Tuesday 9th January 1978
“Right, Moony,” James marched into the great hall the next morning carrying a pile of books he could barely see over. He slammed them all down on the breakfast table in front of Remus, disrupting the porridge he had been picking at. He didn’t have much of an appetite, somehow.
“What are these?” He reached over to pick up the nearest book. Advanced Defensive Spells.
“Potter,” Lily straightened her back, staring over the pile with a look of bemusement, “Have you been in the library ?! In the morning?! Instead of flying ?!”
“We need to get Moony prepared , Lily!”
“But… you said mornings were sacred to you!” Sirius said.
“You said you had to pay homage to the gods of the quidditch pitch!” Peter grinned.
“I can miss one morning.” James said, dismissively.
“Prongs!” Remus grabbed his hand, and gushed at him dramatically, “I’m touched .”
“Gerrof,” James snatched his hand back, ears turning bright red. “You can all stop making fun of me. Am I the only one taking this seriously?!”
“Hey!” Sirius smirked. Remus and Peter groaned in anticipation of what was coming, “I am always Sirius. ”
Peter and Remus covered their eyes in embarrassment, but it must have been the first time Lily had ever heard that joke because she snorted with laughter so suddenly that her tea shot out of her nose. This was the funniest thing that even the marauders had seen in ages, and they were all hysterical for a good five minutes - each time any of them managed to stop, Lily would snort again, or James would waggle his eyebrows and they would be helpless with laughter once more.
When they’d finally calmed down, Remus opened the first book eagerly and decided that he would eat his porridge after all.
They went to their lessons with a new sense of purpose, and James suggested that they all meet in the library after the last bell to begin work on preparing Remus for whatever was ahead. They did this every day for a whole week, commandeering a block of six desks behind some stacks in a corner, where they could have complete privacy, pushed them all together and covered the thing in textbooks on battle theory, duelling techniques, defensive incantations and hexes. Peter even made a threatening sign which read Marauder’s War Council: Do Not Disturb, which worked like a charm (possibly because it had been literally charmed by Lily) and meant they could leave their work there and return to it whenever they liked.
Remus abandoned his study groups, asking Christopher to take over, James nominated Marlene to take over two of his quidditch sessions, and even Lily stopped going to Slug Club meetings that week. (Though she did try to break into Slughorn’s study to get her hands on some Felix Felicis for Remus, but had no luck and was almost caught). In short, all five of them spent as much time as possible working towards the same cause; preparing Remus for his mission.
He had been teasing James before, but Remus really was touched - only there was hardly any time to dwell on it, as they all knuckled down to study harder than any of them ever had before. Remus just thanked his lucky stars that James was so good at defense against the dark arts; they’d never had a teacher stay longer than a year in that subject, so Remus’s own knowledge was patchy. James and Lily’s combined efforts helped him cover more ground in a week than he had since his OWLs.
“You’re good at charms, and that’s half the battle.” James said, appraisingly, as they stood in the empty common room one evening, “The rest is really just quick thinking and determination.”
