Disclaimer: It. Is. Not. Mine.

Chapter Nineteen: Of the not-so-secret Chamber

"So, when you add three cups of porkwig's crumb with a droplet of dragon saliva…" Lily could feel her brain beginning to atrophy as Professor Centia droned on and on. Suddenly, a paper ball thwacked her squarely between the eyes. Refocusing her eyes, Sirius's grinning face came into view. Giving him the evil eye, Lily deftly unrolled the note and slipped it under the table.

Lily-flower~

       How was the Christmas vacation? Is your dad doing okay? Why don't you get your family a bloody owl so that they can write you at school? Did you get loads of stuff? Candy? Anything useful? Isn't this class crappy? Seriously (SIRIUSLY), could he be more boring? D'you think he went to school to learn how to terrorize and bore students to death? How're things with Jamsie? Has he forgiven you yet for hanging his footie pajamas on the Quidditch goalposts? You'll never guess what Jamsie got for Christmas! It's an In-

"Miss Evans, what are you reading?" Lily jumped guiltily and crumpled the note quickly.

"Nothing professor," she said easily, lacing her voice with sweetness.

Unfortunately, Centia was immune to tricks such as these. "Give it to me," he commanded irately. Lily quickly brought her hands onto the table, and in the act of rearranging them angelically, shoved the note into the fire beneath her cauldron. Smiling as she watched the writing become engulfed by flames, Lily became prim and proper once again.

"But professor, I don't have anything! Honest, I promise I don't!" smiling beatifically, Lily risked a small wink in Sirius' direction, who was stuffing his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing. Obviously, he had seen where the paper had gone.

Growling, Centia told Lily to turn out her pockets. Working hard to keep her face straight, Lily removed a jar with an emerald flame in it from before Christmas break when they were having a snowball fight on the grounds and needed a lantern, Defense Against the Dark Arts homework, her wand, a sugar quill wrapper (one of the many she had received from Remus for Christmas), and enormous amounts of lint. 

Disgruntled at this new discovery, yet determined to take points from Gryffindor, Centia snatched up the candy wrapper. "Ten points from Gryffindor. No candy allowed in class."

"But I didn't eat it in class! I ate it last night but I couldn't find a garbage bin!" Lily cried indignantly. Centia didn't even acknowledge her words. Five minutes later when Sirius caught up with Lily in the corridor she was still grumbling.

"Took away all the points I got in Charms, evil, conniving, biased, bast-"

"Hey Lily?"

"Oh, hallo Sirius." Lily instantly forgot her anger. "I didn't finish reading the whole thing, and there was something about a Christmas gift of James's. What did it say?" Glancing around furtively, Sirius dragged her into a painting in the Entrance Hall.

"Hey!" Lily cried. "I didn't know this was here!" Beginning to climb the steep staircase, Sirius followed.

"Lily, this place is not the point, the point is-" He was cut off when Lily banged her head against a trap door.

"Where does this go?" she mused, more to herself than to Sirius. Pushing up on it lightly, Lily opened it a crack and gasped. Pushing it open all of the way, she climbed out, letting slam down behind her.

"Lily?" Sirius bellowed. "Lily? Hallo? WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" He pushed up on the trap door, but could only open it a crack. It appeared that Lily was sitting on top of it. Suddenly losing bravado, Sirius leaned against the wall, whimpering. "I never liked the dark. It's very-well…dark." The trapdoor reopened from the other side, letting two dancing green eyes peer in.

"Shall I go get your teddy? Mr. Snuggles, is it?" Lily snipped teasingly as she let Sirius out.

"HOW'D YOU KNOW ABOUT MR. SNUGGLES?" Sirius roared before he realized that there was someone else in the room that they were in. It was Peyton. She had her lips pressed firmly together, concealing her mirth. Sirius was about to ask Lily how in the hell they had gotten into her dorm, but then he remembered a conversation he had had with James early last year.

"Yes, well, I found this brilliant secret passage in the Great Hall. All you have to do is walk right through a painting of a dragon that is really just a wall pretending and climb up these stairs and you're in the window seat of the girls' dorm!" Sirius slapped his forehead. Without thinking he had just shown Lily their secret. Not that they had used it in a while, but still. DAMN!

Lily grabbed Sirius' robe and yanked him out of the room, dragging him into his dorm. She slammed the door and rounded on him.

         "Why didn't you tell me that there was a secret entrance to our room? Have you been spying on us? When did you find out about this? What've you been using it for?"

         Then Peter walked in, took one look around, and promptly walked right back out. Sirius took advantage of the silence.

