The Marauders: Year One

"Do you know that you're holding that upside down?" Remus asked Peter, gesturing to his ancient runes textbook, which Peter was attempting to read. Peter began to blush and turned the book right side up, knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to read it that way either. Remus didn't mind that Peter couldn't read ancient runes. He knew Peter was just trying to relate to him and be friendly by pretending that he was as well read as Remus was. Unfortunately for Peter, in Remus' mind, nobody was as well read as Remus Lupin.

"You certainly have a lot of books, Remus. You've got more than my mum has," Peter said, placing the ancient runes textbook back on the pile sitting in between the two boys and picking up another, this one about different types of dragons and where they could be found. Peter wasn't overly interested in dragons, he just wanted a book written in English. Peter had never been the best reader. Perhaps it was because he'd never had many books. His family was rather poor and couldn't afford even as many books as Remus seemed to have just in his bag. Peter lived with his mother, who, though he wouldn't say this to her, he was glad to be gone just so she could not have to buy food for him and could save a bit of money. It had nearly broken their bank just to get Peter's supplies.

"Well, when you've got nothing better to do than read you tend to build up quite a library," Remus said, flipping the page of the arithmancy book that he'd read through twice since buying it. He knew it wasn't even possible to take arithmancy until at least second year, but Remus hadn't be able to help himself upon entering the bookstore at Diagon Alley. His father and mother had never had a problem with him buying books. Any excuse to keep him in the house was a good excuse in their mind.

"Nothing better to do?" Peter asked.

"Yeah...I...er...I'm just not a very social person," Remus said, wondering if Peter had caught the apprehension in his voice. He didn't seem to, as he just nodded and continued reading about Silver Ridgebacks from the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia.

A few cars up from where Peter and Remus were reading, Sirius and James were beginning to feel bad about what they'd done, not that it hadn't been uproariously funny. It was James who was feeling worse than Sirius, who had never been one for regrets, even at the young age of eleven.

"I still think we should find him and say sorry," James said. "I know it was funny and all, but we really let the poor sod have it."

"So you're going all bleeding heart on me then, eh?" Sirius grumbled, taking a bite out of a chocolate frog and taking the card out of the box. "Bugger it...Slytherin again..."

"Give me a couple of those," James said, pointing towards the piles and piles of unopened chocolate frogs that Sirius had bought when the snack witch had been by earlier. Sirius just gave a heavy sigh and tossed four or five frogs onto James' lap.

"Hungry, are we?" Sirius asked, opening another box. "Bugger it! Do they just put Slytherin in the ones I buy?!"

James, without saying anything, tucked the frogs into his pockets and opened the compartment. Sirius knew he was going to go and give them to Remus, no matter what he said, so he decided that, rather than be bored and alone while eating his candy, he would just go with. Scooping the remaining boxes, which numbered somewhere in the high twenties, into his arms, he exited the compartment himself through the door that James had mercifully left open, and followed after him.

The two boys, just Sirius really, trudged along, their arms full of candy, partly to give as reparations, and partly to eat for themselves. James quickly found the compartment that Remus and Peter were reading in and slid the door open.

"Peter! Its them!" Remus said, drawing his wand. Peter threw Remus' book on dragons into the air and drew his own wand, before being struck on the head with the book and dropping it. Remus looked back to see his ally groping amongst piles of books for his wand and stood himself.

"We just want to give you candy! Honest!" James said, raising his hands in surrender. Sirius rose his as well and dropped ever single chocolate frog in his hands. This brought the count, between books and frogs, of things on the floor up to something around fifty-seven.

"They seem nice enough to me Remus," Peter said, quickly dipping low and picking up a few frogs before turning to the new boys. "I'm Peter."

"Peter! No!" Remus said, slapping Peter's hand with his wand, causing him to drop the frog he was holding. "They're probably drugged."

"Relax, mate," Sirius said. "The only thing wrong with those is that they're all full of Salazar Slytherin cards."

Remus quickly turned to Peter, who'd picked up the frog again and nodded, indicating for him to eat it and make sure it wasn't drugged. Peter was only too happy to oblige, and quickly ate the frog. Remus looked him over quickly to make sure he wasn't falling into pieces, melting, or breaking out in hives. He seemed alright, so Remus relaxed and put his wand away.

"That was a pretty dirty trick you pulled on me on the platform," Remus said, sitting back down and gesturing for Sirius and James to sit across from he and Peter.

"Hence the candy," James said. At that moment, the door flew open again, and a redheaded girl stood in the door. The girl quickly looked through the room with a slight look of disgust and then sighed.

"They said to have everyone get their robes on," she said, turning up her nose at the messy compartment and the scruffy boys within before turning on her heel and walking away. While three of the boys, Remus, Sirius, and Peter began shuffling around for their robes, James just sat, staring hard at the door. Sirius got up to go back to the original compartment and get his robes, and noticed James staring at the door.

"Oi! James! Robes? We left them in the other compartment, let's go!" Sirius prompted, hoping to snap James out of whatever was going on in his head. He saw James startle, shake his head, and then stand up.

"Er...yeah," James breathed, coming back to reality. "Let's go get our robes."

"You know, James," Sirius began as they walked, "If I didn't know any better I'd say you fancy the redhead..."