fic for melandry: Reindeer Games (Mauraders, Lily, Snape, Slughorn, PG)
Title: Reindeer Games
Recipient: melandry
Rating: PG
Character(s): MWPP, Lily, Snape, Slughorn
Warnings: May possibly contain blasphemy.
Author's Notes: I thought Slughorn would like to do things the old-fashioned way, so the Hogwarts Christmas pageant is based on several medieval mystery plays. Mac and Jill, as many readers may know, are characters from the Wakefield Second Shepherd’s play. Joseph and Mary’s lines are adapted from the York Birth of Jesus play, and Herod’s from the Wakefield Offering of the Magi.
--
“Excuse me for missing the prefects’ meeting,” said Lily Evans crossly. “I would’ve liked to have been there, but I was shanghaied.”
“Shanghaied?” asked Remus. He was very fond of Lily - in fact, she was rapidly becoming one of his closest friends, now that the tension between her and James had blossomed into a real relationship - but he thought she was inclined to over-dramatize things.
“Well, practically. You know Professor Slughorn always directs the Christmas pageant this time of year.”
Remus nodded, although this didn’t really clarify matters, as Professor Slughorn had been in charge of the Hogwarts Christmas pageant for fifty years, and he’d never heard of any students being shanghaied before.
“And you know how he is - he always likes to save the best parts for his special favorite students, and he won’t give them a chance to say no.”
“So I’m told,” said Remus, who had played a sheep in the pageant for the last six years. “I’ve never been in any danger of being in that position myself.”
“Well, I am, unfortunately. You’re looking at the bloody Virgin Mary.”
Remus started to laugh. It was difficult to imagine anyone less holy-looking than Lily at that moment.
“Yes, exactly. It’s stupid. I tried to tell him there weren’t any redheads in Judaea or wherever it was in the year Zero, but he wouldn’t listen, and then I said I couldn’t be Mary because I’d just decided to become a Hare Krishna, and he said it was only a play and only for one night, and he was sure Krishna would understand. He made it sound like Krishna was a personal friend of his and he’d fix it up himself.”
“Well, he does have a point, you know. The pageant only lasts an hour or so. And James will look just as silly as you do.”
“Well, that’s exactly the problem. James isn’t going to be Joseph.”
“He’s not?” said Remus, puzzled. He was about to add, “But he’s Head Boy,” when he realized this was a complete non sequitur.
“Right. You see, Slughorn has never exactly approved of me going out with James - oh, he hasn’t said so in so many words, but he thinks I could do better for myself. He wants to fix me up with his other favorite - somebody who would be a more suitable intellectual match, he said.” Lily looked utterly disgusted.
“Er, Lily? I’m not exactly up on the ins and outs of the Slug Club. Who are you talking about?”
“Severus bloody Snape.”
“You’re joking,” said Remus, although he didn’t find the idea very amusing. Snape had always been an oddball with a penchant for experimenting with Dark magic, but now the rumors about him were growing darker, and Sirius was in a position to confirm some of them. At the very least, he had a suspicious number of contacts within one of the groups that had been terrorizing and occasionally murdering Muggle-born wizards.
Lily shook her head. “Unfortunately, no.”
“But you’re - I mean, Snape is - I mean...”
Lily sighed. “You don’t have to be tactful about it. You mean that ‘filthy little Mudblood’ isn’t a term of endearment in any known language. But try telling that to Slughorn and see how far you get.”
* * *
“Saint Joseph?” Sirius snorted. “Somebody needs to tell Slughorn you don’t get to be a saint if you’re that grumpy.”
“Joseph might’ve been, actually. According to medieval tradition, he was impotent,” said Peter helpfully.
Peter was the sort of person who remembered odd, irrelevant bits of trivia, but he seldom created as much of a sensation as he did now. James and Sirius whooped, Remus looked very hard as if he were trying not to do the same, and Lily giggled, blushing a little.
“That would certainly explain a lot about Snivellus,” said Sirius, sniggering.
“It would be a blessing for anyone who married him, that’s for sure,” said James.
“Ha ha,” said Lily. “Very funny. It doesn’t make acting like I’m married to him any easier. He looks at me like I’m a piece of filth, and I keep expecting him to try Dark curses on me every time my back is turned.”
“The rest of us will look after you, Lily,” Remus promised. “That’s the Marauder way.”
Sirius nodded. “What do you say, gentlemen, to all of us being in the pageant? I was thinking of trying out for Mac, myself.”
“Yeah, Padfoot,” said James. “I always thought you had an affinity for sheep.”
“You could steal Remus,” said Peter.
“Why is Remus always a sheep, anyway?” Lily asked. “Aren’t sheep usually first- and second-years?”
“Think, Lily,” said James, grinning. “You have enough information to answer that question. What have you learned about Moony in the past year?”
“Er. A lot of things. Oh!” The light began to dawn. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing!”
Remus groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Slughorn always makes that joke, too. Usually when we’re within earshot of some of the Slytherins. Baa humbug,” he added, which made the others groan too.
“What about Peter?” Lily asked.
“He could be the baby Jesus if he scrunches up,” said James.
Sirius swatted Peter on the side of the head. “That would be a baby with a face only a mother could love.”
“Actually,” said Peter, turning red and speaking very rapidly, “I-was-thinking-of-auditioning-for-King-Herod.”
“Herod?” Sirius laughed.
