woldy (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} woldy) wrote,@ 2008-09-04 11:08:00 |
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| Entry tags: | hp slash, r/s games, remus/sirius |
My R/S Games Round 2 fic - Horoscopes and how they caused the Plague of Frogs
Title: Horoscopes and how they caused the Plague of Frogs
Author: Woldy
Rating: R
Summary: This is the story of the most improbable job Remus ever had, the Chocolate Frog Plague of 1980 and, incidentally, how he first kissed Sirius.
Warnings: Absurdity and explicit boysex
Disclaimer: Not mine & not profiting
Notes: Written for the second round of the R/S Games, in the humour & romance genres. The prompt was "Gemini (May 21 -- June 21) - It's time to act against your natural character and inclination. You need to display all the qualities you don't believe you have. With the right changes, you'll attract the luck you need when it means the most."
Credits: Many thanks to Team Post-Hogwarts, to the R/S Games mods & to MaraudersAffair for beta-ing. This fic was inspired by the wonderful (alas now retired) astrologer Psychic Psmith.
Read the story via R/S Games or...
“Oi, where are the onions?” asked James.
“Where they always are, idiot,” Sirius replied, and dodged as James threw a clove of garlic at him.
“No food fights!” Lily warned them, “The first rule of spaghetti night, boys…”
“Spaghetti in five,” Peter announced from the stove, and James started chopping in earnest.
They didn’t all live together, although it often felt that way on Mondays. The Marauders had planned to live together after Hogwarts, imagining a big house of pranks and revelry, but it didn’t work out because James had opted to move in with Lily. Peter was living with his mum, which they teased him about, but he knew they understood because his mum lived alone and the world wasn’t as safe as it used to be. Besides, Sirius and Peter didn’t really get along without James since Sirius made nasty remarks and Peter got sulkily resentful about it.
So, Remus and Sirius lived together and everyone came over for spaghetti on Mondays, with a Two Pint Maximum to prevent hangovers from getting anybody fired. On Fridays they got drunk, initially at James and Lily’s, but she put a stop to that when Sirius and James’ naked singing in the garden nearly got them evicted. Now everybody went to the Leaky or the Three Broomsticks and Lily got sloshed on chardonnay in the happy knowledge that no one was wrecking her furniture.
All in all, things were as good as could be expected given that Remus couldn’t hold down a job and had no prospects of a relationship. Still, a beautiful best mate who didn’t bring too many girls home was probably the best Remus could’ve hoped for and he was grateful for it.
“Spaghetti in two!” Peter called, over the hiss of frying onions and meatballs, and Remus turned his attention to heating the tomato sauce.
But this story isn’t about tomato sauce. This is the story of the most improbable job Remus ever had and how it caused the Chocolate Frog Plague of 1980. It’s also, incidentally, the story of how he got together with Sirius, but that comes later.
Remus’ job, the incredibly improbably one, happened by accident – or that’s what he told people afterwards. One day Remus’ glance strayed from the Prophet’s Jobs listing into the Assorted column and saw the advert for the Psychic, which quoted ten galleons for a personalised reading.
“Blimey, I could give you better advice than that for ten galleons!” Remus muttered, refolding the paper to the sport section.
It occurred to him, lying in the bath that evening that he really could give better advice. And he could undercut the quote.
------------------------------------
“What are you doing?”
Remus jumped slightly and shuffled his papers to cover the piece he was working on. “Er, nothing, Sirius,” he said, “Applying for jobs again. You know how it is.”
“Hmmmn,” said Sirius, looking doubtful. “That’s a lot of paper, for jobs.”
Sirius was right, given that the desk was covered in books, scrolls, rolls of parchment and several notebooks. Despite the open Prophet with which Remus was now hiding some of the more incriminating items, it was an implausible story.
“Well it’s not easy to find something,” Remus replied, throwing in a bitter tone for added conviction. “I can’t keep living off you forever.”
“You can if you want,” said Sirius.
This was part of their routine; the discussion they’d had every couple of weeks since moving in. Sirius’ part – which he played with aplomb – was that of the liberal, aristocratic wastrel with nothing better to do than spend his ill-gotten inheritance on making his mates’ lives easier. Remus’ part was to be fiercely independent and quietly resentful for ever needing help.
They’d acted out this scene often enough that it was starting to get tedious.
“No,” Remus said, shortly. “I’ll pay you back. As soon as I’ve got some cash coming in.”
“All right,” said Sirius, in a tone that implied he didn’t believe Remus would pay him back, but that he didn’t care either. “I’ve made a pot of tea, if you want some.”
“Thanks, yeah,” Remus said. “Just give me a minute to tidy up.”
He waited for Sirius to leave the living room and then collected the papers and handful of books that were spread over the desk, put them into a desk drawer and closed it.
After a moment, Remus added a padlock charm with a password keyed to himself, because Sirius was relentlessly nosy and Remus didn’t want him getting involved. Sirius, he knew, wouldn’t like it.
