AN: I am sooo hyper, I'm eating chocolate cake and it's real yummy. Like I'm Remus level hyper right now it's incredible. And, can you believe this; ya know what I just realized? I've been writing this for over a year, that's just awesome, it really is. I'm glad you guys are enjoying it and sticking with it this long. Keep it up. You all disserve awesome virtual cookies or if you don't like cookies brownies and if you don't care for brownies… virtual celery?

Nightmare

The night stretched on for James, the rest of his roommates were asleep, he knew this because he could hear the snoring of Sirius, Peter's bed wasn't shifting and he moved around a lot when he was just lying in bed, and Remus… well at times it was hard to tell but his curtain wasn't pulled around the bed and the starlight was filtering in through the window, he was asleep.

He wasn't sure what woke him, but he had been awake for some time now, just sitting up in bed staring at the trunk at the foot of his bed. They had been here nearly five months now, he knew Dumbledore was working on a way to get them home but would it kill him to give the Marauders an update every now and then? What was happening back home, what about Lily? Was time passing the same there to? If so, then they would have up and vanished one day in the girl's bathroom. That just didn't sound right.

They were missing, and no one at home knew what they were doing, not even the girls they wanted it to be a surprise and show them up… Five months. They must think they were dead or even worse. He had only been dating Lily for a short while but it wasn't like the rest of the women he so casually dated in his Hogwarts career, he wasn't nearly as bad as Sirius but one could say he had something of a reputation. But it was different with her, he thought he loved her even this soon in the relationship and apparently he did, he died for her and their son. They got married, they had a child.

According to Remus's unquestionable logic they were obviously getting home, if they never did then everything would be different. There would be no Harry, Sirius would never be in Azkaban, Remus would have had something of a fun life for those twelve years, however… Voldemort would probably be controlling the world by now.

He shuddered at the thought, back in the seventies he thought Voldemort was bad, he began in their fifth year with small things, by their sixth year he was a real threat, by their seventh he was getting bold and killing more frequently and in greater numbers, and by what he had read in the next year he would being mass murders. In a few short years he would rise to so much power, and now all this time later he was back and he was worse than ever.

James shook his head and laid back down on his pillow, he wasn't sure if he could get back to sleep now, all the what if's were running through his mind. Sure, he knew they would get back but what if they were supposed to and something that popped up at them killed them before they could return? He knew Remus or Hermione would have an answer to that by means of some lengthy explanation but he was getting sleepy and couldn't think of them himself.

As he shut his eyes he wished Remus or Sirius or even Peter were awake. In the old days he could remember waking up in the middle of the night by Remus and his nightmares, Merlin they were terrible. It stopped around their third year but every now and then they would resurface and they would find Remus wide awake at two in the morning breathing hard and covered in a thin layer of sweat, the last one was about two months ago. James, being the lightest sleeper, would always go over to his bed, sit at the foot and play a game of cards or munch on some late night chocolate. He used to try and push him to talk about the nightmare, but he gave up first year, he knew what they were about, there was no need to push him.

Shutting his eyes he tried to once again fall asleep, he didn't know what time it was or how long until breakfast and he really didn't care, he was tired and he wanted sleep now. But before he could even begin to slip off into dream land he heard a distinct scream in the dorm next door.

He seemed to shoot up in his bed simultaneously with the rest of his friends, except Sirius who moaned a few times and told his "mum" to let him sleep longer; no doubt he was talking about Mrs. Potter.

"Did you hear that?" Remus breathed looking around.

"You think I'm hard of hearing?" James asked. "Of course I heard it."

"Sirius." Remus said to the snoring boy. "Sirius wake up." He tried again. "C'mon, Padfoot, wake up!" He grunted chucking his pillow at his head.

"Wha – huh?" Sirius asked sitting up straight with a serious case of bed head infection his usually perfect hair.

"Did you hear that?" Peter asked elaborating on the pillow throwing Remus was doing.

"What, no, what do I hear?" Sirius asked dumbfounded as he ran a hand through his messy hair. "I don't hear anything."

"Well we," James emphasized pointing between himself, Remus and Peter. "Heard a scream, and it sounded an awful lot like it was coming from next door."

Sirius thought for a moment, which was a real challenge even if it wasn't very early in the morning. "Richard, Ceeley, Jaco – "

"No, no, no," James scolded and cursed Sirius's inability to think after sleeping. "From Harry's dorm."

That certainly made him wake up. "Harry? Is he okay? What happened?"

"Well we don't know," Remus explained. "We heard a scream and that woke us up, we've spent the last few minutes trying to get you to speak lucidly."

"Well I am now." He mumbled pushing the sheets off himself exposing his pajama's which were more like his boxers and a t-shirt, he never did fancy the Hogwarts pj's, none of them did. "C'mon, let's go see what happened."

