518Plot: The infamous Marauders weren't alone in their love for pranking. In fact, they often had their butts kicked by a bunch of girls. Now, seventh year is upon them, and the feud must soon come to an end. This is it. Four boys, four girls. Two opposing pranking teams. One hell of a battle to be won.
Disclaimer: Sad as it may be, I am not J.K. Rowling in disguise, and therefore I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters and themes involved. (I do, however, own Jamie, Hannah and Regan - so no poaching.)
Quick note: Before you start, here's one little thing to keep in mind: I meant it when I kept referring to this chapter as "The Big, Dramatic One". Especially about the "big" part. So there - you have been warned. I'll save the rest of my pathetic excuses/explanations for the author's note at the end of the chapter.
Previously in the Marauders and the Rogues...
After the Quidditch game, Sirius picked a fight with Hannikins and ended up with a lovely black eye.
Down in the Heads' common room, she and James discussed possible replacement events for the traditional Halloween feast, eventually settling on the promising idea of a haunted house (to take place in the Quidditch pitch).
The meeting, however, was not all smooth sailing - Lily and James ended up in a shouting match mostly about their friends, and when Lily realised that he was, for once, right about everything, she gave him a nice, big hug. Aww... kward.
Jamie had a confrontation with Remus in which she tried to apologise and explain herself, but he brushed her off with the usual "I can't deal with this right now" excuse. Jamie, being Jamie, took this to mean "I hate you" and got all depressed again.
In the Room of Requirement, the Rogues continued to practise their transformations. Lily transformed, and then Jamie (with some encouragement). Hannah got all in a huff, complaining about how it wasn't fair that she was the only one who couldn't do it. She started yelling at the Rogues for not taking the whole thing seriously, and when this led to the topic of Sirius himself, Hannah started ranting on about her hatred for him... and suddenly transformed into a white cat (instead of a tiger, as she had intended).
This white cat had four fresh cuts on her hip.
Regan demanded an explanation.
And now...
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Creature Behind the Curtain
Hannah wouldn't speak for days.
Despite Regan's determination in the Room of Requirement, the Rogues had been unable to extract even a fragment of an explanation from their usually talkative friend; they'd forced her to change back, sat her down, hounded her until they were blue in the face - but Hannah wouldn't say a word. They'd been forced to vacate the Room that evening without even a confirmation of whether or not their suspicions were true.
Lily knew, of course, that they were.
She wished she'd been able to see it sooner. She'd noticed Hannah's strange behaviour, but this was beyond anything she could possibly have imagined. To think that Hannah was hurting herself all thanks to Sirius' cruel remarks... It infuriated her, to put it simply. And that was only the beginning of what she felt toward that foul, acid-tongued Marauder.
After that night of revelation, Hannah seemed to develop a newfound interest in academia. She threw herself into her schoolwork with an intensity that was, in short, rather disturbing. It was like watching Regan get down on one knee and declare her love for Peter Pettigrew. (Well, no, nothing would be quite like that - but it was the same idea.) The classes in which she was seated next to one of her friends were normally a welcome reprieve from the monotony of sitting with a nerdy Ravenclaw, a pompous Slytherin, or (worse yet) a Marauder. Now, she gave the cold shoulder to anybody who happened to be in the seat beside hers, especially if it was one of the Rogues, and constantly hid behind the feeble pretence of being really intrigued by the subject matter at hand.
The Rogues, however, never ceased their efforts. At every possible opportunity, they chased her down, demanding to hear the truth from her. On the odd occasion that they did get her to talk at all, her response was nothing more than, "you guys are overreacting," or simply "leave me alone."
"This has got to stop," Regan growled one evening at dinner, when - for the third consecutive evening - Hannah didn't show up at all. The remaining Rogues sat together at one end of the Gryffindor table, not doing much in the way of talking or eating. Even Regan, who could usually be counted on to down a plate in a heartbeat, was only picking at her dinner.
Lily nodded in agreement, deep in consideration as she dragged her fork aimlessly through her shepherd's pie. "How are we supposed to help her if she won't even talk to us?" she wondered, her forehead creasing in thought.
Jamie, who had given up on her plate entirely, propped an elbow up on the table and faced the others. "I don't know about you guys, but this whole thing scares the crap out of me," she admitted. "I mean, she's always been so cheerful - how could we not have noticed it before?"
"We're stupid, that's why," said Regan, combing both hands through her hair in frustration. The others didn't respond to this, but it was obvious that they were unanimous on this point. Regan shook her head. "I don't get it. She hates Black. Why would she take anything he says about her seriously? Er, no pun intended."
Lily looked at Regan with a sad but knowing smile. "Regan," she said slowly, "think about it."
Regan's eyebrows pulled together, but then relaxed as she came to accept the truth that was practically dancing on the table in front of them. "Ah," she said simply, and shifted her eyes to her plate.
Both Lily and Jamie, however, turned their heads almost reflexively in the direction of the Marauders, who were seated at the opposite end of the table. They were acting much the same way as the Rogues were - picking at their food, not offering much in the way of conversation - and Lily had to wonder what had inflicted this sudden solemnity upon them all. The Rogues were still recovering from the brutal shock that had come with the realisation of the state Hannah was in, not to mention the unspoken question of whether or not she would ever be the same again. Nothing could be much worse than that. It seemed, however, that the Marauders were equally depressed. Sirius was still sporting a black eye, which, for obvious reasons, kept him in a constant state of irritability. Remus looked pale and sickly. Peter was moping. James was the only one who didn't look quite so down. This impression was mainly given by the fact that his knife and fork were actually moving across his plate, while the others' meals sat untouched in front of them.
Suddenly, James deposited his utensils on either side of his plate and looked up, meeting Lily's eye. Oh, crap. He'd caught her staring. He didn't seem bothered by this, though; all he did was offer a huge grin and a cheerful wave.
Lily resisted the urge to roll her eyes at this and sent back a shy smile before returning her attention to the mangled shepherd's pie in front of her. Suddenly, despite the rampant butterflies, the thought of putting food in her stomach wasn't quite so revolting. Somehow, a smile from James had the power to lift her mood dramatically.
"Ah, young love," said Regan in a dreamy voice. "If only dear Hannikins were as willing to accept it as you two are."
Lily didn't look at Regan. Instead, she shoved a forkful of potatoes into her mouth and shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said through a mouthful of food.
Regan snorted into her pumpkin juice.
"My, aren't you two ladylike," Jamie joked, rolling her eyes.
Later, as the three of them made their way out of the Great Hall, their collective mood plummeted considerably. Heading back to the dormitory, they knew they would run into Hannah, and she wouldn't be happy to see them. That wasn't to say she held anything of substance against them; she was just doing everything in her power to avoid talking to them, because that would mean giving a full explanation. Clearly, that wasn't something she was prepared to do.
"Okay, we need a plan," Lily said with resolution, as the staircase they were on jerked and began to rotate. The Rogues all stopped their ascent and grabbed the railings.
"Sure," said Regan half-heartedly, "but that's starting to sound a little old."
It was true - they'd cycled through many a ploy to get Hannah to open up to them, but not one of those had worked. They were starting to lose hope by now, but Lily thought this time, she might have just the thing.
"I know, but here's what I think: If Hannah's not going to explain it to us, then we're going to have to explain it to her," she told the others.
Regan and Jamie exchanged a look of confusion, and the former put on an expression of mock-enthusiasm. "Yeah, great! 'Hey, Hannah, let us fill you in on what's happening in your life right now - you're cutting yourself, starving yourself and generally turning into an antisocial dungheap, all because of a certain Sirius Black. Capiche? No? You don't get it? Then allow me explain through the art of interpretive dance!'" She began to wave her arms about like a madwoman, and a first year on the landing above looked frightened. Lily snatched Regan's wrist to calm her down.
"No," Lily clarified, as the staircase slid into place and they began to climb once again. "I mean we need hard evidence to prove that we're right about what's going on. If we shove it in her face, then she'll have no choice but to argue back. Then we might just get a story out of her."
"Oh, goody - I love stories!" Regan exclaimed gleefully, while Jamie raised an eyebrow and inquired, "Hard evidence?"
Lily rolled her eyes at the one comment and turned her attention to Jamie, nodding. "Yeah. I've been thinking about Hannah's transformation," she explained, lowering her voice to a whisper as they passed a bunch of Ravenclaws heading in the opposite direction. "The way she just transformed out of the blue, it didn't seem natural. Everybody else had to be completely focused on what they were doing, but she went just like that." Lily snapped her fingers in Regan's face, mostly just to be annoying.
While Regan glared, Jamie nodded in understanding. "And everybody else turned into the animal they'd chosen in the first place," she added, looking thoughtful.
"Exactly. So I say we find out whatever we can about snap transformations and changes of form, and then we confront her with our findings. Even if we don't get any solid facts, we can always come up with our own interpretation. Try to prove that we know what's going on."
Regan clapped her hands together. "Alright, troops," she said very seriously, "it's time to get to the bottom of this."
After another day of solid avoidance, the Rogues finally managed to corner Hannah in the girls' dormitory.
They'd vacated the room for the morning in order to lull her into a false sense of security. Then, returning early from breakfast (which, predictably, Hannah did not attend) they caught her stepping out of the bathroom after her morning shower. They let her finish folding her pyjamas and cast a drying charm on her sopping hair before alerting her to their presence.
"Hannah, we need to talk to you," Lily said as they approached her. She was using the same line they'd used on many occasions before. The difference this time was (hopefully) that Hannah wouldn't be able to say no.
Hannah looked up and said in a flat, practised tone, "Sorry, I'm going to the library to work on my Potions essay. We can talk later, okay?"
Regan, who was coming at her from another angle, shook her head adamantly and folded her arms. "No, actually, that doesn't work for us. We're going to talk now."
Hannah's brown eyes darted nervously between her friends, who were rapidly closing in on her, leaving her with no route for escape. She gave a shaky, desperate laugh. "Guys, seriously. I need to work on this essay. You don't want me to fail, do you?" She rolled her eyes and forced a smile.
Regan shrugged. "Strange, isn't it, that you've suddenly developed this fear of failing?"
As Hannah's jaw set stubbornly and she searched for another out, Jamie snatched up the Animagus book from the foot of Hannah's bed and opened it, waving her wand and letting it flip through to the appropriate page.
"Right," she said, stepping back into the corner, where Hannah had practically been backed into the wall. "We've done a bit of research, and we reckon we know what's going on."
Hannah's stare turned cold. "Look, you might think you know what's going on, but you don't, okay? Why don't you just leave me alone?" She made to break out of the congregation, but Regan shoved her forearm against the wall, blocking her path.
"Again," she said stubbornly, "that doesn't work for us."
Lily brought their attention back to the book in Jamie's hands. "Anyway, like Jay said, we've got a fair idea of what's going on with you, Han. See, we read up on snap transformations."
Jamie nodded. "And sudden changes of form - like, say, tiger to cat."
"And," Regan threw in, obviously enjoying herself, "we found out a couple of things."
"Would you three please cut the theatrics and get to the point?" Hannah demanded, looking thoroughly exasperated.
Jamie placed her index finger at a point near the bottom of the page and began to read aloud. "First off, it says here that 'Excessive stress - emotional or physical - can cause the primary transformation to happen quite abruptly, sometimes even unexpectedly. That is not to say that you will transform anytime and anywhere, but if the matter lingers on a wizard's mind (perhaps after spending a great amount of time attempting the transformation) it is possible that this inkling will push its way to the forefront of his thoughts, causing the transformation to occur. The stress from which this stems may be the result of pain, longing, harassment or even fear. Snap transformations are not common, but they occur often in young wizards - particularly those who are lovesick or confused.'"
Hannah shifted uncomfortably and stared at her feet. "So?" she mumbled. "That's a load of poppycock. And besides, it doesn't prove anything."
Lily raised an eyebrow and took the book from Jamie, turning over the page. "Oh, but we think it does," she said. "Especially if we look at this next bit. Just ignore the tone - you know how Flechbert is..." She cleared her throat. "'My dear wizard, did you not achieve the transformation you sought? Was your Animagus form not quite the same as what you had in mind? Fear not, for I can explain it to you. Or perhaps, you can explain it to yourself...'" Lily coughed again. "Er, right. Let's just skip that part, shall we? 'If you suffered a change of animal form on your first transformation, you are a very rare case indeed. This is not, however, completely out of the ordinary. You probably had a fair bit of trouble achieving this transformation in the first place, am I correct?'" Lily glanced up expectantly at Hannah, who just rolled her eyes and glowered. "'If so, there are several possible causes for this. Among them are these: One, you selected an animal so unusual, so vastly different from your human form that a transformation was rendered near impossible, at least at your level of ability; Two, somebody is tampering with your mind (and, if this the case, do not panic, but you may want to look into this); And three - the most common justification of the lot - your mind is very, very preoccupied. Believe it or not, I did mean what I said on page twenty: a successful primary transformation requires your complete and undivided attention. Those who allow their thoughts to stray, even for a second, will have trouble becoming Animagi. And those whose thoughts constantly belong to something else - something that bothers them very much - will find it nearly impossible.'"
