Marauders to the End: Year One, Chapter Seven
TITLE: The Pecking Order
FANDOM: Harry Potter
CHARACTERS: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Lily Evans, Professor Slughorn, Madame Pomfrey, mentions of others.
RATING: PG-13
WARNINGS: None
SUMMARY: James is bored, which means it's time to cause trouble.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY: This was my sister's idea. I wanted to do something funnier, and she's a better comedian. But I am proud of how I kept from saying what was going on before it happened.
They had only been in school a week, and James was bored. The classes, while new and slightly interesting, were monotonous. Something needed to be done to spice things up. Tuesday morning, an opportunity presented itself...
“Mail call!” Peter shouted gleefully as the owls swooped low over the breakfast tables, dropping letters and parcels into their owners’ laps and occasionally on their heads. A large brown owl fluttered gracefully over to their place and settled next to the milk jug. It delicately dropped a letter onto James’s plate.
He tore it open and read it. It contained everything he needed to get a good prank going, although it didn’t appear that way from first glance.
Dear James,
I am very glad to hear that you haven’t gotten into trouble so far. I was expecting an owl every other day, judging by the behavior you normally demonstrate at home. In fact, that last little incident was almost enough to make me stop you going to school. (Remember that one? It involved the upstairs toilet, your father’s owl, and several old dishrags.)
We are doing well here at home, it’s been very quiet. We haven’t been going out much, but that’s to be expected. I will admit, though, that I have had trouble adjusting to the change, mostly because I’ve been cooking much less now that there’s not a growing boy in the house.
Your father and I do congratulate you on being sorted in Gryffindor. It is nice to keep up with tradition, although you know we wouldn’t have been disappointed if it had been different.
We miss you. Please try to stay out of trouble.
Love,
Mum.
James grinned as he remembered that prank. It had been one of his finest ever. If only he could think of something that good to pull here...
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud choking noise. He looked up and saw that Sirius had inhaled a mouthful of pumpkin juice, and it didn’t take long to find out why.
A very imperious looking owl had landed before Sirius and dropped a red envelope in front of him. Everyone at the table was looking at it apprehensively.
“Might as well open it, mate,” Remus said. “It’ll happen whether you do or not.”
“It’s been nearly a week!” Sirius gasped. “If she was going to get angry about it...”
“Maybe... maybe the owls took a long time to get back and forth?” Peter squeaked. The envelope had begun to smoke.
“Maybe it took her this long to figure out you can’t send a curse through the mail,” Sirius muttered darkly. “Ah, well... better find out what was bad enough to send.” He opened the letter as Remus, James, and Peter covered their ears.
“Bad” didn’t even begin to describe the words coming out of the letter in the voice of Sirius’s mother.
“HOW COULD YOU BE IN GRYFFINDOR, BREAKING THE FAMILY LINE, WHAT DID YOU THINK TO BE PUT THERE YOU CROSS-HOUSE BLOOD TRAITOR! I AM DISGUSTED WITH THE BEHAVIOR YOU THINK IS PROPER FOR A BLACK! IF I HEAR ABOUT ANY MORE OF THIS INEXCUSABLE BEHAVIOR, YOU WILL HAVE MUCH MORE TO WORRY ABOUT THAN A HOWLER, YOU DISGRACE TO THE FAMILY NAME! AT LEAST HANG AROUND WITH DECENT PEOPLE INSTEAD OF THE TYPES I KNOW YOU’LL MEET IN THAT HOUSE OF MUDBLOODS!”
The letter burst into flames. Sirius just realized he’d been holding his breath and released it. The other boys uncovered their ears and looked at him. So did everyone else in the hall. A few of his cousins started cheering, and gradually the babble of talk broke out again.
“What was that?” Lily Evans, who was sitting a few seats away, asked.
“Howler,” James explained. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked Sirius.
“Who, Evans? She’s Muggle-born,” Sirius asked, returning to his bacon.
“Not Evans. Your mother.”
“Oh.” Sirius tried to figure out how to explain her without James running to tell the headmaster and causing more trouble. “She... she likes tradition, see, and the entire family but me and Anny have been in Slytherin, and, well, she thinks I’m a blood traitor for not going with the family way.” Seeing the concerned look on James’s face, Sirius added, “I don’t mind, I was actually expecting something like this. In fact, I was expecting much worse.”
