Chapter Text
It’s snowing in the Slytherin common room.
Or, at least, that’s the impression Remus is getting, as Slytherin after Slytherin file into the Great Hall, each dusted with snow and glaring at the Gryffindor table.
“You know,” says James, his tone a tad too loud to be purely conversational, “I’ve always thought the Slytherin common room must get cold in the winter, but I never realized it got that cold. That’s downright inhumane, it is.”
“Sod off Potter!” hisses a Slytherin sixth-year passing by the table. “We all know you’re the ones behind this! Now how do we get this bloody awful stuff off?”
The Slytherin attempts to brush the inch of snow off her shoulders, but it remains firmly attached, as white and sparkling as new fallen snow should be. Remus watches with interest; they hadn’t had enough time to properly test the sticking mechanism, so he’s glad – on the level of craftsmanship – to see that it worked.
“Meadowes,” says Sirius, leaning across Remus to grin at the Slytherin. His elbow nearly winds up in Remus’s eggs, but Remus saves his plate just in time. “Even if we were the devilishly intelligent and no doubt maddeningly handsome masterminds behind this plan, do you really think we’d tell you? That would be a trade secret.”
Meadowes rolls up one of her sleeves, and Remus remembers belatedly that as well as being intimidatingly tall, Dorcas Meadowes is also one of the beaters for the Slytherin quidditch team. A bludger she’d sent crashing towards Sirius last March had ended up with Sirius in the hospital wing for two days.
Remus wriggles backwards, making sure that Sirius is fully between him and Meadowes.
Meadowes clenches her fist and advances.
“Miss Meadowes,” snaps McGonagall, coming up from behind the girl. Meadowes starts and twirls around. “That’s quite enough! Violence is no way to solve a dispute.”
“They’ve started a blizzard in the Slytherin common room!”
“That’s a blatant falsehood and an unfounded accusation!” cries James.
“Oh, you bloody goddamn wanker!” bawls Meadowes, whirling around to face them again.
“Language, Miss Meadowes!” says McGonagall sharply. She grips Meadowes’ shoulder and frowns at the four of them. “As much as it dismays to me say it, Mr. Potter is correct in saying there’s no proof that they’re the ones responsible for the current situation in the Slytherin common room.”
“However,” continues McGonagall, turning her stony gaze directly onto Remus, “Mr. Lupin, as a prefect, I’m sure you were well aware of what your friends were up to last night?”
Remus makes his face as bland as possible, and feels a familiar, though now well-dulled, stab of guilt.
“We were all in our room all night,” says Remus. “Peter and James even went to sleep before I did.”
Both parts our technically true. The actual enchantment of the Slytherin common room didn’t occur until past midnight, and therefore in the morning. And, after the enchantment had been placed, Peter and James had gone to bed first, while Remus had stayed up late to study.
McGonagall arches an eyebrow. “And Mr. Black?”
“Working on my transfiguration essay,” says Sirius with the face of a cherub. He’s still hanging off Remus, and his hair tickles Remus’s nose. “I’ve even got it right here.”
Sirius twists around to get his bag. He ends up half in Remus’s lap in the process, making Remus’s heart stutter awkwardly. A vein pulses in McGongall’s forehead.
Sirius produces the essay with a flourish. Remus is pretty sure he wrote it that morning in the bathroom.
“Thirteen inches, just as asked,” says Sirius proudly. “It’s brilliant stuff, if I do say so myself.”
McGonagall’s lips thin dangerously.
“In the future, Mr. Black, you would do well to finish your essays a little earlier than the night before.”
“Duly noted, Professor,” says Sirius, and he manages a sweeping bow even while half-perched in Remus’s lap.
McGonagall spares them one more cool look before gliding imperiously away. The look Meadowes gives them is a little more threatening, but she trudges away as well. Remus doubts it’s the last of her though, and if he were Sirius or James, he’d be very nervous about their next game against Slytherin.
James breaks out into a huge smile and clasps Peter on the back.
“Well done, men. Well done.”
Even Remus has to grin a little. The prank isn’t just validation of their general mischief-making skills, it was also the first time they got the tracking spell on the map to work flawlessly. They’d known where everyone in the castle was last night and so been completely fearless of interruption or discovery. It’s a warm moment of pride.