Hannah remained silent as Lily handed the book over to Regan.
"This is my favourite part," said Regan, grinning evilly and looking very much like one of those classic Muggle witches (the kind with pimply noses and crooked teeth) getting ready to tell the part of the story where the protagonists get eaten by the nasty old lady in the candy cottage. This thought gave Lily a sudden, rather brilliant idea - though she decided not to mention it until later.
"'If they do, by some miracle, manage to transform, their stray thoughts may affect the shape they end up taking. For instance, if a particularly boneheaded wizard decided to become an Animagus, and thought, 'Well, I'd rather like to be an owl,' but for hours, days, even weeks could think of nothing but his empty stomach and the need to fill it with food, he could very easily find himself on the ground with four hooves and a nice, pink snout.'" She stopped to grin nastily at Hannah, who didn't seem to appreciate the joke. Regan rolled her eyes and moved on. "'And' - listen carefully, Han - 'if one happened to have a severe dislike for flies, and could not seem to stop thinking about this aversion, they might become a frog, the natural predator of the insect they despised - a subconscious but purely strategic move.'" Regan breathed in deeply. "Blah blah blah, something about animal symbolism, and then here we have it: 'Changes of Animagus form can be triggered by many different factors, but in any case, there is sure to be an explanation for it.'" She finished off the last line in a deep, mysterious tone, and with that, she snapped the book shut and stared Hannah down.
"My God, you guys have gone loopy," said Hannah, attempting a laugh but coming out with something more like a muffled hiccough.
"Oh, but I don't think we ha-"
"REGAN! Stop that!" Hannah burst out. Regan looked offended and stood back, pouting.
"The point is," said Lily, "after looking into all this, we think we've come to a conclusion." She pointed at the book. "Flechbert says snap transformations are caused by stress, and, obviously, you've been under a lot of that lately. As for the change of form thing and all that waffle about 'preoccupation of the mind,' well..."
"We think you've been thinking too much about Sirius," Jamie blurted out, but, upon noticing Hannah's murderous expression, cringed and added for her own safety, "please don't hurt us."
"I. Have. NOT!" Hannah said, stomping forward and startling the others into taking a few steps back. "If you honestly believe I would let that disgusting, pompous bastard occupy even a tiny fragment of my mind, then you're all mad. Completely mad. I'm serious."
Regan snickered, but Lily shoved her roughly aside, ignoring her cries of protest, and parked herself right in front of Hannah, determined to make her admit the truth. "Han," she said firmly, while trying to maintain a soft tone, "think about it. You have to admit, as much of a git as he might be, he had something to do with your transformation. No offense or anything, but you did take longer than the rest of us to transform in the first place, and remember, right before you turned, you said, 'He hates me, and I hate him.'" She placed her hands on Hannah's shoulders. "It's possible that you might have subconsciously changed your form to something that would naturally hate him, and that would naturally be hated by him in return."
Hannah shook her head stubbornly. "No, I turned into cat. I don't see how that has anything to do with hating Sirius."
"That's the thing," said Jamie timidly. "If you remember third year astronomy, we learned that the star Sirius is part of a constellation called Canis Major - otherwise known as the Great Dog."
"Okay," said Hannah definitively, "you have gone crazy. Why would any sane person take the time to work that out?"
Lily sighed. "Hannah, you have to understand, we're worried about you. We're not trying to torture you by bringing this up, but we figured, since you won't talk to us about it, we should try to come up with an explanation of our own. So we did. And if you want to argue it, then sure. But if you're going to do that, then at least tell us what the real explanation is."
There was a long silence in which Hannah did nothing but look angrily down at her toes. Lily could see that every muscle in her body was tensed; she didn't appear to want to talk just yet.
Lily decided to go on. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but Animagus magic isn't something we're all that familiar with, and it probably works in very strange ways. And you have to admit, well... it does make some sense."
It took Lily a moment to notice that Hannah was crying now, fat teardrops falling onto her bare feet. She felt a pang of remorse for badgering her all morning and pulled her friend into a hug, which, fortunately, Hannah didn't pull away from (as Lily had expected she might). She sobbed into Lily's shoulder as Jamie closed the book and set it back down with a soft thud.
A few minutes later, the four of them were seated in their classic formation on Hannah's bed, the curtains closed around them and a silencing charm placed on the boundaries of their tent-like meeting place. Hannah had calmed down sufficiently, but as she sat at the head of her bed, her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around them, she seemed to be struggling to keep the tears at bay.
"N-none of this leaves the room, okay?" she croaked, looking up at all of them with glassy eyes.
"Do you even have to tell us that?" Regan said, but there was little humour in her tone now. Lily was glad to note that she at last seemed to be taking things seriously. Hannah, however, gave a sad little laugh before taking a deep breath and - finally - beginning to fill them in.
"I'm not sure exactly when it started," she said, "but at the beginning of this year, I guess I just started seeing things differently. Black's always been nasty to me, sure, but this year..." She sniffed. "His insults seemed a lot more personal, you know? I don't know why, but they just started getting to me way more than they used to. And I tried to match it, to fight fire with fire, but the things I said never seemed to have the same effect on him. And then I started to think about it, and I realised it was because the things I say to him are so... unfounded. He can deflect my insults so easily because... well, he knows they're not true at all." She wiped desperately at her eyes with both hands. "Because, even though he's an arse, he's so... bloody... perfect. And I'm not." Apparently, this was too much for Hannah, because she broke down in sobs as soon as she'd uttered the last word and buried her face in her arms.
Jamie, who was sitting next to Hannah, put a comforting arm around her while sharing a look of startled concern with the other two. Lily couldn't believe her ears. She'd never heard Hannah speak that way about Sirius before, but after all these revelations lately, nothing seemed impossible anymore. She'd never have pegged Hannah as one to suffer from low self esteem, but now there was no doubt about it. She felt she had to tear Sirius down the same way he did her, and that was nearly impossible when you were dealing with somebody so insanely arrogant.
"Han," said Regan sternly, clearly losing her cool again, "don't you dare say that. I know I'm not one to be all mushy, but nobody's perfect, okay? Hell, if anybody is even close, it's you. Black might think he's the handsomest thing alive, but if you turned him inside out - figuratively speaking, of course, even though by this point I'm actually considering doing that to him for real - he'd look like... the rear end of a hippogriff stuffed with flobberworms."
Hannah emitted a short, sad laugh. "But it's not just that," she said, sniffling. "He can take anything I throw at him, but I'm... I'm weak. I break down every time he says the slightest thing to get my goat. So I decided, if I couldn't take it from him, I had to make myself resistant to the pain. And that's when I started..." She trailed off.
"Cutting," said Lily quietly. "Anywhere else besides your hip?"
Hannah bit her lip and shook her head. "With all the wand work we do in class, anything else would have been too easily noticed."
"And we know you haven't been eating, like, at all," Jamie said tentatively, "but you haven't... you know... made yourself...?"
Hannah looked up at them with tears in her eyes. "Once," she admitted in a whisper.
Lily was practically frozen; she tried to shake this off and nodded in understanding. "But you had to know that wasn't going to help you, right? I mean, hurting yourself and refusing to eat are only going to make things worse."
Hannah's expression was dark, but difficult to read. "Actually, it worked for a while," she admitted, "but it made me think about it too much. I guess that's where the Animagus problem came from."
There was a stretch of silence until Lily thought of something and decided to speak up.
"I know you're not going to like what I'm about to say... but Sirius needs to know about this. He needs to know what he's doing to you. Otherwise, how is he ever going to learn his lesson?"
Hannah looked horrified. "WHAT? No! I- If there's one person in the entire universe who can't even get wind of this, it's him. And I swear, if any of you tell him-"
"I hate to be insensitive," Jamie interrupted, sounding apologetic, "but we have to get to Charms." It was hard to tell whether she was cutting in for the sake of sparing them an argument or because she was actually worried about being late for class. Knowing Jamie, it was probably some combination of the two.
"We'll get back to this later," Lily promised. "And don't go giving us the silent treatment again, okay Hannah?"
Hannah was still looking at them distrustfully, as if they she suspected they were about to go back on their words and run downstairs to tell Sirius everything they'd just heard. Still, she managed to smile sheepishly through the tears and nod.
"And guys, we have three days till our deadline," Regan reminded them, her tone half excited, half dangerous. "I say we work as hard as we bloody well can so that we're ready to pull something really nasty on those gits at a moment's notice."
Lily laughed. She could justify revenge on three of the Marauders, but the fourth... Well, after Sunday's meeting, she'd begun to realise that just because his friends were idiots, that didn't necessarily make him one, too. What the hell, she thought, and decided it was all in the spirit of the game. "Definitely," she agreed; Regan looked to the others. Jamie gave an affirmative nod, and Hannah smiled genuinely for the first time in days.
James hurried down the corridor, clutching a velvet sack in his right hand. He and Lily had scheduled another meeting for this afternoon in order to further develop their plans for the Halloween event. Much was in place already; they had Dumbledore's approval, Madam Hooch had agreed to let them use the Quidditch pitch ("As long as you clean up after yourselves," she'd said), and the students were already excitedly spreading word of what was to come. But they still had things to work out, and James was looking forward to discussing the details with Lily.
A few days ago, he'd been completely torn. After Remus had told him about the full moon on Halloween, he'd decided that the haunted house was completely out of the question. What if Remus' werewolf form were to be revealed? Worse still, what if somebody got hurt? The potential consequences were unthinkable. He'd approached Lily with every intention of telling her that they had to think of something else, and fast - but as soon as he'd brought it up (after they'd managed to break past the awkwardness that lingered from Sunday's meeting) she'd seemed so excited at the prospect of pulling together this whole haunted house thing that he just didn't have the heart to tear it all down in front of her. So instead, he'd gone to Dumbledore - one of the few others at school who knew about Remus' secret, and certainly the most authoritative of those who did - and presented him with his dilemma.
Dumbledore had thought for a moment, giving him that wise, blue-eyed stare that was both calming and unnerving at the same time. "I can see your quandary, Mr Potter," he had said serenely, "but no matter, we shall have to commence the event shortly before dusk, when your friend Mr Lupin is in no danger of transforming. There are certainly charms that can be put on your haunted house to make it appear dark inside, are there not? I must say, you and Miss Evans have the most extraordinary ideas..."
They'd come up with such a failsafe plan that, by the time James had left his office, he'd been almost entirely at ease with the whole thing. When he'd told Remus about the security measures they were putting place, he'd been far more sceptical, but he was sympathetic toward James' situation with Lily. James just hoped nothing went wrong; he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if it did.
Now, however, there was another problem, and as James spotted Lily traipsing toward him from the other end of the hallway, he quickened his pace. She was wearing a flustered look to match his own, and he briefly wondered why.
"We need to do something about the feast," he said when they were metres apart, but faltered when his words seemed to echo. They both looked taken aback.
"Wow. That was scary." Lily said, raising her eyebrows. "Wait, why do you have a problem with cancelling the feast?"
James paused. "Er, Sirius. You?"
"Regan."
"Oh, right. Well then, we're going to have to do something, because I don't exactly want to be on their hit lists."
"No, me neither," Lily agreed. She gestured at the bag James was carrying. "What's that?"
He held it up, having almost forgotten he had it. "Oh, it's just an idea I had. Should we go to the Heads' Room? I'll explain there."
"Oh, yeah. Sure."
This time, both of them were comfortable to sit on the couch, and despite being at opposite ends, James revelled in their proximity. Lily didn't even seem that tense as they talked through their ideas for the various sectors (rooms) of the haunted house.
"Okay, so we're going to have to have some kind of admittance hall or something," Lily said, her quill poised over a bit of parchment. She'd roughly sketched out the shape of the Quidditch pitch, marking the entrances and exits with green and red ink respectively. It wasn't a particular artful drawing, but James had to admire her for her organisational skills. Actually, he admired her for a lot more than that, but that was an entirely different story. "And we want the Boggart room to be somewhere near the back, right?"
"Yeah," said James. "And as for the entrance hall, maybe we could put a few food tables in there? Just to tide those eating machines over until afterward."
