"Two-thirds of the sixth and seventh years were sent to 'home schooling' with a corresponding note in their personal files, and later in their diplomas... Frank Longbottom, as Head Boy, was one step away from expulsion, all fifth-year prefects were removed from their posts and also expelled from the school, Quidditch matches were canceled, as well as trips to Hogsmeade... Fun, what can I say," shaking my head, I summed up the general result, having gathered with the Marauders in our dormitory as usual.
Sirius and Peter had just been discharged from the hospital wing today, joining James's and my "house arrest"... From the Gryffindor common room, the lions could now only leave accompanied by our Head of House and only for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our classes were temporarily canceled.
Anyway, two-thirds of the students from two houses at once are resting in the hospital wing or are in St. Mungo's, and all the professors are busy settling the troubles that have arisen... Most of which were caused by the parents of the injured students and the reaction of the public, to whom the news of everything that happened reached quite quickly.
"Yeah, fun," Sirius snorted, rubbing his stiff neck. "My mother has already sent me several Howlers, and my father promised to send me to a training camp on the continent for the whole summer... Fucking psychos."
"Well, in fairness, this time such a punishment even to me seems quite deserved," I snorted, calmly accepting the angry look of my buddy. "We played too much, decided that our strength and abilities would be enough to confront the slugs... Underestimated the complexity of a battle in which more than two hundred wizards take part at the same time."
"What are you even!.." Black started to be indignant, but immediately received a thrown candy wrapper in the face from James.
"Don't boil over, Sirius! Remus is absolutely right... Besides, it is thanks to him that we all managed to get off with a mild fright or relatively simple wounds," Potter shouted, only further inflaming our buddy. "And don't even try to argue! If it weren't for his Levicorpus and the stun spell, that bastard would have managed to curse you at least a couple more times!"
"Tsk! So be it! It still doesn't mean we should have sat in the common room while the rest of our guys went to battle!" the guy reared up belligerently, continuing to stand his ground...
"Black, and that says it all," I grimaced mentally, however, acknowledging that there is logic in Sirius's words. "If we had decided to sit it out, our own guys wouldn't have understood us... Especially since against the background of the rest of our peers, our group showed itself simply brilliantly!"
"Let's not argue about this," I sighed heavily, asking the guys to calm down. "This whole battle was initially a mistake of our senior students. We were dragged into it almost by force... and turned out to be unprepared for a battle of this level."
"Unprepared is putting it mildly!" Peter chimed in, as usual taking a not very active part during our arguments.
"But we still took down a couple of senior students! And in general, we are almost the only ones from our year who managed to somehow distinguish themselves at all!" Sirius objected to me, however, not in a hurry to deny my words.
"Maybe so," I nodded confidently to Black. "Only if in the future someone else decides to arrange something like this, we will send such a smartass on a well-known route. Even if this someone is one of us!" I added to my words with pressure, receiving in response, albeit reluctant, but still agreeing nods from the guys.
"Albeit gradually, but my authority is beginning to grow... James and Sirius increasingly listen to my words... although it's still not enough for now," I noted mentally, interrupting verbal communication for a moment.
"It's unlikely anyone else will dare to arrange such a mess," feeling my hesitation, Peter spoke up. "Most of the senior students are unlikely to appear in the school until the very exams, and among our peers there is no one who could organize something like that. Even if we talk about us..."
"In a couple of years, our influence will be just enough to arrange a mess of no lesser scale. I, for your information, am going to become a prefect in the fifth year, James will almost certainly become the captain of the Quidditch team, he is already one of the best players on our team, well, and Black is Black," I objected to the weakest link of our company, at the same time opening the guys' eyes to our possible future.
"Umm. In this scenario, we really will be able to rouse the people to another battle of this level in our fifth year," Potter agreed with me with some anticipation and excitement.
"But we won't do it," Peter immediately perked up.
"Of course we won't! Just the prospects themselves..." James smiled dreamily, loving to gather other people's attention more than any of us. It wasn't for nothing that he became the Seeker on our Quidditch team.
"The prospects are tempting and interesting, but quite distant for now... At least until the fifth year, it will be better for us not to get involved in any serious showdowns between houses anymore," I pulled my buddies up.
"Chickened out?" Sirius snorted mockingly in my direction.
"No, I just don't want to switch to 'home schooling'. You know yourself, studying at Hogwarts means quite a lot to me..." I answered dryly, making my buddy a little embarrassed. "Besides, our skills are still insufficient for a full-fledged confrontation with older guys," I decided to change the subject to a more interesting one for me...