Remus shot Sirius a look, but didn’t say anything. Sirius pretended not to notice, but he did and knew why that glance was so knowing and concerned. He remembered that their mothers had known each other at school and not liked each other one bit.
James went back to thinking about what prank to pull. The owl-and-dishrag one was good, but it wouldn’t work on a large scale, which was going to be needed to break the routine. He didn’t even care who the victim was going to be, he just needed a good one to pull that didn’t require a whole lot of skill with a wand. Suddenly, he had an idea. Glancing quickly at the Slytherin table, he decided to present it to Sirius.
“Sirius, mate,” James said. “Do you feel that we need a little bit of... excitement around here?”
“That was all the excitement I need for the next week, thanks,” Sirius said, continuing to eat his breakfast.
“True,” James said. “But I noticed a few people were happy about that owl you received.”
“Yeah, my cousins in Slytherin.”
“Well, I don’t think they’re receiving enough... deliveries over there.”
Sirius stopped eating and glanced at the Slytherins, a grin slowly spreading over his face. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked mischievously.
“I think so,” James responded. “How many owls does this school have, Remus?”
“How should I know?” Remus asked. “I haven’t been here any longer than you have. Maybe three hundred.”
“And how exactly do you get to the owlery?” Sirius asked.
“I don’t...” Remus stopped. “I don’t know,” he finished, hastily pulling a book out of his bag. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do.” He opened the book at random and began to read.
“You do know,” James insisted. “And that book is upside-down.”
“So?” Remus asked. “I can read upside-down. Have since I was eight.”
“Why won’t you tell us?” Sirius demanded.
“I don’t want to get in trouble,” Remus said. “I’ll have nothing to do with it. And besides,” he added, turning the page. “The book you need is in the Restricted Section.”
“Come on, Peter,” James urged. “You can do it.”
“I still don’t see why you need Slughorn to sign a note for this book,” Peter pouted.
“I told you. So you can study advanced potions that are actually at your level.”
“Please, Peter,” Sirius begged. “Slughorn will only sign the note for you. We could all benefit from this book.”
“How?” Peter asked. “I’m the only one who’s passing Potions.”
“Well, that indicates the rest of us can benefit from an advanced potions book,” James said.
Peter hesitated a little longer, then took the note that James and Sirius had already written out. “All right,” he said. “But if this is going to get me in trouble, I’ll be telling the teachers that it was all your fault.”
“You won’t get into trouble for checking out a book,” Sirius assured him. “It’s how you use the book that gets you into trouble.”
Peter blanched at this point, and Sirius laughed. “Only joking, Peter, we’re just using it for theory, of course.”
They were sitting in Potions class. Remus was once again reading his book upside-down, and James and Sirius were urging Peter to get Slughorn to sign the note to check out the book from the Restricted Section. They’d already completed their potions (with slightly better results than last week’s) and were just waiting for the bell to ring, since it would be unwise to ask for the book with so many unfriendly Slytherins around.
Remus looked over his book. “You know you’ll all get detention if this works,” he said to James and Sirius quietly.
“How will they possibly know it was us?” Sirius asked. “I mean, we’re first years. There’s no way we could actually do it.”
“With you two, I’d believe anything,” Remus retorted.
“Thanks, Remus,” James said brightly as the bell rang. “Come on, Peter.”
James and Peter went to the front of the room to talk to Slughorn while Remus and Sirius gathered all the books up. They met outside, where James was clutching the note triumphantly.
“Got it,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.” James, Sirius, and Peter ran to the library. Remus only went with them to see if they’d actually be able to get the book.
Madame Pince, the librarian, took the note, looking like she didn’t believe that it was actually Slughorn’s signature. When she couldn’t find any reason to argue, however, she went and got the book, giving the four boys a look of deep suspicion. Peter took the book with trembling hands, and the boys did their best not to run all the way back to their dormitory.
Once they got there, James opened the book and found the potion they needed. “Here we are, Sirius,” he said. “The perfect potion to treat our colleagues in Slytherin to.”
“I’m already seeing the look on Trixie’s face,” Sirius said malevolently. “She laughed loudest.”
“Who’s Trixie?” James asked.
“My cousin. Her full name is Bellatrix, but I call her Trixie because it annoys her so much.”
“Does she have an owl?” James asked.
“Yeah, a huge black one,” Sirius said.
“We’ll give it an extra dose,” James told him.
“What are you two talking about?” Peter asked. “I thought we were only going to study theory.”