Lily nodded. "Good idea. I don't think Regan's ever had to wait until after nine to eat supper." They'd agreed to talk to Dumbledore about postponing the feast, so that the students could go inside and stuff their faces after exhausting the entertainment capacity of the haunted house. Lily had suggested vice versa, but James had immediately disagreed, knowing that this would mean extending the haunted house hours until well after dark. He'd managed to justify this by claiming that a bunch of jittery, jumpy students probably wouldn't mix well with full stomachs - and Madam Hooch had asked them to "clean up after themselves"...
"And Sirius has never gone more than two days without sugar... until now," James said, nodding in agreement. "So let's see... we need a few tables of food, some drinks, and... Oh! I almost forgot, I wanted to show you..." Remembering the velvet bag, he snatched it up from the coffee table and loosened the drawstrings. He let a pile of golden chains spill out onto the table.
"Wow, Potter, you robbed a jewellery maker. I'm impressed."
James snorted. "Actually, I've been working on a couple of charms," he said simply. "Here - can I have that ink bottle?" He gestured at the empty bottle next to Lily's chart.
"Er... okay." Lily wore a guarded expression as she passed it cautiously over to him. He smirked at this and accepted the ink bottle, drawing his wand. Then he cast a quick charm on the chain so that it strung itself through the top of the bottle, creating a necklace-like ornament.
"Er, bravo, but I don't know a single soul who would wear that," Lily said, jabbing a disgusted finger at the hideous piece of "jewellery".
"Thought you might say that," said James with a chuckle, "but I'm not done yet. This is the tricky part." He cleared his throat and pointed his wand at the ink bottle, and then swished it and said, "Lumos petrificus!" The bottle did nothing, but that was fine by James. He simply handed the necklace to Lily and said, "Here. Test it out."
With tentative fingers, Lily grasped the chain. Although she slid it over her head and lifted her hair out of the way (as she did, he couldn't help but notice the beautiful, smooth pallour of her neck) she was still looking at him as if he were a raving lunatic. "Test it?" she repeated.
"Yeah," said James. He shook himself out of his stupor and grinned mischievously. "You have to scream."
"What the bloody hell, Potter," she said loudly and flatly. "I am not going to-"
But James had seen it coming, and in an instant, he'd levitated the clock off the mantelpiece and caused it to soar through the air, stopping mere inches from the tip of Lily's nose. As planned, she expelled a sharp cry and threw herself out of its path, landing sprawled across James. (Well, that last part wasn't planned, but James couldn't say he minded.) As all of this happened, he noticed, the ink bottle glowed bright red where it hung around Lily's neck.
"Honestly, Evans!" he exclaimed in mock-outrage. "That's the second time this year - show a little self-restraint!" He was laughing his head off as she hastily pushed herself off of him, her face almost as red as the ink bottle.
"This never happened," she declared, straightening out her sweater. She sat back down as far from him as the couch could accommodate. "And what in Merlin's name was that for, anyway?"
James smiled and pointed at her bottle necklace. "That is a scare-o-meter," he announced with satisfaction. "Well, technically it's still an ink bottle and a flimsy old chain... but the point is, it works. It glowed red when you screamed, right before you decided to express your undying love for me." He paused as if in thought. "Speaking of which, I wonder if that was some sort of side effect?"
Lily whacked him semi-playfully on the shoulder, blood rising to her cheeks once more. "I told you, that never happened." She rearranged her position on the couch, looking uncomfortable again. "And anyway, I don't get it. So it glows red when you scream? What's so great about that?"
"That's exactly what's so great about it. Wear it around your neck, and it measures how many times - and with how much intensity - you scream. Then there's a little trick you can pull to get that information out of it and have it written down on parchment, but I haven't figured out exactly how to do that yet."
Lily's resulting smile, as it finally clicked for her, was radiant, and James couldn't help but smile back. "Finally I see where this is going," she said with a laugh. "And wow, James, that's... that's actually really brilliant." The compliment came reluctantly, but from Lily, he knew it was genuine.
There was a long (but not altogether uncomfortable) silence, which Lily broke by gasping.
"Speaking of brilliant ideas," she said, her eyes lighting up with inspiration, "I was thinking, you know how I said I could rope Regan into doing something for us?" James nodded, prompting her to go on. "Well, we actually could use her to our advantage. See, you might have noticed she has this talent for scaring little kids..."
A grin spread slowly but surely across James' face. Almost straightaway, he could see exactly where she was going with this. "Lily, you are a genius."
"I know, right?" she said happily. "So I was thinking..."
"Absolutely NOT."
As predicted, Regan was less than happy about the plans Lily had for her, but Lily had only just begun. She'd forced Regan into an armchair in the common room after the Heads meeting with a plan already formed in her mind; there was no way she could fail. Or so she hoped.
"Please, Regan?" she begged, putting on her sweetest, most convincing voice. "All our ideas so far are so lame, and this would just make our haunted house so awesome." This, in fact, wasn't true at all - she and James had come up with so many ideas for the rooms in the haunted house that, in the end, they'd had to do a bit of pruning, picking out the best of the best. But Lily wasn't about to tell Regan that - it would only work against her point.
Regan scoffed, shoving a liquorice wand in her mouth. Lily was beginning to worry that she was developing a serious addiction to the horribly black-pigmented sweet. "Of course your ideas are lame, this is you and Potter we're talking about. But I'm sorry - I won't do it. Not for a million galleons."
Lily bit her lip and spoke very slowly. "And, uh... what about a chocolate cake the size of a cauldron?"
Regan looked up at Lily with bright eyes. "You can do that?" she whispered, as if the act of cake-baking were some kind of forbidden art.
Lily nodded. "Uh huh. Oh, but..." She turned apologetic. "I'm sorry, Reegs. That reward is reserved for people who actually comply with the Head Girl's requests."
Folding her arms and slumping down in her chair, Regan said, "Forget it. I'm not doing it."
Lily stood up and started circling the chair, launching into a tantalising description of what Regan was missing out on if she didn't cave. "Oh, but think of all that delicious, chocolaty goodness... Soft, fluffy cake... Rich icing dripping over the edges..."
"Stop it, Lily! You're killing me!" Regan cried out, burying her face in her hands.
"Gumdrops on top..."
Regan cringed."Not gumdrops!"
"Oh, yes," said Lily dreamily. "Lots and lots of gumdrops."
Regan dug her fingernails into the arms of her chair, breathing in deeply and clearly trying to exercise some self restraint. It looked like a very difficult feat, but she finally managed to calm down, close her eyes and say, "Tempting, but I still won't do it."
Lily sighed and started fishing around in the pocket of her robes. "I hoped it wouldn't come to this," she said in a tone of disappointment. "But..." She made sure to stand right in front of Regan as she whipped two small boxes out of her pocket. "Maybe these will change your mind."
Regan gasped. "Crayons?" she practically shrieked. "Where did you find them?"
Aware that her plan was close to working, Lily shrugged offhandedly. "You thought Hannah destroyed them all after the incident in the Room of Requirement, right? Well, I just might have saved a couple for extra special cases..." She waved the crayons in Regan's face; the brunette reached out and tried to snatch them, but Lily anticipated that, too.
"Lils, you know me too well," said Regan tiredly, shaking her head. She inhaled deeply before finally relenting. "Alright. I'll do it. But only because I like scaring firsties."
Lily beamed, stowing the crayons in her pocket for safekeeping. "Oh, sure. Nothing at all to do with the chocolate cake."
Waltzing off to the dormitory staircase, Lily passed James, who was sitting with the Marauders in the corner. She flashed him a thumbs up on the way by; he responded with a wink that let the butterflies loose in her stomach once again. Halloween, Lily decided, just might be her favourite time of year.
"Halloween sucks," said Regan as she stepped out of the bathroom Sunday afternoon.
Her emergence was met with several reactions at once: from Jamie, a quiet giggle expertly hidden behind a dainty hand; from Lily, a gasp and a delighted exclamation of, "It's perfect!"; from Hannah, a shamelessly unconcealed burst of raucous laughter, followed by "Somebody get a camera!"
Regan glared, but the resulting expression, masked behind her newly distorted features, was so ridiculous that even Jamie couldn't contain herself, and all three Rogues joined in the chorus of giggles.
"That chocolate cake had better be damn good," Regan grumbled.
Per Lily's request, Regan had been dressed in a long, dark, ragged robe that hugged her shoulders and waist but flared out unflatteringly at the cuffs and the skirt. Adorned with a thin silver rope around the middle and an ugly grey pattern of who-knew-what, the garment looked ancient and evil - just the look Lily was going for. She wore hideously oversized pointed black shoes, along with a tall witch's hat that looked a thousand years old. To top off the look, her face and hands had been coloured a revolting shade of green and enhanced with scattered lumps (with a particularly large one right on the tip of her nose - which, along with her eyebrows, had been magically enlarged), her teeth rendered yellow and crooked, and her hair turned into a tatted, ropey mess that hung limply on either side of her face.
"I can't believe Muggles think we look like... like that!" Hannah managed to exclaim between lapses of hysterics.
"I know! I can't say how glad I am it's not me in your shoes, Regan," said Jamie, looking gratefully down at her casual ensemble of a red sweater and a black skirt. "And I mean that literally," she added, "because those things are hideous."
When Regan clenched her fists and made to turn around and head back into the bathroom, Lily moved forward and tried to express some appreciation. She grabbed Regan's shoulders and forced her to turn around. "Look, I got you your feast, there'll be food on the way into the haunted house, and you struck one hell of a bargain with the crayons and the cake. So would you please stop moping? And besides, you don't actually look that bad. At least you're dressed for the occasion."
"Okay, what occasion are we talking about here?" Regan said sharply. "Because I don't think we're all on the same page. You, for one, seem to be dressed to impress a certain Head Boy..."
Lily blushed fiercely. It was true - whether consciously or not, she'd put a lot more effort into her appearance than usual. She knew she'd be seeing a lot of James, with all the setup and supervision they had to do, and for some strange reason, that made her self-conscious. She'd deliberated over her outfit for some time, eventually settling on a white V-neck shirt and a pair of pale jeans. She'd even done her hair up and added a touch of make-up, hoping it wouldn't be too obvious; apparently, she'd failed on that front. Even Regan, Queen of Not Caring, had picked up on it.
Lily chose not to respond to Regan's accusation and simply turned the comment around on her. "Well, Reegs, look at the bright side - after tonight, Pettigrew will probably be scared off for good."
"I should be insulted by that," said Regan thoughtfully, "but you know, you actually just made my day with that comment. Anyway, can we get this over with?"
Lily nodded and then snatched a small khaki shoulder bag off her nightstand. A thought suddenly occurred to her as she did. "Does everybody have their ankle thingies, you know, just in case something happens tonight?"
Hannah reached down and lifted up one leg of her navy jeans, revealing a small black strap circling her ankle. The others did the same, and Jamie explained that hers was hidden under her stockings.
Ever since their quasi-meeting on Thursday, the Rogues had spent every spare minute of their time (in other words, whenever they weren't in class, doing homework, cramming for quizzes, or preoccupied with Quidditch, Heads meetings or other such activities - and yes, their schedules were painfully tight) practising their transformations in the Room of Requirement. With a newfound sense of purpose fuelling their minds, they found it much easier to concentrate and execute the transition. Lily fixed her "creepy eye" problem for good, Regan started teaching herself some "wicked" new aerial acrobatics, Jamie became more confident, and Hannah warmed up to her cat form, which, initially, she'd been displeased with.
Things had been going well, but then a problem had come up. What, Jamie had wondered aloud, would happen if they used the Animagus tactic to stalk the Marauders, and then - although it was unlikely - accidentally changed back into their human forms? The whole no-clothes thing was sure to be a dilemma, she said - and this caused the Rogues to think long and hard about what they could do to avoid the risk of losing every scrap of dignity they possessed.
After a lot of experimentation, Lily and Jamie had read up on it in the Animagus book and had been presented with a moderately complex (but still doable) solution to this problem. They'd taken a plain black robe, shrunken it to a manageable size, and - with Flechbert's help - worked a few more complex charms on it so that it would grow and shrink with the wearer. Not only this, but it would mould to their shape when they changed out of their animal forms. It had taken a lot of explaining and several demonstrations before Hannah and Regan were convinced that it would work, but eventually, they had all become accustomed to wearing the shrunken robes around their ankles wherever they went, just in case they got themselves into an unexpected sticky situation.
Lily checked her own to be sure that it was secure. "Good. Let's go then," she said, and led the way out the door. They didn't expect to have to use them; not tonight. But in any case, it was a handy little precaution to have in their back pockets.