         "Breathe, Lily. We didn't tell you because we didn't want to, we haven't been spying on you, we found out in first year, and we haven't used it for anything aside from the blue-hair escapade. Now would you like me to tell you what it said in that note?" Lily just nodded mutely, still glowering, and sat down on the nearest bed. Sirius sat down beside her and moved closer to whisper in her ear. At that very moment James walked in. He took careful note of the position the two were in, his jaw dropped, and he walked out, closing the door quietly.

          Whoa, he thought. Lily and Siri? Nah…it must've been…something else. Yeah, that's it. Something else. Even as he thought it he knew it sounded stupid. Shaking his head he walked away, it would never happen. But as he was about to go down to the Common Room, he stopped and looked back at the closed door. Siri and Lily?

         Inside the room, Lily bounded off the bed, jumping up and down.

         "Are you serious?" she squealed. Sirius got off the bed and jumped with her.

         "YES I'M SIRIUS!" he bellowed. Lily either didn't notice, or she didn't care that he had just done it again, so she kept on bouncing. Remus suddenly appeared in the doorway. After thinking about it for a second, he shrugged his shoulders and jumped over to them so they were all bouncing around together.

         After five minutes of bouncing, Remus asked, "Why, exactly, are we bouncing?"

         "Because of what Potter got for Christmas!" Lily answered, twirling as she jumped.

         "And what exactly did he get for Christmas?" Remus questioned.

         "An Invisibility Cloak!" Lily replied. Remus froze in mid-jump, falling straight out of the air.

         "Are you-?" he looked up at Sirius from the ground. "Are you joking?" he asked, incredulous.

          "NOPE! ISN'T IT GREAT?" they shouted simultaneously.

         "WAAHOO!" Remus began to hop around in a most un-Remus-like manner until he finally ran out of energy. Only then did James walk back into the room. Lily thought that he had a very odd look on his face, but she didn't care at the moment she ran up to him and squealed.

         "I can't believe you got-" Lily took careful note of the open door, "THAT for Christmas! That's brilliant! Now we can pull pranks all bloody night long and no one can catch us! They won't even be able to SEE us! YIPEE!"

         "Sirius, must you tell everyone," James said with the air of someone trying to conceal amusement with disdain.

         "Well, Lily-flower here is one of us. Jeez James, you'd think a guy could remember that his own crush was a part of the Marauders…"

"I don't like Lily!" James bellowed, perhaps with a bit more venom than necessary.

"Well, thanks a bunch," Lily said. "It's always nice for a girl to feel loved and appreciated." She stuck her tongue out and flipped her braided pig-tails. James rolled his eyes and looked around. His eyes came to rest on Remus.

"Remus, isn't there a full moon tonight?" he asked casually. Remus slapped his forehead.

"Damn it," he muttered. "Why tonight? I still haven't finished that report on the Goblin wars for Professor Binns. Does anyone think that he looks paler than usual today?"

"He did look a bit sick, but who cares? He'd keep on teaching even if he died. Want me to finish your report for you?" asked Lily. "Mine's already five feet."

"How do you do that?" asked Sirius. "All he wanted was three feet! I've only got 13 inches so far!"

"Copy off mine," James said, waving his hand impatiently. Just then Peter burst into the room again, this time with a look of terror upon his pudgy face.

"Did you hear?" he wheezed, hands on his knees gasping for breath.

"Hear what?" Lily inquired sharply.

"Another one disappeared, but this time, it was a prefect. From Ravenclaw." Lily felt her stomach drop.

"D-did they say a name?"

"Yes. It was…erm…English, I think." Lily let a sniffle escape her.

"Some one you knew?" Remus asked kindly.

"Yeah. I rode in the cart with her on the way to school…I-" Lily heard her voice break and stopped talking, furiously rubbing her eyes. She wasn't about to cry in front of all them. James' voice broke into her misery.

"Do any of you remember what I said about helping Remus last year?"

"Erm…no."

"Well, I said that we could become Animagi to make the transformations easier and stuff," said James.

"Yes, and I remember telling you that that was damn near impossible," said Lily thickly.

"Well it isn't," retorted James. He pulled a book out from under his pillow and flipped open to a page. He cleared his throat and began to read.

"To become an animagus one must be a talented witch or wizard, as well as having ministry approval and supervision-"

"Keep in mind that we have neither of those things," Sirius pointed out. "And it's not like the ministry's going to let a bunch of stupid second years do one of the most complex things a wizard can do."

"Siri, shut up and let him finish." Lily leaned forward intently, eyes still glistening and eager for a challenge. "Go on Potter."

