A Really Bad Idea

Sirius skidded into the Great Hall before the rest of them and swooped over to Twyla.

"Love potion for me, darling?" He grinned.

"Sirius!" she said in a loud whisper. "Firstly, my boyfriend is sitting right over there," she pointed to the Hufflepuff table.

"What?" Sirius laughed. "He’s a Hufflepuff? And here I was remotely concerned!"

Twyla glared at him.

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry," Sirius said contritely...sort of. "And secondly...?"

"Secondly, what if Snape was sitting in here? Don’t you think he’d notice-"

"But he isn’t, right?"

"Yes, but you didn’t even check, so you can just thank your risky Gryffindor stars that-"

"Gotta hurry- before he comes!" Sirius said in mock panic.

"Oh, Chris-mas," Twyla said, and pulled a little vial out of her pocket. "You’re such a man, Sirius. I hate it."

"But you still want me," Sirius said, taking the vial from her. The contents were mildly warm and tar-colored. He sneered.

"Ew."

"I know," Twyla said, grimacing. "I’m glad I don’t have to drink it. Number of drops for number of days. It’s very strong- same thing Bellatrix gave to Lily, he had some left over anyway. He left it to me to get a hair or something like that because he apparently doesn’t want ‘anything to do with Potter this year,’ said you can add it anytime. He also instructed me, ‘just don’t give it to my table partner in Potions because that was really annoying last time.’ I told him I was going to give it to a gnome or something in DADA to make James’s life miserable."

"Good one," Sirius laughed. "Maybe we should use that idea later. Use it on Snape, I mean. Not James, of course-"

"And one more thing!" Twyla interrupted. "Later, when all this goes to hell in a hand basket, I want you to say that you stole it from me by force, okay?"

"As opposed to stealing it with consent...?"

"Oh, stop being so difficult."

"Alright, baby, I’ll tell him I stole it from you- by force." He somehow managed to make the last two words extremely suggestive.

Twyla giggled, corrected herself, shook her head, rolled her eyes, and resolutely turned away from him.

-

"Why doesn’t her boyfriend mind that?" Peter asked curiously, as the others watched Sirius obviously flirt with Twyla.

"I think he hasn’t actually figured it out," James said. "He’s a Hufflepuff, you know: loyalty, blind faith, etcetera."

Sirius sauntered back over to the group and they sat down at the Gryffindor table.

"Well?" asked James.

"Did she forget it?" Remus asked hopefully.

Sirius looked over at him quizzically. "No."

"Shoot," Remus said, and he put his head back on the table.

"Anyway, it’s right here." He pulled the vial out of his pocket.

"Ew," James said.

"I know," Sirius agreed. "We’re supposed to add a hair."

James pulled a piece of hair out of his head-rug with a lack of hesitation that would have shocked anyone with an ounce of caution in their minds.

"Put it in now?"

"Why not?" Sirius shrugged, and carefully opened the vial.

James put the hair in, frowning as it disintegrated in a sinister way, fizzing a little andcausing the liquid to heat up.

"Yeah. I’m really glad I don’t have to drink that," James said.

"Alright, then." Sirius stood up. "I’ll go put it in a random cup somewhere around the general area where I’m guessing Snape might sit."

"What?" Remus sat up rigidly.

James laughed.

"Well, you know, we’ve got to get it in him somehow."

"Please tell me there’s a better way than that," Remus begged.

"Better way?" James asked. "Who needs a better way? If we mess up, we can always try again. The worst that happens is someone else falls in love with me for a day or two. It doesn’t matter."

"Besides, this is the most exciting way!" Sirius said enthusiastically.

"And it’s probably going to be the most wildly hilarious way," James added, grinning evilly. "What if the whole Slytherin House was in love with me?" He and Sirius began to laugh hysterically, so Peter did too.

"Actually, this is the most risky, the most liable to fail, the most tactless, the most obvious, the most stupid, the most ineffective, the most unreliable-" Remus ticked off the list on his fingers.

"Oh, come off it, Prefect," Sirius said, and walked back over toward the Slytherin table.

"Padfoot!" Remus whispered loudly after him. He looked over at James and Peter. Peter was watching, wide-eyed. James was eating pancakes.

"Do I have to be the one to stop Sirius from getting us all expelled every time?" Remus asked, frustrated.

James shrugged. Peter nodded.

"Oh, bloody-" Remus stopped himself before he said any words Prefects weren’t supposed to say and climbed out of the bench. He ran to catch Sirius and grabbed him by the arm. "Knock it off, Sirius, this is completely irrational."

