The Marauders' Years: Year One
Chapter Five
Newspaper Clippings, Return of the Purple Hamsters
Weeks went by with nothing-spectacular happening. September turned to October and Remus fell ill again. As November rolled around the Marauders had ceased their pastime of pulling pranks and taken up the new one of trying to guess what illness Remus might have, plus the occasional snowball fight. The days of November slipped by, unbeknownst to all but one the full moon drew closer and eventually all four marauders found themselves in the great hall for breakfast.
-
Remus coughed and then choked on the piece of toast he had been idly nibbling on while he read the Daily Prophet.
Peter was the first to notice, and leaned sideways to look over his friend's shoulder. "What's that, Remus?"
James and Sirius immediately stopped their discussion with Frank on whether or not there were merpeople in the lake, to look questioningly at Remus.
"This." Remus breathed, as he laid the Daily Prophet out flat for them to read.
All five of the first year Gryffindor boys angled themselves to read the front page. The article was labeled 'Deadly Omens Seen in Sky' and there, in the normal black and white moving photograph, was a picture of someone's home and above the home an ominous skull with a snake protruding from its mouth glowed menacingly.
Peter shivered at the sight of it. "What is it?"
"The work of dark witches and wizards thought to be supporting Voldemort." Remus read aloud, ignoring the slight shiver from everyone. "Here on out to not be called by his name. You-know-who's supporters, known as 'Death Eaters' have begun leaving this mark above the houses of people whom they have murdered. Many witches and wizards that are not murdered in the attacks by you-know-who are thought to have been put under one of the unforgivable curses, the Imperius curse. Everyone is urged to be careful of who the company they keep is. Muggles are being attacked left and right, leaving the ministry officials hard pressed to keep up. Bartemus Crouch, head of Magical Law Enforcement, has given his Aurors special permission to use unforgivable curses to 'Even the score.' Many agree with this, yet still many more question Crouch's judgment."
"Unforgivable curses?" Frank whispered, as if afraid to speak it too loudly. "We're no better than them..."
"Least we aren't murdering people." Sirius interjected shakily. "It's self-defense..."
The five boys sat in silence as Remus finished scanning the Daily Prophet and opened up the muggle newspaper he always had delivered.
"Muggles are noticing..." He muttered.
"Where? Read it." James demanded.
"Another unexplained murder has occurred today. Miss Penny Hallowfeather, the only witness, wasn't able to give the police much to go on. All she managed to say was something about 'wooden sticks and green lights'. The police are investigating a nearby magic shop, but without much hope of discovering the culprit without further evidence." Remus read obediently.
"Magic shop?" Sirius queried, looking perplexed. "Isn't that a Muggle newspaper though?"
Remus nodded. "Their magic is just illusions and tricks, not real."Sirius nodded and Peter attempted to look as if he understood.
"It's as if the world is ending outside of Hogwarts..." James murmured, staring at the two newspapers.
"Seems to me." Frank said slowly. "That Hogwarts is the last really safe place."
-
Every day afterward the five boys read aloud the different events that were happening in the magical and non-magical communities, events that were getting noticeably more terrible. Other students seemed to be reading up on it as well, and most couldn't decide whether to take their family's advice and stay at Hogwarts for Christmas, or to go home for the holidays to at least be with their relatives.
Lucius Malfoy, a seventh year Slytherin who was often seen in the company of either Snape, Crabbe, or Goyle, seemed to be one of the few who wasn't alarmed by the world's events.
"My family thinks he's at least got the right idea about Muggles." Malfoy drawled loudly at lunch.
"Seems to me." James muttered fiercely, "That it's high time the Marauders struck again."
His fellow Marauders nodded, shooting acid glares at the Slytherin table.
"What should we do to him?" Sirius asked, shooting another glance at the Slytherins.
"Poison the lot." James muttered back darkly.
Remus rolled his eyes heavenward in a plea for sanity. "We can't just poison them!"
"We could still tamper with the food..." Peter suggested.
"Genius!" Sirius announced, patting Peter on the back. "C'mon."
Sirius got up from the table and hurried out of the Great Hall. The other three were in shock for a moment, Peter rarely had ideas, much less good ones.
Shrugging at one another, the other three Marauders shook themselves of their surprise and pelted after Sirius.
-
By the time they had caught up to Sirius he had already opened the portrait that concealed the hidden entrance to the kitchens. The four trooped in and were immediately waited on by a house elf.
Sensing Sirius had some sort of plan cooked up James, Remus, and Peter distracted the elves by asking for everything they could think of. Several of the house elves, however, continued to watch Sirius closely as he edged toward the Slytherin's lunch table, which had yet to be put out.
