Disclaimer: I own nothing; it all belongs to J.K.Rowling. I'm just borrowing the characters to play with for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN – The Marauder's Lair
"Hey Harry?"
"Yes Myrtle?"
"Do you know why there are several dozen hopping right legs in my bathroom here?"
"It is highly likely I do Myrtle. I think it would be safe to assume they won't be there for long though. Hey Myrtle?"
"Yes Harry?"
"Do you think we could keep a few secrets? Just us? As in no reporting to Dumbledore?"
"I think I could do that. As long as you met with some conditions."
"And what conditions would those be?"
"I know you're going to be following in your father and godfather's footsteps and doing an awful lot of pranking this year."
"And just how would you know that?"
"Dumbledore has all the ghosts and portraits working for him to keep an eye on the school. And particularly the Marauders."
"That is very interesting information Myrtle. I would imagine that not all of the ghosts or portraits like taking orders."
"Most of them don't mind actually, although I suspect they would all enjoy harmless pranks on the Headmaster as much as the next person."
"Well then you may like to hear that the especially pale and wrinkly leg over there with the orange and neon green sock inside a bowling shoe is the Headmaster's leg."
"Damn son, nice one!" she said with a very sexual shudder.
"I fear I may be digressing. What conditions did you say you had?"
"Oh. That. Well, the Headmaster has assigned the Grey Lady as his lead ghost. Honestly I have no idea why. Such a useless fat hussy…"
"He chose her over you Myrtle? That's simply preposterous!"
"Thank you Harry. My thoughts exactly. Anyways, I would just greatly appreciate it if you could make sure and perhaps catch the Grey Lady in an accidental crossfire or three."
"Oh Myrtle, you know I take good care of my friends."
"Oh yes you most certainly do. Why I heard Tonks talking here just the other night about this somersault thing where you arch your back and insert both big toes into-"
"Oi Myrtle! How bout a little respect to present company." Horny apparently got sick and tired of just listening to Snatch and Myrtle prattle on forever.
Cottontail apparently did not have the same reservations Horny did. "Hey! Let the woman speak. Please Myrtle, continue with as much detail as you wish."
Snatch decided this had gone on far enough. "Yes Myrtle we'd be glad to see to it that the Headmaster recognizes the error of his ways in entrusting this task to a Lady of her means rather than an enchanting beauty such as yourself."
"You're so sweet Harry. You should know that Peeves was quite uncooperative with the Headmaster. I suspect he would be happy to be of assistance as well."
"Thank you Myrtle. We're going to now be setting up a headquarters of sorts. If it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you be so kind as to keep an eye open when you're around? And alert us to any others trying to locate us?"
"I'd be happy to be of any help I could. Do you perhaps know if any of the new prefects are particularly cute?"
Snatch bit his tongue imagining the fates in store for some of them. Horny seemed to be getting a sickly pale color at the direction this conversation was going. "To be fair Myrtle, I'm not sure what your type is."
Myrtle got a husky undertone in her voice. "My type is about 5'9", vivid green eyes, wild black hair, lightning bolt scar, and a quidditch body so tight you would swear it's a tootsie pop. I can't stop dreaming finding out how many licks it takes to get to the center of-"
"Urm, nope. None of those types are new prefects. Although Colin Creevey is a new prefect. Catch him in an embarrassing moment, and you could probably blackmail him for some of his private photography collection. I don't know for sure, but something tells me he's got a few pictures of your type that I'd personally rather not know about."
Myrtle closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She seemed to be inhaling the pheromones in the air. Quite a feat for an incorporeal ghost.
"Urrrrrhhhawwrrr. I think I could use a cold shower. Good luck with your legs, Harry. We'll be in touch." And a deep guttural moan, not the kind you usually associate with Myrtle, was heard as she dove headfirst into her favorite U-bend.
Mini-Minnie had watched the entire exchange slowly changing her opinion of Snatch. "You know Snatch you'd make a real good politician."
"Thank you Mini-Minnie."
"That wasn't a compliment."
A scowl, a perimeter charm, and a hissed out "Open" later, the four Marauders were setting up shop in their new lair. It made for quite a sight to see rows of three independent right legs following them in formation.
