The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

O.M.T.L.I.N.O.A.A.

O.M.T.L.I.N.O.A.A.

Sirius and James agreed with Remus after the first Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Professor Gaunt that there was something very weird about him. The Professor had taught them various hexes and jinxes that could potentially be used against them in a duel, as he had worded it, rather than teaching them how to stop these jinxes and hexes, he actually performed them, using a spider as his target. Sirius had stared in disbelief as Gaunt had extracted it's corpse from the waste bin and magicked it back to animation despite it being quite squashed and dead when he had pulled it out of the bin.

"I mean it was a fucking inferius spider," Sirius said to Frank at the lunch table as he threw a handful of crisps into his mouth. "And he did some pretty nasty things to it, too."

"I didn't like the way he kept saying my name," James said. "Potter." He spat the name out like it tasted bad, the way Gaunt had done it. "Like bloody hell, man, must you be so intense?"

Remus said, "There's definitely something off balance there." He waved his fingers at his temple to indicate the stability of Gaunt's mind.

"A fucking loop-de-loop of mental ambiguity!" Sirius announced, nodding.

Frank said, "He sounds like a real delight. I hope Urquart gets back soon.

"Urquart is the best," James said firmly, nodding.

"Minnie certainly thinks so," muttered Sirius.

They all looked at him.

He realized then that he hadn't told any of them about the time he'd walked in on Minerva McGonagall kissing the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. "Okay, look, if I tell you this," he said lowly, "You can't tell anyone else. This ends up all over the school and I'll hex every one of you arseholes so hard your clothes'll be out of style by the time you recover." Sirius looked Peter over. "Well, your clothes are already out of style but maybe they'll be back in style by then."

Peter turned red.

But they quickly gathered about to hear the tale that Sirius had to tell, and soon they forgot about the discussion on the oddness of Professor Gaunt's teachings...

To say that Sirius had other thing on his mind would've been an understatement anyway. Sirius had loads of concerns that had nothing to do with Professor Gaunt - for instance, worrying bout Minnie herself and how she was up there in Faere Dhu where he'd left her, and thinking about how weird Regulus had been acting the other day in the hall. He was worried about Remus, whose arm was still healing from the Full Moon, and he was concerned, too, because James Potter had sustained a gash on his chin that was turning into a scar and for some reason this mark deeply bothered Sirius and he kept trying to magic it away and James was getting annoyed by him poking and prodding at his chin. And on top of all of that, too, beyond everything else even, he was concerned about the issue with Lily Evans.

On 12 November, a Friday, Sirius sat down next to Lily on the bench in the library, back-to the table, elbows balanced on the table top. He cleared his throat and rolled his head back to look at her as she tried to ignore him for the good deal of potions books that covered the table. "You should tell him," Sirius said.

Lily looked up, shoving a handful of hair over her ear. "What?" she asked, pretending she didn't know.

Sirius nodded at James across the room, where he was leaning over a table talking to McKenna, smiling brightly as he shoved his glasses up his nose as he flushed a little. "I saw you staring," he said, smirking, "You're as green as your eyes, Evans."