A/N: We are sooooooo sorry for the wait. Life happens, you know? Anyways, here's the chapter... and a wayyyy overdue little "haha, we're geniuses moments"- Sirius totally loves his pet bat Polly in this fic. What was the first thing you saw in Deathly Hallows part 1 when you see Sirius' room? A bat skeleton. He kept his animal friend even after death. XD Anyways, we hope this chapter makes up for the long wait.
"Just… stick it in already. Get it over with."
"I can't even see to put it somewhere! You're no help!"
"I'm getting the other thing in!"
Sirius and James just stared at each other as they sat, waiting outside the girl's lavatory for Tara and Bridget to come out. They had all heard strange things happen on Halloween, but this was just downright strange. Just what were they overhearing from inside? What was going on? Sirius decided to throw caution to the wind and knocked on the door. "Goldie Locks, Bridge, what exactly are you two doing?"
Tara poked her head out- well, the recognizable part of her head, anyway. Her hair was sticking out every which way in certain areas, and the blonde was broken up by several streaks of vibrant blues, purples and greens. "Getting changed into our costumes, of course. Where are yours? What're you two doing outside the bathroom? And where's Remus?"
Sirius dug into the bag he had at his side and pulled out a mask- a bat mask, to be more precise. James followed suit, smiling to reveal a set of pointy teeth.
Tara looked skeptically at them. "A bat and a vampire? How original."
"Not JUST a bat. I'm Polly." Sirius said, all proud of himself, "Besides, what're you, a rockstar?"
"Uh huh." Tara nodded, and with that, disappeared into the room again. "At least Remus would appreciate it!" she called.
"Ne ne ne ne ne." Sirius made a face. "Not my fault he disappeared on Halloween. He wants to be boring, let him be." He replied. "It's a full moon on Halloween, too. You would think he'd appreciate the creepiness of it all."
"And you're not the least bit worried?" James asked, eyebrow raised.
"Nope. Now let's go find you a cloak to complete your look!" Sirius beamed and hurried off.
James opened his mouth, then shut it, wondering what to say. "We'll meet you in the Great Hall in half an hour!"
"Deal!" the girls chorused from inside.
James nodded and ran off in the direction Sirius had gone. After a couple of minutes of searching, he saw Sirius ducking into an old broom cupboard. "Sirius? What're you doing?"
In the blink of an eye, Sirius was standing straight, his hands behind his back. The position he was standing in was suspicious, and James knew there was something going on.
"Nothing," Sirius said, in a high pitched voice. James raised an eyebrow at him, he sighed, tilting his head to the side, "Okay, not nothing,"
"What happened then?" James said.
"I thought I saw Polly," Sirius admitted, "But…no Polly," He shrugged, looking down at the ground. But James knew that wasn't the whole story, because if it was, Sirius would have suggested going to find some Halloween treats around the castle right away.
"What've you got behind your back there?"
"Behind my back?" Sirius looked up at him, shrugging one more, yet keeping his hands behind his back, "Nothing. Nothing at all."
"Then you'll have no problem showing me your hands?" James smirked. He knew his best friend better than his best friend knew.
Sirius frowned. James always had to be paternal. "So maybe there is something in my hands…" he admitted, dropping his voice to a whisper.
"I kind of figured that." James grinned, "and why are we whispering?"
Sirius nudged his head towards the direction of a corridor to their right. It was unoccupied, and Sirius led them, walking backwards, towards corner some of the way down. Finally he shoved his hands forward so that James could see velvet looking colorful cloak dangling from his fingertips.
"What's so special about a colorful cloak?" James inquired. Why Sirius was so easily amused, he would never know.
"Can a regular cloak do this?" Sirius wrapped the cloak around him, and then all James could see was his head. In disbelief, he rubbed his eyes, and looked back at the same thing.
"What in the bloody hell just happened?" James squeaked. "Your body's gone!"
"It's this cloak," Sirius suddenly became visible again, and with a flourish of his hands, the cloak was dangling from his fingertips once more, "I put my hands inside that cupboard, and they were invisible. I think this makes the wearer invisible."
"You think?" James spat, "You think? You were just invisible."
"I know!" Sirius said, joyfully, barely able to contain himself as he bounced on the tops of his feet. "Think of the great things we could do with this. Only don't tell anyone, because they'll go squawk to the whole world and Filch'll snatch it for sure."
"I love how your first instinct is to make sure I don't tell anyone," James said, "Because that's really the biggest issue here. What about Remus, Peter and Tara?"
"Oh, don't tell Remus," Sirius frowned, "He'll want to tell someone about it, do the right thing, be all… good. The others… Peter would probably die from shock, and Tara'd be floored like I am." He let the cloak slip from his fingers only to put his hand under the path of the cloak so it covered his hand when it landed there. He let out another disbelieving laugh.