"Tamper not with the food, you mustn't, Sir!" Squeaked one house elf, looking peeved.
James rushed to Sirius's aid in coming up with a suitable cover story. "You see... Errr...?"
"Watchy." The elf squeaked helpfully, though he still looked ticked off.
"Yeah... You see, errrrr...Watchy, Malfoy who's a Slytherin. He's up there talking about how he's going to trick you lot into picking up a piece of clothing, he's doing it for fun since this is his last year at Hogwarts."
Sirius grinned at James as the house elves began muttering mutinously.
"Who's he to be doing this to us poor house elves?" Squeaked one.
"Let us help you." Sirius urged with an evil grin. "We'll take care of Malfoy.... and Snape." He finished under his breath.
Reluctantly the house elves nodded their consent and cleared out from in front of the Slytherin table.
Sirius had on his most diabolical grin as he nodded at his fellow Marauders. "Let the fun begin."
-
"Well, it looks as if those boys have finally quit pulling pranks." Alice observed coming to this conclusion from the fact that the 'four marauders', as they were now known, had indeed stopped harassing people for the past week or so.
Lizz looked up from her transfiguration homework and added sagely, "No one can stay that immature forever."
"Watch out, Lizz!" Allysia yelped as Lizz's wand made contact with the transfiguration book causing it to burst into flames.
"Oops." Lizz smiled and put out the flames. "Never liked studying anyway."
Allysia and Lily shot Lizz disapproving glances, to them schoolwork was life.
"Another thing." Lily added, jumping into the conversation. "We can't pull counterattacks very well... Our prank was..."
"Lame?" Lizz suggested.
"Exactly."
"But it was effective." Alice interjected quickly.
"Effective if you mean getting a bigger prank pulled on me!" Lily retorted.
The four of them submersed themselves in this conversation for a while, until a voice was heard behind them.
"Plotting something?" Severus Snape questioned cooly.
"Mind your own business." Alice answered tartly.
"Not to be implying that you have any of your own." Lizz added.
"Or deserve any." Lily finished.
"And a mudblood does?"
Alice immediately stood up to face Snape as Lily flushed a bright crimson.
"And to think I've told Black to lay off tormenting you." Allysia hissed angrily as she too jumped out of her seat.
"If this is standard bully procedure of picking on those weaker than you." Lizz growled, clenching one fist and grabbing her wand with the other. "Then you have made quite a mistake."
"Is there a problem?"
The five of them turned to see the Slytherin head of house striding towards them. One Professor Hikage, notorious for being ruthless and bending school rules to benefit Slytherins.
"No, sir." Snape answered. "I was just leaving." With that said, he turned on his heel and strode off toward the Slytherin table.
"Wands away." The Slytherin House Head, Professor Hikage ordered, and then added with a note of happiness. "Five points from Gryffindor."
(JN: Heh... Guess where Snape gets his 'great' teaching skills? We live what we learn sometimes.)
Alice's mouth fell open and Lizz clenched her wand tightly.
"That's unfair, sir!" Allysia said hurriedly, "He insulted Lily!"
"Keep it up and you will all receive detentions." He said coldly before turning and walking back towards the staff table with a billow of his cloak.
The four girls glared daggers at the Professor's back for a moment before turning their gaze to the original cause of distress.
After watching Severus be congratulated by Lucius and his lackeys for a moment, Allysia spoke up thoughtfully. "You know.... I think Snape might have done that just to impress Malfoy...."
Whatever conversation this would have sparked to life was unknown, for at that very moment lunch appeared.
Most of the Slytherins immediately dug in and Alice was halfway through commenting to Lily on how horrendous their table manners were when, quite suddenly, the Slytherins who had eaten something… popped.
Not exploded, but popped.
Lily wasn't quite sure how to explain what had happened, even to herself. One minute the Slytherins were there, the next minute there was a loud 'Pop!' and the chairs they had been sitting in were enveloped in purple smoke.
The four girls, along with everyone else in the Great Hall, stared in rapt silence as the smoke started to clear. After it dissipated there sat before them the most hilarious thing they had ever laid eyes upon. In the chairs of the many Slytherins sat large, purple creatures of roughly the same size as the original Slytherins.
The creatures could only be described as large purple rodents, which suspiciously appeared to be hamsters. The Slytherins lucky enough to have not pigged out from the word go, were now staring at their peers with a look of absolute horror. It wasn't long before someone coughed in what was a recognizable attempt at hiding a giggle.
That was all it took, the Great Hall erupted in laughter and several students declared that, apparently, the four marauders had struck again.
-Jade-chan
