The Fifth Marauder
By Alarun
Part 8
The rhythmic marching sounded like an echo through the Death Eaters' chests as they sat atop their black flying horses. The evil equines stood stock still with their necks arched, wings closed against their sides, red eyes blazing.
Voldemort felt that horses were a much more practical pedestal for warfare than the precarious racing brooms. Horses were a weapon in themselves, with more than a thousand pounds to swing around. Four steel hooves could pound anything into the dust, and strong teeth could rip arms out of their sockets.
The Dark Wizards sat silently in their flowing black robes, their faces hidden behind silver masks. Voldemort smiled at the muggle legion as they marched past for inspection.
They had no common uniform. Suits and dresses and denim and t-shirts, all uncared for because of the status of the muggle's minds. Their hair was messy, the men were unshaven, and they all stared ahead with unseeing eyes as they marched ahead in perfect formation.
* * *
"Professor Dumbledore, Sir?"
"Sir?"
"Are you alrigh', Sir?"
"Unnh, not so loud. What year is it?"
"Hangover?"
"Where am I?"
"Sir?"
"Shh!"
"Who are you?"
"Minerva McGonagall. Hogwarts class of 1927."
"I'm Albus Dumbledore, class of 1868."
"Wow, you're old."
"Not so loud."
"So who are you?"
"Rubeus Hagrid, 1952, Professor Dumbledore, Sir."
"Nice to meet you all. I think I need to go back to sleep, however. Good night."
"Good night, then."
"'Night, sir."
* * *
Fred and George finally stumbled into the Common room, to lie down on the couch and the chair, respectively, falling back into the dank pit of nauseated sleep.
They were, unfortunately, jerked awake again almost the instant they fell asleep.
Fred's eyes followed the fist that was gripping his collar, up the arm, to rest on the face of one Severus Snape. And he looked to be in a foul mood.
"The ingredients for the potion, if you would, Weasley," the Potions professor said through gritted teeth.
"I ---"
Sirius Black cut him off. "No need to play innocent, you know. We'll get the information one way or another. There isn't a professor at Hogwarts, remember? We can do pretty much anything we want and there's nobody to stop us."
"But ---"
"So maybe if you told us now, I would be able to intervene before Mr. Black here does something we're all going to regret."
Threats work wonders, Snape thought to himself as he wrote down the ingredients the Weasley twins had ingeniously put together. He looked at the scrawled list and recognized it to form the Adulescentia potion. The Youth potion.
Adulescentia: Latin; Youth.