The Marauders: Year Seven Part One

Magnificoooooooo Distractions

"I think it is absolutely ridiculous," she said grabbing onto his arm, "Come along."

"I mean, bloody Prongsy's got the teeth for it, of course," Sirius was saying as McGonagall dragged him down the hall. "All crooked and such, I mean, like Freddy's... But I've got the camp factor. I doubt anyone in the earth is as gay as I am except perhaps Freddy fucking Mercury."

McGonagall had reached her office door way, Sirius in tow (hadn't she closed it behind her when she'd left? perhaps not, in such a rush to catch Sirius Black in the act she must have forgotten), "In," she commanded.

Sirius bowed, "After you, Minnie, my love."

She glowered at him, then stepped inside as he bowed and waved her onward. As her back disappeared within, he glanced down the hallway, where James had lowered the invisibility cloak to give Sirius a thumbs-up... signaling that Moony had made it through the floo. Sirius grinned, then turned to enter the office. "Would you like to hear another song? The band is called Queen," he said, throwing himself into the chair opposite her desk so that his legs flailed over the arm of it, "There's one, it's only just come out this very week, Minnie, but I'm divinely obsessed with it - it goes --" and he quickly dropped his foot to the floor of the office, stamping twice, then clapping, "Buddy, you're a boy, make a big noise, playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday - you got mud on your face, you're a big disgrace, kickin' your can all over the place, singin' ---"

"SPEAKING of disgraces..." McGonagall interjected, and the door slammed shut, cutting off what Lily and James could hear of the conversation that followed.

James covered his mouth, his shoulders shaking with laughter, as Lily snorted loudly, pressing her face into James's shoulder, tears in her eyes, "Bloody hell," he wheezed, "Sirius Black does not go halfway when he makes a diversion, that's for sure!"

Lily could scarcely breathe. "I would say not."

"I didn't know he could hit a note that high - Galileo, Galileo..." James was in tears now, too, and Lily snorted a couple more times as she dissolved against him, and the rushed away to join Peter, who was working at levitating Sirius's record player back up to the Marauder's dormitory, before heading downstairs to begin the distraction for Remus's return floo...

Ned Veigler sat at the long table in the library at Fallengunder, pouring over a very oversized book, when there came a scraping and popping from his fireplace. He looked up just in time to see Remus Lupin come falling through, sending soot and cinders flying about in a swirling glow of bright green flame. Remus spun about on his bottom like a top, skidding several feet across the floor, clutching his knees as though he'd cannon-balled through the network, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Ned stood up, hurrying over, grasping Remus's elbow to help him to his feet, and dusting him off. "Remus! What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at Hogwarts! Is everything alright, brother?" Ned's wooly beard seemed even thicker than ever, his eyebrows knit tightly together as he patted the soot from Remus's school uniform.

Remus coughed on the soot that had somehow got in his mouth - something that always seemed to happen to him, no matter how tightly he clamped his jaw. "I am supposed to be at Hogwarts," Remus said, "But I had to talk to you, it's urgent."

"You could've owled me, I could've come to you, you didn't have to floo all the way here -- how did you even --"

"Sirius distracted McGonagall, and we - we sort of hijacked her office," Remus explained, his cheeks flushing with the admission of wrongdoing, and before Veigler could insert a scolding, Remus plowed forward, "It's about all the Wolfsbane Potion that Dumbledore is brewing, a stolen vial."