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Moony

It wasn’t much of a challenge for James to get Peter Pettigrew to accept an apology for his insults. It took all of a minute for the four Gryffindor first year boys to be back to normal the day after the mysterious incident with the snitch, though James continued to insist there was something funny about the way the snitch had behaved while the others maintained that there wasn’t anything wrong with the snitch, only with James’s ego.

Their bigger concern was beginning to work on the map, which James and Sirius presented in a much more serious tone once the boys were back on speaking terms again. Sirius suggested that they work together during free periods in walking about the castle one level at a time and marking down all the different turns and corridors that they encountered. What they hadn’t counted on was the abundance of time that walking the entire floor plan of the castle would take. They spent hours the first day and hadn’t even covered the full of the first floor before having to give it up to go to supper in the Great Hall.

“Blimey,” James had muttered as they’d settled onto the benches along the Gryffindor table, “At this rate we’ll be finished our seventh year before we complete the map.”

“Too bad we couldn’t go out at night,” Sirius commented, “Would make it a lot easier to get things done without constantly being interrupted by everybody.” It was true that they’d been stopped several times as they passed by elder Gryffindor students that wanted to say hi to James, who was still a bit of a celebrity thanks to his gumball catching stunts on the pitch.

“We’d be caught and thrown into detention by Filch,” Remus said. “I don’t know about you lot but I don’t want to serve a detention with Filch. Merlin knows what he’d be having us do for it!”

“Neither do I,” Peter piped up.

“Scrubbing the toilets, most likely,” Sirius murmured darkly, ignoring Peter altogether.

James frowned, “Too bad there wasn’t a way to go at it without being seen.”

“You’d have to be invisible,” Sirius said.

Remus laughed, “Good luck casting the charm for that mate, you’re still working on getting the hang of wingardium leviosa, aren’t you?”

“Wingardium leviosa!” Sirius said, flicking his wand at Remus’s pork chop, which twitched slightly but didn’t levitate.

“Good try, at least,” Peter said.

The next day was much of the same – classes, classes, mapping the castle, eating, homework, eating… And the day after was, too. It was lunch on Thursday, just before the Gryffindor-Slytherin flying lesson that anything even remotely exciting happened.

The boys were sitting at the table, eating sandwiches and crisps and laughing about the look on Professor McGonagall’s face when she had realized that Peter had successfully transfigured a match stick into a pencil, only to discover that the pencil’s erasers were more flammable than they should have been when they lit up on fire, unprovoked. She’d nearly gone cross-eyed with shock, an expression that James was animatedly enacting for the others with a certain theatrical flair that none of them particularly recalled McGonagall herself having had. Suddenly there was a grunting sort of cough behind them and all four turned to look at the oversized potions master, Horace Slughorn, staring down at them.

Well, specifically at Remus.

“Good afternoon, good afternoon!” Slughorn said, smiling brightly. He touched a palm to Remus’s shoulder. “Mr. Lupin, am I correct in assuming that you are Lyall Lupin’s son?” he asked.

“Um… very, sir,” Remus answered blankly. “Why?”

“My stars, boy,” Professor Slughorn replied. “Your father is famous isn’t he? For having signed the Werewolf Restriction Act.”

“Wrote it, more like,” muttered Sirius.

Remus nodded, “Yes, sir, that was my dad.”

Slughorn’s face split wide with a toothy grin. “My boy!” he cried, chortling, “I don’t know how I’ve forgotten to invite you along to a little get-together I am hosting this evening…”

“A party?” Sirius’s face lit up at the words.

“I’m sorry, Clifford, I’m afraid it’s only certain students who are invited, you understand, very exclusive…” Slughorn said.

“Sirius,” Remus corrected him.

“Yes, my boy, I am most serious!” Slughorn misunderstood, returning at Remus once more. “Most serious indeed. Come by my office this evening, after your flying lesson. We’ll have food and drink at the party, of course. I’ll see you there!” And before Remus could turn down the invitation, Professor Slughorn had hobbled away, rubbing his thumb over his pocket watch once more.

“Ugh,” complained Remus, turning around.

“What’ve you to complain about?” Sirius demanded, “You got invited, didn’t you?”

“That’s exactly what I’ve got to complain about!” Remus answered. Down the table, Lily Evans was watching the whole thing unfold with a scowl, but she looked away the moment she and Remus made eye contact over the bowl of dill flavored crisps.

After another flying lesson before an audience, the boys parted ways in the entrance hall, where James, Sirius and Peter went on into the Great Hall for supper and another round of quidditch talk with the Gryffindor team and Remus took a deep breath and went for the stairs to the dungeons. He was halfway down the steps when he heard his footfalls being echoed by a second pair and turned ‘round to see Lily following him. She kept her eyes carefully away from meeting his surprised stare.

“You’ve been invited too?” he asked in shock.

Lily tilted her chin up, refusing to answer.

“What have you been invited for?” Remus questioned, rushing after her down the hall. “I thought you were muggle-born?”

Lily whirled ‘round at him, “Why’s it so shocking I’ve been invited because I’m a muggle-born?” she demanded, “Are you one of those bloody purists I keep hearing about from everyone? Thinking I’m dirty or something because my parents aren’t wizards?”

Remus looked taken aback, “No – blimey, no – I don’t care what your parents are. Only that’s why Slughorn invited me, so I thought Slughorn knew everyone’s parents.”

“Oh.” Lily paused. “No, I’ve been invited for my grades.”

“Well good on you, then,” Remus said.