It was strange to see the Quidditch pitch looking so foreboding. The outside had been covered in cobwebs and bewitched so that the wood appeared to be rotting, the banners faded and tattered. It looked as though it hadn't been used in fifty years - which, considering such a thrilling game had taken place there only a week ago, was ludicrous. Far above the Rogues' heads, the Gryffindor lions on the hanging drapery didn't look half as vibrant as they had on that exciting morning, and the goalposts, whose tops were visible over the walls, were filled with intricate spider webs, each of which had its own huge, living occupant. Having done a large proportion of the setup, Lily couldn't help but smile as she admired her handiwork. Everything looked so creepy, and it wasn't even dark yet.
"Lily," Hannah whined as they got closer, "how could you do this to our poor old pitch?"
Lily laughed. "It's only an illusion. You do realise that, don't you?"
Shrugging, Hannah replied, "Illusion schmillusion. It looks dreadful."
"That's the point."
"And Reegs will fit right in," Jamie added, nudging Regan playfully with her elbow.
"Thanks, guys!" said Regan with mock enthusiasm. Her voice dropped about an octave as she went on. "Just watch - as soon as you enter my lair or whatever, you'll be running for your lives. I'm going to get you all for this."
"Oooooh, I'm scared," said Hannah. "What are you going to do? Spread your warts?" She looked with disgust at the grotesque lumps that had taken the place of Regan's usual spray of freckles. "Or boils, or pimples, or whatever the hell those are."
Regan was about to fire back a nasty retort when three figures appeared not too far away. Lily had been expecting them, but apparently, the others had not. Hannah looked even more uncomfortable than usual as Sirius loped toward them with that easy grace of his, a haughty look evident on his features. James' eyes were bright with anticipation and he smiled in greeting (Lily noticed with some satisfaction that his eyes widened briefly as they lingered on her), while Peter plodded along a couple of metres behind them. Remus was nowhere to be seen; Lily noticed Jamie expel a small sigh at this, but couldn't tell whether it was out of disappointment or relief.
"Hello, ladies," said Sirius as the Marauders approached them, but suddenly stopped in his tracks. "Or should I say, three ladies and a... What the hell is that?"
As the Marauders took in the sight of Regan in all her uglified glory, James started to laugh, Sirius looked appalled, and Peter's jaw dropped like a five-tonne boulder. He looked as though the end of the world had just been announced, or the sky was falling, or some fate of equal calamity had befallen the universe. This was no surprise, Lily thought - to see the supposed love of your life looking so blatantly hideous... Well, it couldn't be pleasant. A sudden image of James covered in warts popped into Lily's mind. Nope, not pleasant at all.
"Shut up," barked Regan. "You want to talk about ugly? What about that eye, huh?" Sirius glared in response, though this only emphasised the state of his eye and, as a result, sent Hannah and Regan into a fit of laughter.
"Great job, Lily," said James, admiring the Muggle-style witch in front of him. "This is scary alright. But is this seriously what Muggles imagine witches to be? It seems a little... over the top."
Lily gave a dark laugh and nodded in Regan's direction. "Oh, believe me, it gets worse than this."
"Hate to break it up, lovebirds, but what exactly are all four of you doing here?" Sirius asked. "I don't see anybody else showing up this early."
Lily lifted an eyebrow. "What, James didn't tell you? We have to finish setting up."
James grinned evilly at his best friend. "And you're helping. Actually, the lot of you are. Er, except for Tain. I think it's best if she goes inside, you know, just in case anybody shows up early. She'll scare the shit out of them before they even get in there."
Regan looked appalled, but Lily threw in, "Yeah, go hide your face," and ushered her toward the entrance.
Inside, Lily was pleased to note, the haunted house was even creepier. Not only was there a charm in place to make the rooms appear to be bathed in semi-darkness (except for a select few in which the blackness was absolute), there were also noises reverberating through the makeshift walls from all directions. There were more than thirty different sectors to the haunted house, all arranged in a maze-like formation such that it would be nearly impossible for the students to navigate their way in or out of it. Each room had its own unique properties; one was filled with spiders and other crawling creatures, another was filled with voices whispering in the adventurer's ear and warm air being breathed onto their necks seemingly by nobody, and another, deep within the labyrinth, housed a Boggart in a cabinet. These were only the beginning. The doors were befuddling, and some rooms were even designed to spit you back out in a different place every time. Each room had taken a considerable amount time and effort to set up, but they'd had help, and besides, James and Lily worked well as a team (as they'd only recently discovered). And now, as a jumbled combination of noises filtered through the walls and made several of the others shudder (Peter included, obviously), they could see just how successful their work had been.
"Okay," said James, once Regan had been shown to her allocated spot inside, "we're officially open for business at five, and the protective shields go up at half past, so we have to make sure everybody gets in before that happens."
Lily nodded. The protective shields, James had told her, had been a suggestion of Dumbledore's. What with an evil wizard on the rise and all the rumours of attacks by his followers, the Headmaster had deemed it necessary to put up a barrier around the haunted house despite the fact that Hogwarts had its own (supposedly impenetrable) shields. Lily had found this a little odd, but she wasn't about to contradict Albus Dumbledore - especially where such a serious matter was concerned. "One can never be too careful," he had advised in that classic tone of his, "and with all these frightening things around, anything linked to dark magic would have an extraordinarily easy time blending in."
"So basically, we have an hour to get the food and drinks out here, unleash the Boggart, check on everything to make sure it's still working, make sure Peeves and the ghosts get their arses out here, finish charming the doors, and write up a roster for supervision." James recited the items off a list in his hand. "Oh, and, uh... let the creepy crawlies out of their cages."
"Creepy crawlies?" repeated Hannah with undisguised scepticism - and a hint of anxiety.
"Yep," said Lily, grinning. "Skrewts, flobberworms, fire crabs, some Cornish pixies, and a couple of Acromantula." Hannah's cheeks drained of colour as the list went on. Sirius didn't fail to notice this, and took this opportunity to volunteer her for the job.
"Well, since Milton seems so interested, why doesn't she do it?" he suggested maliciously.
James shrugged. "Okay, sure." Hannah looked outraged until he added, "you can both do it," at which point she exclaimed "Ha!" and smirked at a fuming Sirius. He began to protest, but James was already feeding them instructions and telling them where to go. "There's one room just through there - that's where the pixies are - and another next to the volcano room."
Hannah and Sirius looked panic-stricken. "Volcano?" they said at the same time.
"Yeah, it's nothing to worry about," Lily lied, grabbing Hannah's arm and pulling her toward the first door. "Now hurry up, we don't have all night. And make sure you close the doors behind you when you come out!"
It took some pushing and shoving and encouraging words, but finally, Hannah and Sirius disappeared through the door, scowling at each other all the while. Once it was closed behind them, Lily and James both started snickering.
"What?" Jamie, who was completely out of the loop, inquired. "What's so funny?"
Lily and James shared a look. "Oh, nothing," said the former. "It's just... They're going to have the time of their lives in there."
They left it at that and got straight to work on the remaining items on the list. Soon, the food had appeared on the tables, the roster was drawn up and had been hung on the wall next to the entrance, and Peter - who, until then, had been sitting around doing absolutely nothing - had been sent back to the castle to fetch Peeves and the ghosts. Everything was in place.
Well, almost everything...
"That's it!" shouted Hannah, leaning back on the door to the pixie room after she'd slammed it behind them. They'd made a very narrow escape from the lightning fast, savage flying mischief-makers (after releasing them from their cages) and were very relieved to have made it out in one piece. Well, technically, they weren't quite in one piece; Sirius' shirt had been torn and Hannah sported a clean crescent-shaped bite on one of her hands after having tried to strangle one of the pixies, but the overall damage was minimal. "If I ever see one of those things again, I am going to murder it!" Hannah declared furiously.
Sirius, with his back against the wall a few metres away, was panting. "I know. And to think Prongs and Evans are going to release those on a bunch of first years..." He shook his head. "I swear, they were trying to kill me!"
"You?" Hannah cried, incredulous. "You were swatting them all toward me!"
Sirius made a face. "No I wasn't! You were the one provoking them-"
"Oh, so I was provoking it when the bloody thing tried to snap my finger off?"
"Actually, yeah, you were. You had your hand around its neck, did you not?"
Hannah opened her mouth to reply, but closed it when she realised that he had a point. Instead of arguing back, she inspected the wound on her finger and put it to her mouth, trying to suck the blood away. It had dripped down her wrist and soaked into the side of her green shirt while she'd been desperately trying to shut the door behind them, and she groaned as she noticed the stain.
Sirius seemed to be caught between anger and concern. He glanced at her finger, cringed, and seemed to battle internally with whether or not to express his worry. Finally, he managed to stutter out, "Is... is it... bad?"
Hannah looked up in surprise. Since when did it matter to him? If not completely indifferent, then he should have been happy to see her suffer like this, even if it was only from a little pixie bite. Sirius never showed concern for anybody, least of all her. Hannah dragged her eyes away from him and refused to look back even as she spoke. "No, not really. But it's not like you give a damn anyway."
Sirius said nothing. The silence dragged on as they both leaned against the wall, Hannah sucking the blood off her wounded finger and Sirius looking torn again. Fortunately for the both of them, they happened to be in an empty room - presumably one that would be used by Peeves, or maybe one that simply hadn't been set up yet - so they didn't have to worry about being attacked by anything... except maybe each other.
"Where's that other room supposed to be?" asked Hannah finally, though she still wouldn't look at him.
"Something about a volcano, right? I'm guessing it's through there." Sirius pointed at a door to their left with chipped black paint. The occasional burst of luminous orange lit up the crack underneath. "Come on, let's get this over with."
Hannah shoved her way through the door first, and Sirius stepped through a couple of paces behind her. They barely had time to register what kind of room they were in before the ground started to shift beneath their feet; Hannah shrieked and stumbled, involuntarily latching onto Sirius' jacket in order to stop herself from falling. She would have been embarrassed about this had he not automatically put his hands on her shoulders, using her for support in return.
Apparently, James hadn't been joking about the volcano.
The two of them stood in a large rectangular room whose floors and walls were fashioned of dark, grey stone. The ground upon which they stood, however, had only remained intact for a moment or two; then, without warning, it had begun to rumble and crack in various places, opening up a network of deep pits that glowed orange and spat little flecks of the dangerous, hot substance into the air. The effect was not dissimilar to standing on a melting, dividing iceberg in the middle of the ocean - except that here, the temperature scale was reversed.
"Oh, shiiiiiiit," said Hannah shakily, her voice much higher than usual.
"The door!" said Sirius hurriedly. "We just have to get back thr- Oh, goddamn it!" He'd reached out for the knob, but the rock they were on jolted away from the door so quickly that both he and Hannah were thrown forward onto their stomachs on the cold, stone floor. Luckily, they had enough space that they weren't too close to the edge of any ravine yet, but they both scrambled to their knees and steadied themselves just in case.
The large chunk of rock they were kneeling on was moving across the room at a moderate pace, taking them past similar islands that were crumbling and cracking right before their eyes, sending little (and some not so little) bits of rock plummeting into the lava below.
"Are they flipping mad?" Sirius shouted over the sound of breaking rock and sizzling lava. "This isn't just frightening - this is dangerous, for Merlin's sake!"
Hannah tried to laugh, but the sound that came out was decidedly unamused. "Oh, come on," she argued, "they're not that stupid. I'm sure this is designed so that there's no way you can possibly-" She was cut off midsentence when a noise was emitted from the rock that was currently supporting their weight. They both looked down immediately, only to find that a fissure was rapidly snaking its way through the middle of the rock, drawing a line right between them.
Hannah shifted right, and Sirius left. They were speechless as the line reached the end of the rock, but both cried out when their sides of the island lurched apart, carrying them slowly but surely in opposite directions.
The side Sirius was on stayed steady, at least, but Hannah swore under her breath when she realised that her portion of rock was not only moving sideways, but also down, down toward the merciless pool of lava below.
"Black!" she cried out. "Give me your hand now, or so help me God, I will-"
But she needn't have said anything, because Sirius had seen it too, and he was right there in a heartbeat, reaching an arm over the edge. His face looked as she'd never seen it before - pale, wide-eyed, with fear written all over it - as she grappled with his fingers, trying desperately to get a good grip before the rock sunk too low.
And then, without warning, the rock fell out from under Hannah's feat, tumbling into oblivion.
"Sirius!" Hannah screamed in terror, as she swung precariously from the edge of the other rock, held up only by his two hands closed around hers with such force that both their knuckles were turning white. He tightened his grip, but - much to both of their horror - they could see that blood was being squeezed out of the wound on Hannah's finger and was dripping freely down their hands, acting as an annoying sort of lubricant.
"Hannah! It's okay, I've got you, I've-" But as he readjusted his grip once again, their hands slipped; Hannah's slid out from his grasp and she fell, screaming, to the bottom of the pit.
