Chapter 54

Trespassing

Every one of them had mixed feelings when they woke up the day James and Peter were going home. James and Peter both were glad to be seeing their families, but it felt horrible to be leaving half of their group there. Remus wanted to see his parents, but was glad that Sirius wouldn't have to spend Christmas alone again. And Sirius was happy to have Remus here, but upset that he was glad Remus couldn't go home.

It didn't help Sirius' mood any that Regulus was staying also. He could barely stand to be in the same room as the first year. Regulus had taken to glaring at him every time he passed. James blamed Narcissa and Malfoy for this, as well as the other Slytherins he'd befriended. It was nice to find that Andromeda was staying also, though chances were that she wouldn't talk to them. She was still pretending to be loyal, something James was pretty sure he could never forgive her for.

James didn't like her all that much, but he knew Sirius loved her, and he was great full to her for being there for him over the summer, so he didn't dwell on it. James had too high of a standard to ever befriend someone like her.

Both Sirius and Remus walked them too the train station, not caring that they weren't technically allowed. They knew no one would stop them.

They were glad to find out that they would still be using the dorms, apparently a lot of the first years had stayed from the other houses. Sirius and Remus were the only ones from Gryffindor, they had the whole tower to themselves. Which of course gave Sirius plenty of prank ideas for when everyone got back, not caring in the slightest that everyone would know he was the one who did it.

"You know, I bet we could have a ton of hidden passageways found by the time they got back." Remus sugjested

"They'll be so jealous."

Between sneaking around the school, random pillow fights, practicing spells for personal use, no school work whatsoever, Remus and Sirius completely forgot about the other people in the school. Remus barely thought about his parents.

Remus spent one night in the Shreaking Shack and half a day in the hospital wing, while Sirius sat by the doors as he did every month, ignoring the cold and waiting for the sun to come back up. When Remus woke up all traces of tears were gone, but Remus wasn't fooled, he hated how much this hurt Sirius, but there really wasn't anything anyone could do about it.

"Sirius look at this." Remus called to Sirius, causing the latter to walk over to him.

"What? This creepy witch?" He asked.

"Look at the hump on her back"

"It kind of looks like it opens." Sirius traced the ring around the hump that made it look like it was two separate pieces. Remus tried to pull it open, but it wouldn't budge.

"You won't get it open like that." They heard from behind them. They turned to see a painting smirking at them.

"Do you know how to get in?" Sirius asked.

"Of course I know how to get in. I've only been right beside it for two thousand years."

"Oh stop it, you aren't two thousand years old." Another painting said rolling his eyes.

"I am too."

"You are not, now to get in that picture all you have to do is..." He began, but the guy from the first picture had walked into his picture and put him in a head lock.

"No! I want to tell them."

The fight continued for a while Remus and Sirius looked at each other and laughed.

"That'll be you and James when you get old." Remus smiled. As he said that one of the guys from the other pictures walked into theirs and pulled the two apart.

"Stop acting like children you're two hundred years old, not three."

"And that'll be you." Sirius smirked.

"Just tap the witch with your wand and say Dissendium." He told them.

"Thank you," Remus laughed. Sirius turned around and did what the picture said, The hump of the witch opened and they climbed in.

The tunnel seemed to be endless. None of the others had been this long.

"I wonder where it goes."

"From the looks of it, around the world."

"Oh ha ha ha, you're so hilarious."

"Uh oh., it looks like a dead end." Sirius stopped.

"No look up." There was flooring above them, Sirius pushed on it gently, removing it from it's place a little bit before peeking out, there was no one around so he climbed out.

"Sirius, I don't think we're in Hogwarts anymore, he said looking around at the many boxes and other non-school related items

"What was your first clue?" Sirius rolled his eyes at him while he stuck his tongue out at Sirius.

They snuck around and saw a set of stairs.

"We should go back, we could be in someones house." Remus said in a worried tone of voice.

"Why would there be a tunnel to someone's house? If you ask me this is probably the storeroom to a shop. That's why the tunnel was here. Who ever magicked it out was probably using it to steal stuff from the store."

Remus stopped in his tracks.

"What?" Sirius stopped and looked at him.

