All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

Seventh Year : Preparation

I’ll tell you, I can’t sleep at night

Wanting to hold her tight

I’ve tried so hard to convince myself

That this feeling just can’t be right

It’s too late to turn back now

I believe, I believe, I believe

I’m falling in love

 

Tuesday 9th January 1978

“Right, Moony,” James announced decisively, face hidden behind the towering stack of books in his arms. He dropped them with a resounding THUD onto the table, directly in front of Remus. The poor boy jumped, blinking up in shock.

“What are these?” He squinted down at the stack, picking up a book off the top.

“Potter,” Lily glanced over with a bemused smile, looking both shocked and somewhat proud, “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 gasped.

“You said you had to pay homage to the gods of the quidditch pitch!” Peter reminded him.

“I can miss one morning,” James huffed, folding his arms.

“Prongs!” Remus swooned theatrically, reaching out to grab his hand, “I’m touched.”

“Gerrof,” James ripped his hand away, cheeks going pink, “You can all stop making fun of me. Am I the only one taking this seriously?!”

“Hey!” Sirius grinned, ignoring the other marauders’ anticipatory groans, “I am always Sirius.”

Peter shook his head; Remus rolled his eyes; James made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. But Lily, who had not yet developed an immunity to the joke, began to laugh, snorting so hard that tea shot out of her nose. This sent all of them into a bout of hysterics that lasted for the next five minutes – any attempts to calm down were thwarted by James’s eyebrow-waggling and Lily’s helpless snorts. By the end of it, Sirius’s stomach hurt from laughing so hard, and he found himself gasping for breath.

Everyone had perked up a bit by the time they headed to their lessons, imbued with a new sense of determination. On a suggestion from James, they decided to meet every day in the library after last bell, combining their efforts to research and practice new spells with Remus.

By the end of the week, they had taken possession of six desks in a back corner, shoving them all together and marking them with a sign that Peter made which read Marauder’s War Council: Do Not Disturb. Lily even went so far as to place a charm on the little paper plaque so that it would scream viciously if anyone else tried to sit down in their spot, making it impossible to study—their peers caught on quickly, steering clear.

Almost all other duties were abandoned. Christopher took over Remus’s study groups, Marlene began running two of James’s quidditch sessions, and Lily explained to professor Slughorn that she wouldn’t be able to make it to Slug Club that week due to an extracurricular project. Sirius even took a step back from pranking—he was pretty sure that it was the first week in over two years that he had gone without so much as dropping a dung bomb in the hallway. Instead, all the marauders’ focus was poured into the same goal: preparing Remus for Dumbledore’s mission.