I own nothing. J.K.R Owns everything :(
Chapter 22: First Year (Part 11)
6th, August, 1998. 5.30pm...
"Okay basically what has happened is that we got taken to Minerva's office and that's where we will start." Harry explained.
Things couldn't have been worse.
"I bet they could have!" Sirius grinned.
Filch took them down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor, where they sat and waited without saying a word to each other.
"We were never that quiet. Padfoot always complained about getting caught." Remus commented.
Hermione was trembling
They all grinned as Hermione went pink.
"I wasn't used to being in trouble." she said.
Excuses, alibis and wild cover-up stories chased each other around Harry's brain,
"They never work, Harry," James said wisely. "She can always tell."
Sirius shuddered. "I don't know how she does it."
"Call it teachers intuition." Minerva smiled.
each more feeble than the last.
"Never stopped us from using them anyway." Sirius snorted.
"Unless I was there you mean." Remus mused, "I could usually get us out of too much trouble." he explained.
"Unless you weren't there. In that situation we usually ended up with a week or more of detentions." James muttered.
He couldn't see how they were going to get out of trouble this time. They were cornered.
"Well, it can't be worse than detention and a few points, right?" James asked. "We done worse."
"Yeah." Sirius agreed.
"Thank Merlin for that." Remus sighed.
How could they have been so stupid as to forget the Cloak?
"Even the best make mistakes, Harry." James grinned. "Except me, seeing as I'm so damn perfect!"
Sirius snorted. "Yeah right!"
"Hey!"
There was no reason on earth that Professor McGonagall would accept for their being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which was out-of-bounds except for classes.
"That sounds like a challenge!" Sirius grinned.
"No, Sirius, don't." Remus sighed.
"Dont what?" Bill asked.
"Challenge! I have to come up with an excuse good enough!" Sirius exclaimed.
"I bet you can't come up with one!" James grinned.
"You're on, mate!"
Add Norbert and the Invisibility Cloak and they might as well be packing their bags already.
"But no one knows about the cloak." James pointed out.
"But I suppose someone could find it." Lily commented.
Had Harry thought that things couldn't have been worse? He was wrong. When Professor McGonagall appeared, she was leading Neville.
Their jaws dropped.
"Neville?" Dora asked confused.
"I was trying to warn Harry about Draco." Neville explained, blushing.
"Harry!" Neville burst out, the moment he saw the other two. "I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag -"
Harry shook his head violently to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall had seen.
"Not good." Astoria said.
"No really?" Ron said sarcastically.
She looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towered over the three of them.
"I would never have believed it of any of you."
"Funny how you gave up saying that to us after our 3rd year." Sirius grinned.
"Because I expected it from you." Minerva said simply.
"Then why didn't you expect it of Harry? He is Prongs's son after all." Remus asked.
"He's Lily's son too." she replied simply, an amused smile on her lips.
"Yes but I think it's safe to say I have troublemaker blood in my veins, even if I don't use it often." Harry smirked. Ginny, Ron and Hermione stared at him, "What? I don't go looking for trouble." he said defensively, "Trouble usually finds me." he grinned, most in the room laughed at that while a few just rolled their eye's or groaned.
"Mr. Filch says you were up the astronomy tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."
It was the first time Hermione had ever failed to answer a teacher's question.
She was staring at her slippers, as still as a statue.
"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," said Professor McGonagall.
"I'll bet you don't." Dora said.
"You always tried that tired old line on us." Sirius said, rolling his eyes.
"Well it usually worked to make the student's panic and blurt out their stories." Minerva defended herself.
"It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble."
"Wrong." Harry sang.
"I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?"
Harry caught Neville's eye and tried to tell him without words that this wasn't true, because Neville was looking stunned and hurt.
"I thought that the dragon was a story." Neville admitted.
Poor, blundering Neville -
"Hey!" Neville said, blushing, "I wasn't that bad."
"Sorry Neville, but you really were." Hermione said apologetically. Neville frowned but nodded grudgingly. "Your way better now though." she added. Neville's lips twitched up a little.