Sirius gave a girlish wail.

"The Prefect’s got me!" He feigned fainting.

"Padfoot pleeeaase," Remus said as discreetly as possible.

Sirius pouted mockingly. "Poor Loopy. No spine."

"Padfoot, if we get caught in one of these messes again, Lily will kill me. She’ll eat me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and then I’ll have to stand awkwardly in Dumbledore’s office while he looks me in the eyes and says he’s surprised at me, or disappointed, or that he’ll give me another chance because he has faith I can do what he’s asking me to- Sirius, you don’t understand how horrible that is. I- would- rather- die."

Sirius frowned at him.

"Dumbledore telling you he’ll give you another chance is worse than death?"

Remus nodded adamantly.

"Well, that can’t be true, or else you wouldn’t have let me put those exploding teacups in the divination tower last time," Sirius said lazily, walking away.

"Sirius, no, no, no!" Remus dragged on his arm.

"Honestly," Sirius said, "people are going to think we’re gay lovers."

Remus straightened and let go, horrified. Sirius walked away.

"Pompous, arrogant," Remus muttered, walking resignedly back to the others.

"Wow," said James. "That was... are you in love with him?"

"Oh, shut up," Remus said, irritated. James laughed, and of course Peter laughed too.

Remus watched with great trepidation as Sirius leaned casually against the wall by the Slytherin table. Twyla looked over at the marauders and mouthed, "What the hell is he doing?"

"What?" James mouthed back innocently, and Twyla screwed up her face angrily and went back to eating. She shot a glance at Sirius, who licked his lips and said something that, from across the room, appeared to be: I love it when you’re angry.

Snape came through the doors next to Rudolphus Lestrange, and Bellatrix Black brushed by them with mild disgust, shooting Rudolphus a venemous look. He whined something at her, she snapped something back, Snape said something wicked and she turned up her nose and sat down. Snape sat next to her, but was careful to leave one empty chair between them. Place settings appeared with food on them, and Sirius came over and said something annoying to Bellatrix so that she was too busy sneering her response and Snape too busy talking to Lestrange to notice that Sirius took Snape’s cup and discreetly slipped a few drops of the potion in it. Sirius finished his argument with Bellatrix as he set the cup back on the table. Bellatrix frowned after him and looked at the cup. She examined the contents with distaste.

"Hey, what does she think she’s doing?" James asked.

Remus shrugged.

Snape looked around for his cup, saw Bellatrix, and laughed at her. They began to snap nasty words at each other.

Sirius sat down. "Genius," he said.

"Not really," said James. "Look."

Sirius looked. "What are they doing?"

"See that cup that Bellatrix is holding?"

"Aw, come on, she has to know which side the cup goes on! Her parents would beat her with a ruler if she didn’t! How could she think that was her cup?"

"Apparently you flustered her," Remus said without much amusement.

Bellatrix set the cup down. Sirius pointed his wand at it and made it slide over by Snape. Then he made Bellatrix’s cup slide over closer to her. Remus couldn’t watch any more. He hid his head in his arms on the table.

Severus Snape, not being quite as stupid as it was convenient for Sirius to believe him to be, eyed the cups suspiciously. He switched his cup with Bellatrix’s. James started to laugh. Bellatrix glared at Snape and switched them back. He said something persuasive and switched them again. Bellatrix said something snobbish and- with great determination- switched the cups again. James was cackling his head off and Sirius was trying not to do the same.

"Snape will notice!" Peter whispered, and Sirius and James tried to contain themselves more.

Snape gave Bellatrix both of the cups.

"Shoot," Sirius said, not laughing anymore. "I don’t know which one’s which."

Bellatrix picked the one that looked the least dirty (and least Snape-contaminated) and drank out of it.

Sirius gaped at James. James gaped at Sirius. And they both laughed into their hands.

"Which one was that?" James asked.

"I have no idea," Sirius laughed.

"Lily! Lily’s coming in!" Peter squeaked. Meanwhile, Snape had gotten up to leave.

"I’ll go get him," James said, standing up.

Remus looked up with terror. "Go get him?!" he exclaimed.

"I’ll force-feed him."

"Prongs-!"

"Relax, Moony! Lord," James sighed with exasperation and left.

"We’re dead," Remus said hopelessly. "Dead."

James grinned at Lily and undressed her with his eyes twice. She completely ignored him.

He stepped out into the hall after Snape and slipped under his Invisibility Cloak.