"NO!" Sirius bellowed. "HANNAH! NO!" As she disappeared into the fire, Sirius looked desperately around, as if trying to find confirmation that this was a dream, or a very terrible idea of a joke. There was nothing around to inform him of anything - except that he was alone in this horrible room, haunted by Hannah's last scream as she had fallen - fallen from his grasp into the depths of a volcano, all thanks to his stupid carelessness...
As his eyes searched the room, they landed upon something peculiar on a nearby wall. A broom hung there from a claw-like metal hook. In fact, there were plenty of them lined up along the walls, but they camouflaged so easily with the dark, natural shade of the stone that he hadn't noticeds them until now.
Without thinking twice, Sirius lunged at the nearest one, and, in one swift motion, managed to unhook it from the wall and throw himself astride it. He swooped toward the exit.
One minute, Hannah was about to meet her doom at the bottom of a volcano in a haunted house that, as she had come to realise, was pretty damn demented.
The next thing she knew, her surroundings had disappeared. The rocks and lava were gone, and instead, she had landed miraculously on her feet in a comfortingly empty room decorated with nothing but a few cobwebs, a creepy-looking silver chest in one corner, and a row of luminous letters on the wall that proclaimed, "Don't worry, you're not dead!"
Hannah laughed out loud (mostly in relief) at the sight of it - because, well, even though she trusted Lily with her life, she couldn't say it hadn't crossed her mind for the briefest of moments.
She moved tentatively toward the door on her right, and had a look inside first before stepping in. It wasn't the volcano room, as she had half-expected, but a dim chamber full of cages of all shapes and sizes. Hannah grimaced as she realised she had stepped right into the task that she had wanted to badly to avoid. Even after falling into a pit of lava, she was stuck with it.
What the hell, she told herself, and got to work on letting the creatures loose. She did the job as quickly as possible and then ran - without looking back - to the first door she saw. This time, she fully expected to be back in the volcano - but again, she was not.
"This place doesn't make any sense," she mumbled to nobody in particular, and began to work her way through the rest of the maze.
Sirius, at long last, came blundering through the door to the entrance hall, his hair completely dishevelled, his face coated in sweat, and his clothes torn in several places.
"What the bloody hell, Prongs," he said dangerously, as he stormed toward his bespectacled friend. James, surprised, turned around just in time to be caught by the collar, yanked out of his seat, and brought nose to nose with a murderous-looking Sirius Black.
James looked vaguely apologetic, but also a little bit amused. He coughed. "She's right over there, mate, if that's what you're talking about." He pointed toward the group gathered around one of the food tables.
Sirius whipped around, his eyes still narrowed in fury as they landed upon Hannah. There she was, alive and intact. Actually, better than intact - she was condescendingly laughing her head off at the spectacle, as if he were some kind of idiot.
"Did you think I was dead, Black?" she joked in a patronising manner.
Sirius was fuming. His shoulders rose visibly up and down as he stared at her, the look in his eyes gradually shifting from incredulity to anger - and then to hurt. Before much of that last emotion could show, he turned on his heel and swept determinedly out the door.
"Hannah, that was horrible," Lily whispered to her friend when Sirius was gone. She was half-smiling, as the whole thing had been a sort of set-up on James and her part, but after seeing Sirius' face, she felt terrible for what had happened.
Hannah looked at Lily, defensive. "What, like this isn't all your fault? That room was crazy. Why the hell would you put something like that in here?"
"I know... I'm sorry," said Lily softly. "But, like almost everything else in here, it's just a bunch of charms. There's no real danger in this whole place."
"And to be fair," James interjected, "most people notice the broomsticks within the first couple of seconds."
"Broomsticks?" Hannah was livid. "There were broomsticks?"
"Well, yeah," said Lily. "A whole bunch of them - on the walls."
"And who did you have testing this out - Madam Hooch? Dumbledore?"
James exchanged an amused glance with Lily. "Actually, Slughorn and a couple of third years."
The look on Hannah's face was priceless. "Well... well... Oh, whatever." She swung her legs around and hopped off the table she'd been sitting on, adopting a casual stance in what was obviously an attempt to make everybody forget that anything of note had happened. "So are we done here, or is there still stuff to do?"
"Did you end up getting to all the cages?" Jamie - who had been quiet until now - asked doubtfully. "I mean, after you two got separated."
Hannah was practically fearless, but bugs - spiders in particular - were her one qualm. So it surprised everybody when she replied with a simple, "Yep. Now, what's next?"
The rest of the hour passed quickly, and soon, students were showing up at the front door. Most of them, to Lily's immense pleasure, looked excited to be there, as if they really had been tired of the "unfashionable" Halloween feast. Some of the older kids (particularly the Slytherins) were sporting unmistakable this-is-lame looks on their faces, and she silently wished that they would find their way to the volcano room.
Lily and James handed out scare-o-meters with the help of Jamie and Peter (prior to the event, they'd fashioned a whole bunch of them from whatever discarded trinkets they could find lying around the school), while Hannah had disappeared inside, claiming she was going to "check on Regan".
"Wear them around your necks!" James was calling out to the confused students as they passed through the entrance, collecting the unconventional jewellery from their Head Boy and Girl. "Bring 'em back to us after you've gone through once - the person with the fewest screams wins a prize! You can try as many times as you like, just make sure to come back here to get your scare-o-meter reset after each round."
The students perked up considerably at this - even the Slytherins, most likely because they hastened at any opportunity to prove that they were the best. Bring on the lava, Lily thought again.
Just before five-thirty, Sirius showed up looking defeated; he'd tried to stay out, apparently, but had been forced back inside by the patrolling teachers. Dumbledore had made it compulsory to attend the haunted house, so that meant that all the students had to be inside the barriers before the allocated time. Which reminded Lily...
"James, where's Remus? I thought everybody had to be here."
James looked like he'd been caught off guard with that question. He blinked and then said, "Uh, he's been sick lately. Like, really sick. McGonagall agreed to let him off as long as he promised to stay inside. Apparently, he's trustworthy enough for that." He cast a doubtful look at Sirius, who looked very much like he'd attempted to attain similar exemption from the event.
Lily nodded. Remus had looked ill for the past week or so, and Jamie had noted that he was in a particularly bad mood. Beside Lily, her best friend fidgeted uncomfortably at the mention of the missing Marauder.
"So what are we going to do this whole time?" Peter piped up. "I'm bored."
"I was wondering that myself," replied James. He turned to Lily. "Since we'll be done here in about five minutes, we don't really have much to do. The Ravenclaw Prefects are on duty for supervision and I think McGonagall's going to guard the entrance." His eyes took on a mischievous glint. "So I guess we're free to roam around the haunted house."
Peter blanched. "I don't know, Prongs, it looks scary in there..."
"Pete, you've only looked in the door," Sirius scoffed from his position next to the food table.
At that moment, Hannah emerged from the very door they he spoke of. Her cheeks were flushed red with excitement, her blonde curls thrown in every direction.
"Guys, you've got to get in there," she announced breathlessly, coming to join the others. She seemed to have had a change of heart since venturing in on her own. "It's awesome. Even Regan's having a great time. Mind you, she sent a bunch of firsties off crying their eyes out, but you had to have been expecting that when you hired her." As she noted Sirius' presence, she grimaced and added as a side note, "Oh, he's back."
Lily rolled her eyes and ignored this remark. "Well, since we did all the setup, I guess we're not in the running for the scare-o-meter contest. But... Why don't we have a contest of our own? We're down one and so are you - the numbers are perfect."
"I like your thinking, Evans," said James. "Alright. Grab a necklace, everybody. We're going in."
It was safe to say that the Marauders were losing by a landslide.
One would think that a bunch of emotionally vulnerable young girls would be no match for three tough teenage boys in a contest of try-not-to-get-spooked, but in this case, stereotypes had to be reconsidered. The reason?
Peter.
He screamed at everything. While he was wailing his lungs out, the others spent most of their journey through the numerous chambers laughing at how his voice seemed to rise in pitch every time. In the beginning, it might have passed as a vaguely masculine sound - but after they'd passed through half the haunted house, he'd gone up several octaves, and quite frankly he sounded more like a girl than any of the Rogues did.
Granted, they were all so caught up in the excitement that each of them expelled a scream every now and then, but Peter clearly took the cake. After they'd escaped the pixies (who'd resumed their savage vendetta against Hannah and stuffed her into one of their tall, dome-shaped cages in the corner, forcing the others to spend a whole fifteen minutes trying to get her out) they made their way to the door of the volcano room. Four of them were prepared; two were not. One of those two was doomed from the start.
James, who happened to be at the front of the group at this point in time, was smiling lopsidedly as he reached out and grabbed the knob. The door swung open, revealing the monstrous cavern of rocks and blazing pits of doom. There were already a few students inside, but they were far from the entrance, calling out to one another and occasionally screaming as they jumped from rock to rock, navigating their way to the other door. James recognised one of them as Paul Abbott, a seventh year Hufflepuff and a friend of the Marauders.
Peter let out a squeal before they'd even gone inside. Noting this, Hannah - who was right behind James, and looked eager to prove herself this time round - smirked and said, "Hey, Peter, why don't you go in first?"
Peter gulped. "Er, I'm g-good."
Lily appeared to read Hannah's mind like an open textbook. "Nonsense," she urged, and the two of them pushed Peter through the open door. He clearly wasn't ready for this; he yelped as he was flung forward, but his legs seemed unable to stop moving. The momentum carried him several metres into the room and he tripped, legs flailing as he soared face first over the edge of a massive ravine. His earsplitting cry - the pitch of which was, by this point, worthy of an opera singer - echoed throughout the room long after he'd disappeared from sight.
"Hey!" protested Sirius. "That wasn't fair!" He sounded more defensive of the Marauders' collective screaming score than of his friend's actual safety.
Hannah looked annoyingly smug, while Lily simply raised and dropped her shoulders, brushing it off. "Nobody said anything about rules, Black," was her excuse.
At this, James exchanged a look with his best friend. Apparently, Hannah and Lily weren't the only two who were on the same wavelength tonight; before the redhead could even pick up on their suspicious expressions, they'd lifted her clean off the ground - Sirius at her feet and James at her arms - and started to carry her into the volcano room.
"Hey! Put me down!" she complained, squirming to no avail. The two Marauders had her firmly in their grasp, and they weren't about to let go anytime soon. That was, until...
"I believe this is the part where we'd normally throw you onto a couch or something," James explained calmly, as he and Sirius began to swing her rhythmically back and forth. Lily glared daggers at Sirius, who maintained his grip on her ankles and smirked.
"Oh, but, er, since there's no couch here..."
"We'll just have to settle for this pit of boiling lava."
"So long, Evans!"
They released their grip at exactly the same time, sending her flying down into the volcano. James felt a little remorseful afterward, but he knew it was all in good fun. He just hoped Lily realised that, too.
Sirius turned back to the remaining two Rogues, grinning vehemently. "So who's next?" he asked.
The girls exchanged a look that seemed to suggest they knew something that the Marauders didn't. "Uh, you are," said Jamie simply, and nodded at the rocks beneath their feet. James looked down. Sure enough, the uneven surface was beginning to crumble, and before either of them could respond at all, they were falling. Both cried out in surprise; around their necks, their scare-o-meters emitted pools of red light. Just before he reached the nonexistent bottom, James heard two synchronised shouts of "cannon ball!" from up above.
Jamie and Hannah were the last to land in the don't-worry-you're-not-dead room, holding hands and grinning. "That was awesome!" said the latter, releasing her grip and stepping toward the mob.
"Speak for yourself," said Lily, who was busy dusting herself off. Her once-white top had now been smeared with dirt. "At least you landed on your feet."
"Er, yeah, sorry about that," James said sincerely at the same time as Peter burst out, "At least you didn't fall on your face!" Everyone ignored him; it wasn't the first time in the past week that such a thing had occurred.
The competition resumed soon after. They passed through another couple of rooms, nobody screaming much except for Peter. Lily and James knew it all too well to truly be caught by surprise, and yet, of the rest of the group, they probably ended up screaming the most. Hannah and Sirius seemed to be in fierce competition with one another, both determined to be less affected by the creatures and charms than they had been on their first trip through. And as for Jamie... her mind was somewhere else, it appeared.
Finally, after shuddering their way through the room of chilling whispers and invisible things breathing down their necks, the motley crew stumbled upon a familiar face.
