Mischief Managed ♦ Fic: Magic Free
Title: Magic Free
Author: pamymex3girl
Pairing: MWPP Sirius, James, Remus, Peter, James/Lily
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,900
Prompt: 28 Things they try to do without magic
Warnings: no
Summary: When Lily accuses James of not being able to live without magic the Marauders attempt to prove her wrong, at least that’s the way Remus remembers it.
Author's Notes: Don’t own anything
It all began with something Lily said.
Later, much later, when the dust has finally settled and people can walk freely again, when the war has ended and the price for peace has been paid, Remus will think back on those moments and realize it was always like that. Most of their crazier adventures started with something Lily said (mostly against James), something that in that moment had triggered an idea in their heads (mostly in James’s head).
She said ‘You couldn’t go a day without magic, even if you wanted to.’
Of course a lot of their adventures also started with something Sirius did or something James said, but it has only been three days since the downfall of the once so proud Marauders three days since his world ended (yet strangely kept on turning), and it hurts to much. It hurts too much to think of James, who had trusted the wrong friend, or Sirius who had betrayed them all. Sirius who looked him in the eye and accused him of being the traitor of James who believed Sirius’s lie and Peter who never truly said who he believed to be the traitor.
It hurts too much to think of them, yet he can’t seem to stop the flood of memories.
So he chooses the middle ground, the easy path.
He remembers the stories that start with something Lily said.
***
It had been a Sunday Remus remembers it well.
They were sitting at the coming room fire, just hanging out; they should have been doing their homework (he had already finished, Peter had been working on it all day, but Sirius and hadn’t even started) And admittedly they were being extremely lazy. Sirius was using magic to get the pillow and the blanket over to him, despite the fact they were close enough for him to grab, and James was using his wand to turn the pages of the book they were reading.
He didn’t see Lily coming, which was definitely a first.
Usually James was always the first to notice when Lily walked into a room, the first to say something to her (always something stupid) and the first to try to sit by her. Yet this time, for some reason, he had not noticed and thus he could not prevent what came next. Lily had been in an extremely bad mood all day (a mood Remus later discovered had everything to do with a letter from her sister). ‘Honestly this is ridiculous, I know you are wizards but look at yourselves’ Lily had said. She had the unmanning ability to sound angry and loud even when she was not screaming (most people had learned over the years that ignoring a fight between James and Lily was always the best way to go).
He had learned so as well, which is probably why he lost most of the conversation.
Yet the last words resound in his head, even now.
‘Please Potter, you are too lazy and to stupid to survive in the Muggle world. You could not survive one day without magic, even if you wanted to. What am I saying, you two (yes you too Black!) couldn’t survive without magic for one hour, let along longer.’
He’s sure Lily meant what she said and he’s equally as sure she had not meant for James and Sirius to take that as a challenge.
Something else most people had learned: never (even accidentally) challenge Sirius (or James) because they will take the challenge seriously, no matter how stupid. And they will drag the rest of the Marauders with them (not that Remus would have had it any other way, he doesn’t know if his parents agree with his choice of friends or his after school activities, but he would not have chosen any differently. Because nowhere else would Remus find such good friends as this, friends who not only accepted a werewolf without thinking twice about it, but also became animagi just for him. Years later he will wonder if they ever truly accepted him.)
The grin on Sirius’s face meant trouble, Remus knew, and so did his words.
‘Maybe we should try.’
James smiled back, Peter looked up from his potion’s essay like this was the first of the conversation he heard (despite the fact that Remus knew he had heard every word) and Remus buried his head in his arms.
Tomorrow was definitely going to be a long day.
***
He wonders why they always plan to do stuff on Mondays.
Wouldn’t it be easier, he thinks, much easier to do this kind of things on a Saturday or a Sunday? A day with no classes and no teachers, a day were they can in fact try to get trough it without magic? Why did it have to be a Monday? Why on the day they have transfiguration? But the Marauders were never ones to take a challenge lightly; they never took the easy road. If they did something it had to be while they had classes, preferably McGonagall.
It starts going wrong first thing on Monday morning.
It starts when the magical alarm clocks, the ones James got for his birthday, don’t go of in the morning. This has no effect whatsoever on Remus, he is always the first one up (he never tells the others but between the nightmares he has about being bitten and having oversensitive hearing he never truly sleeps that well, except right after a full moon). He understands why they turned them off; they always took a challenge seriously after all, and it was a magical one. But why did they not turn on another alarm clock? Why not use the one they did before. It was his, and it came from the Muggle world. That would have been smart, that would have been easy; but why make things easy?
