Chapter Text
The time for exams had fallen upon Hogwarts, instilling most of the older students and many of the younger with a feverish anxiety that left the whole castle jumpy, sleepless, and irritable. Remus had often tried to rope James and Sirius into the study sessions he conducted, often with Peter’s company, but they could not be coerced. Remus wasted approximately two days worrying that they would fail their exams, but soon decided that it was their problem and he would get nowhere spending his precious life energy on such anxieties.
It wasn’t until one particular lunch period that anything remotely catastrophic happened. It had all started when they were walking to lunch, calm as you please, as Peeves had motioned for them to follow him.
Now, any first-year could tell you that following Peeves was a terrible idea, but James was unfortunately prone to conceiving and executing terrible ideas on a daily basis, so once James followed, everyone followed.
“Where are you going?” An older boy leered at them from the open door of a room from which several other students were watching them.
Peeves giggled at their plight and vanished.
“I know you.” Another boy said, appearing behind the first. He pointed an accusing finger at Sirius.
“I hope not. Let’s get going.” Sirius said shortly, but one boy stuck out an arm to stop them from going. “You cursed Lucius.” He said. “It’s only fair that I curse you back.”
“It was a hex,” Remus muttered unhelpfully.
“We’ll be going now.” James announced, but he didn’t seem in too much of a hurry to test the arm.
“It’s just a stupid first-year.” A girl said from inside.
“Wow, okay.” Sirius muttered.
The girl was sitting right next to Narcissa Black, who quickly turned in her direction, annoyed.
“You didn’t see what he did to Lucius!”
”I say he gets it.” The too-close-for-comfort boy announced, and someone from inside called—
“Yeah, Bulstrode!”
”Don’t you—“ James attempted.
“This isn’t nece—“ Remus started, simultaneously. They were both cut off sharply when a fist reared back, and hit Sirius squarely in the face.
————
"We need to take you to the hospital wing." James fretted. "Are you okay? I'm going to kill that guy, I swear, I can't believe—"
"It's fine, I'll be fine." Sirius said quickly, although his eye was already bruised and swelling shut.
"You're not fine." Remus protested.
"It's okay, we don't need to worry."
"We're going to the hospital wing." James announced, beginning to shunt Sirius in that vague direction. Remus and Peter hurried after.
"I know a spell." Sirius said. "Deformitas Obscondo, it heals."
"We're not doing a spell—we're all radically unqualified, and it could just hurt you more." Remus insisted.
When they arrived at the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey sighed heavily, as though they had interrupted an unimaginably busy day, despite the fact that the room was empty of ailing students.
"What happened?"
"He got punched." James told her, and she clucked sympathetically.
"Oh, no. Alright." She produced her wand, and pointed it at Sirius's black eye.
"Episkey."
The skin healed instantly, and Sirius reached up to touch his face.
"Hm." Madam Pomfrey huffed. "How's that?"
"It's great, thank you." He said quickly.
"Would 'Deformitas Obscondo' have worked for that?" Remus asked curiously. Sirius shot him a nervous look, which he did not understand.
"Yes, but it's designed a bit differently than Episkey, so it will work more quickly, but cause pain while it works. Sometimes, a good amount of the pain from the original injury remains, but you can't see it. It's really not the best spell for this type of thing." Madam Pomfrey told him kindly, and Remus nodded. After a moment, she looked curiously at him. "Where did you learn that spell?"
"Sirius—" Remus began, but Sirius shot him a look that clearly said 'don't'. "I found it in a book." He said quickly.
"Alright." She said. "Well, run along now, you're all better." She shooed them away, and they followed her flapping hands out of the hospital wing.
"That was weird." James observed, as indelicately as an Erumpent doing ballet. "Why was she like that about the spell? Is it dangerous or something?"
"No! It's not dangerous at all." Sirius said, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. "I've had it used on me, and used it before, and it's fine."
