-Chapter 3-
-Before the Arrival is the Getting There-
"Come on Sirius!"
"I have to find a parking spot!" he called back to Maggie.
"Fine, but hurry so you don't miss the Express." Maggie turned to James, "I need to find Lily."
"I'll come with you." James confirmed.
They both looked about the landing, unsure of which direction which to start.
"How about we just get on the train."
"Why?"
"Because we will all want a compartment to ourselves." James snapped.
"Okay," Maggie grumbled. "Don't bite my head off."
They silently made their way through the muggle train station until they came to the last partition between platforms 9 and 10. James noticed a beautiful, very pregnant, and very redheaded mother hug her little redheaded boy, and send him off through the partition.
James noticed the tear that slipped from her cheek, when she turned to a young, skinny, redheaded man, he was trying to keep a (redheaded) seven year old under control. The child was running around playing with a toy dragon. The mother smiled at her husband and made a motion that it was time to leave. The father smiled and slipped and arm around his wife's waist and shouted to the energetic boy, "Come on Charlie! It's time to go home!" With that the family with flaming hair left the train station.
James and Maggie both realized they were still staring after the long gone family.
"I wonder who they were." Maggie half whispered.
"The Weasleys." Bellowed an unwelcoming and familiar voice.
James spun to see Baron and Lucius Malfoy.
"Hello Potter." Baron sneered.
James couldn't open his mouth or a stream of obscenities would flow forth. Obscenities that would make Maggie's curly hair straighten from root to tip. Maggie caught that James did not think fondly of the two young men that stood before them.
"I'm going to the train, Potter." She said warily.
"Fine with me." He was glad she was leaving so he could give the Malfoy boys a piece of his mind. Maggie slunk off under the piercing glare of Lucius Malfoy. She felt his eyes on her all the way through the magical barrier.
"Aw, poor Jamesey-Wamesey." Baron snickered. "Your girly friendly won't stick around."
"She is not my girl friend." James voice was dangerously close to yelling to the world what type of man was standing in front of him. Then James caught something Lucius said. Or at least it sounded like Lucius muttered "good" under his breath.
"Time for Hogwarts Lucius." Came the icy voice.
"Fine." Came the smaller version of the voice, with a slimier note to it.
James was watching them through the partition until he heard a sniffle behind him. He turned to reveal Lily Evans. He thought it was Lily Evans. Whoever it was, she was a lot shorter and, he blushed as he realized he noticed . . . she had grown up. She filled out her robes; they use to always be too large. Her eyes were filled with tears.
James couldn't understand what in the world she was crying about. He stood there like an idiot and just watched her as she ran past him to the partition. She hadn't noticed him, she was too sad. His heart wrenched as he watched her try to straighten up and collect herself, then start sobbing again. When she was gone from sight, James chastised himself for not doing anything.
"I am such an idiot." He quickly gathered up his stuff and didn't even notice that he just faced one of his worst fears, James hated running through the partition. But he had completely forgotten his own fears and was focusing on a particularly sad redhead he knew to be on the other side of that silly barrier.
He scanned the swarming crowd of witches and wizards. He saw Maggie pushing through the crowd and hopping onto the train . . .but no Lily. James felt a tap on his back and turned to reveal Sirius, Remus, and Peter.
"Why didn't you wait for us?" Sirius wondered.
"Prongs," Remus could tell something was wrong. "What's going on?"
"Lily just came through here crying and now I cannot find her."
"Lily Evans?" Sirius was curious why James cared so much. A smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"Yeah." James was searching the crowd again, not really listening to the other boys as they exchanged knowing glances and said they would help James look. They were still searching when a familiar screech reached James ears. Romeo came swooping in and landed on a nearby lamppost.
"Romeo!" the four boys chorused.
James opened Romeo's cage and Romeo settled right in. Then James had a thought, What if this isn't Romeo? What if it is Mint? James quickly studied the owl. Sure enough, it was Romeo; it had pale blue eyes, not green. After that was resolved James suggested that they go find the compartment Maggie was supposed to reserve. They fought through the crowd to the Hogwarts express.
