Meanwhile, Geoff was standing in the hallway just outside the Slytherin common room and had slowly begun to make his way back upstairs toward Gryffindor tower, formulating the story he would tell if he were intercepted by Filch. He had just made it up to the entrance hall when he heard footsteps approaching. Preparing himself for Filch, he was pleasantly surprised - even relieved - when he saw Emilie descending the marble staircase, toting a heavy bag full of textbooks, parchment, and quills.
"Geoff?" She faltered for a moment at the foot of the staircase before crossing the room to close the distance between them, taking one of his hands in hers and rising on her toes to kiss him swiftly on the cheek. "What are you doing down here? I thought there was a big wizard chess tournament in Gryffindor Tower tonight?"
"I wanted to surprise you," he said. "Thought we could take a walk, or-"
"Actually, there's something..." She trailed off, biting her lower lip and adjusting her grip on the bag slung over her shoulder. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about," she said. "But not here. Come on." She squeezed his hand a little more tightly and led him back the way he had come, steadily descending deeper into the dungeons and back toward the wall panel that concealed the Slytherin common room.
A pit fell in Geoff's stomach as the wall panel slid open and the sounds of angry shouting drifted out into the dungeon corridor.
"What in Merlin's name...?"
Geoff felt his pace inadvertently slow as Emilie continued onward, tugging at his hand as she pulled him forward down the short hallway to the common room. Emerging into the common room proper, Geoff did his best to avoid eye contact with James and Remus, instead focusing on a nearby lampshade that was a vibrant shade of mint green as Emilie let her bag fall to the floor. James and Remus were disarmed and being held at wandpoint by Avery and Mulciber on one of the elegant chaises strewn about the common room while Snape stooped in front of them, his yellow teeth bared as his own wand came dangerously close to poking James in the eye. Kurt stood to one side, arms folded across his chest, a pair of wands that presumably belonged to James and Remus clutched in one of his fists.
"I am going to ask you," Snape hissed, "one more time - where is Black?"
"Sev?" Emilie placed a hand on the Slytherin boy's shoulder, and he whirled around sharply, nearly knocking a precariously stacked pile of books from a nearby table. "Sev, what's - what's going on?"
"These two were snooping around in here," Snape answered, gesturing back at the Gryffindors on the couch. "And that one-" he thrust his wand at Geoff, who was busying himself with examining the mint lampshade's chartreuse tassels "-was in here, claiming he was looking for you. They're all up to something. Black is lurking around here somewhere, I'm sure of it. Rosier's working on hunting him down." Snape turned back to James and Remus, this time turning his wand to the werewolf. "Where is Black?"
"Oy! Snape! Think I've found something!"
Snape's curtain of greasy hair whipped around to see Rosier triumphantly waving a flea collar in the air from behind a couch.
"What d'you think? Why would that mangy blood-traitor carry one of-"
Seemingly from thin air, Sirius launched himself at Rosier with a roar, wand forgotten, wrestling the Slytherin boy to the ground in an attempt to wrench the flea collar from his hand, blindly throwing punches left and right. Avery and Mulciber abandoned their positions beside James and Remus to help pull Sirius off their fellow Slytherin.
Geoffrey was just admiring the emerald rhinestones attached the lampshade when Emilie grabbed his arm roughly, yanking him around to face her. "What's going on?" she demanded. "Why are they all here? Tell me you aren't involved."
He opened his mouth to answer, but another shout rang out across the common room, and the two of them looked to see Snape on the floor, clutching at a bloody nose, James and Remus springing from the chaise and leaping toward Kurt to reclaim their wands. Rosier threw Sirius off of him, springing to his feet and whipping out his own wand, firing spell after spell in any and every direction, transfiguring lamps and shattering vases, sending books and chess boards and rolls of parchment flying through the air. A pot of ink hit Geoff in the side of the face, and an instant later his wand was out, flinging jinxes toward the Slytherins, Emilie following close behind him into the fray.
The commotion drew the attention of other Slytherins, and more and more faces appeared in the corridors leading to the dormitories as younger students got out of bed to investigate the source of the ruckus. The pandemonium in the common room was enough to send most of the first and second-years ducking back into their rooms for cover, while some of the bolder students, eager to prove themselves to their older classmates, took a few cautious steps into the common room, shooting a handful of half-hearted jinxes, most of which hit their fellow Slytherins rather than the Gryffindor intruders. As a third-year girl went down with a jelly-legs jinx, her friend beside her crept around the perimeter of the room and slipped out of the common room and into the corridor.
Sirius had reclaimed his flea collar from Rosier and was waving it triumphantly above his head, laughing maniacally as he pinned Rosier to the floor with one knee. James was bellowing for the Marauders to regroup and get out while they could, attempting to yank his wand arm out of Mulciber's grip while Avery advanced toward Geoff, wand raised.
Geoff raised his own wand, deflecting jinx after jinx, but Avery's spells were coming faster and stronger. A flash of red light, and Geoff found himself disarmed, his wand flying neatly into Avery's hand. "Emilie-"
An instant later, Avery was on Geoff, bowling him to the ground, hands at his throat. "Yeah, Em," Avery said, "why don't you come save dear Geoffrey?"
Emilie hesitated for only a fraction of a second, but the uncertainty was plain on her face. An instant later, Sirius had barreled sidelong into Avery, knocking him off Geoff and sending the Gryffindor's wand skittering across the floor. Geoff rolled onto his side, coughing as he struggled to regain his breath, Emilie diving for his wand, which had rolled under a nearby sofa. Groping under the furniture, the fingers of her left hand closed around the wand. She pulled it out from under the couch and extended her arm to hand it to its owner. As Geoff took it, his eyes slid from the wand in her hand to the thin black lines gracing her forearm, and he felt his heart leap up into his throat.
