Epiphany

6 ~ A Meal of A Warning

Albus Dumbledore stepped to the front of the hall and loudly cleared his throat, silencing everyone including James and the Marauders. The sorting ceremony had finished moments ago and, like they did every year, the James, Sirius, Remus and Peter attempted to guess what the sorting hat would say before it said it. As always, Remus had the most correct guesses, followed shortly by James.

"Welcome to all first years, and welcome back to all second years and above." Dumbledore greeted in his welcoming voice, "Before we begin our meals, the Ministry wishes me to announce that Voldemort's Death Eaters have been looking for a way inside of Hogwarts, and therefore five aurors have been appointed to guard the grounds with the possibility of more being sent. One will guard each common room as well as the teacher's dorms after lessons have finished and a curfew has been put in place-"

All students groaned in unison at this, Sirius possibly the loudest.

"-however!" Dumbledore continued, the room once again falling silent, "Considering that Hogwarts boasts of being the most secure place in all of the British Wizarding World, even more so than Gringotts Bank, I am certain that there will be no interruptions throughout the year."

"If we're lucky, Death Eaters will invade during history of magic." Sirius whispered to James, who couldn't help but feel that Dumbledore wasn't as confident as he sounded.

"I only have three words more to say: winklepicker, grommet, agelast." Announced Dumbledore, and with that he waved his hand and all the plates were filled with students' favourite food.

Upon James' plate sat the same toad-in-the-hole he ate every entrance feast, it was his mother's recipe and to him it was unarguably the best food there ever was. He immediately dug in, as did everyone else excluding Remus. Moony had gone as pale as a sheet and James spotted a slight tremor in his hands. Just as he was about to comfort him, Sirius beat him to it, placing his hand on top of Remus'. James couldn't hear what Padfoot was saying, but he was proud of his friend for stepping up to the task and was satisfied to contiue eating.

Once he had finished his meal, James snuck a glance down the table at Lily. She looked bored out of her mind, but, alas, James could do nothing to lighten the mood. He was surprised to find himself compelled to help her, not long ago they were arguing, but he put it down to the fact that he simply regretted his inability to be her friend, and that Snivellous' deal had confused him. Apparantly his glance hadn't been as subtle as he had hoped, because Sirius was smirking at him.

"Is our Jamesy in looove?" He teased. James rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"Is our Sirius an idiot?" He replied. "You know I can't stand Lil- Evans." The slip-up only led to more joking from Padfoot.

"Anyway," Interrupted Remus, changing the subject, "I've heard rumours that a certain McKinnon plans to dethrone us as the school's best prankers..."

The conversation that followed consisted of many ideas for an opening prank, including, but not limited to: polyjuice potions of Dumbledore in the water supply, transfiguring the moving staircases into slides or freeing whatever beast they were meant to fight in Defense Against The Dark Arts. Eventually they settled on an idea that, according to Remus, was "Utterly idiotic", which meant it was perfect.

When the Gryffindor prefects led them to their common room, The Marauders were restless with excitement, excepting Peter and Remus, who were pleased enough. In short, James and Sirius were as insufferable as always. Outside the common room stood a tall, fierce looking woman with short brown hair and mischief in her eyes. Immediately, James recognised her as one of his mother's friends, Lena Strix.

"Jamie!" Strix exclaimed as James and the other Marauders approached the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. Remus raised an eyebrow as Strix pulled James into an uncomfortable hug. "What are the chances that I'd get assigned the common room of my godson!"

James internally groaned. He could handle spending a few hours with the enthusiastic witch at Christmas, but a whole year of 'Jamie' sounded unbareable. "Slim." He replied through his teeth, "How lucky of me."