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Operation Cheeremus


The first week at Hogwarts had come and gone already, and the boys were bogged with homework, but that didn’t keep them from sneaking out at night with the invisibility cloak, creeping across the grass to the Whomping Willow and running down the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack carrying their supplies each night. Remus slept through the outings, never the wiser that the other three had left, and Sirius became more excited each time that they went out there, marvelling over the hard work they’d put into the renovation of the Shack. He only got caught once napping in class (for which he got a detention from Professor Flitwick) and Remus was none the wiser.

By the time they were ready for the big unveiling of Operation Cheeremus, it was Friday night and the boys had big plans.

“Where are we going?” Remus demanded, his eyes covered with Sirius’s Gryffindor tie, which had been knotted about his head securely so that he couldn’t see. Sirius held his shoulders and directed him along through the dark of the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack. “It feels like we’ve been going for a very long while.”

“We have been,” James replied.

Remus said, “Are we nearly there yet?”

“Nearly,” Peter answered.

They’d reached the trap door and Remus heard the familiar sound of the sliding lock on the door, and as James pushed it open, the flooding scent of the Shack. “Wait. Fellas, we’re at the Shrieking Shack,” he said, “What’re we doing out here?”

“You’ll see,” sing-songed Sirius.

James grinned and climbed through the hole, turning about to grab onto Peter’s wrists and tug him up into the shack. Sirius then helped Remus up into the shack, too, from behind, pushing him up as James pulled. Sirius’s hands ran down Remus’s spine to his bottom, shoving him through, before climbing up himself.

“This way,” Sirius directed Rey, grabbing onto his shoulders, “C’mon… over here… careful now. Big step…” They walked up the newly repaired stairwell - several steps repaired magically with wood gathered from the beyond-repair table - to the second floor.

“You’ve fixed the steps,” Remus murmured.

“Yes,” Sirius said.

“Is that the surprise?” Remus asked.

“Not yet,” Sirius replied.

They walked down the hallway to the bedroom. Remus’s senses were tingling. There were new smells, and he felt nervousness welling up inside of him, thanks to the energy that was radiating from Sirius, a contagious sort of excited nervousness. Sirius’s palms left his shoulders after squaring them off and James was laughing lowly, then Peter squealed with excitement. “Are we ready to let him see, then?” Sirius asked.

“I reckon so,” James said.

“Alright. Messer Moony… Messers Padfoot, Wormtail, and Prongs proudly present…” and Sirius reached for the knot in the tie at the back of Remus’s head, tugging it loose so that the tie fell away from his eyes, “...the new and improved, Shrieking Shack.”

It took a moment for Remus’s eyes to adjust to the light of the room, after having been blindfolded so long, but when they did… he couldn’t believe what he was seeing anyhow. The room was unrecognizable to how it had looked last time that he’d been in it. Two beds had been shoved into an L in the far corner, and the room was practically wallpapered in Gryffindor-crest-covered duvets that met together to form a sort of room-sized tent, maroon and gold ties hanging artfully about, like streamers. Candles and lanterns lit the room, hovering about at various intervals, giving the room a sort of warm, golden glow. There were piles of books and parchments in the corner and a desk, which James had found in small room down the hallway, had been put in the corner here and upon it was spread the pages of the Marauders Map and a line of bottles of butterbeers, knicked from the kitchens by Peter for the occasion.

Remus stared about, “What.. how… when…?”

“We’ve been working on it the last coupel days,” James said, “As a surprise to cheer you up.”

“It was Prongs’s idea,” said Sirius quickly.

“We thought we could all hang out here,” added Peter.

“We’ve brought food,” James added, “So we can spend the weekend!”

Remus felt tears in his eyes as he looked around, “This is seriously the Shrieking Shack?”

“Yeah, wait ‘til you see downstairs, too,” Sirius added, “We’ve cleared away all the dust and fixed that broken old couch. We put a bunch of blankets about so on Moon Nights you and I have some place comfortable to lay…”

“You all did this for me?” Remus sounded in disbelief, “Really? Just to cheer me up?”

“Yes, Moony, course we did!” Sirius answered, smiling.

“We hate it when you’re sad, mate,” James added.

“Hate it,” Peter agreed.

Remus turned about and he flung his arms first around Peter who squeaked in surprise, then James who slapped Rey on the back happily, and finally Sirius. Sirius braced himself for it, expecting that awkward, horrible feeling of being trapped that he usually got when Marlene tried hugging him… but as Remus’s arms laced about Sirius, that feeling never came. Rather, Sirius felt himself almost melting into Remus… the hug warm and… and strangely comforting. Sirius moved his arms up to bend back around Remus in return - something he’d never managed to do with the girls, and he turned his face inward… nose pressing to Remus’s neck for a moment. He could smell the warmth of chocolate and Moony’s jumper… and he breathed deeply of it… intoxicated by it… And then Rey had pulled away.

“I can’t believe you lot, this is fantastic. I love it. Bloody hell. I love this!” He turned around and round, looking at all the candles and school ties and he jumped up onto one of the beds.

James grinned, “So you’re surprised then?”

“Thoroughly!” Remus replied.

Sirius was still reeling from the hug.

