Chapter Text
‘Friends, Marauders, Hogwartians, lend me your ears. We are gathered here today to celebrate the first ever meeting of the Dead Warlocks Society. Attendance is compulsory for all those purebloods who wouldn’t understand my witty Shakespeare references if I personally beat them to death with a copy of Julius Caesar. Our mission? To educate you in the magic of muggle literature.’
Sirius rolled his eyes and yawned pointedly. Remus glared at him.
‘Out of the goodness of my heart, I am going to force you to read some real books, and no James, ‘Quidditch Through the Ages’ is not a real book. We will scale the heights of literary genius, we will travel through strange and mysterious lands, we will peruse the darkest secrets of the heart…’
Lily coughed loudly.
‘Yes, sorry. Back to the point,’ he said hurriedly. ‘The point is, I refuse to let you leave this school having never even heard of Hamlet. So, you will turn up every month, whether you like it or not, or face my deepest disappointment.’
James and Sirius smirked at each other.
‘And because I’ll put a hex on you both if you don’t’.
The smirks slid from their faces like bubotuber pus.
‘Moony, you wouldn’t!’ James said in mock indignation, placing a hand over his heart.
‘I would.’ Remus responded threateningly, ‘it’s our sixth year in this cultural wasteland, and I’ve put up with you lot mocking my books long enough’.
‘Alright, keep your hair on, Professor Lupin’, Sirius snickered.
He leaned back on his chair, running a hand nonchalantly through his long dark hair, and whispered something to James, who laughed. Fine. Time to bring out the big guns. He looked meaningfully at Lily, who stood up and walked to his side, arms folded, green eyes narrowed. James gulped, and hastily rearranged his face into what he clearly thought was a studious, intelligent look. Remus chuckled quietly to himself. James was so easy to manipulate when Lily was involved. In truth, he was pleasantly surprised she had agreed to come at all, after the fiasco last term. He hoped that she would be a good influence on his wayward friends, and they could prove to her in turn that they weren’t complete idiots.
Lily cleared her throat and tossed her long red hair over her shoulders.
‘I’ll be helping Remus keep you lot in line and providing appropriate book recommendations. Someone had to take pity on you poor uncultured philistines.’
‘Evans, we all know you’re just here because you can’t resist spending time with Potter’, Sirius said slyly, looking over at James, who refused to meet his eyes.
Lily glared at him, hands on her hips.
‘Actually, Black, I’m here because Remus asked me to be here, given I’m the only person he can have a semi-intelligent discussion with,’ she retorted.
Remus smiled. He knew it had been worth convincing her to come, even if it had involved giving up his favourite bar of muggle chocolate as a bribe.Peter, who had remained silent during this exchange, piped up suddenly.
‘When are we supposed to be meeting? It won’t take up too much time will it? What if the teachers find out about it? Or the Slytherins?’ His round face was anxious.
‘Who cares about the Slytherins!’ snapped Sirius.
James shot him a warning look, but Lily held up a hand, and turned to Peter.
‘McGonagall would be so shocked to see Potter and Black reading an extra-curricular book voluntarily that she’d probably faint. And as for certain Slytherins…well, they may think anything muggle isn’t worth bothering with, but that’s their loss, isn’t it?’
She looked at them all, defying them to disagree. No one did. On the contrary, Sirius’s face relaxed, and he grinned broadly up at her.
‘Hear, hear, Evans’.
Her expression softened and she returned his smile. Remus turned back to them and felt a warmth in his chest at the sight of his best friends gathered around him in the drafty landing at the top of the hidden staircase on the fourth floor, concealed from prying eyes by a large tapestry of a chimera. It was 10pm on a rainy Friday evening in late September, 3 weeks after Remus had suggested they set up a book club. It had taken 3 weeks to persuade, threaten and cajole his friends into agreement. James had insisted they snuck out after dark for Remus’s proposed meeting, ‘what’s the point of sneaking around if we aren’t breaking any rules?!’, and he had to admit there was a certain thrill in this illicit meeting. He had even brought candles just for the atmosphere. Clearing his throat, he resumed his speech.
‘I propose we meet once a month in this hidden staircase, where we will solemnly discuss the book allocated in the previous meeting. Serious discussion will be followed by copious amounts of firewhisky. These meetings are to be kept secret, on pain of hex. All those who agree with the proposed terms, raise your hand.’
Peter raised his hand obediently, as did Lily. James stood up, and gave Remus a deep bow, flourishing his hand extravagantly. Sirius looked directly at Lily, lifted his hand and saluted her.
‘Are you planning on being this pretentious every meeting, Moony?’ James asked innocently.
‘I think he’s spent too much time hanging around prefects’ said Sirius, with a look at Lily, who glowered at him.
Ignoring this, Remus pulled out a book from the pockets of his faded, patched robes. His eyes were alight with the anticipation of knowledge, and the others fell silent, watching their friend’s pale face glow with enthusiasm. James had leaned forwards to listen, adjusting his glasses and looking intently at him.
Remus smiled. He’d been waiting for this opportunity for years. How many summers had he spent buried in muggle books, with no one to talk about them with? Becoming friends with Lily had felt like a haven in Hogwarts; a place to discuss the muggle culture that his friends had never understood. Now, he wanted to share this special kind of magic with them too.
‘I thought I’d start off with a true British Muggle icon. A man that it is frankly disgraceful that you lot have never heard of, given how much we like to sneak around and solve mysteries.’
He caught Lily’s eye, and they shared a knowing, amused look. Sirius, James and Peter looked slightly apprehensive, outside of the joke for once.
‘Please let me introduce you all to the original, and best detective of muggle fiction, Sherlock Holmes.’
He grinned at the perplexed looks on the faces of his best friends and handed them each a copy of a little book, with the words ‘A Study in Scarlet’ written in faded letters across the top.
‘Credit must go to Lily, who stole a copy from her local muggle library, and performed the complex gemino spell to produce the copies you have before you’.
James gave her a look of deepest admiration, which she ignored.
‘We’ll make a Marauder of you yet, Evans’, called Sirius.
‘Now’, said Remus, addressing his friends intones of deepest sarcasm, ‘do you think you can make time in your busy social lives to fit in the difficult and task of actually reading a real book, or is that beyond your limited powers?’
Lily chuckled, Sirius threw a quill at him and Peter nodded hastily, looking eager to please. James however raised his hand with a mock-pious expression on his face.
‘I’ve just got one question, Professor Lupin. Will you allow us to wear the appropriate costumes for these meetings?’
‘I’ll give out detention to anyone who doesn’t.’
And with that, the first meeting of the Dead Warlocks Society was dismissed.