The Worst Allergy in the World

Sirius Black was a simple man.

He liked Quidditch. He liked girls. He liked pranks. He liked his friends so much he considered them family.

And so when any of those things had cause to intersect, well…that just made things even more simple for him.

There were times, though, that those interests intersected in ways that caused problems for Sirius. Not major problems usually, but problems nonetheless. However…could anything really be considered a problem when he could turn it into a prank?

It was a truth universally acknowledged that Remus Lupin loved chocolate. No, not just loved it, he adored it. To be honest, he was nothing less than obsessed with all manner of cocoa bean-related products.

It was much less acknowledged that Remus Lupin was a werewolf.

But even more rare than that little-spoken-of knowledge were the number of times that Remus Lupin's friends managed to get him drunk.

For one, he was a bloody prefect who was ever so fond of following the rules…well, for the most part, anyway (he was a Marauder, after all).

For another, his werewolf biology…well to put it simply, his werewolf biology enhanced everything. Sense of smell. Hearing. Vision. Cravings for specific foods. Alcohol tolerance.

It took a lot to get Moony drunk.

That's not to say, of course, that his fellow Marauders didn't make as many attempts as possible at every available opportunity. Because oh Merlin, did they try.

There was nothing more hilarious or entertaining to the group of teenage boys than a drunk Moony.

Upon entering the Gryffindor Common Room on the second-to-last night of his Seventh Year, Sirius was surprised to not find any of his three best friends present. Granted, the big end-of-the-year-farewell-to-Hogwarts-forever bash they were planning to throw wasn't going to be until the following night. But still, with classes and exams all over for the year, it was surprising that none of them were taking advantage of the free time to socialize with their housemates in what little time they had left together.

Even more surprising was that Sirius had just spotted one Lily Evans sitting by the fire with a few of her friends. And no James in sight. After years of the other boy following the redhead around like a lovesick fool and then finally earlier this year somehow managing to convince her to actually date him, these circumstances now were highly unusual.

"Oi! Evans!" Sirius called out as he crossed the room.

Lily turned to him with a look of fond exasperation. "Is there something I can help you with, Black?"

"Where's your shadow?" He demanded.

"If by my shadow, you actually mean your shadow, plus two, then your friends went upstairs ages ago," Lily responded. "James was saying something about an experiment, so I figured it had something to do with the big prank I know you four are planning for the end of the year."

Sirius gasped theatrically, one hand going over his heart. "A prank? Us? Why, I never. I'm horribly offended by your accusations, Madame Head Girl Po—ahem Evans."

Lily rolled her eyes with a laugh. "Get lost, Sirius. I'm sure your friends haven't left you out of anything terribly important yet; they haven't been up there too long."

"Hmph," Sirius grumbled primly. "Well, although I can't imagine any of them ever getting up to any trouble, I suppose I should go up to supervise to them. I do like to do my best to keep them all on the straight and narrow."

With a wink to Marlene, who was sitting beside Lily and not making any effort to hide her laughter at his antics, Sirius spun on his heal to approach the boys' staircase. Once there, he took the stairs two and three at a time; it was practically their last night together—they couldn't plan a prank without him!

Once he arrived in the Seventh Year Dorm, however, he stopped short at the sight that met his eyes, rapidly assessing everything he saw.

The empty bottles littered across the floor and the blonde boy spread-eagled and snoring on one of the beds could only mean one thing. This was much better than planning a prank.

"Padfoot!" James exclaimed cheerfully as soon as he caught sight of Sirius. The pink flush across his cheek and the way his glasses were perched precariously on the edge of his nose told Sirius that his raven-haired friend was definitely responsible for more than one of those bottles being empty. "Where have you been, mate? We had to start without you."

"Detention," Sirius said with a shrug. "Managed to squeeze one more in with Minnie."

"WHAT? NO! We were going to be tied for record number of detentions in seven years at Hogwarts! How could you betray me like this Padfoot?!"

As amusing as drunk-James was in his apparent agony, something a bit more pressing caught Sirius' attention. While James was sitting on the floor, Remus was sitting across from him on James' bed…giggling.

Remus. Giggling. Like a little schoolgirl.

"Moony," Sirius began, his eyes lighting up in delight, "Are you drunk?"

He giggled again. "Nope."

"Moony," The way James refocused his attention on their obviously plastered friend led Sirius to revise his prior assumption about just who had been responsible for draining a majority of the empty alcohol bottles. "You were just waxing poetic about the way Meadowes' hair looks in the sun. You've definitely had a few more than usual."

