I came across a set of prompts one day several months back, and for some reason they stuck with me. A mood or a feeling assigned to a colour. So I decided to do a Marauders Era one-shot/drabble for all of them. Here's the first of them.
Again, I haven't posted too much or had time to be writing a lot lately, so I'm out of practice. Go easy on me? But please, do tell me what you think! Thanks!
Lily Evans was walking on her way to the library when it happened.
She was walking down the corridor at a nice, even pace. Not expecting anything much to happen. She was just heading to the library on an average Tuesday night, preparing to sit down and study for the Transfiguration exam that was scheduled for tomorrow.
The shouting was what alerted her to what was happening. She was nearing the library doors, just about to go in, when she heard it. "Come on you worthless little mudblood, defend yourself!"
Her head snapped up as soon as she heard the word 'mudblood', her mouth dropping open. And when she heard someone no older than a first year let out a small shout of pain…
The books she was holding tumbled from her arms as she ran down the corridor towards the sounds, heart beginning to beat faster. But as she turned the corner and saw the scene in front of her, she stopped in her tracks, not believing what she saw.
Three tall Slytherin boys, at least sixth years, stood over a small, cowering Hufflepuff boy. He was crying, she could see the tears glistening on his face. And there were red marks all over one of his arms.
"Oh look, now he's crying," the tallest of the Slytherins sneered. Lily realized that it was Lucius Malfoy and a couple of his cronies. "Can't even defend himself against a simple stinging jinx. I don't really think he's meant to be in a school for wizards, do you boys?"
The other two laughed and shook their heads.
"Please, stop it!" the young boy shouted. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because your blood is filthy! You are beneath us! You shouldn't be allowed to walk among us, you filthy mudblood!" Lucius shouted, grinning and sending another stinging jinx at the boy and making him shout out again, recoiling back into the corner.
"Please, stop," he whimpered, sniffling, cradling his arm.
Lily stood there, disbelieving, tears starting to form in her eyes without her even realizing. Ten seconds of watching this was enough for her. There might only be one of her and three of them but she absolutely couldn't let it continue.
"Hey, quit it!" she shouted, gaining their attention. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Oh, good afternoon Miss Evans," Lucius said, spotting her. "Look at that, boys. The filthy mudbloods come to each other's defense. How… touching."
Lily's blood boiled at the comment, but she stood her ground. "Stop what you're doing right now. It's cruel, for Merlin's sake. Just leave him alone!"
"Oh, but I don't think we're done with him just yet, are we boys? I don't see how you're planning on stopping us. Unless you want to take his place? After all, you're filthy muggle scum as well," Lucius said, a sort of awful smile playing on his lips as he turned around to face the boy again.
"Don't you ever call her that again!" came a shout from behind her. Lily whirled around to find the four Gryffindor boys who called themselves the Marauders, wands all raised towards the offending Slytherins.
"We've told you time and time again, Lucius. Why don't you pick on someone your own size? Or how about your own blood status?" Sirius said, taking a few steps closer.
"It's because he's too weak to do that, Sirius," Remus added. "He can only pick on first years because they're the ones at his intelligence level."
"Shut up!" Lucius snarled, pointing his wand at the four boys.
"Oh, no. We're just getting started, Luci," James said, grinning. "Unless you actually want to show that you have a brain and just walk away right now."
"It's four against three," Peter said. "And with those half-wits you have for sidekicks, it might as well be four against one."
"And you know the odds of that, don't you?" Remus asked. "Or are you going to prove to us that the first years are actually above your intelligence level and you're much stupider than we thought?"
Lily stared with wide eyes, looking back and forth between the two parties. Lucius was practically fuming, she could see him calculating the odds of a successful outcome for himself in his head. And the Marauders, each of them with a hard look on their face, pointing their wands directly at him.
"Fine," Lucius said after a few seconds. "Have your worthless little mudblood back. He was a fun play toy while it lasted."
