5.

The Owl, the Slytherin and the Invisibility Cloak

Having opted not to stay for the Christmas break, the four pranksters went home for Christmas. Snow was falling everywhere over Britain; in James' hometown of Godric Hollow, Sirius' Grimmauld Place abode in London, Peter's little family place around the same area and Remus was off somewhere he hadn't said. Back home, the four of them didn't know what to make of their life alone. They had become so incredibly used to barging around their own six-bed dormitory, throwing pillows at each other, sneaking around the castle late at night looking for a snack from a teacher's office… now they were back home to enjoy Christmas with their families, completely sundered from each other. But they weren't without a means of contact.

Several times over the break, four owls could be traced crisscrossing the countryside. Sure they weren't apart for long, but they were already plotting their next adventures for the next term.

Dear James,

        Mum's being an overbearing hag again. I had to steal Falcon. So are we still on for Diagon Alley this weekend? I'll meet you at the Leaky Cauldron, okay?

-Sirius

Dear Sirius,

        James told me to meet him at the Leaky Cauldron on Saturday. Are you going to be there too?

-Remus

Dear Remus,

        Like my new owl? Mum bought him for me yesterday, his name's Nibbs; I just love his cute face. Are you going to Diagon Alley with Sirius and James? I have a bit extra pocket money to spend, including that Galleon I got when we blackmailed Rubelt *laughs*. I need to grab some stuff before we start school again.

-Peter

Dear Marauders,

        Meet me tomorrow at the entrance to Diagon Alley, and we'll run around for a while. Remember, Sirius still needs to buy that certain someone a special Christmas present (thanks Peter for reminding me about the money). See you all tomorrow!"

-James

Dear Peter,

        Tomorrow I will kill you. Have fun living.

-Love Sirius.

The letters and owls flashing backwards and forwards between the four boys ceased on Saturday morning not long before Christmas. Instead, four mothers dragging four boys happened to converge on the seedy pub The Leaky Cauldron, and the instant those four boys saw each other, they were locked together again. Meanwhile, the Marauders' mothers had decided to get acquainted. James led the way out the back door of the pub and pulled out his wand, tapping the third brick from the left above the trash can. They waited until the archway into the alley had opened, then tore through as one into the hordes of witches and wizards.

"Where first?" asked Peter as they pulled up outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Sirius made a move to throttle him.

"The graveyard to bury you."

"What did I do?" Peter whimpered nervously, cringing from Sirius' extremely fake maniacal expression.

"You reminded us that Sirius has a silly schoolboy crush," Remus replied, adjusting the scarf he was wearing and hiking up his robes. "By mentioning the money we got off Rubelt."

"Oh well, we'll know who it is when she gets her present," James sighed, and pushed between Sirius and Peter. Sirius suddenly had an idea.

"I don't want her to know it's from me," he said. The other three gazed at him blankly. "Can we say it was from all of us?"

"Do we know her?" Peter asked.

"I would certainly say so, yes."

"Ok then," James said simply. "If you want it done that way. But we're not pitching in any money."

"That's alright," Sirius replied, relief spreading over his face. "Let's go look."

They wandered along the snowy, cobblestoned street that was Diagon Alley. Powdered windows showed magical toys, Quality Quidditch Supplies held some winter gear, and some cats in the window of the Magical Menagerie were wearing fluffy coats. The Apothecary was near, and it was towards this that Peter walked.

"I need to refill my supplies. You guys used all my lacewings and powdered moonstone making that concoction to feed to Evan Rosier's cat."

"Okay," Sirius replied, hardly hearing him. He was looking in the window of the Menagerie. Peter walked away, and James and Remus hovered over Sirius' shoulders as he looked into the window at the animals. Then he walked into the store.

"Gonna buy her a pet?" James snorted, but to his surprise, Sirius nodded. "You're not serious, Sirius?"

"We'll see," he chirped, and began to look into the cages. Remus gazed around the store in his usual calm way, gazing at each and every animal in turn.

"So Sirius, do you actually know what sort of animals she likes?"

"Sure I do. She told me she's always wanted a owl but her mum wouldn't buy her one."

"Doesn't she just use the owls at school?"

"It's not that same if it's not your bird," he called, somewhere behind a stack of cages holding litters of forked tailed pups, curious-looking cats and creatures that looked like a cross between both.

"In a way, true," Remus agreed. Sirius suddenly cried out, and the two boys ran up to him. It held a young hawk, one golden eye staring at them.

"Wow," Sirius gaped at it. James managed, after a moment, to tear him away from the sight of the bird.

"No hawks. Just buy her an owl. Here, we'll give you some extra coins. There's a nice black one over there, I'm sure she'd like it, but I'm not sure Dumbledore would like a hawk as much as this person of yours might."