"Emilie, what is that?"
"Geoff, I-"
"STOP! SLUGHORN IS COMING!"
Everyone looked around to see where the shout had come from. Then everyone looked at each other."
"You're dead!" hissed Avery. He snarled in anger and pain as Sirius hauled him to his feet and pressed the tip of his wand into his spine.
"Not a chance. McGonagall said any more fights and we're all out of here. If we go, so do you!" Sirius looked around. "What are you waiting for? Act natural!"
James hauled Snape to his feet and held him at wandtip like Sirius while Remus set about counterjinxing the third year girl whose legs were still jelly. Rosier leapt to his feet, brandishing his wand.
"I don't care what McGonagall says-!"
"Rosier! Don't, he's right," said Kurt sharply, getting to his feet as he pinched a heavily bleeding nose. Rosier whirled around.
"But-"
"Everybody act like nothing's happening, or it's all of us out of here. And we don't want that, do we?" Kurt raised an eyebrow at Rosier, who looked about to shit himself with rage.
"But...Kurt..." He failed against the look Kurt was fixing him with and sat down in the nearest viridian armchair furiously, his nails digging into the fabric. Mulciber took the chair next to him, no less angry. Kurt lowered himself onto the pea-green couch, still pinching his streaming nose. He grabbed a nearby book and held it up to his face to hide the injury, glancing at Sirius, who still held Avery at wandpoint.
"Might want to ease up a bit there, Black."
"Shut the fuck up, Lovell."
Emilie helped Geoff to his feet, avoiding his eyes. Geoff opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment they heard the wall open at the entrance, and a very exhausted Professor Slughorn entered the room wearing a jade dressing gown that strongly resembled the curtains in his office and a very exasperated expression.
"Come, come, now, it's almost midnight, ladies and gentlemen, what's all the commotion about? I've got alarms going off for almost the entire Slytherin dormitory! Shouldn't you all be in bed? And what are you doing here, you're not in my house, are you, boys?"He looked at Geoff and the Marauders as though he wasn't quite sure if he was dreaming their presence.
"We...have significant others," said Remus, looking at Geoff. He held the Jelly-legged girl a bit closer. Slughorn looked from Remus to Geoff, and then to James and Sirius. James hid his wand behind his back and put an arm around Snape's stiff, cold shoulders while Sirius tugged Avery a bit closer to him by the waist, his wand still at his back. Slughorn blinked.
"Oh. I...well I suppose that...I mean, I realize that times have changed, and there's all this 'free love' balderdash, but...well...it would probably be best if all of you went on back to your common rooms, tonight. It's a school night. Yes, I'll let Mr. Filch know you have my permission, just...keep it down next time, won't you?"
He turned, still shaking his head and muttering to himself as he left the common room. A moment passed in his absence, and then Sirius and James violently jerked away from their quickly-chosen partners and walked towards the exit looking visibly shaken and ashamed of themselves. They turned at the door.
"This never happened," said James.
"Agreed," choked Avery, looking visibly sick.
Remus nodded to the 3rd year, a bit pink in the face, and followed the others out. Emilie made a move to speak to Geoff, but he turned and followed everyone else to head back to Gryffindor Tower.
Mariah made it back to the dormitory without seeing any sign of Filch. She took off the invisibility cloak, briefly wondering where Sirius had gotten it before turning her attentions to the well-worn book in her hands. She was still going over the previous events of the night. It was supposed to be Rosier. Rosier was going to have the book, not Kurt. He'd said he took it to keep everyone else from causing destruction, but how could he say that with eight people lying in the Hospital Wing? Was he lying to her? What if he did was really...
He was so different lately, thought Mariah. What had happened to him over Christmas? She thought back to before, when he had been so romantic. Now he was distant, duplicitous, and she could never seem to hold his eyes. She frowned. What had his father said to him? He had been so rebellious against his family and now he seemed to be perfectly poised to join them. What could possibly have happened to change his mind and make him choose a side? Did he even want to be in a relationship with her anymore, or was he just trying to maintain his relationship with her for...recreation?
Sighing, Mariah opened Hellion Hexes, and started flipping through to the centerfold.
But something was different.
The girls on each page were not lewdly posing and showing off their assets as they had been the last time she'd seen it. She flipped past Valentina, who was cowering by the page number, and Tabitha, fifteen pages before her own glittering name was flashing across the top. All of them were misplaced, it seemed, crowded together at either cover. And all of them were terrified.
Mariah flipped the pages quicker, trying to find the foldout. And then she did.
The page not only contained as much flesh as any other, it was also nearly soaked in blood. The page was full of bodies- lifeless, gruesome bodies, some rent apart and some with faces frozen in sickening screams, all nearly stacked upon each other, all unmoving. Then, as she watched, the picture began to change. The bodies transformed into people she knew. She saw Geoff, Lily, and herself, along with a hundred other faces. Some she recognized from the Daily Prophet, some she had seen at other wizarding events, some were other students at Hogwarts, and some had been in school only just in the past few years. A large, bloodspattered banner bled slowly into the page, covering a few of the bodies and spreading its way down towards where she had the foldout spread between her fingers. Two giant, haunting words.
Memento Mori.
Remember, you must die.
