Note: Hey, just to warn you, this is my first ever fan fiction, so read if you dare. :) Anywho, the name of the fic is subject to change, cause I don't think I like this one, and I'm not completely certain which direction I want this to head, although I have a good idea. So…here ya go!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot…anything you recognize, I don't own. If you don't recognize it, I probably do own it. I don't own Gobstoppers, either, although I have bought quite a few in my day.
Chapter 1 - Hit and Sprawl
James flung open the door to the library with a force like a whirlwind, the doorknob creating a dent in the wall behind. Eyes blazing with anger, he ignored the icy glare given him by Madam Pince, the young librarian, and headed straight to the back of the library. A moment later, Sirius followed, opening the door a bit more lightly, though a look of anger and frustration equal to that of his best friend's was pasted on his face. Bringing up the rear, Remus and Peter made their entrance, Remus looking rather bemused, Peter looking terrified. Without even pausing to glance, Remus pointed his wand over his shoulder at the large hole in the wall, which immediately fixed itself as the pair strode over to stand beside Sirius. Quite a spectacular show followed, as James, in the midst of his rage, skimmed his finger over the spines of the books, knocking them out of the shelves when they weren't what he was looking for. As he reached the end of an aisle, he rounded the corner and slapped a very large book, as big as his hand was long, on its spine. "Finally!" he yelled, heaving the book from its resting place and slamming it down on a nearby table, earning him another nasty look from behind the librarian's desk.
"OK," he started, and began furiously flipping through the pages of the inanely large book, stopping somewhere about three quarters of the way through it. Giving Sirius another rather angry glance, he began to read to himself. After a moments pause, he gave a triumphant "HA!" and began to read aloud.
"Sarcastic – adjective; one – of, like, or full of sarcasm; sneering. Two – using sarcasm.
Sardonic – adjective; scornfully or bitterly sarcastic. – you were being sardonic!" he pointed an accusing finger in Sirius's face.
Sirius just stared at James for about half a minute with a look of mock hurt on his face. Chuckling, he shook his head and looked down at the table, closing he eyes. Everyone remained motionless, James still pointing his finger at Sirius. After a moment, Sirius looked up. "James…" he said reproachfully, and then pointed his finger. "YOUR MOM!" he roared, with the ferocity of an angry football coach.
James babbled. He couldn't seem to decide on what to say; sentences and words formed in his mouth, but only half of these jumbles were uttered, until finally, he jabbed his pointed finger in Sirius's direction and bellowed, "YOUR MOM MORE!"
"YOUR MOM TIMES ONE HUNDRED!"
"YOUR MOM TIMES A MILLION!"
"YOUR MOM TIMES INFINITY!"
"INFINITY IS MERELY AN ILLUSION PLACED UPON THE UNKNOWN TO REPRESENT VALUE!" – This was from Remus, who felt the need to barge in before it got ugly.
"YOU SHUT UP!"
"OUT!"
Madam Pince was storming towards them, a look of such anger on her face it was impossible to tell where her eyebrows ended and her eyes began. "OUT OF MY LIBRARY! AND CLEAN THIS MESS!" She gestured wildly towards James's rather large pile of discarded books.
"Yes Ma'am," the Marauders said quietly, and hung their heads as they left, James flicking his wand at the books on the floor. As soon as they were out of earshot of the door, all four burst into laughter.
"Your mom, Padfoot?" James laughed. "Honestly – was that the best comeback you could come up with?"
"Hey, at least I didn't interrupt an argument with," he put on a high voice, "infinity is merely an illusion, blah blah blah, I take arithmancy and read too much, yadda blah bl-OW!" he rubbed his head where Remus had hit him.
"All I was trying to do was keep Pince from hexing us until baby otters extracted themselves from our noses!"
"I wonder if there's actually a hex that could do that," Sirius said thoughtfully as he began walking down the hallway. The others followed.
"Well, why don't you find out, Padfoot, and get back to us on that." Remus said sarcastically.
"I think I will." Sirius stopped and turned, starting back they way they had come. James grabbed the back of his friend's robes before he has gone three steps, and began pulling him behind.
"I wouldn't go back into the library just yet. Wait a couple weeks, first, k?" James grinned.
Sirius grinned as well, shrugged, and got back in step with his friends.
Emlyn opened the door to her dorm quietly, and peeked around the edge at the four four-poster beds that lined the opposite wall. All were empty except for one. Dang it. She was still asleep. Emlyn sighed and strode into the room, making a point to slam the door behind her; it has no effect on the sleeping figure. Emlyn tapped the girl's shoulder. "Illy – wake up," she whispered. No response. "Illy!" – more forcefully. She pushed the girl a bit harder. "Illy! Wake up!" A moan came from the sleeping girl, and she flapped her hand lazily. Emlyn sighed. "Iliana Whitehurst, get out of bed!" she yelled. "It's three o'clock in the frickin afternoon!"