-------------------------------
“Jobs again?” Sirius asked innocently, as he appeared suddenly at Remus’ elbow.
Sirius usually didn’t get back from work for another half hour, and he was generally as noisy as a stampeding rhinoceros. Remus knew from long experience that if Sirius showed up anywhere silently, then it was deliberate.
Remus’ hand jerked in an attempt to cover the papers but Sirius was right behind him and-
“Why on earth are you reading a star chart?”
“Er, keeping a track on things.” Remus said, desperately searching for an excuse. “With the moon. And…stuff.”
“You know when the full moon is,” Sirius said, in a resolutely logical voice. “It’s twenty nine days after the previous one. They’re marked in your diary.”
They were. Full moons had been marked in Remus’ diary for years and were symbolised by an oddly shaped squiggle, just in case someone other than himself or Sirius got a hold of it.
“Um, just…having a look. At the stars. In case it tells me something.”
Sirius stared at him. “This isn’t divination, is it?” he asked, suspiciously. “Why would you be reading about divination? You didn’t even take it at school – very sensibly - because the whole thing is complete rubbish. I’ve heard Hogwarts will probably stop teaching it now thingumy has retired.”
“Right,” Remus said slowly. “But there’s no harm in looking. Just on the off chance that it tells us something about the Death Eaters and-”
This was the worst excuse in history. Sirius would think he was an idiot.
“If we’re relying on divination for intelligence, then Merlin help us,” Sirius said, wearing an expression that showed he thought Remus was being an idiot. “It has absolutely no basis in fact and no possible rationale. Feel free to waste your time, though.”
Remus added the unspoken words it’s not as though you have a job, or anything.
Screw this; screw Sirius’ charity and patronising comments. From now on, Remus would do it in private.
“I will, thanks,” Remus said, muttering a charm which caused the books and papers to gather themselves up into a neat pile. He picked up the pile and walked to his bedroom with as much dignity as he could muster.
When he turned to close the door, Sirius was watching him with a very sceptical expression. Without rancour, Remus shut the door in his face.
------------------------------------
Remus didn’t really expect anyone to reply to his advertisement, but he was wrong: the next day’s post brought several requests for personal readings, all of whom paid in advance. He spent the first cheque on good chocolate, lamb chops and fresh orange juice, which pretty much committed him to doing the work.
After some consideration, Remus devised a four step process for writing each horoscope.
Step 1: Ensure Sirius is not in the vicinity and cannot surprise you by accident or design.
Step 2: Consult what it says about the given birth-date and star sign in Divination for Dummies and An Idiots Guide to Horoscopes.
Step 3: Discard about half of what the books said and copy down the gist of the remainder.
Step 4: Make the rest up.
The first three steps were working pretty well, but the fourth was hard. Of all the Marauders, Remus alone didn’t have years of practice at making things up because he’d put the effort into doing his homework.
Remus sighed and turned back to Avandia Lovegood’s draft horoscope in front of him.
Why did the language for these things always have to be so vague? “Due to the conjunction of Mercury and Venus, dark misfortune will befall you this month” seemed to be all right, but they never said “On Thursday you will trip over the cat while holding a hot saucepan, necessitating a trip to St Mungos.” How were you supposed to come up with a relentless stream of waffle without repeating yourself?
Remus glanced up at his bookcase in hope of inspiration and it struck him - a thesaurus. Perhaps he could devise a lot of different ways to say the same thing? He knew what people wanted to hear at the moment anyway: your family will be safe; things are getting better; the righteous will triumph. Remus couldn’t promise any of that, though, and he’d feel pretty awful lying about it.
“The last degrees of Scorpio indicates some difficult times ahead, although things are likely to improve with time. Be careful about who you confide in,” Remus wrote. That seemed like good, reliable advice. Over a long enough timescale, things were certain to improve.
Oh hell, he still had to come up with another 2 paragraphs.
Remus closed his eyes and opened his dictionary at random. It landed somewhere in the Es, and a glance at the page showed the word ‘emotional’. Hah.
“Mercury is moving into retrograde, which will intensify life this week. A stressful turn of events may leave you feeling somewhat emotional, mid-month,” he wrote. As far as he could tell from the girls at school, being stressed out and emotional was the normal female state of being about a third of the time, so the odds of him being right were pretty good.
The best thing to do when emotional, in Remus’ opinion, was to drink plenty of hot, sweet tea. That advice was probably insufficiently mystical, though. Instead, he scribbled “You may have to resolve some issues with loved ones or at work; try to remain calm and avoid extra stresses where possible.”
He closed his eyes and opened the dictionary at random again. Ultracrepidarian, ultrafidian, ultramarine. U didn’t seem very promising, so far. Ululate, umbel, umber…
Remus closed the dictionary and tried again. If it took him this long to write a single horoscope, then doing three dozen a month was going to be a nightmare.
The horoscope business might’ve been a nightmare but at least it paid well.
“Here’s the rent,” Remus said lightly, and placed a neatly written cheque on the breakfast table.