James cleared his throat again. "The witch or wizard has to be able to complete the complex Metamorphose Potion, perform transfiguration on human beings, as well as perform a Cranial Charm, and do all of this inside of a shield that will keep all magic inside with no leaks." James looked up. "Looks like we've got our work cut out for us."

Lily automatically whipped out a piece of parchment and a Sugar Quill and began writing after biting off the tip. "So, Remie can do that boundary thing- he's the best in Defense class, Siri can do the potion, though I expect you'll have to break into Centia's private stores for half the stuff-"

"EXCELLENT!"

"Potter can do Transfiguration, and I'll take the Charm." They all sat in silence until Lily piped up. "Well, what're we waiting for? To the Library!"

Sirius yawned and checked his watch. "Later Lils. Like, later tomorrow. It's nine thirty and I'm beat." Lily sniffed huffily.

"Fine. Sour Dreams to the lot of you." She strode off to her dormitory, brushed off Peyton and Taryn's attempts at conversation, and set her watch for midnight. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At midnight, Lily was awoken to the beeping of her watch. Yawning half-heartedly, she stumbled into the bathroom and splashed several handfuls of cold water into her face, startling herself awake. Remembering what had happened the last time she had gone on a midnight walk without it, Lily quickly stuffed her wand into her pajama pants pocket before leaving the room. Making her bare-footed way to the portrait hole, Lily was stopped by a quiet voice.

"And where do you think you're going?" She whirled around guiltily, an alibi already formed.

"Well, I was-" she stopped short. "James you idiot, you nearly scared me out of my mind!"

James grinned. "But Evans, that implies that you have a mind to begin with." Lily pulled an offended face and started out the door. "Where're you going?"

"Well, I'm not going to stand around and be insulted all night, am I? What were you doing down here anyways?"

"Well…I was…I was…erm…" Lily raised an eyebrow and tapped a foot impatiently.

"Is that the best you got, Potter?"

"Fine," James grumbled. "I was going to the Library to look up animagus stuff. You?" Lily sighed.

"Well, you're probably not going to believe me, but I think I know who's behind the kidnappings."

"Are you serious? Lily- but…how do you know? I can't believe- how long have you known? Who is it?"

"Well, it's just a guess, but I really think that it's," Lily glanced around the room, checking for other people. James looked as well. "Well, I think that it's Professor Metus." James let out a snort of laughter. "Fine, I knew you wouldn't believe me. I'm off then. Goodnight, Potter." She spat out his name as if it were poisonous and left the room quickly. Lily was halfway down the hall when someone poked her shoulder. She whipped around, but no one was there. Furrowing her brow, Lily kept walking, but now she was on the alert. The next time the thing poked her she had jumped around and grabbed it before it could move away.

Feeling fabric under her fingers, Lily grinned triumphantly and snatched the invisibility cloak off of James. He grimaced.

"Beginners luck," he grumbled. "Can I have my cloak back now?"

"No," Lily said, swirling the fluid cloak about her shoulders and letting it settle there. "I'm going to find out about Metus. So either you're coming with me under the cloak, or you're going to the Library without it." Snarling something incomprehensive under his breath James snatched at where he thought Lily was. She danced away quickly. "Uh-uh-uh! What's it gonna be Potter?"

"Fine," he snapped. "I'll go to Metus' office with you." Lily opened one side of the cloak and James slipped in beside her. They didn't speak all the way down to the Great Hall aside from the occasional 'Geroff my foot you great oaf' and 'stop hogging all the cloak, my toes are showing'. The unlikely team then set off down the southern-more corridor where the Hufflepuffs usually disappeared after dinner. They wandered around for awhile until they saw the enormous statue of a badger where Malfoy had surprised Lily and Sirius a several months before. James stopped in front of it abruptly. So abruptly that Lily kept on going and walked right out of the cloak. Snatching back for it immediately she whispered furiously.

"Why'd you stop?"

"Okay, time for a little quiz Evans. What's the symbol of the Hufflepuff house?"

"A badger. Now let's keep going. What if Filch catches us?"

"I'm not done with the quiz yet. Now answer me this- what is this statue of?"

"A badger, but what does that-….oooooooohhhhhh."

"Yeah…now, what d'you think that a likely password would be?" They spent the next ten minutes standing in front of the stature blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

"Jelly slug."

"Potato bug."

"Mayonnaise."

"Xylophone."

"Zebra."

"Ob-la-dee-ob-la-da."

