Chiffon at the Masked Ball
Chapter 1: Nightmares, Golden Syrup and Feathers
Summary: Charting the Marauder's struggle through the 7th year and the stresses of being a teenager… from their problems in love to coping with NEWTs… Please read and review! Rated T/M for potential scenes… (Normal pairings with some Original Characters)
A/N: The 1st chapter of this story came to me whilst on holiday in Yorkshire, England. It was just a quickie… please review with your constructive criticism (preferably no flames), any ideas for future chapters and your opinion on whether this the fic is worth continuing. Thanks!
"Lily?" James muttered.
"Mmm?" she replied, leaning over the books on the table towards him.
"There's something I've got to tell you. Something that's been in my head for six years, and I really need you to know it…"
"If you're going to tell me that you love me then don't bother. I figured it out years ago." she said, with a steely glint in her eye. James looked at her, a questioning expression on his face. "What happens now for the famous Potter then eh? Having just told the love of his life that he adores her, and been rejected… Will that pierce his oversized head and let out some of the cockiness and male ego?"
"What?" James said, just comprehending Lily's speech'. "Oversized head? Male ego? But I was hoping…" James's unsteady voice trailed off and he directed his gaze to a scratch on the table.
"Hoping what? That I'd say that I love you too? Sorry Potter, it doesn't work like that." James now stared at Lily, as if seeing her in a new light. Was this the girl that he had watched from afar for six years? The quiet, mature, responsible, intelligent, beautiful, funny girl he had fallen in love with?
"Yes, appearances can be deceptive, can't they?" she asked, as if reading his mind. "Well, for the most popular kid in school you're not very smart. Haven't you figured it out yet? There's someone else!"
"Who?" James asked, making a mental note to curse them into oblivion next time he saw them.
"And you're not too hurt him when you find out who it is, although I daresay he can look after himself in duelling situations."
"Who is it?" James roared.
"Severus Snape." Lily said slowly, as if savouring every letter of the name.
"What?" spat James. He had been expecting a fellow seventh year Quidditch star or something. Snape?
"Yes, Potter. Snape." came a silky voice from somewhere behind Lily. Snape's small, scrawny figure appeared out of the shadows. He ran his hands over Lily's shoulders and caressed her neck. Lily was smiling, breathing deeply, and let out a moan of pleasure. This was too much for James to stand. He had waited this long before confessing his feelings, and to have six years worth of hope and dreams shattered like this was too much to bear. He was going to confess his undying love for Lily Evans and had got this in return! What had he done to deserve this? He thought Lily felt the same way. He threw himself forward at the couple, attempting to break them apart, his flailing arms trying to hurt Snape in all ways they could, and as much as possible. As he flung himself forward, he let out a long wail of "NOOOOOOOO!"
- - - - -
SLAP! Sirius Black, having just been woken up by James's cry of 'NOOOOOOOO!' had gone over to his friend's bed to see what was the matter, and had somehow got his face on the receiving end of one of James's flailing arms, which were waving madly in the air. Whoa! thought Sirius. I came over here to see what's the matter and end up getting slapped in the face? This is NOT on! And for the second time in the short space of two minutes, another resounding slapping noise pierced the air, as Sirius tried desperately to wake James up with a shock. It worked. James sat bolt upright, awoken by the hard smack he had received. He saw Sirius sitting on the side of his bed and immediately put two and two together, and of course, came up with the grand total of five.
"What did you do that for?" he asked angrily (James was not a morning person at the best of times, but would be extremely grumpy after being woken up by a slap in the early hours of the morning). Sirius, however, didn't answer. He was staring at James with a mixed expression of concern and amusement on his face, and just as his friend was about to open his mouth again to talk, Sirius saw the funny side of it all. Both boys were sporting a large red mark on their cheek where they had been slapped. "Well, I'm glad you find this amusing!" James said, as Sirius, having seen the absolute hilarity of the whole situation, had burst into manic laughter, as he often did on serious occasions.
"Sorry James…" he wheezed.
"Can you tell me what happened now? Why I have been woken up at… hmm, let me see… 4:34 in the morning with a stinging cheek?"
"Sorry mate, the cheek thing was me… tee hee… you see, I needed to wake you up quickly… ha ha ha… and the only way to get you to wake is by a good slap or a cold sponge… hee hee hee"
"I still don't get what happened! Sirius can you please stop laughing and tell me what's going on?"
"Hee hee hee…"
"Oh well, here goes. Hopefully he will thank me afterwards…" James muttered before slapping Sirius on the other cheek in an attempt to stop Sirius laughing. It worked.
"James? What the hell was that for? I know you are my friend, but that doesn't mean I can't turn you into a slug if I get angry!"
