The Marauders of Hogwarts

The Boys Are Back in Town

Dark hair swished back and forth with the force of his stride as he made his way into the great hall for breakfast. He looked dead ahead, ignoring the eyes of the many girls who had quieted when he entered the hall.

"Always so dramatic" James muttered under his breath as Sirius approached the other marauders at the Gryffindor table. With a flourish Padfoot swept his robes behind him to sit, grinning up at Prongs.

"Can't help it. I've got an audience." He replied, popping up his eyebrows. Prongs leaned a little to the side and made eye contact with a first year Hufflepuff girl over Padfoot's shoulder.

"You wouldn't have an audience if you came down to breakfast with the rest of us" Moony said in between bites of pancakes, rolling his eyes.

"Hey, it takes time to look this good" Sirius replied, swiping a hand through his long dark hair.

"More like you overslept" Wormtail muttered into his juice.

Sirius ignored him and piled some food onto his plate. "What do we have first?" He asked no one in particular.

"We all have muggle studies. You never told us what your schedule is." Remus replied, pulling out a book from his bag.

"Oh, well probably muggle studies as well, I'm guessing" Sirius replied, shoving every kind of breakfast food into his face.

"You could check, you know. Try to show up to at least the first day's classes on time" James added with a smirk.

Sirius glared at him before rolling his eyes and dismissing the conversation in favor of returning his full attention to his breakfast.

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Lucky as ever, the marauders managed to share every single class together. As they went through their morning classes they kept the mischief to a relative minimum, only startling professor Flitwick into falling off of his stack of books and disappearing behind his desk with some small sparks from Potter's wand.

By dinner, however, they'd gotten two points taken from Slytherin, subtly tipping a certain snake's cauldron onto his robes, and were ready for a nice big meal before figuring out what trouble they wanted to stir up before bed.

"Who would we talk to if you missed dinner?" Some Griffindor girls coed at Padfoot. They'd been entranced by his tales of danger, outlining some particularly outrageous incidents the marauders had gotten up to last year, that Lupin had failed to prevent.

Lupin and Potter's eyes met as they simultaneously exhaled with exasperation.

Sirius leaned forward, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind the ear of the nearest fawning girl. "If you're ever missing me, just look up." He said, guiding her face to look where he pointed, gently turning her chin up. "Just there. That star is me." He added with a dreamy gaze at the enchanted great hall ceiling.

"You can't be serious" Wormtail muttered with an eye roll.

"Really Peter? You're gonna feed into it like that-" Remus started.

"Why, of course I'm Sirius!"

Lupin and Potter shared another irritated look as the girls giggled at him. Pettigrew simply shook his head and resumed his meal.

Fiery red hair near the enormous double doors caught Potter's eye as he took a sip from his goblet, but all too soon he lost sight of the ginger in the crowd of Gyffindors further down the table. He considered going to look for her when suddenly she popped back out of her seat and stormed in their direction. Potter sat up, straightening his tie as Lily Evans approached the marauders.

His smirk faltered as he noticed the fire in her eyes as she turned on Sirius, the girls on either side of him slinking away before the fuming Evans.

"Seriously?"

Lupin sighed, holding his head.

"Yes? That's me!" Sirius replied, noticing Evans' anger and promptly deflating like a muggle balloon.

"Shut up. I can not believe you got him detention on the very first day, you absolute git! When are you going to stop being such a barmy arse and leave other people alone!" Sirius was sinking lower and lower in his seat, the massive table very nearly meeting his chin. "And in his best class, no less. You all are so unbelievably immature." Evans shook her head, assessing all of the marauders with her arms crossed over her chest. "I swear, the very next time I hear that you've been messing with him, I will hex each and every one of you, no matter which of you is responsible. Understood?" She glared at them, none of them meeting her gaze, before stomping back off towards the other half of the Gryffindor table.

"Remind me not to piss off your girlfriend, Prongs." Sirius said, staring through his food in front of him.

"She's not my girlfriend, Padfoot." Potter replied, sulking.

"Yet." Remus added.

"Oh stuff it. She'll never agree to go out to me at this rate. I swear, why does she defend that buffoon anyway. He's weird and greasy and doesn't have any friends, besides her." He looked longingly down the Gryffindor table to where Evans was eating peacefully with her friends. "Honestly, playing nice with a Slytherin. I mean, she really needs to sort out her house pride." He turned back to his plate, mirroring Black's posture.

"If you really want her attention, maybe you should leave her friends alone." Lupin said, irritated by the pair of them.

"Nah, that's not it." Potter replied glumly. "I'll just have to keep working at it. One day I'll win her over, and it won't involve being mates with that snivelling snake." He said, glaring halfheartedly in the general direction of the Slytherin table, not really knowing where at it Severus was sitting.

Lupin pulled out a book and began reading, waiting for the others to finish eating.

Sirius sighed, no longer capturing the attention of the second-year Gryffindor girls, he pushed his food around his plate aimlessly. His mind wandered to the girl he'd spotted at the feast last night and a soft smile made it's way onto his face. He shook his head, scratching behind his ear as he tried to forget her. He couldn't let a Slytherin distract him, nothing good ever came from that house of snakes. His family taught him that.