"Are you sure?" James persisted. "Because she said it hurt, and it doesn't take a Latin expert to figure out what that spell means. You don't have to tell us, but you want to..." He sighed. "We're just wondering, that's all."
Remus and Peter nodded.
"My parents use it at home, usually for bruises, but for other things too. And Madam Pomfrey was right, bruised eyes usually hurt a bit to heal, and the pain lasts for a few days at least. But this didn't hurt at all." He finished.
It was a perfectly reasonable statement. So reasonable, that when delivered with the nervous, uncomfortable tenor that Sirius had, one might've been left to wonder why.
————
"Do you want to fail?"
Sirius shrugged nonchalantly, still not caring even a day before their first exam.
"James, can you help me out here?" Remus said.
James turned wide, serious eyes on his friend. "Sirius." He said sternly.
"Yes?"
"What's your plan if you're not going to study?"
"I'm going to guess." He said, still solemn.
"Did you know that these exams shape the teachers' opinion of you for the rest of your Hogwarts career?"
Sirius miraculously kept a straight face. "My Hogwarts career. Got it. I must commence studying immediately."
"See to it that you do."
Both of them burst out laughing, grabbing each other's shoulders for support.
"Hey, hey, hey, Sirius, high five." James said, holding out a hand. Sirius reached for it, and James smacked his hand towards the couch he was sitting on, so their hands completely missed each other. The laughter began again. Remus rolled his eyes, covering amusement.
"Admit it, that's what you sound like!" James said cheerily.
"I never said 'Hogwarts career'." Remus grumbled. "Can you name one ingredient in a Cure for Boils potion?"
"Snake fangs!" James said quickly. "Crushed snake fangs."
"Porcupine quills." Sirius said, grinning.
"Who was Radolphus Pittiman?"
"He wrote a book about Uric the Oddball." Sirius burst out.
"Why is he called the Oddball?"
"Wore a jellyfish for a hat—that's on his Chocolate Frog card, um, had fifty pet Augureys, and he listened to Fwooper song for a month straight and then went around with a dead badger on his head." James rattled off.
"He listened to it for three months." Sirius corrected.
"That's all correct." Remus said, and James and Sirius grinned at each other. "What color is a Forgetfulness potion?"
"Orange!" James crowed.
"Orange."
"My dad makes potions." James explained, acting as though he'd already aced the exam. "Once I drank his Forgetfulness potion because it looked like pumpkin juice and I forgot who I was for a little bit. After that he kept the potions out of reach. My parents still joke about that." He shook his head.
"Can you do the hand movement for the mouse-to-snuffbox transfiguration? McGonagall hinted it might be on the exam."
Both whipped out their wands, and Remus held his hands up for them to stop.
"Hey, I never said I wanted to be a snuff-box! Use your quill or something!"
Sheepishly, James and Sirius switched their wands for quills and performed the perfect hand-motion.
"Do we pass, Professor Lupin?" James asked.
Remus rolled his eyes.
————
“Peeves!” Sirius shouted, as he began to give chase after the spirit. “What the hell was that?”
Peeves bobbed up and down, grinning disturbingly. “Peevsie never meant to get you into trouble, oh no no,”
“Your entire job is getting students into trouble!” James exclaimed.
“Well…maybe he meant to get you into different trouble,” Peeves said quickly, and let out a loud giggle. He began to soar away, singing as he went.
“Nasty students, nasty students, getting in a fight!
When the headmaster learns, they’re going to get a fright!”
Remus groaned. “He’s not really going to tell Dumbledore, is he?” He fretted.
“Tell Dumbledore what?” James attempted consolingly. “That some guy punched Sirius in the face? We’re not going to get in trouble for that.”
”But what if he finds out why?” Remus asked reasonably.
”Then I’ll be the only one getting in trouble,” Sirius said. “Not you.”
“It’ll be fine,” James assured him. “He won’t tell Dumbledore. Why would he?”
”No reason,” Peter agreed firmly.