“We are,” Sirius said. “We mean that in theory, we’d give Trixie’s owl an extra dose if we were to test one of these potions. Which we won’t.”
Remus rolled his eyes behind his charms book but said nothing. He wasn’t going to contribute to any pranks, but he certainly wasn’t going to stop James and Sirius from doing what they really wanted to do.
While James and Sirius were discussing the “theoretical” things they could do with the potion they were examining, Peter got bored and went to dinner. The moment he was gone, James and Sirius actually got down to the business of making it.
“I can’t believe we have all the ingredients this potion requires in a basic kit,” Sirius said.
“Be thankful,” James answered. “It only takes twenty minutes to brew and twelve hours to take effect. Mail call’s at eight o’clock every morning. If we give it to them at eight-oh-five tonight, we’ll have the perfect effect.”
“Brilliant,” Sirius muttered, stirring the potion. “Absolutely brilliant.”
Remus decided to skip breakfast the next day.
James and Sirius waited eagerly for the post the next morning. Peter kept shooting them suspicious looks, but didn’t have any proof that they were up to anything. Remus wasn’t there. True to his decision the night before, he had feigned a stomach ache that morning and told the others to wake him at eight-thirty so he could get to their nine o’clock class. James and Sirius were pretty sure he was faking so he wouldn’t be blamed for the morning entertainment, but Peter was very gullible and had not only suggested Remus see the nurse, but had also offered to brew up a healing potion for him so he wouldn’t go to class on an empty stomach. Remus insisted he was fine, and so Peter went down with the other two, unaware of the spectacle he was about to witness.
At eight o’clock the owls fluttered down as usual, making deliveries. Everything seemed normal for five minutes. Then suddenly, every owl in the room flew towards the Slytherin table, there were several shrieks and then...
“So how’d it go?” Remus asked at eight-thirty when James and Sirius came to wake him.
“Not bad,” Sirius said. “Owl pellets all over the table, everyone was completely disgusted, and James and I have detention at seven-thirty tonight.”
“How’d they guess?” Remus asked sarcastically.
“We had the book out,” James answered. “And Peter was as shocked as everyone else was and you weren’t there, so that left us.”
“Wonderful,” Remus said. “Simply wonderful.”
FANDOM: Harry Potter
CHARACTERS: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Lily Evans, Professor Slughorn, Madame Pomfrey, mentions of others.
RATING: PG-13
WARNINGS: None
SUMMARY: James is bored, which means it's time to cause trouble.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY: This was my sister's idea. I wanted to do something funnier, and she's a better comedian. But I am proud of how I kept from saying what was going on before it happened.
They had only been in school a week, and James was bored. The classes, while new and slightly interesting, were monotonous. Something needed to be done to spice things up. Tuesday morning, an opportunity presented itself...
“Mail call!” Peter shouted gleefully as the owls swooped low over the breakfast tables, dropping letters and parcels into their owners’ laps and occasionally on their heads. A large brown owl fluttered gracefully over to their place and settled next to the milk jug. It delicately dropped a letter onto James’s plate.
He tore it open and read it. It contained everything he needed to get a good prank going, although it didn’t appear that way from first glance.
Dear James,
I am very glad to hear that you haven’t gotten into trouble so far. I was expecting an owl every other day, judging by the behavior you normally demonstrate at home. In fact, that last little incident was almost enough to make me stop you going to school. (Remember that one? It involved the upstairs toilet, your father’s owl, and several old dishrags.)
We are doing well here at home, it’s been very quiet. We haven’t been going out much, but that’s to be expected. I will admit, though, that I have had trouble adjusting to the change, mostly because I’ve been cooking much less now that there’s not a growing boy in the house.
Your father and I do congratulate you on being sorted in Gryffindor. It is nice to keep up with tradition, although you know we wouldn’t have been disappointed if it had been different.
We miss you. Please try to stay out of trouble.
Love,
Mum.
James grinned as he remembered that prank. It had been one of his finest ever. If only he could think of something that good to pull here...
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud choking noise. He looked up and saw that Sirius had inhaled a mouthful of pumpkin juice, and it didn’t take long to find out why.
A very imperious looking owl had landed before Sirius and dropped a red envelope in front of him. Everyone at the table was looking at it apprehensively.
“Might as well open it, mate,” Remus said. “It’ll happen whether you do or not.”
