When Somers Turned to Black

Chapter 5: Ice Capades and Room Raids

Disclaimer: We do not own the Harry Potter works. Fortunately, we don't own the movies either.

A/N: Hey! Thanks soooooo much to all of the reviewers so far. Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. It's been a long week. Keep reading and keep reviewing.

With the Halloween festivities well over and the fall weather gone with it, Winter arrived early at Hogwarts. The chilling winds and deep drifts took place of comfortably cool breezes and bountiful amounts of crisp, vibrant foliage. Great, white flakes fell slowly out of the clear skies, and hugged the ground like a snug, woolen blanket. Christmas spirit could be observed in even the emptiest corridors. Nearly Headless Nick and the other castle ghosts could be heard caroling, rather joyfully, in between classes. Tinsel-laden pine trees lined the Great Hall, and ice sculptures that refused to melt donned each house table. When term neared an end, students began to turn their minds from studies to Christmas Holidays. They could be seen on the grounds, engulfed in intense snowball fights and skating on the recently frozen over lake. The day before students left for Holidays, Sirius, Remus, and James decided to go out and skate.

Sirius stood on the edge of the lake, waiting for James to finish tying his skates. He watched as James struggled with the heavily tangled laces.

"C'mon mate. Why do you have to be so bloody slow?" whined Sirius anxiously. "Hurry up, before the girls overpopulate and claim the lake for themselves."

Then Sirius looked up to see Lily, Raven and the other fifth year girls cautiously gliding over the large expanse of ice.

'They've beat us to it while you were dawdling, mate," sighed Remus.

"Excuse me if that knot charm of Sirius's never was undone," James replied impatiently, still fiddling with his skates.

When James had finally finished, Sirius led the way across the lake and skidded to a halt in front of Lily and Raven, who were laughing loudly.

"Sorry, but there's not enough room for all of us to enjoy this nice bit of ice, so you'll have to come another time," Sirius ordered bluntly.

"You're saying that this lake isn't big enough for the both of us?" asked Lily, who's laughter-filled face turned quickly to stone as she glared at James.

"Well... no. Just that it doesn't hold big, fat, girly cows like you when there are such strong, handsome wizards on the ice," Sirius replied, motioning his hand towards himself, James and Remus.

"Real intelligence?" laughed Raven skeptically. "I can only hope you aren't talking about yourselves."

"And why not? We are much more talented than any girl could ever be," said James, clearly aiming his comment at Lily.

"That's going too far Potter," said Raven through gritted teeth. "I'm sick of you and your stupid friends always making sexist remarks." Raven angrily pulled out her wand and pointed it in the boys' direction. "I'm warning you. I'll hex all your blown up, egotistical heads the next time I have to hear you comment on me or my friends."

The girls skated off as Sirius, James, and Remus stared dumbfounded at the retreating backs of Raven and Lily.

James was the first to break the flabbergasted silence.

"Who do they think they are anyway?" he said disgustedly. "We've got to find some way to get them back."

"I've got it!" said Sirius as a nefarious grin crept across his face. "C'mon, let's go."

They left the ice and dashed towards the castle.

"Okay, here's the plan," whispered Sirius. It was the next day and most of the students had already left for Christmas Holidays. Sirius, James, Remus and Peter had decided to stay behind at the castle. They were sitting at the table nearest to the fire in the vacant common room. It was pretty late, but they had their heads together all the same to keep any potential intruder ears out of their conversation.

"James, we'll use your cloak to sneak into the girl's dormitories," said Sirius with obvious excitement in his voice. "They won't be there because all of them left for Christmas Holidays. We should still use the cloak as a precaution though. Just in case, you know."

He looked around at the faces of his apprehensive friends.

"James, I know you want to find out more about Lily," mocked Sirius.

"Oh sod off, Mr. I Love Raven. Might I remind you that I didn't hear one decent bashing out of you yesterday towards any of the girls."

"I already told you..."

"Uh huh. Suuuuure," said James laughing.

"It doesn't matter who likes who," Remus sighed. "Why in Merlin's beard do we even want to get up into their dorms? And even if we did have a reason, you know the stairs collapse when a boy tries to get up there."

"That's gonna be a problem," said Peter looking anxiously at his friends.

Rolling his eyes, Sirius turned to Peter.

"We'll have the cloak, you dolt. The stairs won't even know we're anywhere near the girl's dormitories."

"Don't be a git," said James. "Just because we have a cloak on, doesn't mean the stairs won't know we're there. But," James continued mischievously, "we can still use the secret way."

"What? Since when is there a secret way?" asked Remus doubtfully.

Sirius and James looked at each other grinning.

"You explain," said James, his eyes gleaming.

"Well remember our innocent days back in third year?"

Remus snorted loudly.

"Anyway, James and I decided to get rid of a few of the leftover bats that hadn't been used in Transfiguration class that morning. Earlier that year we had stumbled across a passageway that led straight to the girls' dormitories," said Sirius matter-of-factly.

"How can there possibly be a passageway leading straight to the girls' dormitories, when I've never heard of any boy ever getting up there?" asked Remus astutely. "You know the Filtch would have found it by now. I'm sure it would be blocked off or something."

"No kidding you dolt," said James quickly. "But not if it was hidden."

"Hidden? Than how did you find it?" asked Peter curiously.

"Well, all you have to do is press the stone three to the left and seven down from the top left hand corner of the Fat Lady's portrait, and say, Fizzing Whizbees," explained Sirius excitedly. Remus looked at him questionably. "Don't ask how we know. It's a long story."

"Anyways, a narrow stairway opens right up that leads to the dormitories," finished James.

"Why haven't we ever used it?" Peter asked. "That secret way could've been great for lots of pranks!"