They had to first identify just whose legs were whose. Then they would apply a series of charms on all three: the leg, the sock, and the shoe in case one of the charms is broken. They created bracelets that would act as sonar beacons so they would always know when any professors were coming, who they were, and from where. They also included a series of connected crystals they could use to open listening lines or have conversations, a sort of magical walkie-talkie. The bracelets also stored a recording of the two parseltongue passwords to get into the chamber, so they would not be reliant on Snatch to enter and leave. Once all the legs and footwear they wanted to have linked was setup, and the communications and passwords were enchanted, they just needed to seal it with the strongest locking and then unbreakable spell that they could. Naturally that meant Snatch was doing this part. Snatch focused his mind and magic as best he could and bellowed out the incantation to the spell.
The resultant flash of light made Horny exclaim "Oh my vagina!"
This made Snatch and Mini-Minnie both turn their heads sharply to look at their odd friend. The red-headed one. That is to say the male red-headed one in the immediate vicinity. Mini-Minnie looked at the bracelets now that they had been locked and said "Bloody hell Snatch. You juiced these things up but good. Now they're made of fricking diamond!"
"Oops. Does that mean they won't work?"
Cottontail frowned looking at them. "No, they'll work just fine. It's just now they're a bit … garish."
"Cottontail, you bought a pair of white jeans."
Cottontail frowned in remembrance of her wild youth. "Because of those jeans, I'm never going to win an argument for at least the next ten years, am I?"
Horny, Mini-Minnie, and Snatch all said in unison, "Nope."
"Someday I will kill that blonde-haired muggle sales-bitch. Lies. That's all they ever speak are lies!"
They harvested toe hair off all the staff and most of the students. There was going to be a wide selection of polyjuice options available this year. The four quietly snuck back up to Gryffindor tower. Luckily Horny and Mini-Minnie were prefects and already knew the password. They were in bed by 1 AM. The right legs were going to be going home to re-attach at approximately 2 AM.
Their first day back had been an immense success.
The next morning classes began and the four made it down to breakfast and got their schedules. Defense first with Remus and then a break until lunch. Cottontail had Potions first. Everyone was a bit apprehensive to see just what kind of a train wreck Professor Cissy was going to be. She still seemed unable to refer to herself properly and even worse pronounced it "Presfessor." Which for some reason Snatch and Horny thought sounded close to enough to "breasts-something" to make them laugh every time.
Defense class went as expected. Professor Lupin complimented the unknown mysterious Marauders on a well developed prank and gave a brief overview about what the class would consist of this year. He warned them that even though this year was a respite between OWL's and NEWT's that didn't mean they could slack off. He asked Snatch, Mini-Minnie and Horny to stay after class.
Once the area had been cleared out, Professor Lupin was temporarily absent, and elder Marauder Moony was back. "Alright Snatch, spit it out. How'd you guys pull off that prank at the feast? I haven't been able to figure when you could have or where you could have possibly gotten everyone with it."
Snatch knew he had to word this carefully as they didn't want any suspicion on the fact that the resultant loss of legs had an additional purpose to the Marauders. And he had to be wary of certain hidden people overhearing them.
"Well, I would imagine the Headmaster had people assure him I got on the Hogwarts Express and got off it with my friends. But who's to say I didn't take a side trip of my own for a few hours. It is entirely theoretically possible that I may have made it to Hogwarts, and I may have borrowed Cottontail's wand to cast the charm over the entranceway to the Great Hall so anyone walking through that door would be affected. Is it also a viable possibility that I followed that up with a masking charm with my own wand, thus ensuring none of the original spell could be detected, unless you happen to be strong enough to overcome my masking charm. Not necessarily saying I did that, or that I brought Dobby with me to begin some renovations on a private Marauder's Lair, but theoretically everything I just said is completely possible."
Remus was cracking up at Snatch never admitting to anything and Horny and Mini-Minnie kept rolling their eyes at him. "You know I cannot break my Marauder's Honor and tell on any of your pranks, why are you being so vague?"
Mini-Minnie hesitantly answered that one. "We have reason to believe the Headmaster would stoop so low as to subtly spy on you to keep us under his control."
"But the Headmaster's not here is he? I know he can make himself invisible but I don't smell him at all."
Horny added "Perhaps you should direct your sense of smell about ten feet directly behind Snatch just inside the door."
Remus's senses perked up. "Hey you're right! I can notice a very clear lack of smell there and it seems to be scurrying back out the door and is going in that direction!" He exclaimed with a smile and a finger pointed to his left.