Sirius spluttered and nearly choked on his coffee. “What?” he said, “I didn’t think you were working?”
“Well, I am,” Remus said, since he’d done several commissions last week and two more arrived over the weekend. “It’s the rent for this month. I can start paying you back, soon.”
“Who are you working for?”
“That’s really none of your business, Sirius,” Remus said calmly.
It didn’t work, of course. Telling Sirius to stay out of something was like a red rag to a bull. Sirius would spend hours breaking into a locked room just for the sake of it, even if they knew there was nothing interesting inside. Although James and Sirius always insisted the Marauders Map was motivated by pranks, Remus knew at heart that it was nosiness. “Curiosity,” Sirius had boasted once, “Only kills cats.”
Sirius frowned. “Well, what are you doing?” he asked.
“It’s not very interesting and I’m not very good at it, but it pays the bills.”
“Is this thing illegal, Remus?” Sirius said, leaning forward. “That could cause a lot of problems for me with the Aurors if-“
“Leave it, will you!” Remus said. “Why does everything have to turn into an argument?”
Sirius mouth set into a thin line. “I don’t want dirty money,” he said, tersely.
“It isn’t dirty money,” Remus replied, ignoring the flashing pink elephant that was the dubiously ethical origins of the Black fortunes. “It’s legal, all right. Just let me…pay my way.”
Sirius didn’t look very re-assured.
Remus spent a lot of the day worrying that spaghetti tonight would involve a tag team of enquiry from Sirius and James. Luckily, Sirius returned from work with a hilarious story about Alastor Moody accidentally cursing off one of his own buttocks when his wand misfired.
“It took three healers to re-attach it,” Sirius was saying, almost doubled up with laughter, “And he had to stand up the whole time!”
“Bum rap for him,” said James, spearing a meatball.
Peter tried to laugh mid-mouthful and almost choked, spraying tomato and pasta across the table. With a look of resignation, Lily Vanished it.
“Now Moody is completely paranoid about anyone putting wands in their back pocket and he threatened to curse us all if anyone told a soul,” Sirius concluded with evident unconcern.
“There’s not much to fear from a man who can’t find his arse with both hands,” said James cheerfully, and Peter dissolved into laughter again.
Once started with the ‘arse’ jokes, Remus knew they could go on for hours. The minor mystery of Remus’ new job didn’t stand a chance.
Next morning Remus was interrupted in the middle of his porridge by yet another unfamiliar owl. The large, spotted owl waited on the table, picking at Sirius’ toast crumbs, as he unfurled the parchment and saw the Quibbler’s letterhead. Sirius watched suspiciously.
“Excuse me,” Remus said, retreating to his bedroom to read it in private.
“Dear Lunar Legilimens,
Your services have been recommended by a close friend, so I am writing to offer you a position as the Astrologist for the Quibbler magazine. As you likely know, we are a fortnightly publication catering to the more discerning magical population who wish to avoid the narrow-mindedness and censorship of the ministry-approved media outlets. Many of our readers have a close interest in Divination, so this is a position of some import.
Unfortunately, our previous Staff Astrologist has moved to Tahiti at short notice, so we require a replacement for next week’s issue. The position and job contract are detailed below; please reply with your decision at your earliest convenience.
Blessings be upon your house,
Xenophilius Lovegood
Sub-Editor of the Quibbler”
Remus stared.
This was unexpected, but obviously he’d done something right if one of his clients had recommended him.
The important thing, though, was that the Quibbler’s contract paid a hundred Galleons a month for only two sets of horoscopes. At that rate he’d only need to write a handful of personalized readings and he'd be financially self-sufficient. He could probably afford a new set of robes, even.
Remus took out a fresh sheet of parchment and replied stating that he accepted the post on a provisional basis and would send the first set of Horoscopes by the end of the week. He went back downstairs to where the owl was waiting and found a scowling Sirius who was about to leave for work.
“Who’s that to?” Sirius asked, in a poor attempt to sound flippant.
“My employer,” Remus replied truthfully, and Sirius’ eyes narrowed.
“There was a time when you didn’t keep secrets from me,” Sirius said, and stepped into the Floo.
In anticipation that Divination for Dummies wouldn’t satisfying the ‘discerning’ (read eccentric or crazed) readers of the Quibbler, Remus spent the afternoon in Diagon Alley purchasing several of the more obscure and detailed texts on Astrology. He placed them carefully in a plain brown paper bag, which was just as well because Sirius glanced at the bag with interest when Remus got home.
“I brought you some ice cream from Fortescue’s,” Remus said, heading off Sirius' enquiry by waving the carton. “Cherry-Walnut and Wickedly Minty.”
Sirius’ eyes lit up. “Brilliant,” he said, reaching for the carton. “What d’you say we break it open? No point ruining our ice cream appetites by having supper first.”
James retrieved the garlic and smiled at her. “Who’s fighting?” he said, and Lily sighed with mostly-false exasperation.