Sirius seemed very crestfallen and James' true words, but had quickly perked back up again when he saw the owl James had mentioned. He strode quickly to the cage as Peter came in through the door which dingled as he opened it. James turned to Remus.

"Attention span of a fly."

"Oh yeah."

"Here Sirius, you're paying me back," James threw his money pouch to his friend, who caught it with a gleam in his eyes and turned to the witch behind the counter as Peter looked into the cage at the glossy black owl.

"Miss, how much is this owl?"

"Fifteen Galleons, love. You want him?"

Sirius looked to James for confirmation, and he nodded.

"Sure."

"Good choice, love," she replied, stepping out from behind the counter with another cage. She came over to the cage and put a gloved hand inside, drawing the owl out through the cage door and putting him into the other cage. He hooted loudly as she closed the door behind him, and was taken back over to the counter. "That'll be fifteen Galleons dear. Thanks. So, Hogwarts students, if I'm not mistaken? Enjoying your Christmas break? Eager to get back to school?"

"In a manner of speaking," Sirius sniggered. "See there's this kid…"

"Ahhh yes, I know how you little boys work."

"Thank you," the four of them thanked the witch and left the store, the black owl in its cage being carried along by Sirius who used the other hand to hand James' money pouch back. It was till remarkably heavy.

"Listen, just pay me back half of it. Just give me five Galleons. Think of it as my present to her too."

"You sure?" Sirius asked as they continued to head up the street. James nodded.

"Sure. What're friends for?"

"We should get each other Christmas presents now," Peter suggested, and they all agreed. Sirius said he was going to go back to the Leaky Cauldron to leave the bird with his mum while they did so. Then they decided to meet back at Florean Fortescue's in an hour. Sirius was really only going back to wean more money out of his rather tight mother. James wandered away to Flourish & Blotts, Remus headed in the direction of Quality Quidditch Supplies and Peter looked around the street where he was in confusion for a while before heading into a candy shop close by.

*

"This is sooo cool," Sirius laughed, throwing a pillow at James. Peter and Remus were sitting on the bed, watching as the two boys threw soft things across the room at each other, crumpling up discarded bits of wrapping and pegging them at one another's head.

"I put thirty Sickles on Sirius having had enough first."

"You're on," Peter agreed. They watched the volleyball match of pillows and paper as they flew around the room in the aftermath of Christmas morning. All of them still in bedclothes, they had spent the last two nights at the Potter's creating havoc in the Godric Hollow cottage. James grabbed a cushy pillow and charged Sirius down, bowling him over and pinning him to the ground with the great big cushion. Sirius didn't fight back, breathing hard, flat on his back on the carpets. Remus turned lazily to Peter, his hand out.

"Pay up."

"Awww," Peter turned the silver coins into his hand. "How'd you know?"

"I gave him rock candy for Christmas. He was bound to come off that sugar high."

"Sure was nice of your mum to let us stay, James," Peter said as he pulled the pillow off Sirius and flopped backwards on the rug himself.

"That's alright, Petie," James grinned, flicking paper at Sirius who appeared to be looking through his gifts for Remus' rock candy. "No Sirius! No more sugar!"

He dive-tackled his laughing friend before he could ingest any more of the bright-coloured sweets. They were still struggling over the box of candy when a great black owl suddenly swooped in through the window, dropped a bundle in the middle of the floor and perched on top of James' desk chair. Sirius and James stopped wrestling that instant and scurried across the floor on all fours as Remus and Peter got down off the bed and they crowded around the package. They all looked down at the strange parcel. There was a note attached.

"Hmmm… who's this from?" Remus tugged off the note and opened it. Over on the desk chair, the owl hooted loudly.

"What does it say, Remmy?" Sirius asked. Remus read the note aloud.

Dear Marauders.

        This was mine, but I really don't have a use for it. I was given to me by a friend, so I'm not worried about passing it on to you, seeing as you'll make much better use of it. To ask you to be sensible would be a waste of breath, so instead I'll say 'have fun'. Merry Christmas.

They all looked at the parcel again, with renewed interest.

"Does is say who it was from?" Peter asked. Remus turned the note in his hand and shook his head. Sirius gave one of the binding cords a hard tug, dislodging it.

"Let's see what it is!"

They all took a corner of the squishy parcel and began to pull away the cord and paper. Silver rope and crumply gold paper was scattered as they revealed what sat inside the package. It sat, neatly folded, on its shiny paper. A bundle of shimmery cloth, with celestial visible on it. They stared at it for a while, and then James stood up and unravelled it.

"It looks like some sort of robe," Remus said, looking up at it as James held it out at arms length to have a good look at it.

