The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Picnic in the Rain

Picnic in the Rain

James and Sirius were shouting and running across the rain-soaked grounds, their crowing laughter echoing off the castle as Lily and Remus followed along. Peter stumbled halfway down the hill and rolled along on his side shouting until he'd caught up to where Sirius and James had come to a stop beneath the shade of an old tree by the edge of the lake. Looking back, Lily could see the castle looming above them in the misty grey light, the spires hidden by low clouds. She shivered as James pulled out a blanket - it looked to Lily as though it might've been one of the boy's bed duvets. "Go on, Remus," he said, holding it up.

Remus cleared his throat and pointed his wand at it, "Impervius."

"What's that spell do?" Lily questioned as James and Peter spread the duvet out over the ground.

"Makes it water resistant!" Explained Remus.

"We had to do that to all of Peter's sheets," joked James, smirking.

Peter punched his arm, "Shut it! You did not." He looked at Lily, "They did not."

Sirius meanwhile had climbed the tree and was perched on one of the lower branches that hung over the water, straddling it, facing the forest on the far side. He cupped his hands 'round his mouth and shouted, "HULLO!" The echo that came back was magnificent and reverberated several times before fading off. He grinned, "Brilliant!" (-illiant, -illiant, -illiant) "I could bloody do this all day," he laughed.

"Well you aren't," James said, "We've got food. Get down here."

Peter had opened his bag up and started pulling out the sandwiches he'd nicked as James dumped his bag of pasties and Remus arranged the butterbeers. "We had more butterbeers," he said apologetically, "But we dropped a couple coming up from the kitchens." He didn't go into detail, figuring Lily needn't know it was Snape who'd caused them to smash the bottles all over. "Luckily we've got six left so we each have one and we'll have to split the last."

"Or fight to the death for it," Sirius said as he swung down from the tree, hanging by his hands over the water for a moment before dropping down onto the edge of the grass, only just keeping his balance from falling in.

James said, "Fight to the death? I'd win a duel against you any day, Black."

"In your dreams, Potter."

"Well I wouldn't win, that's for sure," Peter said, twisting the cap off his bottle as Remus handed them 'round. "I should think it would be either Remus or Lily," he added, smiling sheepishly at Lily.

Remus laughed, "Well I'm not going to be in the running. I'll be fine with just the one. So I guess that makes you the winner, then," he held the extra bottle out to Lily.

She took it, but said, "I doubt that! I wouldn't win against you lot."

"You're the brightest one in the whole school," offered James, "Of course you would." His cheeks warmed and he quickly turned to make a job of opening up the wrappers on one of the sandwiches instead of looking at her.

"I might give you a go if I get thirsty enough later," Sirius joked.

Lily smiled, "Oh really? And you think you could beat me?"

Sirius's eyes twinkled, "No I doubt I could, but I'm just stupid enough to try anyway."

Lily was surprised by how good of company the boys turned out to be as the five of them ate and laughed and talked about the teachers of Hogwarts - Remus did a marvelous impression of Professor Slughorn, while James had heard quite a lot of exciting stories from his father by owl about Professor Moody's work as an auror. "I think Moody's bloody fantastic," James said enthusiastically, "Being an auror must be the best job in all the world. I should like to catch dark wizards myself one day..." he stood up, brandishing a breadstick as a wand, "I'd do a little of this and a little of that... I'd fill the walls of Azkaban with their ruddy hides."