The Marauders' Years: Year One
Chapter Four
The Nightmares Begin
James didn't sleep well the following night, despite having went with Peter and Sirius to check on Remus after lunch and finding him to be getting better.... sort of. Madam Pomfrey hadn't allowed them to stay long, saying that Remus needed rest.
Finally, after sitting on his four-poster bed for a while longer mulling over Remus's sudden illness, James fell asleep.
-
Sirius blinked blearily as James got out of bed and made his way stiffly out of the dorm. "Where're s'ya goin'?" He managed to mumble groggily after his best friend.
Sirius waited a few moments for an answer that didn't come before yawning, turning over, and going back to sleep.
-
James continued down the stairs and out through the portrait hole, he didn't bother shutting the portrait quietly or moving stealthily through the corridors as he usually did, but instead continued walking in the same stiff fashion as he had been doing when he left the dorm room. He continued down the halls for several minutes, going through secret passages and taking shortcuts to get to the dungeon hallways as quickly as possible. He passed by a portrait of fruit in a bowl, (which, last week, Sirius had discovered led to the kitchens.) and stopped in front of a suit of armor.
Nothing moved for several minutes.
"Do you know the Password?" The armor asked, banging its visor up and down noisily with each syllable.
"Dadrimé." James said, in a voice that wasn't quite his own.
Slowly and with difficulty the armor moved aside. James walked down the newly revealed passageway, sliding down a steep drop and exiting the hidden passage into the dungeons.
A small, ghostly-pale girl with a wide brimmed hat perched on her head stood before James. She didn't say a word, but only raised one small hand, beckoning him closer.
"Jaaaaaaammmmmmmmmeeeees!"
The girl retracted her hand, whipped around, and vanished down the corridor.
James stood there for a moment before the sound of his name being called again made him blink away the curiously glazed look in his eyes.
-
"What on earth do you think you were doing?" McGonagall asked angrily. Both James and Sirius were sitting in her office.
"I… I don't know, Professor." James whispered, focusing on his shoes rather than look the angry Professor in the eye.
McGonagall was taken aback for a moment; James Potter usually had a witty response to every question a teacher asked. Sirius too was staring at James, he had been the one calling him, and his yells had alerted Filch and McGonagall to their being out of bed.
"What do you mean?" She asked in a slightly softer tone, the look in his eyes matched the look in Alice Blanchester's eyes when she had been caught out of bed. A mingled look of confusion and fear of something unknown.
James ran his hand through his hair, a nervous as well as intentional habit, and told all he could remember, which didn't amount to much. Only finally falling asleep after being awake half the night and having an odd dream that he couldn't remember, then waking up to see Sirius tearing down the hall towards him. Sirius added in that he had seen someone... or something in the hallway with James.
McGonagall looked unnerved at this information. Someone luring students out of bed? This could be serious… "Argus will take you two back to your common room and will have his cat make sure no one else wanders out of Gryffindor tower and into the halls while they're asleep. I must go speak with the headmaster."
-
James yawned widely the next night, more than a little tired. No official announcements had been given to the students, the teachers didn't seem to have an explanation on the odd occurrence that had happened to both Alice and he. Thankfully, the morning after James's unintentional stroll through the castle was the beginning of the weekend, which meant no school.
Despite wishing to nod off to sleep, James dutifully stayed up with Sirius and Peter (All of whom were camped out on Remus's four poster) in the hopes that Madam Pomfrey had finally allowed Remus to leave the hospital wing. The three sat in silence for a long while, Peter and James struggling to stay awake. Slowly they nodded off and Sirius watched with amusement as they both dropped sideways, hitting their heads together like in a cartoon.
Before too long the boys heard the telltale sound of footsteps on the stone stairs and the light of what they guessed was a candle. Remus walked into the room, yawning in much the same way James had. In his hand was a small blue flame, which he had used to find his way in the dark. The three Marauders started to greet the last member of their group, but were cut off as Remus shoved them all promptly off of his bed and onto the floor before extinguishing the flame, curling up in his bed, and drifting off to sleep. Sirius, James, and Peter stared at one another, trying to decide whether or not to be offended.
