Jack O' Lanterns

A/N: A Marauder Era fic
Word Count: 1,170
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"What's going on?" Remus had been doing his Runes homework when James burst through the dorm door. Without a word, the taller boy pulled Remus from his bed and down the stairs. The common room was empty except for a few older students and the other two Marauders.

Sirius and Peter were both sitting at one of the larger, round tables near the portrait hole. Peter was looking between Sirius and the others expectantly while Sirius was sitting there with a smug grin. "Guess what I nicked."

Remus looked at the floor around the table and saw something being covered up by a blanket. "Is it that?" he asked, trying to sound stern but couldn't keep the smile off of his face.

Peter and James both looked down at the pile as well as Sirius got up from his seat. "Very observant, Messer Moony." He flung the blanket away, revealing four large pumpkins. "Didn't really nick them, o' course," he said, tossing the cover over his shoulder where it landed on the chair he'd been occupying before. "Hagrid let me take them."

"Brilliant!" James said, jumping to his feet and went to grab for a pumpkin. It was so large the top of it almost reached the tip of his chin. "What are we going to do with them?" Slowly, he brought it higher so he could look it over as he smiled broadly.

"Carve them!" Sirius answered enthusiastically. He grabbed another one, just a little smaller than the one James had chosen, and passed it to Remus carefully, trying to not break it. "And we're doing it the Muggle way," he added when he saw Peter pulling his wand out.

James dropped his pumpkin on the wooden surface, making the table shake slightly. "You mean we're not going to pull a prank with them?" he asked, sounding like a pouting five year-old. "But that's the whole point of Halloween!"

"Actually," Remus said, setting his own on the table softly. "Halloween used to be a Gaelic culture celebration. They used to believe that deceased would come back to life on that day because the walls between worlds would overlap. What?"

The other boys were looking at him; two wore expressions of interests while the other was smiling fondly at him. "You know the most random things, Moony," James chuckled then looked back at his pumpkin. "How do we start?"

"You need to cut around the top and take it off," Remus informed them, then chuckled when he saw the slightly affronted look on Sirius' face. "Sorry, didn't mean to take over. You go ahead."

"Thank you," Sirius said with a nod then looked at the other two boys. "Like Moony said: cut off the tops so we can get inside."

The four boys spent the next half hour cutting open and hollowing out the pumpkins. They only had to pause a few times; once when Peter accidentally cut his thumb open, another time when Sirius refused to empty out his pumpkin saying "I can't risk getting that stuff in my hair!", and another time when one of the younger students came down to get Remus to tell his roommates to settle down.

"Prefect Moony to the rescue again," James sniggered when he returned then had to duck when Remus threw a chuck of pumpkin innards at him.

When four empty pumpkins were sitting on the table, James and Peter looked to Sirius for guidance. "Now what?" the shortest Marauder asked, rubbing his recently healed thumb.

"Now we carve faces," Sirius said as he turned his pumpkin around, looking for the perfect side to cut into. "Like the ones that float in the Great Hall during the feast."

James perked up slightly as a mischievous smile slowly spread across his face. He disappeared behind his own and went to work. Remus was slightly worried about what he was doing but decided to not bother him. If he got Sirius mad because he didn't want to play by the rules, then he'd have to face the wrath of Sirius Black by himself.

Peter started to cut into his own pumpkin, trying to make the face a little more festive than the ones that they saw in the Great Hall while the other two continued to think about what they wanted theirs' to look like.

"Do you know why they're called Jack O' Lanterns?" Remus asked when he finally came up with an idea then started to carve. When the others didn't say anything, Remus started to tell the story. "One day, a man named Jack was being chased by villagers who he had stolen from. Just ahead in the road, he came across the Devil who told him it was his time to die.

"Somehow, Jack convinced the Devil to trick the villagers to prolong his life. He told the Devil to change into a coin and he'd give him to the villagers. They would take the Devil in the shape of the coin back to the village where he would disappear. When the people would find their money missing, they would fight with one another over who had stolen it.

"The Devil agreed and Jack put the coin in his wallet. But, in his wallet was a cross that stripped the Devil of all his powers. Jack told him, he would release him if he promised to not to take his soul. Of course, the Devil agreed and Jack let him go and got to live out the rest of his life.

"When Jack died, he couldn't get into Heaven because of all the sinful things he had done during his life. And he couldn't get into Hell because the Devil had promised to not take his soul. When he asked the Devil where he should go, he got an ember that would never go out as an answer.

"Jack then hollowed out a turnip - which was his favorite food - then placed the ember inside. He was forced to walk the earth forever, looking for an eternal resting place."
Remus finished off face of his Jack O' Lantern and looked up to find his friends staring at him. "What?" he asked again, trying to hide an amused smile.

"Like I said before, Moony," James said, going back to his pumpkin. "You know the most random things." Sirius and Peter laughed at the comment and finished their pumpkins as well. Remus just rolled his eyes with another fond smile before conjuring a candle and lighting it.

"Happy Halloween," he said, placing the light candle inside and looked at the glowing smile.
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"James Potter!" Sirius yelled, chasing his best friend out of the common room. "That's not what you were supposed to make!"

Remus and Peter looked at each other then ran over to see what James had carved. It was a (amazingly accurate) picture of Lily dressed as a Columbia from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That's what Remus got for letting his friends see that movie.