Sunday 2nd January 1972
"Brilliant!" James exclaimed, slamming his hand down on the bathroom counter, "Completely brilliant!"
"You're so clever!" Peter gushed.
The four of them were crammed into the small shared bathroom. Sirius was standing in the bath, fully dressed, holding an umbrella over his head, while Remus pointed his wand at a grey storm cloud hovering just above that. It was pouring rain. Sirius shuffled up and down the bathtub, but the cloud stayed firmly above his head, following his every move.
James and Peter had arrived back from their Christmas holidays only two hours ago, and as soon as dinner was over Remus and Sirius had dragged them upstairs for a demonstration.
"Lupin gave me the idea, but I looked up the charms to do it," Sirius beamed, proudly, "He won't know what's hit him!"
"When can we do it?!" James was jumping up and down now, ready to explode with excitement. "First thing tomorrow? Breakfast? Potions?"
"Dinner," Sirius shook his head, "More of an audience."
"Yes, dinner," James nodded, wisely, as if the idea had been his own. "Seriously, you two, I'm so bloody proud."
"Cheers," Sirius raised an ironic eyebrow. Then he looked at Remus, "Um... Lupin? You can probably stop now. My feet are getting wet."
"Oh!" Remus shook off the charm, seeing that he had produced more rain than the ancient plug hole could manage, and Sirius was now ankle deep in cold water, the bottom of his robes soaked. "Sorry."
"It's fine," Sirius laughed, stepping out of the bath and squeezing out his robes, "Just make sure you do the same to Snape."
"So, Lupin's doing this one?" James asked. Sirius shrugged,
"He's better at it. I can do it too though, if we get interference."
* * *
Monday 3rd January 1972
The first day of lessons after Christmas was a very strange one. James, Sirius and Peter were full of nervous energy in anticipation of the practical joke. Remus was looking forward to that too – though somewhat nervous as it was he who had to pull it off. But he had another reason to be excited. It would be the first school day in his entire academic career that he would be able to read.
Sirius had shown him how to perform the spell, and it was very difficult – in the end Remus just had the other boy perform it for him most of the time, deciding to devote more time to learning how to do it himself later. His magic was still slightly wonky following the full moon, liable to overreach and 'go off' if he concentrated too hard. It didn't seem like a good idea to turn his wand on himself until the moon waned enough and he had more control.
The first half of the day was everything he had hoped it might be. He couldn't read the blackboard, but Charms was mostly practice based, and it amazed Remus how much easier everything became when he could just consult his text without having to remember everything Flitwick had said about softening charms. He was the first in the class to get his brick to bounce – much to the consternation of Lily Evans, who was usually the top Charms student.
It was in the afternoon, during Potions, that things began to go awry. It began with Slughorn returning their essays on the twelve uses of dragon blood. Remus had completed his before Christmas with help from Sirius, and the marauders as a whole did fairly well. As usual, Snape got the highest mark and earned five points for Slytherin. Lily was second and got a point for Gryffindor. She had only beaten Sirius by a few marks.
None of this was at all out of the ordinary – but apparently the tension of anticipation had grown too much for Sirius, and he couldn't resist getting a shot in,
