marauders united [james, remus, peter]

[Sirius Black]

“PRONGS!” Sirius shouted obnoxiously as he sauntered into the fifth year boys’ dormitory, slamming the door shut behind him. “Moony,” he added at a more tolerable level, nodding his head at the third boy in the room. “Where’s Wormtail? Never mind, I want to talk about me. First, I’m in love.” Sirius paused to let that sink in as he flopped onto his back in Peter’s empty bed. His own was covered in clothes, and books, and some more clothes, and a package from Zonko’s in London [much better selection than the one in Hogsmeade, he always swore]. Sirius didn’t want to wrinkle the clothes, or open the package yet. So instead, he’d winkle the essays Peter had left laying about.

“Second, I think I’ve found a new secret passageway.” Sirius expected this announcement would carry more weight than the first one. Sirius announced that he was in love at least once a month. He wasn’t really. He knew that, James and Remus surely knew it, too. Sirius just liked being dramatic about it. It sounded better than saying, ‘Oi, found a new bird to snog and maybe shag.’ Let it be known that Sirius at least had a little bit of class.

“It’s practically useless, to be honest. You know Poltergeist Passage? Bloody Peeves led Filch right to it, but if you tap this particular stone in just the right way the wall opens up and leads you straight to the kitchens. It should be all right now that Filch knows about that corridor, but I don’t think it shortens the route to the kitchens at all. Filch didn’t even know what hit him, not that he could work it anyway. Can squibs open passages, Remus? Anyway, enough chatting. Where’s the map? I want to add it in before I forget.”

[James Potter]

James didn’t jump up in surprise when Sirius barged in because after living with his roommate for so many years, he learned to recognize the other boy’s footsteps. Instead, he looked up mildly curious and shouted back, “Padfoot!” What was surprising was that a book lay in his lap. It was not a textbook, of course. James Potter was no Remus Lupin. He did not study where he slept. James slept where he slept, or even better, snogged where he slept. No, the book he previously was reading was Quidditch Through the Ages. He liked picking up tips about Quidditch moves and, even better, he liked learning the different ways to foul players. He very rarely every fouled anyone, but there were just so many that could be done.

“Oh good,” James said, propping his torso up with his elbows. “I was worried you were going to be alone for the rest of your life. Let me know when your Mum wants to get together so we can start planning your wedding. I demand that I be Best Man and all of your groomsmen wear kilts.” He nodded, wondering if Lily would like him better if he had his gorgeous legs showing. He figured it could only help his case. Sirius was always in love with some girl. James would be more surprised if Sirius were not in love.

James rolled his eyes, “Were you by chance provoking Peeves lately? I can’t see him just randomly deciding to help Filch. That would be like us telling Snivellus, ‘Hey, by the way, the reason we cause so much havoc? Yeah, I have an Invisibility Cloak. Do you want to use it?’ No, we wouldn’t do that.” James thought that it would be kind of fun to tease Snape with how they did manage to get so many pranks done without getting caught. Maybe they would do that on the last day of classes. What could Snape possibly do then?

[wirll]

Remus was sitting on his bed reading Achievements in Charming for fun when Sirius burst through the door proclaiming he was in love. Remus though nothing of it and rolled his eyes. Sirius frequently claimed to be in love, at least once a month, maybe twice if he was on a roll. He laughed at James' retort then spoke himself.

"In love? Don't tell me it's Professor McGonnagal again. We've had this discussion before, Sirius," Remus said mockingly. "It's not appropriate. And oh James, I absolutely refuse to wear kilts! Now a feather boa on the other hand... I could live with that," Remus teased along with James.

"James has a point." Remus slipped off his bed and walked to the trunk at the foot of it. He propped it open and pulled out a spare robe and a couple of old socks that didn't have matches and a whole stack of books before he reached the bottom and pulled out the map. "Here it is!" he yelled lifting his head out of the trunk.

He walked over to where Sirius had plopped onto Peter's bed and scooted over his essays before sitting down. "You know Peter worked on those all day. An amazing feat for him. Normally would've taken him two." He opened the map and whispered "Mischief managed!" and watched as black ink flooded across the page forming rooms and little footprints with names over them. "Here ya go," he said handing it to Sirius.

[Sirius Black]

“Oi! Peeves started it!” Sirius pouted, annoyed that James caught on to the little poltergeist drama. But yes, Sirius had indeed provoked Peeves into giving away the location of Poltergeist Passage. They hadn’t been getting on lately, and Sirius had a few choice words to say to the annoying entity after he had attempted to drop some water balloons on Sirius. And perhaps on top of that Sirius was embellishing slightly. Sirius had been wrecking havoc in the corridor with dung bombs, when Peeves arrived with his water balloons, and then Sirius had cussed at him quite impolitely, so when Filch showed up and threatened get the Bloody Baron, well, Peeves wasn’t exactly in the mood to cover for a bro. Not that the other two would get that story in its entirety. Sirius wasn’t exactly known for coherent and inclusive story telling. “His desire to have Filch find the mountain of dung bombs was more than his desire to help a man out. That Peeves, no loyalty.”

