The Marauders' Years: Year One
Chapter 3
Strange happenings
The weeks went by quickly for everyone in the first year boys' dorm; especially so for James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus who had made a notorious name for themselves pulling pranks on students and teachers alike. They had even gotten an actual name for their group from Lily's bunch when they called them, while trying to think up a word to describe just how terrible they were, 'Marauders.' The rest of what they said most likely wouldn't be fit to write...
-
Sirius wandered down from the boys' dorm and into the seemingly deserted common room, not many Gryffindors were up and about in the dead of night. Sirius, however, thrived at being up that late. After all, the best time for setting up his newest masterpiece of a prank was when every sane person was asleep in bed.
"Anyone about?" Sirius queried, already knowing the answer.
"Oy, over hear!" James motioned from by the fireplace for his friend to come and join him.
Sirius wound his way around the normal obstacles in the room, which included the armchairs, tables, forgotten book-bags, empty peanut butter jars from the students with pet rats, and the occasional sleeping cat.
Apparently the house elves had yet to make their rounds.
When he finally made it to the fireplace, the only lit area of the room, he noticed that Peter had already arrived there before him. Usually Peter managed to get close to their meeting spots then he would always get sidetracked and forget what he was doing or get lost. Sirius thought it an amazing feat to get lost in the common room.
"Is Remus coming?" Peter asked hopefully remembering how Remus had suddenly fell ill yesterday and was talking about going to the hospital wing in the morning.
Sirius shook his head. "Nope, he was asleep. I didn't even ask him, he didn't look too well."
"Too bad." James said, "It's a shame he had to get sick his first month at Hogwarts."
The other two boys nodded sadly, the thrill of terrorizing Hogwarts having somewhat lessened after their brief conversation.
"Why don't we stay in the common room tonight?" Peter suggested. "I don't feel much like going out with Remus sick."
"Sure, we can work on our map." Sirius agreed, pulling out a piece of parchment with carefully drawn lines on part of the page. James and Peter crowded around eagerly, the map they were drawing up had been their idea to help Peter keep from getting lost and had been proven to be quite useful to that effect.
Unfortunately, they only had a tenth of the castle drawn and labeled.
The three worked on the map, occasionally one of them slipping out of the common room, despite their earlier agreement, to determine the exact location of a room. Several hours later they rolled up the piece parchment, preparing to head off to bed to get some sleep.
-
"What were you doing out of bed at this hour!?" McGonagall's voice floated through from the other side of the fat lady's portrait arresting the three's progress toward their room.
"Someone out of bed?" James asked to neither of the boys in particular.
"Without us?!" Sirius questioned, looking horrified and indignant at the thought of missing out on something.
"Least it's them and not us getting caught by the Professor." Peter added sagely.
"Point accepted." James and Sirius chorused as McGonagall came into the common room with a very worried looking Alice in tow.
"Alice?!"
Sirius's mouth had fallen open; she had been one of the ones he'd least suspect of sneaking out. Alice was right up there with Lily Evans on not breaking school rules.
"And why, might I dare to ask, are you three out of bed?" McGonagall asked, her nostrils flaring.
"Errrrrr..."
"Homework." James answered quickly, cutting off Peter's attempt at answering. "We were doing all of our homework for this week so we could go with Remus to the hospital wing."
Peter and Sirius pretended this story wasn't at all new to them and quickly nodded to back up his story.
"Fine, but you shouldn't stay up too late, boys. Alice, I'll see you in my office tomorrow to decide on a proper detention." McGonagall said, then she turned and walked out the same way she had come.
"What was that about?" James asked, directing his question at Alice as soon as their head of house was out of earshot.
"I-I-I.... D-dunno." Alice said shakily, "I don't remember even c-coming down here."
Sirius raised an eyebrow at his fellow marauders as Alice, seeming to suddenly remember something, raced up to her dorm looking terrified. James shrugged as the sound of Lily and her friends' surprised voices drifted down before Alice shut the door. They were definitely going to question either Alice or her companions tomorrow.
-
"She said she saw something really strange." Allysia told the three of them the next day at breakfast.
