Hello all! This fic is a challenge piece for The Shrieking Shack Society.
The goal was to write Halloween centric-story from the POV of one of the Marauders. I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think. Follow me on tumblr (mags0607) if you have any questions or just want to know more about me.
disclaimer: unfortunately I do not own lovely werewolves or dashing black dogs.
October 31, 1993
Thoughts of vengeance compelled him forward.
'Get the rat, get the rat.'
It was the mantra he played inside his head to keep what little grip of sanity that the years in Azkaban and exposure to the dementors had not stripped away.
The big black dog slunk through the passageway one paw at a time while the wizard inside wanted to tuck tail and turn every step of the way. Being in Hogwarts, actually making it within the castle walls was akin to having his memories laid bare before the dementors.
Sirius Black was no stranger to dementors.
As he nosed through the passage of the one-eyed which, the once familiar scents of the Halloween Feast and the intimately familiar feeling of home assaulted his heightened senses, tearing an unsolicited whimper from his muzzle.
It played like a movie inside his head.
He was twelve and standing in this very corridor on this very night.
•••
He was wrapped in an invisibility cloak, arms and limbs tangled with three other boys as they laughed. The caretaker's cat yowled near them, and hands covered mouths to stifle the laughter as the looked at the creature before them. Half-pumpkin, half-bat, the cat looked more like a science experiment than a prank. Peter whined softly, and James pulled them to lean against the witch statue, and then unexpectedly a door opened and they fell through. The frustrated cries of a cat who could no longer inform to her master of troublesome youngsters echoing as they found themselves in tangled heap within the passageway.
"Smashing," cried James as he picked himself up, brushing off dust and running a hand through perpetually messy locks.
"Let's explore, see what we found."
"The feast—" Peter was cut off before he could fully voice the protest.
"They won't miss us," Sirius exclaimed, as his lit his wand and began down the darkened path.
"It's a night to get up to mischief, Pete. Besides, they think we are escorting Remus here to the hospital wing, we can make something up later if they ask." James bounced along besides Sirius as Remus rolled his eyes and then caught up, Peter following behind.
"Do you think anyone else knows this exists?" Remus pulled out a small notebook as they walked, writing down the passageway they found, listing it along with three others they had discovered in their exploration and mayhem.
"Who knows mate, but let's see where this door leads," Sirius pointed ahead where a small crawl space covered by a makeshift door was nestled in the dirt wall. Jutting forward before anyone could protest, Sirius pulled the door open and nudged through.
"Wow," James exclaimed at his back as Sirius tumbled onto the floor, "We must be in Honeydukes."
"Candy raid!" Sirius cried as he ran around the cellar, grabbing sweets and treats as he went. "Do you know what we can do with this?! Hogsmeade is right there."
Even Peter laughed as Sirius swooped up their bounty, and Remus made a careful list of what they were taking. James dug into his pockets, pulling golden coins to cover the cost of their haul as all four of them basked in the joy and possibility of their discovery.
"Trick or treat," Sirius laughed as he placed the candy in a bag Remus had already enlarged.
"How do I sign this note? I don't want them to think that we stole from them, they might try and find out how we got in." Remus tapped his quill on the counter, waiting for an answer.
"The meddlers," Peter suggested.
"The Mischief- Makers," Sirius chimed in.
"The Marauders," James confidently replied, and three sets up eyes twinkled in glee.
"Perfect." Remus signed the note and magically stuck it to the door as all four boys scrambled back through the door and towards the castle, laughing merrily all the way.
And later, as they sat in their dorm and feasted on their sweets, Sirius leaned up against his friends all crowded onto James bed, and couldn't hold back the smile on his face. Holding up a chocolate frog in mock salute, he barked a toast.
"To the Marauders."
"To the Marauders!"
The sentiment was echoed back by three voices, and Sirius sighed in comfort. This might just be his favorite holiday, he thought, as chocolate frogs bounced around and ice mice and Bertie Botts beans littered the bed. Because to him, Halloween felt a lot like family, and these boys felt like his brothers.
