WARNING: IMPULSIVE CHAPTER (Please bear with me)
A/N: This is an impulsive special chapter. I just thought why not write one to celebrate Jily because they all lived happily ever after here! I am a firm non-believer in canon compliance. Canon is a social construct. So, here ya go!
°°°
Potions was one of Regulus' favourite subjects in Hogwarts. He could make something physically changing by just mixing a few magical items, making sure every step was intricately made, just how he liked to do things. He was even at the top of Slughorn's class, almost the same level as Severus Snape if one would compare.
He had read so many books about Potions solely because he liked it. Other than the Astronomy, of course.
However, the subject was starting to annoy him now. Well, technically it wasn't Potions that actually annoyed him. More like the people who were "helping" him finish one homework Slughorn gave.
"I almost got a perfect grade from Slughorn when we were making this Draught of Living Dead," Sirius insisted, pointing to Regulus' book. "So, trust your brother, Regulus. I know what I'm telling you," he added patting Regulus' shoulder.
"Yeah, after you almost blew up the whole room as well—"
Sirius interrupted the snickering James by tackling him down on the bed, causing the both of them to fall to the ground with a loud thud.
"Hush, the both of you!" Regulus hissed in exasperation. "If anyone finds out you four snuck into my room, you do realise you won't get the detention this time, do you?!"
It had been a year since everything happened. It was the Halloween of 1978, well, the night before. Regulus was finishing Slughorn's given homework that he couldn't perfect. He needed to for the sake of an Outstanding in their exam. And yet not a single one of all of his potions worked. One cauldron even exploded.
He tried everything. He made sure to follow the book. When that didn't work, he altered some ingredients. Still nothing. He searched for the other books, but still nothing.
Being a perfectionist must be in his skin. He couldn't just get rid of it despite slowly healing his trauma. It was as though etched in him to achieve the best.
Hence when he couldn't figure out why his dozens of batches of the Draught of Living Dead, he owled his brother. And being the best brother, Sirius came to the rescue. With three more backups.
Regulus only expected his brother in his animagus form to break into Hogwarts to help him. But of course, why was he even surprised to find the three other Marauders with Sirius? Peter was in his rat form whilst James and Remus his in the invisibility cloak.
He couldn't shoo them away either. It was risky enough to have graduated students in his room, it would be even riskier to have them wandering around the castle, trying to recount their good old days (that just ended, like, four months ago). At least, he would have them confined in his room.
And besides, Remus was there as well. At least he would be an actual help.
"Let's be honest, Snape was the one who perfected this potion," said Remus, flipping the page of Regulus' book while leaning against the poster of the bed. "No one else was able to do so except him."
"Yeah, but it's Snivellus. I am his brother," Sirius argued, sitting on the floor after wrestling with James.
"Why don't you ask Callie?" Peter suggested, snuggling on the edge of the bed. "She probably knows how."
"I didn't want to disturb her," he sighed, leaning back on his headboard. "She's busy enough with her own schoolwork. I don't want to add to that."
"Aww, what a good boyfriend you are," Sirius teased, poking his brother's cheek.
Regulus glared, swatting his hand away. It wasn't like he hated the fact of being called her boyfriend. He just hated it when Sirius would poke his nose in their business. He always just had to be there.
He was slowly disliking this sweet brother side of him. If he only knew Sirius would be this annoying, then he would've not made peace with him. Of course, that was what he would say. But deep down, Regulus never wanted to go back to their phase where the other didn't exist. He was happier now. No matter how annoying and childish Sirius might be.
"Quit it. I wouldn't have called you if you won't help."
His feisty remark only made Sirius grin wider.
"We really can't help much if you want perfection." James rose from the ground, leaning on the edge of the bed. "If you want to perfect it, the best you can ask for help is Snivellus or Callie."
Of course, he would rather ask his girlfriend for help than someone he wasn't close to. But then again...
"Callie is busy. I don't want to disturb her with my problem."
"How about this," Remus began, "you'll try one last time with how we did it last time. If it still fails, we'll just ask Callie how. Just ask how to do it, just that."
Regulus still wanted to say no. It was stressful enough as it was. And he knew how many schoolwork of Callie's were piling up. But then again, he wanted to perfect this potion so badly.
"Fine," he surrendered. "We'll try one last time. If it still doesn't work, we'll ask Callie. We won't disturb her."
"Yes, Mr. Protective," Sirius grinned again which earned another glare from his brother.