While they were fighting they noticed a group of seventh years gathering around a Ravenclaw named Dedalus Diggle. He was making little stars and pinning them onto people's robes for three Knuts. To attract attention he was making a few of his 'stars' flying around people's heads. As Sirius walked past James heard him mutter, "show off" and glare at Deladus.
"He's going to get caught by muggles one day with his silly little tricks." Was the jealous comment Sirius made to James.
"Aw, come off it Padfoot," Remus remarked. "You're just mad because he's taking all of the attention off of you!"
The boys laughed and jumped aboard the train. The train's final whistle blew and the train began its long journey to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"I'll see you guys in a minute. Duty calls . . ." Remus said, and walked along to the prefect compartment.
The three remaining Marauders searched until they found the compartment Maggie had claimed as the Marauder's. There was a painting on the compartment door, it was the Gryffindor lion, and it held a Slytherin snake within its mouth. The eagle and the badger were rolling on the ground laughing at the sight of lion and snake. Then the lion would spit out the snake, the lion made a face that inferred the snake tasted bad, and the picture would start over again, lion picking up the snake and eagle and badger laughing hysterically. That painting had marked their compartment since James's second year of Hogwarts.
James said the spell to wipe clean the painting and entered the compartment. It was empty except for Maggie and Lily. Both were quite calm and Lily didn't even look like she had been crying. Maggie and Lily stopped their giggling to look (Maggie) and glare (Lily) up at the intruders.
"Can we help you?" came the calm question from the girls.
"Yeah!" came Sirius's reply. "This is our compartment. So you can see yourselves out."
The girls stood up in unison and glared at the boys. All three boys backed up slightly, unsure of what the girls would do. Then the girls shouted,
"BOO!"
The boys yelled their heads off and the girls doubled over laughing. Then the boys turned scarlet and began to laugh too. After they were completely laughed out they all breathlessly collapsed on the seats of the compartment. Remus walked back in, staring at them like they were nutters. He told them so. They broke into laughter again.
"What a fun year this will be!" James exclaimed. 'Maybe I'll finally have my chance!'
"Especially with us making the You-Know-What of the You-Know-Where!"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Asked Lily, a little ticked off that the guys were still not leaving.
"Nothing!" Came the reply from the sneaky four.
"Yeah right!" exclaimed Maggie. "You guys will have to tell us some time! Why not now?"
"Yeah?' asked Remus. "Why don't we just tell them now?"
"Because." James gave Remus a very meaningful glance and shook his head.
Lily and Maggie both shook their heads and sighed "Boys."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Then a young, plump witch pushing a food cart knocked on the door.
"Do you want anything off the cart?"
The students studied her, and were wondering why she had come. She was supposed to be by later. Much later. Then they realized this was someone new pushing the cart.
"Where is the other lady that used to push the cart?
"Well, she -sniff-- passed away this summer." They noticed a tear fall from the young lady's blue eyes. "She was my grandmother."
"Oh! I am so sorry!" exclaimed Lily.
"Can I give you a tip?" came Maggie's voice.
"Sure." The woman's face lit up at the thought of help.
"You might want to come later in the train ride." Was Maggie's suggestion. "If you come, say, around one o'clock. More people will be hungry and will want to buy your snacks." Maggie shared a smile with the woman and bought some items for later.
When she left everyone had something, except for James, who had no money.
"Prongs," Remus said through a full mouth. "Why did you not buy anything?"
"I'm not hungry." Came the lame reply.
He received a look from all eyes that said "Yeah right! James Potter not hungry?"
"Fine! I don't have any money!"
He pulled his pockets inside out and the small bag Poppy had given him fell to the floor.
"What's that?" Peter wanted to know.
Then James remembered and began pulling candy from the bag, and he pulled out more candy. Then he pulled out more candy. Then he pulled forth from the magical sack his lunch. All mouths were dropped, a few of them exposing food. Lily quickly shut hers and began deciding what she wanted to eat first. She reached out for a chocolate frog, when James slapped her hand.
