All in the Family

Chapter 52: Trelawney's Prediction

The place reeked of alcohol worse than The Leakey Cauldron, and Remus had been in there recently enough to speak from experience. He groaned in disgust at the heavily ladened perfume trying to cover the smell, the stench of incense and the billowing smoke of a fireplace, none of which quite masked the smell of the rich wine.

"What's the matter Moony?" Sirius looked absolutely dapper in the environment, Remus choosing to watch him circle about the new room to focus on instead.

"The place reeks," he needlessly emphasized as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. "Where the bloody hell are we?"

"I'd hazard a guess at Trelawney's office," Frank called, once again riffling through an available desk with abandon. "Judging by all the Divination homework in here, oh, and a few personal items. She was in Ravenclaw," he held up a bronze eagle embossed pin on a delicately wrapped blue shawl.

"I'm growing jealous by the moment we never had this teacher," James laughed as he found a door that would open and stepping through. Remus made to join him, but recoiled as the smell only increased. Prongs continued to call out as he traveled farther away, "she's practically got her own distillery in here beside her bed! There's another door that leads straight to her classroom! Blast, of course it won't let us go in farther down to the castle."

"I'm surprised it let you in there," Alice followed him, "considering we've already been in."

"Guess we get to revisit places, would have been bloody useful to know while in that cramped room in the Dursley's," Regulus muttered.

"For the love of Merlin open one of those windows," Remus called, going quickly after them now to do just this. He hardly glanced at the wine cabinet stacked to the ceiling or the messy bed behind him as he threw open the pained glass and greedily sucked in some fresh air.

The quad was visible below, looking strangely forlorn without a person in sight sneaking about in the dying sunlight. By the time he'd pulled his head back to bare the process again, the place had certainly aired out some he didn't feel like he was dying anymore, and Peter immediately shoved the book into his lap with a disgruntled expression.

"Everything alright Wormtail?" He asked in surprise, expecting to have found him as jubilant as most everyone else still seemed to be about the recent Quidditch victory. Even Alice and Frank looked in spirited moods for the event, chatting with James and Sirius more than ever before they were being so damned happy. Sirius' little brother was even eagerly joining in, if you didn't know they were all from different houses and never spoke before nobody would have batted an eye. Only Evans seemed bored waiting to get a move on things, he could see her at just the right angle back in Trelawney's office sitting on an available poof and looking bored up at the ceiling.

Peter appraised him for a moment, before muttering sullenly, "guess I forgot in those few months of silence just how loud James and Sirius could get."

Remus looked at him in surprise, before snorting with laughter. "Don't know how you could have forgotten! Did you manage to get even more thick recently?"

Instead of his usual laugh, Peter frowned a bit and started to walk off. Recalling Sirius' warning that in fact Peter might suspect what the two of them have been doing out of sight recently, he chose his next words carefully, "nothing's changed Peter, I hope this book's future isn't getting to you, we're still us."

"Yeah, I got that." Peter muttered before finally shuffling away to stand at James' elbow, but crossing his arms and watching him with an odd look, like a little kid waiting to get his parents attention. It was so bizarre Remus stood there a whole ten minutes watching and waiting for something to happen, and finally realizing it wasn't. Then Regulus of all people seemed to realize it and turned to include him. How often-