He tucked his wand back into his robes and swept away, leaving his cronies to follow him and give the four Gryffindors menacing looks as they walked past.
The second the Slytherins were out of sight, the four boys rushed towards the small Hufflepuff.
"Hey, it's okay," James said, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and handing it to the boy, who accepted with a hiccup and a small sniffle. "My name is James, what's yours?"
"Andrew," the boy said, just before blowing his nose loudly into it.
"Well, Andrew, it'll be alright now. They won't hurt you anymore. That's Sirius, Remus, and Peter," James said kindly, pointing to each of his friends in turn. "And we're going to make sure he'll never do that again, okay?"
The boy nodded, a tiny smile starting to form on his face.
"Now, Andrew," Remus said, pulling a small tub out of his bag. "Does your arm hurt?"
"Yeah," he answered, wiping at his eyes again. "They held me down and chased me into the corner and cast stinging jinxes at me."
"Well, they're bastards, aren't they?" Sirius asked, making him laugh a little bit.
"Here now, let me see your arm," Remus said, unscrewing the top off the little tub and spreading some of the cream from inside on the red marks. "This stuff will make the pain go away. You'll hardly even know that anything happened. And no one else will have to know either, okay?"
Andrew nodded, a true smile coming to his face as the pain disappeared. "Thank you," he said, carefully rolling his sleeve back down after Remus had finished with the cream.
"No problem," Peter said, shaking his hand.
"Believe me, it was our pleasure," James added. "And if that puffed up blond bastard ever gives you any trouble ever again, you let us know, okay?"
"Yeah, don't worry. We'll take care of him for you," Sirius added.
Lily still stood, frozen in place, watching as Andrew hugged each of the boys in turn and then set off down the hallway.
"Oh, and thank you too," he said, stopping in front of her just before he passed her. "You tried to stand up for me too."
She got down on his level and hugged him as well, squeezing his small frame rather tighter than was necessary. "It was no trouble, dear. Go find your friends and get to dinner, now."
She watched him walk away, and turned to look at the four boys who were walking towards her.
"It's not the first time something like that's happened, Lily," Remus said, answering her slightly confused look. "It may just be the first time you've seen it."
"We've been stopping him all year," Peter said, shaking his head.
"That was awful," she said, standing up and wrapping her arms around herself. "How could anyone do something like that?"
"Because he really is a twisted, cruel bastard," Sirius said.
"And you've stopped him from doing that before?" Lily asked sadly.
"Oh, yes," Remus said. "A fair few times."
"There's more to The Marauders than just pulling pranks, Lily," James said seriously.
"Even though we are very, very good at it," Sirius added. They all smiled at each other for a second, before Sirius said, "Which reminds me. We do have a bit of planning to do at the moment, so if you don't mind, Miss Evans, we'll be off."
She watched them start to walk away when a thought suddenly struck her. "Hey! Shouldn't we tell someone about what Lucius did? A teacher? Dumbledore?"
James turned around, a grim look on his face. "That only makes it worse, unfortunately. He gets detention, he gets mad. The last time we did tell McGonagall, he went after three first years and nearly cursed Pete's hand off."
Lily blinked, surprised. "Really?" she asked, horrified.
"Yeah. But it's alright. We'll always be there to stop him. Promise," James said.
"But how will you always know exactly where he is? How will you know when he's doing something fowl like that?" she asked.
"Well, to answer your question…" Sirius said, smirking as he looked around at the others.
"Mischief managed!" they all said, chuckling as they walked away.
She stared after them for a minute, no less confused than she had been. Eventually she found her feet and walked back towards the library, gathering her things, which were still thankfully where she had dropped them. She sat down at her usual studying table to try and get some work done, but her mind wouldn't focus. One thought kept coming into her head and interrupting her.
Maybe… maybe The Marauders weren't so bad after all.
So? What did you all think? Was it good? Pretty please let me know in a review! Thank you again!