"True… speaking of Remus, any chance you saw him over here and we just kept missing him?
Sirius beamed. "Nope. Besides, he's the most mature out of all of us. He can handle himself. We have half an hour to kill, my friend! Let's go have a bit of fun!" He held up the cloak and moved it around his fingers again so each digit disappeared at random intervals.
James frowned. "You're not going into the girls' lavatory with that thing. Not alone, not with me."
"Right… that doesn't mean we can't scare the willies out of Lockhart-"
"Tara will kill you-"
"Not that Lockhart, the other one- the ugly one."
"I wouldn't call him ugly…" James started, but he stopped when Sirius raised an eyebrow.
"Alright, we'll go with your plan then?" James said. Sirius grinned, and threw the cloak over them. It didn't seem it, but it was big enough to completely cover the both of them, so that their feet or arms didn't stick out or anything.
They walked together down one of the Hogwarts corridors. After three years in Hogwarts the school was still a mystery. It was like a whole new corridor appeared every day that they'd never seen before. This one was a mystery. It was bizarre. What was more bizarre was the noise that James just heard; it was a kind of squeak that made his skin get goosebumps, and the hair on the back of his neck stick up straight.
"Did you hear that?" he stopped dead in his tracks.
"Its Halloween," Sirius pointed out, "I've heard lots of weird things today. Such as you saying Lockhart isn't hideous."
"No, I heard something," James persisted, "Step back again."
Sirius rolled his eyes, but did so anyway. Nothing happened. "See?" Sirius inquired, "Nothing." He bounced back on his heels, and the squeak came out of nowhere again.
"Don't pretend you didn't hear that."
"No, I did," Sirius said, "I want to know why the floor is doing that."
"I'd rather not find out," James said hesitantly.
Sirius shook his head. "Don't you know what that squeak usually means? It means the floor is hollow under here." He jumped up, a couple of inches of the floor and came down so it squeaked again.
James frowned. "Or does it just mean the floor is very, very old, you know, like this school."
"Since when does marble and other random stone squeak when it's old instead of just eroding, hm, James?" Sirius shot back before darting back and forth from one side of the hallway to the other.
James sighed, stepping back when Sirius nearly trampled him. "What're you doing?"
Sirius had narrowed the width he was running in, and was now running back and forth along the length of the hallway. He stopped again, retraced his steps from the length section of his run, and nodded. "James, you might want to move."
James rolled his eyes. "Why?"
Sirius paid the comment no mind. He just drew his wand and pointed it at the spot in front of him. "Allo Humora." Nothing happened. He clenched his jaw, and then seemed to get an idea. "Wingardium Leviosa!"
There was a horrid scraping noise that led to a creaking, and the boys just gawked as part of the floor started to rise. James felt his foot raise and looked down, seeing part of the tile under him start to rise as well. He scrambled back and continued to look on as a section of the tiles that had risen folded in on themselves. When the tiles stopped moving, there was a five-by-four foot opening in the floor. The more odd thing- a staircase was visible, leading down into the darkness.
"Sirius… what did you do… seriously?" James sputtered.
"I don't know." Sirius blinked. "Let's find out." He headed for the staircase.
James grabbed his arm. "No! Are you mad?
Sirius blinked. "Yes," He turned back to the stairs again.
"You have no idea what's down there!" James protested.
Sirius looked at him and beamed, pointing his wand upward. "One way to find out, innit? Lumos." A small white light started up at the tip of his wand. "Come on, then." He looped his free arm around James'.
James yanked it back hard. "No!" He turned when he heard footsteps, only relaxing when he saw it was the girls. "Oh look, your reinforcements are here. Hello, girls. What happened to meeting us in a half hour?"
"We finished early." Tara replied, then pointed at the hole. "What is that?"
"No idea. Wanna explore?" Sirius asked.
"Why do I have a feeling we don't have a choice?" Tara asked.
"You don't. Come on, then." Sirius muttered 'Lumos' again as the light faded, then grabbed both of the girls hands' before dragging them towards the hole.
"This is… it's pitch black down there!" Bridget protested.
Sirius looked down at his wand and grunted.
Bridget squirmed. "I still don't like it."
James rolled his eyes. He knew they wouldn't take much convincing.
"Ack we dru eht."
"What?" Bridget asked.
Sirius bit down, then nudged one side of his wand out of his mouth with his tongue. "Jack. Would. Do. It." He repeated, then took the wand out of his mouth completely now.
Bridget shrugged. "He might be my twin, but we have different interpretations of danger, you know. I don't like this."
"You have James, Tara and I, Bridge." Sirius pressed. "Please?" He asked, offering a puppy face.
Bridget sighed. "Tara, what do you think?"
Tara sighed. "I think I don't have a choice because Sirius would never forgive me if I didn't go with him."