"It's got some really strange patterns on it," he said, looking it up and down. "Why would someone give us an old cloak?"

"Try it on," said Sirius, through a mouthful of cake, which had come from the box of chocolate cupcakes also in the parcel. James swung it over his shoulders. Suddenly he had no shoulders. In fact, there was no James. All that was left of him was his head floating in midair. Sirius choked on his muffin and needed Peter to slap him hard on the back to dislodge it when he saw. Remus was on his feet as if he'd sat on a thistle.

"That's an Invisibility Cloak!" he breathed, reaching out and somehow finding the material, running his hand down it. "Someone sent us an Invisibility Cloak!"

"Who'd send us something like this?" James asked, looking down at the note again as he slipped the cloak from his shoulders. Peter picked it up then and started to look at it.

"Well who gets to keep it?" asked Remus suddenly, his eyes on the cloak. Sirius raised his hand and gulped down his mouthful of cake.

"I think I should," he said, and to their seemingly aghast faces, he explained. "After all, I'm the one who does a lot of sneaking around and stuff, and I think up a lot of our plans."

"You?" James gave a mad cackle. "I wouldn't trust you with my spare robes, let alone an Invisibility Cloak."

"Maybe I should keep it," Remus suggested. "I'm clearly the most sensible one here, and I wouldn't let certain people use it to go out at night and steal food from the staffroom."

"I think James should keep it," Peter said suddenly, and they looked at him. He shrugged, letting the fabric run through his short little fingers. "After all, isn't he, like, our undisputed leader?"

"Undisputed leader?" Sirius almost choked again. "James couldn't lead a pack of wolves on his own scent!"

"Oh yes he could… but no, really," Remus now agreed with Peter. "You and James do a lot of the hard work in this team, and James is the more sensible of you both. Not to mention," he added after a moment, "we are in his house."

Sirius pouted for a moment as the majority voted James would keep the cloak. James shrugged.

"Fair enough, I'm not complaining. But we'll have it so everyone can use it if they need or want. Within reason," he turned suddenly to Sirius, whose face suddenly bore the most mischievous grin. The grin faded immediately.

"But it still doesn't answer the question of who sent it to us," Remus frowned, looking down at the note again. Sirius took it from him and read it through, starting on his second cake.

"Well, it must be someone who likes us and knows what we get up to," Peter said. Remus nodded.

"And someone who is really generous and likes to help…"

"And someone who knows that Sirius likes chocolate cake," James added on, staring at Sirius as he scoffed down the cupcake. Suddenly the boy froze, squinted at the writing then looked up at the big black owl. He spent a moment trying to swallow the cake, then spoke.

"I know which someone, too," Sirius said, his eyes on the black owl, which at that moment screeched loudly.

*

Not long after New Year's Day, the four boys were back on the Hogwarts Express on their way back to school. The trip through snow covered countryside into Scotland from Kings Cross Station was uneventful, if you excused the excited post-Christmas students running helter-skelter up and down the carriages with new self-throwing Frisbees, new pets and flashing the occasional new broom. Someone screamed that a boy named Kip Jordan had a bird-eating spider. They saw the face of Rohan Wood the Quidditch commentator chasing Marcellius Rubelt and Fenwick Blinks up the carriage. Apparently they'd stolen his new self-inking Quick Quotes quill. The Ravenclaw Seeker seemed to be taking special measures to ignore the boys. Two blonde Slytherin girls walked up the carriage and the one named Francesca gave them a little wave that wasn't added to by her snooty friend Narcissa, who made a measure to glare at Sirius.

"Cousin," he explained with a shrug. At one point during the trip five girls flashed past their window, Mana, Midgeon, Louise, Alice and Figwelda. They were throwing Puffapods at a group of Hufflepuff boys which included Theodore Dwyer. Midway through the afternoon, the lunch trolley witch somehow managed to push her way up the carriage through the groups of tittering students for a stop at every compartment. Loaded up with Galleons, Sickles and Knuts, the four boys satisfied their hunger with a lot of sweets from the trolley. It was all they could do to keep the restless Sirius occupied. That task became even harder after the Chocolate Frogs kicked in. They needn't have worried.

The five girls came pelting down the carriage again in the opposite direction and drew to a sudden halt that made them all crash into each other as Midgeon flung open the door.

"Hullo boys!" she chirped gaily. "Got a job for ya!"

"A job?" Peter looked up. "Sounds a little hard."

"Pay ya for it," she added slyly, letting a handful of coins slide from one hand to the other.

"What do you want, Midgeon?" James asked, ignoring Remus' visual advice to ignore her.