Finally Lily sighed in exasperation and said, "Would you move please?" The badger slipped backwards into the wall, showing them a small hole with a flight of stairs going downwards. James insisted on going first, and slowly crept down the steps with Lily right behind him. They slipped into an oval room filled with the soft light from a blazing fire.

The room was filled with loads of interesting plants, some in special ecosystems designed especially for them, and neat stacks of papers were piled up on all of the desks pushed up against the pale yellow walls.

"Yes Lily, this room is clearly the room of the evil person who kidnapped our friends. Notice the pastel wall coverings and the fluffy rug. Yes, those are the true marks of a villainous master mind."

"Shut it Potter. Just look around for a trap door or something." They went around tapping walls and looking under tables for a good thirty minutes before Lily gathered her wits and cast a handy revealing charm. Suddenly, the wall behind James became semi-transparent with golden sparks around it, indicating a spell. James whistled is amazement.

"That's some spell," he muttered to himself. He leaned closer to inspect it. "At least three layers. Can't image what she would need it for…"

"Gee, I don't know Potter. Maybe that's where she keeps the kids she kidnapped?" James nodded, astonished.

"You were right. For the first time…help me break this would you?"

"Sure." The two tried a combination of different charms and spells, but none worked. Finally, when they used Alohomora and the Breaking charm together, the wall cracked open. Pushing at the two pieces stubbornly until the had made a gap wide enough for Lily to slip through, she went in, leaving James waiting outside.

"If I'm not back in ten minutes, get the hell out of here and tell a teacher," Lily admonished before she slunk down the grimy hallway. At the very end of the tunnel she could see a light that was growing steadily stronger as she approached. At the arched edge of the tunnel Lily stopped short to peer stealthily about the edge, whishing desperately that she had thought to bring the Invisibility Cloak. As she looked around, she allowed herself a sharp intake of breath as she realized what she was seeing.

Lily herself was standing on a ledge near a twenty foot drop. At the bottom there were eleven people hanging by their hands that were chained to the wall. From this point, Lily couldn't tell if they were alive, unconscious, or- she shuddered at the thought- dead. At the last second, she realized there was something moving down there. A black cloaked something with their wand at the ready. Too late, Lily realized that the something has its ghoulishly white face pointed straight up at her.

Lily gave an ungainly jump, and started running for al she was worth, not bothering to muffle her footsteps any longer. She ran towards the door as quickly as she could and she was almost there went her legs stopped working. Scared out of her mind, she squeaked for James.

"James? Potter? Are you there?"

"Lily? What's going on?" he sounded genuinely concerned.

"Get the hell outta here. I'm trapped."

"What're you talking about? Come out now. It's not funny."

"I'M NOT JOKING! The stupid death eater got me and she right behind me. Just GO! Now you know the truth and-" As a gag flew around her mouth and cold hands gripped her, Lily could hear James still pounding at the wall.

Damn James and damn his bloody noble shit, Lily thought. Thankfully the Death Eater didn't hear him. He (She?) was too intent on his (her?) newest captive.

"Well, well, well. What have we here?" said a cold voice that sent shivers down Lily's spine.

A/N Hallo to all! Sorry for taking so long to upload—exams next week. God save my soul. But after exams It'll be summer so I'll have some time to do serious writing. Oh- I'll be going to Costa Rica for 2 weeks and then camp for 5 ½ weeks this year, so I'll be sending my chappies to a friend who will upload them for me. Unfortunately this could make replying to reviews a little hard, but we'll get there. Now onto the reviews—Felicity- notta problem! Thanx for reviewing! Iza- well, I'm no Trelawny, but has I have written up to Chapter Twenty-Two I could tell you the answer. Could, but won't. Oh well. You'll just have to keep reading. Fluffy the Teddy Bear Slayer- Whoa. English. Words in English. Comprehensible words in English. Wow. Too bad about that button though… starborn- :*P Braney- I loved the dancing bulbs too! I was just sitting at the computer and I had a little *lightbulb* moment. I know an evil poodle too! She bit me after a soccer game when I was four and I had the scars until I was in fourth grade. YEAS! It's so cool to be someones favorite author! *little happy dance* Tomoyo Sakura- coming right up! I have all these great ideas, I just can't write fast enough! Elfmoon87- Allllllrighty then! You probably wont be in the next two chappies b/c they're already written (sorry) but I'll work you in asap!

I LUV Y'ALL! KEEP READING & KEEP REVIEWING!

I am SSSSOOOOOOO sorry about screwing up that last chappie thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I feel awful!!!!!!!!!!!! SORRY!!!!!!!!!