Fifth year
Chapter 1 - 5th year
“Oi, Remus!” Someone called behind him.
Turning around in the dining hall, Remus found himself facing Lily Evans. He was more than happy to see her, as the summer had kept them apart for far too long. Remus picked Lily up in a big hug, lifting her off the ground due to the growth spurt he had in 4th year.
“Hello, Evans,” Remus muffled into her neck. Lily had a very sweet and almost a tad citrine scent. Putting her down onto the ground Remus asked “How have you been?”. “Oh, just fine,” She said with a grin. Knowing this little trick of hers, Remus asked “No, how are you, really?”
Lily’s face turned a bit cloudy and she glanced down at the floor before meeting Remus’ eyes once again and replying “Well, as you probably could tell from my letters, my sister hasn’t been great,” she scoffed. “She’s met this guy who’s a complete arse, and she barely even speaks to me anymore. When she does; it’s usually something about my “freakiness”.
“Yeah I know, I felt horrible reading the letters while knowing I couldn’t do anything,” Remus replied.
“I know you wanted to. The entire situation has been so frustrating. The only people I could talk to about everything going on has been my family, which has been completely torn apart following my sister’s resentment of me,” she sighed.
“I get that,” Remus said. He could sense the same mood of this conversation throughout the hall. Trying to lighten Lily’s mood he said “But, you’re here now,” and threw an arm around her.
They laughed softly as they walked towards their places at the Gryffindor tables. The situation in question was regarding the wizarding world being on the brink of war. The number of pureblood extremists have grown tremendously, and have started to organise. What furthers the issue; many of them carry positions within the ministry. It's been a fine for the wizarding world to walk, as the pureblood extremists haven’t explicitly stated that the recent killing of muggle-born families is their work - making it difficult for anyone to respond. To protect its students, Hogwarts issued a guideline for muggle-borns and half-bloods to stay safe over the summer. This included lying as low as possible, meaning try not to meet up with anyone and putting wards around your residency. Naturally, the supervision of particularly powerful pureblood families has risen as well. As a result, the wizarding world has been quiet for a few months. This also meant that the Hogwarts dining hall was full of noise, to a greater extent than usual.
Remus had already met up with the remaining marauders on the way here, hearing all about their insufferable summers. Whilst James’ and Peter’s ideas of an insufferable summer did not even remotely compare to Remus’, Sirius actually had it quite shit. Given the new restrictions, he wasn’t able to spend his summer at James’ per usual. Instead, he had to go stay with his uncle, as his current family life was out of control. Granted, it was better than the Black manor, but still horrifying and cold.
Lily, however, had not gotten the chance to meet up with any of them yet. This resulted in James letting out an “Oi, Evans!”, as Lily and Remus came to take their places.
“Charming, Potter,” she replied and raised her eyebrows.
“You know you love me”
Just as Sirius was about to interrupt James’ horrible attempts at making Lily fancy him, a voice filled the hall.
“SILENCE,” Dumbledore spoke, immediately making the chatter of the hall quiet down.
“Welcome back to Hogwarts, dear students. Now as we all know, the sorting ceremony will begin in a jiffy. However, I would just like to say a few words regarding a current situation,” and with this sentence some whispering begun amongst the tables. However, many of the Slytherins were not so much whispering as snickering. Dumbledore simply continued.
“These are strange times indeed, and I would just like to remind you all that Hogwarts has a strict non-tolerance policy regarding discrimination of muggle-borns or half-bloods of any kind. As for the political situation, this could very well be discussed amongst your peers. But, per usual, it cannot interrupt class or study. Understood?”
The vast majority of the hall nodded back to the bearded man.
“Finally, I would like to wish you all a very good rest of your year and I know you are going to be treating our new students with great care.”
“I’m literally just staying down here for the food”, Sirius said. In Remus’ eyes, Sirius had grown in some way over the summer. Not that he necessarily had become that much taller, but he has most definitely grown into his features. His hair, which had previously seemed so neat and tidy, now bore some resemblance to the way James’ hair acted. His pale face somehow made his chiselled jaw and nose appear even more unmistakable. In short term, he had become undeniably attractive. Objectively, obviously. Just something Remus’ started pondering about on the train here.
