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55 – Evolution In A Nutshell
James
'I think you're supposed to put the pin on the disk . . .'
James stuck his tongue between his teeth, before shifting the rod. 'Like this?'
Marley frowned, flipping through Sirius' Muggle Studies textbook. 'I think so . . . Turn it on.'
James turned a dial, and the room was immediately filled with a loud, painful screeching.
'Shoot!' he yelped, turning it back off again. 'I think I've put it on wrong.' He adjusted the needle again. 'Erm. . .'
'Here, look at the diagram,' Marley said, shoving the book at him. 'See if you can make sense of it.'
James studied the picture for a long time, attempting to adjust the piece of Muggle technology accordingly. Marley looked around the dark, empty classroom, and cast another silencing charm she had learnt earlier that day for good measure.
'If we get caught, we're stuffed,' she told him.
'I know,' he agreed. 'But hey, it's only eleven. Not too late.'
'What do we do if we break it?' she asked, nodding at the player.
James shrugged, just as it made a loud cracking noise.
Marley squawked and hurried to look at the damage, while James leapt away, issuing every curse word he could think of at that point in time.
'Did I break it?' he asked tentatively.
'Don't think so,' she replied, examining it gingerly. 'But if you did, we weren't here, okay?'
'Got it.'
She started fiddling with the dial, while James kept his distance. Finally, she put the pin back down, and there was a slight crackle, before actual sound started coming from the player.
'Is it working?' James asked, as a voice started speaking. Marley slapped his arm, and started bustling around, making a nest out of the pillows and blankets they had brought with them, and getting comfortable. She pulled the Invisibility Cloak over her like a quilt for good measure. She patted the space next to her, and James plopped down, also crawling beneath the Cloak, now listening to the audio.
'When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.'
'Always wanted to read this,' Marley said quietly, excitement evident in her voice.
'Same,' James replied, attempting to multitask, talking and listening at the same time. 'Just been too lazy to actually read it.'
'Ha.'
'Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return . . .'
Kayla
'Oh, come on, it's not like they carry diseases or anything,' Kayla said insistently, dragging a protesting Lily up the boys' staircase.
'But, but -'
'Shush.'
'Ermerf.' Lily made a noise of disgruntlement, just as Kayla stopped before a door and knocked a few times. She could hear something that sounded like wizarding pop music issuing from inside. There was a noise of assent from within over the top of the din, and she pushed it open.
Well, half way, anyway. Remus beat her to it, before nudging her outside and bringing Sirius with him.
'Please help,' he said desperately.
'I was going to ask the same thing of you,' she replied, trailing off a little at the last word.
'Sirius?' Lily said questioningly. Kayla directed her attention to the other boy, before coming to realise that he had seemingly been forced into a tie-dyed shirt, with his arms pinned to his sides under the material.
'Peter is evolving,' was his disgruntled reply.
There was a long pause.
'Into what?' Kayla finally asked in a tentative voice.
'A hippie.'
'Uh oh.'
'Yeah,' Remus agreed, nodding a little and emitting a sigh. 'It's mad in there.' He jabbed a finger toward the dormitory.
'It's midnight,' Lily sighed, crossing her arms and shaking her head. 'Why are you still up?'
'Why are you still up?' Sirius responded haughtily, now trying to wriggle his arms out of the shirt.
'Marley's disappeared,' Kayla replied. 'We were wondering if you guys had seen her.'
'James isn't here either,' Remus said. 'We thought he was with her.'
'Probably is,' Lily agreed. 'But where are they?'
Beside Remus, Sirius' eyes widened as though he had suddenly gotten an idea. 'I know! Though why I didn't think of this before . . .' He abandoned all attempts at properly freeing himself, and nudged the dormitory door open with his forehead, before shuffling inside. Remus, Kayla and Lily followed in suit, and the two girls cried out in surprise at what they saw.
Peter was dancing on the bed in time to the music (which was presently an upbeat song by The Charmed Witches) wearing a tie-dyed shirt similar to Sirius', two bright bandannas tied on his forehead, boxers with peace symbols all over them, and bright, stripy socks.
