The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

A Special Brand of Magic

A Special Brand of Magic

Remus had fallen asleep in the dorm and he woke up with a start to the sound of shouting. He stared up at the ceiling over his bed, groggy and disoriented. For a moment, he'd been transported back to the little house on the edge of the wood, to the morning his grandparents had come to stay for Hope's funeral. His grandmother had wailed so loudly while sitting in the kitchen that he'd been unable to sleep for weeks. The sound had chilled him so deeply and completely that it seemed to arrest his nervous system, even in his memory of it. But it only took a moment for his brain to stir enough to realize the sounds he was hearing now was not his grandmother's cry, but a happy noise - and he sat up, remembering he was at Hogwarts only just as Peter Pettigrew burst through the door.

"Oh good, you're up!" He said, grinning eagerly. He grabbed his bookbag from the back of the desk chair where he'd hung it up, still empty. "I'm about to go and knick enough butterbeers for the whole house!"

Remus blinked in confusion, "What?"

"We're all celebrating," Peter announced, "You should come down and join in!"

"What are we celebrating?" Asked Remus, racking his brain for what sort of holiday September 2 might be.

Peter said, "The win!"

"What win?"

"The quidditch win! We won!" Peter half explained. "Come downstairs, James will be telling the story all night, I'm sure, you'll know in no time!" With that, he scurried off down the stairs, leaving the dorm room door just barely ajar.

Remus sighed and got up. He paused to look into the mirror that James had left on his desk - the remnants, he recognized, of the Dark Lord's mirror they'd gone charging into the forest for last term - and straightened his hair with his fingers and a bit of spit. It wasn't perfect, he would be the first to admit that, but it was better than it had been. He took a deep breath and went on down.

The common room was crowded with Gryffindors from every year, milling about. Bilius was magicking Gryffindor crests about the room and the rest of the lot was gathered around to where James, arm in a sling, stood on the coffee table, re-enacting the game play-by-play, punctuated by shouts from the others who had also played - including Lily Evans and Derek Bell.

"And then I saw the snitch and I bolted for it and Snape saw me go for it and dives, too --" James was embellishing, bending his knees to portray himself speeding downward. "And my arm's outstretched, I've almost got the snitch and -- BLAM!" He slapped his knee for effect, making one of the new First Years, a boy named Todd Maxwell, nearly somersault in surprise, "Snape slams right into me! Saw me and everything - didn't even try and slow up. He was trying to knock the snitch out of my hand, I reckon, but I held on tight and he hexes me, makes me fall off my broom a good twenty feet and that's how I got this," he indicated the sling his arm was in.

Lily frowned, "I thought Sev saw the snitch first?" She asked, confusion in her eyes.

James ignored her. "Tried to take our win off us!" He said, "And it wasn't even an official game!"

"Bloody prats," muttered Derek, still sore on the subject.

Remus raised an eyebrow, unsure how much of James's story he believed - especially as James continued on, backtracking to fill in details he'd forgotten (or newly thought up). Sirius was grinning up at his mate, though, and soon Peter had returned with the butterbeers and passed the golden bottles around the room and everyone in Gryffindor house seemed quite keen on celebrating, loudly. Remus sighed and snuck out through the portrait hole, unnoticed, and sat on a flight of stairs just down the corridor from the Fat Lady.