FIC: Double Trouble - Part 8 of 8
Title: Double Trouble
Rating: PG13 (rated on the side of safety)
Word Count: 15,800
Genre: Romance/Friendship
Summary: If one group of Marauders is trouble, imagine what two would be...
Warnings: Slash and some bad language
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise.
Chapter 1, if you missed it, is here.
Chapter 8 - Marauders
“Moony, Padfoot, there you are!” James exclaimed. “Thought you’d got lost or something.”
Remus turned round to see that James had come up the stairs behind them. Peter and Lily were close on his heels.
“You okay, Moony?” James asked.
Remus nodded, but cast a nervous glance back into the room.
“I’m here to apologise to James,” Lily said. “The other James,” she added at Prongs’s hopeful expression.
There was no putting it off and Remus stepped over the threshold of the dormitory, the others in tow.
“They look almost exactly like you all,” Lily said in wonder as she looked around the room.
“They are us,” Remus said. “Just not from this world.”
“We’re nothing like you,” the other Remus sneered. “None of us is a monster.”
“Don’t speak to Moony like that,” James shouted, his wand already raised.
“Moony? At least now we know what the name means,” the other Remus said with a look of pure venom. “What about the rest of them?”
“I think that’s on a need to know basis,” Sirius said quietly. “And you lot really don’t need to know.”
“Sounds like you’ve been up to something you don’t want the teachers knowing about,” the other Remus commented casually. “Something else you don’t want them knowing about.”
“How about we all just calm down,” Remus suggested in a placatory tone.
“Stay out of this, werewolf,” the other Sirius said.
Remus reeled back like he’d been slapped. “I’m still me,” he said in a quiet voice. “I thought we were friends.”
“You lied to us,” the other Sirius accused.
“We didn’t know how you’d take it,” James explained.
“It takes a bit of getting used to,” Peter added.
“I can’t believe this world would let a thing like that in a school.” The other Remus looked around the room scornfully.
Remus started to shake and he gripped his own wand tighter as he tried not to lose his temper or, worse, burst into tears at the hurtful words. Sirius and James had no such reservations about losing their tempers and they sent a variety of hexes across the room.
“What did you do that for?” the other James yelled. “He’s got a point.”
“I can’t believe I came up here to apologise to you,” Lily snapped. “You’re even worse that our James, and believe me when I say that that is really saying something!”
“You hurt me, Evans,” James said. “I’d never treat Moony like this bunch.”
“My point exactly,” Lily replied. “You have at least one redeeming quality. I just hope the Lily in their world comes to her senses and dumps this jerk.”
At that point all hell broke loose and hexes started flying from every wand in the room.
-o-xXx-o-
“Cease this behaviour at once!” the commanding tone of Professor McGonagall echoed around the room. “When two first year students came to me saying they thought murder was being committed in this sixth form dormitory, I thought they were exaggerating. I never thought I’d see a display of such disgraceful behaviour from Gryffindors. And so soon after the last incident. You will all report to my office immediately. All of you.”
She cast a withering glance around the room and swept back out of the door and down the stairs.
“We’ve really done it this time,” Sirius muttered. “We’ll probably be expelled.”
“That means now,” McGonagall’s voice called back up the stairs.
A few minutes later eight boys and one girl stood in Professor McGonagall’s office with varying expressions of guilt on their faces.
“Who would care to explain first?” McGonagall asked. No one moved so much as a muscle. “Miss Evans, as my one remaining sixth year prefect for the Gryffindor house, would you like to give me a good reason why I should not strip you of your badge.”
“I’m sorry, Professor,” Lily murmured.
“‘Sorry’ is not a good enough reason to excuse your behaviour today,” McGonagall snapped. “Perhaps someone might care to explain why I appear to be seeing double.”
“It was a spell that went a bit wrong,” Remus offered. “They got stuck here.”
“What do you mean?” McGonagall asked with less volume than she’d previously spoken with and a lot more interest.
“It was in a book I got for Christmas,” James explained. “I thought it might show the future, but it opened up some sort of doorway to their world. And they came through it and got stuck here.”
“You mean you couldn’t open up the doorway again?” McGonagall asked curiously. “Was this an inter-dimensional spell?”