"Our training is bearing simply excellent fruits... And I simply cannot allow them to stop because of some trifle. And therefore, I need to continue to spur the guys' enthusiasm in this direction, relying, among other things, on the fact that the glory of the strongest mages of Hogwarts in the future will still allow us to do things much more impressive than the recent fight near the edge of the Forbidden Forest," I grinned to myself, starting to press on the not-so-secret desires of my buddies.
And all this so that our training would begin immediately after the resumption of regular classes... There are a little more than three months left until the end of the school year. And I want to spend this time with maximum benefit, frankly not knowing what awaits me during the holidays. My father, of course, never took Remus's magic wand away from him, allowing him to cast magic during the holidays too.
But the conditions for training in my native home will hardly be comparable to what their relatives will organize for my friends. James and Sirius have already complained to me more than once about the tutors and personal trainers that their parents hire for them for the summer... I will be deprived of such luxury, which is why it was especially important for me to get the maximum out of the school year.
"I understood this before, but I'm still not going to miss a reason to push my buddies in the right direction," I smiled to myself, in passing noting that I myself acutely wanted to cover some of my weaknesses after the recent battle.
Except James and I had already refused to train within the common room or our dormitory, imposing this refusal on the rest too. Because of which, until Monday itself, the guys and I only made a training plan and finished reading the books sent by Sirius's cousin.
The enthusiasm that seized our whole company had to be put somewhere... And while I gladly spent excess energy and free time on practicing mental magic, Sirius, James, and Peter literally languished with impatience to quickly return to our usual training.
And I justly considered such a mood of the guys my personal success... It's just a pity that it didn't last too long. It was simply impossible to infinitely maintain the required level of motivation, especially since we were talking about not very diligent and disciplined teenagers.
Gradually, the memories of that grandiose, albeit fleeting, skirmish on the edge of the Forbidden Forest began to fade, our training again became something quite ordinary... They, of course, still stood out favorably against the background of ordinary classes and homework, but the enthusiasm of my buddies still faded by the end of the month.
And only I continued to hone my own skills like a madman, provoke the guys into constant sparring, and spend every free minute reading in the library... I even dropped out of the usual conflict with Snape at some point, which no one particularly objected to.
And all because of what? And all because closer to the beginning of the Easter holidays I still mastered several simple medical spells. Nothing significant, I could only reduce bruises and heal not very deep scratches, with which the potions bought by Sirius and James helped perfectly...
But even so, the Marauders appreciated my skills, getting rid of the need to choke on potions after every scratch, and no longer intending to distract me from training.
"A personal healer on the team is fucking convenient. So don't you dare slack off, our fanged friend!" frankly having fun, Sirius addressed me then... And I listened to him, now at every opportunity refusing to participate in dubious teenage adventures, citing a desire to continue my own training.
Which, of course, distanced me somewhat from the collective, the Marauders at some point almost completely stopped calling me to showdowns with Snape or night walks around the castle, but I was ready to make such insignificant sacrifices for the sake of my own development. Especially since, by and large, my relationship with my buddies practically did not change in any way.
And all because I refused only "dubious adventures," otherwise continuing to share most of the interests and joint entertainment of the Marauders... After all, I also needed some kind of rest. Not to mention my leading role in conducting the "cold war" with the house of snakes and supporters of the Dark Lord.
After the actual expulsion of the senior students from school life, most of the serious conflicts within the walls of the castle somehow disappeared by themselves... But petty mischief, evil jokes about someone else's house, and rare skirmishes in the corridors still continued at the usual pace.
And I simply could not ignore this fact! Such an attitude to what was happening could very quickly make me an outcast in my own house, not to mention that a decent part of other people's attacks was focused, among other things, on the Marauders...
After all, not only were we the actual leaders of our year of study. No, we also secured the glory of far from the weakest fighters, not hesitating to make public our achievements during that very battle, and then confirming our skills in several skirmishes with fifth-year snakes...
Which on the one hand had an extremely positive effect on our reputation among the house, but on the other—caused a lot of problems and forced us to keep our wands ready all the time... The risk of accidentally running into someone else's ambush very quickly teaches you to take the speed of drawing your own weapon extremely seriously.
I absolutely didn't want to miss a couple of curses simply because I didn't have time to find my wand in my pocket. And therefore I was not going to step on the same rake three times, finally getting used to keeping the wand in the right sleeve of my robes. Even if it's not very convenient, but at the right moment it allows you to almost instantly defend yourself from someone else's attack...
"And why does this castle remind me more and more every day of a battlefield isolated from the rest of the world?" I thought mockingly, towards the very end of the year completely losing count of how many times I actually managed to clash in battle with the "vile slugs" who so loved to attack Gryffindors walking alone around the castle.