————
Exams passed much more easily than could have been expected. Of course, the weekend after they finished was the biggest holiday of the year. A few older students commandeered the Gryffindor common room for a gleeful party that began first thing on Friday evening.
“James!” Frank called, as he and Kingsley made their way over to Remus, Sirius, James, and Peter. “You all made it.”
Kingsley retained some dignity, but Frank had already put some sort of basket over his head as a makeshift hat, adorned with a purple flower that screeched intermittently with a sound like nails down a chalkboard.
“Do you know who put all this together?” Remus asked.
Both shrugged. “No idea,” Frank said cheerfully, and tore into the pack of butterbeer he was carrying. “Butterbeer?”
“Sure!”
Frank handed them each a drink, and kept the last two for himself and Kingsley, seemingly without noticing that they were already holding butterbeers.
“There’s Quincy! Good to see you. Frank, let’s go,” Kingsley ordered, and led them both away.
Just as they started to go, the music stopped, and the conversation faltered. A trio of sixth-years clambered onto one of the tables, and motioned for everyone to quiet down.
“Exams are over! School is almost over!” One called, as excited as if he were an announcer at a music festival.
The crowd whooped and clapped. A few whistled.
“We’ve got food, pumpkin juice, and butterbeer, and some, er, spicy butterbeer for when the children go to sleep.” He eyed the clump of first-years that Remus was stuck in, and many eyes in the room turned to them as well. One third-year booed.
“Now, on that note…” The sixth-year pointed dramatically to another student by the record player, who quickly turned it on. Music blasted into the room, and the sixth-years hopped off the table amidst a sudden commotion.
“These people have no taste,” Sirius muttered, and Remus snickered aloud.
“What?” Sirius demanded.
“It’s just funny, coming from the person who has crammed as much music knowledge into his formerly empty head as possible in six months,” he said, and Sirius shook his head.
“Hey, he can recognize good music when he hears it,” James interrupted.
”Well, if he can, he certainly didn’t learn it from you,” Remus said. “Death by Thestral?”
James lowered his eyes in mock shame. “You just don’t understand them,” he muttered.
“No, I don’t.”
————
Remus watched, partly amused, partly mortified, as James argued with the sixth-year in charge of music. Armed with a stack of records and a handful of coins, he was determined to gain control over the record player, even for just a few songs. The whole situation was made doubly terrible by James’s ensemble, which included a Gryffindor tie knotted around his head and hung over the side of his face, into which several of Frank’s screaming flowers were tucked.
Despite this, once James handed over a Galleon, the sixth-year readily accepted his albums.
As James walked towards Remus, loud metal music started playing, and he grinned.
”I hope this was worth it!” Remus called, as he recognized Death by Thestral, one of the worst bands that James had a slight obsession with.
”That expression alone is worth it,” James said with a smirk. “Where’s Sirius?”
Remus shrugged. “I think he went upstairs.”
James started up the stairs, and Remus followed.
Sirius was, in fact, upstairs, engaged in what looked like a heated debate with someone Remus did not know. In fact, the first-year dorm was filled with people Remus did not know, except for one or two. The only person he was certain he recognized was David, who was talking with someone whose name Remus thought might’ve been Gray.
“Sirius!” James called, and Sirius hurried over.
”Don’t worry,” he said immediately. “I already put Frank’s flowers in Davey’s underwear drawer.”
”Good,” Jame said. “Hey, is he using my record player?”
Remus glanced at the table beside David, where James’s record player sat.
“Yes,” he confirmed, which was, of course, entirely unnecessary.
James practically ran over to where David was, and Remus sighed lightly.
Five minutes later, Remus trailed behind as James marched downstairs with the record player in his arms, and Sirius laughed endlessly.
————
Remus shifted around on his bed, his joints stiff from sleep. He opened his eyes, and realized very quickly that he was not in his bed, but in the common room. That was about as much thought as he managed before a potent pain in his hip became too powerful to ignore.