"How'd you figure that out?"

"It's a secret tunnel, into a room with a lot of boxes, well hidden, it's larger than it needs to be for just a person, and it's right next to a unused classroom." He shrugged as though it was nothing.

"I really don't like how you know that kind of stuff."

"Sorry." Sirius said before continuing to sneak up the stairs. Remus shook his head, as though he was trying to shake away his thoughts and followed Sirius up the stairs.

"You do realize we're trespassing right. We could get in huge trouble."

"Shush." Remus didn't talk again.

Sirius peeked out the door at the top of the stairs, before closing it. "Told you it was a store. Ok when we walk out we're going to act as though were supposed to be down here. As long as it isn't an employee by the door no one will even notice." He whispered.

"Are you nuts!" Remus tried to whisper. "We are going to get in so much trouble. We should go back now."

"Wuss, fine you go back. I'm going to find out where we are." He didn't wait just opened the door and walked out, Remus followed, not knowing why. No one even looked at them.

"I thought you were going back" he said as they walked around the shop.

"I'm too scared." He answered honestly, Sirius chuckled. They walked out of the shop.

"I know where we are. We're in Hogsmeade." He looked around excitedly.

"What's that?"

"It's the only all wizarding village in England."

"Diagon Ally..."

"Muggles go to Diagon Ally all the time. You should know, didn't your mother come with you."

"Oh right."

"This is really cool! We can come here any time we want to!"

"I'm trying to figure out if that's a good thing or not." Remus said worryingly.

"Oh calm down, lets go get a butterbeer. I'll buy." He dragged Remus over to the three broomsticks.

"A what?"

"You'll love it, trust me. Everyone does."

They walked in to the tavern. It was just as full as the shop they'd just came out of.

"Two butterbeers please." Sirius told the lady at the counter and she quickly got them their stuff.

"I don't drink, Sirius."

"It has hardly any alcohol in it at all. It takes like twenty of them to get a house-elf drunk." He said shrugging it off.

"House-elves can get drunk?"

"Anything can get drunk, Remus. I've seen a plant do it once. They get drunk like five times easier than us."

"Oh, I guess it's no big deal then." He said giving his glass a worried look.

"Trust me, Remus. It's not bad."

"I really shouldn't trust you, you play way too many tricks on people to be a really trustworthy person."

"Not on you."

"True." Sirius took a drink of his, and Remus slowly did the same. Naturally, Sirius was right. It tasted great.

"Shouldn't you kids be in school?" The lady from the counter said walking over to him.

"I'll give you three galleons if you don't mention it to anyone... Ever." Sirius smiled back at her. Remus face-palmed. Great now they were resorting to bribery. This day was just turning out wonderful.

"Fine." She rolled her eyes and Sirius gave her the money.

"Wonderful." Remus said sarcastically.

"What?"

"Sorry, I'm not a fan of bribery."

"No big deal."

"Maybe to you."

"You aren't the one doing it."

"I know, but I still don't like it."

"Sorry. I'm kind of pushing you to do things a lot today huh."

"It's okay. I wouldn't do it if I didn't trust you to handle it."

"Aw thanks." Sirius smiled at him.

"We should get back before it gets dark." Remus changed the subject, choosing to not acknowledge it. Sirius laughed.

"It's fun making you uncomfortable." Sirius said standing.

"You're really mean, you know that?"

"Yep." Remus sighed, and they headed back to the shop they entered the town from. Sirius stopped to see the name of it. It was a potion ingredients store.

"Can't wait to tell James and Peter about this." Sirius said going though the tunnel first.

"They'll love it." Remus chuckled. A year and a half ago, if you'd told him he'd be sneaking out of the school for anything besides his monthly transformations he would have never believed you. Now though, it really didn't seem like it was all that big of a deal. He was more worried about getting caught then anything else. He loved being a Marauder. Life was so much more fun.

Okay for some reason every time I type N.E. or O. it seems to cut it off. I don't think I'm doing it because it does it every time, I wouldn't make the same mistake that many time. So I'm telling you now that they mean newts and owls. Usually it stops newts at N.E.. and owls at O. It's weird, maybe it's my spell check, I don't know.