"What?"
"Nothing," Sirius replied, turning back to his porridge quickly.
It was the last free day we had for the holidays before classes were set to begin in the morning. We were all in the Great Hall early in the morning, everyone back from their trips home for Christmas. Remus was sitting next to me, across from James and Sirius at the Gryffindor table, eating hungrily, when he'd looked up to see Sirius staring at him with a funny look on his face.
"No, come off it, Sirius, what is it?" Remus asked.
Sirius shook his head and turned back to the porridge yet again.
"Probably just tried from the train ride." I said to cover for him, yawning to back up my point.
James nodded. "It's a long trip from London. I know I for one didn't sleep all too well, kept feeling like I was still on the train, could almost feel the clickety-clack of the steel beneath my bed as I laid awake, even."
Sirius nodded. "That's right," he said, yawning, too, having caught on.
"More like you were up talking half the night," muttered Peter, quite sourly.
Remus nodded and put down his spoon, grabbing his pumpkin juice cup and looking away, his eyes travelling over the others in the Great Hall. He frowned once his eyes landed on the staff table, before turning to me. "Sabrina," he said, "Did you get the letter I sent you over the holiday?"
I looked at him with excitement. "Yeah," I answered, looking over my shoulder at the staff table, too. "So did you ever figure out what Tutman was up to?"
Remus solemnly shook his head.
"Up to?" Peter, Sirius and James asked at the same time.
Realising they didn't know the story yet, Remus quietly filled the three of them in on how he'd spotted Tutman sneaking down to the dungeons and how Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape had snuck up on him trying to figure out what Tutman was doing.
"This isn't good," mumbled James, "Not good at all…"
"Maybe he just fancied a wee in private?" Peter suggested.
"I'm telling you, there was something odd going on, something that they didn't want me witnessing and now look at Tutman. He's ill or something. Seems twitchy and jumpy." Remus waved a hand toward the staff table.
Sirius was holding his spoon and as he spoke, he waved it about, sending little spatters of porridge every which way, "My mum and dad said - way back in August, when they were still talking to me, that is - they said that the Dark Lord's got somebody here at the school, so… so if Tutman's sneaking around the Slytherin dungeons…" He made a face.
My eyes went wide, "Tutman? Working for the Dark Lord?"
"Must be," Sirius said dramatically.
My heart began to accelerate. Sure I'd thought of something like that being the case as soon as Remus told me, but only in a half-hearted sort of way. Never in the awful, serious way that it was coming out of Sirius Black's mouth. I swallowed back my nerves. I liked Tutman, and I hated to think that one of my favourite professors could be a bad guy. But Sirius had the evidence of what his folks knew, and from what I could tell, the Blacks were quite well connected with the Dark Lord and his cause and should, therefore, be a reliable source on what was going on with that lot.
"I heard Tutman telling Dumbledore he was going to secure the Floo Network against the Dark Lord, though," James argued, frowning. "What of that?"
"Must be tricking him out of looking further into it," Remus murmured.
"True," I said, remembering that James had overheard that conversation when he and Peter got into that tiff over a snitch. "Tells him he's on top of the situation to gain Dumbledore's trust, then actually uses the situation himself to gain control…"
"Brilliant," Sirius commented admiringly.
"But what kind of floo would be in a prefect's bathroom?" Peter asked.
Sirius' face fell and James scrunched his up in thought. "Dunno," he said after a moment.
Finished with breakfast, we got up and headed out of the Great Hall. In the doorway, Peter paused to tie his trainers and we hovered by him. James glanced over at the door leading down to the dungeons, where a handful of Slytherins were standing and chatting. "Wish we could get down there to look at that toilet and figure out what Tutman was up to," he said, frowning at the stairwell.
"You need a password for a prefect's toilet," I said.
"Besides," said Peter, standing up, "You'd be seen in a second if you even went near that stairwell."
"I'm less worried about that than I am about the password bit," James said. "Did you hear Tutman, Malfoy, or Snape say a password, Remus?"
"No," Remus replied, leading the way to the stairs heading up to the Gryffindor common room. The four of us reluctantly followed along.
Peter was looking thoroughly annoyed. Finally, he spat, "What would you do even if he had? Be invisible?" James looked like he was going to say something, but Peter barreled on, "You never listen to me, always brushing off things I say. It's always about you four and how clever you lot are and I'm just stupid Peter, a tag-along."
