The fire was started in the Astronomy tower on September 27th at approximately 3:20 AM.
The flames were cursed- magic of the darkest variety- and a quarter of the school was dust before they managed to bring it to a halt. Most of the damaged area was salvaged, brought back to life over weeks of hard work. One room, however, was burned beyond repair, the walls black and the ceiling caved in.
The staff room.
They might have been seen as innocent, even though they admitted to being out of bed at the time. They might have been believed as they told their own version of the story- they were called out of bed by a scream, went to investigate, found the fire, tried to rescue the girl inside. They may have been back in school within a month after the accident, proclaimed heroes, safe and content in their innocence.
But one of the group had been famous throughout the school for the death threat he made to a teacher in a moment of extreme anger just a week earlier. The teacher himself, a Professor Gaskell, refused to let the case drop. He had been in the staff room when the fire had started. He had nearly died. He had been threatened by the very same student who was around at the scene of the crime.
So James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were sent to the high- security Sarum Detention Center in an isolated part of England. Peter Pettigrew, Marlene McKinnon and Lily Evans were sent to the opposite end of the country, enrolled in a slightly less extreme Juvenile Centre. The criminals gone, Hogwarts returned to normal.
Accept it didn't. Because it wasn't just the students who had suspicions about what actually happened that night- the teachers were also critical of the story fed to them by the Ministry's investigation team. There were huge flaws in the events of the night. For instance, if the fire had really been started by the Marauders, why did they not return to their beds afterwards?
Why did they stop to save the girl- an unimportant second year, who had no relation to any of them- when their original intentions had obviously been destruction?
And how, if they started the fire themselves, did all of them end up caught in the inferno?
But it seemed that these questions might be answered sooner than expected. Almost four months after the fire, on a cold morning in January, Dumbledore had stood up and made the announcement to the students of Hogwarts- they were coming back, on a probation period, along with several of the other under-age criminals from both Detention Centers.
And now it's the 22nd of January, and the doors to the Main Entrance just crashed open. The Great Hall goes silent, and all eyes turn to the doors.
The Marauders are back.