"Guess it goes to show you." Sirius whispered after a long moment of silence. "You should never get between Remmy and a place to sleep."
James and Peter snickered appreciatively at that comment and then the three of them made their ways to their own beds and soon followed Remus's example of drifting off.
-
The next morning James and Peter awoke to find Remus sitting on his bed wide-awake and reading a muggle newspaper.
"Morning all." He greeted from behind the paper. "Should I wake Sirius up, or do we value our lives?"
James grinned at the normal morning banter that hadn't been going on for the few days Remus was ill.
Remus, having eventually caught on to the jokes of him being dangerous to awaken, took great joy in proving that Sirius was just as dangerous to wake up. (In the morning hours, that is, after midday and until four in the morning it was perfectly safe to wake Sirius up.)
"It's on your head." James answered cheerfully.
Peter quickly arranged his pillows in a makeshift barrier as Remus, calm as could be, pointed his wand at the sleeping Sirius and muttered a spell.
Sirius let out a yell that frightened several people in the common room as a jet of icy cold water sprayed his face. Remus quickly ducked behind his bed as Sirius, angrily shoving his sopping black hair out of his eyes, started throwing everything he could pick up at the other three boys in hopes of hitting his assailant.
James dodged a pillow that slammed into the wall and dived behind his own bed as a wizard alarm clock crashed into one of the posts of his four-poster.
Remus waited for several minutes after it became quiet before he chanced a peek, only to find Sirius happily snoozing. James popped up from behind his own bed and suppressed a snicker. Waking Sirius on a weekend was one of those tasks that should be labeled, not impossible, but highly improbable.
-
The three boys who were awake made their way down to the common room, careful not to disturb Sirius again since he still had a handy supply of objects to throw at them.
James collapsed into the armchair nearest the fire, and ignored the death glares being sent his way by Lily who still hadn't forgotten about the fake diary.
('Say she had a crush on him would he? Ooh, she'd get even with him for that one, oh yes. And he'd rue the day he ever annoyed Lily Evans!')
"Shouldn't have tried waking him up so early." James laughed, more or less completely unaware of his doom being plotted no more than three armchairs away.
Remus shrugged as he and Peter dragged chairs closer to the fire. "It was worth a shot."
"Is that the Daily Prophet?" Peter asked curiously as he eyed the newspaper Remus still held in his hand.
James also looked at the paper, tilting his head sideways to read the title.
"Nope." Remus answered, angling the paper where the two could read it easily. "It's a Muggle paper."
James stared at the paper in Remus's hand before asking, "What on earth do you need a Muggle paper for, Remmy? They hardly know what's actually going on."
Peter nodded his agreement, "My mum hasn't even seen so much as a Muggle pencil, and her sister is married to a Muggle... I think. We don't see her often."
Remus rolled his eyes, "They aren't completely ignorant you know, they know more than they're given credit for. I used to live in a small Muggle community."
Both James and Peter stared at him in undisguised shock.
"You lived with Muggles?" James asked, wide-eyed.
"What was it like?" Peter questioned.
"Oh. I didn't live with them." Remus clarified quickly. "I lived near them. I lived with my mum... and my dad...." Remus looked a little downcast for a moment then brightened up. "If I remember correctly I had a neighbor who's parents were wizards. She was really nice, but she was always talking me into doing crazy stuff. Like launching a broom to the moon..."
"I'd like to meet her!" Sirius announced, rubbing his hands together gleefully as he walked down the stairs, startling everyone.
"You can't I'm afraid. I don't know where Molly is, my mum and I had to move." Remus muttered dejectedly.
"Ah, lost love!" Sirius bounded down the rest of the stairs, vaulted over an empty chair, and sat down in it.
"Shut it." Remus muttered, smacking Sirius with the large book on magical creatures he had checked out of the library. "Besides, I wouldn't want the two of you within a hundred miles of one another. The world would be doomed!"
"The pain!" Moaned Sirius, dropping to the floor in false agony. "Remus, you've killed me!"
Remus sighed in exasperation and passed the hefty volume to Peter and said, much to James's amusement, "Keep hitting him with that, will you?"
-Jade-chan