“Yes, Professor,” James replied.
McGonagall was quiet for a very long time. All nine students were shifting from foot to foot and alternately looking at the floor, the ceiling, the fireplace, anywhere but at their formidable head of house or at each other.
“When was this spell cast?” McGonagall finally asked.
“Just before the end of the holidays,” James confirmed.
“And they’ve been hiding out in the school all this time?” McGonagall asked with utter astonishment.
“Not always hiding,” the other Sirius admitted. “Some of us have been attending classes instead of our others, so we don’t fall behind while we’re stuck here.”
“You’ve been in my Transfiguration classes instead of…” McGonagall’s voice trailed off and she shook her head in apparent despair. “Did it not occur to any of you to come speak with me or Professor Dumbledore about this? Miss Evans?”
“Lily didn’t know,” James spoke up immediately. “She only found out today and said we should come to you.” Lily shot James the most grateful look he’d ever seen from her and he grinned back in response.
“I’m not sure what you find so amusing about this, Mr Potter,” McGonagall snapped. “Though I appreciate your honesty as to Miss Evans’ part in all of this,” she added in a kinder tone.
“Sorry, Professor,” James dutifully replied as he ducked his head to hide the small smile that he couldn’t seem to get rid of.
“What about you, Mr Lupin?” McGonagall asked. Remus shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.
“Um,” he managed to mumble.
“Remus wanted to come to you right away,” Sirius stated. “So did the other Sirius.”
“I imagine that would make you our Sirius,” McGonagall replied with a reluctant, but still amused smile. Sirius nodded his confirmation.
“Well, the spell explains the extra students Gryffindor tower seems to have been harbouring. But it doesn’t explain the fighting, especially so recently after the incident with the carriages.”
“Erm, about that…” Sirius interrupted.
Professor McGonagall took one look at Sirius and guessed what he was about to say. “That wasn’t our Remus, was it?” she asked quietly, looking from one Remus to the other and then back to Sirius.
Sirius shook his head.
“And you let your friend lose his prefect badge without saying anything?” McGonagall asked. “I sincerely hope you’ll be apologising for that.”
“They already have,” Remus replied.
“You’re not going to ask for it back?” McGonagall asked with a small smile.
“No, Professor,” Remus muttered. “We were still fighting.”
“Which brings us nicely back to the question of why,” McGonagall stated.
Silence reigned again.
“It was a full moon last night, wasn’t it?” McGonagall commented casually and a satisfied expression settled on her face as nine sets of eyes looked at her.
“I take it you’re not suffering from Lycanthropy?” she asked the other Remus.
“I’m not some monster, no,” he replied with a sneer.
“I see,” McGonagall said in a deceptively calm tone that let them know that she saw far more than they had verbally revealed. “I think we’d better see about getting you four home again. I’m sure Professor Dumbledore will know what to do.”
-o-xXx-o-
“Where, precisely, were you standing when you performed the spell?” Dumbledore asked.
“Somewhere around here,” James said with a vague wave towards the spot he thought he’d been standing on.
“Precisely, Mr Potter,” McGonagall said as the audience that had amassed in the common room giggled. It wasn’t every day that they saw the headmaster performing some sort of spell and that, combined with an excess of marauders, was something worth hanging around to see.
James gestured, more confidently, to the spot he’d been standing in and Dumbledore walked towards it.
“And the place the doorway appeared?” he asked.
“Just here,” James said, pointing in what he hoped was the right direction. He looked at Sirius as though for some kind of confirmation that he was right, but Sirius merely shrugged.
“It seems to me that we need to get a message through to the other side of that doorway,” Dumbledore said.
“Would you like to see the book my dad sent?” James offered. Dumbledore smiled and shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. Now if everyone could stand back please.”
Everyone moved back several paces as Dumbledore moved around the place where the opening had been. He seemed to be searching for something and eventually he made a sound of suppressed triumph and nodded firmly. Drawing out his wand he completed a complex set of movements and stepped back with a smile.
“Now what?” James asked.
“Now, we wait,” Dumbledore replied with another smile. “I don’t imagine it’ll take too long. No doubt my counterpart has already noticed he’s missing some students. I don’t imagine they could vanish without someone noticing. He’ll get my message soon enough, and then we can see about sending these boys home.”
They didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later Dumbledore bent down and picked up a small piece of parchment that had appeared out of thin air.
“Excellent,” Dumbledore said. Then he turned back to stand in the same position James had stood in during the holidays. He didn’t speak the incantation, but the wand movements were the same and soon a familiar doorway was forming before their eyes.
Two shadowy figures appeared and then came into focus, and they found themselves looking at another Dumbledore and McGonagall, both of whom wore expressions of both worry and relief.
“Make sure they know that Mr Lupin has detentions still to serve and no Hogsmeade visits for the rest of the year,” McGonagall insisted. Dumbledore nodded as he silently communicated with his counterpart. The other Dumbledore nodded and gave what appeared to be a sigh of impatient frustration.
“I believe they may find some additional detentions being served for the fighting,” Dumbledore commented. “I’ll leave it to the discretion of their own head of house as to how severe their punishments are. Now, if you’re all ready and have everything you brought with you,” Dumbledore waved towards the portal.
The four boys nodded and the other James waved his copy of the book that had caused so much trouble.
“Then I don’t see any reason to detain you all further,” Dumbledore said. With that he stepped back and allowed the boys to file past him one by one. As soon as James stepped through to the other side he found himself relieved of his book by Professor McGonagall.
“Good idea,” mumbled their own McGonagall. She turned her glare on James who produced his own book and passed it to her. “You can have it back at the end of the year.”
No one argued with her.
Remus watched as the last of their doubles walked through to the portal. Dumbledore gave a curt nod to his counterpart and the portal closed once more.
“I assume you can handle things from here, Minerva?” Dumbledore asked with a smile.
McGonagall returned his smile with one of her own before turning to the five remaining students.
She waited until Dumbledore had left before she spoke. “Miss Evans, you will have one week of detentions for fighting, and consider yourself lucky I’m not taking your prefect badge from you.
Mr Lupin, you will also have a week of detentions for fighting, and for not coming forward immediately after the spell went awry I think that forgoing your trips to Hogsmeade for the rest of the year will be sufficient. As a prefect you should have known better. But I don’t imagine you would wish to go without your friends anyway.”
“We’ve still got our other punishment as well?” Sirius asked.
“Certainly,” McGonagall said with a snort at the very idea that they hadn’t. “You will also have an extra week of detentions on top of the ones you already have for fighting.”
She turned to leave the room but stopped at the portrait hole. “Oh, one last thing,” she said. “Remus.” She held out her hand and waited for Remus to walk across the room towards her.
“Yes, Professor?” Remus asked quietly.
“You may have this back now.” She dropped the shiny prefect badge into his hand.
“Really?” he asked.
“You weren’t a part of the carriages incident,” McGonagall explained kindly. “You shouldn’t be punished for that particular transgression.”
“Thank you, Professor,” Remus whispered with a small smile, but McGonagall was already gone.
“Let’s head upstairs and sort out the dormitory,” James said. “We’ve got beds to get rid of and I know the house elves will be pleased that they don’t have the extra meals and laundry to sort out.”
Remus nodded and followed the others up the stairs.
In no time at all the room was put to rights.
“Well, aren’t you going to put it back on?” Sirius asked, pointing to the badge. Remus nodded, but Sirius didn’t wait for him to do so. He took the badge from Remus’s hand and carefully pinned it to his jumper himself. “Perfect,” he said. “Now everything’s back to normal again.”
“Is it?” Remus asked quietly. “Is everything exactly as it was before?”
“Not quite everything,” Sirius amended with a grin. He pulled Remus closer and planted a quick kiss on the end of his nose.
“Does this mean you two are… like… together?” Peter asked cautiously.
“Definitely,” Sirius replied. “As long as Mr Moony’s in agreement?” He raised an eyebrow in question.
“Mr Moony agrees with Mr Padfoot,” Remus replied with a grin of his own. “You guys don’t have a problem with this, do you?”
“It’s brilliant,” Peter said while James merely grinned and shook his head.
“I must admit I didn’t expect you to respond quite so happily Wormtail,” Sirius said.
“It’s perfect,” Peter said. “Now if you’ll just excuse me I need to go and see a Ravenclaw about… er… something.”
