- Text Size +
Giddy and Fabulous


Next morning, Lily let the First Years find their own way to the Great Hall for breakfast, though she trailed behind them quietly talking to Annalee McKinnon, keeping her eye on them unbeknownst to them. She couldn’t help but think of James calling them seagulls, and laughed to Annalee about the comment as they walked along.

The First Years themselves were talking quietly. “You can’t fancy a fifth year! He’s like a hundred years old,” said Darcy holding onto the strap of his bookbag and looking over at Vivian.

“I can fancy anybody I like,” Vivian said in a high tone.

Liam said, “Yeah, but you’ll never end up with him!”

“James Potter’s with that girl with the coloured hair in Hufflepuff anyway,” said Dexter, nodding, “Even if he wasn’t old enough to be your da, practically, he’s still taken.”

Vivian’s face was displeased. “He isn’t old enough to be my da, you git, he isn’t old enough to be anyone’s da. He’s not that much older than us! Same age as Lily is.”

Oliver said, “There are loads of boys our own age you could fancy…”

“Yeah! You could fancy Ollie!” announced Wally, throwing his arm about the tiny boy.

Vivian answered, “I’d sooner fancy Liam.”

Liam looked over, “And why wouldn’t you?” he demanded.

Vivian made a face.

“Because you’re too busy fancying yourself, Harding,” said Macy with her quick wit.

“Ohh-hoho! Harding got gobsmacked!” Wally hooted, his arm still about teeny little Ollie, who laughed and smiled awkwardly as his friends joked. Together, he and Wally jumped over a trick step.

“I don’t fancy myself,” Liam said defensively.

Vivian rolled her eyes, “Please. You haven’t shut up about how wonderous you are since we got here! Even on the train…”

“Oi, do we go left or right here?” Dexter asked. They’d come to the third floor landing where the moving staircase ended.

“Right,” Oliver supplied. “The entrance hall’s down that’a way.” He pointed.

“Ahhh Ollie, Ollie,” Wally sing-songed, making up his tune as he went along, “Always knowin’ where we goin’ -- smartest boy in Hogwarts, learnin’ all the magic words…”

Oliver blushed.

“But anyway, Viv, you can’t fancy Potter,” Darcy said, picking up the conversation again. He sounded like he was pleading.

“Why not?” Vivian asked, “Give me a good reason, Darcy.”

“Cos Darcy fancies you himself,” said Wally boldly.

“WALLY, SHUT IT!” Darcy crowed, his face red.

“Whaaaat?” Wally asked. He grinned at Vivian and winked, dropping his arm off Oliver’s shoulder. Oliver looked disappointed.

Lily smiled at their conversation - and at the fact that the’d all managed to navigate themselves to the Great Hall from Gryffindor tower alone and she quickly broke away to take her usual seat at the Gryffindor table between Remus Lupin and Frank Longbottom, across from Ali Prewitt. But Ali wasn’t there. Lily nudged Frank as she sat, “Hey, where’s Alice?” she asked.

Frank replied, “She wasn’t feeling well. Gone to see Pomfrey… She didn’t want me to come.” He looked nervous.

Lily gave him a look, but he turned away, talking to Andy Woodhouse.

Left out of Frank and Andy’s conversation, and no Ali to talk to, Lily turned to the Marauders instead. Remus was kneeling on the bench, leaning over the table, listening as James talked lowly… Sirius was standing, doing the same, and Peter was clustered close, too, chewing on a piece of toast loaded with gobs of peanut butter and getting crumbs all down his chest.

“What’re you lot up to?” Lily asked suspicously.

Remus looked over his shoulder at her and sat himself down, “Nothing,” he answered. Sirius and Peter both sat back, too.

James’s face was flush as he came into view now that the other boys weren’t gathered over him like a swarm. “Can’t stay away from us, can you Evans? Always wanna know what we’re up to?”

“More like need to know so I can be sure not to get involved by accident.”

James grinned at her as Sirius guffawed, “James certainly wishes you would be involved in this one, don’t you, Prongsie?” James kicked Sirius under the table, hard enough that the table jolted and the pumpkin juice in the goblets shook as the silverware clanked. Remus and Peter just laughed.

Lily as even more suspicious, “What are you lot talking about over there?”

“That’s for us to know, Lily, love, and you to wonder,” Sirius’s eyes sparkled.

Lily eyed them, “You’re such naughty boys.” She took a warm biscuit from the stack in a basket and a sausage and started buttering the biscuit.

“Those are fabulous,” said Peter, pointing at the biscuits. “I could’ve eaten twenty of them.”

“But you somehow managed to hold off at nineteen,” snickered Sirius.

“No, only three!” Peter said defensively.

Sirius, Remus, and James all laughed as Peter’s face went red. Suddenly, a biscuit was lobbed at James’s chest, exploding in a great buttery pop of crumbs. Lily smirked as he looked up in surprise at her. “You bloody got butter all over my vest!” James whined - though even as he said it, amusement was crawling in his voice.

“Serves you right, git,” Lily answered. “You’re lucky I don’t give you detention, making fun of poor Peter!”

“James,” Sirius snickered, “She’s gonna punish you. Maybe you can dream about that next time.”

James grabbed a biscuit and chucked it at Sirius - hard. It hit him in the face and bounced off to hit Remus in the shoulder. “Hey!” Rey said, dusting off the crumbs quickly.

“Dream? What dream?” Lily asked.

Sirius grinned in horrible amusement as James turned scarlet and stammered, “No dream - nobody had any dreams. Shut up, Black.” Sirius was laughing - wheezing, really.