•••
Shaking his matted black fur and coming back to the present, Padfoot once again focused on the task at hand; slowly making his way to the seventh floor tower where he hoped the rat would be.
He had timed the break in for tonight—The Halloween Feast—lucid thoughts desperately trying to break free of the despair caused by the dementors plaguing the grounds. Even though he was much less bothered by them as a dog than as a human, sometimes it seemed like the worst memories were always at the surface. The fact that so many of them centered around this night was not lost on him.
They flashed even now.
Remus at fourteen, brought back to the castle bleeding and broken, the wolf winning after the full moon. His own desperation to finish the animagus transformation to be with his friend pulsing through his veins.
James at sixteen punching him in the face after he sent Snivelus to meet Moony in a gross error of judgment. The look of dejection on Remus' face as he walked away. Silent treatment from the rest of the Marauders for a month.
Being beaten almost to death by Walburga the summer after sixth year, and barely having the strength to collapse through the floo to the Potter residence. James' horrified face as he cradled Sirius' broken body in his arms.
The last time he saw Remus face-to-face at twenty—before the world went to shit. The harsh words, the accusations, the breaking of something fragile. The regret and longing the second the words were over.
His worst memory.
Driving up to the smashed cottage at twenty-one and seeing the wreckage. Holding his best friend in his arms for the last time, the smile gone from James' face, and the twinkle no longer in his eyes. Finding Harry, blessedly alive, but feeling the betrayal down to his very soul. The anger, the desperation— feeling the burning need to find Wormtail; to right the mistakes.
Suddenly, he was back in the present.
He didn't think he needed the dementors to play the last memory in his mind over and over. That Halloween replayed like a mantra in his head day after day, night after night. He saw everything so clearly now— saw just how thoroughly they had all been played against each other by someone they once trusted.
'Vengeance,' he thought as he rounded the stairs in the seventh-floor corridor, silent and desperate to get to the rat.
Padfoots's nose twitched the minute he arrived in the familiar passageway, picking up so many scents, triggering so many memories. He swore he could almost smell the memory of Remus and James in the stones.
•••
"Do you think it actually works?" The excitement was evident in James' voice as he spelled the magical parchment to activate.
"It's got to mate, Moony is brilliant and Pete did all the scouting he could." Sirius was bouncing as he spied the map, hours upon hours of research and spells tied to this glorious masterpiece they created.
"Does Moony have the mirror?"
James smiled as he watched the dots form all around the castle, names appearing on every level and every floor. He could see Minerva in her chambers, pacing near the window, Dumbledore in his office, stationary with even Fawkes showing nearby. Names of Slytherins filled the dungeon, and various dots appeared near the kitchen. Sirius scanned the map, and found Remus Lupin out on the grounds and Peter Pettigrew up in the Owlry.
"Padfoot," echoed through the mirror in Sirius' hand, causing him to jump and James to spin around in anticipation.
"Moony, mate it works! We did it, the Marauders Map is a success!"
"Now get back to the tower so we can celebrate." James whooped as he jumped around the corridor, smiling at the portrait as he cheekily made his way back to the common room.
"We are bloody geniuses, mate. Can you imagine everything we can do with this?"
Sirius followed James up the stairs and flopped down on his bed vibrating with excitement.
Moony and Wormtail returned twenty minutes later, with purloined firewhiskey and mail order snacks respectively, and the four boys celebrated well into the night.
When Sirius awoke the next morning, they were all curled together atop his sheets, having passed out there while drunk. Sirius was tucked into Moony's side, head resting on the steadily beating chest of his friend, James was to his right, radiating heat, and Peter was sprawled at the edge of the bed snoring comfortably.
Sirius looked around, and felt a warmth he was sure he hadn't ever felt before. Hogwarts was more than just a school filled with his mates, it was much deeper than that.
Looking around at the candy, snacks and bottles, shifting his eyes to the people that kept him safe and grounded—Hogwarts felt like Home.
•••
Taking a large breath, he shuddered once and shifted from dog to man in long-practiced motion, shaking as he got closer to his target.