"And it's a Saturday, it doesn't matter," came Iliana's slurred reply as she turned her head away from Emlyn.
"It might not matter to you, but you've been asleep for eighteen hours, and I'm getting sick and tired of that first year coming up to me every five minutes asking where you are because you promised to help her with her Potions homework!" Emlyn tried to roll Iliana out of bed, but her friend was persistent, grabbing hold of the side of the mattress.
"You'd sleep for eighteen hours too if you had stayed up for 48 hours doing homework! And why does she need help with her homework, she can do it herself, she's a Ravenclaw for Chrissakes!" Iliana shot back sleepily.
Emlyn let out a squeal of frustration and tied her dirty blonde hair out of her eyes. This could get ugly. "Well if you hadn't procrastinated for three weeks, you wouldn't have gotten yourself into that mess in the first place." Her hazel eyes narrowed.
Iliana buried her face in her pillow, leaving black and blue streaks behind from the makeup she had failed to wash off the night before. "And I still made a 102 percent in transfiguration," came the quite muffled, rather smug reply. "Now let me go back to sleep."
"Ok, that's it," Emlyn muttered to herself. She knew her friend's boasting was all in fun (Emlyn wasn't much of a transfiguration gal), but this refusal to wake was becoming ridiculous. Emlyn shoved Iliana onto her back, jumped onto her, straddling her stomach, and swiped the pillow out from under Illy's head, shoving it into her face. Iliana's hands and feet swung wildly in every direction, striving to connect with any part of Emlyn's body. Instead, her foot came into contact (rather heavily) with the footboard. A muffled scream of pain and rage was emitted from under the pillow, followed by such a stream of vulgar words it would have made a sailor cringe. Finally, after strangled gasps started coming from the pillow, Emlyn let up and stepped quickly away from the bed.
"What the fuck is your problem?" Iliana gasped angrily, and threw the pillow so hard at Emlyn that a few feathers flew out of the end. "I don't enjoy being suffocated before I'm even properly awake!"
Emlyn caught the pillow full-on in the chest, but began laughing. The only time she had ever heard Iliana say anything remotely (or very) vulgar was when Illy was awakened prematurely, and Emlyn always found it quite funny. And now, looking at her friend's blazing brown eyes and makeup-streaked face, she couldn't help laughing.
"Oh, you think this is funny?" Illy grabbed her alarm clock.
Emlyn stopped laughing at once. "No," she said seriously. "But this is—" she raced out of the room, clutching Iliana's pillow.
"Hey! Bring that back!" And Iliana, still in her pajamas and bare feet, with her milk-chocolate-colored hair in one big knot, thundered out after Emlyn.
"So what do you want to do?" Sirius asked a moment later, to no one in particular.
Remus shrugged. "Don't care."
"We could eat lunch."
"Nah, we've eaten lunch twice already." James replied, an edge of boredom in his voice.
Emlyn laughed as she ran through the hallway out into the Ravenclaw common room. "Look out, everybody!" she yelled gleefully as the door crashed open, and Iliana streaked after her. Emlyn wrenched open the door that led into the hall, ripped past the tapestry that concealed it, and flew down the hallway, Iliana close behind.
"How about linner?" Sirius asked. "We could eat linner."
"Or dunch," piped in Peter.
"Or dunch," agreed Remus.
"I like linner better myself," James replied. "But let's go on back to the common room, we can discuss further there."
"Ok," the other three replied singly as they turned a corner.
Sirius pulled out a large candy wrapper from his pocket and made a very loud display of tearing it open.
"What's that?" asked Peter.
"It's a gobstopper!" Sirius said excitedly, and popped the incredibly large jawbreaker into his mouth. A moment later, he made an incredibly obnoxious sucking noise as he pulled the saliva that had escaped around the gobstopper back into his mouth. James sighed. Sirius grinned, which consequently forced him to repeat the incredibly obnoxious sucking noise as more saliva threatened to dribble down his chin.
"Emlyn!" Iliana yelled as she rounded a corner after her friend. "I swear!"
"So who knew Madam Pince has it in her to yell that loud?" asked Peter as they started to slowly climb a staircase.
"I ugzz serawee uurpized." Sirius said.
"What?"
James translated. "I was certainly surprised."
"You'll have to jump for it!" Emlyn yelled, turning around and running backwards, holding the pillow above her head. Iliana glared and put on a burst of speed. Emlyn was always abusing her height advantage.