In the end it doesn’t change much of their morning routine.
He always has to wake them up after all.
Except that this time he can’t use magic, after all when one Marauder enters a challenge (even one that wasn’t meant like one) all Marauders must enter the challenge (unless the challenge comes from another Marauder). It only takes him a few minutes to come up with a plan, he always uses some kind of loud noise (extremely loud right next to their ears) and if that doesn’t work he throws cold water over them. He abandons the loud noise plan immediately. After all the only loud noise he can make without magic at the moment is screaming in their ears, and he will not scream into his friends ears first thing on a Monday morning (it sounds too much like something Sirius would do; in fact he’s pretty sure Sirius has done that at least once).
So he fills a bucket with cold water in the bathroom (it takes him a few more minutes than normal to get the bucket back into their room since after all he has to carry it), and then he is faced with a problem. Usually he uses magic to throw cold water over the three of them at the same time, but that is impossible now, which means he must choose which of his friends will get a cold shower first thing Monday morning. Peter is out almost immediately, the water doesn’t always wake him up and even if it did, he couldn’t wake up the other two. James always wakes up by jumping out of his bed and running into the bathroom, but Sirius always screams like a girl (which is something the others tease him about and Sirius always denies that happens).
A few seconds later a scream is heard in the boy’s chambers.
Remus was out of the common room before Sirius could figure out who had made him wet.
***
It takes them a long time to get down breakfasting.
But Remus had expected this after all they had to do everything the Muggle way, which meant that instead of simply summoning small items such as socks and glasses, their books and their homework, they had to search for it manually. Finding something in their room was an art even with magic. If they found everything without magic (or most of it anyway) they definitely earned some kind of prize.
Breakfast was easy they just had to choose something the house elves didn’t prepare.
Alice almost had a heart attack when, instead of simply summoning the jam to him, Sirius actually asked for it.
Lily looked at them strangely for a second but mostly ignored them.
It was a normal breakfast.
***
History of Magic had to be the easiest class for them today.
No need for magic, except of course to play the games Sirius and James always played, which meant that instead they actually had to listen for once. For one glorious minute Remus actually thought they might end up taking notes, but that feeling quickly passed. Looking back on it, Remus thinks this might be the class during which Lily began to notice that the boys were acting strangely.
Then again they always acted strange, it’s why they were the Marauders.
Potions was manageable except that, without magic to help him, Peter did even worse than Remus for once (which was definitely saying something). Lunch was definitely eventful because Sirius realized he had forgotten his transfiguration homework so he had to miss lunch, James spend the entire time trying to figure out how to play Quidditch, and Peter realized they couldn’t eat because everything was made by house-elves.
Eventually they ate bread again.
Sirius actually managed to find his homework in time and still ate something.
It was definitely impressive.
****
Charms was ridiculous.
Remus spent the entire time doubled over. First, Sirius and James intended to try to levitate a feather without magic. They spent ten minutes simply blowing at the feather, trying not to breathe in, but of course it did not levitate (how could it?). Their attempt of summoning charms consisted of Sirius moving to the other side of the room and simply throwing stuff at James (he had apparently forgotten they always used pillows, more likely he pretended to anyway).
James managed to catch everything, everything except the inkpot which hit Flitchwick.
You couldn’t practice magic without using magic.
But they still had to try.
***
Transfiguration was their last subject, and to this day Remus is surprised Minerva didn’t just murder them on the spot.
Obviously you could eat without magic, find your stuff without magic, without almost hurting yourself (it's almost impossible though, especially in Sirius's part of the room).
You could follow a class of History of Magic, or at least try to, and you could mix potions. You could even attempt Charms without magic, though it did not work well.
But you could not do Transfiguration without magic.
You should not attempt it; especially not if Minerva is your teacher.
They only got three months of detention. Considering Sirius brought a live pig into the room, the punishment seemed to fall short somehow.
*****
Their first detention, which consisted out of cleaning all the silverwork and all of the trophies, was that night.
They could have used magic, Minerva told them they could, but the challenge was to live a day without magic, to do as much as possible without magic. And so they cleaned everything, by hand (Remus certainly hoped tomorrow they could use magic again.)
