Hello, apparently I cannot stick with one fandom, so here's a marauders era fic. Also, it is a part of a 30 day writing challenge, so I'm going to post daily. Hopefully I will succeed.
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REMUS NEVER LIKED group projects on Herbology. Like... he loved his friends, he considered their jokes funny and the time that he spent with them was almost always worth breaking the rules and then getting detention, but...
Well, he also liked education. Especially that it was his seventh year in Hogwarts and he really did think that learning Herbology was more important than James's heart problems.
Didn't matter that he probably wouldn't mind any of that if not for the fact that just the day before McGonagall stopped him after a lesson and told him that 'he was smart and collected and she trusted him, especially that he was a prefect, but he should also consider sitting away from his friends during the lessons cause they seem to distract him'.
Remus wasn't going to do that, obviously, but he also felt a twinge of guilt when he thought about his upcoming NEWTs and his possible lack of required knowledge when it came to passing them.
"...and so I've decided that I need to change my tactics if it comes to Evans." Finished finally James, who - caught up in his monologue - was pretending to dig in the ground for almost five minutes now.
"And I thought you were over that... I mean her." Said Sirius rolling his eyes and then glancing at Remus with a gaze that probably meant something like 'here goes another half an hour of our lives'.
"Really?" James sighed and finally gave up his try to even so much as pretend to do something. "How long have we known each other? Seven years?" He shook his head and added with an over dramatic voice. "You act like you were merely my acquaintance, while you're almost like my brother." He stated and Sirius took a deep breath.
"That's some heavy stuff, right there." Commented Peter, who - along with Remus - was actually more focused on the lesson, at least until now.
Sirius nodded his head with agreement.
"Okay." He said despite that. "Then what kind of elaborate tactics did you come up with?" He asked and James swallowed, his smile right back on his face.
"Why did you do that?" Remus huffed under his breath, his voice ironic. "Now he won't stop until like dinner time." He commented and James squinted his eyes.
"Don't you say stuff like that or I'll keep talking about it until bedtime." He threatened him and Remus laughed slightly at that, accompanied by Sirius's silent huff.
"He ain't kiddin'." Sirius commented in his cowboy accent, leaning on his shovel and glanced at Remus blinking at him slightly. "You better listen or you'll be dead before noon." He said, on which Moony answered.
"It's noon already." He pinpointed, but Sirius only shrugged and, correcting his imaginary cowboy hat, answered.
"It's always before noon where I come from." He nodded his head, keeping up the cowboy facade. "Yeah, where I come from sometimes it's the middle of the night, but then suddenly someone shots and boom! It's before noon again! And then we have to go and fetch cows even though we should be sleeping. And once it was evening, but my grandfather died from a heart attack and bam! It was noon again." He finished finally and Remus answered, trying to hold back his laughter.
"You come from Islington, do you want to tell me you had cows on Grimmauld Place?" He asked, but Sirius only shook his head, though it was visible that it was getting hard for him not to laugh.
"Oh, I don't expect you to understand, young man." He took a deep breath, but he still couldn't stop himself and the last sentence said laughing. "Only a true Islingtoner can understand." He commented and Remus shook his head.
He sometimes hated Black for how easily he could manage to make him laugh. Like this joke - it was really hardly even a joke, it was just dumb. But yet, even though James and Peter were just looking at Sirius a bit amused, but mostly confused, Remus felt an ominous urge to start laughing really loud.
Sometimes he actually understood what all those girls saw in Padfoot. Not that he saw it himself, but he understood it. Kinda. Well...
But before he got to get deeper into that, James finally managed to cut into that conversation.
"So." He said, a bit too loudly, on which Remus kinda sobered up and realised that he stopped working when Sirius started his monologue, so he quickly came back to what he was doing before. "As I just said I have a reason to believe that me and Lily are indeed soulmates." He explained. "But I have to make her believe that as well."
Remus sighed on that. He actually wasn't sure whether it was true. He never saw James's soulmate mark - not that he wanted to, it would probably be very awkward as soulmates mark weren't something that you just showed to anyone.
He himself never told anyone what was on his soulmate mark and ever since he got it on his sixteenth birthday he started to actually wear more long sleeved shirts and if not those than a watch or something like that to cover it up.
It appeared on a different body part to everyone. He got his on a wrist - and he was lucky that it was short, cause otherwise he would have a big problem - but he was pretty sure that, for example James, got his on his ankle as he sometimes would pull up his right pant leg and look at it, when he was in their dormitory.
Lily however, Remus was almost sure of that, got hers on her neck cause she started to wear almost only turtlenecks ever since her sixteen birthday - and, even when she didn't wear turtlenecks, she always found another way to cover her neck.
Anyway, everyone had their marks somewhere else and almost everyone did their best to cover them - cause like, who would want any random person to know what will be the first romantic thing you'll hear from your soulmate? Surely not Remus, and apparently no one else he knew. Most people didn't share at all what their soulmates mark read, at least not before actually finding their soulmate.
"Okay, but what if you're not?" Asked Remus, playing the 'objective, boring guy' once again. "Like, is your soulmate mark something like 'I Lily Evans, love you deeply'?" He asked and James scratched his neck, visibly uncomfortable.