Sirius pulled one of Peter’s pieces of parchment from behind his head. “And yet there’s still only three lines on this one.” It was still three lines more than Sirius had written. But Sirius had always been more talented at cranking out essays in an hour than Peter. “Oh, and one’s crossed out.” Sirius grabbed the map from Remus’ hand, and in return gave him the two sentence essay. To be fair, the other pieces of parchment had lines upon lines of words, but Sirius wasn’t in a fair mood.

“But enough about Peter, back to my love life.” Sirius shifted to the edge of Peter’s bed and felt around the floor for a quill. The room was, frankly, a mess. But it did have four boys living in it... “What can you tell me about McKinnon? Scottish, so you’ll both be wearing kilts and feather boas.” Sirius prided himself on knowing an awful lot about the school and its inhabitants, but James and Remus were a wealth of information, too. “And who said you lot were invited anyway? I don’t want a bunch of bookworms at my wedding!” Sirius marked the spot on the map so he could remember to put it in fully later, then dropped the quill back on the floor.

“Evans can come though, and Wormtail since he’s not here being a prat.”

[James Potter]

James raised an eyebrow and looked over at Remus with a wicked grin on his face, “Why, Moony, if you wear a feather boa and nothing else, no one’s even going to be able to focus on the bride. Oi, Padfoot, who is the bird anyway?” Thank Merlin James was not Sirius’ secretary because he had the memory of a lab rat when it came to details about names and such. He could not remember which new girl Sirius was currently snogging. It changed so often. He didn’t wait for a response, “Anyway, Moony, if you wear that boa, I better be the best man you’re going home with that night.” He winked at his friend. For all the jokes James made about his sexuality, it was a wonder no one ever questioned it. Even after that time… no, people were not allowed to talk about it. They were incredibly drunk. That didn’t count. Still, everyone knew better than wonder if James flew on the other side of the broomstick.

“McKinnon?” James asked. He was just talking to Marlene the other day. Did she mention anything? Probably. James probably just forgot. He tended to tune out when women gushed about men unless those men were named James Charles Potter, “Going after the older ladies. Nice.” He nodded appreciatively. Marlene was only a year ahead of them, but she was very fit. And she played Quidditch, which meant that she was better than some of the clueless girls Sirius snogged, “I’ll wear all pink. Birds like a man in pink.” He considered that for a moment, then shook his head, “No. I take that back. Not pink. Evans would clash horribly with me and it would just ruin all of the pictures. I’ll wear green. Green kilt. Green feathered boa.” He nodded. That was a much better plan, after all.

James feigned a shocked look on his face and covered his mouth with his hand, issuing a loud gasp, “Well, I never! Not invited to your wedding? I’m hurt, Padfoot.” He grinned over at Remus, “Well, if Petey and Evans are going, we’ll have to crash. Don’t forget your knickers though, Moony. I refuse to look up when we’re climbing some high wall,” In James’ mind, Sirius was getting married in a very old castle with a moat and other such obstacles. “And as we’re climbing up some wall, I have to see what’s going on in your world. Although if you don’t wear the kilt, it would be silly to wear knickers.” Clearly James did not take any of this seriously. Everyone knew Peter would be the first to get married. Oh, sure, he was no ladies’ man, but he was the nice one of the group. Birds liked nice chaps. James and Sirius were to be bachelors for lives, going out and talking up 20 year olds even as they reached double that age. Remus would be the second to marry, after he finally gave up using his lycanthropy as an excuse. Still, maybe one day when Sirius was 80 years old, he would really have his kilt and feathered boa wedding.

[peterpettigrew]

Today really wasn't Peter's day. His Transfiguration Essay was due in earlier on that morning and Peter had barely written three lines of it, let alone the eleven inches that was expected. Sweat pouring off the rat-like boy's forehead, he tried to think about what James and Sirius would do if they were in his situation. But, unfortunately for him, he'd landed himself a double detention with McGonnagall the following Thursday for failing to hand in his work on time and failing to come up with a good excuse as to why on earth he hadn't completed his work. He'd have to pay more attention to his friends, next time.

Trudging back up to the Gryffindor Common Room, defeated and weary after the one-sided yelling match with McGonnagall, Peter stopped outside the portrait of the Fat Lady. She looked at him inquisitively, patiently waiting for Peter to speak the password. "Umm," he said as he wrinkled his forehead from thinking. What was the password again?

---

Half an hour had passed and Peter was still standing out in the deserted corridor, puzzling over what the bloody password could have been changed to this time. It wasn't long before Frank Longbottom had come along, rescuing Peter from his failed memory. He spoke the password and Peter slipped in behind him, not too unfamiliar with walking closely behind someone. Lord knew he'd done it enough times with Sirius and James over the years.

The stone steps passed beneath his feet and Peter found himself at the door to the boys dormitory. He could hear the three of them talking inside - something about Peter, Lily and a wedding. Panicking, Peter flung the door open.

"I told you I don't like Lily!" It was probably the closest thing he'd ever come to a confrontation in his life and Peter was entirely uncomfortable with it.