fatal love

chapter 140

April had a rough start - over excited from April Fool's, Peeves spent the whole day flying around the castle and bombarding students with stink pellets, so that by the time the sun set, students were only leaving their Common Rooms if properly defended by a shield charm, and only for emergencies.

The Marauders didn't bother with any April Fool's pranks of their own - they were still focused on their final goodbye prank, and had been spending many hours on research, digging through the books they had found back in Third Year and showing Evans their process.

Remus and Evans had far longer concentration spans than the other three; that much was apparent. On the first weekend of April, after the five of them had spent three hours holed up in the dorm already, Pete announced that he needed a break.

"Merlin, me too," Sirius said eagerly. "Wanna make a run to the kitchens?"

"Perfect," Pete said, "I slept through breakfast, I'm starving."

"I'll come as well," James announced, standing up. "Nothing's going in right now anyway."

"Alright," Remus hummed, not looking up from his parchment. "See you guys in a bit."

The three of them left the dorm, as Lily waved the goodbye offhandedly while chewing the end of her quill, and wandered down to the kitchens slowly.

"Forgot how much work this all took," Pete said conversationally.

"I know right!" James agreed.

"I'm spending longer on this prank than I am on NEWTs," Sirius snorted.

"Well," Pete grinned, "I think that speaks to your priorities more than anything else."

"Probably true, Wormy, probably true."

"Merlin, we've only got two months until exams," James groaned. "I'm so fucked."

"No you aren't!" Pete exclaimed.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Don't stress about exams," he said, "they hardly matter at this point anyway."

"Yeah, try telling Lily that," James snorted. "She's got me quizzing her every spare second, and I swear on Merlin's sweaty ballsack, I'm ninety percent sure she was mumbling charms facts in her sleep last night."

Sirius shuddered. "That's disturbing, I think Remus was doing the same thing."

He and James met each other's eyes and laughed, Pete joining in a second later.

"Oh, by the way," Sirius said casually, "Dorcas says she'll join the Order. You know her, right? The Hufflepuff. She's mates with McKinnon."

"I didn't know they were friends," Pete frowned.

"Yeah, well, they are. Anyway, Prongs, she asked me to let you know."

"Alright," James nodded, "that's good, I guess. I'll tell Dumbledore."

Sirius just nodded back, unsure of what else to say. They stopped by the kitchens, and were laden down with far more food than was necessary by the elves, before turning around and heading back up to the dorm.

"So, listen..." James said, as the three of them were walking in silence. "I, uh, I have some kind of big news, actually."

"What is it?" Pete asked.

"Well..." James said slowly, running a hand through his hair and looking slightly nervous, "me and Evans were talking, right, about next year. And, uh, well, we were thinking that, you know, the two of us might, uh, might want to live together."

"Oh," Pete said, a frown flickering over his face but disappearing in a second, "that's... good for you, Prongs."

James wasn't listening to Pete, though, he was staring at Sirius.