The owls swoop in then to deliver mail, and Sirius shifts off Remus to lean across the table and snatch the Daily Prophet from James. Remus feels a weird pang when Sirius moves away from him, but it at least gives him the space to actually eat his breakfast.
"You could just ask for the crossword," James tells Sirius reproachfully, in the strange, pompous voice he's started to adopt. He grabs the front page back from Sirius. "You're the only one who cares about that."
"That's not true," says Sirius, rolling his eyes at James' tone as he digs through his bag for a quill. "Moony cares, too." He elbows Remus in the side and his eyes gleam dangerously. "Isn't that right, Moony?"
"Of course. I love being used as a walking dictionary. It really feels like a great use of my talents," says Remus dryly. But he does get a secret pleasure from the way Sirius smiles at him after they've successfully untwisted a particularly tangled clue. Which makes him, Remus knows, both laughable and tragic.
"Not just a dictionary," says Sirius cheerfully, dark head already bent over the day's puzzle. "Encyclopedia, too. What's a five letter word for – "
James makes a distressed noise.
"You all right mate?" asks Peter, the first to respond.
Sirius just looks vaguely disdainful as he says, "Forgot you couldn't breathe tea again, Prongsies?"
James ignores both of them and looks at Remus instead.
"Did you know about this?" he demands, slapping the paper down in front of Remus. He jabs at a short article tucked away on the bottom left corner on the second page of the paper, tucked away beneath an equally short article about a Muggleborn gone missing in Cardiff. Remus reads the title and feels a knot form in his stomach: New Werewolf Regulations to Be Discussed Today.
"Yes," he says, more calmly than he feels. Sirius looks over his shoulder and he can feel Sirius's face heat up with anger. "I'd been notified that these were likely to go into effect soon."
"They’re going to make you – " Sirius's voice rises dangerously but he thankfully stops before Remus has to make him. He has no desire for Sirius to start yelling about this loud enough for the entire Great Hall to hear.
"If the Ministry decides to adopt these regulations, yes," says Remus, much more calmly than he feels. His ears are ringing and he feels like he's talking from very far away. It doesn’t really matter how Sirius was going to finish the sentence. There’s nothing new in the proposed regulations that Remus has been able to tell; it’s all just worse – less services and harsher punishments and if werewolves can’t police themselves out of a sense of duty to society, then they shouldn’t be allowed to continue to participate in society.
“How are you feeling Moony?” asks Peter anxiously. “About all this?”
“Fine,” says Remus automatically. He’s treated to three equally withering looks of skepticism.
“What are you thinking about then?” asks James.
Remus takes a sip of his tea, and when he puts his mug down says, with his last reservoir of calm, “I’m thinking about what to get you wankers for Christmas.”
There’s a long silence, then Sirius curses and stands, slamming his fist against the table in the process.
“I’ll see you lot later,” he says, brisk and cold.
Remus stares. It is, of course, just like Sirius to throw a fit over this, like it’s his right and responsibility to be an intolerable arse when Remus is the one who's actually affected.
James lunges across the table – knocking over Peter’s tea in the process – and grabs Sirius’s sleeve.
“Oi! Wait a minute. Moony has a point. We haven’t discussed Christmas gifts at all.”
“Are you out of your bloody – ”
“I was thinking this year,” says James loudly – calmly and firmly speaking over Sirius’s snarling outburst, “that we do something different where we’re creative and don’t spend any money on each other’s gifts.”
They all three stare at James. Remus has no doubt James came up with the idea this very second, in an attempt to calm Sirius down and divert the direction of the conversation. But it’s obvious what the idea was sparked by. Remus is always broke and Sirius has been cut off from his family fortune and Peter’s pocket money is insignificant compared to the Potters’ seemingly endless wealth. It’s quintessential James – quick-thinking and generous and still fantastically, mind-blowingly thoughtless.
Sirius seems to be of a similar mind to Remus, because he sneers coldly.
“Noblesse oblige, eh Potter?”
James lets go of Sirius’s sleeve and smiles with deep sweetness.
“You know I can’t understand a fucking word of French, Padfoot.”