And so, an hour and a half was used to gather the ingredients and proceed with the steps of making the draught. Remus and Peter were the most helpful of all, of course. Sirius and James were, as well, albeit without their usual glare-worthy remarks.
"All right, last instruction. 'Stir seven times anti-clockwise'," Remus read from the book.
Regulus was peeking in it as well trying to see if he heard him right. Slowly, he stirred the cauldron, keeping in his mind how many times he had stirred.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Fi—
"I think you should stir it eight times," Sirius interrupted his counting, trailing Regulus off, trying to figure out how many times he had stirred already.
"What number was I at?" he asked, not minding Sirius because he was panicking even more that he forgot how many stirs he had done.
"Four?" "Three." "Seven." "Huh?" The Maraude.rs answered all at once.
An exasperated, shaky, exhausted sigh came out of Regulus. "None of you were helping." He resisted the urge to shout, keeping his teeth tightly gritted in annoyance.
This was the last step! The final step before they could complete the potion! But a mere small interruption to his counting sabotaged it.
"Is the cauldron supposed to bubble up?" Peter asked.
All their attention drifted to the, not bubbling but, boiling up cauldron. It was boiling brutally as though the potion wanted to escape something.
"I don't think it should," Remus answered, slowly getting anxious seeing the liquid harshly boil inside the cauldron.
"I think we should put water to calm it down." James stood to get a glass of water on Regulus' nightstand. Without question, he poured it into the cauldron.
Instead of calming it down, the boiling worsened.
And before they knew it, the cauldron exploded.
°°°
Callie leaned on the single couch in their living room. Her arms were crossed, chewing on her bottom lip as she tried to process what Remus told her.
"Come again?"
Remus sighed. "We were trying to make Draught of Living Dead and we were at the last step when someone," he darted a glare at Sirius, "interrupted Regulus' counting and caused the potion to boil. James thought water would stabilize it but it only worsened. Then it exploded. And it turned us into...well...kids."
"Right. And run your first decision is to come run to me instead of the professors?"
"We told you, the professors didn't know we were in Hogwarts." Peter raised his tiny hands in defence.
The Marauders plus Regulus were sitting across from her on their long couch. The five of them fit on there with their small bodies. They seemed to have shrunk ten years younger.
"Of course, they don't." She sighed in exasperation.
"They can stay here for a while," said Callie's mum as Mrs Sinclair walked into the living room, handing the boys a cup of juice she made in pumpkin-designed paper cups.
Callie's whole family knew the situation. Why wouldn't they when these boys appeared in the middle of their living room as they were preparing for the candies they would give to the kids for the trick-or-treat? That was why now, Mr Sinclair and Bria were in the kitchen doing that.
"Thank you, ma'am," the boys said as soon as they received the cups. Mrs Sinclair replied with a smile.
"We need your help, Callie," said James in a panicking tone. "Do you know any spell, any potions, any anything that would bring us back to our bodies?
She couldn't seem to take them all too seriously with how adorable they look looking like pocket-sized versions of their teen selves. Their voices hadn't even fully developed yet. She fought helplessly to strain a laughter or even a smile. But their adorable and funny situation didn't help.
"Well, there's the Engorgement Charm. Haven't you tried that?"
"We already tried," answered Regulus. "It didn't work."
"That's why we're here, Callie. Nothing we tried work!" Little Sirius exclaimed in exasperation. "None of the charms, not even any potion we know, nothing!"
"That's the only solution I know." Callie battled the urge to pull their cheeks or even bring out her cellphone to capture this cute moment. But she knew better than that.
"Can't you just help us, please?" Peter begged.
"Lo-ook," her voice cracked when a small laugh seeped through her lips. Callie cleared her throat to recompose herself. "I know that I know a lot of things about your world, but I don't know everything. Instead of coming here to me, asking me for help, you could've gone to Professor McGonagall or Professor Slughorn so he could make a potion to counter...whatever this is."
"But we can't!" Sirius threw his hands in the air. "They would catch us."
"And that's worse than staying as seven to eight years old kids?"
"Yes," the Marauders said in unison.
Of course. They probably knew best the wrath of the Professors, especially if they had seen that for seven years.
"Well, you can't stay like that," no matter how cute you guys look, she wanted to add but refrained from it.
"And the professors can't see us like this," James retorted.
This made Callie sigh and recline on their couch. Regulus somehow felt guilty for making his girlfriend stress about this problem. They should be looking for the solution themselves. Alas, they had tried everything for this but nothing worked. And everything else was too dangerous to even try.