"Ouch!" she cried. Her temper began to rise, 'Who does he think he is!?'
"What do you say?" he asked, he was waving the coveted frog in the air before her.
She raised her eyebrow and said, "Please?"
He dropped the frog and she grabbed it before it could hit the floor. They all laughed and reached for some of James's candy that they wanted for themselves. He made them each, in turn, say 'Please' for anything they took.
After saying 'Please' a number of times Lily was full from eating all the food and candy. She laid a hand on her full stomach and let forth a contented sigh. She studied the other students though her almost asleep eyes.
She didn't know Peter that well, but his mousy hair was slicked back this year. It was a nice change from last year's unarranged-in-any-way look. His watery-blue eyes were darting around the compartment, undoubtedly looking for unguarded candy. He was allowed in the group because the other kids picked on him. He clung to James and Sirius because he needed protection.
Lily studied Remus's sleepy eyes and brown hair. If Lily didn't know that Remus was only sixteen she would have guessed that he had some silver hairs poking though his messy hair. His hair had always had a silver sheen to it, and everyone was created differently, so it wasn't Lily's place to criticize its color. She watched as his gray eyes at last succumbed to sleep.
Her gaze shifted to Sirius who was noisily digging through a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and Lily laughed to herself as he spit one out and exclaimed, "Oak Tree!" His black eyes were shining as he bravely picked out another and found a more satisfying "Mint Chocolate" flavor. Whenever Sirius was happy, excited, or mad about something his short black hair seemed to stand on end more than usual.
Maggie who was trying to catch her Chocolate Frog caught Lily's attention then. It jumped from her grasp and onto the window, which it proceeded to climb up and then jumped out. Maggie sighed and pulled out her card. Her blue eyes lit up and she flipped her brown hair from her eyes as she looked at the card before her.
She waved the card under James Potter's nose. His hazel eyes also lit up and he tried to grab the card from her. She forced him to say 'Please' and she handed over the card. He ran a hand through his tousled black hair and smiled. His smiles lit up his entire face. James looked up and locked eyes with Lily as she closed her green ones and fell asleep.
James liked Lily, a lot. He always seemed to do the wrong things to impress her. If she only knew how often he thought about her auburn hair and beautiful green eyes . . . He decided to think about it later, and watched everyone one by one fall asleep. It was definitely contagious, because soon James Potter was being shaken awake by Sirius who was telling him that if they didn't dress in their robes now, they would enter their beloved school looking like muggles. James hopped up and relaxed once he saw Sirius already had his robes ready for him to change into.
"Thanks." James mumbled, still not fully awake.
"No problem! The voice only now came on telling everyone to get ready for arrival."
"Man, we slept the whole way to Hogwarts!" James exclaimed pulling the robes on over his head.
"Yeah I know." Sirius had a smirk growing on his handsome features.
"What?"
"Well- uh- you were sound asleep I guess, so you didn't notice it . . ."
"What Sirius?" James was starting to worry. Sirius rarely smirked . . .
"Lily fell into your lap while you were sleeping. She slept there this entire time. Didn't you know?" Sirius asked, a full-blown smirk enveloping his face.
"You're joking!" James's hazel eyes lit up with surprise. "What did she do?"
"Sorry, Prongs. That's classified info!"
James was flabbergasted and was about to knock Sirius over when . . .
"WE HAVE NOW ARRIVED AT HOGWARTS. PLEASE LEAVE YOUR BELONGINGS ON THE TRAIN AND THEY WILL BE BROUGHT TO YOUR DORMITORIES. THANK YOU."
"Why in the world was that so bloomin' loud!?" James yelled.
Remus laughed and pulled James off the train (and away from beating up his best friend) with Sirius and Peter in tow.
Yes, Remus thought, another year of Hogwarts fun.
(End Chapter 3)
(For Sam, my brother, who badgered me into reading the HP series.)