“Wait a minute,” James asked before Peter reached the door. “Did you have January?”
“Yep,” Peter replied. “The next round of butterbeers are on me.”
“You do realise that without a public display of affection from them you won’t get paid?” James asked.
Peter stopped at the doorway. “Oh yeah, forgot about that. Okay Padfoot, Moony, I think dinner this evening would be best. Stand just inside the doorway where everyone can see you. If you snog for about a minute I’m think everyone will see, but you’d better wait until everyone starts whistling and heckling just to be sure. Okay?”
James laughed as he pushed Peter out the door.
“Did everyone know apart from us?” Remus asked with shake of his head.
“Apparently,” Sirius replied. “I think we should forgo any ‘public displays of affection’ until the last day of the month to make them wait for their money.”
“Good idea,” Remus agreed.
“Seems strange to have the dorm so empty again,” Sirius said as he sat down on the edge of his bed.
“Good strange, though,” Remus said as he sat down beside him.
“Definitely,” Sirius agreed. “The marauders don’t need anyone else. You know that right? You’re a part of the group, the best part.”
Remus raised an eyebrow at that.
“Really,” Sirius said. “I mean it. You’re the one who keeps us all from fighting, and from getting into too much trouble. You’re the nicest marauder as well. You’re the one we all come to when we’ve got problems. And you think of the funniest pranks.”
“No, I don’t,” Remus muttered.
“Yes, you do,” Sirius insisted. “Your pranks are the ones that everyone can have a laugh about, including the victim. You’ve even made McGonagall smile once.”
“So, you don’t think I’m… you know… the boring marauder?”
“Moony, I promise, you are never boring. You’re a marauder. It’s categorically impossible for you to be both.” Sirius grinned and took Remus’s hand in his own.
“I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you… any of you… for accepting me,” Remus said quietly. “All of me, including the werewolf part.”
“What are friends for?” Sirius said easily. Remus smiled back at him as he realised that Sirius was right. By accepting him so completely they had earned his friendship forever and no matter what else happened in the future, he was sure they would always be friends.
-
A/N: Does Peter get his money? Find out in the sequel.
Rating: PG13 (rated on the side of safety)
Word Count: 15,800
Genre: Romance/Friendship
Summary: If one group of Marauders is trouble, imagine what two would be...
Warnings: Slash and some bad language
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise.
Chapter 1, if you missed it, is here.
Chapter 8 - Marauders
“Moony, Padfoot, there you are!” James exclaimed. “Thought you’d got lost or something.”
Remus turned round to see that James had come up the stairs behind them. Peter and Lily were close on his heels.
“You okay, Moony?” James asked.
Remus nodded, but cast a nervous glance back into the room.
“I’m here to apologise to James,” Lily said. “The other James,” she added at Prongs’s hopeful expression.
There was no putting it off and Remus stepped over the threshold of the dormitory, the others in tow.
“They look almost exactly like you all,” Lily said in wonder as she looked around the room.
“They are us,” Remus said. “Just not from this world.”
“We’re nothing like you,” the other Remus sneered. “None of us is a monster.”
“Don’t speak to Moony like that,” James shouted, his wand already raised.
“Moony? At least now we know what the name means,” the other Remus said with a look of pure venom. “What about the rest of them?”
“I think that’s on a need to know basis,” Sirius said quietly. “And you lot really don’t need to know.”
“Sounds like you’ve been up to something you don’t want the teachers knowing about,” the other Remus commented casually. “Something else you don’t want them knowing about.”
“How about we all just calm down,” Remus suggested in a placatory tone.
“Stay out of this, werewolf,” the other Sirius said.
Remus reeled back like he’d been slapped. “I’m still me,” he said in a quiet voice. “I thought we were friends.”
“You lied to us,” the other Sirius accused.
“We didn’t know how you’d take it,” James explained.
“It takes a bit of getting used to,” Peter added.
“I can’t believe this world would let a thing like that in a school.” The other Remus looked around the room scornfully.
Remus started to shake and he gripped his own wand tighter as he tried not to lose his temper or, worse, burst into tears at the hurtful words. Sirius and James had no such reservations about losing their tempers and they sent a variety of hexes across the room.