Remus let out a low wolf whistle. "You kids are already too good at this you know."
Mini-Minnie got an evil look on her face and winked. "Oh Moony, we're just getting warmed up."
They met up with Cottontail at lunch. They asked her about Potions and found out many of their fears were unjustified. Apparently everyone was so shocked at having such a bright shiny clean Potions classroom and kind, courteous instruction that they completely overlooked the teacher and her assistant's odd house elf like behavior. Although Cottontail thought someone should explain to Cissy that "OWL's" is not a two syllable word pronounced "oh-wells."
The prank last night and the mysterious Marauders seemed to be the focal point of the majority of conversations throughout the next day. Classes continued and the kids were planning to meet back up in their new lair tonight to discuss the issue of the school's new caretakers.
As they were leaving dinner, Crabbe and Goyle hurried up to catch up with them.
"Potter!" Crabbe yelled while Goyle smacked him. "Err, I mean Harry!"
Goyle then spoke up more than they had ever heard him. "Can we talk to you? Somewhere we won't be overheard?"
Mini-Minnie, Cottontail, and Horny weren't in the slightest worried about Snatch but they were extremely curious what was going on. Snatch just waved them off. "I'll catch up with you guys in a bit."
Snatch led the two hulking behemoths into an unknown corridor and then turned to the massive leaderless followers. "Alright guys, what's up?"
The pair looked a bit sheepish and blushed. "Err, see the thing is. We don't want to end up like our dads."
"Yeah, we don't support the Dark Lord and were hoping you could help us?"
"We want to join the light side!"
"We can be spies for you!"
"Anything we hear about you'll be the first to know!"
"The other Death Eaters make fun of us."
"They think we're stupid."
Snatch was getting a bit flabbergasted. It was like watching some sort of twisted 'Who's on First' skit variation where the characters were too confused to realize they were confused. "You guys know the Dark Lord is gone now, right?"
They both looked at Snatch in awe. "He is? Really?"
"Yeah guys, it has been in all the papers pretty much daily since it happened. You, err, can read, can't you?"
"Most of the time. Not the big words though."
"I like the pictures better. They're funny."
"So who got the Dark Lord? Was it you or Doubledoor?"
Snatch smiled a bit at the pronunciation. "I uh stunned him, and he was put on trial."
"Yeah, good work there mate!"
"Too right!"
"Hey does this mean we don't have to hide our loyalties anymore?"
"Should we stop acting as spies now?"
Snatch just stared blankly. "Yeah, umm. Listen, the, umm, war with the Dark, is pretty much over for now. You guys picked the winning side. Good work."
"Good work mate!" Crabbe said with a firm slap to Goyle's behind.
"You too mate!" Goyle responded with an equally firm slap on Crabbe's.
"Maybe we should keep our cover for now."
"At least until the rest of the Death Eaters are caught."
Snatch was beginning to wonder just why exactly he was in this conversation. "You guys do whatever you think is best. It's umm, good to hear you've got your priorities in order."
Crabbe and Goyle just nodded their heads eagerly. "So like Harry, you uhh got anything you want us to do for now?"
Snatch wasn't quite sure what to say to that until he came up with a brief idea. "Hmm, you know, you might become friends with the Potions Professor's son, Poncy. He might be your kind of guy. Just a thought."
Crabbe and Goyle winked obviously at Snatch and said, "Reading ya loud and clear boss." They followed that up with a few more blatant winks.
Snatch decided it was time for the hasty retreat as he feared there was lust in some of those winks. "We should probably get going here. You know, don't want to attract too much attention."
"Rriiiigghhtt." They said in unison.
Then, also in unison, they dropped to their knees, kissed Snatch's feet and said "Thank you Master." They scuttled backwards out the corridor never raising their heads to look back up in Snatch's eyes.
Snatch could only watch in horror as Goyle stumbled and Crabbe backed his rear end right into Goyle's unsuspecting face, before they both just stood up and ran in opposite directions at the first intersection. A few seconds later Crabbe was seen running back and chasing down Goyle as it appeared he had chosen the right direction.
Snatch made his way down into their surprisingly comfortable Marauder's Lair. "Sorry guys, but I'm afraid we should cross off Crabbe and Goyle from our top prank targets list."
"Too easy?" asked Cottontail.
Snatch shook his head exasperatedly. "It'd be like stealing candy from a dead baby."
