Homophobic slur towards the end of this chapter.
Remus would never tell anyone, but he really enjoyed the Hogwarts exam period. There were no lessons for a whole two weeks and while everyone else ran around like a headless chicken, Remus felt very relaxed about the whole thing.
The same could not be said for the rest of his classmates. Lily Evans had taken to ambushing other
students in the library and common rooms, demanding that they quiz her on the 18th Century Goblin Riots. Peter seemed to be constantly muttering to himself under his breath, wringing his hands together. Marlene McKinnon and Mary McDonald, two Gryffindor first years Remus usually tried to avoid, kept bursting into fits of hysterical giggles from the nerves. James and Sirius appeared to be acting out with more bravado than ever; setting off flameless firecrackers in the corridors and performing vanishing spells on unsuspecting student's book bags in the library. Remus couldn't tell if the two of them were just responding to the general atmosphere of anxiety, or whether they were expelling their own nervous energy.
The older students had no sympathy for their younger counterparts. Frank Longbottom gave out more detentions during the last week of term than he had all year, and even threatened to take fifty points from Gryffindor if James and Sirius didn't stop levitating inkwells in the common room. Remus felt that they had got off easy – Bellatrix Black actually cursed half of the Slytherins one evening for talking too loudly while she studied for her NEWT's. They couldn't speak for three days – Madam Pomfrey had to grow their tongues back.
Their first exam was Charms, which had Remus off to a good start. All they had to do was bewitch a coconut to dance an Irish jig, which he privately thought was very easy. He, James and Sirius managed without a problem, though Peter's coconut at first refused to move at all, then lost control once it finally got going and ended up spinning off the desk, smashing all over the flagstones.
Transfiguration went almost as well, though it was a trickier subject. Their task was to turn a stag beetle into a pepper shaker – Sirius completed this in minutes, barely concealing his pride as McGonagall commented that it was the best example of small scale transfiguration she'd ever seen from a first year. Remus' shaker wasn't too bad, though it was still shiny and black, whereas Sirius had somehow managed to make his glass. James attempted porcelain, and seemed to have done well until McGonagall tried to shake some pepper out of it and it spread its wings and flew out of the window, causing Marlene and Mary to shriek. Peter's pepper pot still had legs and antlers, even after an hour.
Herbology and History of Magic were both written exams. Remus surprised himself by writing the longest history essay in the class – he had to ask Peter, sitting next to him, for extra parchment. Apparently there was plenty to be said about the goblin riots after all. Potions was easier than he expected – they had to brew a cure for warts from memory. Having a very good memory from years of practice, Remus knew he had all of the ingredients and quantities right, even if his preparation skills were lacking precision.
Between exams, Remus enjoyed his last weeks of freedom either wandering the halls and adding to his map (when he was alone) or eating ice cream outside by the lake (when the others were with him). He'd recently found a corridor that smelled vaguely of chocolate, but couldn't work out what that meant – it was nowhere near the kitchens.
The days were much warmer now, and as June opened up and the testing came to a close, the marauder's minds turned to mischief.
"It's got to be big." James said, decisively. He was always making unnecessary statements like that, waiting for someone else to come up with an idea for him to approve. "Our last hurrah."
"Not our last," Sirius replied, picking at the grass. "We'll be back in two months." "You lot might be," Peter worried, "I know I've failed everything."
James waved a hand, dismissing Peter's fears. It was too warm and lazy of a day to spend long reassuring him. They were lounging in their new favourite spot, near a tree by the lake. Peter was sitting under the shade cast by the branches because he was fair and burnt easily. James and Sirius had stripped off their robes and rolled up the sleeves of their brilliant white uniform shirts to combat the heat. Remus simply lay in the sunshine, robes still on to cover up his freshest injuries, enjoying the warmth sinking into his aching joints. He liked the spot because the Whomping Willow was behind them, so they didn't have to look at it.
"Have we got any dung bombs left?" Remus asked, squinting up at the blue sky, then closing his eyes to look at the patterns burned into his retinas.
"Yeah, a few. Not enough for a big send off, though." "How big are you thinking, exactly?"
"Bigger than dung bombs." James replied, cleaning his glasses, as he often did when he was thinking. "Big enough so that everyone knows it was us."
"They'll know it's us. McGonagall always knows," Sirius put in, standing up and skimming a stone across the lake. It bounced five times – Sirius was amazing at skimming stones. He had this fluid sort of grace that was more animal than human. It drove Remus mad – after all, he was the one that wasn't strictly human, and he had all the natural grace of a flobberworm.
"They might think it's the Prewetts." James shot back, "They've been beating us all year."
"Nothing beat the pixies!" Sirius said, defensively. He threw another stone. This time, on its fourth bounce, a long, silvery tentacle rose from the water and batted it back towards him, lazily. Sirius grinned.
"And the itching powder was pretty good, you have to admit." Remus murmured, flinging an arm over his face.
"Exactly," Sirius continued, enthusiastically, "You've got to give us points for ingenuity there."