"REGAN!" Hannah called out. The green-faced monster looked up at the sound of her name, and under those horrible, furry brows, they saw her eyes narrow. Regan sat on one side of the room upon what appeared to be a throne of sorts. She was surrounded by various altars and ornaments, all of which were either dirty or broken or both. On a ramshackle shelf to her right was a plethora of vials of all different shapes and sizes, each filled with a coloured liquid or powder and labelled with some ridiculous description like "Pickled prune juice - beware the bitter aftertaste" or "Essence of dirty sock - sure to make even the most fearsome enemies cringe away from you". In front of Regan's throne were three students - a pair of second year girls and a tall, handsome boy their own age.
"Wait, this is Tain?" said the boy, scoffing. James recognised him as Blaine Harlow of Slytherin. "Forget it. I'm out of here."
Regan's face twisted in annoyance as he left the room with the two snickering twelve-year-olds hurrying along after him. "Thanks a lot, Han," she spat. She looked dangerously irritable, but it was hard to take any expression seriously when she was sporting a face like that. "I was in the middle of telling him I was on the run from a bunch of deranged gypsies and had been forced into this stupid disguise by a bunch of idiot schoolkids-"
"Hey!" Lily cut in, offended.
"I'm sorry!" said Regan. "But this is boring. I had to do something fun. And he actually believed me for a minute."
"And your flirtation tactics are really disturbing, Miss 'I Stopped Liking Him After Fourth Year'," Hannah contributed with a roll of her eyes. The Marauders tittered at this, causing Regan to convey a silent death threat to her blonde friend.
"Well, it looks like we aren't going to get any screams from this room," said Sirius impatiently, "so are we going to get a move on or not?"
Regan's jaw dropped in indignation. "Hey! I could make you all cry like five-year-olds if I felt like it. And... Wait, you guys aren't having a contest without me, are you?" When the others looked sheepish, she leaned back in her chair and said, "Man, this sucks. I knew I shouldn't have taken this job."
"You won't be saying that once you get your cake," Lily reminded her, but was ignored, as Regan's expression had turned from disgruntled to animated in an instant. Clearly, she had an idea. Almost everybody took a cautionary step backward.
"Hey, Pettigrew," Regan called out. "C'mere."
Peter, just as frightened as ever, looked desperately around him, only to find that everybody else had moved backward and he was the only one standing within the pool of light that surrounded Regan's throne and the space in front of it. He froze, visibly struggling with the decision of whether or not to obey; after all, this was the first time Regan had actually asked him to come closer, as opposed to the usual order of "Go far, far away and never come back." But she wasn't herself right now, so to speak, and even from where he stood with the rest of the group, James had to admit that the lumps on her face were pretty off-putting. Eventually, Peter gulped and took a few shaky steps forward.
"Good." Regan spoke slowly, as if to a small child, but the smile on her face was downright evil. Somehow, Peter was oblivious enough not to take notice of this. "Now, how about a kiss?"
Peter was caught by surprise. "A... a kiss?"
"Yes, you moron. A kiss."
Another internal struggle. He shuffled his feet; James had a feeling he was wondering if this might be the first and only time she ever actually consented to him planting one on her. Last time, it had been a dare. This time, she was hideous and green and covered in warts. Neither was an ideal situation, but they were all he had, and Peter was desperate.
Hesitantly, Peter leaned forward. The others could only watch from behind, but James had a bad feeling about all this.
"Hold on," he whispered to the Rogues, "this is just another chance to up our scream count, isn't it?"
The girls shrugged indifferently, but their expressions told a different story. "Well, we aren't in on it," Lily explained, "but yes, I expect so. Or just a way for Regan to entertain herself."
They turned back to the spectacle. Peter was moving slowly, closer and closer until, seemingly at the very last moment before their lips touched, he drew back in fright as if he'd suddenly changed his mind. He screamed, higher than ever, and fled from the room. The heard another shriek behind the closed door as he encountered whatever it was that awaited him next-door. Regan laughed like a maniac at his expense.
"What did you do?" Sirius demanded, looking both awed and disgusted at the same time.
Regan stopped cackling, grinned, and gave an innocent shrug. "Nothing. I guess it was all just too much for him. Oh, and, er... that bad breath potion Slughorn brewed for me might have been a bit of a problem."
There was a general chorus of eye-rolling at this - and a high five from Hannah - before the group bid adieu to Regan and continued on their way.
The next room, as it turned out, was Peeves' hideout. When the rest of them caught up to Peter, he was cowering in a corner and being pelted with what appeared to be large turnips.
"Peeves," Lily scolded, "we told you, no physically hurting the students. We'll get in trouble."
James couldn't help but laugh at the scene before him. "Oh, it's alright," he told Lily, "it's nothing the students aren't used to anyway. And Peter wouldn't be such an easy target if he didn't act like such a sissy all the time."
They were nearing the back of the haunted house. As they moved through the next few rooms, James anticipated the one that they were bound to walk into fairly soon, and wondered how the others would react.
After passing through a room of total and utter darkness (which was, in fact, filled with nothing but darkness, despite Peter's occasional yelps and his cries of, "Something grabbed me!") they finally navigated their way into a pool of light. There was nothing in this room but a large wooden cabinet and - oh, but it couldn't be - a piece of parchment in flames on the floor.
It was the Marauders' Map.
James knew immediately what was going on, but Sirius - who was at the front of the mob - evidently did not. He rushed forward, exclaiming, "WHAT THE HELL? Who left this here? Prongs, help me put it out!"
James panicked, not because he feared for even a moment that this might be real, but because he was worried about the map's exposure - the Rogues were standing right there, and they could easily see the parchment. He just hoped they couldn't make out any of the writing. The whole thing was pretty blackened by now, but...
Just to be safe, James took hold of Peter and shoved him into Sirius, who stumbled out of the way. The parchment and the flames quickly rearranged themselves into an indecipherable blur. Usually, that blur would have evened out into a definite shape of some sort, but in this case, the colours continued to swirl, circling nonstop around Peter. Amidst the spinning hues, James spotted several different images - a cloaked figure, a dragon, a jet of green light, and Regan's distorted face among others - but everything went by so quickly that he barely had a chance to identify any one thing before it was gone.
Peter, meanwhile, was looking absolutely petrified, cringing at every image that flashed by and eventually lowering himself to the ground, where he practically curled up into a ball.
"Wormtail, it's just a Boggart!" James called out. "What are you afraid of?"
Peter whimpered. "EVERYTHING!"
James rolled his eyes. "Somebody get in front of him," he said, when it was obvious that Peter didn't have the sense to get up and cast Ridikkulus on the stupid thing.
Jamie was the nearest, so she reluctantly stepped forward and allowed the Boggart to change shape before her. They all watched as the colours swirled again, and when they finally arranged themselves into a solid form, it was something none of them were prepared for.
On the ground was a human body - a very pale human body with hollow eyes and blood streaked down its face and torso. A human body with vibrant red hair. A dead one.
Jamie put a hand to her mouth and her eyes swam with tears, but James barely had time to notice this; the pain in his chest was so overwhelming that he had to take a step back from the gruesome display, trying to gather his thoughts. Even though it was a Boggart, it looked so unbearably real. The features were exactly the same, only... emptier. Not there anymore. His throat tightened and he felt the corners of his eyes prickling with moisture, and then-
Hannah gave Jamie a gentle shove out of the way and moved in front of her, and the body was gone.
James tried to pull himself together. Why had he reacted so badly? It was only a Boggart. They'd been taught to face these things years ago, to be able to identify that they were in no way a picture of reality - just a representation of their innermost fears. Unfortunately, Jamie's greatest fear happened to be the same as what James suspected his would be.
He kept his eyes fixed on the floor where the body had been, his breathing trembling and shallow. Had he looked up, he would have noticed that all eyes in the room (save for one set) were upon him. This included Lily's green ones, which fixed him with an indescribable look of sadness, surprise, sympathy... and something like gratitude.
But James did not look up, because he was too afraid to look into those eyes right now. Afraid that he might one day see them as hollow as the ones he'd seen on that lifeless Boggart.
All the while, nobody noticed Hannah standing in front of her own Boggart: a full length mirror reflecting a distorted image, with a misshapen body and a ravaged, deformed face; a reflection that looked horrible and weak. She stood very sombrely in front of it for a moment, and then she cast Ridikkulus, and her reflection turned into the portrait of the Fat Lady, her face pink as she screamed at mischievous students from inside the frame.
The six of them made their way out of the room in silence. Everyone seemed afraid to speak after what had happened with the Boggart, with the disturbing image and James' unexpectedly intense reaction. Most of them kept their eyes on the ground as they passed through the exit, and because of this, none of the Rogues noticed when the Marauders signalled to one another and slipped under the tapestries, proceeding to pass underneath the stands and escape into the castle grounds.
It wasn't until they'd rounded back to the entrance hall that the Rogues realised they were alone. Lily, finally chancing a look at James, turned around, only to find the space behind them mysteriously empty.
"Guys, stop," she told the others. They halted in their tracks and turned to face her, noticing as they did that the Marauders were nowhere to be seen.
Jamie looked confused. "That's weird," she said, but Hannah had a different idea.
"Those idiots. They're probably going to jump out at us anytime now. Man, they're such sore losers..."
Lily had to admit, it wasn't a bad assessment of the situation. Considering the gravity of what had just happened, however, she didn't think it was terribly likely that they would pull something so immature at this point in the game.
"Maybe they went ahead of us and we didn't realise," she offered. The three of them considered this and began to look around the entrance hall. There were so many people gathered around the food tables that it was impossible to see if the Marauders were among them, but as they looked around, their attention was caught by none other than Paul Abbott. He was on supervision duty with his fellow prefect, Magnolia Fairwater, and had a knowing smile on his face as he called out to them.
"Oi!" he gestured for them to come closer. When they had done so, he asked in a conspiratorial tone, "You aren't, er, looking for those four, by any chance, are you?"
The Rogues shared a suspicious glance. "Kind of," Lily admitted. "Why? Have you seen them?"
Paul shrugged. "I may have," he said vaguely. The annoying (and rather Marauder-esque) smile was still firmly in place.
It was strange; Abbott was a friend of the Marauders', and if he ever got involved in the feud, he was bound to take their side. And yet here he was, possibly offering up information to the Rogues concerning their whereabouts.
"What's the catch?" Hannah said bluntly, crossing her arms. She was always one to cut straight to the chase, and she read the motives of others with ease.
"You certainly don't waste any time, do you?" Paul countered, apparently reading hers as well. "But sure, I'll cut the crap. You guys know Rose Williams, don't you?"
"Yeah," said Jamie slowly. None of them were quite sure what he was getting at here. "She shares our dorm. Why?"
Paul's smile broadened. "Well, see, I've been trying to get her to go out with me, but she thinks I'm a jerk."
"No kidding," said Hannah. (Lily thought this was a bit harsh, but to be perfectly honest, Paul Abbott was a bit of a jerk. In fact, this thing with Rosalie reminded her of James' pursuits from first year to sixth. Except that James had managed to mature since then. Perhaps Paul was finding that part a bit of a struggle.) "So what do you want from us, then?"
"Put in a good word for me," he said. "That's all. Just... tell her how awesome I am."
Hannah scoffed. "And what grounds do we have to base that argument on?"
Paul raised an eyebrow. "Do you want me to tell you where they are or not?"
Lily thought about it and began to realise that it really wasn't that big a deal. "Not real-"
But Hannah slapped a hand over her mouth and said, "Okay. We'll do it. Just tell us."
"Guys, seriously, what are we doing?" Lily asked breathlessly as the Rogues hurried up the hill and made their way toward the castle. She knew exactly what they were doing - so she supposed the underlying question was really "Why are we doing this?"
"We're getting even, that's what," said Hannah from up ahead. "Remember? Animagus plan? Bringing them down whatever it takes?"
"Uh huh," replied Jamie, who, along with Lily, was lagging behind. "But what exactly do we plan to accomplish by following them back to the castle? For all we know, they're probably just going to check on... you know. Remus." She said his name as if it were a dirty word or something.
"Sure, but what if it's something bigger?" said Regan, sounding giddy with anticipation. "I've got a feeling this could be the night we catch them out on something huge."
Lily rolled her eyes. Of course Regan would be enthusiastic - she'd just spent two hours cooped up in a dark room, dressed as the most hideous witch any of them had ever seen. Any little excursion, no matter how pointless, would sound appealing to her at this point.
After finally getting an answer out of Paul, the Rogues had decided that this was their chance to put their plan into action. (Or rather, Hannah had decided - but after all that she'd been through, none of them had the heart to stop her from getting her revenge, so they went along with it.) They'd had no trouble collecting Regan from her station within the haunted house, but getting out of the Quidditch pitch had proved more difficult, even with a Head Girl and a Prefect in their numbers. McGonagall refused point blank to let them out, using the old "Professor Dumbledore has specifically ordered..." template as a basis for her argument. They'd had to wait until Slughorn took over as guardian of the front door, because Lily knew for a fact that he was far easier to persuade. Sure enough, when they'd approached him with the tactic of friendly conversation, he'd expressed his desire to see the inside of the haunted house, and the Rogues had had their opportunity for escape practically handed to them on a silver platter.
