Can't you talk and eat?" Sirius tried to persuade me.
"No storytelling at the dinner table," Remus ruled before I could reply.
Honestly, Sirius had quite a broad range of pouts. This was more indignant than making use of his puppy-dog eyes. It was a lot less effective too. Remus wasn't paying any attention to it anyway.
"Eat," Remus prodded him.
"I'm eating, I'm eating," Sirius replied, picking up his form.
"The faster we finish the faster we get back to the story," I tried to tempt him.
That worked, maybe a little too well as he literally shovelled food into his mouth. Before Remus could tell him off, he choked - necessitating Remus to thump him on the back.
"You're not going to be able to hear the story if you choke," I teased.
He made a disgruntled noise at me as he wiped his mouth. Thankfully, the rest of the meal passed with no other incident, except for Sirius trying to snatch Remus' chocolate out of his hand (you really didn't do that). Looking a little bit worse for wear and carrying mugs of hot chocolate (he was carrying mine as well because apparently I couldnt be trusted with ceramics and hot liquids), Sirius lead the way back into the living room.
"Onward with the story," he proclaimed to dual eye rolls from me and Remus.
[xxxxxx]
It had taken them longer than expected to figure out where the secret passageway to Honeydukes was. It wasn't like Tonks coukd just contact her cousin and ask him, Azkaban didn't exactly encourage letters. And then when they manged to get someone to tell them they all came to the depressing realisation that the sweet shop woukd be quite firmly closed. They couldn't just break into it and then walk onto the street at night like you would be able to during the day. Well, it was depressing to them all except for Davey. He was quite happy to have an excuse not to go.
"I say we just stay out past curfew and walk down," Samantha said.
Tonks raised an eyebrow. "Stay outside of the castle? What about bed checks?"
"Bed checks?"
"Doesn't Professor McGonnagall check that everyone's back in the Common Room after curfew?"
That's what Professor Sprout did. Though she gave them a grace period of half an hour or so. Davey and Samantha looked at each other and shook their heads. Huh.
"Well, me and James could always just sneak out but we need to be there for curfew."
"That doesn't get around the fact that you need to get out of the grounds," Davey reminded them.
"We," Samantha corrected him.
"No. You."
"We're a team, Davey."
"You can be a team without me."
"Chicken."
"Sensible," he corrected.
"Bwawk, bwawk!" Samantha even bending her arms to make chicken wings.
Davey did not appreciate this addition. "Stop it!"
Before they could argue any further, James came bounding up to them with the biggest smile on his face. It was bordering on manic looking.
"I found a way! I found how we can - mmpf!"
He was immediately silenced by six hands all over his face. Only Davey was big enough to drag him out of the corridor and into an abandoned classroom. That didn't stop them having to dodge flailing limbs but with a bit of team effort they got him in there.
"Nice to know of someone's kidnapped in this place no one will care," James complained. "No one came to my rescue! Did you see that?"
"You can't just shout stuff like that! Don't you ever think?" Samantha scolded him.
Tonks didn't know whether to join her or to urge him to speak. Her impatience won.
"Come on, tell us!"
James took a deep breath before launching into his explanation. "Well, I heard from Gervais who knew it from Jordan who saw someone from Ravenclaw use it that there's a secret passage down by the Hospital Wing that leads right beyond the school gates. They think." He was panting by the time he was finished but looking very pleased with himself.
"Are we sure that this is a reliable source of information?" Samantha as sceptically.
"Who would lie about something like that?"
Tonks tried not to groan. Sometimes the gullibleness of Hufflepuffs was well earned in James' case. Davey was pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
They all decided that it would be best to check out the passageway during the day first - just to make sure it was legit. That and so they could actually see where they were going.
"This isn't the gates," Tonks said, looking around her. The gates to the school were nowhere in sight.
"No, but it is the station." James said excitedly, pointing behind her.
Sure enough, a few yards away was the small Hogsmeade station. It looked so odd with no students at it.
"We walked that far?" Davey asked, scratching the back of his head in confusion. "It didn't feel like it."
"Magic," Tonks said solemnly.
"That's not an answer."
"This is great!" Samantha said with a grin. "We can come out here and just walk to the Shrieking Shack. Easy."
"We just need to avoid Professors, Prefects, Mrs Norris and Merlin knows what else." Davey said sarcastically.
"We're getting an awful lot of negativity from you." Tonks gave him a poke.
"Yes! Because there's nothing good to say about any of this!"
"We're going to see if the Shrieking Shack is haunted or not!" Samantha exclaimed, not able to comprehend why someone wouldn't want to figure this out.
"Which it's not," James had to get in there.
"It is!"
"Isn't!"
"Is!"
"Not!"
"Can we just get back to school before we're missed," Davey begged.
"It's the weekend," Tobks reminded him. "We're not going to."
But they did decide to head on back. Mainly because it felt weird to be at the station when it was empty. It was just unnatural for it to have absolutely no students on it.
It took ages for Tonks' eyes to get used to the darkness of the tunnel again. She didn't fall but it was a close thing several times.
"Why are you so excited about this, by the way?" Tonks turned to James who was behind her and still talking about their plans. "I thought you decided that it wasn't actually haunted."
"It isn't," he said confidently. "But we're sneaking out. At night. Actually outside of the castle. Of course I'm excited."
"I'm not," Davey muttered but he was ignored.
"What about you, Tonks? You haven't said much about all of this."
"She believes me!" Samantha called from up ahead."
"No," James retorted. "Tonks is sensible, she believes me."
"As if."
Samantha came to a stop, making Davey crash into her.
"Well?" she demanded,
hands on hips.
Tonks looked at her. "What?"
"What do you believe? The same as me, right?"
"Well..." "Tonks!"
"Ha!" James gave Samantha a triumphant look. "Told you she believes me!"
"Well, not exactly..." The look on both of their faces was hilarious. "I want some proof of something happening."
"Which it will," Samantha assured her.
"It won't," James retorted.
"Both of you shut up," Davey snapped, sick of the pair of them.
Surprisingly, they did. Probably realised that Davey really was at the end of his tether.
"Well," Tonks began again. "I want proof of something happening but I do think something went on in there for it to be called the Shrieking Shack. Whether that means its haunted or something else..." she finished off with a shrug.
She didn't really think it was haunted but there had to be some reason why it was called what it was. But if it was actually haunted then that would be cool. And, hey, this way she got a cool adventure out of it.
[xxxxxx]
"So, Samantha thought it was haunted, James didn't, Davey was terrified of it no matter what and you were sceptical," Sirius listed off.
I nodded. "That's about right."
"An interesting mix."
I shrugged. "We were all up for the adventure. Most if us anyway."
"I feel for Davey," Remus said.
"Moony, you were behind most of our plans!"