All the young dudes

Chapter11: The best years of our lives

***

"What's up with those two, anyway?"

Peter looks up from his work. They're supposed to be drawing diagrams of the socket wrenches in front of them. "Hmm?"

"Sirius and Remus," James says. He points at the door with his quill. "You see them just now? There's something weird going on with them."

Peter raises his eyebrows. It's true: as the four of them split off for Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies a couple of minutes ago, as they do every Monday, there was a moment of indefinable weirdness when Remus and Sirius were left alone. What's throwing Peter off is that these moments have been happening consistently for around three weeks now. "Yeah, I noticed that," he says.

"They haven't been talking to each other lately, have you noticed?"

"I have, yeah."

"I mean," James says, then pretends to be absorbed in the socket wrench for a moment when Professor Abbott walks by. "I mean," he continues, "they won't even look at each other, what's with that?"

"You don't have a whole lot of room to talk, though," Peter points out.

"Oh c'mon, I talk to him plenty now."

"Not like you used to."

"Look," James says, "it's like I've said: I'll forgive him when he admits he lied! I don't care what's going on between him and Evans, I couldn't care less, but it's not about that, it's about all of us promising to be honest with each other. I wasn't kidding around that time on the Astronomy Tower. 'No more secrets', right?"

"Alright." Privately, Peter's of the opinion that James has got a lot of nerve pretending for the last month that that's why he's angry about the whole thing. Everybody with eyes knows what the actual reason is. Or at least that's what Peter's heard.

Fourth year, Peter thinks, will go down in history as the year their gang discovered the rumour mill. They say Sirius Black and Lily Evans are the school's new golden couple, even though nobody ever sees the two of them in the same room at once. They say that the famous duo Sirius Black and James Potter are in a fight (stories vary, but some swear they saw them dueling in the courtyard) because, they say, Sirius Black is jealous that James Potter fancies Lily Evans. Then again, Peter's pretty sure people still say that Remus Lupin valiantly kidnapped a rabbit in second year and to this day hides it in his dormitory, so he can't blame the rumours for only getting one bit of the thing correct.

It strikes him that what they're really up to at any given moment would make for much better gossip. He imagines people finding out that James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew are getting closer all the time to becoming illegal Animagi, because Remus Lupin is a werewolf. If everybody only knew the truth, the school would blow up.

And they'd get expelled. And arrested.

Even James doesn't know the extent of what they're up to right now. His birthday's in a matter of days, and the greatest surprise party Hogwarts has ever seen is planned for Saturday— scheduled, that is, around Thursday's full moon. In theory it's supposed to be Sirius' project, but Peter's been taking care of most of the organising. There's no magic involved at all, so this is one task he's sure he can pull off.

It's been one of Peter's toughest months in memory: his group of best friends is split down the centre two different ways and it's left him in the middle, feeling lonelier than ever. If there's anything he can do to reunite them again, bring them back to their former glory, he'll do it. He's risked detention for a lot less.

***

"What's the score?"

"Eight hundred and one to seven hundred and thirty-four. In your favour, of course." Peter makes a face, sits back against the crooked roots of their beech tree. "I think maybe we ought to impose a handicap."