'Oh Merlin,' Kayla breathed. 'What happened?'
'Muggle magazines happened,' Remus responded grimly. 'Sirius ordered a huge shipment; Peter looked at some and got ideas.'
Sirius finally managed to wriggle the shirt over his shoulders, and tossed it in Peter's direction. It landed on the boy's head, but he didn't seem to notice – he kept bouncing around and shrieking in a manner similar to Sirius. The other boy was now shirtless, and Kayla blushed red to the roots of her hair. Lily unashamedly stared.
Sirius himself, however, was now rummaging through his trunk, before he drew out a small, square mirror. He studied it for a second, before saying, 'James Potter.'
The mirror went black, but Sirius didn't seem to care. Muffled talking began to issue from it.
'James. Oi, James!'
A grunt came from the mirror, and the image started to shift, like it was sliding along darkened material. Suddenly, James' face was staring out of the surface. He looked disgruntled.
'What?' he asked irritably.
'Where are you?' Sirius asked.
'I'm busy.'
'What are you doing?'
'Stuff. I'm busy.'
Sirius huffed. 'Fine. But is Marley with you?'
'Yeah. Now go away.'
There was a faint voice in the background, but Kayla didn't recognise it. However, she was too busy ogling the mirror to care.
'What is that?' she asked confusedly. Sirius ignored her, and continued to pester James about his whereabouts.
'C'mon, Prongsie, if you're doing a kitchen run without the rest of us, I'll gouge your eyes out.'
'I'm not doing a kitchen run,' James responded. 'Now go away – I'm trying to listen!'
'Listen to what?'
But James's face disappeared from the surface of the mirror, like he'd hung up on a phone call. Sirius grumbled, and tossed the mirror back into his trunk.
'How about we go look for them?' he suggested.
'We'd get caught!' Lily hissed, now looking alarmed. 'What, are you mad?'
'Ah, psh!' Sirius said, waving a hand absently. 'I know a way we won't be caught.'
'Padfoot,' Remus said in a slightly resigned voice. 'No.'
'Padfoot, yes,' Sirius replied, who was now walking on all fours, with his backside straight in the air, to James' trunk. He flipped it open, and started rummaging through.
'Bugger!' he said after a long while, straightening up. 'It's not here!'
Remus rolled his eyes. 'Well, duh. If he went out of the Tower, he would have taken it with him, wouldn't he?'
'Didn't think of that,' Sirius muttered disgruntledly.
'What are you talking about?' Lily asked with narrowed eyes.
'The Invisi -' Sirius was cut off by Remus slapping his hand over his mouth, and the rest of his sentence was comprised of undefinable mumblings. Kayla raised an eyebrow, and shot Remus a withering look. Remus quailed a little under her glare, but didn't stand down.
'Fine!' Sirius said, cutting in. 'We can just have a little more fun avoiding the teachers.'
'But -' Lily's protest was silenced by Sirius grabbing her wrist and hauling her out the door – much to her protest.
Remus gave a heavy sigh, before looking at Kayla and offering his arm. 'Shall we?' he asked in a mock-pompous tone, now grinning slightly. She laughed, and took it.
'Alright, then. Someone's got to make sure he doesn't kill Lily by accident.'
'Agreed.'
'We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz . . .'
The two of them looked at each other as the voice travelled up the staircase and through the open door, exchanging incredulous looks.
'Sirius?'
'Sirius.'
'I suppose it's all an adventure to him, though,' Kayla sighed, grinning a little as the two of them left the dormitory.
At the door, they stopped, and Remus said, 'Everything's an adventure to him. He sees it in just the right light.'
Kayla looked over her shoulder at Peter, who seemed completely oblivious to what had just transpired. In fact, he was still dancing.
'Should we just leave him here?' she asked.
'Yeah. I don't think he'll notice we've left.'
Kayla made a noise of agreement, and the two of them left the dormitory.
Lily was hiding in Sirius' shadow.