“Remus?” Lily looked at her one ally.

He shook his head, keeping his eyes diverted, an amused little smirk teetering on the edge of his lips. “Sorry, Lil… You don’t want to know anyway.”

Sirius grinned over Remus’s shoulder. “Boys code of conduct and friendship 101, Evans.”

“You lot are idiots,” she said.

When they’d finished breakfast, they all headed up to the Defense Against the Dark Arts corridor. Remus hung back as Sirius ran ahead and jumped up on James’s back, shouting, “GIDDYAP!” at the top of his voice and hugging James ‘round the neck as he hung there off him and James stumbled forward, slamming into one of the suits of armor and nearly tipping him over. Peter laughed and scrambled along.

“Sorry about before,” Remus said.

“What were you lot talking about?”

“Dream that James had,” Remus shrugged. “Like Sirius said… boy code, I can’t tell you too much.”

Lily said, “I have a feeling you were right and I don’t want to know anyway.”

Remus laughed, smiling, “Probably not.”

They’d reached the Defense classroom and Sirius dropped off James’s back as they went in the door. The two Prewett brothers stood at the front of the room, playfully dueling one another, too busy at it to notice their students arriving. Lily realized for the first time how very much alike they looked - truly identical, other than one of them had long hair pulled back in a short ponytail at the back of his neck and the other had a shaggy, messy mop of hair. The duel was silent, their wand motions enough to cast the spells they were shooting at one another - but silly things were happening, not malicious things - things like one would do a funny ziggy-zag cut and the other would be set to dancing…

Finally the ponytail one waved his wand in a wonky J and the one with the shaggy hair’s wand went limp and he laughed uproariously, “Gideon, you wicked bastard.”

Gideon grinned.

“How’d you do that?” Sirius asked, laughing, picturing how bloody funny it would be in a real duel.

“Flaccify,” Gideon and Fabian Prewett both answered at exactly the same time.

“Brilliant,” Sirius said and he quickly scribbled that down on his parchment. “I’m already learning things.”

“Just be careful where you’re aiming that thing when you cast it,” Gideon - the ponytailed one - supplied, smirking.

Fabian nodded, “Learned that the hard way once. Don’t wanna go into details.” He grinned wickedly.

“Thank you for sparing us, you dolt,” laughed Gideon.

“Anyhow, as you know - we’re Fabian and Gideon Prewett,” Fabian said, “He’s Giddy --” he pointed at his brother.

“And he’s Fabulous!” announced Gideon, pointing to Fabian.

The students laughed.

Gideon said, “I know Potter, of course, and Sirius Black… Remus Lupin, you look like your dad.”

“I do?” Remus had ever been told that before.

“About the eyes and jaw mostly,” Fabian supplied.

Remus touched his jaw and looked at Sirius, who shrugged.

“Besides that,” Gideon said, “Everybody’s heard of the ruddy Marauders by now - you lot are basically famous. Turning the school blue. Flipping it upside down for April Fools! Absolutely classic.” He shook his head, “Why didn’t we think of that stuff, Fab?”

“We did our own mischievous things, Gid, things this lot won’t even dream of in their time here.”

Sirius looked eager, “Like what??” he breathed.

“Purveyors of magical mischief making never prank and tell, lad,” Gideon said.

Sirius said, “Alright. We’ll just steal your files from Filch’s office, then.” He turned to James, who smirked and high-fived him.

Gideon’s eyes glinted, practically daring him to do it. “Now Gid,” said Fabian, “We can’t be encouraging students to go breaking the rules.”

“There isn’t really a specific rule against borrowing a file from Filch,” James pointed out. “Is there, Moony?”

Remus looked over, “What’re you asking me for?”

“You’ve got the student handbook memorized, don’t you?”

“Not all of it…” Remus mumbled, for he did have a good bit of it down.

“Besides, it’s only breaking the rules if you get caught,” Sirius said.

Gideon laughed. “Now there’s some philosophy.”

To keep from grinning, which might be construed as encouragement, Fabian looked at his roster, “Seeing as you’re the only girl, you must be Lily Evans. Heard a lot about you, Evans.”

“Yeah, blimey, Horace Slughorn goes on about you like you’re bloody Queen of England,” Gideon added, nodding.

“He does?” Lily looked surprised.

Fabian nodded, “He thinks you’re quite bright.”

“Says you’re excellent at Potions.”

Sirius spoke up, “Puts off a mean bat bogey hex, too.”

“Does she ever,” James muttered, remembering how much his nose had smarted when she’d cast it upon him years ago.

Lily laughed, “A friend taught it to me.”

Peter asked hopefully, “Haven’t you heard of me at all?”

“Spent a good deal of time trying to find the wizards what killed yer mum when that’s what we thought happened --” Gideon said.

“-- Fooled even Moody, them Dark Wizards did,” added Fabian.

Peter looked disappointed. “But… but I’m a Marauder, too.”

Fabian and Gideon both said at the same time, “You’ve got the whole term to show us how mischievous you are!” They looked at each other and said, “Heyyy!” in exactly the same tone, then, “Heyyyy!” again in a new, but still identical tone, then laughed.

James thought it was as though the brothers shared a brain.

Gideon turned, “So welcome to class then, I reckon we ought to get on with it since we all know each other now…”

“Don’t look so glum, Peter,” whispered James, “It just means you’re better at getting away with it than the rest of us are!” He nudged Peter with a smile, “And honestly, that’s preferable anyway, isn’t it?”

Peter smiled back, “Yeah… yeah it really is, isn’t it?”

James nodded. “Absolutely.”