Four To The End (prev Shifting Lines) Book Three (Marauders Era)

Chapter Thirty-Five - A Little Better Quality Of Students

Author's note: Wasn't going to get a bonus chapter out this week but... wanted to give my dear friend Pip something for getting through the exams, and to hopefully cheer him up from a difficult day :)

CW: brief mention of suicide, but only in a vague mention.

-x-

Wednesday morning dawned grey and rainy. Remus felt sluggish getting out of bed and getting ready, hoping the full moon—still a week away—wasn't already affecting him.

Sirius and Peter were getting ready too, and when Remus opened James's curtains he found the bespectacled boy gone. What in Merlin's name is he DOING?

Shrugging, he shut the curtains and headed down to the Great Hall with Sirius and Peter. Sirius was quite happy about this, and was even happier when they went in to find James sitting with Patricia Bell and Onyx Hooper of the Quidditch team. Remus sat with the other two, wondering if James was snubbing him now. Maybe James just gave up on the idea of the Marauders?

No, no. Remus refused to think that anymore.

"I can't wait till our sixth year, when we can drop Potions," said Sirius as he began sticking his bacon together to form a house.

"Unless the career you want needs Potions," Remus reminded him.

"I'm not going to have a career that needs anything," Sirius said, tongue poking out as he focused on the chimney. "I'm going to be a rock star, or a model, or something like that. I just need my fantastic looks."

Remus stirred his porridge, trying not to laugh. "You'll need Potions then." Sirius gave him a curious look. "To make beauty products, to keep those fantastic lo—yah!" he yelped as Sirius lobbed a piece of bacon at him.

"Least we don't need to think about careers until fifth year," Peter mused. "I dunno what I'm going to do. I mean, I know I wanna do photography—in the future. But I don't know if Hogwarts has a career path for that."

"Journalism," Remus suggested. "That would work, except you usually need a N.E.W.T. in History for that."

"Ugghhh!" Pete moaned. "I don't think I can take listening to Binns drone for the entire of my school life!"

"Let's not talk about careers." Sirius was trying to enchant some scrambled eggs to be the smoke coming out of the chimney, but they kept falling down off his plate and onto the ground, making a mess. "Let's—"

Whatever he was going to say was lost as James was climbing up onto the Gryffindor table. Everyone stared at him as he straightened up, clearing his throat for attention. His a-hems echoed across the Great Hall and Remus realized he must have had a spell on him to make him louder, probably from Bell or Hooper.

"Attention everyone!" James said, his voice very loud as he pointed his wand towards a record player sitting near the door. The needle moved and the song My Lovely Enchantress began playing, a popular lovey-dovey pop song. It was obvious James was going to sing it, and Remus couldn't even begin to fathom who he was going to sing to!

Except when the words began coming out of the record player, James sang different ones; he had made up his own lyrics. "I just gotta say I didn't mean to!" he sang, twirling around. "I just gotta say I'd do it different!"

Remus put his head in his hands as James began singing out a very loud apology to Sirius and Peter. Sirius looked amused while Peter sank a little in his seat, cheeks very red.

"MY LOVELY SIRRRRIIUUUS!!" James shrieked, sliding to his knees and knocking over a tureen of gravy. "PEEEETEEERRR! I'M SORRRRYYYY! WON'T YOU HEAR MY APOLOGY, WON'T YOU SEE MY—uh—APOLOGY! SIR-I-US! PET-TEH-ER! I'M SOR-RR-RY!"