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O.W.L.s


“Ohhh, ohhh that was terrible, it was terrible.” Peter was moaning, clutching his head in his hands as he walked up the stairs of the castle behind James and Remus, followed by Sirius. He clutched his extra parchment and the quill, sick to his stomach. “I’m sure I’ve gotten a Troll. I’m just sure of it.”

James shrugged, “It could’ve been worse. Can’t believe Flitwick expected us to remember what charm he used on the blasted pineapple that made it dance on the first day, though. That was bleedin’ five years ago! Good thing that one was for extra credit.”

“It was tarantallegra, same as you’d use on a person,” Remus replied.

“Guess we know at least one of us will be getting an Outstanding,” said Sirius.

Remus flushed. “I told you lot to start studying back in the fall when I did, it’s not my fault you waited until last month.”

“Next time we listen to Moony,” James declared.

Peter started grilling Remus on what the answers were to various questions, groaning when he found he’d gotten one wrong. James felt like he’d done alright - he didn’t expect to be getting an Outstanding by any means, but most of the answers Remus was giving Peter were the ones that he’d put down, so he was fairly certain he’d get an Exceeds Expectations at least on the exam and that was enough to get into the advanced sessions with Flitwick, which were required in order to get into the auror training program, so James felt better about himself there.

Sirius stayed quiet as they compared how they’d done, not weighing in until Remus asked, “How’d you do, Padfoot?”

Sirius shrugged, “Alright, I s’pose, by the sounds of it. Guess we’ll see when we get the results.” He ran ahead then and gave the Fat Lady the password to get into the common room.

James looked at Remus and shrugged.

They studied all the harder for the Potions exam, though, blasting through it all afternoon until it was time to go to the Charms practical exam, which would be immediately followed by a jaunt into the dungeons to the Potions classroom to do their practical for that class as well. Sirius participated in the Potions revising - and the boys took turns reading off ingredients lists and identifying the potion and what the purpose was based on the ingredients in it. Surprisingly, James did the best of the four of them on this exercise. He was quick to attribute the new found Potions talent to the fact that he had Lily Evans as a partner.

“But all you do is stare at her through half the class,” Sirius complained.

James shrugged, “Well, while I stare at her she does the Potions prepwork and I can just picture her cutting up all these ingredients and remember what we were doing that day, what she was saying… Lily Evans, the ultimate mnemonic device.”

“Well bloody hell, that would never work with Severus Snape.”

“Nor with Peter,” intoned Remus. He smiled at Peter, “No offense Wormtail.”

“None taken,” Peter squeaked.

When it was time to go down for the practical exams, they left a bit early because Remus was still sore from the moon and the stairs were a lot on his knees and they joined the queue in the entrance hall once again, and milled about with the others. James looked about to spot Lily Evans, and spotted her in a cluster with Marlene McKinnon and some other girls by the giant hour glasses that counted the house points. She had her hair in braids and Jasper Odair stood beside her, a great lunk of a thing, holding her hand without actually paying her any attention, just looking about.

James spotted Mulciber, too, and he remembered the revenge plan they needed to work on and he turned to Sirius, “What’re we going to do about those Slytherin gits that attacked Evans?”

“We could confund them right now, make them fail the O.W.L.,” Sirius suggested.

“Now would be a terrible time for the diarrhea you were suggesting the other day,” Peter spoke up with a chuckle. “The nearest loo is on the second floor.”

Sirius grinned, “Oi, Moony, do you know any shitting spells?”

“Any… what now?” Remus asked, having not heard the context of the question.

Sirius snickered. “I want to make the Slytherins soil their pants,” Sirius explained. “What’s a good spell for that?”

“I don’t know,” Remus replied, “I mean, that’s not exactly something that’s in a textbook, is it?” He paused. “What do you want to do that for anyway?”

“They attacked Lily Evans,” said James quietly.

Remus looked surprised. “She told you about that?”

“Well sort of -” so James told Remus what had happened after class on Thursday and how she’d reacted when he tried to check on her and how weird she’d acted when they pulled her aside to see she was okay. “I’m surprised you can’t still see the handprint on Sirius’s face!” James laughed.

“I can still bloody feel it,” Sirius joked.

Remus frowned, “I mean it’s horrible being betrayed by a friend like Snape did to her and --”

Hang on,” James said as the crowd started moving forward into the Great Hall, “Snape was involved? I thought it was just Mulciber and Avery?”

Remus’s face turned red, “I - I don’t know.” Lily was going to kill him for telling them - he couldn’t believe he’d let it slip like this. He could feel his heartbeat in his earlobes it was pounding so hard.

“Yes you do.” James could tell by his face that he knew and wasn’t supposed to have told them. Remus was literally glowing with the shame of it.

“That fucking snake. Where is he? I’ll blast him right now, turn his greasy arse into dust so fine they’ll never find him again,” Sirius said, looking around.

James looked around for him too.

Remus felt sick. He hadn’t meant to start this. Even more than Sirius’s threats was the look in James Potter’s eyes at that moment. Remus had never seen James Potter look so… he didn’t even know what the word for it was. But James’s face was cold and collected as his eyes searched the hall for a sign of Severus Snape. James was not playing around. He meant revenge. “I mean - I - she thinks he might’ve been trying to help her - I don’t know what happened exactly - well I mean, I do but I - I wasn’t there. I mean - Slughorn’s already punished them.”