“Wormtail,” said James with his best attempt at diplomacy, “d’you think you’ve really got what it takes ... I mean, you’re a nice bloke and all, but that’s exactly it, don’t you see? You’re not villainous.”
“I could be villainous if I practiced a lot,” Peter insisted.
“And why shouldn’t he?” Lily demanded. “I think he’s got every bit as much right to massacre the innocents as anybody else. You should go for it, Peter.”
Peter blushed even more furiously.
“What about you, Prongs?” asked Remus. “Are you trying out?”
“I’ve been thinking, gentlemen,” said James. “And lady. Do you know what the Christmas pageant really needs?”
“What?”
James grinned. “A reindeer.”
“Oh, no,” said Remus. “You can’t be thinking - No.”
“Oh yes,” said Sirius gleefully.
* * *
After Sirius had been cast as Mac, Professor Slughorn was beset by a gaggle of girls from third year on upward, all vying for the part of Jill. He ignored them all and bestowed the part on another of his favorite students, who happened to be the great-granddaughter of a famous Seer and could shriek convincingly about how the sheep Mac had stolen was really a baby who had been bewitched by elves. The only trouble was that she seemed to believe it.
“She doesn’t really understand that Jill’s meant to be a slattern married to a rogue,” explained Sirius at breakfast the following morning. “She thinks she’s the Three Wise Men and the Angel of the Lord all rolled into one, so she keeps adding bits to the script and saying the Inner Eye inspired her. Last time, she held up the rehearsal for half an hour while she predicted the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the coming of Merlin, and the founding of the International Confederation of Wizards.”
Remus frowned. “But surely she doesn’t expect anybody to be impressed by that? I mean, anybody can make predictions about things that happened in the past.”
“The past, the present, and the future are all one to my dear Sybill,” Sirius intoned, “for she is gifted with the Inner Eye, and does not concern herself with such mundane questions as which century she lives in.” He resumed his normal voice. “Oh yeah, and it doesn’t stop after the rehearsal’s over. She keeps going on about how I’m going to have a short and tragic life filled with chaos, violence, and betrayal. So I told her that a, my name’s Black, so it doesn’t take much Divination to figure that out; and b, if it’s true I’d rather not know about it. Didn’t seem to make much of an impression, but I don’t think anything makes an impression on her.”
Peter, who had successfully auditioned for the part of Herod, kept leaning back at odd moments and declaiming his lines to the ceiling.
Peace, I bid, both far and near!
“He isn’t bad as Herod,” Sirius said. “Kind of squeaky, of course, but he’s a better actor than I would’ve thought.”
Who that makes noise while I am here,
I say, shall die!
Several first-years hastily finished their breakfast and scattered.
Of all this world, sooth, far and near,
The lord am I!
“He’s really throwing himself into the part,” remarked Lily.
Lord am I of every land,
Of tower and town, of sea and sand.
Against me dare no man stand
That bears life.
All earthly things bow to my hand,
Both man and wife!
“I think he likes playing the tyrant,” said Remus. “It’s ... It’s odd, really.” He felt slightly unnerved, but he couldn’t find the words to explain why, so he left it at that.
* * *
Remus, of course, was excused from most of the rehearsals, as all he had to do was baa. He and James spent the afternoon in the dormitory with a basket of apples, as James had decided that he wanted to be a red-nosed reindeer. Remus was trying to charm one of the apples to fit snugly over his nose without slipping off. This would have been a tricky enough task if James had been in human form, but after he had transformed, it was nearly impossible.
“Nasomalum,” said Remus. He waved his wand at the apple, and it flew up to James’ nose. “Adhaere. All right, see if you can walk with it.”
James managed three steps before the apple fell off. He transformed back into a boy. “Bugger,” he said.
“Your nose is too broad when you’re a stag. And too flat.”
“Bet I could get an apple to stay on Snivellus’ nose,” said James. “We could do it at the pageant, in front of the whole school.”
“He hasn’t really done anything to us lately,” said Remus pointedly. “Not since last November, actually.”
“Right. Point taken.” James chewed on his lip for a moment. “What happened last year was not, in any way, good. Neither were some of the things that happened before that.”
“It’s all right. It was ages ago, and a lot of the time it was his fault.”
James helped himself to one of the apples from the basket. “I was kind of a git to you, too. And Wormtail,” he added as an afterthought. “And I’ve tried to change that, but I can’t undo it, you know.”
“That’s all right, too,” said Remus. He took a bite out of an apple and chewed it very slowly. The conversation embarrassed him, in a way that Sirius’ repeated and abject apologies had not. He was not used to seeing James look remorseful, or reflective, or anything other than supremely confident.
“The worst of it is, I wonder if I’ve made things worse for Lily. I don’t remember him being so anti-Muggle-born before she started going out with me.”
“Truthfully? I don’t think you need to worry about that. He went around calling her vile names when she still hated the sight of you, and you know Padfoot’s cousins made a pet out of him when he was just a first-year. He’s always been a bigoted little snot.”
James considered this. “You’re right. I’m just being stupid.”
“I don’t think you’re being stupid,” said Remus, “but I think you sometimes make yourself out to be more important than you really are ... Oh hell, Prongs, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded!”
James laughed. “Nah, I’d say that’s spot on, actually. Honestly, Moony, I’m glad that I have you to tell me when I’m getting a swelled head.”
He was looking at Remus as if he were on the verge of saying something else, and Remus was feeling more and more awkward, when the door to the dormitory burst open and Sirius and Peter, back from rehearsal, tumbled into the room. Peter helped himself to one of the apples.