All four Marauders stopped as they heard running footsteps heading their way from the corridor above them.
"Emlyn, give me back my pillow!" Iliana screamed as the pair came into view at the head of the stairs. Emlyn was still running backwards.
"Nope, you'll have to jump foraaAHHHHHHH!" Emlyn flew through the air backwards, unaware that there had been a staircase behind her. She let go of the pillow as she fell, curling herself up as if she were doing a cannonball into a pool. Iliana jumped into the air after her pillow, caught it, gave a loud "HA! – crap," and began falling after Emlyn. Illy actually managed two perfectly executed, though unintentional, somersaults in midair before ---
The Marauders, watching this strange scene amusedly, realized what was happening too late. Illy and Emlyn were quickly becoming the two bowling balls to the Marauders' pins, and the girls were going for a strike.
The six bodies connected with quite a few thuds and "Oofs," and the group seemed to accumulate limbs as it fell down the stairs, like a large, breathing snowball. This particular illusion kept up for what seemed like forever (but what was actually only about half a staircase), until they crashed, splayed and winded, on the landing below.
Emlyn landed directly in the middle of Sirius's stomach, and the air which had been stored there flew back up Sirius's windpipe, escaping into the surrounding bit of atmosphere, taking the Gobstopper with it. The jawbreaker flew in a wide arc above the group, landing about twenty feet to their left with a wet 'plunch.'
The minutes passed. Finally…
"Ow." James closed his eyes. "Someone please get off my arm, I can no longer eel it, and I'm about to panic."
Iliana rolled onto her side and used Remus's chest as a prop to pull herself to her feet. "Sorry," she said quietly, and retreated to the banister to watch the rest of them get untangled. Gosh, what has she been thinking? She was so embarrassed. Give me my pillow? How stupid! She mentally slapped herself. Damn her morning moods. They probably think I'm a complete idiot.' She ran a hand through her hair – or rather, tried, only to have her fingers get stuck amid the tangles. Great. And to top it all off, I look like total crap. And of all people I could have run into – no, Illy, shut up, you don't know what you're talking about. She sighed.
"Agh, I think I broke my ass bone," Sirius complained as he was helped to hid feet by Emlyn. He rubbed his lower back, but remained bent over. "I'm going to be a hunchback!" He wailed. Emlyn giggled.
"Oh, Padfoot, shut up," James said as he examined a very large bruise that was forming on his upper arm. "You've got a sharp spine, there, Illy."
She smiled, and stood from where she had seated herself on the stairs. "Sorry about that."
"What were you all running through the halls for anyway?" Peter asked, attempting for the third time to stand. He had gotten the worst port of the deal – he was on the bottom.
"I was just trying to wake Illy up, she sleeps too much." Emlyn gave a wry smile. "I find that a nice run first thing in the morning really hits the spot."
"Considering it's the middle of the afternoon." Remus said, bending down to pick up Iliana's pillow, which had gotten tangled in his legs. "Here ya go." He handed it back to her. "Might want to chain it to your bed from now on." He smiled.
Illy felt the heat rise in her cheeks. "Thanks." She took the pillow and hugged it absentmindedly to her chest, sending Emlyn a telepathic message to leave. Illy was fine with one or two people, but big groups…she couldn't stand big groups.
Miraculously, Emlyn turned towards the stairs. "Come on, Illy; don't you have to help Margie with her homework?"
"Oh yeah, I completely forgot. Bye guys." She waved, and joined her friend on the stairs. As they passed, an old man called out from within his gilded frame.
"Thanks a lot girls. That must have been the most exciting thing that's happened on this stairway for a hundred years."
"Oh, go choke on your—" Emlyn began, but was cut off by Iliana's slap to her arm. "Emlyn!"
"Well…" James started after the girls had disappeared. "Never thought I'd see Iliana Whitehurst behave like that. Now, Emlyn, that's just natural for her, but Illy – how uncharacteristic."
"Is Illy in our year?" Remus asked. James nodded. "I have never spoken a word to her in my life; I had no idea she was in our year." Remus looked at the floor thoughtfully.
"Yeah, well, she's not…usually…the speaking type. Unless you steal her pillow, evidently."
"Ah, here it is!" A voice called out a short distance behind James and Remus. Sirius was holding up his Gobstopper, which had some to rest at the pedestal of a suit of armor. He popped it back into his mouth.
"Padfoot…that's disgusting."
And, that's Chapter one...and you know what I know you love to do after you read a chapter? That's right…review! So hop to it, guys, I love ya! Criticism is welcome, but please…be gentle. I have a very fragile shield of confidence.
Nonsensically yours,
Ivy