-Before the Arrival is the Getting There-
"Come on Sirius!"
"I have to find a parking spot!" he called back to Maggie.
"Fine, but hurry so you don't miss the Express." Maggie turned to James, "I need to find Lily."
"I'll come with you." James confirmed.
They both looked about the landing, unsure of which direction which to start.
"How about we just get on the train."
"Why?"
"Because we will all want a compartment to ourselves." James snapped.
"Okay," Maggie grumbled. "Don't bite my head off."
They silently made their way through the muggle train station until they came to the last partition between platforms 9 and 10. James noticed a beautiful, very pregnant, and very redheaded mother hug her little redheaded boy, and send him off through the partition.
James noticed the tear that slipped from her cheek, when she turned to a young, skinny, redheaded man, he was trying to keep a (redheaded) seven year old under control. The child was running around playing with a toy dragon. The mother smiled at her husband and made a motion that it was time to leave. The father smiled and slipped and arm around his wife's waist and shouted to the energetic boy, "Come on Charlie! It's time to go home!" With that the family with flaming hair left the train station.
James and Maggie both realized they were still staring after the long gone family.
"I wonder who they were." Maggie half whispered.
"The Weasleys." Bellowed an unwelcoming and familiar voice.
James spun to see Baron and Lucius Malfoy.
"Hello Potter." Baron sneered.
James couldn't open his mouth or a stream of obscenities would flow forth. Obscenities that would make Maggie's curly hair straighten from root to tip. Maggie caught that James did not think fondly of the two young men that stood before them.
"I'm going to the train, Potter." She said warily.
"Fine with me." He was glad she was leaving so he could give the Malfoy boys a piece of his mind. Maggie slunk off under the piercing glare of Lucius Malfoy. She felt his eyes on her all the way through the magical barrier.
"Aw, poor Jamesey-Wamesey." Baron snickered. "Your girly friendly won't stick around."
"She is not my girl friend." James voice was dangerously close to yelling to the world what type of man was standing in front of him. Then James caught something Lucius said. Or at least it sounded like Lucius muttered "good" under his breath.
"Time for Hogwarts Lucius." Came the icy voice.
"Fine." Came the smaller version of the voice, with a slimier note to it.
James was watching them through the partition until he heard a sniffle behind him. He turned to reveal Lily Evans. He thought it was Lily Evans. Whoever it was, she was a lot shorter and, he blushed as he realized he noticed . . . she had grown up. She filled out her robes; they use to always be too large. Her eyes were filled with tears.
James couldn't understand what in the world she was crying about. He stood there like an idiot and just watched her as she ran past him to the partition. She hadn't noticed him, she was too sad. His heart wrenched as he watched her try to straighten up and collect herself, then start sobbing again. When she was gone from sight, James chastised himself for not doing anything.
"I am such an idiot." He quickly gathered up his stuff and didn't even notice that he just faced one of his worst fears, James hated running through the partition. But he had completely forgotten his own fears and was focusing on a particularly sad redhead he knew to be on the other side of that silly barrier.
He scanned the swarming crowd of witches and wizards. He saw Maggie pushing through the crowd and hopping onto the train . . .but no Lily. James felt a tap on his back and turned to reveal Sirius, Remus, and Peter.
"Why didn't you wait for us?" Sirius wondered.
"Prongs," Remus could tell something was wrong. "What's going on?"
"Lily just came through here crying and now I cannot find her."
"Lily Evans?" Sirius was curious why James cared so much. A smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"Yeah." James was searching the crowd again, not really listening to the other boys as they exchanged knowing glances and said they would help James look. They were still searching when a familiar screech reached James ears. Romeo came swooping in and landed on a nearby lamppost.
"Romeo!" the four boys chorused.
James opened Romeo's cage and Romeo settled right in. Then James had a thought, What if this isn't Romeo? What if it is Mint? James quickly studied the owl. Sure enough, it was Romeo; it had pale blue eyes, not green. After that was resolved James suggested that they go find the compartment Maggie was supposed to reserve. They fought through the crowd to the Hogwarts express.