“You don’t want to eat that,” said Remus quickly, but not quickly enough.
“Why not?” asked Peter with his mouth full.
“Because it has deer snot on it.”
Peter spat the mouthful of apple into the wastepaper basket.
“Why are there apples with deer snot on them in our room?” asked Sirius.
James and Remus explained.
Sirius looked thoughtful. “What you want, mate, is a bucket of Pepper-Up Potion.”
“No, I don’t,” said James in some alarm. “I feel fine. Really!”
“Not to drink, to dip your nose in just before you do your Rudolph thing. It’ll glow, all right.”
* * *
The night of the pageant was clear and cold. Pinpricks of stars studded the ceiling of the Great hall, which Professor Flitwick had converted into a theater with a bit of clever charmwork. On the dais where the High Table normally stood was a barn, with one side open to the elements and an ox and an ass visible in their stalls behind the manger. The House tables had been moved to the side and replaced with row upon row of chairs - enough to accommodate practically the entire school, along with a number of parents, two or three dozen of Professor Slughorn’s particular friends, and most of the castle ghosts.
One of Slughorn’s old students had lent him her baby for the evening, and Lily was charmed by the infant in spite of herself. He was a redheaded baby with very tiny glasses, and she thought that if she and James had a baby, it might look a little like this one.
“Percy-Percy,” she clucked as she wrapped him in the swaddling clothes. “Don’t you look handsome? Your mummy and daddy are going to be so proud, yes they are.”
“There’s no sense in talking to the bloody thing as if it were human,” Snape hissed at her as they were about to go on stage.
“He is human,” said Lily crossly, “as you’d know if you took half a minute to think about - Oh, just shut up, you’re meant to be making a speech about God.” She shoved Snape from behind, so that he stumbled onto the platform at the end of the Great Hall, and followed him with the baby.
Snape shook his fist at the heavens and declared:
All-wielding God in Trinity,
I pray thee, Lord, for thy great might,
Unto thy simple servant see,
Here in this place where we are pight...
This was all well and good, except that this Joseph didn’t sound like he was praying for anything - more like he was about to hex God for putting him through this. He sneered at Mary, shoved the ox and the ass out of the way, and slouched against the stable wall, glaring at the audience.
Lily made a brave effort to look as if nothing was amiss with this performance, but it was difficult to deliver a line like, “Therefore, Joseph, be of good cheer,” when Joseph looked like he was constitutionally incapable of anything of the sort.
Things got a little better when Joseph went out for a short walk to gather firewood, and a great deal worse when the baby made his appearance. Joseph was supposed to say “Hail, welcome, fairest flower of hue!” and a great deal more in the same vein, but it fell rather flat, because Snape was eyeing the baby as if calculating how much he would fetch if he were dismembered and sold for Potions ingredients.
Instinctively, Lily snatched the baby up and tried to hide him under her robes, then remembered, rather belatedly, that she was supposed to be putting him in the manger.
Here is no bed to lay thee in,
Therefore, my dear son, I thee pray,
Since it is so,
Here in this crib I might thee lay
Between these beasts two.
And I shall hap thee, mine own dear child
With such clothes as we have here.
This was the soppiest part of the pageant; the school choir was singing “Away in a Manger,” and Lily cooed over Percy as she laid him down. Snape grimaced involuntarily, and, with great effort, managed to pronounce his next line:
O Mary, behold these beasts mild;
They make loving in their manner
As they were men.
It was at that moment that the ox and the ass - fifth-years whom James had bribed to create a diversion - did decide to make loving as they were men. After a few moments of shocked silence, the Great Hall burst into laughter. Lily realized that it wouldn’t do to go on about how gentle and worshipful the beasts were when they were busy humping each other, and decided to improvise. “Oh, look, a star!” she shouted, pointing wildly at the ceiling.
“Come off it, Evans,” grumbled Snape, breaking character entirely. “The general public is more interested in perverted oxen.”
Lily put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Well, at least I’m jolly well TRYING to make them think about Christmas! I’m not seeing YOU do anything to help, Sniv- ... er, Joseph!” She remembered that she had an audience, and turned back to them. “Uh ... yeah. It’s ... er ... a really really bright star! I would even say it’s glowing!”
Sure enough, a reddish glow was filling the Great Hall.
There was a shriek from behind the curtain, and Sybill Trelawney, dressed in a tattered shift and clutching a stuffed lamb, ran out onto the stage prematurely. “LO, I FORESEE THAT THE OUTCAST APPROACHES, THE FRIENDLESS AND DESPISED ONE, HIS HOUR COME AT LAST!” she shouted. “IN THE FOG OF THE NIGHT, THE LOST TRAVELER SHALL LOOK TO HIS LIGHT FOR GUIDANCE! MAKE WAY FOR THE ONE WHOSE NAME SHALL FILL THE PAGES OF HISTORY!”
The Fat Friar, who seemed to be under the impression that she was talking about the baby Jesus, crossed himself and murmured “Amen” - and then looked very confused when James cantered on stage, his antlers tipped with fairy lights, his nose aglow and faintly smoking from the Pepper-Up Potion.
Slowly, reverently, the deer approached the Holy Family. He bowed his antlered head and allowed Mary to stroke the fur between his ears.
Lily had never seen James in his Animagus form before, although the boys had told her the whole story, swearing her to secrecy, shortly after they returned to school, and she had been awed by the complexity of the magic involved, and touched that they would do so much for Remus. Now that James was actually standing before her as a stag, he quite took her breath away. She thought he was the most beautiful and dignified creature she had ever seen - even with that ridiculous red nose.