Later, after hours of detention, when they were sitting in the common room, Lily actually came up to them (voluntarily).
‘You know it wasn’t meant as a challenge. But I’m impressed, looks like for once I was wrong about you Potter and you Black, you can live without magic. But I wouldn’t recommend trying to learn magic without practicing it again.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Night Black, Night James.’
That night would forever go in their memories as the first time Lily called James by his first name.
****
There was a picture of that day. he hadn’t known, back then.
The four of them are in the Transfiguration classroom, all of them together chasing that pig Sirius had brought. Lily had taken it, but Remus hadn’t seen it until after the funeral. After all of his friends were dead or better left forgotten. After everything was over, Alice came up to him and gave him the picture. It wasn’t a very good picture, they had all been moving, after all, but you could recognize them. James is at the front trying very hard to remain serious because Minerva was already furious, but Sirius had lost it the minute he brought in the pig. Remus is standing next to Sirius, caught in-between laughter and seriousness, and Peter is at the back of the picture, almost lost (like he always was).
It’s the only non-moving photograph he has of the four of them.
The only picture that truly captures a single moment in time.
***
He wonders if people can see it in the picture.
If they can see what will come. He wonders if they can look at James and see the boy who will die far too young to protect the son that now has to face the world alone. If they can see that the boy lost at the side of the frame, who almost didn’t make it on the picture, was a hero. If they could see that that boy would one day turn out to be the bravest of them all. He wonders if they can see the monster inside him, he wonders if they see the evil inside Sirius.
He wonders if they can see that someday that young, happy man will betray his friends.
He wonders if they can see that the wolf will be the sole survivor.
Then he thinks, did those people even exist back then? Were they already who they would become? Or were they different people? They were just children back then. Perhaps there was nothing to see, and perhaps the world could not see what they would become because it simply wasn’t there yet. Perhaps they did not exist yet. And if there had been no war they might have had more moments like that; they might have remained friends forever. Or, they could have simply grown apart, but without murder.
Or maybe they were always the persons they would someday be.
Maybe Sirius was just a really good actor.
****
He hasn’t noticed he’s been crying, but then again that’s not weird these days. He doesn’t leave his apartment, apart from Alice and Frank who always believed in him, there is nobody he wants to see anyway. Why would he want to? So they can look at him and tell him they’re sorry they thought it was him? That he should have never trusted a Black? That they’re sorry he’s lost everything and that unlike them he can’t move on because he’s a werewolf? How can he look at the people who say they are not prejudiced but accused him based solely on the monster inside him (just like he always knew they would).
He wonders if somewhere far away in his cell Sirius is thinking about them, the Marauders, if he remembers the moments just as clearly as Remus does. He wonders if they mean anything to him, if they break him just as much as they break Remus. Does Sirius even remember who they once were?
Does he even care?
****
Three weeks later he packs up everything.
School papers, photographs, letters, and stores them in boxes; he can’t let go of the memories, but he can store them away (only takes them out when a letter from Hagrid arrives asking for pictures of James and Lily for Harry), but the frozen photograph he keeps with him. It seems realer somehow than all the others, despite that in the others they move.
He almost shows it to Harry during one of their dementor classes.
But he didn’t want to explain their friendship to him, didn’t want to tell him his father’s best friend killed him (practically anyway.)
He never shows him the picture, not even when the truth comes out.
****
Three days after he resigns Sirius shows up at his house.
Remus doesn’t even bother to wonder how Sirius knew were to find him, and after so many years it’s almost scary how easily they fall back into their old routine. How easy it is to accept all of Sirius weirdness again, it’s almost the same (except that one of them is dead, the other is a traitor, twelve years have passed. Twelve years that have destroyed the cheeriness that always possessed Sirius, twelve years that have greyed and exhausted Remus. Twelve years that seemed so much longer).
The unspoken and spoken accusations lie between them, but they don’t speak of them.
Remus takes out the picture without thinking and shows it to Sirius.
The smile that spreads on Sirius’s face reminds Remus of the old Sirius, it turns him back into the youth he once was. It gives him back as much of his best friend as he can possibly get.
It’s also, Remus realizes, the first time he’s seen Sirius truly smile since they’ve met again.
It suddenly turns into the best Marauder adventure (the best memory).