The smell that had been in Remus’s neck… it transported him to a warm afternoon the term before… laying on his back on the cushions in the Divination classroom. He’d smelled that scent wafting in the air from Severus Snape’s cauldron, the day that Professor Vablatsky had been poisoned the first time by the Banesberry Tea… the day with the bezoar. A funny feeling came over Sirius, a dizzying realization that Severus Snape had been brewing the Amortentia potion that he later fed to Lily Evans… that the scent Sirius had smelled was from the Amortentia and that it had smelled of…

He looked at Remus Lupin.

James and Peter bound over and climbed onto the second bed, and Sirius shook himself from the haze that his head had gone into to join them, sitting on the end of the bed that Remus had climbed upon.

“We’ll have so many grand adventures out here!” James exclaimed. “It’s like our private little clubhouse. And the best part, Moony, is that even if Dumbledore or McGonagall or somebody comes out here to inspect it, they won’t be able to see all this. We’ve cast a disillusionment charm.”

“Brilliant, you lot thought of everything!” Remus said merrily. He looked at Sirius. “Are you alright?”

“Spiffing,” Sirius replied numbly.

Peter reached into the bag he’d carried out with them, withdrawing a lidded bowl full of chicken and several bags of crisps. “Here, I dunno about you lot but I’m starving,” he announced and he passed the crisps about, each boy taking one of the bags and a leg of chicken from the bowl. “A happy meal is a great way to start an adventure, I say.”

Remus felt he couldn’t have agreed more.




“Alright, alright --- SO --- imagine if we were to find some way to set a spell on a bag of popped corn so that it multiplied every time somebody said the word popcorn… and we put that bag in the Great Hall and we just yell the word popcorn and everyone starts talking about popcorn, trying to figure out what we’re talking about and the bag starts multiplying and multiplying and multiplying and soon enough the entire bloody Hall is positively bursting with popcorn and the more full it gets, the more people are saying popcorn and it’s a bloody avalanche of popcorn, just everywhere, and soon everyone’s waist deep in the ruddy stuff and the doors are opened and popcorn just bursts out through the entrance hall like a great tsunami of buttery amazingness…”

“FILCH’S FACE! Could you imagine? All that butter! The mess it would make of the floors!”

“And Dumbledore, I’ll bet he’d just leap in and start swimming in the popcorn, or else munching it up like it’s nothing, maybe even magic some caramel on a bit of it!”

“It would be all stuck in his beard!”

“McGonagall, she’d be so peeved. Oh how thick her accent would be. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF ALL THIS?!”

The boys were in absolute tears of howling laughter as James did a near perfect impression of McGonagall’s accent and stern face, standing on the bed he and Peter had commandeered. Sirius was rolling, legs in the air, as Remus clapped, tears in his eyes, and Peter hooted, raising his bottle of butterbeer up for James’s performance. “Here, here!” he called.

Remus wiped his eyes, “Oh Merlin… That would be brilliant.”

“And it’s only popcorn, so other than the greasy floors it doesn’t do a whole lot of damage. We could all literally eat our way out of it,” Peter said, laughing.

“We must try this one day,” Sirius wheezed, grinning as he sat back up.

They’d been talking nonsense and pranks all evening - and it was positively awesome, some of the grand schemes they’d made up, all of which Sirius had taken note of on a bit of parchment for future pranking. James’s popcorn bit was only the latest in a series of many ideas they’d thrown about, and Remus’s cheeks were flushed from happiness. He was so very glad that he had Sirius, James, and Peter as friends - they were the best a boy could ever ask for. He smiled ‘round at them as they continued on, hours and hours into the night before one by one their eyes got heavy and they fell asleep…

Remus and Sirius were the last two awake. Remus laying on the bed, his feet crossed at the ankle, one arm tucked up behind his head. Sirius leaned against the post at the far end, one arm about the wood, his cheek pressed to it, half asleep as he sat there. “You should lie down,” Remus said, “Before you flip off the end of the bed.”

“I’m okay,” Sirius murmured.

“You’re falling asleep sitting up,” laughed Remus. “C’mon, lay down.”

Sirius closed his eyes a moment, drew a deep breath, and then crawled up so he was lying side-by-side Remus. He could feel the warmth of Remus’s body in the dark beside him and that smell… that wonderful smell… He closed his eyes again.

“Sirius?” Remus asked.

“Mmm?” Sirius hummed.

“Sirius?”

“What, Moony?”

“What are you doing?”

Sirius opened his eyes and realized that, in his sleepy state, he’d been so intent on smelling Remus’s chocolate-and-jumper scent that he’d pressed himself right against Remus’s back, nuzzled his face into the nape of his neck, and slipped his arm ‘round Remus’s side. His face felt quite hot as he drew back, rolling back over onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling.

Remus laughed, “I don’t mind it, I’m just… wondering what you’re doing?”

“I… dunno,” Sirius replied. “Sorry. Just… I mean, I was asleep. Sorry.” He rolled over quickly so he was back-to Remus.

Remus sort of regretted saying anything and he laid there in the dark, hugging the edge of the pillow a bit, blinking over at one of the last dying candles hovering near by James and Peter’s bed, barely holding onto the light it carried. He wondered what Sirius was thinking.

Sirius stared off the opposite direction, watching the reflection of the same candle in the empty bottles of butterbeer that littered the desktop. A part of him wished he hadn’t rolled away… He wondered what Remus was thinking.

The light flickered out and they were both plunged into the darkness without either speaking again.