"Now I have your attention, can you please explain what happened and why we are both sitting here with red cheeks?" Sirius sighed.
"OK then… but let's go outside first. I need some fresh air."
Sitting on a log outside Godric's Hollow (James's house), Sirius relayed the whole story, telling James about his dream (or rather, nightmare by the looks of things) and how Sirius smacked James to wake him up. After hearing the story from Sirius's point of view, James could see how this would seem funny. He grinned. "We always seem to get into messes like this. Sorry Padfoot."
"'s OK, Prongs! Forget about it!" Sirius replied. Sirius Black and James Potter had been best friends since the first day of Hogwarts. And now, in seventh year, their friendship still remained strong. Indeed, Sirius (or Padfoot to his close mates) was now living at James's house, and had been since the end of fifth year, following an argument with his family. The Blacks, a very old pureblood family, had very strong ideas about Muggles and purebloods and were always on to Sirius that he shouldn't 'fraternise with such people at Hogwarts! The Blacks are pure and noble, and we will not have you disgracing the family name like this!' To his family, it was enough of an embarrassment that Sirius had got into Gryffindor at Hogwarts and not Slytherin, but the fact that he was making friends with half-bloods and Muggles was too much for them to bear, and by fifth year they had practically disowned him anyway. But Sirius had had enough. Enough of the pureblood mania, the Dark Arts, and the following of evil that took place in his house and had moved in with James. He was now practically family, being well-liked with Mr and Mrs Potter, and James now looked at Sirius as a brother, not just a best friend. They were incredibly close.
"So… what was this dream then?" Sirius asked. "Well, nightmare, really, you wouldn't have been screaming like that if you were dreaming of fluffy pink bunnies, would you?"
"No… the dream was about Lily."
"Lily Evans? But you have had a crush on her ever since first day of Hogwarts! You really like her, so why should you have been yelling like the world was going to end?"
"God, Sirius, of course not. Lily was the good bit of the dream. Someone else made it bad!"
"WHO?"
"Snape."
"Snape?" spat Sirius. "What were you doing dreaming about Snape? There's not something going on here that I should know about is there?" he asked, jokingly. His answer from James was a hard punch in the arm. "OK, I give, I give! So Snape and Lily were in your dream…" Sirius realized. "Oh God, I can see why it was a nightmare then. But don't worry yourself James. Like that is ever going to happen. Lily hates Snape remember?"
"Yeah I know… But let's just forget about it shall we? It was just a dream. It will never happen." he added, to convince himself as much as Sirius.
"So let's do something to take our mind off things shall we?" asked Sirius, with the mischievous look in his eye that James recognized and could translate as, "Let's do some serious Marauding!"
"Where? What?"
"Well I was thinking that we could pay a trip to Moony and see what he wants to do. It's not full moon is it? After all, he is the brains of our little operation and can come up with much better ideas than you and I, Prongs."
"Mmm," agreed James. Moony, or Remus Lupin, as he was known to most people, was certainly one of the cleverest people in the whole year (his intelligence was probably second only to that of James and Sirius, who could get the best exam results in the whole school without even trying). However, as the Marauders knew only too well, Remus was plaugued every month with the horrors of lycanthropy. Although he maintained to the rest of the school that he went away once every month to visit his critically ill parents. The only people in the whole school that knew that Remus actually endured a painful transformation into a werewolf every month were the teachers and Sirius Black, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew (another member of the gang of Marauders).
"To Moony's then!" exclaimed Sirius, and with a small pop, they were gone.
James and Sirius appeared in Remus Lupin's bedroom, where the latter was in bed, reading a book on Transfiguration. He did not look surprised to see them. Whether this was due to Remus's extraordinarily calm composure or the fact that Remus had known James and Sirius for years, and having them turn up in his bedroom at 5:00 in the morning was not uncommon behaviour. Either way, he greeted them as if this was perfectly normal. "James! Sirius! How are you? I was going to pop down and see you later anyway. It's the third week of the holidays and we still haven't got together. How come you're up so early? Especially you, Sirius, you normally stay in bed as long as possible!"
"Ha ha very droll. No Jamsie here…" James shot him a warning glance. "Was having a nightmare and slapped me in the face, and then I had to smack him to wake him up and then he…" Sirius gabbled, and Lupin interrupted.
"On second thoughts, it's OK. Honestly, I don't want to know. But I'm guessing you were both awoken and couldn't get back to sleep, so decided to do some 'serious marauding' because you were bored. And came to find me because you couldn't think of any good ideas." Remus finished. Sirius looked gob smacked.
"How the hell does he know stuff like that? We get good grades at Hogwarts, but that is nothing to how you always know everything! It's unnatural!"
"Mind reading mate," chuckled James. "And anyway Moony, how is it that you're up at this time in the morning?"