While they were fighting they noticed a group of seventh years gathering around a Ravenclaw named Dedalus Diggle. He was making little stars and pinning them onto people's robes for three Knuts. To attract attention he was making a few of his 'stars' flying around people's heads. As Sirius walked past James heard him mutter, "show off" and glare at Deladus.
"He's going to get caught by muggles one day with his silly little tricks." Was the jealous comment Sirius made to James.
"Aw, come off it Padfoot," Remus remarked. "You're just mad because he's taking all of the attention off of you!"
The boys laughed and jumped aboard the train. The train's final whistle blew and the train began its long journey to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"I'll see you guys in a minute. Duty calls . . ." Remus said, and walked along to the prefect compartment.
The three remaining Marauders searched until they found the compartment Maggie had claimed as the Marauder's. There was a painting on the compartment door, it was the Gryffindor lion, and it held a Slytherin snake within its mouth. The eagle and the badger were rolling on the ground laughing at the sight of lion and snake. Then the lion would spit out the snake, the lion made a face that inferred the snake tasted bad, and the picture would start over again, lion picking up the snake and eagle and badger laughing hysterically. That painting had marked their compartment since James's second year of Hogwarts.
James said the spell to wipe clean the painting and entered the compartment. It was empty except for Maggie and Lily. Both were quite calm and Lily didn't even look like she had been crying. Maggie and Lily stopped their giggling to look (Maggie) and glare (Lily) up at the intruders.
"Can we help you?" came the calm question from the girls.
"Yeah!" came Sirius's reply. "This is our compartment. So you can see yourselves out."
The girls stood up in unison and glared at the boys. All three boys backed up slightly, unsure of what the girls would do. Then the girls shouted,
"BOO!"
The boys yelled their heads off and the girls doubled over laughing. Then the boys turned scarlet and began to laugh too. After they were completely laughed out they all breathlessly collapsed on the seats of the compartment. Remus walked back in, staring at them like they were nutters. He told them so. They broke into laughter again.
"What a fun year this will be!" James exclaimed. 'Maybe I'll finally have my chance!'
"Especially with us making the You-Know-What of the You-Know-Where!"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Asked Lily, a little ticked off that the guys were still not leaving.
"Nothing!" Came the reply from the sneaky four.
"Yeah right!" exclaimed Maggie. "You guys will have to tell us some time! Why not now?"
"Yeah?' asked Remus. "Why don't we just tell them now?"
"Because." James gave Remus a very meaningful glance and shook his head.
Lily and Maggie both shook their heads and sighed "Boys."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Then a young, plump witch pushing a food cart knocked on the door.
"Do you want anything off the cart?"
The students studied her, and were wondering why she had come. She was supposed to be by later. Much later. Then they realized this was someone new pushing the cart.
"Where is the other lady that used to push the cart?
"Well, she -sniff-- passed away this summer." They noticed a tear fall from the young lady's blue eyes. "She was my grandmother."
"Oh! I am so sorry!" exclaimed Lily.
"Can I give you a tip?" came Maggie's voice.
"Sure." The woman's face lit up at the thought of help.
"You might want to come later in the train ride." Was Maggie's suggestion. "If you come, say, around one o'clock. More people will be hungry and will want to buy your snacks." Maggie shared a smile with the woman and bought some items for later.
When she left everyone had something, except for James, who had no money.
"Prongs," Remus said through a full mouth. "Why did you not buy anything?"
"I'm not hungry." Came the lame reply.
He received a look from all eyes that said "Yeah right! James Potter not hungry?"
"Fine! I don't have any money!"
He pulled his pockets inside out and the small bag Poppy had given him fell to the floor.
"What's that?" Peter wanted to know.
Then James remembered and began pulling candy from the bag, and he pulled out more candy. Then he pulled out more candy. Then he pulled forth from the magical sack his lunch. All mouths were dropped, a few of them exposing food. Lily quickly shut hers and began deciding what she wanted to eat first. She reached out for a chocolate frog, when James slapped her hand.