“You sound like Newt Scamander,” Peter said offhandedly as Remus stuttered.

“And their punishment was probably a little slap on the hand I’m sure, if that,” Sirius grumbled, ignoring Peter.

“There.” James pointed.

Severus Snape was leaning against the frame of the door, clutching his Charms textbook, eyes closed, flicking his wand in motions, revising for the practical, and his mouth was moving ever so slightly as he worked.

James turned without waiting for any of the others to follow and started down the stairs, drawing his wand from the pocket at his chest, his jaw set, fist tight about the wand.

“Yessss,” whispered Sirius and he leaped down the steps after James. But James had somehow made slicing through the crowd look a lot easier than Sirius was having at it, and he lost him within a few steps, the other two lost behind them, even. Only Remus could see what was going on - being quite a bit taller than the average student in the hall.

Don’t do it James, he begged silently, trying to press through to catch up, but to no luck. He could see James’s messy hair weaving through the students, intent on reaching the doors of the Great Hall…

And then, mercifully, the doors opened and Severus Snape was among the first selected to go in and take the practical while Hagrid came out and tried to organize the rest of the fifth years into neater lines to keep the queue for the practicals organized, since they could only go in ten at a time and James ended up shuffled back a ways, a frustrated look on his face.

Thank Merlin, thought Remus.

But James wasn’t going to let it go.




The queue was run very smoothly - once each batch of ten students had completed their Charms practical, they were sent downstairs to complete the practical for Potions in waves that kept the queue moving through both exams quickly and efficiently. James kept hoping to run into Snape somewhere but by the time Snape was completing his Potions practical, James was in Charms and when James finished Potions, Snape was long ago in his dormitory studying for the next day’s set of O.W.L.s.

That night, the Marauders didn’t get much studying done. James spent a good deal of time pacing about the dormitory, looking quite stressed.

“Will you relax please?” Peter begged, “I’m nervous enough about the exams tomorrow!”

“It’s Divination tomorrow,” Sirius said, “It’s rubbish anyway.”

Peter looked abashed. He actually rather enjoyed Divination, though he was the only one of the four of them that did. “Magical Creatures, too,” he pointed out.

“And Muggle Studies for us,” Remus added, without looking up from his textbook.

“All tosser subjects,” muttered Sirius, throwing his feet up on the headboard of his bed, wishing that there was firewhiskey to drink. He was tired from a full day of forcing himself to act cheerful and happy, even though inside he was screaming.

James didn’t stop pacing, though, his mind whirring, trying to come up with something - anything - he could do to avenge Lily Evans’s suffering. He felt as though it was the most important thing that he would ever do in his entire life. He couldn’t explain why exactly it angered him as much as it did to think of what might have happened if Slughorn hadn’t come out of the classroom when he did (for he’d badgered Remus until Remus had given them the whole story at last) - but it made James sick in a way that he could feel all the way into the marrow of his bones. It wasn’t just because it was Lily Evans, it was because of what they were doing, because above all crimes that Mulciber and Avery and Severus Snape could have committed, it seemed that this was the worst. And the fact that they were targeting muggle-born girls because they called them the M-word (James couldn’t even think the word “mudblood” without feeling dirty and disgusting) made it all the worse. As though they thought they were entitled because of their blood. As though they were better than anybody else because they were purebloods. And Snape, the snake, wasn’t even a pureblood. Just another example of how they thought of people as objects, rather than people. Severus Snape had always thought of Lily Evans as something to be won, a prize to hold, a possession. And the fact that he was willing to steal her, to force her into something that she didn’t want -- James felt his very bones chill and he paced all the harder.




“How do you reckon you did on today’s exams?” Peter asked Tuesday night as the boys sat about the dorm again at the end of the day.

“Care for Magical Creatures was easy,” Remus said. “Thanks to Newt.”

“I don’t think I got the question about the Erumpent right,” Peter lamented. “How about you lot?” Peter looked over, but no answer came from James or Sirius.

James was busy still plotting his revenge against the Slytherin bullies, laying on his bed, his hands up behind his head as he stared at the canopy over his bed and he didn’t even hear Peter.

And Sirius just ignored him.

Sirius was rocking himself in the center of his bed, holding his feet and gnawing his lower lip - really wishing he had some firewhiskey because Achlys had been particularly noisy throughout the day - especially when he’d dropped the crystal ball in his Divination practical and it had rolled clear across the floor of the Great Hall and when he picked it up it had been cloudy and black, like a thunderstorm over a black ocean and when Gideon Prewett, his examiner, had looked at it, he’d looked very concerned and decided that Sirius had somehow broken the ball - which Sirius was willing to bet would mean he’d get a best a Dreadful grade on his Divination O.W.L.

Stupid worthless boy, Achlys had sounded a lot like his mother when she shrieked the words, Filthy, disappointment! A let down on every level!

He would’ve given anything to escape her.

“Defense Against the Dark Arts tomorrow,” Remus said.

“Yeah,” Peter agreed.

“Nervous about that one,” Remus admitted. “It’s the most important one for me.”

Peter said, “I’m sure you’ll pass, Remus. You know everything.”

Remus looked over at Sirius. “Not everything,” he said. If I knew everything, I’d know how to help Sirius Black.