The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Home Safe

Home Safe

The first snow came not long after Sirius's birthday. The boys were out on the grounds most of the day that day, forming snowballs to hurl across the lawns at unsuspecting victims, laughing and getting snowballs hurled back at them. Sirius's ridiculously long Gryffindor scarf wound about his neck and flapped along behind him as he ran after James, playing and kicking up the snow dusting as they went, bursting into their animagus forms at the edge of the Forbidden Forest the moment they were out of sight and running through the trees, paying a form of tag while Peter and Remus breathlessly took a seat on a log just inside the shadows, listening to the stag and the dog crashing through the trees beyond, barking and honking about.

The first Quidditch game - Slytherin versus Gryffindor - was coming up, too, and so James was spending a good deal of time on the pitch with his team, going over practice plays, which he was constantly coming up with at random all over the castle. They'd be sitting at dinner and he'd suddenly launch across the table and grab the quill out of Remus's pocket (Remus always had a quill in his pocket) and start scribbling on the back of his hand a load of X's and O's that indicated movements of the players... "Yeah, yeah, excellent, yeah!" he'd mutter, scribbling along.

"You know, that's not healthy," Lily Evans said, looking over from her jacket potato one evening as he did it. "Did you know they can pull those marks out of your skin years and years later? Iodine will make them show right up, clear as day! I saw a documentary about it once on the telly. They never really go away..."

"Brilliant! So if I wash it off in the toilet before I write it down I won't lose it?" James exclaimed, "Iodine you say? Shall I just bathe in it?"

Lily rolled her eyes, "You'd look like you'd fallen in an inkpot!"

James smirked.

"Careful Potter, she might see how many times you've written Mr. Lily Evans on yourself in Potions," Sirius snickered.

"I don't even!" James haucked a bit of bread at Sirius's head and rolled his eyes. He looked at Lily, "I don't," he added firmly.

"Do you draw little flowers with it too? And hearts?" Lily teased, elbowing him.

James turned red, "Bloody hell."

Sirius hooted with laughter.

Meanwhile, the castle was preparing for the holidays, as well as quidditch. Hagrid had started bringing in trees and putting them up about the castle to settle before they were to be decorated by magic. The suits of armor were strung with wreaths and Father Christmas caps and, per tradition, Sirius stood outside Professor McGonagall's classrooms late at night training the nearest knight to sing.

"No, no, mate," he said, next day, pausing outside of the Transfiguration classroom in the third week of November, "It's not Voldemort can duck my brick - that doesn't even make sense. What do you reckon, I'm to be chucking a brick at him? I mean it's not a terrible idea, but that's not how the song goes. It's Voldemort can suck my ---"

"MR. BLACK!" McGonagall stood in the doorway of her classroom, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, staring at him.

Sirius looked back at her, then up at the armor again, "If you'd just got it right the first time we wouldn't be in trouble right now, you bloody idiot bit of rusty tin!"

He was in trouble with Lily Evans before long, too. She marched up to him in the common room one night, an angry look about her face. "Sirius Black," she said sternly and he looked up from the game of wizards chess he was playing with James. "You're a prat."