Chapter 38: Friends

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Dinner was a chance for Remus to get to know James's parents better. James took Remus into the kitchen before dinner was served, and Remus was met with some fantastic cooking smells that filled the entire kitchen. The utensils were stirring themselves and ingredients were flying from all directions towards the pot on the stove.

"Do you like kidney beans?" Asked James.

"I don't hate them."

"Good. We're having Rajma and most of it is kidney beans. But the sauce is lovely, it's got all these spices in it. Here." He took a spoon from one of the drawers, dipped it into the pot of sauce and let Remus try it. "It's hot."

Remus took the spoon, blew on it and put it in his mouth. The sauce was really good; he'd never tasted so many flavours in one before. His mum usually just made pasta with tomatoes, and a bit of basil for garnish.

"It's really nice."

"Yeah, it's that, kidney beans and rice." Euphemia walked into the kitchen and ushered the boys out.

"Clean up for dinner, it'll be ready in a bit." The two went upstairs to wash their hands and returned while the table was being set by Mr Potter.

"You two had fun outside?" He asked.

"Yeah, we went to the den," replied James. "And played pirates."

"What are pirates?" James nodded at Remus to explain.

"They're people who lived in boats on the sea and they had swordfights," replied Remus. Pirates were quite hard to explain to someone who hadn't heard of them. "They were like... sea criminals."

"But fun!" said James.

"It probably wasn't very fun at the time, when everyone was getting stabbed by swords." They all sat down at the table, Remus sitting next to James, while the dishes of food started to float into the dining room. There was a bowl of rice, a bowl of the kidney beans in sauce and a plate of flatbreads. As soon as they had been set down and Euphemia had taken her seat, James dug in.

"Want some naan, Re?" He asked, holding out the plate for Remus. Remus took a piece.

"Thanks." They were all serving themselves, so Remus copied and took a few spoonfuls of rice, covering it with the kidney beans and sauce.

"So, Remus," began Mr Potter. "How's Hogwarts been treating you?"

"It's been good. I like most of the lessons, and I have friends so... it's fun." He obviously left out the not-so-fun stuff, the growing tension between him and the Slytherin house, as well as his friendship breakdown with Peter.

"Good to hear. Which lessons do you like?"

"I like charms and transfiguration. I hate potions though."

"Euphemia loved potions when she was at Hogwarts," said Mr Potter. Euphemia nodded in response.

"I was alright at it."

"Alright? She was top of the class!"

"Lucky you, I wish I was good at potions."

"They require a bit of a knack, but once you get the hang of them, they end up being easy. It's just like cooking."

"I'm not very good at cooking."

"Well, potions aren't too important. Anything you need you can usually buy." You couldn't buy Morfosis, thought Remus, which he hoped he'd be able to learn how to make when the time came for him to leave Hogwarts.

"Transfiguration is the best," said James, joining in with the conversation. "But third year's gonna be great because you get to choose loads more subjects."

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