"I'm bored!"
"We all are, Padfoot, stop moaning,"
"Wish it was a full moon..."
"Yeah, I'm sure you do!"
"Sorry, Moony...I forget sometimes..."
"Hmmm...your turn..."
The Gryffindor common room was unusually quiet; most people had already gone to bed, though there were four people still awake, the four greatest friends in the whole of Hogwarts: The Marauders. James Potter, Prongs, sat in front of a window looking gloomily at the grounds, every now and again his hand would reach up to his hair and ruffle it up in case it got too neat.
Two of James' friends, Sirius Black, Padfoot, and Remus Lupin, Moony, sat in front of the dying fire playing what looked like an extremely uninteresting game of chess. Sirius was fidgeting impatiently as Remus sat pondering thoughtfully over his next move.
In the corner, scribbling furiously on a piece of smudged and crumpled parchment the fourth friend sat, Peter Pettigrew, Wormtail. His shaky hand hovered over the sentence he was writing, "Hey, James, what's the other name for aconite?" he called over to his friend at the windowsill.
James said nothing but threw Peter a nasty look, "I would leave him, Wormtail...he's in one of those moods again," chortled Sirius without looking up from the chessboard; Remus had just got him into cheque.
Again James said nothing but threw a screwed up piece of parchment at his friend, it got him on the head upsetting Sirius' long black hair. Sirius smirked to himself, straightened his hair but made no retaliation.
Peter looked panicky, "Remus?" he implored.
Remus didn't look up but said briskly, "Which one, Wormtail? There are two,"
Peter looked down at his parchment and scribbled out a large chunk, "Both?" he asked, ignoring Sirius' sniggers.
Remus said nothing for a few moments; he was concentrating on taking Sirius' knight, "Monkshood and wolfsbane," he answered absently after smugly clearing the board of his friend's knight.
"Don't you ever listen, Wormtail?" Sirius said with false exasperation, "We won't always be here to help you with Potions essays,"
"We?" Remus snorted, "You're as much help as a chocolate cauldron!"
Wormtail laughed shrilly but stopped abruptly and fell rigidly to the floor where he lay, straight as a broomstick. Sirius lowered his wand and rolled around the floor howling with laughter; even James, who still sat on the windowsill moodily, smiled at his friend's antics, Remus however sighed, raised his own wand and undid Sirius' spell. Peter sprung back to life again and even joined in with the laughter, if a little nervously.
Sirius ceased his rolling and glanced up at James, who had gone back to looking out the window broodingly. Concernedly Sirius picked himself up and plonked himself down on an armchair next to his friend. "Evans said no again?" he asked James quietly while continuing to look at Peter finishing his essay, "Yep," muttered James blandly, still looking out of the window, it had began to snow.
"Too bad, mate," said Sirius as he flicked his hair out of his eyes; still watching Peter as he carefully rolled up his essay.
James swore quietly and muttered something undeterminable, Sirius smiled and said cheerfully, "Cheer up, Prongs! Let's go have a walk," he checked his wristwatch, "I'm sure The Three Broomsticks is still open," he added in an undertone.
"Nah, I'll stay here," murmured James.
"You are so boring when you've been rejected!" moaned Sirius indignantly.
"Shut it, will you?!" James retorted loudly, both Remus and Peter were looking at him with amused looks on their faces, he could just tell what was coming...
"Happens to the best of us, Prongs," said Remus trying to keep a straight face.
"Yeah...At least people don't run in the other direction when you ask them out like they do with Wormtail, Prongs," said Sirius seriously; Peter flushed as his friends burst out laughing.
Remus dried his eyes and stood up, "I'm gonna go to bed," he yawned widely. "Night all," he gathered up his bag and walked to his dormitory, "Me too," said Peter following Remus up the stairs.
"If you're still going to sit here crooning over Evans I'm going as well, mate," sniffed Sirius, trying to sound hurt.
"Yeah...OK; I'll probably be there in a while," murmured James distractedly. "Night..."
"Yeah...g'night," yawned Sirius disappointedly. He walked up the stairs leaving James alone in the darkening common room.
Flopping down on his four-poster bed Sirius sighed, he hated it when James was like this – and it was getting more and more frequent, almost every week now...he pulled his curtains closed and lay awake waiting for his friend to come up, but he fell asleep around four o'clock still without any sound of James.
