Chapter 14: - The war begins
The following day the first year girls and Frank where using their Sunday afternoon to finish their homework for History of magic and Defence against the dark arts in the library. They had all decided that it would be a better idea to use the library then the Gryffindor common room as Amanda was still in a rage about the night before. The chaos that the girls had created was still being talked about and Lily suspected that it would be for several days. Professor McGonagall much to Lily's secret delight had given James another detention for disturbing the other students in the middle of the night, Sirius was even angrier at Miriam because there was now a rumour spreading around all the Gryffindor students that he wets the bed, and Peter following Remus' lead both refused to talk to any of the girls saying that it was a nasty cheap prank and that they shouldn't have done it.
Frank on the other hand had loved it but he only admitted it to Lily when he was sure that they where alone in the library. Miriam and Alice had gone off in search of a book they could use for their essay on 'The influences on twentieth century magic' while Amy and Dymphna was trying to persuade Madam Pince to allow them to borrow a few books.
Lily was watching Frank dipping his quill into her inkwell and then poised his hand over his clean parchment when a rush of feet made him jump and a large glob of black ink fell from the quills nib splattering his parchment,
"Great!!!" Frank whispered angrily, turning around Lily could see that the person who had rushed over to them was Alice,
"What's wrong?" Frank said immediately getting to his feet and rushing over to her,
"Miriam said you've both got to come quickly!" Alice said almost breathless, Lily and Frank followed Alice back the way she had come and they weaved in and out of the shelving into different aisle and categories,
"Just up there!" Alice said pointing in front of her,
"What where you and Miriam doing in this aisle" Lily asked looking at the books on the shelves all of them where to do with hexes, curses and jinxing, Lily didn't really need to ask Alice to know why Miriam had been in this aisle and not the history aisle.
They turned a corner and Lily could see Miriam standing close to the shelving in front of them, Miriam saw them coming and held a finger to her lips signalling them to be quiet, slowly trying not to make any noise Lily, Alice and Frank moved down the aisle towards Miriam, the reason why Miriam was leaning so close to the shelving, her head almost resting on the selves was immediately apparent has Lily, Alice and Frank moved closer to Miriam. Lily could hear Sirius Black's voice from the other side of the shelving, and by removing a thick volume of 'Ye olde curses' she, Alice and Frank where able to see them just like Miriam.
Sirius was standing at the end of one of the study tables, Remus like always had a huge pile of books in front of him, James was lounging with his feet on the table and Peter was perched on the edge of his chair looking from one boy to the other.
"Their just girls!" Sirius said, looking obviously hacked off.
"FIVE of them!!!" squeaked Peter "Against the four of us!"
"There's no contest" James said rubbing his hand over his chin as his face spread into a grin "We'll trounce them!"
"But there's more of them!" Peter squeaked trying to express his concern
"We need to think of something good, something that they wouldn't expect" Sirius continued, ignoring Peter,
"Failing that I'll settle for a really good jelly legs or bat bogie hex" James said twirling his wand around his fingers
"Yeah" they heard Sirius agree,
"Well ladies and gentlemen let the war begin!" Lily heard Miriam mutter.
"WAR!!!" Lily tried to shriek while still trying to whisper so it came out more like she was being strangled,
"Shss!" Miriam hissed dashing forwards in alarm covering Lily's mouth with her hand as she peered through the gaps in the books to see if Lily's outburst had disturbed the boys, it apparently hadn't because Miriam removed her hand from Lily's mouth smiling.
"War!" Lily whispered again trying to keep her voice low, but it was so hard to do so when she felt so enraged at her friend "Mi we're eleven years old and you're not an insane General commanding a mass of troops into battle!"
"Well I don't know about the insane part given the fact she's an Artemis," Frank said quietly trying not to laugh "But Lily's got a point Mi"
"Of course she's got a point" Miriam said smiling he face alight with mischief
"Please Mi" Lily said before Miriam could say anything else "Please put an end to this before it goes too far! You've gotten what you wanted, pulling one over on Sirius and James for what they did to Severus. Please stop this before it goes too far!" Miriam hung her head slightly looking slightly ashamed,
"Your right Lily, I know you are" Miriam sighed raising her head "Very well I'll stop it, we can live a nice normal boring school life of homework and Hug-and-Kiss bossing us around until she leaves at the end of the June after next!" she forced a smile,
"Thank you" Lily said patting Miriam on the arm and smiling too, she couldn't believe that it had worked that she had managed to persuade Miriam out off this ridiculous interyear rivalry between to the girls and boys. They turned and headed back to the table where they had left their homework,
"But I will have to retaliate if they do" Lily heard Miriam whisper behind her. Lily couldn't even be bothered to shake her head as Alice and Frank both smiled at Miriam, how could Lily have really thought that she'd gotten through to Miriam she was so bull-headed!
