first year - pause for dramatic effect
“Potter step away” Snape said “You’ll ruin it”
“I’m not daft!” James bit back. Snivellous acted like he wasn’t able to handle a simple potion. How hard was stirring a ladle clockwise? Exactly, not hard at all. And on top of that, his Dad was an expert potioneer and James himself was quite clever and certainly not dumb like Snape was implying
“Hm well the way you strut around the castle suggests otherwise”
That didn’t even have anything to do with his potion-making skills! And anyway, James may have strutted around the castle, but that was only a sign of confidence, at least he didn’t shuffle like Snape did with a constant cloud of darkness and gloom over him.
He was about to say something in retaliation but Snape got there before him as he exclaimed
“Eugh! What sort of disease does Loony Lupin have that makes his arms look like that?!”
James whipped his head round to where Remus was working with Evans, he had his jumper sleeves rolled up to display an array of silvery scars. He didn’t look much closer because now it was his responsibility to defend his friend.
He glared at Snape threateningly “What did you just say about my mate?”
How dare he call Remus loopy.
Snape of course had to anger James further by saying nasty things, but James just fought back against him not letting him get away with the vile words that came out of his mouth.
“Although I’m not surprised you hang out with the likes of Lupin ” Snape drawled “All your friends are weird like that, with Black being practically abandoned by his family, Pettigrew following you around pathetically and Lupin with his diseased arms”
“Don’t you dare say anything against my friend’s Snivellous!” James was practically shouting at this point, gesturing with his hands to emphasise what he was saying. The whole class had now gone silent “At least I don’t hang out with slimy gits like Mulciber and Rosier, judging every single person and spewing bullshit!”
Just as Slughorn was about to intervene James’ hand accidentally went flying into their cauldron, knocking it over and subsequently burning his hand, while the contents of the potion went flying.
The good thing that had come out of this situation?
Snape was now absolutely drenched in potion.
He was however, seething with anger and pulling his wand out ready to do something that James didn’t want to be on the receiving end of. Therefore he also drew his wand, ready for attack.
Before anything else could happen though Slughorn started shouting
“Put your wands away” he bellowed out, moving towards both of them to put a stop to it “I am absolutely appalled at your behaviour boys! I’ll be taking points away from both houses. I don’t condone shouting or dueling in my lessons” he then sighed, looking at the mess. With the flick of his wand he cleaned up any spillage that had happened and righted the cauldron so that it was standing upright again. “Severus go to Madam Pomfrey to clean up and check you have no burns, and James same goes for you”
He didn’t want to go up to the hospital wing with Snape.
“My hand's fine professor” James insisted. It really hurt, but he’d rather deal with the pain at the minute - he’d go to the hospital wing later.
Slughorn looked at him warily and then replied “If you insist” he then started shaking his head and he sighed again “I’m afraid we’ll have to change partners again for next lesson, for now you can pack away all the potion ingredients Potter, it’s almost the end of the lesson.
James started doing as Slughorn had instructed.
“Everyone else, carry on! You have 10 minutes left and then I expect all your potions to be bottled, named and put in the tray on my desk”
At the end of the lesson Sirius hurriedly went over to James, looking like an over-excited dog as he did so.
“What the hell happened?” he asked as they walked out the classroom and down the corridor, Peter and Remus by their side “What did the twat say?”
“Yeah Snivellous looked just about ready to punch you” Peter added “and you him”
“Saying horrible things about you lot” James sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose “I don’t know who gave him the right”
“What exactly did he say though?” Sirius inquired
“Uhm well…” James wasn’t sure if he should say what Snivellous had said to him, but then Sirius looked at him encouragingly, he guessed they deserved to know “Well he called Remus Loony Lupin” he looked at Remus to see his reaction and to his surprise the other boy smirked.
“That’s a classic" he snorted "shame he couldn’t come up with anything better”
Ok that was a good reaction, obviously he wasn’t upset about it. Slightly concerning maybe that he said the insult was a classic, but if Lupin wasn’t bothered then James wasn’t going to dwell too much.
He moved on.
“Then he said you were diseased” James looked at him nervously “because of your scars”
At this Remus’ smirk vanished “My… what?”
"Well.. um your scars. You have your sleeves rolled up" At this Sirius and Peter looked at Remus’ forearms. The other boy proceeded to quickly roll them down and James ran a hand through his hair, feeling a bit guilty. Maybe he shouldn’t have drawn attention to it.
"So....um." James swallowed. He opened his mouth to say something else, but then closed it again, as he struggled to find words for whatever he had to say. He didn’t know what he had to say
"Spit it out" Remus sighed with frustration.
James was well aware that he was just standing there dumbstruck, not really sure how to continue.
After a couple more moments of silence, Sirius spoke
"James" he snapped him out of it, and James turned to look at him. Sirius had an odd look on his face, and he seemed to be side-eyeing Remus every two seconds.
“Oh, right yeah" James replied as he came back to reality
"So, he called you a lunatic.” he turned to look at Remus again “And I started to defend you because... well, you're not a lunatic. Then he just kept on saying these really mean things about you Sirius and Pete, calling you pathetic, rubbish like that" He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at Sirius. Best not to mention his family, he didn’t want another reaction like Remus’. Maybe he’d bring it up later, ask Sirius if he was feeling abandoned in any way.
"And then, well you saw and heard what happened next” he shrugged.