“What did you do that for?” the other James yelled. “He’s got a point.”
“I can’t believe I came up here to apologise to you,” Lily snapped. “You’re even worse that our James, and believe me when I say that that is really saying something!”
“You hurt me, Evans,” James said. “I’d never treat Moony like this bunch.”
“My point exactly,” Lily replied. “You have at least one redeeming quality. I just hope the Lily in their world comes to her senses and dumps this jerk.”
At that point all hell broke loose and hexes started flying from every wand in the room.
-o-xXx-o-
“Cease this behaviour at once!” the commanding tone of Professor McGonagall echoed around the room. “When two first year students came to me saying they thought murder was being committed in this sixth form dormitory, I thought they were exaggerating. I never thought I’d see a display of such disgraceful behaviour from Gryffindors. And so soon after the last incident. You will all report to my office immediately. All of you.”
She cast a withering glance around the room and swept back out of the door and down the stairs.
“We’ve really done it this time,” Sirius muttered. “We’ll probably be expelled.”
“That means now,” McGonagall’s voice called back up the stairs.
A few minutes later eight boys and one girl stood in Professor McGonagall’s office with varying expressions of guilt on their faces.
“Who would care to explain first?” McGonagall asked. No one moved so much as a muscle. “Miss Evans, as my one remaining sixth year prefect for the Gryffindor house, would you like to give me a good reason why I should not strip you of your badge.”
“I’m sorry, Professor,” Lily murmured.
“‘Sorry’ is not a good enough reason to excuse your behaviour today,” McGonagall snapped. “Perhaps someone might care to explain why I appear to be seeing double.”
“It was a spell that went a bit wrong,” Remus offered. “They got stuck here.”
“What do you mean?” McGonagall asked with less volume than she’d previously spoken with and a lot more interest.
“It was in a book I got for Christmas,” James explained. “I thought it might show the future, but it opened up some sort of doorway to their world. And they came through it and got stuck here.”
“You mean you couldn’t open up the doorway again?” McGonagall asked curiously. “Was this an inter-dimensional spell?”
“Yes, Professor,” James replied.
McGonagall was quiet for a very long time. All nine students were shifting from foot to foot and alternately looking at the floor, the ceiling, the fireplace, anywhere but at their formidable head of house or at each other.
“When was this spell cast?” McGonagall finally asked.
“Just before the end of the holidays,” James confirmed.
“And they’ve been hiding out in the school all this time?” McGonagall asked with utter astonishment.
“Not always hiding,” the other Sirius admitted. “Some of us have been attending classes instead of our others, so we don’t fall behind while we’re stuck here.”
“You’ve been in my Transfiguration classes instead of…” McGonagall’s voice trailed off and she shook her head in apparent despair. “Did it not occur to any of you to come speak with me or Professor Dumbledore about this? Miss Evans?”
“Lily didn’t know,” James spoke up immediately. “She only found out today and said we should come to you.” Lily shot James the most grateful look he’d ever seen from her and he grinned back in response.
“I’m not sure what you find so amusing about this, Mr Potter,” McGonagall snapped. “Though I appreciate your honesty as to Miss Evans’ part in all of this,” she added in a kinder tone.
“Sorry, Professor,” James dutifully replied as he ducked his head to hide the small smile that he couldn’t seem to get rid of.
“What about you, Mr Lupin?” McGonagall asked. Remus shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.
“Um,” he managed to mumble.
“Remus wanted to come to you right away,” Sirius stated. “So did the other Sirius.”
“I imagine that would make you our Sirius,” McGonagall replied with a reluctant, but still amused smile. Sirius nodded his confirmation.
“Well, the spell explains the extra students Gryffindor tower seems to have been harbouring. But it doesn’t explain the fighting, especially so recently after the incident with the carriages.”
“Erm, about that…” Sirius interrupted.
Professor McGonagall took one look at Sirius and guessed what he was about to say. “That wasn’t our Remus, was it?” she asked quietly, looking from one Remus to the other and then back to Sirius.
Sirius shook his head.
“And you let your friend lose his prefect badge without saying anything?” McGonagall asked. “I sincerely hope you’ll be apologising for that.”
“They already have,” Remus replied.