The 'War', was put on an unofficial ceasefire over the next few weeks has the first years were given more and more work, they spent most of their free evenings in the library in front of mounds and mounds of books. It annoyed Lily at how little Miriam would have to do to get the top grades in all of her classes, in history of magic Miriam always wrote the best essays without the use of any books, Remus Lupin was a very close second but it was obvious that he had used books as he was always found behind a large pile of books every evening in the common room.
But it wasn't just history of magic that Miriam was good at she excelled in all the lessons that the first years were taking, Lily often wondered if Miriam's eldest brother Thaddeus knew how intelligent his little sister was. And although Lily was slightly jealous of Miriam's talents Miriam had never once bragged about how well she was doing, but Lily wasn't doing too badly on the grade front either. All the Gryffindors where getting really good marks even Peter Pettigrew although Lily knew for a fact that the rest of the first year boys helped him with his homework and she had even seen Peter asking Miriam if he could copy her defence against the dark arts essay which to Lily's surprise Miriam had done, saying that it would be his own fault if Professor Viveridan found out.
October arrived bringing extremely cold winds and promising that soon there was too be snow, one Tuesday evening all the first years except Miriam where again sitting in the common room behind a pile of books and low burning candles and sheets of parchment. It was well after midnight and apart from the first years the common room was empty,
"I can't find him!" Miriam said sounding a little alarmed as she entered the common room from the girls dormitory,
"What?" Lily asked lifting her head up from her essay on astronomy which was due in the next day,
"Mac!" Miriam said becoming more worried "I've looked all over the tower and I can't find him!" Lily heard Sirius snigger,
"What have you done Black?!?" Miriam demanded, she had obviously heard him too,
"It's not nice to have someone pull a trick on you is it?" James said,
"What did you two do?" Frank and Remus said in unison, Remus looked very pale,
"Well he looked so lonely this morning" James said smiling as he stared at Miriam "And you've not had much time to play with the poor thing with all this work we've had to do"
"So we thought that Mrs Norris would like a friend" Sirius said smiling wickedly,
"You did what?!?" Miriam said her eyes widening in disbelief,
"How could you!" Lily squealed "He's only a baby, that monster will kill him!"
"You didn't?" Frank and Remus both asked in alarm,
"Where did you put him Black?" Miriam demanded pulling her wand out of her robes, "Where is he?"
"Don't like it when the shoes on the other foot do you Mi!" Sirius said still smiling,
"You're sick you do know that don't you!?!" Alice said looking from Sirius to her brother "How could you!"
"Fine!!!" James said "I'm not having you all thinking that Sirius and me are heartless thugs, we did after all put him in a very safe place,"
"Yeah don't worry about the fur ball Filch will probably find him before Mrs Norris does! After all he always checks this place first when he does his rounds"
"What!" Lily heard Miriam gasp behind her,
"Besides Filch loves cats, he has too, to like that thing he's got for a pet!" Sirius said laughing,
"If anything as happened to him!" Miriam yelled "I'll kill you Black I mean that, I really will kill you!" with that Miriam ran towards the portrait hole,
"Miriam!!!" Lily, Alice, Frank and Remus called after her, Lily pushed her chair back and dashed off across the common room followed by Alice and Frank, they reach the fat lady's portrait before it closed and they pushed it open again and climbed through the opening into the corridor,
"What are you all doing out of bed at this time of night" The fat lady said upon seeing them, but they just ignored her,
"Miriam!" Lily said running down the corridor after her and grabbing Miriam's arm "What are you doing? We can't go running around the castle in the middle of the night we'll get caught!"
"We'll be given detention and more points will be deducted, and we still haven't got any!" Alice said as she and Frank caught up with them.
"I don't give a damn about house points or detentions! I want Mac back and I'm going to find him, let go!" Miriam said this last part to Lily as she pulled her arm free from Lily's grasp, "If you three are so bothered about the rules then bugger off back to the common room, I'm off to find Mac!"
"That's below the belt" Frank said shaking his head "How can you even say that? Those two-" He looked at Lily and Alice "-where also involved in that prank you guys pulled on James and Sirius, their immune to rules just like you!"
Lily knew exactly what Frank was doing and he was completely right, they'd all broken the rules before just because they had wanted to prank the boys so why when Mac's life was in danger and their friend was in such obvious distress was she and Alice resisting now,
"Mi I'm sorry" Lily said "We'll help you look for Mac" Miriam smiled and hugged Lily,
"Thank you" she said her eyes slightly damp as though at any moment she was going to burst into tears.