James gawked. "Tara, this could lead to one of the dungeons. You don't know what could be down there."
"…The Potions room?" Tara shrugged.
James moaned, and then covered his face. "I'm not going to win, am I?" He looked at Bridget. "Are we, really, hm?"
Bridget shrugged. "If Tara's going to go…"
James groaned again. "Right, girls travel in packs. I forgot about that. Fine, let's go. If we die, I'm going to come back and tell my parents to tell everyone it was your fault."
Sirius shrugged. "Well, then I'd be dead anyway so my parents wouldn't have to bother killing me. Now, let's go!" He
Sirius grinned. "Right. Now that we're all in agreement…" He tossed his wand up so it circled once in the air before he grabbed it and pointed it towards the hole, illuminating the stone and most of the staircase. "Onwards!"
"…Show off." His three companions muttered simultaneously.
"Hush. You all just wish you were me."
HP HP HP HP HP -
The four were starting to wonder if going down the hidden passage was even worth it. They had been walking for a couple of minutes, and there was nothing but closed doors in the dark, straight hallway. Nothing branched off anywhere.
"This is boring, let's go back." Sirius sighed.
"Yes, let's!" James nodded, turning around. He stopped short when he saw Remus looking back at them, looking quite stunned. "Remus! There you are! Where have you been all day?" He noticed the other boy looked pale. "Remus, are you alright?" He grinned. "Too much chocolate?"
"No. Listen, you all need to get out of here now." Remus replied.
Sirius laughed. "Why, Remus? You about to puke all over?" He started to go over to him.
Remus pointed at his friend. "Don't come closer, I mean it, I- AH!" He hunched over, his face riddled with pain.
"Remus?" Tara shrieked, stepping forward.
Remus backed up more. "No! Most of all, you stay away! I told all of you to go-AHHH!" He hunched over more, and the others just stared with half confused, half disturbed looks when they saw that the part of his spine exposed from his shirt riding up practically pulsed before retreating back into his back, but it still stuck out.
Tara shrieked again, and James and Sirius looked at her. Her face was covered in evidence that she was completely terrified. She noticed them looking at her.
"Tell anyone I screamed like that and you won't even know what hit you," she threatened, then turned to her friend. "What's wrong?"
"Tara, really…" Remus cut himself off when he let out what honestly sounded like an animalistic roar more than anything human.
The others exchanged worried looks, then turned around when they heard footsteps descending the staircase. For a second Sirius thought they might almost be facing more danger, but as he heard James intake a deep breath, a small kid rounded the corner in a Halloween costume.
"What are you doing here, kid?" Sirius demanded.
"Saw a whole in the floor," the kid shrugged, "Wanted to see where it led to." He looked at Remus. "What's wrong with him?"
"Well you need to go back…" Sirius insisted.
Another roar from Remus made everyone of them jump out of their skin.
"What do we do?" James said.
"Give him some more chocolate!" Sirius suggested, "Who doesn't like chocolate?"
He looked expectantly at James, who dug around in his pockets. "I don't have any!" He called
It was then that Sirius noticed the boy had a bucket full of Halloween candy in his hand. The question was, was how to get it from him. It wouldn't be easy. Or would it be? He knew his idea of what spell to use was a long shot, but he didn't care. "Expelliarmus!" Sirius cried, pointing his wand at the kid. By some miracle, the bucket of candy and chocolate flew into Sirius' hands. Sirius unwrapped one of the chocolates and threw it at Remus.
The treat bounced off the boy's face.
The friends and straggler just stared as Remus' legs grew on their own accord before bending in the opposite direction they were supposed to.
Tara's breath caught in her throat when the position finally jogged something in her memory. "Oh my God... guys, we need to leave, now." She said, backing in the direction of the stairs.
Sirius scoffed. "What? If you haven't noticed, our best friend is just short of dying!"
"And we're just standing here!" James blurted. "He needs help!"
Sirius tossed his hands up. "Yeah, well, we see that, don't we!" Sirius replied, motioning at Remus. He noticed the others had suddenly gone pale and were looking at Remus. He turned to look at his best friend, only to see his best friend had grown a snout. Now he saw what Tara had seen. "WEREWOLF!" He blurted. Within seconds, the entire crowd bolted for the stairs, unaware that Remus hadn't followed. They made it up the stairs and James, Sirius and Tara all blasted as many spells as they could think of to try and close the hole in the floor back up. Sirius was the one to get it, and when they were satisfied the whole was completely sealed, they all sprawled out on the floor. The boy who had the chocolate had kept running.
After he managed to regulate his breathing, Sirius looked up. "Guys… our best friend is a werewolf."
All the others could manage was a weak "Yeah." None of them knew what to say. Except it was almost poetic in a horrid way that they found out Remus' secret on Halloween.