****
And it all began with something Lily said.
Author: pamymex3girl
Pairing: MWPP Sirius, James, Remus, Peter, James/Lily
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,900
Prompt: 28 Things they try to do without magic
Warnings: no
Summary: When Lily accuses James of not being able to live without magic the Marauders attempt to prove her wrong, at least that’s the way Remus remembers it.
Author's Notes: Don’t own anything
It all began with something Lily said.
Later, much later, when the dust has finally settled and people can walk freely again, when the war has ended and the price for peace has been paid, Remus will think back on those moments and realize it was always like that. Most of their crazier adventures started with something Lily said (mostly against James), something that in that moment had triggered an idea in their heads (mostly in James’s head).
She said ‘You couldn’t go a day without magic, even if you wanted to.’
Of course a lot of their adventures also started with something Sirius did or something James said, but it has only been three days since the downfall of the once so proud Marauders three days since his world ended (yet strangely kept on turning), and it hurts to much. It hurts too much to think of James, who had trusted the wrong friend, or Sirius who had betrayed them all. Sirius who looked him in the eye and accused him of being the traitor of James who believed Sirius’s lie and Peter who never truly said who he believed to be the traitor.
It hurts too much to think of them, yet he can’t seem to stop the flood of memories.
So he chooses the middle ground, the easy path.
He remembers the stories that start with something Lily said.
***
It had been a Sunday Remus remembers it well.
They were sitting at the coming room fire, just hanging out; they should have been doing their homework (he had already finished, Peter had been working on it all day, but Sirius and hadn’t even started) And admittedly they were being extremely lazy. Sirius was using magic to get the pillow and the blanket over to him, despite the fact they were close enough for him to grab, and James was using his wand to turn the pages of the book they were reading.
He didn’t see Lily coming, which was definitely a first.
Usually James was always the first to notice when Lily walked into a room, the first to say something to her (always something stupid) and the first to try to sit by her. Yet this time, for some reason, he had not noticed and thus he could not prevent what came next. Lily had been in an extremely bad mood all day (a mood Remus later discovered had everything to do with a letter from her sister). ‘Honestly this is ridiculous, I know you are wizards but look at yourselves’ Lily had said. She had the unmanning ability to sound angry and loud even when she was not screaming (most people had learned over the years that ignoring a fight between James and Lily was always the best way to go).
He had learned so as well, which is probably why he lost most of the conversation.
Yet the last words resound in his head, even now.
‘Please Potter, you are too lazy and to stupid to survive in the Muggle world. You could not survive one day without magic, even if you wanted to. What am I saying, you two (yes you too Black!) couldn’t survive without magic for one hour, let along longer.’
He’s sure Lily meant what she said and he’s equally as sure she had not meant for James and Sirius to take that as a challenge.
Something else most people had learned: never (even accidentally) challenge Sirius (or James) because they will take the challenge seriously, no matter how stupid. And they will drag the rest of the Marauders with them (not that Remus would have had it any other way, he doesn’t know if his parents agree with his choice of friends or his after school activities, but he would not have chosen any differently. Because nowhere else would Remus find such good friends as this, friends who not only accepted a werewolf without thinking twice about it, but also became animagi just for him. Years later he will wonder if they ever truly accepted him.)
The grin on Sirius’s face meant trouble, Remus knew, and so did his words.
‘Maybe we should try.’
James smiled back, Peter looked up from his potion’s essay like this was the first of the conversation he heard (despite the fact that Remus knew he had heard every word) and Remus buried his head in his arms.
Tomorrow was definitely going to be a long day.
***
He wonders why they always plan to do stuff on Mondays.
Wouldn’t it be easier, he thinks, much easier to do this kind of things on a Saturday or a Sunday? A day with no classes and no teachers, a day were they can in fact try to get trough it without magic? Why did it have to be a Monday? Why on the day they have transfiguration? But the Marauders were never ones to take a challenge lightly; they never took the easy road. If they did something it had to be while they had classes, preferably McGonagall.
It starts going wrong first thing on Monday morning.
It starts when the magical alarm clocks, the ones James got for his birthday, don’t go of in the morning. This has no effect whatsoever on Remus, he is always the first one up (he never tells the others but between the nightmares he has about being bitten and having oversensitive hearing he never truly sleeps that well, except right after a full moon). He understands why they turned them off; they always took a challenge seriously after all, and it was a magical one. But why did they not turn on another alarm clock? Why not use the one they did before. It was his, and it came from the Muggle world. That would have been smart, that would have been easy; but why make things easy?