'If anything happened to Mac before they found him' Lily thought 'She would help Miriam kill James and Sirius'.
Miriam had deduced from what the boys had said that the place they had hidden Mac was the trophy room, this was the place where Filch always started his rounds each night and was always the first place where he sent students on detention. It was very cold in the castle at night and Lily was beginning to wish she had changed into warmer clothes before they had come out, a scarf and gloves wouldn't have gone a miss in the freezing corridors, but as Lily listened to the chattering of Franks teeth she had a sickening feeling in her stomach that they probably wouldn't find the little kitten alive.
The four of them finally entered the trophy room, and although every student and teacher called it a room it was more like a very long corridor, on each side of the walls there where dozens of glass fronted cabinets, the walls where covered in plaques and moving pictures. Lily had never been in here before and neither had the others, the windows in the trophy room was very small and emitted hardly any light and the torches in the brackets on the walls where burning very low.
"Where do you think they would have put him?" Lily said keeping her voice in a whisper, Frank and Alice shrugged telling Lily that they had no idea what James and Sirius would have done,.
"Listen!" Miriam hissed, Lily could hear it too now that they where all standing still,
"What is it?" Alice asked moving closer to Frank, the noise was a sort of soft scratching sound but Lily didn't think that it sounded like a noise made by a kitten,
"Mac!" Miriam hissed moving forwards, "Mac!"
Lily wanted to grab Miriam and tell her to be quiet, the trophy room was very ghostly after dark and Lily could have sworn that the suits of Armour that where next to the cabinets turned their heads to follow the small group as they moved through the room.
The noise started to get louder and louder the closer they came and even Miriam had resided to the fact that MacMikelmouse wasn't making the noise. Miriam who had been leading the group suddenly stopped her arms held out to halt the others,
"What's the mat-" Frank began but he stopped as soon as he saw the reason Miriam had halted their progress, at the foot of a suit of armour half hidden by the armours shadow was a figure crouching low it's back facing them, the noise was being made by the person as he scraped something up and down the back of the armours feet where it joined the plinth. Lily was just about to suggest that they shouldn't hang around for this strange person to see them, when it was already too late, the person at the Suit of armour turned its head, facing them.
The following day the first year girls and Frank where using their Sunday afternoon to finish their homework for History of magic and Defence against the dark arts in the library. They had all decided that it would be a better idea to use the library then the Gryffindor common room as Amanda was still in a rage about the night before. The chaos that the girls had created was still being talked about and Lily suspected that it would be for several days. Professor McGonagall much to Lily's secret delight had given James another detention for disturbing the other students in the middle of the night, Sirius was even angrier at Miriam because there was now a rumour spreading around all the Gryffindor students that he wets the bed, and Peter following Remus' lead both refused to talk to any of the girls saying that it was a nasty cheap prank and that they shouldn't have done it.
Frank on the other hand had loved it but he only admitted it to Lily when he was sure that they where alone in the library. Miriam and Alice had gone off in search of a book they could use for their essay on 'The influences on twentieth century magic' while Amy and Dymphna was trying to persuade Madam Pince to allow them to borrow a few books.
Lily was watching Frank dipping his quill into her inkwell and then poised his hand over his clean parchment when a rush of feet made him jump and a large glob of black ink fell from the quills nib splattering his parchment,
"Great!!!" Frank whispered angrily, turning around Lily could see that the person who had rushed over to them was Alice,
"What's wrong?" Frank said immediately getting to his feet and rushing over to her,
"Miriam said you've both got to come quickly!" Alice said almost breathless, Lily and Frank followed Alice back the way she had come and they weaved in and out of the shelving into different aisle and categories,
"Just up there!" Alice said pointing in front of her,
"What where you and Miriam doing in this aisle" Lily asked looking at the books on the shelves all of them where to do with hexes, curses and jinxing, Lily didn't really need to ask Alice to know why Miriam had been in this aisle and not the history aisle.
They turned a corner and Lily could see Miriam standing close to the shelving in front of them, Miriam saw them coming and held a finger to her lips signalling them to be quiet, slowly trying not to make any noise Lily, Alice and Frank moved down the aisle towards Miriam, the reason why Miriam was leaning so close to the shelving, her head almost resting on the selves was immediately apparent has Lily, Alice and Frank moved closer to Miriam. Lily could hear Sirius Black's voice from the other side of the shelving, and by removing a thick volume of 'Ye olde curses' she, Alice and Frank where able to see them just like Miriam.