"Well, we found it after we did that prank on the Slytherins," Sirius said, cringing slightly. "Remember? The one where we flooded out their common room and we got detention for two weeks?"

"Oh, yeah," Peter said, as he thought of the long week spent cleaning the dungeons.

"McGonagall was watching us pretty closely, and we didn't want to get into any more trouble, so we decided to postpone anymore tricks until she cooled off," James said. "And we just, sorta forgot about it."

"So what do you think that passageway was used for?" asked Remus.

"Well, we think it was used as some sort of emergency exit or something," James said.

"Hey, why don't we have one of those escape thingies?" Peter whined.

"Because we are strong! We don't need protection," roared Sirius in a deep, booming voice as he stood up and flexed his biceps, exposing his Beater build. "Men, strong as bull! If my masculine friend here," he said pointing at Remus, "were a troll, this is how I would kill him."

Sirius leaped towards the shocked Lupin, grabbing his arms and pinning them behind his back. Remus started laughing uncontrollably as he bent forward to flip Sirius over his shoulder. Sirius landed flat on his back. He gasped for breath as Remus sat on his head, looking around the room with a regal air.

"Get off of me, you stupid git," yelled Sirius, struggling to get up.

"What? I can't understand you. I'm a troll, remember?" Remus proceeded to make grunting noises in between laughs and squished Sirius even further.

"Ha ha ha! How's our 'strong man' fairing?" James snickered.

"Please protect us Mr. Masculine," Peter shrieked. He nearly fell out of his chair in the midst of his laughing.

"Sod off!" Sirius roared, pushing Remus off of him. Standing, Sirius stalked up the staircase to the boys' dormitories.

"Don't mess... ha ha... with me... ha ha ha... two days before the full moon," Remus gasped, holding his sides, as Sirius slammed the door to the fifth years room.

Before long, Sirius made his way irritably back down the winding staircase to the common room. He threw himself onto a plush couch as James, Remus and Peter sniggered under their breath.

"Are you done yet, you bloody morons?" Sirius shot at them.

"Oh, come off it Sirius," James laughed. "You started it and we were only having a bit of fun."

Sirius scowled and continued to stare into the dwindling fire.

"How bout I make it up to you, mate? I'll let you use my best broom the next time we play quidditch," bribed James, as he held out his Invisibility cloak and beckoned towards the exit.

Sirius looked pensive for a moment, than stood up and grabbed the cloak.

"Apology accepted," Sirius said grinning, as he headed towards the Fat Lady's portrait. "But what fun would it be if my three best friends didn't join me? Only two of us can fit comfortably under the cloak at a time, so me and James will go first, then we'll tell you if the coast is clear or not."

Remus nodded, but Peter backed away.

"How 'bout this?" he said pleadingly. "I'll be the lookout, and you guys go up there."

"But it's Christmas Holidays, Peter," Remus said. "No one is even around."

"But just in case. You never know when a teacher will show up," he said, looking from James to Sirius.

"Alright, stay here," James replied with a sigh. "If you're not coming, than we'll just squish together and take one trip."

Chicken, thought Sirius to himself.

They ambled awkwardly through the Fat Lady's portrait and waited for it to close. After taking a careful glance at the ancient stones, Sirius jabbed the right one and quickly muttered the password. The stones parted and revealed a steep, winding staircase. Running as fast as they could under the containing cloak, Sirius, James and Remus made their way up the stair and down a hall until they reached a door marked 5th Years. Sirius pulled the cloak off of their now sweaty heads and looked at his friends. He reached for the shiny, silver doorknob and turned it slowly. He quietly opened the door and looked inside.

"All clear," he whispered.

Swinging the door open the rest of the way, Sirius walked boldly into the room, surveying his surroundings.

"Humph," grunted Sirius. "Why are girls so bloody clean?"

Ech, I'm guessing this is Raven's bed, he thought as he glimpsed a wire picture frame sitting on the nightstand next to it. It was of Raven, and what looked like her parents.

"Let's have some fun!" Sirius sniggered as he jumped into Raven's closet. James walked over to a large wooden trunk that sat at the end of Raven's four-poster bed. He opened it and pulled out a blue leather-bound book.

"Sirius, come out of there and look at this," James yelled to Sirius, who was still in the closet.

"Hold your hippogriffs. I want to show you guys something'."

Sirius burst out of the closet wearing a black miniskirt and a bright pink halter top.

"I feel pretty, Oh so pretty. I'll feel pretty, and witty, and gay," Sirius sang as he twirled around James and Remus.

"You are the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen," Remus choked out in between raspy laughs.

"Stop fooling around and come look at this," James said, still laughing. "I think it's Raven's diary."

"What?" Sirius asked, stopping his spinning and walking over to where James sat.

"I said, I think this is Raven's diary," James repeated.

"I know you twit," Sirius said, hitting James on the arm. "What does it say?"

"I don't know. There's a lot of stuff written in here," James said, as he started to rifle through the pages. "I wonder if I'm in here."

Sirius looked over James's shoulder as he sifted through the pages. He started reading one as James stopped.

Today I was in Potions and Professor Litvy gave the Gryffindors extra homework. I swear he has it in for us. Anyways, as I was copying down some notes I noticed something strange going on across the room. Sirius and his friends were playing with a Snitch. They probably got it from one of their quidditch practices. I don't know about Sirius. He is so...

 James turned the page suddenly, and Sirius was about to protest when he suddenly remembered the scathing remarks his friend had said just a little bit ago.

I can't give him another reason to say I like Raven, Sirius thought. He'll just say I like her if I mention I want to keep reading it.

"I don't see anything about me," James said, as he slammed the book shut. "I don't understand why she wouldn't write about me! I'm so interesting!"

"Hey, stop fooling around," Remus said, calling over to them. "Let's do some damage!"