Forgetting Percy, forgetting everything, she swung herself onto his back and rode away.
The audience looked at one another uneasily. They had never seen a Christmas pageant where Mary ran off with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer before, and they weren’t sure whether to applaud or call Magical Law Enforcement.
* * *
The remaining actors, hidden in the curtains behind the dais, were also looking at each other uneasily. Leaving Joseph in the barn to glare at a fretful and squalling Jesus seemed like an insufficient conclusion to the pageant, so it would obviously be necessary to improvise something resembling a plot. Peter stepped forward and seized the baby.
Peace, I bid, both far and near!
This squalling brat that she left here,
I say, shall die!
Let the whole world tremble in fear,
King Herod am I!
Sirius, dressed as Mac in a patched cloak and a false beard, made an elaborate pantomime of sneaking around Herod from the back, stealing his crown and sword, and flourishing them. The crowd roared its approval. Unfortunately, he forgot that the villain was supposed to be Herod and not Joseph, and started jabbing at Snape with the sword instead of rescuing the baby.
Snape, who had had enough, knocked Sirius flat with his latest experimental hex and fled offstage. The void left on the platform was filled by a couple of stray shepherds and a Wise Man, who stumbled about aimlessly. None of them seemed particularly interested in liberating the baby from Peter, who was energetically ordering the Massacre of the Innocents and claiming dominion over the earth and seas. He really made a much scarier Herod than one would have expected.
“BAAAA!!!” The largest of the sheep got up on its hind legs and rushed on stage. “BAAAA! I mean - hand over the kid, Herod! He’s a greater king than you are, and anyway, who do you think is going to change his nappies?”
Peter stopped in mid-rant, looked utterly confounded for a moment, and hastily thrust the baby into Remus’ arms. Remus scanned the crowd until he spotted a red-headed woman who seemed on the verge of hysterics. Her husband, who was also red-haired and wore spectacles, was trying to comfort her. Guessing, correctly, that these were the parents of Jesus, he restored the slightly traumatized-looking baby to their waiting arms.
“Oh, Percy!” wailed the woman. She tried to kiss Remus on the cheek, and had to spit out a mouthful of wool. “Oh, my dear, how can I ever thank you? Worried to death, I was. Well, all’s well that ends well, but I do think Horace Slughorn might take more care who he casts as Mary and Joseph. If I were God, I wouldn’t have trusted those two with the Savior of the World, that’s for certain.”
Deciding that this was the closest thing to a rousing closing speech that the play was likely to get, Remus applauded it and hoped the crowd would catch on. They did, and the curtain came down on the most unusual Christmas pageant Hogwarts had ever seen.
* * *
Professor Slughorn uninvited the entire cast to his Christmas party and set about the arduous task of drinking an entire cauldron of mulled mead by himself. Two hours later, he was in a more expansive mood, and re-invited everybody he could round up. This didn’t include Snape, who had gone off somewhere to sulk, but Lily was only too glad to join the party. She had only just escaped from Percy’s mother.
“Did she ever give me an earful! She wouldn’t let me go until I promised that I would never, ever abandon a baby again. Which I don’t mean to do, but I think she was a bit unreasonable about it. Snape was there, and I don’t see why boys can’t mind babies as well as girls. It would do him a bit of good, I think.”
Remus ventured the opinion that it might be good for Snape, but it would be rather hard on the baby.
“Oh, well, he’s only four months old. He barely knows what’s going on, so it’s not like he’ll be warped for life or anything.”
“Ho, ho, ho! God bless us every one! Now for the presents!” shouted Slughorn, who was crowned with ivy and flushed with mead.
Slughorn’s Christmas presents to the cast, though generous, were rather eccentric. Remus and Peter were not usually among his favorites, but he had obviously decided at the last minute that they needed to be rewarded for their quick thinking, and had wrapped up the frankincense and myrrh from the pageant. Sirius, in tribute to his role as Mac, received a fine assortment of safecracking tools, which pleased him very much.
Lily opened her present and gazed at it for some minutes, the frown lines in her forehead deepening. “What in the world does Slughorn expect me to do with the complete works of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada?”
“Just as a guess,” said Remus, “I think it might have something to do with your telling him you’d converted to Hare Krishnaism - Krishtianity - er, that.”
“Swap you for some myrrh,” said Peter. “I don’t think it suits me.”
“Oh, my dear, you must wear your myrrh with a difference,” murmured Sybill Trelawney as she drifted by, blissfully absorbed in the book of death omens Slughorn had given her. The other members of the Slug Club scattered in alarm.
“At least all of you got something,” said James. “What, don’t I even get any of the leftover hay from the manger?”
“Well, he didn’t know you were in the pageant at all,” said Remus, “and I don’t suppose you want to tell him.”
Gwenog Jones, a fourth-year Hufflepuff whom Slughorn was cultivating because of her immense talent at Quidditch, bounced up to them with a mug of eggnog in each hand. “Hi, James! Did you hear the news? Slughorn says he won’t be directing the Christmas pageant any more - he feels like he’s getting too old and it’s hard on his blood pressure. He’s been trying to get one of the other teachers to take over, but nobody volunteered.”
“We - we broke the Christmas pageant?” said Peter, looking alarmed.
“We broke the Christmas pageant,” Sirius repeated, a grin slowly spreading over his face. “Congratulations, Prongs. You’ll go down in history.”
