good things fall apart • sirius black

Betrothed?

    "My birthday this year has been a triumph! A James Potter day to go down in history."

It was in fact the messy haired boy's birthday, and the whole group made their way up to the Astronomy tower as it started to get dark for their last lesson.

The day had been full of mischief, all courtesy of the new pranking supplies Ellie had gifted James for his sixteenth. It all began with fireworks at breakfast, they had sprung from the birthday cake the group had gotten the house elves to make for him and zoomed around the Great Hall, exploding in the faces of unsuspecting victims. It was then followed by Sirius charming all the coats of armour in the school to shout 'have you said happy birthday to James Potter?' Every time someone walked by them, making lesson change over time a nightmare for everyone.

Five first year Ravenclaw girls had ended up with beards so long they dragged on the floor, an attempt to jinx Severus Snape gone wrong, leaving all of the girls crying in humiliation. (The Marauders had found it rather funny regardless.) And finally, a second year Gryffindor had taken a quaffle to the face by accident, when James had insisted on a game of 'who can dodge the quaffle the fastest?' In one of their study periods in the middle of the day. That one hadn't been planned. Ellie had just gotten over-enthusiastic throwing, and Remus was surprisingly good at dodging, so the second year had really just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

All was right in the world again as the Marauders fell back into their old rhythm, any hard feelings being resolved and moved on from. Apart from the fact Ellie had yet to speak to Lily again after the outburst in the common room the night previous. Despite that though, James would go as far to say that it had been one of his best birthdays yet, but that had something to do with the record Sirius had brought him of Queen's new album. Freddie Mercury was his favourite after all.

"'Somebody To Love' is my favourite one already." James had said, but they all thought that was something to do with the fact he'd sung the lyrics loudly in Lily's face earlier and it'd made her blush.

How the messy haired boy new the lyrics to the song already was beyond them all.

"I'll have to disagree Prongsy." Sirius had replied, obviously having listened to the record before he'd gifted it to his best friend, "'Tie Your Mother Down' is definitely the superior choice." Ellie had burst out laughing, not being able to contain herself as he spoke so seriously.

"Of course you'd say that one." Remus had rolled his eyes, but none of them could stop smiling.

James was disappointed that his birthday had fell on a day they had Astronomy, because it meant they weren't able to throw a party in the evening. Instead, they were all sat around with their telescopes as Professor Sinistra explained what they'd be studying that night. The messy haired boy would admit it was a slight inconvenience that the stars could only be seen when it was dark, but he'd had a great day, and the fact they couldn't throw a party, didn't seem like too big of a sacrifice. Especially when Ellie was friends with them again.

They were mapping star charts, and it was actually quite relaxing, something to ease the group out of their energy from the excitable day.

Staring at the night sky unnerved Remus slightly, the moon seemingly mocking him whilst he did so, and he would always team up with James instead. The messy haired boy would do all the looking through the telescope, whilst Remus kept his eyes on the textbook, and that worked perfectly fine. It also meant Peter could get some help from the lanky boy, because even though the smallest Marauder was really quite good at Astronomy too, he was not the neatest of people. His star charts always looked like a spider had crawled across the page with ink on its feet, so Remus would help keep it tidy.