He looked down at his tattered robes, hands littered with scars and tattoos, every abuse of the last years written on his skin like a novel, and he thought how much he longed to go back,—to be in the safe haven of Hogwarts again. He longed to be with his friends again, to have Remus and James and sweet Lily safe and whole again.
He crept up to the portrait after making sure none of the students were around. The Halloween Feast was mandatory, so now would be his best shot to get to Wormtail without being detected. Smiling in memory, he fingered the wand in his sleeve and pulled it, casting a spell of Moony's creation to silence all the portraits in the area. He fingered the knife in his pocket as he crept up to the Fat Lady, the only portrait not effected by the spell.
"Let me in Violet," he croaked in a voice still hoarse from disuse and lack of care.
She blinked at him in astonishment, before it registered on her face exactly who was requesting entry.
"Sirius Black!" She shrieked in horror, gasping as she realized her screams fell on deaf ears. "You wretched man. I will not let you in you hear me, I will not let you hurt that boy."
"Harry?" The name fell like a question from his lips. "Violet... No... I don't... Not Harry."
"Murderer." She screamed again, ignoring Sirius' pleas that she just listen, that he wasn't the murder, that he just wanted Peter.
"Peter," Sirius snarled as Violet continued to scream out every abuse the Wizarding world had heaped on his shoulders. He knew that he would not go undetected much longer.
Casting yet another plea for forgiveness, he raised the knife, and slashed at her portrait, his grip on rational behavior slipping as his chance for venue gave got smaller and smaller.
"Just let me in," he yelled as Violet yelled again, abandoning her portrait, and fleeing from her frame. Sirius snarled and cast half-desperate spells at the frame, unsuccessfully willing it to open,
Hope fled from his mind as he knew he would not succeed, panic rising in him as he knew he could not be caught. He heard Peeves from a distance, and a sob lodged in his throat, transformed back into Padfoot. He ran as quickly as his four legs would take him, and hurried as fast as he could back to the one-eyed witch.
He could hear alarms sounding in the distance, could hear the commotion his visit caused even as he ran. For one desperate moment , he wished that the moon was tonight so that he could at least see Moony one more time.
Pushing all thoughts out of his mind for the moment, he just focused on escaping.
But, as Sirius pelted through the tattered remains of the Shrieking Shack, memories flooded him once again, these of happier times. Times spent in a secluded little rooms, he and the Marauders plotting mayhem, sometimes all four, sometimes in groups of two or three. He thought of times spent transforming, wolf, dog, stag and rat — family and pack untainted by the terrors of the future. He thought of James, his brother in all but blood; Moony, the balance to his soul, friend and so much more that could never be properly explained; even Peter, protected, loved by all of them, confidant before he was traitor.
He sprang out onto the grounds, ignoring the call of the dementors, forcing himself to run, and find another way, and absolve himself from yet another failure.
He wanted to go back, he wanted to lay his paws at the feet of Moony and consequences be damned. He wanted to beg— for mercy, forgiveness, trust, love— for every failing of the last twelve years combined, and everything this very day had wrought upon their lives.
He just wanted the memories without the pain and suffering they contained in later years.
Mostly he just wanted to make it right, to atone in some small way.
The big black nose twitched in the air. Remus— his scent as clear as the last time Sirius had buried his nose in the other man's jumper and laughed without a care, home and warmth wrapped into one person— was on the grounds. Black paws stopped on their own accord, the dog part of his brain pulled to his pack, the human part to everything else Remus ever meant to him.
Padfoot shook, regaining his focus. For all he wanted to turn back and run towards both danger and safety, he knew now was not the time. Without Wormtail, he would not be able to protect his godson, and as much as he longed for Remus, Harry had to come first, and he longed to be able to help his godson and be there like James and Lily planned.
He owed the boy that and so much more.
So he ran, and as the sounds of trick-or-treaters and merriment wafted out to his ears from Hogsmeade in the distance, he repeated the phrase that had almost seemed to posses him up until this point.
Finding Peter was the only chance he had.
'Get the rat, Get the rat.'
Thoughts of vengeance compelled him forward.