Recipient: melandry
Rating: PG
Character(s): MWPP, Lily, Snape, Slughorn
Warnings: May possibly contain blasphemy.
Author's Notes: I thought Slughorn would like to do things the old-fashioned way, so the Hogwarts Christmas pageant is based on several medieval mystery plays. Mac and Jill, as many readers may know, are characters from the Wakefield Second Shepherd’s play. Joseph and Mary’s lines are adapted from the York Birth of Jesus play, and Herod’s from the Wakefield Offering of the Magi.
--
“Excuse me for missing the prefects’ meeting,” said Lily Evans crossly. “I would’ve liked to have been there, but I was shanghaied.”
“Shanghaied?” asked Remus. He was very fond of Lily - in fact, she was rapidly becoming one of his closest friends, now that the tension between her and James had blossomed into a real relationship - but he thought she was inclined to over-dramatize things.
“Well, practically. You know Professor Slughorn always directs the Christmas pageant this time of year.”
Remus nodded, although this didn’t really clarify matters, as Professor Slughorn had been in charge of the Hogwarts Christmas pageant for fifty years, and he’d never heard of any students being shanghaied before.
“And you know how he is - he always likes to save the best parts for his special favorite students, and he won’t give them a chance to say no.”
“So I’m told,” said Remus, who had played a sheep in the pageant for the last six years. “I’ve never been in any danger of being in that position myself.”
“Well, I am, unfortunately. You’re looking at the bloody Virgin Mary.”
Remus started to laugh. It was difficult to imagine anyone less holy-looking than Lily at that moment.
“Yes, exactly. It’s stupid. I tried to tell him there weren’t any redheads in Judaea or wherever it was in the year Zero, but he wouldn’t listen, and then I said I couldn’t be Mary because I’d just decided to become a Hare Krishna, and he said it was only a play and only for one night, and he was sure Krishna would understand. He made it sound like Krishna was a personal friend of his and he’d fix it up himself.”
“Well, he does have a point, you know. The pageant only lasts an hour or so. And James will look just as silly as you do.”
“Well, that’s exactly the problem. James isn’t going to be Joseph.”
“He’s not?” said Remus, puzzled. He was about to add, “But he’s Head Boy,” when he realized this was a complete non sequitur.
“Right. You see, Slughorn has never exactly approved of me going out with James - oh, he hasn’t said so in so many words, but he thinks I could do better for myself. He wants to fix me up with his other favorite - somebody who would be a more suitable intellectual match, he said.” Lily looked utterly disgusted.
“Er, Lily? I’m not exactly up on the ins and outs of the Slug Club. Who are you talking about?”
“Severus bloody Snape.”
“You’re joking,” said Remus, although he didn’t find the idea very amusing. Snape had always been an oddball with a penchant for experimenting with Dark magic, but now the rumors about him were growing darker, and Sirius was in a position to confirm some of them. At the very least, he had a suspicious number of contacts within one of the groups that had been terrorizing and occasionally murdering Muggle-born wizards.
Lily shook her head. “Unfortunately, no.”
“But you’re - I mean, Snape is - I mean...”
Lily sighed. “You don’t have to be tactful about it. You mean that ‘filthy little Mudblood’ isn’t a term of endearment in any known language. But try telling that to Slughorn and see how far you get.”
* * *
“Saint Joseph?” Sirius snorted. “Somebody needs to tell Slughorn you don’t get to be a saint if you’re that grumpy.”
“Joseph might’ve been, actually. According to medieval tradition, he was impotent,” said Peter helpfully.
Peter was the sort of person who remembered odd, irrelevant bits of trivia, but he seldom created as much of a sensation as he did now. James and Sirius whooped, Remus looked very hard as if he were trying not to do the same, and Lily giggled, blushing a little.
“That would certainly explain a lot about Snivellus,” said Sirius, sniggering.
“It would be a blessing for anyone who married him, that’s for sure,” said James.
“Ha ha,” said Lily. “Very funny. It doesn’t make acting like I’m married to him any easier. He looks at me like I’m a piece of filth, and I keep expecting him to try Dark curses on me every time my back is turned.”
“The rest of us will look after you, Lily,” Remus promised. “That’s the Marauder way.”
Sirius nodded. “What do you say, gentlemen, to all of us being in the pageant? I was thinking of trying out for Mac, myself.”
“Yeah, Padfoot,” said James. “I always thought you had an affinity for sheep.”
“You could steal Remus,” said Peter.
“Why is Remus always a sheep, anyway?” Lily asked. “Aren’t sheep usually first- and second-years?”
“Think, Lily,” said James, grinning. “You have enough information to answer that question. What have you learned about Moony in the past year?”
“Er. A lot of things. Oh!” The light began to dawn. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing!”
Remus groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Slughorn always makes that joke, too. Usually when we’re within earshot of some of the Slytherins. Baa humbug,” he added, which made the others groan too.
“What about Peter?” Lily asked.
“He could be the baby Jesus if he scrunches up,” said James.
Sirius swatted Peter on the side of the head. “That would be a baby with a face only a mother could love.”
“Actually,” said Peter, turning red and speaking very rapidly, “I-was-thinking-of-auditioning-for-King-Herod.”
“Herod?” Sirius laughed.
“Wormtail,” said James with his best attempt at diplomacy, “d’you think you’ve really got what it takes ... I mean, you’re a nice bloke and all, but that’s exactly it, don’t you see? You’re not villainous.”