“It’s been nearly a week!” Sirius gasped. “If she was going to get angry about it...”
“Maybe... maybe the owls took a long time to get back and forth?” Peter squeaked. The envelope had begun to smoke.
“Maybe it took her this long to figure out you can’t send a curse through the mail,” Sirius muttered darkly. “Ah, well... better find out what was bad enough to send.” He opened the letter as Remus, James, and Peter covered their ears.
“Bad” didn’t even begin to describe the words coming out of the letter in the voice of Sirius’s mother.
“HOW COULD YOU BE IN GRYFFINDOR, BREAKING THE FAMILY LINE, WHAT DID YOU THINK TO BE PUT THERE YOU CROSS-HOUSE BLOOD TRAITOR! I AM DISGUSTED WITH THE BEHAVIOR YOU THINK IS PROPER FOR A BLACK! IF I HEAR ABOUT ANY MORE OF THIS INEXCUSABLE BEHAVIOR, YOU WILL HAVE MUCH MORE TO WORRY ABOUT THAN A HOWLER, YOU DISGRACE TO THE FAMILY NAME! AT LEAST HANG AROUND WITH DECENT PEOPLE INSTEAD OF THE TYPES I KNOW YOU’LL MEET IN THAT HOUSE OF MUDBLOODS!”
The letter burst into flames. Sirius just realized he’d been holding his breath and released it. The other boys uncovered their ears and looked at him. So did everyone else in the hall. A few of his cousins started cheering, and gradually the babble of talk broke out again.
“What was that?” Lily Evans, who was sitting a few seats away, asked.
“Howler,” James explained. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked Sirius.
“Who, Evans? She’s Muggle-born,” Sirius asked, returning to his bacon.
“Not Evans. Your mother.”
“Oh.” Sirius tried to figure out how to explain her without James running to tell the headmaster and causing more trouble. “She... she likes tradition, see, and the entire family but me and Anny have been in Slytherin, and, well, she thinks I’m a blood traitor for not going with the family way.” Seeing the concerned look on James’s face, Sirius added, “I don’t mind, I was actually expecting something like this. In fact, I was expecting much worse.”
Remus shot Sirius a look, but didn’t say anything. Sirius pretended not to notice, but he did and knew why that glance was so knowing and concerned. He remembered that their mothers had known each other at school and not liked each other one bit.
James went back to thinking about what prank to pull. The owl-and-dishrag one was good, but it wouldn’t work on a large scale, which was going to be needed to break the routine. He didn’t even care who the victim was going to be, he just needed a good one to pull that didn’t require a whole lot of skill with a wand. Suddenly, he had an idea. Glancing quickly at the Slytherin table, he decided to present it to Sirius.
“Sirius, mate,” James said. “Do you feel that we need a little bit of... excitement around here?”
“That was all the excitement I need for the next week, thanks,” Sirius said, continuing to eat his breakfast.
“True,” James said. “But I noticed a few people were happy about that owl you received.”
“Yeah, my cousins in Slytherin.”
“Well, I don’t think they’re receiving enough... deliveries over there.”
Sirius stopped eating and glanced at the Slytherins, a grin slowly spreading over his face. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked mischievously.
“I think so,” James responded. “How many owls does this school have, Remus?”
“How should I know?” Remus asked. “I haven’t been here any longer than you have. Maybe three hundred.”
“And how exactly do you get to the owlery?” Sirius asked.
“I don’t...” Remus stopped. “I don’t know,” he finished, hastily pulling a book out of his bag. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do.” He opened the book at random and began to read.
“You do know,” James insisted. “And that book is upside-down.”
“So?” Remus asked. “I can read upside-down. Have since I was eight.”
“Why won’t you tell us?” Sirius demanded.
“I don’t want to get in trouble,” Remus said. “I’ll have nothing to do with it. And besides,” he added, turning the page. “The book you need is in the Restricted Section.”
“Come on, Peter,” James urged. “You can do it.”
“I still don’t see why you need Slughorn to sign a note for this book,” Peter pouted.
“I told you. So you can study advanced potions that are actually at your level.”
“Please, Peter,” Sirius begged. “Slughorn will only sign the note for you. We could all benefit from this book.”
“How?” Peter asked. “I’m the only one who’s passing Potions.”
“Well, that indicates the rest of us can benefit from an advanced potions book,” James said.