But now that he was thinking about it, it was a bit weird with that body of his that Callie was his girlfriend. Even if his real age didn't reflect in his current body, it still looked weird that his seven-year-old body was in a relationship with a seventeen-year-old girl.
"You have to go back," Callie insisted.
"We can't go back," Sirius argues.
"Yes, you ca—"
"Trick or treat!" A chorus of kids called outside the Sinclair residence.
"I'll get that!" Bria said, running to the door with a bowl of sweets in her hands.
The door swung open, revealing five kids in either, ghost, skeleton, witch, Batman, or Spiderman. They all wore cute, wide smiles, holding their pumpkin buckets. Bria happily gave them an equal amount of candies one by one before they ran off, thanking everyone they saw inside the house.
They were adorable. And they all looked like they were the same age as the Marauders. Well, their shrunken version.
"Well, I have an idea." Mrs Sinclair's sudden suggestion made the six turn their heads to her. "Why don't you go out for a trick-or-treat?" Her wide grin resembled trouble. Mrs Sinclair may sound as though she was giving a suggestion yet her smile said otherwise.
"Um, no thank you, Mrs Sinclair," Regulus politely declined, rather nervously.
Yes, Mrs Sinclair had proved time and time that she was a kind mother. Kind and supportive. Too supportive at times. And this was probably one of those times.
"Well, the day when you shrink may not come again. So, why not try and dress up for Halloween? Knock on doors asking trick or treat?" The woman was really pushing it.
"Mom," Callie tried to warn, knowing there was no stopping her mother.
"What? I'm saying why will we waste this cute opportunity for them to dress up?"
"Really, Mrs Sinclair, it's not necessary," Remus insisted as well with that nervousness beneath his voice.
"Why not? I've got the perfect costumes for all of you." She had always wanted a son, yet the universe gave her two daughters instead. But now, she had these four cute boys who at first glance seemed to be no older than ten years old.
"Mom," Callie sighed.
But Mrs Sinclair wouldn't give up. Nope. No, no. She finally had the opportunity to dress up cute little boys. She wouldn't let them get away this Halloween night.
And the Marauders would do anything not to be her little mannequins. Yeah, it might not be too bad. But they were grown-ups already! Yeah, sure, they were in the bodies of kids, but they were already adults, except for Regulus who was still seventeen by then-- but that was beside the point! They were fully grown adults, they wouldn't wear silly little costumes for silly little kids--
°°°
Callie sighed as she waited for the door to open.
Peter was dressed in a rat onesie, James was a deer, Remus was a wolf, Sirius was a dog, and Regulus was a cat. And Callie was a bunny.
They all wanted to sink into the ground out of embarrassment. But they couldn't run away when Mrs Sinclair was just behind them. She was the adult accompanying these kids on a Trick-Or-Treat.
So, they had to wait for the door to open.
"Knock again," said Sirius, pulling the hoodie of the onesie to hide his face, hoping that no one would see the embarrassing situation they were in right then.
Of course, no one would suspect that these five kids were grown-up guys already. Their bodies were too little for that.
James took the initiative to knock again on your door.
When you opened the door, they looked up to you with wide smiles and asked,
"Trick or treat!"
°°°
A/N: I didn't know why I did the last part. But yeah, they're asking you!
Anyways, excuse this special chapter. I just wrote this in a day while doing my midterms reviewer. So, please, I hope you didn't expect too much or I disappointed you. It really was just like a special chapter that just, I don't really know XD. This is barely edited as well so I'm so so so sorry!
But yeah, I don't want to celebrate Halloween crying over their tragedy BECAUSE THEY LIVED HERE! And that's what matters. Lily was supposed to be here because she survived Halloween as well! But I didn't know where to put her. I'm sure she wouldn't agree to the Marauders sneaking into Hogwarts right after they graduated. And she would probably have thought of a counter-potion so that would defeat the whole purpose of this chapter.
Also, the Marauders + Reggie managed to go back to their original bodies the next day.
Anyway. I was trying to write another fic again, Reggie-centered but I don't know why, I haven't been able to write these past months ever since I finished TTFW. So, I can't promise you that I will be able to post that soon. Plus, college is something else. I always had to stay up late for it and I barely had any time to read or write, so there's that.
Updates about editing! I had gone through a few chapters and maybe I would start editing soon. But as I've said, it's midterm exams season so I can't give a definitive date when I'll start uploading the updated versions.
So, yeah. Have a good day or night! Happy Halloween everyone!