"Stupefy," he said to the greasy boy’s back. Snape almost fell over, but James caught him, pulled out the vial, dropped a careless amount of drops down his throat, and made sure he swallowed. "Taste the irony?" he asked the unconscious boy, and then he dropped him.

"Bet you will later," he said, smirking. "Ennervate," he added as an afterthought, and walked back into the Great Hall, taking off his cloak as he went. He sat back down with the marauders in perfect calm.

"Hey, guys."

He began to eat his pancakes again.

"You did it?" Sirius asked.

"Yep."

"Well, that was easy," Peter said.

"Yeah," James said, "it was."

Lily was watching them. James saw her.

"Can’t stop looking at me, Evans? Can’t get enough?"

She turned away pointedly.

James pouted for a significant amount of time.

"Potions first thing in the morning is a sin," Sirius said. "I never want to think right after breakfast."

"But today it’s relatively handy," James said. "I’ll be curious to see if Snape can concentrate on his most esteemed subject when he’s madly in love with his worst enemy."

"Well, judging by how well Evans did when she was enamored with her teacher, I’m thinking no," Sirius said. He chuckled. "That was pretty funny."

"Hey!" James shot him a look.

"It wasn’t," Remus agreed.

"Don’t you remember?" Sirius tried to persuade them. "We were working on those Compound Potions with our table partners. She was cutting those roots and she grabbed the leaves too and started slicing them and Snape was trying to get the knife out of her hand because she was going to ruin the precious potion-"

"And then she put the knife in the cauldron!" Peter cut in excitedly.

"Glancing up at Slughorn nervously the whole time!" Sirius laughed.

James smiled reluctantly.

"Yeah, that was pretty funny," he admitted. "Don’t tell her I said that. Ever," he added.

"What- afraid she’d break up with you or something?" Sirius asked sarcastically.

"I just don’t want to ruin my chances," James insisted.

"As if you haven’t done that."

"Shut up."

They approached the Potions classroom.

"You should shake your hair out as we walk in," Sirius said evilly.

"No, I’m not going to act like a model. You’re forgetting that I don’t actually have to try. That’s what’s so great about love potions. Everything I do will be attractive."

They walked into the dungeon classroom and took their normal places. Remus looked nervous enough to throw up. Sirius watched Snape, but he didn’t look in their direction.

"Should I get his attention?" Sirius whispered.

James shook his head, calmly setting his book down on the table. Across the room, Remus was sitting with an attractive Gryffindor girl who thought he was extremely boring but sometimes sweet and therefore ‘adorable’ in the puppy sort of way, and Peter was cowering beside the rather large Slytherin he was always partnered with. Snape was sitting a little bit ahead of them- next to Lily.

Sirius fidgeted restlessly.

"Sit, Sirius," James commanded in a whisper.

Sirius held still, then looked angry. "Hey, that’s not fair. We didn’t even complete that animagus stuff yet and you’re already using it against me-"

James scratched him behind the ears.

After reveling in complete bliss for a few seconds, Sirius told James to cut it out and scooted away to the other end of the table.

Professor Slughorn called for attention at the front of the room. Lily was blushing and keeping he face relatively hidden, still embarrassed. Bellatrix apparently hadn’t forgotten either, since she was smirking and whispering to her table partner.

"So, today we are going to," Slughorn began and continued about what type of potion they were going to make, none of which Sirius or James paid any attention to. He asked some question or other to the class and James raised his hand the moment it was finished, out-racing even Snape.

Slughorn looked pleasantly surprised, if a little doubtful.

"James?" he said. Snape twitched a little and frowned.

"Sorry, sir," James said, "I was just stretching."

Snape went as rigid as a board and whirled around to face them, eyes round with what could easily be described as horror. He turned back around even more quickly. Slughorn frowned at James.

"Creative stretch, James. Would you like to give the answer a try?"

"No thanks, Professor. I think I’d blunder it embarrassingly," James said, obviously enjoying the fact that every word coming out of his mouth was making Snape grow visibly tenser.

"I believe you had your hand up, Severus?" Slughorn gave up on James.

"What?" Snape jumped. "No, I mean, I’m sorry sir, I forgot the question." His voice ended very meekly.

Lily was staring at him.

"I’ll answer it, professor," she offered, and proceeded to do so at a nod from Slughorn, who smiled without much reserve (no doubt pleased to see her answering questions and no longer staring at him like a stricken lover every time he spoke).

"Excellent answer, Miss Evans. Five points to Gryffindor for that." He beamed.