However, he did not find there was all that much to say about James and Peter. James had grown slightly taller, now just being a tad taller than Sirius. This was something he obviously had shoved up everyone’s faces on the way here. In fact, it seemed as he was continuing to do so,
“Hey Evans, did you know that I’m now taller than Sirius?” he spoke proudly.
“Really?” Lily asked, her voice dripping with irony.
“Yeah, I totally am!” James replied, not really grasping Lily’s disinterest in the conversation.
“So, are you taller than Remus, too?” She asked, with a slightly uncanny grind on her face.
James’ smile immediately fell, and Remus couldn’t help letting out a laugh. Peter (who undeniably was the shortest of the group) just sat next to James, observing the conversation. He most probably didn’t want to get the shot down in the way James just did.
“Besides, I’m more interested in you growing your personality than your height anyways,” and with that, Lily turned back to continue her conversation with Marlene and Dorcas.
“When are you going to let her go, mate?” Sirius asked. “It’s unbearable to see you fail so miserably every time”.
“Yeah, he has a point, James. Besides, you could do much better than a friend of Severus anyways,” Peter added.
“Fret not, my dear friends. For, mark my words, that woman is the love of my life. You will all find yourself regretting your words on our wedding day,” James said, his confidence now having returned in its full glory.
“Bloody hell, mate,” Remus said and sighed.
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The dorm room has always been of great comfort to Remus. While he could most definitely find his roommates annoying when trying to study, he never felt alone. Without fail, every single “first day back” always felt like such a relief. He grew used to the silence and loneliness of staying with his father, which stood in stark contrast to him living with his best friends. Sirius was now found trying to get his record player to work (he failed with this every year, and always had to get Remus to help him), James throwing a ball up into the air and catching it once again to help him practice for quidditch, and Peter was eating some sugar quills his mum had sent with him.
“Crap, I can’t this fucking thing to work. It’s useless, having no electronics inside of Hogwarts,” Sirius said, obviously frustrated.
“Want me to give you a hand?” Remus asked and rolled his eyes. God forbid Mr. Sirius Black would ever admit he was in need of help.
“Give it a try if you want, but I doubt it’ll work,” Sirius said nonchalantly. Even though he most definitely knew Remus would get it to work.
Remus stood up from his bed and sat down next to Sirius.
“Ok, first of all - your hair is literally hanging into your eyes. You’re never going to get it to work like that,” he said to Sirius.
“What? It’s very rock n’ roll,” Sirius said with a smirk. This was actually not a very new thing to Sirius’ personality. He had always had a sort of “edge” to him, that Remus could only suppose rooted itself in his defiance of the Black family. It also didn’t help that Remus had introduced him to all that muggle culture, of Bowie, Queen, The Rolling Stones, etc. However, it did seem that Sirius had taken it to a completely new extent over the summer. Instead of uniforms, he had been walking around all day with his leather jacket (probably overheating), and Doc Martens. While Remus also owned Doc Martens, it definitely had a different tone with Sirius’ general manners. In fact, Remus had spotted something resembling eyeliner in his packing.
“Oh yeah, definitely,” Remus said sarcastically. “But for now, let me just-” he stopped himself and grabbed Sirius’ wand.
“HEY!” Sirius exclaimed as he tried to grab the wand, which Remus was now holding above his head.
“Oh calm down, would you? I’m just going to need it for this thing Mary showed me,” Remus said and forcibly turned Sirius away so his back was facing Remus. He quickly began to twist up his hair with the help of the wand, simply to get it out of the way. He paused for a moment to simply follow the way of a strand with his fingers. His hair was quite beautiful, actually. Wait no, record players.
Remus coughed and continued “Now that you can actually SEE, “ he paused for dramatic effect, “I can show you how to actually do it”.
Remus took out his own wand and began explaining the steps to Sirius. Going around Hogwarts’ magic was never easy. It did, however, make for a fun challenge. In fact, this had kind of been the basis of the vast majority of the marauders’ missions. Therefore, Remus found himself quite used to the tricks by now, making fixing up a simple record player, easy.
“Remus Lupin, you are a genius!” Sirius exclaimed as the mat began to turn.
“Yeah, yeah. You owe me a fag, though,” Remus said.
“Naturally. Right now?”
“Yeah sure,”
“Filthy, filthy habit,” James said, very noticeably.
As Sirius and Remus headed for the balcony, they could hear Peter exclaiming “OW!” - as James had thrown the ball at him.