Every now and then, the Marauders fandom gets upset that James was chosen to be a Head Boy when he wasn’t a Prefect.
It started in the autumn of his fifth year. The fifteen-year-old marched through the corridors, feeling rather important, a badge pinned to his robes.
Filch caught him within the first five minutes. To be fair, James hadn’t tried to run. (If he had, he would have gotten away). He had no reason to. Still, the caretaker grumbled threats of torture as he dragged the Chaser to Professor McGonagall’s office.
“Pretending to be a Prefect,” Filch snarled.
“I’m not pretending you old—” James eventually broke off as he realized that there was no use shouting at the lump of clay that was the caretaker. And so, he turned to Professor McGonagall and said, “I’m a temporary Prefect for the night.”
“Are you?” she asked, with a flicker of amusement. “I don’t seem to recall appointing you as such.”
“You know, Sirius’ brother told me something interesting the other day,” James said. “Did you know that if you looked at the night sky, you could see a star that represents them both? Isn’t that strange. Look for yourself, Professor.”
And she glanced out the window and saw the stars in question. Right next to the nearly full moon. Her face gave away nothing, but she curtly dismissed the caretaker, who seemed surprised if not furious.
“Surely you want me to stay to deliver the punishment?” Filch asked.
“There will be no punishment,” Professor McGonagall said curtly. “You caught a Prefect out of bed. That’s not exactly against the rules, is it?”
James could have hugged her.
As soon as the caretaker was gone, she pushed the tin of biscuits towards James. It didn’t even need saying at this point. He grinned and took his favorite kind. She always had them.
“I didn’t even think…” she whispered. “It’s not full for another three days.”
“I know,” said James. “But he’s really sick this time.”
“He should have told me,” she said. “I would have given him the time off.”
“Yeah, well,” James shrugged. “You know Remus.”
She smiled; she did indeed.
“Did he brief you on your responsibilities?” the professor asked.
“If by ‘briefed’ you mean ‘went into a three-hour lecture on what I should or should not do’ then yeah.”
“You know that I can’t make this official,” Professor McGonagall said. “People would talk.”
“Nah, I know,” James said.
“You can’t brag about this.”
“You can’t abuse your privileges.”
“I believe you have work to do,” she said.
James gave her a mock salute and marched away. He performed Remus’ duties all night, never once abusing the power, knowing that doing so would tarnish Remus’ reputation. He performed them the next two nights as well and told a very skeptical Professor McGonagall that he was sick on the night of the full moon. (”Oh dear,” she said. “I hope your illness stagnates.”)
Truth be told, James was a Prefect almost as much as Remus was.
They were some of the only times in his term at Hogwarts that he solemnly swore that he wasn’t up to no good.
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