Chapter Text
“You have your cauldron?”
“Yes, Mam.”
“What about those scales of yours?”
“Yes, Mam.”
“And your wand? You mustn’t forget your wand, Remus, dear —“
Remus pulled his wand out of his pocket and held it up for his mam to see, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Hope Lupin’s eyes softened as she smiled.
“I’m being ridiculous again, aren’t I?”
“Only a little bit,” Lyall Lupin said, kissing his wife on the top of her head.
“I’m going to be fine, Mam,” Remus insisted. “I promise.”
He glanced at the clock hanging above the station. It was practically a Lupin tradition to be late getting to King’s Cross Station, and, true to form (thanks to a thirty-five minute argument in which Hope had tried to force Remus to drink a third Pepper-Up Potion and Remus had frantically tried to dissuade her, lest he show up to the platform with his ears belching smoke) Remus had mere minutes to drag his trunk aboard the train before it left.
Hope followed his gaze and sighed. “I suppose you should get going. Come on, one last hug.”
Remus sandwiched himself between his parents. For a moment, he closed his eyes and inhaled the soft lavender scent of Hope’s perfume and the oaky traces of tobacco that trailed Lyall wherever he went. His body filled with warmth. In spite of all their nagging and fussing, Remus would miss his parents.
The shrill whistle of the train cut through the moment. Remus extricated himself and grabbed one handle of his trunk. Lyall rushed forward to grab the other. The full moon had only been two days ago, and, though he tried not to show it, Remus’s energy was still drained. Together, they hoisted the trunk up and Remus climbed aboard.
“Be good,” Lyall said, “and don’t forget to have fun.”
His face was serious, but the twinkle in his brown eyes told Remus that he was already expecting to hide several owls home from McGonagall from Hope’s worrying gaze.
“I will, Tad,” Remus grinned.
“Don’t forget to write!” Hope called after him, as the train lurched forward and started to move. Remus nodded and waved at her. He didn’t stop until the train had rounded the first bend, his parents swallowed from view.
Remus, it appeared, was one of the last few on the train. Most compartments had already been claimed by students who had sprawled out with games of Wizard Chess or Gobstones and were swapping stories of their summer escapades. Remus glanced in each for his friends, to no avail. He hadn’t seen any of them all summer. Peter had been put to work in his mother’s pub in Leeds; James had been dragged with his parents to visit relatives in Kolkata; and Sirius’s family, well, didn’t approve of him spending time with filthy half-bloods like Remus. They had exchanged owls, of course, sometimes more than one a day, but it wasn’t the same. Remus ached with missing them.
“Hullo Remus,” Lily Evans greeted him, in the dozenth or so compartment he checked. Her tentative smile broadened when she peered behind him and saw that he was alone. Lily and Remus were on friendly terms, being the only two Gryffindors in their Arithmancy class, but Remus had noticed that Lily’s attitude towards him cooled distinctly when he was in the company of Sirius and James. “Did you have a good summer?”
“It was alright.” Remus tugged at the collar of his sweater, all too conscious of the fresh scar which crossed from his shoulder to his chin. “I’m glad to be back, though.”
Lily nodded fervently. “Same.”
She didn’t elaborate.
“Hello Alice,” Remus said, poking his head further into the compartment to greet the short-haired black girl who was spoon-feeding a toad on her lap. “Marlene.”
“Hi, Remus,” Alice Smythe said cheerfully. Marlene McKinnon, who was sitting upside down while flipping through a copy of Beater’s Digest, scowled and muttered, “Bugger off, Loony.”
“Er, sorry,” Lily said, looking uncomfortable as Remus winced. “She’s still a sore over the, erm, incident from last year.”
Marlene had narrowly beaten Sirius out (no pun intended) for the only free Beater position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team the year prior. Sirius, who wasn’t used to losing at anything, had appeared to take the defeat gracefully—until the next morning, when an irate Marlene had come down to breakfast covered head-to-toe in maroon and gold polka dots. It had taken a whole week for the dots to fade from Marlene’s skin, despite Madame Pomfrey’s best efforts. Remus, Peter, and James had nothing to do with the prank — James, indeed, was offended that anyone would accuse him of such poor sportsmanship — but that hadn’t stopped Marlene from nurturing a grudge towards all four Marauders ever since.
“It’s fine,” Remus said. “I know Sirius can be…”
“A dunghole?” Marlene filled in.
“I was going to say a ‘sore loser,’” Remus said lightly. “But, er… yeah. I’m really sorry, Marlene. And James is too, he made Sirius swear he wouldn’t try out for the team this year if he wasn’t prepared to get cut.”
