Chasing The Stars | Marauders | Sirius Black

30 ~ A Big Bad Birthday for A Big Bad Wolf

"Hurry up" James shouted over his shoulder at the trio, all of whom were staggering under the amount of firewhiskey and butterbeer they were carrying. The four friends had just run all the way to Hogsmeade, after being shaken awake by Eloise at 5am, in order to get back to the castle before breakfast. However, she had not anticipated the rate at which their pace would be slowed by two crates of firewhiskey and four of butterbeer. The small brunette girl was positively trembling under the weight of her two crates as she yelled back to James.

"Easy for you to say princess! You're carrying fuck all!" causing Peter and Sirius to snort into their chests.

"You could have just levitated them" James retorted smugly, "if you hadn't forgotten your wands." He grinned cheekily, twirling his own in each of their faces, and causing a temporary darkness. In the silence, they heard a scuffle, a thump and a resultant; "fuck". James relit his wand to find three faces staring down at him from his sprawled position on the floor.

"Fat lot of use that wand did you" Sirius grinned and attempted to high-five Eloise, causing her to drop her crates of alcohol, which would've smashed had it not been for James' quick non-verbal spell, causing the precious cargo to rise gently before impact.

"Fat lot of use that did do me, didn't it?" came the arrogant reply, before swishing and flicking his wand and taking off running down the passageway, the ten crates in tow behind him.

"Git" Peter muttered before the trio started after him.

Arriving at the slope, Sirius reached up and grabbed James' invisibility cloak, which they had left in a small alcove near the ceiling, before covering James and the drinks with it, and striding off to the Gryffindor common room with Eloise and Peter in tow. Thankfully, most students hadn't bothered to drag themselves out of bed yet, as 7am on a Wednesday morning, wasn't the most popular hour for students, and breakfast wouldn't start for another forty-five minutes. They dumped the beverages on the floor under James' bed, covering it with a cloak, and thanking merlin Remus hadn't woken up yet.

"Phase one complete" Eloise whispered, jumping up and down in her excitement, and waking up a sleepy Remus who, after checking the time, wasn't the happiest Marauder around.

"Phase one of what?" he asked suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at each of them in turn. They looked at one another before kicking off their shoes and screaming

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOONY!", launching themselves at his bed, Peter landing on his legs, James landing on his stomach, Sirius landing on his chest and Eloise landing on his head, causing the boy to laugh and hug all of his friends within reach.

"PRESENTS" Eloise commanded before sprinting off to her dormitory to retrieve hers.

"I told you guys not to get me anything this year" Remus scolded, but his sweet face broke into a wide grin when Eloise came bursting through the door shouting

"A tradition is a tradition my dear Remus", her arms full of presents. It seemed as though she had taken the liberty of hiding everyone else's presents too. She stumbled before reaching his bed, sending the presents raining down onto Remus' lap. He was very pleased with his haul. Everyone had bought him chocolate, on top of his other presents. James had got him a muggle comic about Spiderman, much to Remus' delight, Sirius got him a lifesize chocolate model of himself. His hair was dark chocolate, his skin was milk chocolate - white chocolate was banned in the eyes of Remus Lupin.

"Whenever you get mad at me, you can just bite off my head" Sirius smiled innocently, causing Remus to roar with laughter. Very disappointingly, Peter got Remus White. Chocolate. The forbidden food. Everyone glared at him, whilst Remus attempted a smile and made a plan to give it to any trolls that might be wondering around the Forbidden Forest. Lastly, Eloise gave him a small box, wrapped very neatly, with a little red bow. Typical Eloise the boys collectively thought. He pulled off the ribbon, and unwrapped the paper. A little black square rested in his palm. He slid off the lid and a small ceramic-based snow globe glittered in the sunlight. He brought his face closer to the scenery, to find the Forbidden Forest, covered in snow, and Hagrid's cabin looking like a gingerbread house.

"Give it a shake" she said shyly and he obliged. Four animals frolicked and played in the snow, bouncing around and spraying each other. A wolf, a stag, a dog, a rabbit and a rat danced around until the snow settled, at which the four animals ran back into the trees. Remus looked up, his eyes watery. "

Thanks Puff." He sniffed "Thanks everyone. This has been the best Birthday"

"Just wait until later" Sirius said with a smug grin, before winking, tapping the side of his nose, and sauntering out of the room.

~~~

A ball of paper hit Remus in the head. They were practicing the fire lighting charm with Professor Flitwick, and, as usual, Sirius and James had got bored. Sitting next to a particularly masculine Slytherin by the name of Brutta Bulstrode, Remus was forced to work harder than usual, simply to avoid staring at her small beard, which he had caught himself doing on many previous occasions. He unfolded the note, and scanned it:

Moony,

Please wear something decent tonight or you WILL NOT get any action. Mary is single. Marlene is single, Evans is single (but she's mine), loads of girls are single, so

Sirius had scribbled out the rest of the note, presumably, James had given away too many details about Remus' Birthday party which he had managed to find out about two days after it was planned. He pretended not to know to save his friend's feelings and therefore, wasn't curious about what James had written. Remus turned to face them, the paper scrunched into a ball. He pointed his wand at the white ball and muttered

"Incendio." he looked into the shocked faces of his friends as the paper burned, before smugly turning back to face the front.

"Excellent use of the charm Mr Lupin! Ten points to Gryffindor!" Flitwick squeaked as he moved around the room. Sirius scowled at his friend's pure luck.

~~~

"Come on Rem!" Urged Eloise, tugging at his arm. The party had been planned. Food had been delivered by the house elves and the alcohol provided by the Marauders themselves. The girl had been given the job of asking Remus to come to the library with her to 'source a book', so the rest of Gryffindor house could decorate the tower with banners reading 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY REMUS' , '16 TODAY' and one specially from the Marauders reading 'A BIG BAD BIRTHDAY FOR OUR BIG BAD WOLF' which everyone laughed at when they saw. Upon arrival of the duo, everyone hid behind furniture and tapestries, some boys even jumping into girl's arms to hide on the girl's staircase, much to the amusement of those around them. Remus stepped into the room, followed by Eloise who pointedly spoke the agreed words of;

"Thanks for helping me Remus you made me so happy." as she said the final word, every Gryffindor jumped out screaming their many happy returns, causing Remus' face to light up. He was astounded that everyone in their house had gone to this effort. Immediately, he was surrounded by James, Sirius, Peter, Eloise and a few of his other friends, who shoved food (chocolate based of course) and drinks into his outstretched hands. Someone put a record onto the record player and Golden Years by David Bowie who was, of course Remus' favourite muggle artist, boomed around the tower.

After much singing, dancing, screaming and raving, many of the Gryffindor's called it a night. The not so early hours of the morning consisted of Remus and his four best friends, sitting by the fire on one sofa, arms round one another, and a bottle of firewhiskey being passed around. They were drunkenly swaying, and tunelessly singing along to whatever was on the record player. Eloise closed her eyes and sighed happily, sat between Remus and James. She was content. One perfect, unforgettable evening had finally happened, without a dilemma, trauma or argument of any sort. It was a good life.