The boys hadn't managed to get Lily to say anything in the common room so Sirius, James, and Peter (Remus had already gone to see Madam Pomfrey) had asked her friends Allysia and Lizz.
"Some sort of small child." Lizz added in her usual tone of careless boredom as she carefully chose a piece of toast from a platter. "It must have been something evil."
"Why do you say that?" Peter asked looking terrified at the mere mentioning of something that scary possibly existing.
"Well, she doesn't remember going downstairs or anything." Allysia said. "She only remembers suddenly feeling really afraid, so she opened her eyes thinking she was still in bed having a nightmare or something, and she found herself in the middle of a hallway."
"With that creature before her." Lizz finished.
"What'd she do?" James asked curiously.
"Ran." Lizz stated simply as she stood up and grabbed her book bag. "That's enough of this talk. We're late."
Allysia nodded and retrieved her things, and with a final wave to the Marauders they were gone.
"Well that was odd." James said after a few minutes of silence.
"Lizz is always like that." Sirius said as he inspected his food, suspicious of being poisoned by one of the girls (Who he now suspected still weren't over that dunk in the lake.) while he was distracted by the story.
"Not her." James said, irritated by his friend's lack of attention to the subject. "That stuff about Alice!"
"We should stay in the common room at night." Peter piped in. "It'd be safer."
Sirius ignored Peter's suggestion and nabbed a few pieces of toast that he'd deemed safe to eat before jumping to a completely unrelated topic. "Let's hurry up and go to class so we can visit the hospital wing."
-
Peter hadn't been in the hospital wing yet, but Sirius and James had already been there due to their early swim in the lake.
Madam Pomfrey bustled up to them, her arms full of bandages and other things.
"Mr. Lupin is over there." She said in way of greeting, inclining her head towards the other side of the hospital wing.
The three walked over to the area she had directed taking in the startling cleanliness of the hospital wing.
Sirius blinked as he took in the sights. The walls were white, the ceiling was white, even the floor was white! It was just unnatural it was far too clean.
"Remmy, you look worse than normal!" Sirius announced cheerfully, shoving his thoughts aside as he dumped the homework Remus had missed getting in class that day onto the bed.
"Gee, thanks, Sirius." Remus replied sarcastically, retrieving the books and stacking them neatly on his bedside table.
James dragged a few chairs over and sat on one, before turning to talk to Remus who looked paler then normal and definitely ill. "How long are you in for?"
"I have to stay the night, Madam Pomfrey said I might be able the get back to school the day after tomorrow..." Remus answered.
"Two days?" Peter asked, turning away from staring at the various items in the hospital wing to stare wide-eyed at Remus.
Remus nodded affirmation.
"That's ridiculous!" James said.
"Complete nonsense!" Sirius agreed. Then, in an undertone, he added, "Want us to break you out? We've got Defense Against the Dark Arts tomorrow first thing. We're still doing Boggarts because half the class is still afraid of them. I know you don't want to miss getting a turn at facing one."
"No, it's all right guys. I think I'll stay here." Remus said hurriedly as Madam Pomfrey walked over.
"Visiting time is up, off to class now if you will." She said, hurrying them towards the door.
"I'll be fine." Remus reassured as he waved good-bye. "Just remember to take notes for once!" He yelled as Madam Pomfrey closed the door firmly in the other three's faces before they could protest.
-
"That was strange." Said James later that night in their dorm room.
"Specify." Sirius muttered as he placed the last card on top of his card tower.
"Eh, look out Sirius."
Sirius swore as the entire deck blew up in his face, charring his eyebrows considerably.
"Told you to look out." James reminded. "Anyway, Remus looked a little scared when we visited him."
"Scared?" Asked Peter from his position on the windowsill.
"Yeah." James continued now that both of the other boys were paying attention, which was quite a feat due to their short attention spans.
"He's not that sick.... is he?" Sirius questioned a note of worry creeping into his voice.
James shook his head. "He acted like he didn't want us hanging around.... But I wonder why he wouldn't?"
"Who knows?" Peter shrugged, going back to gazing out the window. "Full moon tonight. Look how big it is..."
Jade's Note:
-Randomly disclaims everything not owned.-