“I could be villainous if I practiced a lot,” Peter insisted.
“And why shouldn’t he?” Lily demanded. “I think he’s got every bit as much right to massacre the innocents as anybody else. You should go for it, Peter.”
Peter blushed even more furiously.
“What about you, Prongs?” asked Remus. “Are you trying out?”
“I’ve been thinking, gentlemen,” said James. “And lady. Do you know what the Christmas pageant really needs?”
“What?”
James grinned. “A reindeer.”
“Oh, no,” said Remus. “You can’t be thinking - No.”
“Oh yes,” said Sirius gleefully.
* * *
After Sirius had been cast as Mac, Professor Slughorn was beset by a gaggle of girls from third year on upward, all vying for the part of Jill. He ignored them all and bestowed the part on another of his favorite students, who happened to be the great-granddaughter of a famous Seer and could shriek convincingly about how the sheep Mac had stolen was really a baby who had been bewitched by elves. The only trouble was that she seemed to believe it.
“She doesn’t really understand that Jill’s meant to be a slattern married to a rogue,” explained Sirius at breakfast the following morning. “She thinks she’s the Three Wise Men and the Angel of the Lord all rolled into one, so she keeps adding bits to the script and saying the Inner Eye inspired her. Last time, she held up the rehearsal for half an hour while she predicted the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the coming of Merlin, and the founding of the International Confederation of Wizards.”
Remus frowned. “But surely she doesn’t expect anybody to be impressed by that? I mean, anybody can make predictions about things that happened in the past.”
“The past, the present, and the future are all one to my dear Sybill,” Sirius intoned, “for she is gifted with the Inner Eye, and does not concern herself with such mundane questions as which century she lives in.” He resumed his normal voice. “Oh yeah, and it doesn’t stop after the rehearsal’s over. She keeps going on about how I’m going to have a short and tragic life filled with chaos, violence, and betrayal. So I told her that a, my name’s Black, so it doesn’t take much Divination to figure that out; and b, if it’s true I’d rather not know about it. Didn’t seem to make much of an impression, but I don’t think anything makes an impression on her.”
Peter, who had successfully auditioned for the part of Herod, kept leaning back at odd moments and declaiming his lines to the ceiling.
Peace, I bid, both far and near!
“He isn’t bad as Herod,” Sirius said. “Kind of squeaky, of course, but he’s a better actor than I would’ve thought.”
Who that makes noise while I am here,
I say, shall die!
Several first-years hastily finished their breakfast and scattered.
Of all this world, sooth, far and near,
The lord am I!
“He’s really throwing himself into the part,” remarked Lily.
Lord am I of every land,
Of tower and town, of sea and sand.
Against me dare no man stand
That bears life.
All earthly things bow to my hand,
Both man and wife!
“I think he likes playing the tyrant,” said Remus. “It’s ... It’s odd, really.” He felt slightly unnerved, but he couldn’t find the words to explain why, so he left it at that.
* * *
Remus, of course, was excused from most of the rehearsals, as all he had to do was baa. He and James spent the afternoon in the dormitory with a basket of apples, as James had decided that he wanted to be a red-nosed reindeer. Remus was trying to charm one of the apples to fit snugly over his nose without slipping off. This would have been a tricky enough task if James had been in human form, but after he had transformed, it was nearly impossible.
“Nasomalum,” said Remus. He waved his wand at the apple, and it flew up to James’ nose. “Adhaere. All right, see if you can walk with it.”
James managed three steps before the apple fell off. He transformed back into a boy. “Bugger,” he said.
“Your nose is too broad when you’re a stag. And too flat.”
“Bet I could get an apple to stay on Snivellus’ nose,” said James. “We could do it at the pageant, in front of the whole school.”
“He hasn’t really done anything to us lately,” said Remus pointedly. “Not since last November, actually.”
“Right. Point taken.” James chewed on his lip for a moment. “What happened last year was not, in any way, good. Neither were some of the things that happened before that.”
“It’s all right. It was ages ago, and a lot of the time it was his fault.”
James helped himself to one of the apples from the basket. “I was kind of a git to you, too. And Wormtail,” he added as an afterthought. “And I’ve tried to change that, but I can’t undo it, you know.”
“That’s all right, too,” said Remus. He took a bite out of an apple and chewed it very slowly. The conversation embarrassed him, in a way that Sirius’ repeated and abject apologies had not. He was not used to seeing James look remorseful, or reflective, or anything other than supremely confident.
“The worst of it is, I wonder if I’ve made things worse for Lily. I don’t remember him being so anti-Muggle-born before she started going out with me.”
“Truthfully? I don’t think you need to worry about that. He went around calling her vile names when she still hated the sight of you, and you know Padfoot’s cousins made a pet out of him when he was just a first-year. He’s always been a bigoted little snot.”
James considered this. “You’re right. I’m just being stupid.”
“I don’t think you’re being stupid,” said Remus, “but I think you sometimes make yourself out to be more important than you really are ... Oh hell, Prongs, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded!”
James laughed. “Nah, I’d say that’s spot on, actually. Honestly, Moony, I’m glad that I have you to tell me when I’m getting a swelled head.”
He was looking at Remus as if he were on the verge of saying something else, and Remus was feeling more and more awkward, when the door to the dormitory burst open and Sirius and Peter, back from rehearsal, tumbled into the room. Peter helped himself to one of the apples.