Bellatrix was no longer quite so self-satisfied.

Slughorn blah-blahed on for a while, Sirius and James intermittently grinning and chuckling, until directions for making the day’s potion appeared on the board.

"Want me to get the ingredients, Sirius?" James asked, obviously not trying to be quiet.

"Sure," Sirius said. "Is he hyperventilating?" he asked in an undertone, eyeing Snape. They started cackling hysterically.

Lily looked back at them and then asked Snape what was wrong. He said, through his teeth, "Nothing."

"Should I fall on him as I go down the stairs?" James whispered, restraining his wild laughter. Sirius almost fell out of his chair.

Slughorn looked mildly concerned, but decided he was too old to care and went back to whatever it was he was doing at his desk.

Lily was looking between the two tables. Remus was apparently about to die. He got out of his chair weakly, told his partner in a mad rush that he-could-get-the-ingredients-if-she-wanted-yes?-okay and desperately threw himself in James’s path. He smiled like a man reunited with an old friend after many years apart (assuming that said old friend was actually the grim reaper) and pulled James by a round-about path to a place where he could not possibly run into Snape. James looked completely calm and laughed at Remus.

"You’re weird." He smiled and ruffled Remus’s hair.

Lily suddenly appeared next to them, getting ingredients for herself and Snape.

The blood drained out of Remus’s face.

"What are you up to?" she asked James.

He smiled devilishly at her. "What am I not up to?"

Lily glared at him. "I mean it, James. Tell me, or you’ll be sorry when I find out, because I will."

"I’m up to nothing, alright?" he said, suddenly serious. "It’s not like I have any motivation in life, since the only girl I’ll ever love wants me to die."

Lily came very close to spitting in his face before he walked away.

"Remus," she started to say.

"Sorry, could you pass me one of those jars," he asked desperately.

"What are they up to?" she asked as she handed him the jar.

"Who?" he asked pathetically. "My partner’s getting impatient, sorry." He dashed off as fast as he could to his partner, who seemed to be lazily looking at her nails. Peter was already scurrying back to his table when she looked around for him. Aggravated, she sat back down next to Snape.

"What is wrong?" she asked.

"It’s nothing, okay?" he said.

"Fine. We’re not doing a Compound Potion today- I don’t care if you want to screw yours up." She began to grind her roots.

James sat down next to Sirius. "I have the greatest story to tell you, Sirius," James said in an unnecessarily loud voice- one that Snape could obviously hear, judging by the tightness of his shoulders. "And it’s really long, so I can just talk for the whole class period if that’s okay with you."

"Sure, it’s not like I’ve got anything interesting to say." Sirius grinned.

"Well, the other day, when I was coming back from divination, I found five galleons just sitting on the floor. Naturally, I wanted to find out who they belonged to, so that I could flaunt the fact that I had them now," James rambled.

Snape shivered, convulsed, and locked himself stiffly into his previous tense position.

"I was looking all over for a name or something, or some family crest, or like, a drawing of an animal that would signify some person or his grandfather-"

Sirius was laughing at the absurdity of the story, now.

"But I couldn’t find any of it, so I figured if I burned them and then smelt the ashes, I might figure out who had touched them last-"

"Would you STOP TALKING, please?!" Snape yelled suddenly. He turned back to his potion. The lightbulb on top of Lily’s head, which had already been suspiciously glowing, exploded into a ball of light brighter than the sun.

Remus successively and very much intentionally slammed his head on the table in front of him, James laughed into his hands, and Sirius did fall out of his chair.

"Could you please control yourselves, boys?" Slughorn called from his desk. James cast a calming charm on Sirius and contained himself.

"Hey," Sirius said, bored, "when did I give you permission to cast charms on me?"

"Desperate times, my friend."

Lily stopped Snape from putting the ground root in his potion.

"Frog spleen first," she said.

Irritated at having been corrected, Snape nonetheless obeyed her directions.

"Tell me if you’re unsure of anything," she said, "and I’ll try to keep an eye on you. You did manage to save our grade yesterday even after I put that knife in the potion and stirred it with my hand, after all. I suppose I owe you a little help."

"Oh my god," Snape said, obviously having processed very little of her statement, and put his head down on the table. "Oh my god, I’m going to die."

"No you won’t. Sit up."

