Chapter Text
“Remus and Sirius, Sirius and Remus, come on people we need names” James would order every few minutes to the group sprawled out around the boys dorm.
The group consisting of James, Lily, Peter, Mary, Marlene, and Dorcas were scattered on different parts of the room racking their tired brains for any name or names, literally any at this point.
The “meeting” was held to discuss what James described as “a issue like no other that needs to be solved”, and that refers to Remus and Sirius, their best friends.
“James it’s been hours, and I’ve still got transfiguration homework for tomorrow.” peter whinged from his bed. “Yeah James all we’ve got so far is…” Mary begins but trails off as she picks up a notebook Marlene has been keeping the notes in “Reri? boring… Dogsquared? creative but meh… Pinus?! ok who came up with that one. Nerd, for remus? too obvious.. also marls your handwriting is barely legible”
“Well sorry it’s not like i wanted to be the scribe”
They clearly were not getting far with names. Although a quick glance at the marauders map showed that despite having spent a good two hours on this exhilarating endeavour Remus was still in the library, studying probably, and Sirius was still in detention.
‘Why the fuck are these idiots trying to come up with names?’ you’re probably asking yourself right now and the reason is because, yeah, they’re fucking idiots. Also because bloody James Potter needs to make everything a whole production. The whole quidditch captain role has gotten to his head in my opinion but whatever. They’re currently trying to think of names to refer to Sirius and Remus both as individuals and as a unit.
“ok how about we take the Re from remus which is kinda like ray like a ray of sunshine so we call him sunny and Sirius is kind of like serious and like boring which can be like clouds so he can be cloudy, and sunny and cloudy kind of go together don’t you think?” Marlene thought aloud, at this point no one was really putting that much thought into anything. “Wait, that’s actually not even bad, i mean it’s better than whatever was in the notebook.” James chirped up, eyes glistening.
“Oh thank the lords we have something now.” Dorcas sighed as she plopped her head down on Marlene’s lap in dramatised exhaustion, earning her a couple chuckles and an eye roll from James.
“Ok that’s phase one of our plan complete!” The rest weren’t thrilled to hear that and it showed in their faces “what i mean is that it can only get easier from here. maybe. hopefully.” James said with a sheepish grin.
The whole reason for this meeting about Remus and Sirius was because of their, or well James’ concern for their emotional wellbeing. “THEY NEED THIS THEYRE SO LONELY LILY SO SO LONELY SIRIUS IS ALWAYS ELUDING TO SOMEONE TALL, MYSTERIOUS, AND KIND WHO IS AUTUMN AND OLD BOOKS PERSONIFIED TELL ME THATS NOT OUR MOONY, AND YOU KNOW AS WELL AS I DO NEITHER OF THEM WILL MAKE A MOVE, ITS DRIVING ME MAD” Lily had heard James’ rants and always replied with something like “James love, it’s not your or my place to meddle and you could just be reading into things too hard”. Although it eventually came to light that James’ opinions were not so hard to believe. The rest of the group shared similar experiences, they may not have voiced them as emotionally as James had but they agreed nonetheless.
“Sirius gets this stupid look on his face when we’re mid conversation whenever Remus is within a 15m radius. His eyes basically go heart shaped and he gets this dumb smile and totally stops listening to me.” That was Mary’s “tipping point” as she called it.
“Remus is super smart but when Sirius is around he gets super dumb. He almost stabbed my hand with his fork ‘cause he was too busy watching Sirius tie his hair up” Marlene rubbed her hand just talking about it- she’s a victim of the Sirius effect.
“Remus always makes a point to walk between couples holding hands in the hallways, i think he’s projecting because he’s lonely and Sirius-less” According to Peter this happens multiple times a day, he’s like a reverse cupid, he would shoot couples with real arrows if he could.
After hearing all the evidence even Lily was persuaded “now that you mention it, it does seem kind of obvious they fancy each other, i feel blinder than you James.”
And so it was born, the operation so catchily named ‘Operation Together Already’ because they need to hurry up and get fucking together already.
Now with code names secured came the getting them together part which will be way less complicated. Totally.
“Shit, you girls better leave now, Remus is on his way to the tower.” Peter announced which led to a slight panic trying to gather up belongings and act nonchalant as if absolutely nothing was happening.
Now James knows it’s not good to meddle, he knows it’s none of his business, however he is really just doing them a favour. Not everybody has amazing friends that would go to any length to make them happy and that’s all this is, just him and the rest of their friends trying to make their sunny and cloudy, sunny and happy.
He also has a lot of money riding on them getting together before the summer.
•∘•∘•∘•∘•∘•∘•
Remus returns to the dorm to find a James Potter half hanging off his own bed reading a quidditch weekly magazine and a Peter Pettigrew trying to act like he has been entranced in this game of chess for more than just 2 minutes.
“Hey lads” Remus says to them as a greeting them with a nod of his head. They both return his greeting with a lifted hand, not removing their concentration from their respective activities.
“Padfoot not back yet?” he asked after scanning the room finding no sign of the dark haired boy. Obviously this question caught their attention because James and Peter immediately looked at each other and shared a knowing glance. “Nah he’s not here” replied Peter giving James a slight nod to signal this being the first embarkment of phase two. “But Pete and I have been meaning to talk to you about something. Sirius related”. Remus’ jaw clenched slightly like he was trying to stop words from flowing out, and his expression turned much more neutral.
“Oh yeah? What about Sirius?”
“Well we know we shouldn’t meddle but, honestly, we’re worried about him”
“What why” His tone rising a bit with slight panic but dropping a bit at the end of his sentence as he realised that.
“Obviously he’s practically a genius without even trying but what good is that if he doesn’t get into good study habits that’ll be important later in life” James can feel himself on the verge of bursting out laughing because what bullshit was he spewing. “It’s like McGonagal is always going on about how important studying and revising regularly are.”
He could see Remus’ brain cogs turning in real time as he was piecing together where he was going with this. Before he could even continue in his persuasion Remus interrupted, “so you two want me to help him study?”
“Well Pete or I would’ve done it, but I’ve got quidditch and Pete’s got his clubs and studying of his own he needs to get on top of.” Remus nodded along with all to all of these reasons. “Then I’d be fine to help”. “I mean you can come along too Pete if you need that extra study time?” He said it quickly after his agreement as an after thought to quick willingness.
Peter immediately voiced his rejection to the offer while shaking his head fervently.
•∘•∘•∘•∘•∘•∘•
After about an hour had passed as it was late afternoon Remus went to wash up in the bathroom. When they were sure he couldn’t hear them over the shower water running, they let out a breath they didn’t know they’d been holding. “Bloody hell I didn’t actually think that would work” James started saying as he was practically bouncing from one leg to another. “He took it so much better than I’d thought” Peter agreed.
“Operation Together Already is totally happening”.
Almost like that sentence had summoned him Sirius walked through the door immediately chucking his book back onto his bed. “Professor Zephyr kept me in for an extra hour, that bastard, did he think I wouldn’t notice”. James and Peter shared another look, a whole conversation travelling between them.
‘Did you hear that?’
‘An hour extra’
‘And when did Moony arrive?’
‘When his detention was meant to finish’
In the split second Peter and James were engaging in their riveting silent conversation Sirius had already kicked his shoes off and put a record on.
This is actually pretty big James and Pete are living off of CRUMBS right now. Call them delusional all you want but you know what else has ten letters and starts with d? detectives