"Oh Dorcas…" Remus collapsed backwards across James' bed with a dreamy sigh. "Do you think she even knows I exist?"

"Well seeing as you've been sitting next to her all year in Charms, I'd say yeah, there's a pretty good chance, mate," James rolled his eyes at Sirius as if to say 'Do you see what I've been putting up with all night? And isn't it hilarious?'

Sirius, however, was focused on the big picture. Several years ago—potentially on a summer night they'd been sleeping over at James' while his parents were out late at a fancy dinner for something or other—the Marauders had made the discovery that Remus could hold his liquor very well. It had to do with his enhanced werewolf genetics. (Coincidentally, that was also the night they discovered that Peter's tolerance for alcohol was just as low as Remus' was high, hence the reason the blonde boy was already passed out—it was just past eight right now, for Merlin's sake, they couldn't have been drinking for too long already!)

Ever since that night, James and Sirius had made it their mission to get their beloved werewolf friend well and truly drunk.

And it was quite possible that they may have had some ulterior motives for this mission. They were the Marauders, after all.

"Prongs, it's time to implement Operation: Kilo-Niner."

James merely squinted at Sirius for a moment, then, "Er…yes. Kilo-Niner. Right. Good idea. Let's do that. Now. Er…what does that stand for again?"

Sirius frowned slightly. "I'm going to assume that it's the firewhiskey that's making you forget, so that I'm not forced to be incredibly disappointed in you."

"Oh, of course, that's it. Can't get anything past you, Pads. I've had way too much to drink tonight. So…what's the plan again?"

Sirius smirked. "Watch and learn. Feel free to chime in once you figure it out."

He turned back to Remus, who was still lying upside down on James' bed with his head draped over the edge and a dopey grin on his face (one day the bloody git would actually admit he had a thing for Dorcas when he wasn't completely plastered).

"Oi! Moony! I'd keep an eye out if I was you. I saw Wormtail snooping around your Super Secret Stash of Chocolate earlier; reckon he might try and steal some when you're not looking."

At once, Remus' eyes widened in alarm and he scrambled to get off of the bed in a hurry. After getting tangled in his robes several times, he finally managed to make it to the bookshelf beside his own bed. He grabbed a rather thick red volume from the top shelf and clutched it to his chest, his eyes having taken on a rather crazed gleam by this point.

"No. Mine."

Peter remained dead to the world, snoring obliviously in his bed on the other side of the room.

"A book?" James demanded. "It took us seven years of snooping to finally find out you stash your chocolate in a book?!"

"That's not the important thing right now," Sirius waved him off. "What is it important is that we need to make sure Moony can protect his chocolate from Wormtail."

Remus nodded rapidly. "Mine," He clutched the book even more protectively.

"Do you have any suggestions, Prongs?" Sirius asked, glancing pointedly at his friend with his eyebrows raised.

"Er…uhm…Oh!" And Sirius saw the exact moment understanding dawned on James. "Yes! Ideas! I have all the ideas! I know exactly what to do."

"Well, do enlighten us, Prongs."

"You should eat it," James nodded earnestly as he spoke. "You should eat the chocolate right now so that Wormtail can't get to it."

"Eat the chocolate?" Remus questioned.

"All the chocolate," James confirmed.

"That's not a bad idea," Remus commented, flipping open the cover to reveal that the inside of the book had been hollowed out. There were easily a dozen bars of Honeydukes Finest inside.

"STOP!" Sirius yelled so loudly that Remus and James both jumped and even Peter's snoring was interrupted with a slight hitch before resuming it's previous steady rhythm.

"James. Fleamont. Potter. How could you?" Sirius wailed dramatically.

"Ugh, mate, I thought we agreed to never acknowledge what the 'F' stood for?" James grumbled.

"You were about to poison our best friend and all you're concerned about is that I spoke the Middle-Name-That-Must-Not-Be-Spoken?" Sirius demanded.

"Poison?" Remus questioned, his eyes widened in alarm as they darted to the pile of chocolate bars that he been revealed when he opened his 'book' and then back to his two friends. He still kept a firm grip on it, though, so Sirius could see he was going to need just a bit more convincing.

"Poison," Sirius confirmed with a sharp nod. "James here forgets sometimes, because we try not to talk about it. It's for your own good, though, Moony. We know how upset you get by the reminder that you're not supposed to eat chocolate."

"Not…supposed…what?"

"It's because…you know…your furry little problem," Sirius' voice dropped to a whisper at the end.

"My…what?"

"Oh dear. This is even worse than I feared. Prongs, Moony doesn't remember."