Angry with Peter, James replied, "But I can be invisible, and if you weren't such a great prat about it, I'd be able to tell you how."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "That's really advanced magic, James," I said. "Well beyond our year. It'll take a lot more than looking up the spell in a book, if that's what you're thinking of doing."
"It's not at all," James replied haughtily.
"You can't be invisible!" Peter snapped loudly.
"I can!" said James back.
"You're impossible, and… and… and full of yourself!" Peter shouted. Several people, including the Slytherins by their stairwell, looked up at us where they'd paused to fight on the steps going up to the second floor. Peter turned and ran off quick as possible, his fists balled.
We rushed to get out of the focus of everyone in the Great Hall, who were all still staring after Peter's outburst. Once we'd gotten up to the second floor, we dashed along the corridor a bit before coming to a halt as we came to the moving staircases. We paused to catch our breath, and Remus looked up at James. "Alright, show off," he said, eyebrow raised, "How do you suppose you're going to make yourself invisible, then?"
James looked round to be sure we were alone, and, seeing that it was completely empty, he lowered his voice and said, "With my invisibility cloak is how."
Sirius guffawed loudly.
"Invisibility cloak?" Remus looked thoroughly amazed. "You're joking."
"He hasn't got an invisibility cloak, Re," I said, rolling my eyes, "He's just banging on like he'd been with Peter. Aren't you, James? Tell the truth."
"I am telling the truth," James replied. "I told my Dad about the map over the holidays, and he gave it to me to help us out. Which reminds me, he told me about…" James paused, eyes falling on glowing yellow eyes at the far end of the hall, where Mrs. Norris was peeking around the ankles of a suit of armour, staring at us in keen interest. "Filch can't be too far behind with her around," he muttered, pointing. "C'mon. Let's go up to our dorm. I'll show you I'm telling the truth."
We rushed up the staircases, taking the long way about to avoid Peeves the Poltergeist, who was cackling evilly from the fifth floor landing in a way that made us know we wouldn't want to pass by him, lest we end up with something chucked at our heads.
I was quite surprised when we reached the Gryffindor dormitories, that Peter wasn't there. "Where do you think he's gone, then?" I asked as James knelt down at his trunk and started rooting around inside it.
"Dunno," said Remus distractedly, watching James with wide, excited eyes, eager to see the cloak.
James said, "Who cares? He needs to work on adjusting his attitude! At least we let him follow us around, rather than chasing him off, the little toad."
"He's just a bit socially awkward is all," I said.
"It doesn't help that he's worrying so much about trying to be like us, that he forgets how to be himself sometimes," said Remus wisely.
"Bloody jealous is what he is," replied Sirius. I exchanged a sad look with Remus.
"And annoying," added James, "Him and that prattling on he does - talking too much when he ought not to be - it's going to be the death of me."
Sirius laughed, "Doubt you could die from Peter talking."
James shrugged, "I'm sure I'll find a way to go about it." He was holding a little box in his hands and I was staring at it with awe Remus too, looked about ready to combust with excitement by this point.
"Well go on, then," he begged, jumping foot to foot with the excess energy. "Show us the invisibility cloak!"
James laughed and stood up, putting the box down on the bed. Sirius, Remus and I clustered closer, our eyes wide, looking over James' shoulders. It was just an ordinary stationary box, but there was nothing ordinary inside it by any means. He slowly lifted the lid off and the we leaned even closer so that we could see as the liquid-silver material came into view, resting innocuously in the bottom half of the box.
"It doesn't look invisible," I whispered in an awed voice.
"Of course it doesn't," said Sirius, "They never do until you put them on or else how would you ever find one?"
James lifted the cloak up from the box and shook it out, and we backed up to form a circle around the cloak as it shimmered and seemed to almost reflect the room around us. Carefully, James drew the cloak around his shoulders and disappeared before our very eyes. Sirius let out a hoot of excitement as I gasped, and Remus' eye popped large in his face. "You really can go invisible!" he cried.
"Told you," came James' voice from behind us. We turned around, following the sound of James' voice, and Sirius was laughing with a wide, amused smile on his face. "Merlin's beard!"
James tugged the cloak back off of just his head so that it seemed to be floating apart from a body. I joined Sirius' laughter, and my giggles grew as James wiggled his head about in a funny manner and sing-songed, "Look't me, I'm the opposite of Nearly Headless Nick - you can call me Nearly Bodiless James!"
Remus clapped his hands. "Hilarious!" he cried, "Bloody hilarious!"