In a flash he was up and the rest of them were following his lead. They creaked the door to their room open slowly they had a lot of experience sneaking around the castle at night and though they were only going next door they learned that the professors in this school had the innate ability to know when a student was sneaking around.

They crept the next few feet to the door and when they arrived at the room they would distinctly hear talking inside. The four thrust the door open and walked in startling the two boys inside. Harry was sitting on the bed with Ron next to him.

"What's going on?" James demanded as they entered. "We heard a scream, are you okay, are you alright, what happened?"

"Harry had another nightmare." Ron said without waiting for Harry, he was being awfully stubborn with all of this.

"Another one with Voldemort?" James asked worriedly as he approached him, Ron cringed at the name.

Harry glared at Ron. "Yes, but it wasn't anything important, that's why I'm taking the Occlumency lessons to stop this from happening."

"Well what happened?" Sirius asked almost hysterically.

Harry sighed and began to once again explain what had happened in his dream, about halfway through the explanation Seamus and Dean came bounding in the dorm room. This hinted to James that it wasn't as late as he thought but he didn't bothering thinking about that now.

"It'd be the weapon." Remus concluded in a low voice so Seamus and Dean couldn't hear.

"You were Voldemort?" James whispered as Harry pulled his legs up on the bed, beginning to calm down. "Well that just doesn't sound good, you need to tell someone."

"That's what I'm thinking." Ron cried out. "But he won't have it."

"No," Harry grunted. "That's why I'm leaning Occlumency, I don't need to tell anyone if I could get it right with Snape then I wouldn't be having these bloody dreams."

Harry made it clear the conversation was over when he turned away from them and pulled the blankets over him, leaving the four Marauders and Ron to stand there troubled. For a little while no one moved, but a minute or two later James gently gave Ron a pat on the shoulder and motioned for him to go back to bed. The four Marauder's stepped out of the dorm and walked back to their own not bothering to be quiet this time.

"What do we do?" Sirius asked the second they shut the door behind them, Remus expertly put a sound proof charm around the room for the night, he was sure this would escalate into a bit of a yelling match.

"What can we do?" Peter murmured plopping down on his bed and leaning back against the headboard in defeat.

"Wormtail's right," James sighed rubbing his face. "It's not like we can go off and tell Dumbledore or the other you two without Harry's permission, it's not really our business."

"He's your son, Prongs!" Sirius cried. "If that doesn't make it your business what the bloody hell does?"

"I'm not his father yet."

"What does yet have anything to do with this? Shit's happening and no one around here's taking it seriously but me!"

Remus groaned and threw his wand down on his bed; he had picked it up to place the sound proof spell. "Don't be an ass, Padfoot!" He cried. "You know that's just not true, we're all taking it seriously but it's not like we can run around telling everyone everything. It's Harry's life, we need to respect his wishes and if it's not something that needs immediate attention now then I think it can wait the night."

"We can speak about it in the morning." James continued getting a nod from Remus. "When Hermione's around, there's no use in waking her now. Sirius, I'm just as worried as you are but you have to admit this wasn't as serious a cause as last time."

The beater glared and looked down to the floor as he paced. "He said noting bad happened, except for that guy and he was a death eater anyway so… so no problem?"

"No problem." Remus added. "Can we go back to bed now?"

Despite still being shaken up Sirius nodded and sat down on his bed, twisting his hands together. "Yeah, yeah we'll talk to Hermione in the morning, if Harry doesn't think it's a matter to tell Dumbledore then it's not a matter to tell Dumbledore."

The remaining three Marauder's exchanged a look clearing stating they did not believe what he was saying. Sirius had a long history of worrying too much, in a few days chances are he would be on about something else. Though this thing with Harry wasn't exactly your everyday occurrence things were happening and the group didn't entirely understand it, hell, they didn't understand much about this time period. They were plopped down in a story that was already halfway over and no matter how many times you hear about the beginning it doesn't have the same effect of seeing it.

The morning came and went, they spoke with Hermione and settled things about the dream. Most of it wasn't anything different then what they spoke about the night before but they concluded to keep it between themselves much against Sirius's thoughts. However Hermione prodded the subject of Harry's Occlumency lessons, she was a wonderful girl the Marauder's realized but at times she would be a bit pushy.

Harry didn't speak with her for the rest of the day, needless to say. Since the group found they could not focus they ended up losing the Quidditch match to the Hufflepuffs which James found utterly unacceptable and went into a bit of a depression for the next couple days.

But the weeks passed by and soon the dream was nearly forgotten by almost everyone, Harry still found himself thinking about it every now and then. James and the others sometimes suspected his mind was on other things but they didn't speak of it to him, he had other things to worry about. Like Occlumency lessons which is where he was at the moment as they recalled.

