Mischief Managed Year One: Mayhem of the Moon

Chapter Twenty-Eight- Snowball Fights and Ending up with Your Foot In Your Mouth

TW: Implications of Abuse

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"Get up, you lot. It's the weekend!" Sirius cried, jumping about thrilled about their discovery last night, and about being back at Hogwarts, and life in general. The last day or two before coming back to Hogwarts had been absolutely miserable. He'd avoided the dementor only thanks to his little brother's interference with their mother.

But he wasn't going to dwell about the past. For he was back at the glorious school surrounded by his wonderfully brilliant friends and completely and utterly free from his family. Most of them, anyway.

Like usual Remus was gone, up before the rest of them could even think about rising. He sure didn't seem to need much sleep, completely different from James who was groaning and begging for mercy as Sirius shook him awake.

"Come on, sleepyhead! There's a fresh blanket of snow on the ground and the day is magical and begging for fun~"

"You're such a twat," James groaned, swatting him away half-heartedly. But Sirius saw the smile he tried to hold back, and whooped at the victory.

"Come on Come on~" he sang, dancing around with the energy that made most adults label him 'unpredictable and hyperactive'. But adults were boring and he was fun and he was back and he was safe and everything was perfect!

"Peter!" he shouted in the sleeping boy's ear. He tickled Peter's foot after waiting a minute of predictably no response from the heavy sleeper. After missing another late-night rendezvous, which at the time they had still been surprised Remus seemed to enjoy, Peter had told them the secret to waking him up. A secret they all swore not to abuse, but this didn't count because he knew ol' Pettigrew wouldn't want to miss this!

He leaped back with skilled precision as the boy flailed, as he always did when being woken this way. This was something he and James had come to realize from experience after waking Peter up at odd times for the hell of it, which didn't count as abusing the power. Sure enough, tickling his feet woke Peter as nothing else would and soon the three of them were bundled up, all in their spiffy new scarves, and headed down into the common room.

Sirius had hoped to find Remus there, curled up on the couch in front of the fire with a book, and a distant look in his eyes that made Sirius doubt he was reading at all. But instead, he found Remus and Patricia of all people playing chess, both of them looking quite equally matched. Not only did this confirm Sirius' suspicions Remus was a much better chess player than he had pretended to be, but also that he was mental to not be even slightly flustered around the prettiest and wittiest girl in Gryffindor!

Not that Sirius liked her, or anything like that. He wasn't as hopeless as James who truly did have a crush on her. No, he was just in awe of her masterful brilliance with pranks. He still couldn't believe Remus of all people had convinced her to show them her ways. He sure was a wild card that Remus was never doing what Sirius suspected him to, and so complicated that he never could seem to figure him out for very long.

Not that he'd ever tell Remus that! As long as the kid believed Sirius had him at least slightly figured out he'd keep getting flustered and making mistakes, which is what he was counting on to figure out his bizarre friend.

"Wotcher, Patricia," he called, mimicking her thick Cockney accent. She shot him a bemused and irritated look he had quickly become familiar with. He threw an arm around Remus' shoulders causing the boy deep in concentration to jump badly. Like usual he pretended not to notice.

"Morning mate. You're up early as usual, hm?"

"I'm more surprised you're up this early? And are you alone? I can't imagine you didn't wake James and Peter," Remus responded easily, with his dry humor, a faint smile on his tired face.