The next morning was bright and crisp, the snow from last night had continued through the night and covered the entire grounds. The whole of Hogwarts castle looked as though it had been iced like a cake. The school was alive with the buzz of Christmas, it was early December but already the holiday spirit had sunk in; snowballs had been bewitched to chase first years, there were frequent explosions from early crackers in the middle of lessons and one time a herd of angry, jinxed snowmen had cornered poor, tiny Professor Flitwick and he had to be rescued by several other teachers.
The Great Hall that morning looked fantastic, the usual Christmas decorations were being put up; Hagrid was dragging in huge frosted pine trees, Flitwick (having recovered from his snowman trauma) was teaching the armour to sing carols and Dumbledore had carpeted the whole of the hall with soft snow that was strangely warm underfoot.
The Marauders sat at the Gryffindor table eating breakfast; Peter stared awestruck at the mounting decorations, making little noises of delight as each new thing was added. Sirius and James however were looking deeply unimpressed and were criticising everything that had been put up, Remus was the only one that was silent; he was buried in the Daily Prophet that had been delivered to him moments before.
Sirius turned and sighed, a girl on the Ravenclaw table ceased her efforts to attract his attention and slumped unhappily in her chair, "What's good in the news, Moony?" he asked in an uninterested tone.
Remus didn't answer straight away and Sirius had to ask again before he said from behind his paper, "A vampire has been sighted in Hogsmeade..."
Sirius and James snapped to attention immediately, "A vampire?" James asked, all signs of moodiness gone. Remus made a small inclination of his head that was barely visible above the paper. Sirius looked at James and James looked back, identical mischievous grins appearing on their faces.
"No," said Remus finally putting down the newspaper and starting on his bacon, Sirius and James looked at him in disgust, "What do you mean, 'no'?" asked Sirius indignantly.
"We're not going to look for it," replied Remus calmly.
"Look for what?" James inquired with false puzzlement.
"We're not vampire hunters," Remus said evasively, now starting on his pumpkin juice.
"Come on!" snorted James, "What makes you think we wanna chase a vampire?"
"I know you too well," Remus muttered.
Both Sirius and James scowled at Remus with identical looks before turning away and began whispering quietly together.
Remus sighed to himself and picked up the newspaper again but was interrupted by Peter, "Aren't vampires really dangerous, Remus?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Remus shortly, trying to shake Peter off.
"Is it true they hate garlic?"
"That's a myth, Peter, there's very little that can hurt them and garlic isn't one of them," said Remus rather pompously.
"Oh," Peter's brow knitted and opened his mouth to ask something else but Remus had disappeared behind his paper again.
The next week dragged on, more and more snow fell on the school and soon it was impossible for anyone to venture outside; both Herbology and Care for Magical Creatures were cancelled (being the only two lessons outside) and were used by the fifth, sixth and seventh years as revision for their upcoming O.W.L.'s and N.E.W.T.'s.
With just one week until Christmas the school was buzzing with excitement, even tests were forgotten. Unusually Sirius and James were buried behind the Daily Prophet in the Gryffindor common room on Friday night, they were talking in hushed voices together and occasionally looking round suspiciously for any eavesdroppers. Peter was in there as well, bent over a parchment littered table as usual busily scribbling at some unfinished essay.
The portrait hole open suddenly making several quiet first years jump, and Remus burst through looking thoroughly annoyed; his usually neat, though greying hair, was askew and he had a look of fury on his face. James and Sirius hastily put away their paper as Remus stormed over to them brandishing his wand ferociously.
"Hi, Moony," greeted Sirius cheerfully, Remus said nothing but sent a spell that caught both James and Sirius off-guard and pinned them against their seats.
"YOU!" Remus yelled at them madly, "WHAT DID YOU TWO DO TO SNAPE?"
The common room fell silent and everyone began sidling away from the livid Remus; Sirius and James looked innocently at each other and then at Remus, "When, Moony?" asked Sirius politely, "We do a lot to Snivellus."
"TODAY!" exploded Remus, red sparks shooting from his wand, "HE'S IN THE HOSPITAL WING BECAUSE YOU DID SOMETHING TO HIM, DIDN'T YOU?!"
"Why do suddenly care about what we do to Snivellus?" snapped James angrily.