Marlene snorted, but she didn’t add any more insults, which Remus considered a victory. He turned back to Lily, who was shifting from foot to foot awkwardly.
“I should probably find my friends.”
“Probably,” Lily said. She opened and closed her mouth several times like she was considering adding something, but after a moment merely said, “It was good to see you, Remus.”
“You too, Lily, Alice… Marlene.”
Alice gave a cheerful wave, seemingly unperturbed by the tension between her classmates, and Remus set off once more.
Remus found his friends in the second-to-last compartment. Sirius, James, and Peter were crouching on the floor, surrounded by loose sheets of parchment covered in indecipherable scribbles.
“MOONY!” Sirius shouted when Remus walked in. He leapt up and tackled Remus in a hug, sending parchment flying. The force sent the two stumbling back into the door of the compartment. Blood rushed to Remus’s face; after four years, he was still barely used to having friends, much less friends with so much enthusiasm.
“I missed you too, Sirius,” Remus said, gently prying the black-haired boy off of him. He nodded to the hurricane of papers scattered throughout the compartment. “What’s all this?”
“Mischief,” Peter said seriously.
“It’s a record of all of the pranks we’ve pulled since first year,” James said. He pushed his glasses up, smudging ink all over his nose in the process.
“That’s an ambitious undertaking for nine in the morning.”
Remus tried to lift his trunk up to the rack, but he barely made it an inch off the ground before he had to abandon his efforts, his muscles sore and shaking. He grit his teeth, trying not to show how winded the simple effort had made him.
Sirius appeared behind him and hefted the trunk up without saying a word. Remus gave him a small smile, grateful to be back among people who didn’t need him to explain, who understood without looking at him like he was a china doll that might shatter under the slightest pressure. Sirius gave his shoulder a quick squeeze before squatting back down on the ground.
“It was Pete’s idea,” Sirius explained, and the blonde boy swelled with pride. “We were trying to figure out what our first prank of the year should be, only we kept pitching things that were too predictable, places we’d already pranked—“
“—like how everyone avoids the statue of Gregory the Smarmy after last year’s Niffler debacle—“ James interjected.
“—so we figured that if we laid it all out, wrote down every prank we ever pulled, and where, and on who, we’d be able to spot patterns, find our blind spots —“
“—because we’re fourth years now, we can’t be pulling out the same old kid stuff, people expect better of us —“
“I don’t think that’s quite what McGonagall meant when she said that,” Remus said, his lips twitching. “But do go on.”
Peter handed him a stack of parchments marked with a snake that had a pair of very crudely drawn bollocks attached. “We’ve been very thorough about pranking the Slytherins. We’ve gotten everyone in our year at least once.”
“And Snivelly thrice, just for good measure,” Sirius added.
“We’ve hit the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs evenly, too. But,” Peter continued, handing Remus another sheet of parchment. This one was almost empty, save for a surprisingly good doodle of a lion at the top. “We’ve barely ever pranked the Gryffindors.”
“Even if it is our own house, this hardly seems fair,” James said. “We are, if anything, equal-opportunity mischief-makers.”
“If you’re about to suggest an intra-Marauders prank war, count me out,” Remus said firmly. “I have enough to worry about without trying to make sure you lot don’t charm my pants into pudding when I’m not looking.”
“We would never!” Sirius drew a hand to his chest in mock-indignation.
“Pants into pudding, though,” mused James, stroking his chin, “that’s evil genius right there, write that down, Pete.”
“Seems like a waste of perfectly good pudding,” Peter muttered. He scribbled a note nevertheless.
“If not each other, then who?” Remus asked
.
“Think about it,” Sirius said. There was an excited gleam in his dark eyes that made something flip-flop in Remus’s stomach. “What’s the one part of Gryffindor tower we can’t get into? The one place that no one would be able to prove we touched?”
Remus’s eyes widened. “You’re not thinking —“
“That’s right,” James said. “We’re going to plant a prank right in the middle of the girls’ dormitory.”
James, Sirius, and Peter all beamed at Remus, waiting for his reaction.
“You do realize the girls are going to hate us for the rest of eternity?”
“Yes,” the three boys chorused.
“And that it’s going to be nearly impossible to pull off?”
“Yes.”
“And we’ll be breaking at least a dozen school rules in the process?”
“Yes.”
Remus sighed, dragging his hands over his face dramatically as he tried to hide the grin tugging up at his lips. “Alright, I’m in. What did you have in mind?”
Already, his mind was whirring, excitement mounting as he ran through all the possibilities, all the potential problems and pratfalls and how to avoid them. One thing was certain: this year was not going to be boring.