"It's okay," James said with a determined nod. "I can break it to him." He turned to their sandy-haired friend. "Remus, maybe you should sit down."

Remus obediently sat on the nearest bed and Sirius and James immediately flanked him.

"Now, before I say anything else, I just want you to remember this, Moony," James said gently, lying a comforting hand on Remus' arm, "It's okay to be different; Padfoot and I will always love you and be your friends, no matter what, alright?"

"O-okay."

"Moony, you're a werewolf."

"Oh," Remus said shortly. Then he frowned. "But I already knew that, didn't I?"

"Eh, sometimes you forget," James shrugged it off. "But there's something that goes along with being a werewolf that you definitely forget with a lot more frequency. You…" He paused dramatically to draw breath, then, "No. I can't do it! I can't bear to break his heart like this! Padfoot?"

"It's okay, Prongs, I've got this," Sirius reached across Remus to pat James consolingly on the arm. He didn't miss the minute twitch of Remus' hands as Sirius reached over his chocolate stash. This was going to end so beautifully.

"Moony. I know this is going to hurt for you to hear it, but it needs to be said. Werewolves do have distinct differences from common wolves, it's true. But there is one way that they're very similar to their distant cousin, the dog. Werewolves are allergic to chocolate."

"NOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Shh, there, there, Moony, everything will be alright," James put a consoling arm around his friend. "The truth hurts, I know."

"But…but…" Remus spluttered. "I can't…?"

"No, you can't eat it," Sirius shook his head sympathetically. "Well, I mean, you could…but you know what happens when dogs eat chocolate, right? It's not pretty. Do you remember that time you came with to visit my cousin Andromeda and we brought Nymphadora that Easter candy, but their dog got into it when no one was paying attention? It definitely wasn't pretty. It wasn't pretty at all. And, as your friends, we don't want to put you through that. Because we care about you, Moony."

"But my chocolate…" Remus looked forlornly down at the pile in his lap. (Sirius was pleased to note, though, that his face had taken on a distinctly green tinge; he clearly remembered that eventful Saturday afternoon at the Tonks house. This was going splendidly.)

"It's okay. This is why you have a Super Secret Stash, after all. You can't eat any of it without…well...you know, so we hide it away whenever anyone gives you any. And Peter…well, sometimes he forgets that we've all given up chocolate, too, in solidarity. But everything really will be okay," James said emphatically. "You can still lead a normal life, Moony. Well, mostly normal. I don't know what I'd do without the special chocolate cake my mum always makes for my birthday."

"James," Sirius said sharply.

"Oh, er, right," James said sheepishly. "I mean…chocolate is the devil's food! Good riddance, if you ask me."

"Exactly," Sirius said resolutely. "So. Moving forward. I'm going to take this, before anything horrible happens," he deftly slipped the hollow book out of Remus' now-limp grasp, but not without taking note of the title (Goblin-Troll Relations in the 14th Century and How They Still Affect Wizarding Majorca Today) for future purposes, before replacing it on Remus' shelf.

"What…what am I going to do now?" Remus asked in that same forlorn voice.

"I think this calls for some more firewhiskey. James?"

"Definitely. Only good ol' Ogden can help us now."

The next morning, when Remus woke up he only vaguely realized he had been passed out under his bed before he became aware of the horrible pounding sensation in his skull. And although every slight movement brought even more agony, he slowly but surely crawled his way out from under it and pulled himself onto his delightfully soft mattress. Unfortunately, resting his head on his pillow did nothing to lessen the pounding.

What had he been thinking last night...letting James talk him into all that firewhiskey?

He knew he didn't have any hangover potions handy, and Sirius' trunk was much too far away to even consider stealing one of his. There had to be something else he could do to deal with this.

Opening one eye, the first thing that Remus could blearily make out was the familiar red spine of his most beloved book.

Chocolate. That was what he needed. Chocolate could solve any problem.

He reached out his right hand, but hesitated when his fingers skimmed the book and his stomach gave a corresponding lurch. Actually, on second thought, maybe not. Chocolate sounded surprisingly unappetizing right now, for some reason.

There was nothing that could save Remus from his agony now.

With a groan, Remus shoved his head underneath his pillow, hoping to Merlin it would offer even of speck of relief. (It didn't.)

His head firmly covered, he missed Sirius and James—each sitting up on their own beds to either side of his—congratulating each other on a job well done with an air high-five over Remus.

Sirius liked his pranks and he liked his friends. And he loved any chance to mix the two together. It was as simple as that.