“You don’t want to eat that,” said Remus quickly, but not quickly enough.
“Why not?” asked Peter with his mouth full.
“Because it has deer snot on it.”
Peter spat the mouthful of apple into the wastepaper basket.
“Why are there apples with deer snot on them in our room?” asked Sirius.
James and Remus explained.
Sirius looked thoughtful. “What you want, mate, is a bucket of Pepper-Up Potion.”
“No, I don’t,” said James in some alarm. “I feel fine. Really!”
“Not to drink, to dip your nose in just before you do your Rudolph thing. It’ll glow, all right.”
* * *
The night of the pageant was clear and cold. Pinpricks of stars studded the ceiling of the Great hall, which Professor Flitwick had converted into a theater with a bit of clever charmwork. On the dais where the High Table normally stood was a barn, with one side open to the elements and an ox and an ass visible in their stalls behind the manger. The House tables had been moved to the side and replaced with row upon row of chairs - enough to accommodate practically the entire school, along with a number of parents, two or three dozen of Professor Slughorn’s particular friends, and most of the castle ghosts.
One of Slughorn’s old students had lent him her baby for the evening, and Lily was charmed by the infant in spite of herself. He was a redheaded baby with very tiny glasses, and she thought that if she and James had a baby, it might look a little like this one.
“Percy-Percy,” she clucked as she wrapped him in the swaddling clothes. “Don’t you look handsome? Your mummy and daddy are going to be so proud, yes they are.”
“There’s no sense in talking to the bloody thing as if it were human,” Snape hissed at her as they were about to go on stage.
“He is human,” said Lily crossly, “as you’d know if you took half a minute to think about - Oh, just shut up, you’re meant to be making a speech about God.” She shoved Snape from behind, so that he stumbled onto the platform at the end of the Great Hall, and followed him with the baby.
Snape shook his fist at the heavens and declared:
All-wielding God in Trinity,
I pray thee, Lord, for thy great might,
Unto thy simple servant see,
Here in this place where we are pight...
This was all well and good, except that this Joseph didn’t sound like he was praying for anything - more like he was about to hex God for putting him through this. He sneered at Mary, shoved the ox and the ass out of the way, and slouched against the stable wall, glaring at the audience.
Lily made a brave effort to look as if nothing was amiss with this performance, but it was difficult to deliver a line like, “Therefore, Joseph, be of good cheer,” when Joseph looked like he was constitutionally incapable of anything of the sort.
Things got a little better when Joseph went out for a short walk to gather firewood, and a great deal worse when the baby made his appearance. Joseph was supposed to say “Hail, welcome, fairest flower of hue!” and a great deal more in the same vein, but it fell rather flat, because Snape was eyeing the baby as if calculating how much he would fetch if he were dismembered and sold for Potions ingredients.
Instinctively, Lily snatched the baby up and tried to hide him under her robes, then remembered, rather belatedly, that she was supposed to be putting him in the manger.
Here is no bed to lay thee in,
Therefore, my dear son, I thee pray,
Since it is so,
Here in this crib I might thee lay
Between these beasts two.
And I shall hap thee, mine own dear child
With such clothes as we have here.
This was the soppiest part of the pageant; the school choir was singing “Away in a Manger,” and Lily cooed over Percy as she laid him down. Snape grimaced involuntarily, and, with great effort, managed to pronounce his next line:
O Mary, behold these beasts mild;
They make loving in their manner
As they were men.
It was at that moment that the ox and the ass - fifth-years whom James had bribed to create a diversion - did decide to make loving as they were men. After a few moments of shocked silence, the Great Hall burst into laughter. Lily realized that it wouldn’t do to go on about how gentle and worshipful the beasts were when they were busy humping each other, and decided to improvise. “Oh, look, a star!” she shouted, pointing wildly at the ceiling.
“Come off it, Evans,” grumbled Snape, breaking character entirely. “The general public is more interested in perverted oxen.”
Lily put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Well, at least I’m jolly well TRYING to make them think about Christmas! I’m not seeing YOU do anything to help, Sniv- ... er, Joseph!” She remembered that she had an audience, and turned back to them. “Uh ... yeah. It’s ... er ... a really really bright star! I would even say it’s glowing!”
Sure enough, a reddish glow was filling the Great Hall.
There was a shriek from behind the curtain, and Sybill Trelawney, dressed in a tattered shift and clutching a stuffed lamb, ran out onto the stage prematurely. “LO, I FORESEE THAT THE OUTCAST APPROACHES, THE FRIENDLESS AND DESPISED ONE, HIS HOUR COME AT LAST!” she shouted. “IN THE FOG OF THE NIGHT, THE LOST TRAVELER SHALL LOOK TO HIS LIGHT FOR GUIDANCE! MAKE WAY FOR THE ONE WHOSE NAME SHALL FILL THE PAGES OF HISTORY!”
The Fat Friar, who seemed to be under the impression that she was talking about the baby Jesus, crossed himself and murmured “Amen” - and then looked very confused when James cantered on stage, his antlers tipped with fairy lights, his nose aglow and faintly smoking from the Pepper-Up Potion.
Slowly, reverently, the deer approached the Holy Family. He bowed his antlered head and allowed Mary to stroke the fur between his ears.
Lily had never seen James in his Animagus form before, although the boys had told her the whole story, swearing her to secrecy, shortly after they returned to school, and she had been awed by the complexity of the magic involved, and touched that they would do so much for Remus. Now that James was actually standing before her as a stag, he quite took her breath away. She thought he was the most beautiful and dignified creature she had ever seen - even with that ridiculous red nose.