Class went on at an excruciatingly slow pace for Snape, but he managed to focus on his potion enough to complete it at odd intervals, madly adding ingredients and stirring whenever his brain gave him a momentary break from James Potter. (Such breaks normally occured when James’s absolutely perfectly toned voice wasn’t ringing in his ears or when he managed to suppress his urge to look at him by telling himself he didn’t want to turn all the way around in his desk, i.e. rarely. He was unbelievably grateful that James wasn’t sitting in front of him.)

Class was finally dismissed, and Snape left as soon as humanly possible.

Twyla Wilkes stepped out into the hall very soon after him.

"I am going to kill you," he said venomously, grabbing her by her shirt collar, "and it will be slow and painful."

"What?" she squeaked. "I don’t know what you mean!"

"I mean with a spoon, that’s what I mean."

"No, I didn’t give it to you!" she exclaimed. "Honestly! Sirius Black took it from me!"

"You gave it to-" Snape growled.

"No! He took it! I was afraid you’d get mad if I told you- how was I supposed to know he wasn’t just going to use it on Lily or something-"

"You’re lying, Wilkes," he said, "and you’re really bad at it."

James put his arm around Snape’s shoulder.

"Let’s talk, Snivellus."

"NoIdon’twantto," Snape gasped breathlessly, immediately having let go of Twyla, who fled.

"Aw, you know you do," James said, and pulled him into a storage room (which was easy because Snape’s knees were, to his great embarrassment, weak). "Now," he said, locking the door behind them, "I want you to know exactly what’s going on here."

"I do," Snape said, strained. "I know exactly what you gave me, and I know when you gave it to me, and I’d have to be an idiot to actually think I had just naturally fallen in love with you out of the blue-"

James touched his nose.

He stopped speaking.

"Well, judging by your heavy breathing," James said mercilessly, "I don’t think it matters whether or not you know, does it?"

Snape swallowed and unintentionally held his breath.

"I mean, honestly, what’s your pulse at right now?" James ran his fingers down to Snape’s neck, and Snape let his breath out again, shivering madly. His skin was burning.

"Well, gentlemen, he’s definitely alive," James said, feeling that Snape’s heart was apparently beating in his throat. "If this is what it’s really going to be like for you, maybe you should avoid love."

"It won’t." Snape fought out the words. "This is artificial."

"Doesn’t feel like that, does it?" James said, putting his whole hand down on Snape’s neck now. Snape grabbed his wrist tightly.

"Don’t do that," be breathed.

James smiled. Snape had to close his eyes it was so beautiful.

"So do you know why I’m doing this? I mean, it’s obviously not because I want you to love me," James said.

Considering that he currently couldn’t think at all, it is notable that Snape had the presence of mind to at least shake his head, even though he probably would’ve, in normal circumstances, put that one together pretty easily.

"It’s because you’re a slimy git, and I’d like you, in the future, to avoid being one as much as is humanly possible."

James mentally braced himself and put his lips close to Snape’s cheek. Snape put his free hand on James’s chest in an exceedingly lame attempt to stop him. Instead he only managed to shake more.

"Promise?" James asked. He kissed him lightly.

"I promise! I promise!" Snape said, in a panic.

"Bet you won’t be able to, anyway," James said disdainfully, releasing him and backing away. The light from the window traced around his wild dark hair. He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. Snape slid down the wall he had been backed into and bit his hand hard.

-

Sirius took off the invisibility cloak and James undid the silencing charm.

"Oh my god. I couldn’t watch half of that," Sirius said, looking disgusted. "But the rest, the part I could watch without barfing, was extremely funny."

"I think I might need psychological therapy," James admitted.

"I think I screamed when you got that close to him near the end," Sirius said. (James laughed.) "Silencing charm was definitely a good idea."

"How late are we for History of Magic?" James asked.

"Pretty late."

"Bet he won’t notice if we skip out."

"Probably not."

"Lets wander somewhere," James said, and they disappeared under the invisibility cloak again.

-

"Where’d they go?" Remus hissed at Peter.

"I don’t know, they disappeared!" Peter insisted in a whisper.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it," Remus whispered. "Shoot." He corrected himself as an afterthought.

Professor Binns was droning on about reviewing for the test when a paper airplane hit Remus in the head. He jumped, unused to such muggle forms of note-passing, but then carefully picked it up and read it. Peter read it as well, over his shoulder.

Where did they go?

Remus recognized Lily’s handwriting. He winced, and wrote back.

I

have no idea.

He made sure Binns was still absorbed at his pulpit and threw the airplane lamely back. It missed Lily and soared over to Twyla. She read it, as Remus tried to disappear into the woodwork through osmosis of some kind. The airplane flew back over to Remus and Peter.