“Well…” Peter started “Thanks for defending us James”
“Anytime” he grinned at him
“At least Snivellous was absolutely drenched in your potion” Sirius laughed
“Oh merlin!” James giggled “That was the best part” then he looked at his slightly red hand “Although I did injure my hand a little in the process, but I don’t mind one bit” he shook his head grinning at all his friends “It was worth it to see Snape like that”
“Remus!” A girl’s voice from behind them called out. All of them stopped to turn around and see that the girl was none other than one red-headed Lily Evans.
“Yes?”
“I thought you’d want to know that Slughorn said our potion was perfectly brewed”
“Oh, well that's good” Remus looked at Evans slightly wide-eyed
“Woah that’s brilliant” James nodded, impressed “Potion masters in the making”
Evans narrowed her eyes at him while Remus replied “I barely did anything anyway, ninety nine percent of it was you Lily”
Evans turned her head back to look at Remus and laughed “Well I won’t deny that, but you should still be credited for that one percent”
“Anyway Lupin, you probably did more than James here” Sirius started patting him on the shoulder “he just stood there doing nothing”
“Oi! That wasn’t my fault” he protested “Snivellous didn’t let me place a finger on his precious potion”
“Don’t call him that” Evans snapped her head toward James, frowning
“Why shouldn’t he?” Sirius questioned “Name suits him”
James started explaining “Evans you should’ve heard what Snivellous called dear old Re-”
“No no no!” she cried “I’m not playing this game Potter, I’m not the teacher, I don’t want to hear about who calls who what, all I’m asking you to do is to stop being mean to my friend”
“Well he’s the one insulting my friends!”
“Exactly, the git deserves it” Sirius added
“Right but did you ever stop and think that maybe the reason why he’s not being very nice to you is because you call him stupid names and do stupid things to people in the castle corridors, acting like you can get away with anything, marauding around the bloody place?”
“And did you ever think Evans that maybe the reason we do call him names is because he’s a bully and no one apart from you and his miserable group of other Slytherin bullies actually like him?”
She visibly faltered “He is not a bully! You just don’t know him like I do”
“The other day I saw him hex and insult a Ravenclaw for simply bumping into him!” Sirius exclaimed “literally no good reason!”
“Well then I will talk to him about that! But honestly Black I think you’re pants are on fire ” Evans scoffed and then walked away in the opposite direction
“I don’t get why she’s friends with him” James sighed
“Well that obviously means she’s got issues” Sirius shrugged
James only partly agreed.
“I don’t know, she was pretty nice in potions today” Remus commented, and Sirius looked at him, offended “Not that I agree with her friend choices” he explained “I’m just saying, she wasn’t that bad”
“Sorry to break it to you but that niceness is probably fake”
James did not agree
“Deep down she’s probably the exact same as Snivellous” Sirius continued
“I’d say Snivellous is worse” Peter said “I swear, It would be great to have a map of where he was at all times just so we wouldn’t suddenly bump into him in the corridor, he terrifies me”
James then had an absolute stroke of genius. It was probably possible.
“You know that idea isn’t half bad” James grinned at Peter “We need a map of this bloody place and it’s secrets anyway, would be good to track that git with it as well”
"Oooo yeah" Sirius nodded eagearly "We never have to see his face in the corridors again"
"And think of the pranking potential! When we find a secret passage, we've got to put it down"
"Agreed" Peter added, while Sirius grinned as if all his dreams had come true
“Erm…" Remus started, looking a little guilty "Would this be a good time to mention I’ve already kind of sort of started drawing out a map?”
“What?” James exclaimed “Of course it’s the right time! That’s Brilliant!” James clapped him on the shoulder, starting to feel giddy with the excitement of this new project. Making a start was the first step to success.
“You really sprung that on us didn’t you?” Sirius smirked, looking at him curiously
Remus just shrugged “I started it when I had some spare time”
“Wait” Sirius narrowed his eyes at the boy “That's what you do when you disappear off and come back saying you went for a walk?!”
“Uhm yeah” Remus nodded and Sirius shook his head in disbelief
“Why don’t we expand the tracking thing?” Peter suddenly exclaimed “Track Filch and Mrs Norris too! I swear they had it out for me in the first week when I kept turning down the wrong corridor”
“Hah yeah!” James laughed “Told us off for loitering about”
“Why don’t we track all the teachers?” Sirius added “We’d get away with nearly anything”
“Why stop there?” Remus asked, the excitement not just showing on his face but all four of their faces “Why don’t we track everyone?”
“Everyone?!” Peter said in disbelief
“Yeah” Remus nodded, grinning
“We’d be able to do literally anything and not get caught” James laughed.
Now this. This was what pranking genius was.
As Sirius said, this allowed the four of them to prank anyone, do anything, and get away with it. This allowed them to build their legacy.
James couldn’t believe it. Him and his friends were bloody brilliant, and he had every faith that they’d be able to do it.
“Hey what was that word that Lily said?” Peter questioned, looking to James “Marauding?”
“Yeah” James nodded, an idea forming in his mind.
“What’s it mean?”
“Basically means we’re going around causing havoc Pete” Sirius answered for him, winking
James stopped walking.
This was a momentous occasion, and needed to be honoured properly.
“Everyone stop” he said calmly, trying not show an ounce of emotion so that he wouldn’t give it away. It probably wasn’t working though, James felt as if he was radiating sunshine.
They followed his command, as all three of them stopped and turned around to listen to James and what he had to say.
“That’s what we’ll call ourselves” he gestured with his hands “From this day on, all four of us, me, Sirius, Remus and Peter now go by the name of…” he paused for dramatic effect.
And then he let himself burst out into a smile as he announced proudly “The Marauders”