14th January, 1972
"That wasn't funny," Lily said the moment she'd stepped through the portrait hole and found the five of us in the common room. James had spent the entirety of today's Potions class annoying her and Snape by sending paper airplanes with love notes to Lily into Snape's thick hair with a Sticking Charm. James and Sirius were sitting on the floor with Peter, showing him how to do the charm, while Remus and I were settled at a table with our books open, about to study. Lily put her hands on her hips as we looked up.
James smiled in that charming way he always did. "Oh come off it, Evans," he drawled, "It was only for a laugh. Besides, you need a break sometimes from getting stuck in Snivelly's grease trap… that's a real concern, you know. "
Lily looked furious, glowering at James. "James Potter, you are absolutely horrible and I hope you fail Potions." she turned her nose up and walked primly towards the stairs that went up to our dorm.
We all burst into laughter the moment she left and James began shouting stupid, unheartfelt apologies.
I soon regretted my mirth, however, as I was nearly unable to continue studying for several hours. James began singing… excuse me, not singing, it was more like a warbling, half-sung half-shouted rendition of some sappy Broomstick Boys song. It was funny the first five times, but soon Remus and I decided to head up to the boys' dorms just to get a bit of quiet.
Eventually, around midnight, the two of us came back down to spend time mapping. We attempted to get all five of us under cloak, which took quite a while. Peter knocked a vase over, and we tried to speed the process of getting under the cloak up as we heard footsteps coming down the stairs to the girls' dormitories.
It was Lily! She walked down the stairs and peered around the common room. I tried my best to hold my breath. Her eyebrows furrowed, but she turned to go back to our room. We were nearly free, but then Sirius sneezed. Oh, I was so going to pummel him when we were in the clear!
Lily turned 'round again and squinted into the dark. "Oi, who's there?" she demanded, looking around.
We made sure to not make a sound.
"I know somebody's down here, I heard you sneeze!" she said, "It's after midnight, you know, you could get in an awful lot of trouble for being out of your dormitory! You'll lose points for Gryffindor!" She looked so certain that she'd find us, and she wrapped her arms around herself to protect against the cold. After several long moments of her swivelling around the room, Lily made her way back up the stairs to our bedroom.
We creeped slowly towards the portrait hole, just to be safe. We had nearly made it, when Lily ran down the stairs once more. "James Potter," she announced as she raced down the stairs, "I know you're down here and I demand you show yourself right this instant!" My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest, and I looked to James, who was stoic and concentrated.
"I know you're invisible, James!" she accused. There was a part in the back of my mind that found this whole thing hilarious, especially how she didn't suspect me, considering I was her roommate and I clearly wasn't in bed. She really bought me draping the curtains of my four-poster closed, to pretend I was asleep.
Eventually, she probably realised how foolish she looked, and headed back up the stairs once more. We ran through the portrait hole as fast as five people underneath a thick cloak could run. So it was more of a quick-paced hobble, in all honesty.
16th January, 1972
"We are never - ever - going to finish this bloody map!" wailed Sirius. It was more than midway through January, and despite the fact that we'd now had use of the invisibility cloak - thanks to James' dad - for over two weeks, we'd still not finished the map. Sirius threw himself onto his bed and sprawled across it, legs and arms out like a giant starfish, "My life's ambition… never to be fully realised…"
"Mapping Hogwarts is your life's ambition? That's pretty lame, mate," I said, smirking. James opened the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out the snitch Sirius had stolen from the changing rooms down by the pitch, and polished it off with the edge of his robes. He too raised his eyebrow at Sirius.
"It'll get finished," Remus said patiently. He was carefully folding the parchment we were using for the map, "It's just going to take some time, that's all. Rome wasn't built in a day."
"You could hardly compare our map to Rome," Peter said.
"That's right," agreed Sirius, sitting up, "Our map is far more important."
"Than Rome?" demanded James with a chuckle, "You're mad."
Sirius mimed being stabbed in the heart. "You've killed me, Potter," he said, "Killed me with your careless attitude." He threw himself backwards onto the mattress again and pretended to writhe, as though under great suffering.
"Speaking of Rome, Sirius would make a fantastic Caesar, then." I giggled.
James rolled his eyes, "You're the most dramatic person I've ever known," he declared.
The map, despite Sirius' complaints, was actually coming along quite nicely. We'd worked tediously in adding new information to it, and there had turned out to be far more corridors and classrooms on the fourth floor than we'd expected and it had held us up. That, and James' eagerness to follow Filch or Mrs. Norris whenever we'd spotted them 'round the castle in hopes that Filch might use one of the secret passageways. But the only thing we'd discovered was a hidden hallway that connected as a shortcut from one corridor to the other in the Transfiguration wing that way.
Sirius was simply getting anxious, and I was too, but for a different reason. The full moon was nearing, and I was keeping watch on Remus, still waiting to have my werewolf theory confirmed. Ever since I'd verbalised my findings with James and Sirius, I'd been all but counting the days down until the next full moon on the 28th.
"He looks tired all the time, have you noticed?" I whispered to Sirius as Remus excused himself from our little study group by the fire to go to bed this evening.
He nodded his head knowingly, but James, who was still holding out on my theory, shrugged, "Dunno, maybe he's just working too hard."
"But look, he's leaving homework unfinished," Sirius defended, "That's not like him."
James shrugged again, "Leaving homework isn't exactly a textbook definition on identifying a werewolf, though, is it? Otherwise you'd see me prowling at night far more often than I already do."
Q&A:
MyBeewing says, "Mmmmm, the mystery is getting bigger… James and Sirius are really blinded by their hatred of Snape, it makes them clueless. I wonder if Sabrina will influence Peter's decisions in the future ? Because if she and Remus are kinder to him, he might not turn spy… One never knows (well, the author does, but still)."
Yeah, James and Sirius, true to form, REALLLY hate Snape. Sabrina is currently just going along, but her feelings towards him will be rather neutral for a while. However, she will form a VERY strong opinion of him in later years as a result of something he will eventually do. In terms of Peter's decisions, I'm not going to reveal specifics of course, but let's say it will get ANGSTY! But at the moment, Sabrina thinks Peter is a sweetie, and considers herself to be his friend. She sees how out of place he feels in the group, so she tries her best to make him included. Whether this will change his betrayal or not, we shall see...
Relish says, "For some reason I feel like Sabrina's animagus would be like a female lion cub. Like simba but not simba more Nala but as a leetle baby lion. Cuz tbh I don't see Sabrina growing up hahah. And plus lion cubs are so adorable and I imagine that she would be the smallest in the group (even smaller than Lily) after all the boys hit their growth spurts."
Yeah, it's gonna be a long process for her to grow up. But currently, she's the shortest of the group by far, even shorter than Lily. I'm planning on having her have a huge growth spurt at around year four, where she'll actually be the tallest for like a year, but she's really not going to grow more than an inch or two after that. So eventually, the group's heights, from tallest to shortest by the time they graduate will be: Remus, Sirius, Sabrina, James, Peter, Lily. So she's going to be tallish but not HUGE (probably around 172cm). In terms of her animagus form, I'm sorry to burst your bubble but it's not going to be a lion, although that would be SUPER COOL! It took me a while to figure out what her form will be, I essentially took like 20 online quizzes (including the Pottermore one) in character, and used the most common answer...mostly. I dunno my process was weird but it's kind of cool, because once I decided her form, I'm kind of shaping her personality to be similar to it, if that makes sense.
Phew ok that was a lot...I can't wait to post the next chapter because SHIT IS GONNA GO DOWNNNN!