“You’re not going to ask for it back?” McGonagall asked with a small smile.
“No, Professor,” Remus muttered. “We were still fighting.”
“Which brings us nicely back to the question of why,” McGonagall stated.
Silence reigned again.
“It was a full moon last night, wasn’t it?” McGonagall commented casually and a satisfied expression settled on her face as nine sets of eyes looked at her.
“I take it you’re not suffering from Lycanthropy?” she asked the other Remus.
“I’m not some monster, no,” he replied with a sneer.
“I see,” McGonagall said in a deceptively calm tone that let them know that she saw far more than they had verbally revealed. “I think we’d better see about getting you four home again. I’m sure Professor Dumbledore will know what to do.”
-o-xXx-o-
“Where, precisely, were you standing when you performed the spell?” Dumbledore asked.
“Somewhere around here,” James said with a vague wave towards the spot he thought he’d been standing on.
“Precisely, Mr Potter,” McGonagall said as the audience that had amassed in the common room giggled. It wasn’t every day that they saw the headmaster performing some sort of spell and that, combined with an excess of marauders, was something worth hanging around to see.
James gestured, more confidently, to the spot he’d been standing in and Dumbledore walked towards it.
“And the place the doorway appeared?” he asked.
“Just here,” James said, pointing in what he hoped was the right direction. He looked at Sirius as though for some kind of confirmation that he was right, but Sirius merely shrugged.
“It seems to me that we need to get a message through to the other side of that doorway,” Dumbledore said.
“Would you like to see the book my dad sent?” James offered. Dumbledore smiled and shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. Now if everyone could stand back please.”
Everyone moved back several paces as Dumbledore moved around the place where the opening had been. He seemed to be searching for something and eventually he made a sound of suppressed triumph and nodded firmly. Drawing out his wand he completed a complex set of movements and stepped back with a smile.
“Now what?” James asked.
“Now, we wait,” Dumbledore replied with another smile. “I don’t imagine it’ll take too long. No doubt my counterpart has already noticed he’s missing some students. I don’t imagine they could vanish without someone noticing. He’ll get my message soon enough, and then we can see about sending these boys home.”
They didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later Dumbledore bent down and picked up a small piece of parchment that had appeared out of thin air.
“Excellent,” Dumbledore said. Then he turned back to stand in the same position James had stood in during the holidays. He didn’t speak the incantation, but the wand movements were the same and soon a familiar doorway was forming before their eyes.
Two shadowy figures appeared and then came into focus, and they found themselves looking at another Dumbledore and McGonagall, both of whom wore expressions of both worry and relief.
“Make sure they know that Mr Lupin has detentions still to serve and no Hogsmeade visits for the rest of the year,” McGonagall insisted. Dumbledore nodded as he silently communicated with his counterpart. The other Dumbledore nodded and gave what appeared to be a sigh of impatient frustration.
“I believe they may find some additional detentions being served for the fighting,” Dumbledore commented. “I’ll leave it to the discretion of their own head of house as to how severe their punishments are. Now, if you’re all ready and have everything you brought with you,” Dumbledore waved towards the portal.
The four boys nodded and the other James waved his copy of the book that had caused so much trouble.
“Then I don’t see any reason to detain you all further,” Dumbledore said. With that he stepped back and allowed the boys to file past him one by one. As soon as James stepped through to the other side he found himself relieved of his book by Professor McGonagall.
“Good idea,” mumbled their own McGonagall. She turned her glare on James who produced his own book and passed it to her. “You can have it back at the end of the year.”
No one argued with her.
Remus watched as the last of their doubles walked through to the portal. Dumbledore gave a curt nod to his counterpart and the portal closed once more.
“I assume you can handle things from here, Minerva?” Dumbledore asked with a smile.
McGonagall returned his smile with one of her own before turning to the five remaining students.
She waited until Dumbledore had left before she spoke. “Miss Evans, you will have one week of detentions for fighting, and consider yourself lucky I’m not taking your prefect badge from you.
Mr Lupin, you will also have a week of detentions for fighting, and for not coming forward immediately after the spell went awry I think that forgoing your trips to Hogsmeade for the rest of the year will be sufficient. As a prefect you should have known better. But I don’t imagine you would wish to go without your friends anyway.”