"I did try it out a couple of days ago," he said, his eyes bulging with excitement, "but I'm dying to get in there and scope the whole place out. It's such a shame I couldn't get here until this hour, and now I'm on duty until nine..."
"Professor," Lily had offered, "I'd be quite happy to take your place if you wanted to go in for a while. I know I'm not a teacher, but I am Head Girl, and... Well, you trust me not to let anybody out, don't you?"
It had taken a few more minutes for him to be fully convinced, but as soon as he'd disappeared behind the first door, Lily had quickly sought out a replacement entrance guard. She was counting on being back within half an hour (because honestly, how much could they really get up to by following the Marauders?), but even so, she tried to find somebody trustworthy. In the end, Jamie had suggested Frank Longbottom. They'd asked (or rather, begged) and, being the generous guy he was, he accepted. He even went one further and didn't say anything when he witnessed the four of them left the complex. Lily wasn't sure what they'd done to get into his good books, but at this point, she had little time to think about that. She could only be grateful for his help. As Head Girl, she felt terrible, irresponsible, for letting her teachers down like this, but if anybody could be trusted to fill her position, it was Frank.
Once the Rogues were out, they'd traipsed up the hill in the direction that Paul had pointed them. They saw no sign of the Marauders, but went on anyway, knowing that the boys had had a significant head start.
When she and Jamie finally reached the top of the hill, Lily stopped in her tracks. In the distant darkness, she thought she could see something: a tiny speck of light against the shadows. It was there alright, but who would be hanging out around the Black Lake at this time of night? Come to think of it, it appeared to be far, far away - perhaps even far enough to be outside the Hogwarts perimetre. As soon as the thought occurred to her, however, the light went out.
"Lily?" Jamie had stopped a couple metres ahead, having noticed her friend's distraction. "What is it?"
Lily narrowed her eyes very briefly in thought before shaking her head. "Nothing. Never mind. We'd better catch up."
But by the time they'd caught up to Regan and Hannah, they too had stopped.
"What is it?" Lily asked.
"Is it just me," Hannah said, her tone careful, measured, "or do those look suspiciously like piles of clothes to you?"
Confused, Lily looked in the direction that Hannah was pointing. Indeed, there were three heaps of what looked like various fabrics, but... Lily didn't understand. First, why would three people leave their clothes sitting by the base of a tree? And second, why were Regan and Hannah so hung up on it right now?
But then she realised just which tree they were looking at, and a whole lot of things clicked at once.
She gasped. "The Whomping Willow."
It was only right that Hannah and Regan should be suspicious. After all, hadn't this whole plan stemmed from their sighting of the Marauders provoking this very tree late at night? The scene came back to her with surprising clarity.
Lily followed Jamie's gaze, and was alarmed by what she saw – the old Whomping Willow, very much alive and thrashing about as if trying to swat a thousand flies with its club-like branches. The raging tree gave the ground an enormous wallop, breaking the dirt into crumbling bits and shaking itself before taking aim again. It was worked up about something, becoming incessantly violent in its fury. By the time the tree took its fourth shot, Lily's night vision had adjusted and she saw a figure – a very human figure – scurry away from where the branch had just hit. The figure narrowly missed the next hit, ducking out of the way just in time. The tree continued to beat the ground with its furious blows, and the figure kept on darting out of the way. That was, until the tree suddenly straightened up and stood motionless in defeat.
"How did it...?" Lily was flabbergasted.
Only now did she notice how short and pudgy the figure-with-a-deathwish was. Now two more people – both with messy, dark hair – beckoned to him from near the Whomping Willow's trunk, and he stumbled stupidly forward, disappearing into the shadows. All three of the figures were gone then, and there was no indication left of what had just gone on save for a couple of rustled-up leaves that were still fluttering to the ground.
"You don't think...," Jamie began, but trailed off.
Hannah nodded. "Whatever they were doing that night a month ago, they're at it again."
"And wherever they are," Regan said, pointing disgustedly at the piles of clothes, "they're naked."
"No," Lily corrected, stepping in front of them. It had all occurred to her just now, and though she wasn't entirely sure of the technicalities herself, she felt the need to enlighten the others. She lifted up her pant leg again to show them the ankle band for added clarification. "Don't you see? Wherever they are, they're not in human form - they're Animagi, just like us!"
This revelation was met with two gasps and an angry exclamation of "Dammit, I thought we'd outsmarted them for once!"
They all fell silent, trying to digest this new information. Hannah was fuming; she had a tendency to get this way when the Marauders foiled one of their plans. Lily and Jamie were calm and thoughtful, while Regan seemed to simply be lost for words.
"This doesn't change anything," said Hannah determinedly, breaking the silence at last. "We've got a reason to find them now. I say we don't stop until we do."
Lily was certainly curious about what was going on, but she had a sudden and inexplicable feeling that they were about to get themselves into something that went way over their heads. "I'm not sure, Han," she tried to reason. "I mean, maybe we should just... leave it be? For now, I mean."
Hannah turned on her, absolutely livid. The fire in her eyes made Lily feel small and powerless. "Leave it be?" she repeated. By the sounds of it, she couldn't even fathom the notion. "Lily, this is it. This is our chance! We're on the verge of catching them out on something big here. Do you really want to throw away everything we've worked for this past month?"
"Well, no, but-"
"It could be something that's... none of our business," Jamie contributed quietly.
"Listen to you two!" Regan spoke up. "They've butted into our business plenty of times before. This battle has no limits - anything vaguely resembling a rule was thrown out the window years ago! This is no time to suddenly develop a conscience!"
Trying to ignore the anti-morality of Regan's pep talk, Lily sighed. "Okay," she said reluctantly, "but let's get one thing straight - any sign of actual danger and we're out of there. And they do not find out it's us unless we get captured or something. Okay?"
Regan and Hannah nodded, obviously eager to get going. Lily looked to Jamie; she looked nervous, but gave a weak nod to say that she was with them no matter what.
"Alright. First things first," said Hannah. "We get closer to this tree."
As they trudged across the damp grass toward the Whomping Willow, Lily looked up at the sky. Night had fallen in its entirety now, and the moon was high above their heads, full and incandescent against the stark black of the sky. Lily hadn't known there was going to be a full moon tonight, but now that she noticed it, she realised how very appropriate it was for a Halloween evening. It sent a chill up Lily's spine as the Rogues moved closer to the sadistic tree.
"So what's so great about the Smashing Spruce?" Regan asked when they'd stopped just out of its reach. She'd adopted this as a sort of affectionate nickname for the tree even though she'd finally gotten its real name drilled into her head.
"Don't you remember?" said Hannah. "That night when we saw the Marauders down here, they just disappeared. Don't you think that's a little strange?"
Lily wasn't quite convinced that there was anything so strange about that. "Yeah, but Hannah, it was really dark out. We mightn't have seen-"
"Guys, look!" Jamie suddenly said in a hushed voice, pointing at a spot near the base of the tree. The animal was so well-camouflaged against its natural surroundings in the darkness that Lily barely saw it upon first glance, but once her eyes adjusted, she realised it was a rather pudgy rat. All that was visible was its upper half; the rest seemed to be hidden somewhere in the ground. Or rather...
"You don't reckon there's a hole in the roots there?" Hannah said, voicing Lily's thoughts exactly. By this time, the rat had scurried out from under the tree and taken off in the general direction of the Quidditch pitch. The Rogues took no further notice of it.
Regan wasn't about to sit around and wait. "Only one way to find out," she said, and then her clothes fell to the ground in a heap as she transformed into her parrot form.
"Regan!" Hannah scolded. "Wait for us, you bloody bird!"
The bird squawked an apology. Hannah, equally impatient, was the next to go, and the cat's white fur gleamed in the moonlight a moment later. Lily sighed and followed suit; Jamie did so a couple of seconds after her. It was amazing, Lily thought, what they'd accomplished in the short timeframe of a month. They all found the transformation process easy now, but perhaps that was only because they'd been so driven this past week.
Lily quite enjoyed being a doe. It allowed her to move quickly and silently, and the heightened senses were definitely a bonus. She did not, however, feel so confident when the four of them decided to make a run for it and head for the alleged hole in the ground. Her Animagus form was quite large compared to the others', and this tree was not known to be forgiving in the slightest. It was roused immediately, angrily shaking its branches and beginning to throw wallops blindly at the dirt. More than once, Lily narrowly escaped being crushed, and Jamie was thrown clean off her feet by one of its smaller limbs. Luckily, she managed to right herself in time to escape its next blow, and hurried toward the trunk where the rest of the Rogues had gathered. The tree was suited to guarding its perimetre, so it was harder for the tree to reach them when they were so close to its core. Lily felt a sense of safety wash over her. Still, as it writhed and tilted from side to side, Lily realised that it could still get them. They needed to hurry up.
Regan squawked and waved a wing at the spot where the hole was supposed to be, and sure enough, there it was, with enough breadth for almost any animal to fit through. Without stopping to ponder where this hole might go, the four of them dove through, anxious to get away from the danger of the Whomping Willow.
They found themselves in a narrow cavern lined with dry leaves and jagged rocks. After taking a bit of a tumble down from the hole, they gathered themselves, checked to make sure that they were all there and in one piece, and began to wander through the tunnel.
At the other end, there was a rickety ladder. Not the most convenient of things for a deer, but Lily was able to reach the top in a couple of agile bounds. Jamie came up behind her, and the four of them stood in front of something they'd never imagined to see in here: a rotting, undeniably man-made mahogany door.
Great, Lily thought. A door. Perhaps they should have considered their Animagus options a little more thoroughly, because, as she realised now, none of them were equipped with any sort of appendage that could open a bloody door. Granted, they hadn't been expecting to have to do anything of the sort out here in the wood-filled grounds of Hogwarts, but if Lily had learnt one important thing in all her time in the magical world, it was to expect the unexpected. She only wished she'd remembered that lesson when choosing her animal.
They exchanged desperate glances (apparently, nobody else had a plan, either) and Regan squawked to say "Well, what now?" and ruffled her feathers.
This turned out to be a mistake. At the sound of Regan's bird voice, there were noises from the other side of the door. The Rogues froze. And then the door swung open, and they found themselves face to face with an enormous black dog.
Behind it, Lily noted with immense surprise, was a tall, majestic stag with a full set of antlers.
There was a shadow moving behind a worn grey curtain in the corner.
Nobody moved for what seemed like a lifetime. Both parties were too shocked to do anything but stand there, staring at each other. Lily's eyes darted from the dog to the stag and back again, trying to figure out what was going on. These had to be the Marauders. But which ones, she wondered?
And then, for the umpteenth time that day, she had an epiphany.
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs...
She'd always wondered at the ridiculous nicknames the Marauders had adopted in their fifth year (or sometime thereabouts). But until now, she'd never really given them any serious thought. They sounded comical if nothing else, and so naturally she'd written them off as just another part of the Marauders' idiotic, immature sense of humour.
But now...
Prongs. That had to be James. But why had he chosen a stag? Was it just a coincidence that Lily, the girl he'd been crushing on for too many years to count, had chosen to become his animal's female counterpart?
Padfoot was a little more obscure, but now, looking at the creature right in front of her, it sounded very dog-like to Lily. So Sirius was this whopping, vicious-looking beast blocking the door. How ironic that they'd used this in their symbolism-based argument against Hannah the other day, when they'd been grasping at straws for reasons why she might have become a white cat. Standing in a face-off position on either side of the threshold, Sirius large and dishevelled and Hannah tiny and sleek - the two of them could not have been any more opposite.
But Peter wasn't here, and neither was Remus. Wormtail was an odd one; if not an actual worm, then perhaps he was some kind of rodent? As for Moony... Well, Lily had a feeling Regan would suggest a baboon for its bare bottom (and spend a whole afternoon laughing at her own lame joke) but that just didn't seem right for somebody like him.
The dog seemed to snap out of its shock-induced stupour and adopted a fiercely protective stance, spreading its front legs and baring its teeth, which were pointed and yellow. Sirius let out a rumbling growl.
Hannah, however, was quick. She shot, quick as a flash, between his forearms and managed to cross half the room before Sirius had even had a chance to react. He whipped angrily around, giving Jamie the opportunity to dart past him on one side; Regan flew over his head, distracting him enough for Lily to dash through on the other. Sirius, she thought once the four of them were through, would make a horrendous guard dog.