"DUMBLEDORE KNEW IT WAS YOU!" cried Remus so loudly a second year girl began to sob with fright, "AND LOOK!" Remus pointed madly at his own chest with a shaking finger. Both James and Sirius strained against Remus' spell to see what he was pointing at, they did so for some time, slowly Sirius looked up at enraged Remus, "Hey, Moony...where's your Prefect badge?" he asked calmly.
"DUMBLEDORE TOOK IT! BECAUSE OF YOU TWO!" Remus yelled and with a violent flick of his wand sent his two friends flying to the floor and stormed up to his dormitory fuming.
The door slammed shut and Sirius looked up, his cheeks red with embarrassment, straitening his hair he pulled himself and James off of the floor, they looked guiltily at each other. Remus never got that angry about anything and now, because they had sent a gigantic snowball after Snape, they might have cost themselves his friendship.
The next weekend was probably James and Sirius' worst ever at Hogwarts, Remus hadn't spoken to him since his explosion in the common room and Peter also seemed to be avoiding them. Not only that but they had been summoned to Dumbledore's office and were threatened with expulsion from the school for what they had done to Snape.
With only a week to go until Christmas James and Sirius were feeling extremely unhappy, for once they weren't the centre of everybody's attention. They were sat in the common room alone, it was well past midnight and everybody else had gone to bed. Sirius was walking around the common room moodily, every time he found a piece of homework he sent it maliciously into the fire. James was at his usual spot on the windowsill looking moodily out of the window, suddenly Sirius made a noise of excitement, "Hey, Prongs! I've got something that will cheer us up," he picked up the front page of a discarded newspaper and read aloud, "'Vampire still at large in the Hogsmeade vicinity, all citizens must be on the look out. Vampire hunters: a thousand Galleon prize for the one who presents the vampire to the Ministry of Magic, dead or alive...'"
The two friends looked at each other, "I'll get my cloak," said James rushing up to his dormitory.
In minutes James and Sirius were disappearing under James' invisibility cloak and halfway towards the portrait when they heard someone cough from the corner, they turned around to see Peter sat in a high-backed armchair hidden from sight, they didn't even know he was still up. The dying fire cast strange shadows on his face and he had a look of smugness on his face. James started towards Peter but Sirius whispered something in his ear and pulled him out of the room.
Within five minutes James and Sirius were standing next to an old statue of a witch, silently James pulled out his wand and tapped the statue's rump muttering quietly, "Dissendium," the statue moved slightly and created a doorway just wide enough for them to slip through.
They ran all the way down the dark corridor, they didn't speak once until Sirius felt the passageway began to rise, "We're almost there, Prongs," he whispered.
Suddenly his head something very hard, instead of crying with pain he smiled and pushed the trapdoor open, he and James scrambled out and into Honeydukes' storeroom. It was extremely dark there, the large shadows of crates were like black voids, James immediately walked over to the nearest crate and opened it with his wand, he crammed his pockets full of what he could find and went to the next box.
Sirius laughed softly, his friend always had room in his pockets for sweets, from somewhere in the shadows he heard James return the laughter and Sirius went to a box of his own, "Can't hunt a vampire on an empty stomach can we?" he asked himself loud enough for James to hear him.
"Zat vould be advisable," answered a voice from somewhere in the shadows, Sirius laughed, "Oh, come on, James! You really think vampires speak like that do you?"
"Speak like what? I didn't say anything," said James in a puzzled voice; Sirius felt a strange, chilling tingle travel up his spine, "That wasn't you?" he asked in a shaky voice.
"No," said James returning to Sirius' side, "What are you talking about?"
"He iz talking about me," helped the strange voice.
"Who was that?" asked James, "that wasn't you was it Sirius?"
"No," answered Sirius, something stirred in the shadows in front of them, "Oh no..." he whispered.
"What? What is it?" asked James, his voice panicky.
Sirius didn't answer him, he simply muttered, "Lumos," and a thin shaft of light burst from his wand, he moved the strip of light up to where he thought the voice had come from...
James let out a gasp of surprise and fear; standing calmly in front of them, illuminated by Sirius' wand, was the vampire. Its skin was deathly pale, its hair black and sleek, it was wearing long black robes lined with red silk. "Velcome, gentlemen. It iz so nice to get visitors..." the vampire smiled slyly, its two front teeth were long and pointed...
Sirius and James looked at each other and gulped...