The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

What Myrtle Saw

What Myrtle Saw

"Well will you look at this? The castle's still standing next morning," Sirius said, stretching as he sat up at the crack of dawn. "Must be that nothing horrible happened because of the Filibuster's we flushed down the toilet, 'ey?" He playfully punched Remus in the elbow, "Maybe somebody needs to admit they over thought it a wee bit? Hmm?"

Remus sighed, "Nothing bad happened. Yet. This time," he said, adding the stipulations pointedly. "Just because there were no consequences doesn't give you permission to go shattering rules left and right."

Sirius grinned and ran a hand over Remus's curly hair, messing it all up with his fingers. Remus scrunched his nose up. "Remus Lupin, always worrying about the rules!" Sirius jumped away and Remus reached up to try to salvage the mop of his hair, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

They went to breakfast in the Hall and out onto the grounds to play a bit of snowball throwing in the dismal remains of the dirt-strewn snow. Halfway to lunch, Remus had to go inside to see Madam Pomfrey for his second treatment to remove the nasty words from his back. Covered in mud and soaked from melting snow, the other three decided to go back to the dorms to change, and as they were walking up the stairs, Sirius announced, "I've been thinking."

"Here we go," said Peter.

"Here we go what?" Sirius asked, looking 'round at him.

Peter replied, "It's just that you thinking is never a good thing. Usually it ends with us running from Filch or Death Eaters or Voldemort. So here we go."

Sirius grinned, "Well it's not quite such a dangerous thing I've been thinking this time... It's just that it's coming up to March and Remus's birthday's the 10th. He's had a rather terrible year, I think we ought to figure some way to surprise him with a good birthday, to cheer him up. What do you lot reckon?"

"I like it," James replied. "Let's do it for sure."

"What sort of surprise?" Peter asked, still wary of the dark places that the brain of Sirius Black could traverse.

Sirius laughed, "Well I was thinking we could get him some presents and Pete, you could knick us a cake and some butterbeer from the kitchen, yeah? Maybe we can even find a way to procure something stronger... Perhaps nip off to Hogsmeade for a minute via the Shrieking Shack and get us some firewhiskey so we can have a proper afterparty in the dorm? We'll play music and the like. Stay up all night..." His eyes twinkled with mischief.

"Excellent," James said, nodding.

Peter nodded, "Yeah, excellent." But he sounded less sure than James did.

The boys then spent the rest of the morning plotting how to go about getting all the things they would need for the party to be a success and deciding how to set the whole thing in motion. It wouldn't be too hard, they decided, to keep it a secret with Remus and Sirius gone for a whole day and a half for the full moon just a few days before the party. It would give James and Peter plenty of time to do last minute preparations.

By the time Remus returned from Pomfrey's, they'd mapped out exactly who would do what in for Remus's Secret Birthday Bash. Peter said that he was starving (from all the talk of cake) and they headed down to the Great Hall to eat their lunch. Everyone was crowded about their house tables and talking as they ate sandwiches and chips and drank large cups of pumpkin juice. Sirius glanced over the Slytherins' direction, as they laughed amongst each other, fully unaware that under their table hung hundreds of firecrackers, just waiting to be ignited with the swish of a wand.