“What…” he muttered, and sat up just enough to see a foot jammed between him and the back of the sofa. Following the path of the leg revealed that the foot belonged to Peter, who was asleep on the same sofa, laying the other way. James and Sirius, however, were awake, sitting side-by-side in front of the couch. All around them, the party was still going on, despite the fact that the sky outside the windows was pitch-black.
”More beers!” Someone called, and a lazy cheer went up from the gathered students.
“Peter.” Remus poked at the foot. “Peter, wake up.”
Peter yawned hugely and stretched his arms behind his head.
“You’re finally awake,” James said, which would’ve convinced them that he hadn’t even thought of sleep, if he hadn’t caught a yawn halfway through the comment. Beside him, Sirius giggled, seemingly with no prompting.
“What time is it?” Remus asked.
“Time for you to get a watch!” James replied quickly, and Sirius laughed harder. James burst out laughing, and they held their heads together, laughing uproariously.
Undeterred, Remus grabbed James’s arm to check his watch, which read ‘3:15’.
“It’s 3 am.” He said, to which nobody replied.
“Do—do you—“ James choked, still laughing. “Do you want some beers?” He and Sirius collapsed back into laughter, and Remus frowned, confused.
“Beer?” Peter repeated, still dazed from sleep.
Suddenly, a face appeared directly next to Remus, and he drew back sharply. It was a fourth-year, who had apparently fallen asleep on the floor beside their couch. His hair was going in all directions as though he had just stuck his finger in an electrical socket, and there were a great number of inked drawings on his face.
“Whoa,” James said bluntly. “You’ve got, er…”
”What?” The boy snapped peevishly.
“Nothing,” Remus said.
“Oh.” The boy wandered off, and Remus chuckled.
“Nice,” James said.
“Ew,” Peter mumbled.
“What is it?”
He pointed across the room, where a girl was throwing up in a rubbish bin.
Remus nodded absently and stood, stretching.
The other three followed, although it only took a moment for James to run off towards the now-abandoned record player. He hopped up on a chair beside it, and Sirius cheered.
“Good evening!” He shouted, and about half the people in the room turned his way. Two whistled.
“Enjoy your slow death by thestral!”
He got down off the chair to put the record on, and whooped when it started playing. One person cheered along with him, while the rest turned away.
“Good one,” Sirius chuckled, and James grinned.
————
Dawn rose that morning over the bare bones of the previous night’s party, alighting many empty bottles and doodled-on faces. Those who were still awake were watching a movie or talking huddled on a couch. The rest had either gone upstairs or passed out on the floor. Miraculously, Remus and Peter were not among the sleepers, likely because they’d already had a power nap. James and Sirius, on the other hand, would insist they hadn’t fallen asleep, if only you could wake them up long enough to get their testimony on the matter. The silence was only broken when the first students made their way downstairs, to gawk and laugh at those still attempting to continue the party, or unconscious in various locations.
“Good morning,” Lily said cheerfully to Remus, looking down at him with an amused smirk.
“Morning,” Remus mumbled. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep, but he’d been so close, then the dreadful sun started to rise, and told his exhausted body it was time to be awake for the day.
“Having fun?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m going to do this every night.”
”Are they asleep?” She pointed to James and Sirius.
“Yes. They partied hard.”
She laughed. “What did they do?”
”Well, James played some terrible music, and Sirius…I’m not sure. I think he might’ve eaten something strange.”
Lily chuckled. "Good luck with that."
As she turned away, the fourth-years began to rise again, followed by the fifth-years. They hooted and hollered and made several of the people around them wince greatly with their noise. However, no one seemed to object as they raised the dead party back from its ashes into another roaring flame. For the next day, people came and went, but there always seemed to be a celebration in Gryffindor Tower. The determined students stretched it out across another day and night, before it finally became a pathetic congregation of pale, sleep deprived third-years trying to awaken an army of sleeping Gryffindors who wanted nothing more than to find someplace dark to continue their slumber. Despite the third-years' attempts, they too ended up watching television until some Hufflepuffs swung around to see what was left of the party, and went away disappointed.