The Final Challenge

Remus paced the bedroom for the hundredth time. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning and he still hadn't thought of something to add to the list that would ensure James and Sirius would lose the bet.

"You shouldn't have helped them so much," Peter commented around a wide yawn. "They'd still be setting up the ironing board or burning meals if you hadn't given them demonstrations and stuff."

"I know," Remus agreed. "I just didn't think they'd keep it up. I thought we'd win by default when they caved and used magic."

"You thought they'd cheat?"

Remus nodded. "Yeah. They are so dependent on magic I thought they'd try breaking into the safe or sneaking one of our wands to do something the wizard way."

Remus flopped back onto the bed and groaned with frustration. "There's got to be something we can add to the list that will stump them."

"How about something that's completely impossible?" Peter asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Like learn to fly a muggle plane."

"That takes ages to do."

"Exactly. Or how about building a snowman. It's really easy to do, but not in the middle of the summer."

Remus considered the ideas for a moment. "Nah. It has to be something they can do in a day or we'd be making it unfair for them."

"If it's too easy they'll do it right away though."

"I know. It has to be something pretty tricky, but something if they said 'you do it to prove it can be done' either of us can do."

"What about the hoovering?"

"They already did it when cleaning the house up."

"Did they do the light a fire challenge?"

"Yeah, they marked it off after setting their meal on fire. I still say that shouldn't count, but do you really want them trying to set fire to anything else?"

Peter shook his head rapidly. "No, I guess not. With my luck the next time they'll burn down the whole house."

Remus sighed loudly. "We need to think of something."

-o-x-o-

Despite the late hour James and Sirius were as wide awake as Remus and Peter, though in Sirius's case it was under protest.

"Can we just go to sleep?" Sirius complained.

"No," James insisted. "You know how sneaky Moony can be. We've got to swot up on muggle stuff ready for whatever he throws at us tomorrow."

"But it's the middle of the night."

"It's barely midnight."

"It's one o'clock!"

James looked across at the room at the clock on the wall. "Wow, time really does fly when you're having fun, doesn't it?"

"You call this fun?" Sirius picked up a pillow and threw it at James. "I need to sleep."

James took the pillow and placed it behind his back. "Okay, chapter five, muggle modes of transport."

Sirius tried to suffocate himself with his one remaining pillow.

"Sirius, are you evening listening to me?" James asked after repeating his latest question on muggle motor cars for the third time.

Sirius faked a loud snore.

"Are you asleep?"

A second snore came from Sirius's bed.

"Sirius, wake up!"

The third snore practically shook the rafters. James grabbed his pillow and proceeded to batter Sirius with it until he admitted he was awake.

"We can't learn the entire muggle studies text book in a single night!" Sirius finally shouted. "Let me sleep, Potter!"

James returned to sit on his bed and opened the book again. "What are the five main differences between muggle buses and wizard buses?" he asked loudly.

"Wizard buses stop when you want them to," Sirius muttered. "And they don't try to run you over."

James scowled at Sirius. "Can you at least try to learn something?"

Sirius glared back. "Why would Remus give us a challenge on muggle transport when we already travelled by bus and taxi?"

James, who was either too tired or too dense to have thought of that nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, we'll skip that chapter. Chapter six, muggle sports."

Sirius screamed.

-o-x-o-

Peter shot up in bed at the sound of the scream from the other room. "Wha-?"

"It's just Sirius," Remus said from where he was still pacing the room and trying to think of something to add to the list.

Peter wondered whether he should be concerned at the scream, but he was too tired to worry about for more than a moment. Chances are Sirius had merely caught sight of himself in the mirror and had startled himself. Despite their best efforts, neither Sirius nor James had managed to put their hair to rights completely.

-o-x-o-

The next morning saw four very tired and extremely irritable wizards stumbling round the kitchen in search of breakfast.

"What's the plan for today then?" Peter asked. "The guests for the barbecue were told to be here for three."

"How many people have we invited?" Sirius asked.

"Just our dates and a few of the Gryffindors from school," Remus replied.

"You invited wizards?" Sirius seemed surprised by this revelation.

"Yes."

"Do they know not to use magic?"

"I've told them all to be here between one and two," Remus explained. "They'll be flooing here well before the muggles and we'll make sure they know the rules before the muggles get here."

"Who did you invite?" James asked. "You better not have invited Lily."

"I thought you'd have wanted Lily here," Peter commented. "She being the love of your life and all that. In your imagination anyway."

"You think I'd want Lily here when I've been forced to bring a muggle girl here for a date?" James looked increasingly worried. "You didn't invite her, did you?"

"Of course I did," Remus replied with a grin. "She said, and I quote, 'what makes you think I'd want to spend a minute more than I have to with Potter? Next year is going to be bad enough as it is. What in the world was Dumbledore thinking?'"

"Huh?" James said with a frown of confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Remus shrugged. "Don't know."

"Yes, you do. Spill it, Lupin or else."

Remus raised a brow at James. "Resorting to threats, are we?"

James was about to reply when a tap on the window alerted them to the arrival of an owl carrying a letter.

They all recognised the owl as belonging to the Potters and James jumped up from the table to let it in.

"It's from my mum," James said as he tore open the letter and quickly read it. "Oh my god! Oh. My. God. Ohmygod-ohmygod-onmygod."

"What is it?" Sirius asked, trying without success to look over James's shoulder.

"Mum's forwarded on my letter from Hogwarts with the book list and … wow!"

James held out his hand and Sirius looked down at the shiny head boy badge in his palm. "Another one gone over to the dark side," he said in a miserable tone. "First Moony gets made a prefect, and now this."

James looked over at Remus and cringed. "I thought for sure you'd get it."