The stag stood completely still, his gaze flicking around as he tried to assess the situation. Apparently, he wasn't taking quite the same approach as Sirius (who had turned around fully and was madly snapping his jaws at the cat and the bird), but was instead standing back and trying to figure out what to do. Lily was doing much the same; standing out of the fray, observing the others, frantically trying to decide whether it was best to leave, change back, join in the fight... or just stand there like she was currently doing.
She barely noticed when the shadow moved out from behind the curtain and loped out the door.
She couldn't tell what kind of creature it was exactly - it was moving far too fast and she was hardly paying attention - but from the glimpse she caught, she could tell that it was large, hunched and foul-looking.
The stag was on red alert as soon as he saw this happen. It all happened too quickly for the Rogues to even begin to understand what was going on. James prodded Sirius (whose attention was still focused on the intruders) with his tines, and the dog jumped up in shock. James made a motion with his head toward the shadowless curtain, and the two of them flew through the door at an incredible speed.
Regan squawked an "after them!" sort of war cry, and the Rogues - some reluctantly, others caught up in the spirit of the hunt - took off after them. Down through the cavern, up the narrower tunnel, and out into the night.
The Marauders were far ahead already. It would be hopeless trying to catch up with them, but the Rogues were smaller - less wind resistant - and had enough adrenaline to carry them a long way. They sprinted down the hill, desperate to close the gap between the two groups. When they got closer, Lily could see that, even further ahead, being chased by James and Sirius, was the creature from behind the curtain. She still couldn't seem to make out its exact shape.
Lily wondered again why she was doing this. It was evident that the Marauders had something entirely different going on here - something that had nothing to do with the Rogues and, like Jamie had suggested, was absolutely none of their business. In previous years, Lily might have disregarded this "conscience" (as Regan had called it) without thinking twice, but this time, it was more difficult. She had to keep telling herself that she was doing this for Hannah - for the Rogues.
As this moral battle waged inside her head, Lily found that she was letting her legs carry her forward without thinking - and, as a result, she didn't notice the thick root sticking out of the ground right in front of her. Her back hoof hooked under it and she skidded forward, slicing her forearm on a sharp rock half-buried in the soil. A searing pain shot up her leg and she tried to cry out, but she couldn't make a sound.
Next to her, Jamie paused momentarily and shot a concerned look in Lily's direction, but Lily was already on her feet again, pushing past the pain and taking off after the others. She ignored the blood flowing down her leg and picked up her pace, eventually catching up with Hannah and Regan.
They were closing in on the Marauders now, but there was still a way to go. Lily was already getting tired, and the pain in her leg was becoming harder and harder to ignore. Still, they kept on going, and they barely even faltered when Sirius abruptly veered off in another direction, trying to create a diversion. Even without any form of communication, the Rogues knew what to do; Hannah followed Sirius and Regan took the same route overhead, while Lily and Jamie remained on the stag's tail.
Lily desperately hoped this would be over soon. Maybe they would lose sight of the Marauders and be forced to withdraw from the chase. That prospect was looking pretty inviting at this point. In fact, if she just slowed her pace a little bit, she could almost justify pulling out...
Lily shook off this thought and reminded herself of her purpose. Hannah, she thought. Hannah deserves this. And she pushed on, moving as fast as her legs could carry her. Beside her, Jamie was panting.
Neither of them was expecting it when James skidded to a halt. Taken by surprise, they stopped, too. Lily hadn't realised until now, but they'd been gradually moving closer and closer to the Quidditch pitch, where the haunted house was looking rather quiet. This, however, wasn't important - what was important was the creature standing by one of the walls of the pitch, breathing heavily, baring claws that looked like daggers.
It was the creature that James had been chasing, and it was right there, only a few metres from the stag, probably less than twenty from the fox and the doe.
It sniffed the air, catching a scent that caused its eyes to light up like shining rubies. Its head swivelled in Lily and Jamie's direction and its eyes widened as it caught sight of them: two weak, frail animals stunned into immobility, one with dark blood pouring down her front leg.
The wolf let out a howl that pierced into the night, and it was then that the final piece of the puzzle fell into place.
Moony...
Regan and Hannah had been cornered. They'd almost caught up to Sirius when he'd suddenly rounded on Hannah, chasing her in the direction of his choosing. She'd wound up in a shallow cave in the Forbidden Forest, backed against a wall as the great black dog closed in on her. Regan could have flown away at any time, but she chose to stick by Hannah's side, loyal to her best friend through thick and thin.
And then, just like that, the dog wasn't a dog anymore. In its place was Sirius Black, dressed in a robe, staring at them with furious, piercing eyes.
"Oh, what the hell," he said loudly. "Let's cut the crap. You knew it was me anyway."
He began to pace back and forth, breathing heavily. He finally stopped in front of them, his stormy eyes narrowed. "Let me guess... Milton." He pointed an accusatory finger at Hannah, and then at Regan. "And I'm going to say... Tain."
The cat and the bird exchanged a look before both changing back into their human forms, accepting defeat - for now. They folded their arms so simultaneously that it would have been comical in any other situation.
"It's okay," said Regan sarcastically, "I was getting sick of being at the bottom of the food chain anyway."
Hannah ignored her quip and barked at Sirius, "And how the hell did you know that?"
Sirius looked smug. "Well, I hate cats, so that one was obvious." He turned to Regan with a patronising look. "And only you would be stupid enough to become a tropical bird in a place like Hogwarts."
Regan made a face at him and said, "Yeah, well, I can fly."
"So you didn't consider a hawk? Or an owl?"
"Oh, shut up. Those are lame."
"That is not the point," Hannah interjected, reprimanding them both for straying from the matter at hand. "Are you going to let us out of here or not? I don't see what good it does you, holding us captive in here."
"Oh, you're not getting out of here," Sirius responded with a kind of resolution that was almost frightening. "And I beg to differ. See, there's a little something in this world called private business. I don't know if you've heard of it. Anyway, since you dunderheads decided to follow us, we're in a bit of a pickle, and I think Prongs would appreciate it if I held you back as long as I could."
As soon as he finished speaking, Hannah made to slip past him, but Sirius was too quick - in one swift movement, he'd slammed both of his hands against the walls of the cave, blocking any potential exit. Hannah glared at him as she shrunk back against the wall.
"And if you turn into that bird again, Tain, and try to fly out of here, I'll bloody strangle you," Sirius growled. "Like I said, you're not going anywhere."
Lily barely had time to come to her senses before the werewolf was tearing after her, chasing her into the Forbidden Forest. She and Jamie ran and ran, their feet barely touching the ground as they fled through the woods, the trees on either side of them turning into one long blur as they pushed themselves to go faster and faster.
No matter how fast they went, though, they could still hear the werewolf's massive hands and feet pounding into the ground, its barks and ripping snarls cutting into the air right behind them. Adrenaline pushed them faster than anything; they'd already been almost completely drained before this new chase had begun, but a they'd found a new source of energy the moment they'd begun to fear for their lives. Had they not, Lily thought she would have dropped dead of exhaustion long ago, and the werewolf would have been cleaning up her remains.
Things got worse when the wolf began to chase them uphill. Lily's limbs were already becoming weak and shaky, and her wounded leg felt just about ready to give out. Finally, the ground began to even out, but then there was another problem: not fifty metres ahead, the ground forest floor suddenly disappeared. They were approaching the edge of a cliff.
This is it, Lily thought sadly. She slowed her pace as the sheer drop came nearer, bracing herself for the impact from behind.
It did not come. Lily came to a complete stop in front of a large oak tree. Jamie, who'd been a metre or two to her left the entire time, stopped only a short distance away, and they both whipped around to see what had become of their pursuer.
The werewolf and the stag were locked in fierce combat in the clearing on the cliff's edge. The stag had come at it from behind, ploughing its antlers into the wolf's side. But werewolves were some of the strongest and fastest creatures in existence; there was no way James could subdue it on his own, especially after running hundreds of metres uphill. Lily felt a pang of horror as she realised what James was getting himself into... And it was all thanks to her.
The werewolf roared and swiped at the deer's haunch, narrowly missing. James took aim for another blow with his antlers, but this time, the wolf was prepared; he took an almighty swing with one of his arms and threw James right out of the clearing, where the stag went rolling down the hill they had just climbed.
Lily wanted to scream, but her deer form didn't allow her to make any noise at all. Even if she could have, there wouldn't have been time to focus on James; the wolf was advancing on her again, its eyes alight with thirst for her blood. She backed up, but there was no room left between her and the tree. And behind that... there was only the drop. She began to tremble.
The werewolf snarled and lunged at her, its teeth bared and its arms outstretched. Every muscle in Lily's body tensed as she awaited the hit.
Jamie came out of nowhere, stunning both Lily and the werewolf as she leapt through the air toward the attacker. The weight of her fox body wasn't enough to throw the wolf off balance, but the shock was. It stumbled to the side, giving Lily a clear path to make an escape. She wasn't about to let Jamie's act of idiotic bravery be in vain, so she took it, crossing to the other side of the clearing and standing out of the chaos.
The werewolf was fully focused on Jamie now. It seemed intent on ripping her to shreds. Somehow, though, Jamie managed to evade its every swipe, jumping out of the way just in time. Lily was impressed; she'd never seen Jamie fight like this before. And to think it was Remus behind those wolfish eyes... She couldn't fathom how difficult this must be for her friend, assuming she had put the puzzle together by now. (Although it wasn't really Remus, Lily understood, because in becoming a werewolf he'd completely lost his mind. Still, it was an odd spectacle to witness.)
The wolf became more and more aggravated as she dodged its claws and razor-sharp teeth, which were snapping in her face, but for the first minute or two, Jamie held her ground with astounding proficiency. Until-
The wolf caught Jamie off guard with a swipe across the face. Its talons struck her in a slashing downward arc, and the fox whimpered as she was thrown backward onto the ground.
That was enough for Lily. She launched herself into the battle with as much force as she could muster. She head-butted the wolf in the back, threw herself against it, did anything she could to divert its attention. She barely noticed when James came up beside her to help, using his antlers to their full advantage. Unfortunately, the beast seemed to be permanently fixated on Jamie now. The fox couldn't see a thing with all that blood running down her face, and as she lay helplessly on the forest floor, she was unable to move out of the way when the wolf grabbed her again, digging its claws in and creating deep gashes in her torso. In a final, desperate bid for freedom, Jamie sunk her teeth into the wolf's shoulder. It howled in pain...
...And with a single, enraged swing, flung her over the edge of the cliff.
A/N: Wow. It's over.
Anyway, I'm not in the mood for long author's notes at the moment, so I'll try to keep this one relatively brief. Just a couple of things:
1) It might interest you to know that this chapter alone is longer than the longest piece of original fiction I've ever finished (not written, but finished). It seems I've taken my inability to condense a story to new heights. I apologise, but it had to be done so that I could fit everything into this chapter that I wanted to. I almost succeeded (there are two short scenes that I left out). Anyway, let me know - did the length bother you? Was it a good thing? I'd really like to know what chapter length suits you guys, because (as you can see) they tend to vary a lot in this story...
2) A useless little piece of trivia: TMATR now comes up as a Google Search suggestion when you type as much as "The Marauders a" into the search box. This makes me happy. Go test it out if you don't believe me. :D
3) TMATR is officially A QUARTER DONE! Yes, only a quarter... But I'm being realistic here, guys. If it took me twenty-five chapters to get to the end of October, then how long is it going to take me to get to the end of the year? And yes, I do intend to go to the end of the year. A hundred chapters is a lot, but it's a very nice, neat number, don't you think? Maybe if this story is super-long, then I can possibly justify calling it "epic". I've always wanted to write an epic. Anyway, my point is: This is sort of the end of an era in TMATR right now. There are going to be a lot of changes coming up after this chapter, some of which will be good, and others... Well, I'll let you wait and see. Think of this as a season finale of sorts (and hey, season finales are often twice the length of regular episodes, right? Yeah, that's just pushing it...). I'm actually going to be focusing on revision for a little while, but that won't stop me from writing the next chapter. I just need a tiny break, and I'll be back at it in no time.
Okay, so that wasn't brief... But anyway, if you have a comment, make sure to leave a review. I do love reviews. :) Also, if you have the time, check out the TMATR website. I've done a lot of work on it lately, and I'd like to get a few opinions on it. The link is at the top of my profile.
Until next time!
~PrincessEarth
P.S. Just a quick note: If it interests you at all, RainbowCrystal and I are co-authoring a story on our shared account, Seven Scribbles. It's another Marauder story (with Lily, of course) but we've put a bit of a spin on it. Anyway, I won't give anything else away, but if you want to have a look, Chapter One is up now. We have fairly high hopes for this story, so it would mean a lot to both of us if you read and reviewed it. :)