The Marauders: Year Two | #Wattys2016

The Tournament Announced

The Tournament Announced

"Bloody hell, what did you do?" Sirius laughed as he, Peter, and Remus handed over their napkins to James, who was dripping with pumpkin juice.

"Dunno," James complained, "I didn't do a thing. I was just sitting here and it... exploded!"

"You must've squeezed it," said Remus logically, "Goblets don't just shatter for no reason."

James shook his head, "I didn't have my hand anywhere near it."

Sirius grinned, "You probably did it without thinking - given where your eyes were at when it happened." He winked.

James scowled as he took his glasses off and wiped them with the napkins and Remus performed a siphoning charm that helped clear the juice off James's robes. "Given where my eyes were, what's that supposed to mean?" James snapped at Sirius as he replaced the spectacles to his nose.

Sirius nodded toward Lily as Peter said, "You were staring at Evans again."

"I wasn't," James protested. "I was looking up at that new witch at the faculty table. Who you you think she is?"

"Dunno," said Sirius. "She sure is pretty, though," he added dreamily.

"Probably the new Defense teacher," Remus filled in, tucking his wand away, the juice entirely cleared away now, "Moody's gone, remember?"

Sirius turned 'round quick, "What? Where's he gone off to then?"

"He's an auror," Remus replied, "He's got... he's got cases to investigate."

"Yeah," Peter said, "All the murders over the summer would be his cases. He's been in the paper all summer talking about the --" James was glaring at Peter meaningfully. "What? What is the matter with you?" Peter interrupted himself.

Silence fell over the little group as James tried to think of what to say to tell Peter without having to embarrass Remus. But before he could form the words, Remus said, "One of the cases is my mum's."

Peter's eyes widened as understanding dawned on him and his fat little lips mouthed the name Hope Lupin before he turned quite red and focused solely on his food.

Sirius said, "Look, mate, we're really sorry about that, by the way."

Remus was suddenly no longer hungry and pushed his plate away.

James, determined to raise the morale among them, and said, "That new witch is quite pretty, you're right, Sirius."

Remus looked down at the braided bracelet Lily Evans had given him again and started worrying it through his fingertips as the others tried to awkwardly resume a conversation. He felt quite empty in his stomach. He couldn't even agree that the new witch on staff was pretty - she had blonde hair like his mother had done, making it quite hard to look at her without being reminded of Hope. Remus had a feeling that this was going to be a very long term if he couldn't even look at his teachers without a sickness filling up his stomach. The way he felt right now made him almost long for the full moon, when he could go off and be alone and transform to a wolf. As a wolf, he could not feel the ache and weight of the loss at least. For the first time in his entire life, Remus felt that being a wolf hurt less than it did to be a boy.

Finally the feast ended, the food disappeared and Dumbledore stood up. "Now that we've all had our fill, I should like to say once again - welcome to Hogwarts. Welcome back to our returning students and welcome here for the first time to our First Years. I know you're all quite tuckered out after all of that delicious fare, so promise that I won't keep you long but I do have a couple of announcements to make before we go our separate ways..."