Absorb
Breakfast in Hogwarts that day was a quiet affair. The four long tables were filled with anxious students, scattered notes and books between half-empty plates. Mary, Marlene and Lily were seated in the middle of the Gryffindor table. Close to them, the Marauders sat, two of which were digging into their plates without any hint of nerves or the urge to do last-minute revisions.
Mary MacDonald closed her book with a decided gesture and turned to the girl with long red locks, sitting across from her “Lily, why was Scamander in your bed all night?
A loud coughing noise erupted next to the girls as James Potter sprayed Peter and Remus with tea. For one moment people looked up at the commotion but then the great Hall resumed its silent study buzz. The coughing and choking noises continued and Sirius started patting James’ back not looking any less bored.
“Mary!” The redhead hissed at her friend, not bothering to take her eyes from the book she was frantically reading.
Next to the girls, James's face was getting redder and redder. He looked as if he was about to choke. Sirius eyed him with a bit more interest.
“You’re no fun. Lily, it’s a simple question.”
“Can’t you see I am trying to study?”
“If you just tell me already, I could stop pestering you and you would get so much more done in the next - fifteen minutes, before -“
“Fifteen minutes? Shit.” Lily looked about to cry. “I screwed up last night, okay Mary, I don’t know why I did it. It’s a bad habit. And it kept me up all night because the hairs drove me crazy.”
The coughing became louder. Both girls looked at James a bit confused and a little concerned but continued their conversation.
“You had Lima in your bed as well? Lily, you are certifiable insane. I mean, you have an exam in” Mary checks her watch “12 minutes.”
“Oy, Prongs, you need to drink something. I am starting to think you might really choke. I can’t have mum think I let you suffocate at breakfast. I don’t know what that Heimlich fellow was up to, so please can you fix this yourself.” Sirius threw Remus a pleading look, asking for help with his spluttering friend.
The boy with the messy hair and glasses that were about to fall from his nose was now wheezing. Tears streaming from his eyes as he started to hit himself on his chest. Remus and Peter just stared at the spectacle.
“Lils, I just don’t understand why you keep doing this the night before your exams. It’s not healthy”
“Listen, Mary, I told you to drop it. I don’t understand why it bothers you so much, it wasn’t keeping you from your sleep!” She whispered angrily as she stood up, shoving both her books on Care of Magical Creatures in her bag. With a frown and a pitying look at the choking crying boy still hitting his chest, she walked out of the hall.
“Alright there, Potter?” Marlene’s voice did not hide her amusement at her cousin's antics. James gulped some juice down and made another effort at clearing his throat and wiping his face.
“Don’t tell me you’re nervous all of a sudden?” Marlene was still smiling smugly at him.
“Ha, not for exams he isn’t. He reserves those feelings for special occasions- learning about a certain sixth year and her nighttime visitors being one of those.” Sirius’ voice was also filled with humour as he started to smack James on his back.
“I still don’t get it though.” Mary had not given James’s near-dying at breakfast a whole lot of attention.
“Ah Mar, she has been doing it since first year. It’s just a silly superstition.”
At this James looked Marlene straight in the face. “What in the hell are you talking about? She has slept with,” at this he lowers his voice to a whisper, “boys in her bed before exams since first year?”
“Not boys, more like men and women if you want to be exact.”
James looked like he was about to have another fit and Mary was frowning at Marlene in confusion.
“You see, Lil ’s mum once told her a story when she was still a little girl about a tsar of Russia. He learned about his people in a dream when h left his book under his pillow by accident. Ever since she has had this superstition that if you sleep with a book underneath your pillow you magically absorb the knowledge it contains. So whenever she feels she has not done enough studying she does this the night before the exam. Turns out that Lima’s book of Monsters makes for a very rough bed partner, poor Lily.”
The barking laugh that escaped from Sirius startled both the occupants of the Hufflepuff table and Ravenclaw.
“Wait, so Lima the author, not Lima the fourth-year Ravenclaw chaser? And not Henry Scamander, from Sly -?” James’ voice was still scratchy from all his coughing.
Marlene stood up and gave him an incredulous look “Really Potter, I thought you had it bad, but this is another level. How would those boys even get into our dorm? No, you are jealous of a furry book.” Shaking their heads at James, the girls walked out of the Great Hall.