In the end it doesn’t change much of their morning routine.
He always has to wake them up after all.
Except that this time he can’t use magic, after all when one Marauder enters a challenge (even one that wasn’t meant like one) all Marauders must enter the challenge (unless the challenge comes from another Marauder). It only takes him a few minutes to come up with a plan, he always uses some kind of loud noise (extremely loud right next to their ears) and if that doesn’t work he throws cold water over them. He abandons the loud noise plan immediately. After all the only loud noise he can make without magic at the moment is screaming in their ears, and he will not scream into his friends ears first thing on a Monday morning (it sounds too much like something Sirius would do; in fact he’s pretty sure Sirius has done that at least once).
So he fills a bucket with cold water in the bathroom (it takes him a few more minutes than normal to get the bucket back into their room since after all he has to carry it), and then he is faced with a problem. Usually he uses magic to throw cold water over the three of them at the same time, but that is impossible now, which means he must choose which of his friends will get a cold shower first thing Monday morning. Peter is out almost immediately, the water doesn’t always wake him up and even if it did, he couldn’t wake up the other two. James always wakes up by jumping out of his bed and running into the bathroom, but Sirius always screams like a girl (which is something the others tease him about and Sirius always denies that happens).
A few seconds later a scream is heard in the boy’s chambers.
Remus was out of the common room before Sirius could figure out who had made him wet.
***
It takes them a long time to get down breakfasting.
But Remus had expected this after all they had to do everything the Muggle way, which meant that instead of simply summoning small items such as socks and glasses, their books and their homework, they had to search for it manually. Finding something in their room was an art even with magic. If they found everything without magic (or most of it anyway) they definitely earned some kind of prize.
Breakfast was easy they just had to choose something the house elves didn’t prepare.
Alice almost had a heart attack when, instead of simply summoning the jam to him, Sirius actually asked for it.
Lily looked at them strangely for a second but mostly ignored them.
It was a normal breakfast.
***
History of Magic had to be the easiest class for them today.
No need for magic, except of course to play the games Sirius and James always played, which meant that instead they actually had to listen for once. For one glorious minute Remus actually thought they might end up taking notes, but that feeling quickly passed. Looking back on it, Remus thinks this might be the class during which Lily began to notice that the boys were acting strangely.
Then again they always acted strange, it’s why they were the Marauders.
Potions was manageable except that, without magic to help him, Peter did even worse than Remus for once (which was definitely saying something). Lunch was definitely eventful because Sirius realized he had forgotten his transfiguration homework so he had to miss lunch, James spend the entire time trying to figure out how to play Quidditch, and Peter realized they couldn’t eat because everything was made by house-elves.
Eventually they ate bread again.
Sirius actually managed to find his homework in time and still ate something.
It was definitely impressive.
****
Charms was ridiculous.
Remus spent the entire time doubled over. First, Sirius and James intended to try to levitate a feather without magic. They spent ten minutes simply blowing at the feather, trying not to breathe in, but of course it did not levitate (how could it?). Their attempt of summoning charms consisted of Sirius moving to the other side of the room and simply throwing stuff at James (he had apparently forgotten they always used pillows, more likely he pretended to anyway).
James managed to catch everything, everything except the inkpot which hit Flitchwick.
You couldn’t practice magic without using magic.
But they still had to try.
***
Transfiguration was their last subject, and to this day Remus is surprised Minerva didn’t just murder them on the spot.
Obviously you could eat without magic, find your stuff without magic, without almost hurting yourself (it's almost impossible though, especially in Sirius's part of the room).
You could follow a class of History of Magic, or at least try to, and you could mix potions. You could even attempt Charms without magic, though it did not work well.
But you could not do Transfiguration without magic.
You should not attempt it; especially not if Minerva is your teacher.
They only got three months of detention. Considering Sirius brought a live pig into the room, the punishment seemed to fall short somehow.
*****
Their first detention, which consisted out of cleaning all the silverwork and all of the trophies, was that night.
They could have used magic, Minerva told them they could, but the challenge was to live a day without magic, to do as much as possible without magic. And so they cleaned everything, by hand (Remus certainly hoped tomorrow they could use magic again.)
