lupin fully shedding tears is entirely new territory.
“Remus,” Sirius says as softly and coherently as he can manage, “Remus, why not?”
Remus looks up. His eyes are wide and shiny, brimming with the wet of his never-ending tears. He takes a deep, tremulous breath and squeezes his eyes shut as tight as he can manage.
“I’m... I’m a werewolf,” he chokes out.
The silence that follows feels like an eternity, and all Remus can think is, “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I’ve ruined everything, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-”
And then Peter’s voice cuts through the terror.
“What, like in the comics? Cool!”
Cool.
Cool?
It’s so ridiculous that Remus throws his head back and tries to laugh, but all that comes out is a loud, suffering sob.
“No. No, Peter, it is not cool!” Remus spits. “You don’t understand. I can’t be handsome. I’m a werewolf. I’m a fucking monster!”
“You are not a monster,” says James hotly. “You’re just a little- you're just a little moony, that’s all!”
“A little moony,” Remus repeats dazedly. “I just told you that I turn into a killing machine once a month and that’s your reaction?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“You’re drunk.”
“So are you. Moony.”
James throws himself at Remus’ side, pulling him into the biggest hug he’s ever gotten, and Remus is so touched that he could throw up.
Regulus, who has been hanging back, clears his throat importantly and says, “Well, I for one thought we already knew.”
“What?” Remus scrambles into an alert sitting position, so shocked at Regulus’ admission that he stops crying. “What the bloody hell do you mean you already knew?”
Regulus shrugs, “It wasn’t very hard to figure out. Gone once a month, scars that won’t heal, strange noises in the Dark Forest. I’m honestly surprised no one else put it together.”
“Wha-... Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Well, there was no point telling you, you're obviously in the know, and I thought the rest knew, so there wasn't much to say because they weren't acting strange about it or anything. There's no point telling a prefect or a teacher either, is there? It’s a touchy subject, and-...” Regulus blushes suddenly. “I didn’t want to get you kicked out or be in trouble or anything. You’re- uh. We’re. You know. Friends.”
“Oh.” Remus’ breath catches in his throat. He wants to pull Regulus into the James-commandeered hug as well, but he’s looking especially pink with embarrassment already, so Remus spares him the kindness of being physically left alone.
Peter makes a small humming noise and comes closer to flop himself down backwards on Remus’ lap. “Y’know, it is still objectively cool,” he says, looking up at Remus’ nostrils and grinning as James manages to maneuver him into the hug. “But if you don’t want me to say it, I won’t.”
“Uh, no, you can say it,” Remus croaks through the remnants of his tears. “I’ve just never heard anyone call it that before.”
“Good, I’m original,” grins Peter.
Remus feels himself almost wanting to smile, but then he looks up and sees Sirius’ blank face looking right at him, and his heart drops to his stomach.
“Sirius?” he asks timidly.
There’s that terrible, terrible silence again. He’s ruined everything, he just knows it.
“Sirius,” he tries again, speaking unsteadily, “Sirius, I’m sorry-
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Sirius interrupts softly.
Well, that’s certainly unexpected.
“Yes,” Remus nods. “But it’s alright. I'm a danger. It's deser-”
“Don’t you dare say you deserve it,” scowls Sirius venomously. “No one deserves that. You shouldn’t- It shouldn’t have to hurt.”
“There’s nothing I can do to stop it hurting,” says Remus defeatedly.
“Oh, come on,” says Peter disbelievingly. “There’s got to be something. We’re wizards. We can do magic. I’ve watched people cough up live frogs. You can’t say something as simple as pain relief is impossible.”
“It’s very unlikely to be impossible,” Regulus puts in. “It’s doing it on purpose that’s the hard part. Magic is tricky. Unfortunately, no one cares enough about the human behind the werewolf to experiment properly.”
“We care,” Sirius says. “We can find something.”
“There’s nothing to find,” insists Remus. “Don’t waste your time.”
“Oh, bull.” Sirius blows another raspberry. “This school has a library the size of Neptune, I’m sure there’s something in there that deals with... with moony problems.”
“Books on dark creatures are in the restricted section,” Remus counters. “No teacher is going to let you in there without good reason.”
“Then we’ll find a good reason,” James says, sounding, as always, brightly optimistic.
“We could just break in,” suggests Peter from Remus’ lap.
“All viable options,” Regulus agrees, nodding in approval. When Remus gives him an exasperated look, he just shrugs nonchalantly and says, "What can I say? I enjoy a little experimentation.”
“And how exactly are you going to help me if you can’t be around me when I’m... you know.”
“We could use the invisibility cloak,” James proposes.
“I’d smell you.”
“We could do it from a distance,” Peter considers.
“I can outrun a deer. And probably a cheetah. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“We’ll figure that out first then,” Sirius says staunchly. “There is absolutely no way you’re going to be left alone. I refuse to let you be without us.”
“You...” Remus tries to start talking, but his throat chokes up with a sudden burst of emotion. “You shouldn’t...” he tries again, this time managing the words without bursting into tears. “You don’t have to do that for me.”
“Of course we do,” sniffs James. “You might be a little moony, but you’re our Moony. We’ll do anything for our Moony.”
“Anything for our Moony,” Peter echoes sleepily, yawning around the words.
Sirius, too, repeats the mantra, sounding very steadfast indeed. “Anything for our Moony.”
“You all are entirely too sentimental,” says Regulus grumpily, “but I suppose I agree.”
Remus laughs at this, slightly comforted at the predictability of Regulus’ response.
“You’re all idiots,” he says, shaking his head with a baffled sort of fondness.
“Whatever you say, Moony,” James mumbles. “Now budge up, I’m tired.”
They sleep well that night. The floor is hard, as is the wall, and the candles flicker in a bothersome way, but there’s a warmth in how the five of them end up curled together, with robes stained in shades of pie and eyes lidded shut with the influence of the boozy eggnog.
It’s strange, but it’s peaceful, and the darkness passes slowly and silently as the words spoken aloud that night float comfortingly in the air like soft snowfall.
"Anything for our Moony.”