All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

Third Year : The Slug Club

Monday 8th October 1973

“Sirius, you’d better come up with the replacement words, you’re the most…er…”

“Verbose?” Sirius suggested, yawning, “Loquacious? Garrulous?”

“Exactly,” Remus grinned, “I’ll work on figuring out which spell we’ll need, and James, you can figure out how we actually manage to cast it on the whole house…that’s going to be really hard, I think – Peter, you better help with that.”

“Hark at Moony!” James laughed as he reached for another slice of toast, “Giving the orders now.”

“The marauders are a socialist utopia,” Sirius yawned again, “We don’t have leaders.”

“Enjoying Muggle Studies, are you?” Remus teased, quirking an eyebrow. Sirius was too tired to respond, laying his head on the dining table and flipping two fingers at Remus as he closed his eyes.

He hadn’t been sleeping well. Nightmares all weekend—dreams that slipped from his mind like oil when he woke, leaving only greasy impressions; a snake hissing, his brother’s smile, the trickle of blood down the back of his leg. The kinds of things their Divination professor would have a field day with.

He heard the flutter of wings and the soft thud that meant an owl had landed on the table, but didn’t bother to open his eyes—it wasn’t his. He barely even had one anymore; his parents had confiscated it and never returned it last spring.

There was the sound of paper tearing, then: “What the hell?” James murmured, sounding utterly confused, “The…slug club?!”

“Oh, yeah,” Sirius cracked an eye, “I got one too. Apparently ol’ Sluggy likes students who have a certain star quality. So, me, obviously. And I s’pose you too.” Privately, he suspected that Slughorn had not yet received the memo that Sirius might not be the Black heir for much longer—his family name seemed to be the only thing the old professor was really interested in.

Neither Peter nor Remus had received an invitation. Sirius wasn’t surprised about Peter, but he thought the fact that Remus wasn’t invited meant that the professor’s claim that the club was for “especially gifted students” was patently false; Remus got some of the top grades in their year. All Slughorn cared about was power, just like every other Slytherin.

“We won’t go then.” James said decisively, “All for one and one for all, us marauders.” Sirius made an assenting noise—he didn’t really mind, either way. He just wanted to sleep.

“I don’t care,” Remus said, “Go if you want to. I bet Lily’s going.”

The word “Lily” had the predictable effect on James. He perked up immediately, saying,

“Do you?! Yeah, she is really good at Potions, isn’t she?” His voice had taken on a mildly dreamy quality, “She’s really good at everything, probably the cleverest in the year—”

“Oi!” Sirius and Remus said, in unison. James raised an eyebrow.

“Cleverest girl, then.”

Sirius nodded, satisfied, and closed his eyes, doing his very best to nap for the remainder of the meal.