Wednesday 12th September 1973
“Ugh, go back to bed, Lupin!” Sirius threw a shoe at him from his bed.
“Sorry!” Remus cringed, guiltily, as he quickly pulled the curtains shut, throwing the room back into darkness. It was 5AM, and he was awake. More awake than he’d ever felt in his life.
He crept downstairs, not wanting to disturb anyone else, clutching a shoebox under one arm. With a brand new book to read, Remus set up camp in the most comfortable armchair in the deserted common room. He often came down early, on mornings like this, when his body simply refused to sleep and he had so much energy he thought he could run laps around the castle without breaking a sweat. Remus had never actually tried this – if anything, he tried to push the strange urge away, lock it up and focus on his mind instead.
Still, he struggled to concentrate on his book. He thought about going for a walk, but they weren’t really allowed out of bounds until breakfast began at six. Ugh, he had to try not to think about breakfast, or his stomach would start growling. Never mind that he’d had three helpings of mashed potato with his beef stew last night. Even Peter had looked impressed.
Even if it was time for breakfast, he’d said he would be in the common room for an hour from six thirty onwards. This was the ideal time, he had decided – no one expected you to be up to anything nefarious that early in the morning, and the other marauders typically didn’t get up until seven thirty, even on weekdays. Sirius would stay in bed longer if he possibly could. James sometimes got up for an early morning broom practice, but not usually until after seven.
Remus looked down at the shoebox in his lap. He could cast a quick misdirection charm if James came down sooner than expected, that wouldn’t be too difficult. Mind you, the state his magic was in at the moment he’d better not do it while the box was in his lap – or he ran the risk of vanishing something much more vital. He’d already been to Madam Pomfrey once this term, attempting to grow his hair out in Transfiguration. He’d needed Peter and James to help him carry his rapidly growing locks to the hospital wing – Sirius had been laughing too hard to be of any use at all.
Remus experimented levitating his book, but it shot up to the ceiling, smacking it hard before plummeting towards the floor. He sighed. He could do nothing but sit still and wait, it seemed. He wished he could have the record player on – Sirius had left it in the common room along with his newest albums from Andromeda – Aladdin Sane, and Led Zeppelin IV. Sirius had been listening to ‘Black Dog’ on repeat for weeks now.
Remus opened the shoe box and took a quick inventory, though it was unnecessary; this would be his first sale. If anyone came. He’d spoken to a few fifth years he’d seen smoking the year before, and got them interested. They seemed to be under some impression that ‘muggle fags’ were somehow more potent, or maybe just more exotic than wizarding ones. He did nothing to discourage the idea, and told them to spread the word.
Sirius had once obtained an exhaustive list of all the Hogwarts school rules, suggesting that they attempt to break every one before they reached seventh year. Remus read through it and had found nothing that mentioned tobacco trafficking. Not if you took the language very literally, anyway. Besides, it wasn’t going to be a regular thing – he only had the stuff he’d brought with him.
He had planned to give it all a bit more thought, to wait until after the full moon, but then he found out that their first Hogsmeade weekend was coming up on the 15th and he’d decided he needed to get a move on.
Sirius and James had already planned the trip out in full, without consulting Peter or Remus, who were just happy to trail after them as usual. Honeyduke’s, obviously, and Zonko’s to stock up on dung bombs. Then the shrieking shack, because James’s dad didn’t believe it was haunted, which meant James didn’t either, and Sirius wanted to prove them both wrong. Then they were very keen to have Remus try something called butterbeer.
