All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

Third Year : James Potter and the Lumpy Elephant Dung

Tuesday 30th October 1973

Remus, genius that he was, had cracked the code on their word-changing spell. Sirius had helped, a bit, and James and Peter had tried to pitch in, too—but in the end, it had mostly come down to Remus. Having figured out the spell, he spent the remainer of October obsessively trying to perfect it—and with the Hogwarts Halloween feast around the corner, he was in a frenzy.

“It’s fine, Moony, we all know what we’re doing,” James assured him, when he returned from an evening quidditch practice to find Lupin muttering to himself over one of his gigantic books.

Sirius and Peter trailed in behind James, shaking water off their robes—they had gone to down to watch the quidditch practice and gotten caught in the rain. With the sun setting earlier and the weather getting colder, Remus typically refused to join them; his spot on the bench had been happily taken up by Mary, who often tagged along to watch Marlene. At first, Sirius wasn’t quite sure how to feel about this arrangement, but Mary had grown on him. She wasn’t as whiny as Peter, and she would smile and nod intently whenever Sirius leaned over to explain something about quidditch to her. She was a very good listener.

“I just think we should test it,” Remus said anxiously. Sirius shook droplets of water off his hair, casting a drying spell first on himself, then on James.

“Oh no,” Peter folded his arms—Sirius leaned over and tapped his shoulder with his wand, drying his robes, too, “I won’t be your guinea pig this time. Last time I couldn’t get rid of that patch of purple hair for weeks!”

“I’d forgotten about that,” Sirius said, reminiscing, “That worked really well, once we’d figured out the kinks.”

“Do it on him,” Peter shoved a finger at Sirius, “It’s his turn.”

“Don’t whinge, Pete,” Sirius rolled his eyes, flopping onto his bed, “Do it on me, Moony, I’m not a coward.”

“Ok, fine,” Remus pointed his wand. Sirius scrambled to his feet,

“Wait, you want to do it now?!”

“Well, the sooner the better…”

“What about the counter-jinx?!”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve got that sorted.” The cryptic smile that spread across his friend’s face was not even the slightest bit comforting to Sirius.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” James sighed, pulling off his quidditch kit, “Do it to me, Lupin, I don’t mind. Only I don’t want to say any of the words on that awful list of yours. Can you do it for something else?”

“If you like,” Remus shrugged.

“Yeah, about this list, Moony…” Sirius plucked it off the bedside table, frowning.

“What?”

“Well…it’s really long.”

“Yeah,” Remus raised an eyebrow, “What’s your point? They’re all insults for non-purebloods, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Sirius hedged, uncomfortable, “Yeah, they are, but, um…well I just didn’t think there were so many. Never seen them all written out like that. And anyway, where did you hear all of these?!”