You are cordially invited to the formal house warming party of
Messers Moony & Padfoot
for the weekend following Friday July 12, 1974
Don’t ask us where, as the address is variable day to day
but meet us at 13h in front of
The Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley, London
to be escorted to our new and humble-ish abode.
Prepare for a weekend of
MISCHIEF, MAYHEM
and, of course, most importantly,
MARAUDING.
Please bring food as a house-warming present (and lots of it),
especially if you don’t fancy trying to eat a fire-roasted squirrel.
(Messer Moony would kindly like to request that you bring chocolate,
as he is currently suffering from really bad withdrawals) (Firewhiskey is also appreciated if you can knick it, adds Messer Padfoot)
Please RSVP via Owl as soon as possible
(you both better be coming, you gits)
We will see you after the full moon.
Sincerely,
Remus J. Lupin (Moony)
Sirius O. Black (Padfoot - but you ought to have worked that out on your own)
“Any good news with your owl today, Peter?” Cecil Pettigrew looked up from his rather comatose state before the telly, where he’d sort of roosted over the last month since his wife had been gone. It was the first thing he’d said all day. Granted, it was still before noon, but Peter and Maggie had been sitting in the open area room since sunrise with him and none of them had said a single word, besides Peter, who’d said good morning when he first went in and started working on his homework at the dining room table. The sound of a voice in the Pettigrew house was shockingly loud in the silence that had engulfed them.
Peter looked at the letter in his hands, the parchment decorated with doodles of trees and firewhiskey bottles that poured into squat little cups and hopping chocolate frogs with little “ribbit!” talk bubbles coming out of their mouths. Under each name was a pawprint and an insignia banner, clearly drawn by Remus because of it’s excellent use of shading, which read Itinerarium Maraudentium or, roughly translated Peter thought, It is good for the Marauder to take a risk.
This was not at all the sort of parchment you let your father see. Particularly if you have any hope at all of getting to actually go to the event that it describes. Peter shook his head, “Just a note from my mate Remus,” he said, “Reminding me of…” and he thought quickly, looking at the date on the parchment. “Of an early birthday party they’re thinking of tossing me ‘round his house. The weekend of July 12. Is that okay?”
But Cecil had already mostly stopped paying attention and he nodded, his eyes sort of vague and face slack. “Yes… yeah, of course. Whatever you like, Peter.” With that, he turned back to the telly.
Peter looked back at the parchment and quickly ripped off the corner.
Deciding it would be quite funny to mimic the words that the boys had written to him (they’d appreciate his matching their third person humour). But what to call himself? What to call himself… Moony was a play on Remus’s “moon allergy” obviously, and Padfoot must be on account of a dog’s foot being made up of pads. Well what did rats have? He contemplated the options a moment. Sharptooth? Whiskerface? Scurrytoes? Biter? Then it occurred to him and he grinned happily and Peter wrote the following:
MISCHIEF, MAYHEM, and MARAUDING.
Below that, he sketched a shoddy version of the insignia banner. Intinerarium Maraudentium indeed.
Miles and miles away, James Potter had gotten an identical parchment from Bubo. He rubbed his chin and tried to decide how to get Dora and Charlus to agree to let him go to the party and decided that the best way to do it was going to be by fooling the pair of them into thinking the other had already allowed him to go and hope that neither figured out the rouse until he was already gone.
“Da,” James said, approaching Charlus first. His father was reading a book on potion-making in the living room, his feet propped up on the end of the couch, trying to find a new ingredient to Sleekeazy that might make it smell more appealing for a ladies’ version that wouldn’t negate the working power of the rest of the ingredients. He lowered the book to his chest and looked at his son with interest. “Sorry to bother you,” James said, hovering as though in a bit of a hurry, “It’s just that mum said I had to clear it with you before I went on a camping trip with the lads this weekend.”
Charlus asked, “A camping trip? Alone? Where to?”
“Dunno yet.”
“Is it supervised?”
James snorted, “Is it supervised!” He rolled his eyes, “In this day and age, with Voldemort on the loose out there, you’re going to ask me if it’s supervised?” Technically, he told himself, he hadn’t lied because he hadn’t explicitly said it was. Or that it wasn’t. He’d just questioned whether Charlus was asking.
“Alright, alright, don’t get your knickers in a bundle,” Charlus said. He hesitated. “Your mum says it’s alright?”
“She will if you say it is,” James answered craftily.
“Alright,” Charlus said, assuming that Dora had already cleared the details and therefore it must be perfectly fine.
“Thanks Dad!” James said and he hurried out of the room, on the hunt for Dora. He found her upstairs, magicking the laundry into everybody’s drawers and closets. He flung himself onto his parents bed and rolled so he was looking up at her on his back. “Muuuuuummy?” he asked with a pout, like he’d done when he was an ickle tot. “Da said I could on a camping trip with my mates, if it’s alright with you.”
Dora looked up from the basket, “What? When?”
“This weekend,” James answered, “I’d be leaving day after tomorrow, home by Monday at the latest, or if it’s any later I’d send’ja an owl - cross my heart.”
She eyed him and waved a drawer full of socks into a perfectly organized and folded row. “Where are you going off to?”
“It’s a surprise, isn’t it? I don’t know exactly. But it’s for Peter’s birthday, you see. He turns fourteen next month, last one of us to do it, and we ain’t tellin’ him that’s what it’s for. It’s a surprise.” He paused, “He’s been real upset about his mum, see. Deserves a good day like this. It’s real important.” He smiled, then laid the line he knew would get her. “Sirius’ll be there.”
Dora Potter was under the very incorrect impression - somehow or another, James truthfully had no idea how - that Sirius Black was an extremely responsible human being. She had the opposite opinion about Remus, seeing as it was him who’d talked James into going off to Grimmauld Place and got him stuck overnight at the Weasley’s as she saw it. James was always amused when she talked about how he needed to be more mature, like Sirius Black. James often grinned and said things like, “Oh I can be mature like Sirius Black, mum, don’t you worry about that.”
Now, though, this line seemed to appease Dora nicely. “Oh well if Sirius is going and your father says it’s alright, then I guess I don’t see why not. You’ll be sending owls home everyday, though. And don’t you miss a day, don’t think I won’t put a trace on you and come pull you all the way home by your ruddy ear.”
“I’m quite sure you would, mum,” James nodded. He paused, thinking of the letter. “Mum, think you could help me out with some food for the trip? Sirius was hoping maybe that could be a part of my job… you know, since Peter can’t know about the trip and all.”
“Oh of course!” Dora said, “You’ll be needing drinks as well.. Some butterbeer, I reckon? How about a cake, do you boys need a cake for Peter?”
“Peter could always use a cake, mum, you saw him, he’s ‘round as a polka dot.”
“Does he like strawberry?”
“Mum. Peter will eat anything. He’s like a goat that way. Stick some tin cans in front of him and he’ll feast away.”
“I’ll make him a strawberry buttercream… Oh I’ll have to get out that recipe…” and, suddenly excited at the thought of feeding a bunch of hungry boys, Dora rushed off to the kitchen and James grinned, crossing his arms under his head and thinking of how many ways he would be bragging to Sirius about what a bloody brilliant manipulator of situations he was to have gotten permission to the party.
This was a technique they’d simply have to use on the staff at Hogwarts sometime…