"No." He answered slowly. "But it's pretty apparent on ahm... the situation. And the situation is clearly just like mine with Evans." He said and Remus honestly didn't feel convinced at all.
He just frowned slightly, but finally didn't say anything, letting Sirius take the lead in the conversation.
"Let's say that I believe you." He stated and James frowned at that.
"Bro, don't you trust me?" He huffed. "Am I supposed to believe that I really am only an acquaintance for you?" He asked and Sirius shrugged, though he glanced at Remus with a mischievous grin.
"Well, you are..." Sirius pretended to be wondering. "A close acquaintance." He declared and nodded to himself, his expression almost serious. "You upgraded last week when you gave me your potions homework." He decided and James opened his mouth.
"Sirius?" He said, his voice fake-sad. "Ehem, well anyway." He came back to the topic pretty fast, evidently not wanting to waste anymore time.
Remus felt a hint of disappointment, cause he already got ready for another one of Sirius's shows of weird - but actually kind of funny - sense of humor. He just came back to work on the project though and started to listen to James.
"I've been thinking about it and though I almost gave up lately I recently realised that perhaps I've been looking at all of this from the wrong perspective." He declared and Remus glanced at Sirius, who, oddly enough, glanced back at him and they smiled at each other knowingly.
"That wasn't too fast." Commented Moony silently and James glared at him, but simply continued.
"So, I actually wanted to ask you." He pointed at Remus who raised his eyebrows in a questioning gesture. "To help me." He said and Sirius snorted.
"I thought I was like a brother for you." He interrupted, but James only waved his hand dismissively and said with an ignorant voice.
"You are merely my close acquaintance, remember?" He said and then, before Sirius got to interrupt him again, added. "Moony, you're friends with Lily." He stated.
Remus frowned, but didn't say anything, so he just nodded.
"So, you should tell me what she likes." Prongs decided. "And maybe tell her something good about me? Like you know about my abs or my quidditch skills." He said with a thoughtful expression.
Remus sighed loudly and without too long a time of wondering, said, his voice confident, maybe even slightly sarcastic.
"I think she already knows enough about that." He stated for a moment pausing his work and leaning into James's side. "Mary kept her tuned when you were with her." He reminded and Potter frowned.
"Who's Mary?" He asked and Sirius snorted.
"That's the one who kept coming to you cause, as she said, she had nightmares, but really she only wanted an excuse to sleep with you." He said, his expression mocking, but this time James didn't lose a beat and cut off quickly.
"Well, you shouldn't be the one to say, Maggie sleeps with you every other night." He said and Sirius took a deep breath to probably retort loudly, but before he got to do that a loud voice of professor Sprout interrupted him.
"Class!" She shouted loudly and everyone slowly went silent. "Thank you." She said when both Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were already looking at her. "It's the end of the lesson. You can clean everything up. We will continue the projects on the next lesson!" She declared. "I'll see you in a week!" Sprout finished finally.
A few people answered her, but the majority started talking again. And so, before Sirius got to say anything, James spoke quickly.
"So, Remus, if you could talk to Evans about me? Just a bit?" He asked, his voice desperate and though Moony felt an urge to retort, he stopped himself as he didn't really want to continue that topic anymore. "Maybe find out what she doesn't like about me specifically so I can stop doing that?" He asked and Remus only nodded his head, feeling defeated.
Sirius, however, didn't have any scruples and said smoothly.
"You could start from calling her Lily instead of Evans." He pinpointed and James glared at him, but Remus only glanced at Sirius with a small, thankful smile.
He even wanted to ask him whether he'd like to maybe come and learn with him that evening - and he rarely did that, cause Sirius got distracted easily - but before he got to do that, the four of them suddenly heard a high, confident voice coming from Remus's right side.
"Black." Said a girl from Hufflepuff, Maggie, smiling at the Gryffindor in a witty way. "Ready to shake that ass for me?" She asked and Sirius laughed at her.
"White." He answered and Remus sighed deeply.
He didn't mind Maggie, he liked Maggie, actually. But the way that Sirius acted when she was around had something disturbing in it. He wasn't even sure what, like he didn't act very different. Maybe it was the fact that he was with Maggie for almost half a year now and Remus felt like it was... odd. And maybe he was worried that Maggie just wasn't the one for him, cause she was... well, Maggie. And if Sirius was with her for so long then he had to feel something strong towards her and Remus didn't want his heart to be broken.
Yeah, that was it, that had to be it.
"I was born ready." Finally finished Sirius and, coming to Maggie to catch her hand, he threw it to his friends. "I'll be back when I'm back, don't wait for me." He said and Remus felt really uncomfortable with those words.
James however shouted simply.
"We weren't going to!" And after that Sirius only snorted under his breath and talking silently to Maggie, left the rest of the Marauders behind to clean up alone.
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Even I don't know what's the deal with Sirius's cowboy accent.
I'll try to update daily and because of that I'm not going to proofread as much as I'd like to. So feel free to point out my mistakes. Also reviews are very much welcome :)