Sirius was standing at the end of one of the study tables, Remus like always had a huge pile of books in front of him, James was lounging with his feet on the table and Peter was perched on the edge of his chair looking from one boy to the other.
"Their just girls!" Sirius said, looking obviously hacked off.
"FIVE of them!!!" squeaked Peter "Against the four of us!"
"There's no contest" James said rubbing his hand over his chin as his face spread into a grin "We'll trounce them!"
"But there's more of them!" Peter squeaked trying to express his concern
"We need to think of something good, something that they wouldn't expect" Sirius continued, ignoring Peter,
"Failing that I'll settle for a really good jelly legs or bat bogie hex" James said twirling his wand around his fingers
"Yeah" they heard Sirius agree,
"Well ladies and gentlemen let the war begin!" Lily heard Miriam mutter.
"WAR!!!" Lily tried to shriek while still trying to whisper so it came out more like she was being strangled,
"Shss!" Miriam hissed dashing forwards in alarm covering Lily's mouth with her hand as she peered through the gaps in the books to see if Lily's outburst had disturbed the boys, it apparently hadn't because Miriam removed her hand from Lily's mouth smiling.
"War!" Lily whispered again trying to keep her voice low, but it was so hard to do so when she felt so enraged at her friend "Mi we're eleven years old and you're not an insane General commanding a mass of troops into battle!"
"Well I don't know about the insane part given the fact she's an Artemis," Frank said quietly trying not to laugh "But Lily's got a point Mi"
"Of course she's got a point" Miriam said smiling he face alight with mischief
"Please Mi" Lily said before Miriam could say anything else "Please put an end to this before it goes too far! You've gotten what you wanted, pulling one over on Sirius and James for what they did to Severus. Please stop this before it goes too far!" Miriam hung her head slightly looking slightly ashamed,
"Your right Lily, I know you are" Miriam sighed raising her head "Very well I'll stop it, we can live a nice normal boring school life of homework and Hug-and-Kiss bossing us around until she leaves at the end of the June after next!" she forced a smile,
"Thank you" Lily said patting Miriam on the arm and smiling too, she couldn't believe that it had worked that she had managed to persuade Miriam out off this ridiculous interyear rivalry between to the girls and boys. They turned and headed back to the table where they had left their homework,
"But I will have to retaliate if they do" Lily heard Miriam whisper behind her. Lily couldn't even be bothered to shake her head as Alice and Frank both smiled at Miriam, how could Lily have really thought that she'd gotten through to Miriam she was so bull-headed!
The 'War', was put on an unofficial ceasefire over the next few weeks has the first years were given more and more work, they spent most of their free evenings in the library in front of mounds and mounds of books. It annoyed Lily at how little Miriam would have to do to get the top grades in all of her classes, in history of magic Miriam always wrote the best essays without the use of any books, Remus Lupin was a very close second but it was obvious that he had used books as he was always found behind a large pile of books every evening in the common room.
But it wasn't just history of magic that Miriam was good at she excelled in all the lessons that the first years were taking, Lily often wondered if Miriam's eldest brother Thaddeus knew how intelligent his little sister was. And although Lily was slightly jealous of Miriam's talents Miriam had never once bragged about how well she was doing, but Lily wasn't doing too badly on the grade front either. All the Gryffindors where getting really good marks even Peter Pettigrew although Lily knew for a fact that the rest of the first year boys helped him with his homework and she had even seen Peter asking Miriam if he could copy her defence against the dark arts essay which to Lily's surprise Miriam had done, saying that it would be his own fault if Professor Viveridan found out.
October arrived bringing extremely cold winds and promising that soon there was too be snow, one Tuesday evening all the first years except Miriam where again sitting in the common room behind a pile of books and low burning candles and sheets of parchment. It was well after midnight and apart from the first years the common room was empty,
"I can't find him!" Miriam said sounding a little alarmed as she entered the common room from the girls dormitory,
"What?" Lily asked lifting her head up from her essay on astronomy which was due in the next day,
"Mac!" Miriam said becoming more worried "I've looked all over the tower and I can't find him!" Lily heard Sirius snigger,
"What have you done Black?!?" Miriam demanded, she had obviously heard him too,
"It's not nice to have someone pull a trick on you is it?" James said,
"What did you two do?" Frank and Remus said in unison, Remus looked very pale,
"Well he looked so lonely this morning" James said smiling as he stared at Miriam "And you've not had much time to play with the poor thing with all this work we've had to do"
"So we thought that Mrs Norris would like a friend" Sirius said smiling wickedly,
"You did what?!?" Miriam said her eyes widening in disbelief,
"How could you!" Lily squealed "He's only a baby, that monster will kill him!"