Remus snorted. "I didn't. Dumbledore's plan for me to keep you two out of trouble was obviously doomed from the start. Clearly this is his backup plan."

"How come Lily knew you'd been made head boy?" Peter asked curiously.

"Because she's head girl," Remus said. "Which means the poor girl has got to work with Prongs all year."

James gave a dreamy sigh. "All year. A whole year for me to work my magic on Lily Evans."

"And a year of us putting up with this," Remus muttered. "You do know the head boy has to work with the head girl, not just fawn over her?"

James wasn't listening. He was off in his own little world, where Lily was madly in love with him and they were the hottest couple at Hogwarts. Remus knew he'd eventually fall back down to Earth, probably about the same time he came face to face with Lily again.

In the meantime he had thought of a challenge to put onto the list, and now James was distracted it was the perfect time to add it. With a bit of luck neither he nor Sirius would remember to check the list until it was too late.

-o-x-o-

The guests for the barbecue arrived in dribs and drabs during the course of the afternoon. The wizards were under strict orders to make sure they didn't use magic and those who arrived in wizard robes were offered a change of clothes before the muggles arrived.

Remus wasn't surprised to see James avoiding his date as though she were contagious, just in case Lily changed her mind and stopped by. He didn't want to risk her seeing him with another girl and blowing what slim chance he had with her before he'd even started their final year at Hogwarts.

Sirius on the other hand seemed more than eager to get to know the girls, none of which recognised him after he'd finally fixed his hair.

Other than a minor explosion of the barbecue itself, easily rectified with a sneaky spell from Remus, there weren't any other magical mishaps.

The party continued well into the evening and the last guests only departed shortly after ten o'clock.

The clean-up, done in true muggle fashion, took over an hour. The long day, combined with the lack of sleep the boys had had the previous night was taking its toll. Yawning widely they collapsed onto the chairs and the sofa in the living room.

Finally the topic of conversation turned to the bet.

"I can't wait to hit the beach tomorrow," Sirius declared with a wide grin.

"What do you mean?" Remus asked, suddenly a little more awake than he had been a moment before.

"Because we won the bet," Sirius explained as though speaking to a small child. "We've done all your tasks the muggle way and that means we get to go to the beach."

"What makes you think you've done everything?" Remus asked innocently.

"We'd completed all of the things on your list yesterday and you've not added anything today."

"Yes I did."

James bolted up in his seat. "What? When?"

"I added a task this morning."

"You never said anything."

Remus smirked. "There's nothing in the rules that say we have to tell you when we add something."

"I told you he was sneaky," James complained to Sirius. "Let's get the wretched list and see what he's added. We've still got nearly an hour before midnight."

Pushing each other out of the way, they ran for the list.

"Moony, you git!" Sirius shouted.

"Evil, Moony, truly evil," James said as he ran back through the living room and up the stairs.

"What did you add to the list?" Peter asked curiously. He hadn't bothered checking the list earlier in the day either, too busy worrying about something going wrong with the barbecue.

"Just a simple muggle task," Remus said with a smirk. "To do their Muggle Studies homework."

"But that isn't a muggle job," Peter pointed out.

"Muggle Studies homework is something that has to be done like muggles would," Remus explained. "Prongs and Padfoot have been complaining about it since third year. They always leave their homework to the last minute, at least until now."

"The holidays are nearly over. I'd say it's still last minute."

"Except they've been working on their homework all week, without realising it. The question is whether they will figure that out before midnight or not."

"What do you mean?"

Remus leaned closer in case one of the others was lingering in earshot. "The homework for the summer was for them to prepare for a presentation in the first week back on how to live as muggles."

"So by making them give up magic for the week, you've helped them do what they need to for their homework?"

"Yes."

"Then they'll have won the bet."

"Not if they don't figure it out."

Upstairs, James was digging through his trunk, desperately searching for the homework their Muggles Studies teacher had given them.

"Are you sure you brought it with you?" Sirius asked as he pulled everything out of his own luggage to find his own.

"I don't know. If I thought the homework would wait until we got back to school, then no."

"Can you remember what it was?"

"Would I be looking for it if I could?"

The minutes ticked away and neither boy could find anything in their belongings to give them even a hint as to what the homework was. When the grandfather clock in the downstairs hall chimed midnight they dragged themselves back downstairs.

"You admit you lost?" Remus asked as they sat back down.

James nodded and Sirius mumbled a yes.

"And we get to visit the museum and not the beach on the last day?"

"If we must."

Remus grinned and something on his face must have given away that he knew more than he was letting on.

"So, what was our homework?" Sirius asked. "I can tell you know by the smirk."

"To live as muggles to prepare for a presentation to the class."

James groaned. "And we've already done that."

"Which means we won," Sirius declared.

"But you admitted defeat," Remus reminded him.

"Git!" Sirius replied with a small smile.

"Sneaky git," James amended.

Remus chuckled. "Yes, but at least this way you'll get top marks on your presentation."

"I'd rather get low marks and a day at the beach," Sirius sulked.

"How about we split it?" Remus suggested. "The morning at the museum and the afternoon at the beach?"

James and Sirius agreed with pleasure. "Can we have our wands back now?"

Peter went to fetch their wands and held them out to them. "Don't you want to carry on with doing things the muggle way?"

"No!" the both insisted as they grabbed their wands back.

"There's only one way for us," James started.

"And that's the wizard way," Sirius finished.

Remus couldn't argue with that. They were wizards through and through. From now on they'd leave the muggle ways to the muggles themselves and stick to good old fashioned magic.

The End

AN: Thank you to everyone for your patience in waiting on this story all this time. For anyone who has left a review, thank you so much and I will get round to replying to them all, though probably after November is out of the way. I have a lot of fanfics to get finished this month. :-)