"She's right Nev," Ginny said. "I can remember in your fourth year, my third, that you said you did have trouble casting some of the spell's you were meant to work on and you can do them fine now." she told him. Neville gave up fighting it and smiled gratefully at Ginny and Hermione.
Harry knew what it must have cost him to try and find them in the dark, to warn them.
Lily sighed. "You tried to help them but wound up getting caught yourself." she mumbled.
"I'm disgusted," said Professor McGonagall.
"You threw that at us once in a while too." Sirius said slowly.
"Not too much though. Definitely not first year." James said.
"Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before!"
"That's a lie!" James cried.
"Yeah! What about us Marauders?" Sirius yelled.
"We've been caught together plenty of times!" James said.
"I was trying to make them feel bad about what they had done." Minerva admitted.
"It worked." Harry, Hermione and Neville replied together with identical pouts on their faces.
"You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense."
"She does!" Ron cried. "She knew we had to get rid of that bloody dragon."
Everyone laughed, even Molly after trying to look disapproving at his language.
"As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All three of you will receive detentions - yes, you too, Mr. Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous -"
"Dangerous?" James asked.
"Must have something to do with the Stone." Remus shrugged.
"and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."
"Fifty?" Harry gasped - they would lose the lead, the lead he'd won in the last Quidditch match.
"Fifty points each,"
Everyone froze.
"FIFTY EACH!" Sirius yelled. "That's a bit much Minnie." he complained
"Yeah you only took 20 off of Draco." Harry said, "But if I had said anything then I would have lost more points."
"I'm sorry I agree that it was a bit much." Minerva admitted.
said Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long pointed nose.
"Professor - please -"
"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."
"They were doing a favour for Hagrid!" James thundered.
"Yeah! It wasn't their fault!" Sirius yelled.
"And I'm pretty sure you must have been more ashamed of these two when they hung all those Slytherin's in our year upside down for no reason." Remus said fairly looking at his fellow Marauders.
"True." Minerva sighed.
"Or the time they woke up the entire castle at midnight." Remus added.
"Which time? We must have done that a million times." Sirius asked.
"Everytime we did it."
"We get it boys. Enough already." Minerva said, rolling her eyes.
A hundred and fifty points lost. That put Gryffindor in last place. In one night, they'd ruined any chance Gryffindor had had for the House Cup.
"Hagrid -" began James.
"It's not his fault." Lily said.
"Not his fault that he got a dragon?" Charlie asked skeptically.
"Well -" James started.
"Exactly!" Fred said as George nodded.
"It's Hagrid." Harry shrugged, "Getting in trouble was worth it and we all know what he's like."
Harry felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach.
Sirius snorted. "That's an interesting analogy." he laughed.
"I'm surprised you know what an analogy is." Cissy commented.
How could they ever make up for this?
"Simple, you don't. You just wait on everyone forgiving you or forgetting about it." Fred said.
"That's what we done when we lost a large amount of points in one go." George added.
"Yeah, we figured that much out ourselves funnily enough." Harry said rolling his eyes, "Besides something always happened that either made the other Gryffindor's think that I was going to murder them in their sleep or to make the school think I was evil, insane or unbalanced." he added pouting.
"Harry, you know you couldn't control that." Ginny said, "And you know you always had us." she added, "We always believed you when you said you didn't do it or we just know you wouldn't do it."
The rest of the room nodded.
"You know I never really believed half the rumors that flew around Hogwarts." Draco admitted, "You never did seem unbalanced or insane." he smirked wickedly, "And you were Dumbledore's golden boy, the least likely to do anything wrong or evil."
"Well thanks for clearing that up." Harry said sarcastically, "I feel, soooooo, much better."
"Come on we were forgiven in the end." Neville put in.
"Yeah look on the bright side Harry you weren't alone with being hated. Ron never hated us and managed to get Seamus and Dean to talk to us again." Hermione said smiling at her boyfriend.
"She's right mate." Ron added.
"I suppose. Okay then how about another memory or two then?" he asked. Everyone nodded so he got up and changed the memory.