Forgetting Percy, forgetting everything, she swung herself onto his back and rode away.
The audience looked at one another uneasily. They had never seen a Christmas pageant where Mary ran off with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer before, and they weren’t sure whether to applaud or call Magical Law Enforcement.
* * *
The remaining actors, hidden in the curtains behind the dais, were also looking at each other uneasily. Leaving Joseph in the barn to glare at a fretful and squalling Jesus seemed like an insufficient conclusion to the pageant, so it would obviously be necessary to improvise something resembling a plot. Peter stepped forward and seized the baby.
Peace, I bid, both far and near!
This squalling brat that she left here,
I say, shall die!
Let the whole world tremble in fear,
King Herod am I!
Sirius, dressed as Mac in a patched cloak and a false beard, made an elaborate pantomime of sneaking around Herod from the back, stealing his crown and sword, and flourishing them. The crowd roared its approval. Unfortunately, he forgot that the villain was supposed to be Herod and not Joseph, and started jabbing at Snape with the sword instead of rescuing the baby.
Snape, who had had enough, knocked Sirius flat with his latest experimental hex and fled offstage. The void left on the platform was filled by a couple of stray shepherds and a Wise Man, who stumbled about aimlessly. None of them seemed particularly interested in liberating the baby from Peter, who was energetically ordering the Massacre of the Innocents and claiming dominion over the earth and seas. He really made a much scarier Herod than one would have expected.
“BAAAA!!!” The largest of the sheep got up on its hind legs and rushed on stage. “BAAAA! I mean - hand over the kid, Herod! He’s a greater king than you are, and anyway, who do you think is going to change his nappies?”
Peter stopped in mid-rant, looked utterly confounded for a moment, and hastily thrust the baby into Remus’ arms. Remus scanned the crowd until he spotted a red-headed woman who seemed on the verge of hysterics. Her husband, who was also red-haired and wore spectacles, was trying to comfort her. Guessing, correctly, that these were the parents of Jesus, he restored the slightly traumatized-looking baby to their waiting arms.
“Oh, Percy!” wailed the woman. She tried to kiss Remus on the cheek, and had to spit out a mouthful of wool. “Oh, my dear, how can I ever thank you? Worried to death, I was. Well, all’s well that ends well, but I do think Horace Slughorn might take more care who he casts as Mary and Joseph. If I were God, I wouldn’t have trusted those two with the Savior of the World, that’s for certain.”
Deciding that this was the closest thing to a rousing closing speech that the play was likely to get, Remus applauded it and hoped the crowd would catch on. They did, and the curtain came down on the most unusual Christmas pageant Hogwarts had ever seen.
* * *
Professor Slughorn uninvited the entire cast to his Christmas party and set about the arduous task of drinking an entire cauldron of mulled mead by himself. Two hours later, he was in a more expansive mood, and re-invited everybody he could round up. This didn’t include Snape, who had gone off somewhere to sulk, but Lily was only too glad to join the party. She had only just escaped from Percy’s mother.
“Did she ever give me an earful! She wouldn’t let me go until I promised that I would never, ever abandon a baby again. Which I don’t mean to do, but I think she was a bit unreasonable about it. Snape was there, and I don’t see why boys can’t mind babies as well as girls. It would do him a bit of good, I think.”
Remus ventured the opinion that it might be good for Snape, but it would be rather hard on the baby.
“Oh, well, he’s only four months old. He barely knows what’s going on, so it’s not like he’ll be warped for life or anything.”
“Ho, ho, ho! God bless us every one! Now for the presents!” shouted Slughorn, who was crowned with ivy and flushed with mead.
Slughorn’s Christmas presents to the cast, though generous, were rather eccentric. Remus and Peter were not usually among his favorites, but he had obviously decided at the last minute that they needed to be rewarded for their quick thinking, and had wrapped up the frankincense and myrrh from the pageant. Sirius, in tribute to his role as Mac, received a fine assortment of safecracking tools, which pleased him very much.
Lily opened her present and gazed at it for some minutes, the frown lines in her forehead deepening. “What in the world does Slughorn expect me to do with the complete works of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada?”
“Just as a guess,” said Remus, “I think it might have something to do with your telling him you’d converted to Hare Krishnaism - Krishtianity - er, that.”
“Swap you for some myrrh,” said Peter. “I don’t think it suits me.”
“Oh, my dear, you must wear your myrrh with a difference,” murmured Sybill Trelawney as she drifted by, blissfully absorbed in the book of death omens Slughorn had given her. The other members of the Slug Club scattered in alarm.
“At least all of you got something,” said James. “What, don’t I even get any of the leftover hay from the manger?”
“Well, he didn’t know you were in the pageant at all,” said Remus, “and I don’t suppose you want to tell him.”
Gwenog Jones, a fourth-year Hufflepuff whom Slughorn was cultivating because of her immense talent at Quidditch, bounced up to them with a mug of eggnog in each hand. “Hi, James! Did you hear the news? Slughorn says he won’t be directing the Christmas pageant any more - he feels like he’s getting too old and it’s hard on his blood pressure. He’s been trying to get one of the other teachers to take over, but nobody volunteered.”
“We - we broke the Christmas pageant?” said Peter, looking alarmed.
“We broke the Christmas pageant,” Sirius repeated, a grin slowly spreading over his face. “Congratulations, Prongs. You’ll go down in history.”