"Ouch!" she cried. Her temper began to rise, 'Who does he think he is!?'
"What do you say?" he asked, he was waving the coveted frog in the air before her.
She raised her eyebrow and said, "Please?"
He dropped the frog and she grabbed it before it could hit the floor. They all laughed and reached for some of James's candy that they wanted for themselves. He made them each, in turn, say 'Please' for anything they took.
After saying 'Please' a number of times Lily was full from eating all the food and candy. She laid a hand on her full stomach and let forth a contented sigh. She studied the other students though her almost asleep eyes.
She didn't know Peter that well, but his mousy hair was slicked back this year. It was a nice change from last year's unarranged-in-any-way look. His watery-blue eyes were darting around the compartment, undoubtedly looking for unguarded candy. He was allowed in the group because the other kids picked on him. He clung to James and Sirius because he needed protection.
Lily studied Remus's sleepy eyes and brown hair. If Lily didn't know that Remus was only sixteen she would have guessed that he had some silver hairs poking though his messy hair. His hair had always had a silver sheen to it, and everyone was created differently, so it wasn't Lily's place to criticize its color. She watched as his gray eyes at last succumbed to sleep.
Her gaze shifted to Sirius who was noisily digging through a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and Lily laughed to herself as he spit one out and exclaimed, "Oak Tree!" His black eyes were shining as he bravely picked out another and found a more satisfying "Mint Chocolate" flavor. Whenever Sirius was happy, excited, or mad about something his short black hair seemed to stand on end more than usual.
Maggie who was trying to catch her Chocolate Frog caught Lily's attention then. It jumped from her grasp and onto the window, which it proceeded to climb up and then jumped out. Maggie sighed and pulled out her card. Her blue eyes lit up and she flipped her brown hair from her eyes as she looked at the card before her.
She waved the card under James Potter's nose. His hazel eyes also lit up and he tried to grab the card from her. She forced him to say 'Please' and she handed over the card. He ran a hand through his tousled black hair and smiled. His smiles lit up his entire face. James looked up and locked eyes with Lily as she closed her green ones and fell asleep.
James liked Lily, a lot. He always seemed to do the wrong things to impress her. If she only knew how often he thought about her auburn hair and beautiful green eyes . . . He decided to think about it later, and watched everyone one by one fall asleep. It was definitely contagious, because soon James Potter was being shaken awake by Sirius who was telling him that if they didn't dress in their robes now, they would enter their beloved school looking like muggles. James hopped up and relaxed once he saw Sirius already had his robes ready for him to change into.
"Thanks." James mumbled, still not fully awake.
"No problem! The voice only now came on telling everyone to get ready for arrival."
"Man, we slept the whole way to Hogwarts!" James exclaimed pulling the robes on over his head.
"Yeah I know." Sirius had a smirk growing on his handsome features.
"What?"
"Well- uh- you were sound asleep I guess, so you didn't notice it . . ."
"What Sirius?" James was starting to worry. Sirius rarely smirked . . .
"Lily fell into your lap while you were sleeping. She slept there this entire time. Didn't you know?" Sirius asked, a full-blown smirk enveloping his face.
"You're joking!" James's hazel eyes lit up with surprise. "What did she do?"
"Sorry, Prongs. That's classified info!"
James was flabbergasted and was about to knock Sirius over when . . .
"WE HAVE NOW ARRIVED AT HOGWARTS. PLEASE LEAVE YOUR BELONGINGS ON THE TRAIN AND THEY WILL BE BROUGHT TO YOUR DORMITORIES. THANK YOU."
"Why in the world was that so bloomin' loud!?" James yelled.
Remus laughed and pulled James off the train (and away from beating up his best friend) with Sirius and Peter in tow.
Yes, Remus thought, another year of Hogwarts fun.
(End Chapter 3)
(For Sam, my brother, who badgered me into reading the HP series.)