"See, there's this absolute churl down the other end of the train. Total git, looks like he's wearing the Leaky Cauldron's fry-pot in his hair. Some pure-blooded skunk. He made Lily cry… called her a Mudblood."

"What's his name?" James asked, immediately on his feet. "Is it Rubelt?"

"No," Figwelda said. "He's a Slytherin in our year. What did you say his name was again, Mana?"

"Severus," she replied. Remus looked up.

"Severus Snape?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"Isn't he that total freak we have Defence Against the Dark Arts with?" Sirius asked, looking up at James, who nodded. Sirius laughed and stood up. "Forget paying us, Midgie, we'll do this one for free! I've always wanted an excuse to harass that git."

"Since when has the lack of an excuse stopped you?" Peter asked, still in his seat. Sirius had to think about this, but then he shrugged.

"Show us the way, girls!"

And they did. Begrudgingly the other two boys got out of their seats and pulled out their wands, following Midgeon and the girls down the train. Anywhere the Marauders went, especially if they were armed, drew attention. Heads poked out of compartments to see where they were being led.

"Did you tell him you were coming for us?" Peter asked quietly. Figwelda shook her head.

"Nah. Midgie just said 'you're in so much trouble. I swear you'll regret this', then suddenly she runs off, comes bowling down the carriage and pulls up at your door."

"He's gonna regret it, alright," Sirius chirped. "No one insults a girl! Especially friends of the Marauders!"

Midgeon drew to a halt. There was the sound of a compartment door opening, and she turned to the person inside.

"Hello Severus, would you like to regret it now?"

"Oh please."

"Boys," Midgeon invited triumphantly, and the Marauders filed into the compartment. Severus Snape was a Slytherin. He was tall and gangly, hardly what anyone would call by any means attractive with lanky strands of hair bunched into oily clumps that looked, having been meticulously combed, like runny rivulets of tar. He glared fiercely at the four boys as they seated themselves opposite him, James crossing his arms and the others following suit. The girls moved back from the door. For a while no one said anything, though Sirius twiddled his wand on his fingertips, the tip emitting blue sparks and pops. Eventually James nodded, as if accepting something someone had just said to him. 

"Mudblood," he recalled as if repeating the word being said only seconds before. "Nice thing to call a harmless girl."

Severus glared.

"Now we're a lot of things," Sirius began, twirling the wand faster. "We're troublemakers, jokers, occasionally rude… but there are some things we're not."

"We're not slimy, greasy haired pigs," Peter added, "Who look (and smell) like we've taken a dip in something that went bad in Potions."

"And we're not vulgar, impolite and uncultured gits," Remus finished. It seemed almost rehearsed, with the ease each spoke off the other.

"And as such," James began on a new thread, "We have things we tolerate and don't tolerate."

"We tolerate mischief of any make or form. And lots of candy," Sirius added as a post-thought. Peter agreed.

"We can take a joke on us; we take what we give and give what we get."

"But we don't tolerate people who go around insulting, with such uncouth language, our friends, or anyone else for that matter."

"And furthermore," James finished, "It has been brought to our attention that someone in this compartment happened to mortally hurt the feelings of a friend of ours. Now considering that you, sir, are unaccompanied…"

"Because you have no friends, you loser," Sirius threw in.

"…Then we will assume that you're the one to blame. Did you, Severus, call Lily Evans a Mudblood?"

"So what if I did?" he said at last. "She is, isn't she? What's it to you four halfwits if I did anyway?"

SNAP!

With a crack and a flash, a wand went off. When the smoke cleared, The Marauders were all on their feet, looking down at Severus who had slid off his chair. It was hard to tell what had happened to him. It seemed that he'd been hit by more than one hex. His wobbly legs seemed to be trying to dance dizzily fast, but he was in absolute fits of laughter. His wand was in one hand, but he was laughing too hard to get out the hex he himself was trying to utter. Sirius tipped an imaginary hat.

"Nice to meet you, Snape," he chirped, and headed out of the compartment in the lead of the other three, Peter looking down as he brought up the rear and saying:

"I hope you learned your lesson."

The girls clapped and escorted their heroes back to their own compartment amidst the stares of other students. As they sat back down, the girls cleared off, and the last person to leave was Figwelda, who stuck her head around the door.

"Nice job, boys."

"No problem, Figgy," Peter laughed, sitting back down. Figwelda grinned.

"She loves Achilles, by the way."

"Is that the black owl we bought her?" Remus asked, giving Sirius a discreet but purposeful glance.

"Yeah. Nice of you."

"Tell her thank you from us. She'll know why."

"Sure boys. And thank you."

With that she disappeared out of their compartment and vanished, and the rest of the trip passed in peace, accented by the far off hysterics of a certain Slytherin.