"You didn't?" Frank and Remus both asked in alarm,
"Where did you put him Black?" Miriam demanded pulling her wand out of her robes, "Where is he?"
"Don't like it when the shoes on the other foot do you Mi!" Sirius said still smiling,
"You're sick you do know that don't you!?!" Alice said looking from Sirius to her brother "How could you!"
"Fine!!!" James said "I'm not having you all thinking that Sirius and me are heartless thugs, we did after all put him in a very safe place,"
"Yeah don't worry about the fur ball Filch will probably find him before Mrs Norris does! After all he always checks this place first when he does his rounds"
"What!" Lily heard Miriam gasp behind her,
"Besides Filch loves cats, he has too, to like that thing he's got for a pet!" Sirius said laughing,
"If anything as happened to him!" Miriam yelled "I'll kill you Black I mean that, I really will kill you!" with that Miriam ran towards the portrait hole,
"Miriam!!!" Lily, Alice, Frank and Remus called after her, Lily pushed her chair back and dashed off across the common room followed by Alice and Frank, they reach the fat lady's portrait before it closed and they pushed it open again and climbed through the opening into the corridor,
"What are you all doing out of bed at this time of night" The fat lady said upon seeing them, but they just ignored her,
"Miriam!" Lily said running down the corridor after her and grabbing Miriam's arm "What are you doing? We can't go running around the castle in the middle of the night we'll get caught!"
"We'll be given detention and more points will be deducted, and we still haven't got any!" Alice said as she and Frank caught up with them.
"I don't give a damn about house points or detentions! I want Mac back and I'm going to find him, let go!" Miriam said this last part to Lily as she pulled her arm free from Lily's grasp, "If you three are so bothered about the rules then bugger off back to the common room, I'm off to find Mac!"
"That's below the belt" Frank said shaking his head "How can you even say that? Those two-" He looked at Lily and Alice "-where also involved in that prank you guys pulled on James and Sirius, their immune to rules just like you!"
Lily knew exactly what Frank was doing and he was completely right, they'd all broken the rules before just because they had wanted to prank the boys so why when Mac's life was in danger and their friend was in such obvious distress was she and Alice resisting now,
"Mi I'm sorry" Lily said "We'll help you look for Mac" Miriam smiled and hugged Lily,
"Thank you" she said her eyes slightly damp as though at any moment she was going to burst into tears.
'If anything happened to Mac before they found him' Lily thought 'She would help Miriam kill James and Sirius'.
Miriam had deduced from what the boys had said that the place they had hidden Mac was the trophy room, this was the place where Filch always started his rounds each night and was always the first place where he sent students on detention. It was very cold in the castle at night and Lily was beginning to wish she had changed into warmer clothes before they had come out, a scarf and gloves wouldn't have gone a miss in the freezing corridors, but as Lily listened to the chattering of Franks teeth she had a sickening feeling in her stomach that they probably wouldn't find the little kitten alive.
The four of them finally entered the trophy room, and although every student and teacher called it a room it was more like a very long corridor, on each side of the walls there where dozens of glass fronted cabinets, the walls where covered in plaques and moving pictures. Lily had never been in here before and neither had the others, the windows in the trophy room was very small and emitted hardly any light and the torches in the brackets on the walls where burning very low.
"Where do you think they would have put him?" Lily said keeping her voice in a whisper, Frank and Alice shrugged telling Lily that they had no idea what James and Sirius would have done,.
"Listen!" Miriam hissed, Lily could hear it too now that they where all standing still,
"What is it?" Alice asked moving closer to Frank, the noise was a sort of soft scratching sound but Lily didn't think that it sounded like a noise made by a kitten,
"Mac!" Miriam hissed moving forwards, "Mac!"
Lily wanted to grab Miriam and tell her to be quiet, the trophy room was very ghostly after dark and Lily could have sworn that the suits of Armour that where next to the cabinets turned their heads to follow the small group as they moved through the room.
The noise started to get louder and louder the closer they came and even Miriam had resided to the fact that MacMikelmouse wasn't making the noise. Miriam who had been leading the group suddenly stopped her arms held out to halt the others,
"What's the mat-" Frank began but he stopped as soon as he saw the reason Miriam had halted their progress, at the foot of a suit of armour half hidden by the armours shadow was a figure crouching low it's back facing them, the noise was being made by the person as he scraped something up and down the back of the armours feet where it joined the plinth. Lily was just about to suggest that they shouldn't hang around for this strange person to see them, when it was already too late, the person at the Suit of armour turned its head, facing them.
