The One That Got Away
Chapter 1 – A Gaggle of Giggling Gryffindor Girls
The peaceful silence reigning over the library was shattered upon the arrival of four loud boys, and its lone Saturday-night occupant gave a vague frown as she tried to focus once more on her novel. Despite her attempts otherwise, her parents had always said she was too curious for her own good – actually, they'd called it 'nosy', to be precise. Her friends, in trying to be kind about her slightly un-Hufflepuff-ish trait of eavesdropping, called it 'trying to be helpful' whenever she butted into something.
The new arrivals settled themselves in the corner table across from the girl, backs to her, and so she quietly let her novel fall to rest on the table, watching and listening without a shred of guilt.
"-can't believe we have to do this!" A boy with dark hair falling to his shoulders was protesting.
"You're lucky you two only got off with having to tutor someone, after being caught like that. This is McGonagall we're talking about, after all." His brunette friend said, in a much quieter voice, and she noted that it sounded slightly raspy... Like he had a cold, or something.
"Minnie could have at least told us who it was, all she said was that they'd meet us here at six! That was half an hour ago! We could be – "
"We weren't here half an hour ago, Padfoot," The brunette interrupted, and the first boy started to retort but broke off as his friend had a bout of coughing. The other three eyed him concernedly.
"Are you sure you should have come with us, Moony? Its tomorrow night, after all," The messy-haired boy muttered in a low voice that made her have to strain to catch what he was saying.
The brunette muttered something she couldn't hear – after shushing his friends – and then the small blonde boy said something about Quidditch. After that, they were off to the races, the two brunettes talking so fast about various plays in such fast voices it made her head spin to listen to it.
The girl gave a resigned sigh as she decided there wasn't anything worth listening to anymore, unless she decided to play spy for her house's Quidditch team. It was about time to make her way over, anyway – it was her they were 'waiting' for, after all.
Stuffing her novel into her leather bag and shouldering the strap, she headed straight for their corner table with a light, bouncy step. Her flats announced he arrival right away – the sick brunette sat up straight, looking at her over his shoulder before elbowing the longer-haired brunette. The disgruntled boy with the longer hair let the chair he'd been balancing on two legs fall with a clang, watching her with a keen eye – she swore he was giving her the once-over.
She stopped once she was at the table, and the one that had been eyeing her had an almost surprised glint in his eye as she dropped into an empty chair.
"Bloody hell, how tall are you?"
The expression on her face must have been slightly taken aback, because the brunette muttered, "Smooth, Padfoot," Before she started laughing.
"I'm 5' 10"," She said after regaining her voice, "And don't worry, I get that a lot."
She gave a warm smile to the sick brunette, watching each of them curiously – the sick boy was about the same height as her, and 'Padfoot' had about two inches on her, but she was a fair bit taller than the other two.
"Well, sorry about that, I'm not used to pretty girls as tall as you. I'm Sirius Black, you are?" He gave a charming grin which made one of his friends roll their eyes, but she gave an amused look.
"Mariah Knight, 7th year Hufflepuff," She introduced, grinning brightly. "And I already know all of your names – who doesn't – so there'll be no need for that. You two are tutoring me for Transfiguration, right?" James and Sirius nodded, but the brunette she knew to be Remus Lupin looked confused.
"Professor McGonagall didn't tell me who it was either – she said she'd have to find someone at a high enough level," Sirius smirked at this, "But that she'd have them meet me here tonight. I heard Sirius mention tutoring so I'm assuming you must be it." Remus looked alarmed at her mention of hearing Sirius talking, though why Mariah had no idea, it wasn't like they'd been planning a prank, or something.
"I was actually just about to leave, I've been here for an hour already."
"Right, sorry, we got held up, Peeves had set off – " Sirius started, only to be cut off by the curly-haired blonde.
"That's rubbish, I heard a gaggle of giggling Gryffindor girls head out the door talking about the Marauders hexing Severus Snape fifteen minutes before you got here. Don't try lying to me, Black, it won't get you anywhere." She fixed an amused look on his face, though she was dead serious about the lying part.
Sirius didn't look put off at all, only more intrigued, like she was some sort of challenge; he leaned over to James and muttered, sniggering, "'Gaggle of giggling Gryffindor girls'.. Say that five times fast."
"So... Transfiguration, huh?" James asked, straightening to look at her properly for the first time.
"Yes, I'm rubbish at it. Well, I've had an 'Acceptable' in it straight through since first year, but that's not as good as my other scores," She frowned. "It just doesn't come as easily as others, definitely not as well as Potions. I mean, it's not the most important class since I want to be a Healer, but I want to get it up before exam time. So no funny business, or I'll tell Professor McGonagall you need those detentions instead, got it?"
Sirius, giving a mock salute – complete with a wink that classified as 'funny business' in her book – and Mariah rolled her eyes before easing her Transfiguration book out of her crammed-but-perfectly-organized bag.
"Ah-ah, put that thing away," James interrupted, smirking. "If we're tutoring you, you're doing things our way."
'Their way' turned out to be a method of studying Professor McGonagall would definitely not condone.
"I can't do this!" Mariah protested fifteen minutes later, after being led to what James called her first 'test subject', "To see what your weak points are."
The 'test subject' was an unsuspecting Mrs. Norris, who was, to the Marauders' amusement – though the blonde boy, Peter, looked alarmed, for some reason – chowing down on a very fat mouse around the corner with an uncharacteristic oblivious air.
"What's the problem? I thought you wanted our help?" Sirius said, leaning against the wall with a smirk.
"- or, are you too much of a goody two shoes to dislike even Mrs. Norris, 'Puff?" James continued.
Mariah glared at them, torn between wanting to improve and not wanting to harm the annoying feline.
"It's not right, it's not like she can fight back or something," She protested, crossing her arms at their amused looks.
After another quarter of an hour had passed, in which the blonde refused to transfigure the unaware animal, and James got frustrated and transfigured her himself. This led to an extremely displeased, yowling cat upon being transfigured back, and having to make a hasty retreat when Filch emerged from his office down the hall.
Collapsing against the wall to catch her breath, Mariah glanced around to find that they were in the corridor outside the library. When Filch tore around the corner after then, Sirius had towed her through a tapestry by the elbow, and after that she was led on a winding path around the castle so fast she wouldn't be able to map the route even if she viewed the memory a dozen times in a Pensieve.
The boys, with the exception of Remus, who was wheezing a million times worse than she was, found this terribly amusing, and burst into laughter once they'd arrive at safety.
"-the look on his face!"
"Well, if you're quite done trying to land me in detention, we have studying to do – it's almost seven and we haven't done an ounce of actual work!" She said crossly, glaring at the Gryffindors.
"Oh, lighten up a bit, Kni -"
"We're going back inside the library and actually working, or I'm finding McGongagall," She declared.
"And saying what? That we tried to teach you, but you wouldn't let us because it wasn't your way?"
Mentally, she was teetering on the edge of deciding what to respond with – if she went out on a limb with revealing she'd eavesdropped, there wasn't even a guarantee she'd heard anything to threaten them with, but on the other hand…
"Telling her that you have something planned to go down tomorrow night, Padfoot," Mariah said, glaring evenly.
She gave a triumphant sort of smirk as all four of them stiffened, Remus' eyes bugging out in an expression of alarm as he eyed her warily.
"You eavesdropped?" James asked incredulously.
"You weren't as quiet as you thought you were," She replied tartly, leading the way back inside with a crook of the fingers.
I wrote this, like, a year ago, at least... BUT I still have the plot map I wrote down and I still like it, so... Thoughts? ;D