You lost them?

Peter threw it back to Twyla.

"What did you write?" Remus exclaimed.

"I wrote, ‘sorry,’" Peter said.

"Okay." Remus sighed hopelessly. Lily gestured to Twyla, who sent her the note. They began to pass it back and forth. Remus pulled a piece of parchment out of his sack and wrote,

DON’T tell her.

on it. He charmed it so that it flew over to Twyla.

Twyla sent the other airplane over to him.

He read it from after "you lost them?" by Twyla.

Are you in on this too, Twyla?

Sorry, can’t tell.

Well, that’s a screaming YES. Did they give a love potion to Severus?

OMG! You’re impossible. Too smart. ;

For James?

*gasp* No fair!

Did Remus know?

Probably. He was trying like crazy to stop Sirius. But, he didn’t. It was pretty dramatic, actually. Is he in love with Sirius?

Peter looked inquiringly at Remus.

"Stop being stupid," Remus said, irritated.

"Oh," Peter said. "...No, then?"

"Yes, no," Remus snapped.

Peter blinked.

"N-O. Remus no love Sirius."

"Well sorry, you were being pretty unclear."

"I’m sorry," Remus sighed. "I’m having a bad day. It’s not your fault."

Peter glowed, and it occurred to Remus that Peter may have never received an apology before in his life. Feeling pathetic (for Peter’s sake as well as his own), Remus looked back to the note.

Wouldn’t know. Other marauders involved?

About Remus: Too bad. That would be cute if he was in love with Sirius. About the marauders: No use denying, is there? They were all involved. And Snape almost murdered me, too, when we came out from potions.

He knew you knew?

Oops.

Confession: I had him make it for me by lying about who it was for- said it was for a gnome or something, and gave it to Sirius. Feels good to come clean. *angel pose*

Thanks for the scoop, Twyla. Love you.

!!!

And you don’t know where they are now?

It was at this point that Remus’s note had intervened, and Twyla’s response was written below.

Sorry, Remus.

Thanks for the effort, Twyla.

Remus added, and sent it back to Twyla, resigned to defeat.

She sent it back to Lily, and he put his head where it belonged- on his desk and heavy with shame.

The class period ended and Remus pulled Peter out of the room as quickly as possible.

"Where are we going so fast?" Peter asked, perturbed.

"I just don’t want to have a Prefect conference with Lily Evans at the moment. Do you?"

"I suppose not," Peter said as he was dragged off towards Transfiguration.

Then, coming around a corner, they ran into thin air (usually not a problem, but this time it was special), which sent them both reeling backwards onto the floor.

James and Sirius took off the Invisibility Cloak, laughing heartily.

"Is this how fast you would go to every class if we weren’t here to regulate you, Remus?" Sirius laughed.

Remus stood up, blushing, and helped Peter.

"We were running away from Evans," Peter explained. Remus hit himself on the forehead.

"What?" Peter looked confused.

"Evans was chasing you?" Sirius said excitedly.

"And you were running away?" James exclaimed in disbelief, knowing perfectly well what he would do if Lily was chasing him (i.e. NOT RUN).

"She wasn’t chasing us; we were trying to avoid running into her because your stupid plan was given to her practically gift-wrapped by Twyla Wilkes," Remus said, exhausted.

"Gift-wrapped?" Peter struggled internally.

James and Sirius seemed unconcerned.

"She knows everything!" Remus said, attempting to rouse some sort of apprehension.

"So? Is that a problem?" Sirius asked lazily.

"We’re avenging her," James pointed out.

"Would you please, for one second, STOP thinking like James and Sirius the reckless fun-loving ridiculously tactless classic models of teenaged behavior and start thinking like LILY EVANS?!"

"What? You mean she’s mad?" James asked doubtfully.

"ARRGGH!" Remus banged his head against the wall. "You gave an illegal potion to a fellow student and I failed to tell on you- do you think she might be mad, James? MAYBE?"

"Will she be more angry when we’re late for Transfiguration?" Sirius wondered aloud.

"What?" Remus panicked. "Are we late, now?"

"Not yet," Sirius said. "We can listen to you freak out a little longer, though, if you want us to be."

Remus didn’t dignify that particular idea with a response. He walked towards Transfiguration and the others followed.

"You know how we could fix this problem?" Sirius said to James.

"How?"

"Give Lily a love potion."

Remus dove into the Transfiguration room, wishing he hadn’t heard- and wishing that he could make himself believe that such a statement had any base in logic whatsoever.