"Imagine the things we could get done with this cloak!" I said with a smirk.
Sirius rubbed his hands together, "Imagine the pranks!"
"I'd meant to prank you before I showed you," James admitted. "It was going to be brilliant. But then Peter and his big mouth-"
"Can I have a go?" begged Remus.
"Sure," James replied, and he tugged the cloak off and handed it to Remus, who eagerly snatched it up and wrapped it around himself, disappearing. "Dad gave it to me so we could finish the map," James said to Sirius and I, "Not only that, but he told me a very interesting bit of information, too. Apparently back in his day, there was a rumour going 'round that the last caretaker before Filch knew all the secret passageways 'round the castle. That's how Filch is getting around. There's secret passageways all over the school… and," he added as I laughed at Sirius nearly salivating at him, "There's a map, probably some place is Filch's office."
Sirius' eyes danced with glee, "We need to get our hands on the map!"
Remus pulled the cloak half off so that he looked like he'd been cut down the centre and we started laughing. "My dad wouldn't ever do anything as cool as this, James, your dad must be great! Mine is too busy following all the rules, he's a real stickler for rules."
I didn't say it, but I thought, other than the one about you not attending Hogwarts, maybe. "My mum was a rule follower, but my dad liked to dance around the edge of rules quite often. Though I doubt their Muggle schools were as interesting as Hogwarts."
"My parents are always breaking rules," Sirius said. "Not in a good way, though," he added hastily afterwards.
"My dad was a troublemaker in his time," James explained, "Like Bilius. In fact, I told him the Filibuster Firework story and he thought it was hilarious! Laughed about it so hard he was wheezing. I reckon giving me the cloak was Dad's way of passing on the torch."
Suddenly there came a shriek of surprise from behind us and we turned to see Peter disappearing from the half-opened door, a sack of biscuits and butterbeer on the floor where he'd dropped them when he'd looked in and seen half of Remus.
James was practically crying from laughter, "His face, though, did you see his face?" he whimpered. I was doubled over, clutching my stomach.
"Probably scared the pants right off him," agreed Sirius.
Remus tugged the cloak the rest of the way off, laughing as well, and handed it to me. "I better go get him before all of Gryffindor thinks I've been cut in half," he said, and he ran off after Peter, careful to step over the sack of treats.
That night, I couldn't fall asleep, I was too busy thinking about all the things we were going to do with the cloak now that we had it. At around two in the morning I crept down to the common room in my pyjamas, deciding to try and fall asleep to the lull of the fire.
To my surprise, I heard quiet footsteps coming from the boys' dorm around ten minutes later. I turned and saw the outline of Sirius. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, and not the good kind like Nearly Headless Nick.
"Hey, you alright?" I asked, rushing over to him. The poor guy was shaking from something, and his palms were slick with sweat. "Nightmare?"
I could make out a nod through his shaking body. I wrapped my arms around him, and patted his back. He was nearly struggling to breathe, he was in such a panic.
"Sirius, it's okay," I said, "It's okay. You're okay. Whatever it was, it was just a dream."
Sirius just couldn't stop, though. I suggested, "Why don't I get you a cup of tea? That'll help. C'mon." I guided Sirius into the most comfortable chair in the room, and I carefully stoked the fire up a bit as it was dying in the hearth.
Sirius hugged his knees to his chest and tried to calm his heavy breathing.
"Here," I handed Sirius a cup of hot tea. I sat down on the couch next to him and stayed quiet while he sipped his tea appreciatively. When the tea was nearly gone, Sirius held it in his palms and basked in the warmth of the fire. I glanced over at him. "That must've been quite the nightmare, huh? You alright now, mate?"
Sirius nodded, putting the cup down on the coffee table before us, "I am now," he said.
"Good," I said. I patted Sirius' knee and looked back at the fire.
Q&A TIME!
MyBeewing says: I suppose one good thing is coming from the coronavirus, well two: no school and more updates, right ? I hope your lessons online work without any trouble. Will you still have exams at the end of the school year, then ? Anyway, good chapter, and I hope, you update soon !
Haha, yeah, I guess my progress on this series has grown a bunch. My professors have all started using this program called 'Zoom' which is sort of like Skype but for schoolwork. It's weird, but I'm technically on Spring Break, so I don't have lessons for another week or so. In terms of exams, I THINK I'll have them? I guess they'll just be online. I dunno, this is very strange hahaha.