Well, non-existent shadow, anyway. The redhead was creeping along behind him, anxiety written all over her face, and she jumped violently at small noises. Kayla had a feeling that if Lily weren't mildly repulsed by the thought of touching him, she would be clinging onto Sirius' person in order to hide better.
She suppressed a grin at the internal thought, and walked a little faster to keep up with Remus, who was leading the group and peering into empty classrooms.
'Where are we right now?' she asked, trying to make sense of their surroundings through the semi-darkness.
'Somewhere along the seventh floor, I think,' he replied, lighting his wand ever so slightly in order to see better. 'Yeah.' He pointed further up the corridor. 'I think that's the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy just up there.'
'Okay.'
The sound of loud, paced footsteps from somewhere nearby scared Kayla enough that she almost smacked Remus in the face with her braid as she whipped around, trying to source it out. Conversation seemed to be travelling with the footsteps, as though there were two people engrossed in conversation. Kayla listened to them intently for a moment, before looking at the other three with an expression of horror.
'McGonagall,' she mouthed. 'And Filch.'
Remus' eyes bugged out of his head, and Lily opened her mouth in a silent scream. Sirius' brow furrowed in a frown as he listened for himself.
We need somewhere to hide, she thought desperately, hurrying further up the corridor towards the tapestry, and pacing around. We need somewhere to hide.
'We need to find a classroom,' Remus whispered to her. 'A new one, because those other ones are back in their direction.' He paused for a second, before whispering 'nox', and causing the light at the end of his wand to go out, leaving them in relative darkness once more.
'I don't -' Kayla started, but cut off suddenly with a slight gasp, looking behind her friend. 'Where did that come from?'
'Where did what?'
Remus looked around at the newly appeared door with an expression of surprise. He tried the handle, and found that it opened immediately. 'Come on, in here.'
The four of them hurried inside, and Remus shut the door again. Kayla looked around. They were in a small empty room not much bigger than a few broom cupboards.
'Where are we?' she murmured. Remus put a finger to her lips as the sound of footsteps and voices travelled past, but the owners didn't stop to acknowledge; almost like they couldn't see it. When they were gone, the four of them breathed a sigh of relief, and Kayla tried to comprehend what had happened.
'I remember trying to work this place out in first year,' she started. 'I knew there was something up about this place, but there was definitely no door. It was how I broke my arm, actually.'
Lily chewed her lip, also thinking. 'Maybe there's some sort of enchantment on this. A broom cupboard that appears for students in need,' she added jokingly.
'That could be it, actually,' Remus said thoughtfully.
'Well, I kept thinking about how we needed a place to hide . . .' Kayla said, trailing off. 'And I'm pretty sure it wasn't there before that . . .'
'The Room of Requirement,' Sirius said simply, looking at the three of them.
Kayla frowned. 'What?'
'Kitchen gossip,' he replied with a grin. 'I've heard some of the house elves talking about it a couple of times. It's something nobody really knows about. It's a room that changes itself to suit your needs. And if you don't need it, it's invisible.'
'Okay, that's weird,' Lily said.
'Makes sense, actually,' Kayla put in. 'We needed a hiding place, and it gave us one.'
Lily cracked open the door a tiny bit and peered outside. 'They're gone,' she murmured. 'But I really think we should go back to the dormitories. Marley will turn back up in the end.'
'No, we're finding them,' Sirius said stoutly.
Of course, that statement resulted in them resuming their search, before unfortunately getting caught on the fourth floor an hour later by a tired and irritable Filch, thus landing all four of them a week's worth of detentions. Lily almost passed out – she had only ever gotten one detention before, and that was a few years ago. In fact, she was hyperventilating by the time he had finished chewing them out, and had started to shepherd them back to Gryffindor Tower, telling them that Professor McGonagall would be the first to hear about this.
And to top matters off, when the two girls were sitting on their beds in the dormitory at six thirty in the morning, not quite able to sleep, Marley finally returned to the dormitory, unaware she was being greeted with death glares, and absolutely buzzing about The Lord of the Rings – which, apparently, both she and James had been listening to an audio record of in the Muggle Studies classroom for the last seven and a half hours.
Lily threw a textbook at her head.