Later, after hours of detention, when they were sitting in the common room, Lily actually came up to them (voluntarily).
‘You know it wasn’t meant as a challenge. But I’m impressed, looks like for once I was wrong about you Potter and you Black, you can live without magic. But I wouldn’t recommend trying to learn magic without practicing it again.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Night Black, Night James.’
That night would forever go in their memories as the first time Lily called James by his first name.
****
There was a picture of that day. he hadn’t known, back then.
The four of them are in the Transfiguration classroom, all of them together chasing that pig Sirius had brought. Lily had taken it, but Remus hadn’t seen it until after the funeral. After all of his friends were dead or better left forgotten. After everything was over, Alice came up to him and gave him the picture. It wasn’t a very good picture, they had all been moving, after all, but you could recognize them. James is at the front trying very hard to remain serious because Minerva was already furious, but Sirius had lost it the minute he brought in the pig. Remus is standing next to Sirius, caught in-between laughter and seriousness, and Peter is at the back of the picture, almost lost (like he always was).
It’s the only non-moving photograph he has of the four of them.
The only picture that truly captures a single moment in time.
***
He wonders if people can see it in the picture.
If they can see what will come. He wonders if they can look at James and see the boy who will die far too young to protect the son that now has to face the world alone. If they can see that the boy lost at the side of the frame, who almost didn’t make it on the picture, was a hero. If they could see that that boy would one day turn out to be the bravest of them all. He wonders if they can see the monster inside him, he wonders if they see the evil inside Sirius.
He wonders if they can see that someday that young, happy man will betray his friends.
He wonders if they can see that the wolf will be the sole survivor.
Then he thinks, did those people even exist back then? Were they already who they would become? Or were they different people? They were just children back then. Perhaps there was nothing to see, and perhaps the world could not see what they would become because it simply wasn’t there yet. Perhaps they did not exist yet. And if there had been no war they might have had more moments like that; they might have remained friends forever. Or, they could have simply grown apart, but without murder.
Or maybe they were always the persons they would someday be.
Maybe Sirius was just a really good actor.
****
He hasn’t noticed he’s been crying, but then again that’s not weird these days. He doesn’t leave his apartment, apart from Alice and Frank who always believed in him, there is nobody he wants to see anyway. Why would he want to? So they can look at him and tell him they’re sorry they thought it was him? That he should have never trusted a Black? That they’re sorry he’s lost everything and that unlike them he can’t move on because he’s a werewolf? How can he look at the people who say they are not prejudiced but accused him based solely on the monster inside him (just like he always knew they would).
He wonders if somewhere far away in his cell Sirius is thinking about them, the Marauders, if he remembers the moments just as clearly as Remus does. He wonders if they mean anything to him, if they break him just as much as they break Remus. Does Sirius even remember who they once were?
Does he even care?
****
Three weeks later he packs up everything.
School papers, photographs, letters, and stores them in boxes; he can’t let go of the memories, but he can store them away (only takes them out when a letter from Hagrid arrives asking for pictures of James and Lily for Harry), but the frozen photograph he keeps with him. It seems realer somehow than all the others, despite that in the others they move.
He almost shows it to Harry during one of their dementor classes.
But he didn’t want to explain their friendship to him, didn’t want to tell him his father’s best friend killed him (practically anyway.)
He never shows him the picture, not even when the truth comes out.
****
Three days after he resigns Sirius shows up at his house.
Remus doesn’t even bother to wonder how Sirius knew were to find him, and after so many years it’s almost scary how easily they fall back into their old routine. How easy it is to accept all of Sirius weirdness again, it’s almost the same (except that one of them is dead, the other is a traitor, twelve years have passed. Twelve years that have destroyed the cheeriness that always possessed Sirius, twelve years that have greyed and exhausted Remus. Twelve years that seemed so much longer).
The unspoken and spoken accusations lie between them, but they don’t speak of them.
Remus takes out the picture without thinking and shows it to Sirius.
The smile that spreads on Sirius’s face reminds Remus of the old Sirius, it turns him back into the youth he once was. It gives him back as much of his best friend as he can possibly get.
It’s also, Remus realizes, the first time he’s seen Sirius truly smile since they’ve met again.
It suddenly turns into the best Marauder adventure (the best memory).
****
And it all began with something Lily said.