TeenTypist- Thank you so much for your wonderful reviews, they're so encouraging, and they have some great questions and thoughts in them. And Lily, Petunia, and Laurel's dad was an Unspeakable.
Fox of Midnight- Thanks for all of your very nice thoughts and wonderings about my story :)
Meriwether Weslar- I'm glad my story has somewhat inspired you!
Puss No Boots- Your lighthearted reviews really lifted my spirits!
Chocolate Monkey- Sorry about the length of my chapters, I try to make them long, but it usually doesn't happen that way. I'll work on it :)
boredanddelirious- Thank you!
Naoko-san- Thanks and cool name!
Tania- You really inspired me to right this chapter with your wonderful constructive criticism. I'll try to watch the typos!
Luckily, the next morning I got up earlier than the rest of the girls in the dormitory. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and then got out of bed to put my clothes on. On top of the nightstand next to my bed was a folded piece of parchment. I picked it up and opened it. There, in Sirius's messy handwriting was an "official note" from the Marauders.
"Your first assignment: Find out where the kitchens are. Burn this message once task is understood.
-The Marauders"
I laughed at their cheesy "official note" that they had dreamed up. It was so tacky that I just couldn't help myself. I tossed it into the furnace like instructed and finished getting dressed and primped up. While I was, I thought how lucky I was that I was the first girl up. If Lily had seen it, she'd never let me forget it and I'd have to endure another day of her pestering. I also tried to figure out how I was going to go about finding the kitchens. Sure, there had to be some kind of place where they cooked all of the food that they served up here, but where was it? How would I find out? I definitely wasn't going to scour the whole castle for some tiny secret entrance, that would take years. Where could I find a map or something of the castle?
A library of course! What in the world was I thinking? There are millions of books in a library, atlases, informational readings, and probably a book I could pick up for reading on my own time. I looked at the clock on my nightstand, and learned that I had some time to spare to run to the library, which Molly Turner told me was on the fourth floor. I slung my bag over my shoulder with my books in it, and headed towards the library.
As Molly said, it was on the fourth floor and I found it straight away. When I walked in, there was a thin, irritable, and vulture-like lady staring daggers at me.
"What are you doing here so early in the morning?" She asked suspiciously.
"Well, umm, I was just looking for a book with a map of Hogwarts in it. I'm new, so I get lost a lot." I murmured, rather nervously.
"Hmm, a smart one you are. Most first years just bumble around the castle like idiots. Follow me." With that, she turned on her heel and stalked off to a shelf on the right side of the room, in the very middle. I quickly followed her, silently admiring all of the shelves and shelves of books of every color, shape, and size you could imagine.
She stopped abruptly, about three fourths of the way down the aisle and plucked a book off the shelf.
"This one is good if you're only want maps." She flipped through it to show me, and I saw pages on pages of maps and handed it to me, grabbing another book. "This one can tell you a lot more about Hogwarts. Famous students, classes, and there are plenty of maps to go along with it." She handed the second one to me and went to pick out another book.
"Hold on!" I interrupted, "This one is fine, thank you." And I held up the first book.
"Alright then, saved me a lot of time. Come this way and I'll check it out for you." She clicked off in her tottering heels to a desk in the middle of the library. She had me sign the card in it, then stamped it and sent me on my way.
I flipped through it on my way to breakfast, knowing I'd have time to look at it later. Before I got there, I stealthily slipped into my bag and sat down next to Lily at the Gryffindor table.
"Where were you?" Lily asked with a tone of skepticism.
"I went to the library, to look for a book to read."
She gave me a look that said that she didn't believe me.
"Seriously, Lil, I did. It's on the fourth floor, and there was a snooty librarian, but who was a good help. I didn't get anything though." That little white lie at the end gave me a pang in the chest, but it was my only hope of keeping the Marauders (and my involvment with them) secret.
"Who told you it was on the fourth floor?"
"I did!" came Molly's voice as she sat down across from us.
This must have seemed a reasonable thing to be taking up my time, because she left me alone about it.
Right after Defense Against the Dark Arts we had lunch and a fifteen-minute break thing. Lily and I had ran out into the courtyard where it seemed the rest of the students had decided to pass their time. We sat down on a bench, and Tina came rushing up to us, babbling about someone's pet snake.
"Do you want to see it?" Tina asked us flippantly.
"Sure!" Lilly popped off of the bench, and looked quizzically behind her when I didn't do the same. "Aren't you coming?"
"No, I think I'll just hang around out here and do some people watching. I don't like snakes that much anyway." This was a partly true statement. I really didn't like snakes but I mainly just wanted to do some researching in the book I got from the library.
Once they were gone, I plucked the book from my messenger bag and flipped to the index in the back. I hurriedly looked under 'K' and found 'Kitchens' with ease. I flipped to page 243, which was the first page it was listed on. It showed the entrance way, the great on hall, and the marble staircase. On wither side of the marble staircase, there were two other staircases. One that I knew led to the dungeons, and another that led to the Hufflepuff common room, and alas, the kitchens.
Unfortunately,it didn't show that corridor on this map. Instead, underneath the words 'Hufflepuff Common Room' and 'Kitchens' was the words 'See page 319' in parentheses. I flipped to page 319 and saw the corridor. At the very end was the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room and somewhere around the middle was a little box marked, 'Painting of Fruit Bowl'. Beneath that were some very tiny words that said, 'Tickle the Pear'.
Right as I was saying this out loud to myself, Sirius bounded up and clunked onto the bench right next to me.
"So, have you found the kitchens yet, o sneaky one?" He asked, beaming all the while.
"Yes I have actually. Are you ready to see them?"
He looked a little stunned at this announcement. "Yeah…sure."
"Alright, follow me." I got up and trudged towards the castle, Sirius at my heels. We walked through the corridor, into the Entrance Hall, and down the stairs on the side of the Marble staircase, to the painting of the bowl of fruit.
We stood there, and I reached up to tickle the pear. I did, and it giggled softly. A doorknob appeared and as I twisted it open, the pear opened up just like a door. I climbed up inside and got a big surprise.