“We’ve still got our other punishment as well?” Sirius asked.
“Certainly,” McGonagall said with a snort at the very idea that they hadn’t. “You will also have an extra week of detentions on top of the ones you already have for fighting.”
She turned to leave the room but stopped at the portrait hole. “Oh, one last thing,” she said. “Remus.” She held out her hand and waited for Remus to walk across the room towards her.
“Yes, Professor?” Remus asked quietly.
“You may have this back now.” She dropped the shiny prefect badge into his hand.
“Really?” he asked.
“You weren’t a part of the carriages incident,” McGonagall explained kindly. “You shouldn’t be punished for that particular transgression.”
“Thank you, Professor,” Remus whispered with a small smile, but McGonagall was already gone.
“Let’s head upstairs and sort out the dormitory,” James said. “We’ve got beds to get rid of and I know the house elves will be pleased that they don’t have the extra meals and laundry to sort out.”
Remus nodded and followed the others up the stairs.
In no time at all the room was put to rights.
“Well, aren’t you going to put it back on?” Sirius asked, pointing to the badge. Remus nodded, but Sirius didn’t wait for him to do so. He took the badge from Remus’s hand and carefully pinned it to his jumper himself. “Perfect,” he said. “Now everything’s back to normal again.”
“Is it?” Remus asked quietly. “Is everything exactly as it was before?”
“Not quite everything,” Sirius amended with a grin. He pulled Remus closer and planted a quick kiss on the end of his nose.
“Does this mean you two are… like… together?” Peter asked cautiously.
“Definitely,” Sirius replied. “As long as Mr Moony’s in agreement?” He raised an eyebrow in question.
“Mr Moony agrees with Mr Padfoot,” Remus replied with a grin of his own. “You guys don’t have a problem with this, do you?”
“It’s brilliant,” Peter said while James merely grinned and shook his head.
“I must admit I didn’t expect you to respond quite so happily Wormtail,” Sirius said.
“It’s perfect,” Peter said. “Now if you’ll just excuse me I need to go and see a Ravenclaw about… er… something.”
“Wait a minute,” James asked before Peter reached the door. “Did you have January?”
“Yep,” Peter replied. “The next round of butterbeers are on me.”
“You do realise that without a public display of affection from them you won’t get paid?” James asked.
Peter stopped at the doorway. “Oh yeah, forgot about that. Okay Padfoot, Moony, I think dinner this evening would be best. Stand just inside the doorway where everyone can see you. If you snog for about a minute I’m think everyone will see, but you’d better wait until everyone starts whistling and heckling just to be sure. Okay?”
James laughed as he pushed Peter out the door.
“Did everyone know apart from us?” Remus asked with shake of his head.
“Apparently,” Sirius replied. “I think we should forgo any ‘public displays of affection’ until the last day of the month to make them wait for their money.”
“Good idea,” Remus agreed.
“Seems strange to have the dorm so empty again,” Sirius said as he sat down on the edge of his bed.
“Good strange, though,” Remus said as he sat down beside him.
“Definitely,” Sirius agreed. “The marauders don’t need anyone else. You know that right? You’re a part of the group, the best part.”
Remus raised an eyebrow at that.
“Really,” Sirius said. “I mean it. You’re the one who keeps us all from fighting, and from getting into too much trouble. You’re the nicest marauder as well. You’re the one we all come to when we’ve got problems. And you think of the funniest pranks.”
“No, I don’t,” Remus muttered.
“Yes, you do,” Sirius insisted. “Your pranks are the ones that everyone can have a laugh about, including the victim. You’ve even made McGonagall smile once.”
“So, you don’t think I’m… you know… the boring marauder?”
“Moony, I promise, you are never boring. You’re a marauder. It’s categorically impossible for you to be both.” Sirius grinned and took Remus’s hand in his own.
“I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you… any of you… for accepting me,” Remus said quietly. “All of me, including the werewolf part.”
“What are friends for?” Sirius said easily. Remus smiled back at him as he realised that Sirius was right. By accepting him so completely they had earned his friendship forever and no matter what else happened in the future, he was sure they would always be friends.
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A/N: Does Peter get his money? Find out in the sequel.