Peter hesitated a little longer, then took the note that James and Sirius had already written out. “All right,” he said. “But if this is going to get me in trouble, I’ll be telling the teachers that it was all your fault.”
“You won’t get into trouble for checking out a book,” Sirius assured him. “It’s how you use the book that gets you into trouble.”
Peter blanched at this point, and Sirius laughed. “Only joking, Peter, we’re just using it for theory, of course.”
They were sitting in Potions class. Remus was once again reading his book upside-down, and James and Sirius were urging Peter to get Slughorn to sign the note to check out the book from the Restricted Section. They’d already completed their potions (with slightly better results than last week’s) and were just waiting for the bell to ring, since it would be unwise to ask for the book with so many unfriendly Slytherins around.
Remus looked over his book. “You know you’ll all get detention if this works,” he said to James and Sirius quietly.
“How will they possibly know it was us?” Sirius asked. “I mean, we’re first years. There’s no way we could actually do it.”
“With you two, I’d believe anything,” Remus retorted.
“Thanks, Remus,” James said brightly as the bell rang. “Come on, Peter.”
James and Peter went to the front of the room to talk to Slughorn while Remus and Sirius gathered all the books up. They met outside, where James was clutching the note triumphantly.
“Got it,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.” James, Sirius, and Peter ran to the library. Remus only went with them to see if they’d actually be able to get the book.
Madame Pince, the librarian, took the note, looking like she didn’t believe that it was actually Slughorn’s signature. When she couldn’t find any reason to argue, however, she went and got the book, giving the four boys a look of deep suspicion. Peter took the book with trembling hands, and the boys did their best not to run all the way back to their dormitory.
Once they got there, James opened the book and found the potion they needed. “Here we are, Sirius,” he said. “The perfect potion to treat our colleagues in Slytherin to.”
“I’m already seeing the look on Trixie’s face,” Sirius said malevolently. “She laughed loudest.”
“Who’s Trixie?” James asked.
“My cousin. Her full name is Bellatrix, but I call her Trixie because it annoys her so much.”
“Does she have an owl?” James asked.
“Yeah, a huge black one,” Sirius said.
“We’ll give it an extra dose,” James told him.
“What are you two talking about?” Peter asked. “I thought we were only going to study theory.”
“We are,” Sirius said. “We mean that in theory, we’d give Trixie’s owl an extra dose if we were to test one of these potions. Which we won’t.”
Remus rolled his eyes behind his charms book but said nothing. He wasn’t going to contribute to any pranks, but he certainly wasn’t going to stop James and Sirius from doing what they really wanted to do.
While James and Sirius were discussing the “theoretical” things they could do with the potion they were examining, Peter got bored and went to dinner. The moment he was gone, James and Sirius actually got down to the business of making it.
“I can’t believe we have all the ingredients this potion requires in a basic kit,” Sirius said.
“Be thankful,” James answered. “It only takes twenty minutes to brew and twelve hours to take effect. Mail call’s at eight o’clock every morning. If we give it to them at eight-oh-five tonight, we’ll have the perfect effect.”
“Brilliant,” Sirius muttered, stirring the potion. “Absolutely brilliant.”
Remus decided to skip breakfast the next day.
James and Sirius waited eagerly for the post the next morning. Peter kept shooting them suspicious looks, but didn’t have any proof that they were up to anything. Remus wasn’t there. True to his decision the night before, he had feigned a stomach ache that morning and told the others to wake him at eight-thirty so he could get to their nine o’clock class. James and Sirius were pretty sure he was faking so he wouldn’t be blamed for the morning entertainment, but Peter was very gullible and had not only suggested Remus see the nurse, but had also offered to brew up a healing potion for him so he wouldn’t go to class on an empty stomach. Remus insisted he was fine, and so Peter went down with the other two, unaware of the spectacle he was about to witness.
At eight o’clock the owls fluttered down as usual, making deliveries. Everything seemed normal for five minutes. Then suddenly, every owl in the room flew towards the Slytherin table, there were several shrieks and then...
“So how’d it go?” Remus asked at eight-thirty when James and Sirius came to wake him.
“Not bad,” Sirius said. “Owl pellets all over the table, everyone was completely disgusted, and James and I have detention at seven-thirty tonight.”
“How’d they guess?” Remus asked sarcastically.
“We had the book out,” James answered. “And Peter was as shocked as everyone else was and you weren’t there, so that left us.”
“Wonderful,” Remus said. “Simply wonderful.”