The Marauders were sitting out in the courtyard after they finished their dinner, trying to get Umbridge last essay done, even Remus was having trouble filling the required space. Tickling the feather of his quill against his chin Remus mused about the other things he could add.

"Just repeat things using different words." Sirius mumbled as he flipped to a clean sheet of parchment. "This is the third time I'm explaining how Banshee's kill."

"Unlike you, Padfoot, I don't much care for shortcuts in life."

"No," James shook his head with a smirk. "You just hop the train and ride along instead, make everyone else walk."

"Is there any other way?" Remus asked as he tried to fix a misspelled word.

"What's another word for Banshee?" Peter asked. "This is the millionth time I'm using it."

"Ex-girlfriend?" Sirius murmured.

As the group chuckled Remus's smiled faded and his head shot up. "Do you hear that?" He asked looking around.

"You know we don't." Sirius deadpanned.

"No, no," James said waving him off and placing his essay inside his defense book for later. "No, I think I hear it too… sounds like… screaming?"

"It is," Remus said ad hurriedly pressed his own essay between the pages of his book. "C'mon! Let's go!" He cried as he shoved his books in his bag and led the team out of the courtyard and down the halls.

"I hear it now," Peter breathed as they made their way to the entrance hall.

"If you didn't hear it I would assume you were deaf." Sirius pointed out.

They rounded another corner to find themselves in the entrance hall where a crowd of students stood by watching something in awe. The group pushed through the mass amount of students to try and get to the front however they found it was easier said than done.

Being fairly tall they attempted to see over the crowds, only to fail at that as well. The group looked around, they were at the head of the stairs, there was a banister right beside them. Sirius jerked his head toward the banister and the group climbed up on top of it, people were already trying to crowd it but they managed to find plenty of room for themselves. From their bird's eye view they hung onto the lampposts so not to fall and watched the display before them with their mouths gapped wide open.

"They're sacking her." Remus breathed.

"No," James corrected. "Umbridge is sacking her."

"You c-can't!" Trelawney cried as tears poured down her face and she stumbled along. "You can't sack me! I've been here sixteen years! H-Hogwarts is my home!"

"It was your home!" Umbridge shrieked not being able to hold back the utter enjoyment radiating off her. She continued to shout and scream at the poor woman as Trelawney sobbed uncontrollably before her.

"This isn't happening." Remus murmured. "She's getting bold, she's… she's… sacking everyone she doesn't like. Granted I don't exactly care for Divination, too much seeing into people's private business and you know I can't have that, but that doesn't mean I want her sacked, I really don't! Oh no… you know what this means…"

"Hagrid's next." James finished. "Before you know it this school'll be run by the Ministry completely. We couldn't do anything, it'd be like prison."

"Worse than prison if she's here." Sirius growled.

"Look," Peter said pointing over the crowd to a thin woman rushing in, her robes billowing behind her as she ran. "McGonagall's here."

"Thank Merlin." James sighed. "She'll help, she may not believe in Divination but she's not a bitch."

"Unlike some people we know," Sirius grinned. "Go get her, Minnie, kick her ass!" he cried out a little too loud.

However McGonagall didn't go and shout at Umbridge like they were expecting, she went straight for her fellow professor pulled her into an embrace and began patting her back comfortingly. She took a large handkerchief from her robes and handed it to the poor woman, she was saying something to them but because of the distance and the crowd around them they couldn't hear exactly what it was.

"That's good too." Sirius said in a voice that was half shouting half stopping himself from crying out too loud.

"Oh really, Professor McGonagall?" They heard Umbridge said approaching them with her hands on her hips. "And your authority for that statement is?"

"That would be mine."

James smiled and sagged against the pillar beside the wall he was holding onto. "I was almost getting worried for a second there."

"Dumbledore can fix all problems." Sirius smiled as the aging professor walked through the oak doors and walked down a path quickly made by the students as they separated for their headmaster.

The group was slightly startled when Dumbledore agreed that Umbridge had every right to dismiss a professor, they didn't however lose faith in what he was planning. The four knew him well over their past seven years and he always knew exactly what he was doing. They breathed a sigh of relief when he pointed out she could not banish her from the castle and at the mention of a new Divination teacher they all perked up in anticipation.

The front doors opened up to allow the night mist drift into the hallway. A figure stepped in and it took everyone a moment to understand exactly who or what it was.

"Oh," Remus said as a grin crept its way onto his face. "This is too cool, Umbridge is gonna freak!"

"Centaur." Sirius said smiling uncontrollably. "Dumbledore hired a Centaur to teach us Divination."

"This," Dumbledore began happily addressing all the students and Umbridge. "Is Firenze, I think you'll find him quite suitable."