They walked quietly down the corridor toward Slughorn’s office door down the end. “Sorry I yelled at you,” Lily said as they were approaching the little stairwell that led up to the Potion Master’s office. “It’s only that I’m getting quite tired of all the talk of blood purity around here.”

“Trust me,” Remus said thickly, “I am the last person that’s ever going to judge someone else for what they are that way.”

Lily smiled.

It was the first time Remus had really seen her smile properly and the way that it lit up her pretty green eyes, like she’d turned on a lamp behind the emerald orbs. He couldn’t help but smile back.

The door to the office swung open suddenly and Slughorn appeared, framed by the opening. From behind him came the sound of big band swing music like they listened to in the 1920s and 40s. “Welcome!” shouted Professor Slughorn, grinning widely as he held up his hands, one of which held a goblet with a heavy burgundy mead inside, which sloshed with his movements. “Come in, come in.” He ushered them inside and they saw there were great green curtains hung ‘round the walls to cover up the dungeonous feeling to the room, and squashy arm chairs surrounding a huge fireplace that twinkled with flames. There were shelves along one wall covered with jars of interesting potions ingredients and colorful solutions. One table in the corner held a gigantic brass phonograph, from which came the music with a raspy sort of quality to its tone that only improved the old time feeling.

When Slughorn had called the get-together exclusive, he hadn’t been kidding. There were only maybe a total of fifteen people in the entire room, Lily and Remus were easily the youngest. She looked at him uneasily and he shrugged and they both knew at that moment that if they were stuck in this together that, at least here, they would be friends. “Get yourselves a drink and come and join us by the fire,” Professor Slughorn instructed. He waved a palm at a long buffet style table which had goblets of the same dark mead that he was drinking and cups of pumpkin juice and little plates with lamb skewers laying with beds of rice. Lily and Remus both took a pumpkin juice and a plate and walked over to the hearth where the others were sitting. All the chairs were taken, so they sat down next to one another on the carpet.

“Now where we were,” muttered Professor Slughorn, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Oh yes…” he looked over to one of the older girls with a grin, “Do you think you’ll find some better players for the team this year and finally win the quidditch cup?” he asked.

“I think it every year,” answered the girl. “The problem is all the students in Ravenclaw house are more interested in getting their homework done than practicing. Makes it hard to get the team synced that way.” She sighed. Remus recognized her as the Ravenclaw quidditch team captain, only because Derek Bell had pointed her out. Her name was Gwen and according to Derek she’d gotten herself accepted by some quidditch team when she graduated in the summer. Derek had said she was the only brilliant one at quidditch in Ravenclaw and she was the only reason the house had been second for three years running in the quidditch cup.

“Yes, yes, that is true,” Slughorn said, “Well I won’t pretend that we don’t rather enjoy the results ourselves in Slytherin.” He grinned and winked and Gwen forced a smile and took a mouthful of mead as an excuse to look away. Slughorn chuckled, “Don’t mind it at all, do we, Isaac?” He turned to a tall, slim boy who was chewing on a large mouthful of the lamb, the Slytherin star player – a beater named Isaac Horan.

Professor Slughorn went on like this, calling attention to various people and the things which made them special enough to have been called into attendance and Remus got the feeling that Slughorn had collected only the most important people in the school – whether they were important for their own efforts like Gwen, Isaac, or even Lily, or because of who their family was, like himself and another boy, Harry Warbeck, whose mother was apparently a popular singer.

“So Remus, your father’s a great politician, then?” Slughorn asked, finally getting around to Remus in his tedious appraisal of the group.

Remus shrugged, “He works at the ministry. He’s not so much a politician.”

“Not running for minister, then?” Professor Slughorn asked.

“No,” Remus answered. There’d been a time, long ago, that Lyall Lupin had dreamed of such a thing but ever since Remus had been bitten the family had laid low in attempts to keep the secret their own. If Lyall had become minister of magic there would have been no way to keep the nosy reporters for the Daily Prophet from finding out about Remus and it would certainly have been all over the news that the man who drew up the Werewolf Restriction Act was indeed the father of a werewolf. Such awfulness would have come from that discovery that Lyall had given up completely on the ambition of politics and settled himself into his quiet job at the ministry where he was delightfully anonymous.

Slughorn paused a moment, “What about you, son, do you have ambitions for the ministry when you’re old enough?”

Remus shrugged. “Not particularly.”

Slughorn had moved on to talking to Harry Warbeck next and Remus had the distinct feeling that he probably wouldn’t have to worry about sitting through another one of these tedious meetings of the Slug Club again. He glanced at Lily, who shrugged apologetically, and took a bite of her rice as though to change the subject.

“So how was the party?” Sirius asked the moment Remus walked into the dormitories that night.

“A right snooze,” Remus replied. “We just sat around and listened while Slughorn talked about everybody’s skills and parents.” He rolled his eyes. “Nearly fell asleep a couple times. Lily had to nudge me to wake me up.”

James looked up from the History of Magic book he was reading. “Lily Evans was there?”

“Yeah,” Remus answered. “She has good grades, Slughorn asked her there for her smarts. Said she’s best in our class. But that’s not surprising. Look at what she’s got to compete against.” He waved his hands around the room at the four of them.

James asked, “Was that Severus Snape kid there?”

“No,” Remus replied and he went over to his four poster and pulled his pajamas out of his trunk. James looked back down at his book, though Remus got the distinct impression that James was no longer thinking about Goblin Wars at all.