"I woke up at about three o'clock this morning… and couldn't get back to sleep, so, unlike you, I decided to do something worthwhile with my time and look at our new course books… unlike some I know, who like to waste theirs making journeys to harass their best friend!"
"I can't be bothered with schoolwork in the holidays" yawned Sirius, laying back on Remus's bed and allowing a strand of his long, black hair to fall attractively across his face.
"Mmm…" said James. "Anyway, Moony, you were right – we can't think of a good prank to play at the moment – it's too early in the morning. Got any ideas?"
"Couldn't I just go back to reading my book? It's our new, 7th year Transfiguration textbook – it's really interesting! This year's Transfiguration lessons are gonna be really fun!" appealed Remus.
"No, Moony" said Sirius firmly, trying to prise Remus's fingers from the spine of the heavy hardback.
"But it's just got to the part about human transfiguration! Wouldn't you like to know how to transform Snape into a rat?"
"Yesssss… but still, NO! We have work to do, Rem. Prank time now."
"Pranks are no good outside school… we don't have Snape to pull them on!"
"Who shall we play? Peter?" Peter Pettigrew was the 4th member of the Marauders, was a short, chubby boy who looked distinctly like a rat. He was significantly less intelligent than James and Sirius, and certainly Remus, and spent most of his life tagging around with the Marauders or going around with his other best friend (equally unattractive and unpopular), Mauna Jorge.
"Yeah, great idea!" agreed James.
"Nooo…" said Remus reluctantly. Remus was rather more patient with Wormtail (Peter's nickname – his Animagus form was a rat) than the others.
"He won't mind… he just likes being part of the crowd, doesn't he? I have a great idea, anyway – we apparate to Peter's house, and then…"
- - - - -
The 3 Marauders appeared with a soft 'pop' in the middle of Peter Pettigrew's bedroom. Peter was lying on his back in bed (after all, it was only 5:30 in the morning), snoring loudly. Sirius sniggered. "Shh!" whispered James, and crept silently over to the bed, where he proceeded to tie the thinnest strand imaginable of an almost-invisible thread to Wormtail's podgy wrists.
After 20 minutes or so, Wormtail's comfortable but old fashioned bedroom had been transformed – it was now unrecognisable. The thin threads had been tied in such a way that when Wormtail sat up, yawned and stretched (as the Marauders knew that he did in a morning), he would pull the strings, thus wreaking havoc. As the string attached to his right arm was tugged, a bucket suspended from the ceiling would tip and cover Peter in golden syrup. Then, after pulling the string attached to his left leg, Wormtail would be coated in feathers. He would then, disgusted and befuzzled, slide out of bed onto the floor, which would be covered in a slippery solution of oil and water – meaning that Peter would slide across the floor, hopefully coming to an ungraceful heap in the corner of the room. At least, that was how it was supposed to happen. (A/N: The mess does not matter – the Marauders or Peter would use the 'Scourgify' spell to clear up)
But James and Sirius never failed – the prank worked perfectly. Peter pulled all the strings he was meant to and did look like an oversized chicken at the end of the prank. The three tricksters, hid behind the sofa in the corner of Wormtail's room were having a hard time containing their laughter. Indeed, Sirius, who had always disliked Peter more than the other two and liked to pull tricks on and bully him, had tears of mirth running down his cheeks, as he convulsed madly in glee. Peter sat up, feathers coming out of his mouth and looked around in amazement, clearly astonished. He could be heard muttering to himself as he grabbed his wand from the dressing table and proceeded to clean himself and the room up. Among cries of 'Scourgify!' Peter could be heard mumbling phrases such as, 'Am I dreaming?', 'How did the bucket on the ceiling get there?', 'Seems like a prank' and 'I look like a chicken…'. Peter was, it had to be admitted, rather slow. The last thing the Marauders heard him say was, "I must go and tell Mauna (A/N: His little best friend… she was at the same level of intelligence as him and equally popular at Hogwarts, if you catch my drift…) what has happened… she'll be amazed… we can work out what it was over a nice cup of tea. Mmmm."
A/N: I have many ideas for where this fic is going to go, as I have not really planned out the story yet and wrote Chapter 1 on somewhat of a whim.
Please review and tell me what you think of this chapter and any criticism or suggestions for future chapters. Please DO review… it's a bit of a cliché, but reviews are what keeps me going and updating frequently… if I feel people are out their waiting for the next chapter. 3 words would make me happy! Thank you to you all in advance!
Alex
(The Sorting Hat)
To those that have read my other story, please know that the next update is on it's way very soon… including more about Hermione/Draco, Ron/Luna and of course, Harry/Ginny. To those that haven't, please do! Look on my profile or search 'Harry Potter Does MaybeBaby'. Thanks again!