Just Kids

A Marauders Fic

Summary

Their lives will shape the fate of the world, magic and muggle. They will help drive back the darkness, their names will be known to everyone; they will be loved and hated in turn. Not quite yet though, right now…they're just kids.

Disclaimer

You are gullible if you believe the following:

That the word gullible has been taken out of the dictionary.

&

That I am our beloved JKR. I'm not; I don't own the rights to the Harry Potter books or any of the characters in them. I am not making any money out of this so please don't sue. Since I don't have much money you wouldn't get much out of me anyway.

Authors Note

I dislike this chapter, at first I couldn't write Shadow, then I got depressed and gave up for a bit, then… Anyway, in my eyes this is a disappointing chapter, especially since it took so long to write, I am sorry that you had to wait so long for such meagre fare. Thanks for your support, the next chapter should be better.

On the plus side, I have livejournal, I will be posting the chapters of this story and some other random scribblings that I feel will be interesting.

Lookback

It was Wednesday before the first years had to brave Professor Shadow's classroom; it was one of those strange September days that seem to be harking back to a forgotten summer, the sun shone brightly down from a cloudless sky and the wind (which had been blowing steadily for the past three days) had dropped down to a refreshing breeze that barely ruffled the surface of the lake. It was not a day that lent itself to the absorption of new knowledge, Remus knew for a fact that Lily Evens had spent most of the Transifguration class doodling small flowers on her parchment and he guessed that the rest of the class had been similarly occupied. He had been trying to concentrate on the proper way to transfigure a matchstick but the window next to him had beckoned him with soft beams of sunlight and tempted him with heady scents, as the lesson progressed he had had found it harder and harder to draw himself away from the attractions of the out doors and when they had finally been let out he was all to willing to join in the rush for the doors.

It was with considerable reluctance that the class trudged up to the Defence Classroom, even though most of them had been looking forward to this class since term began (as Tanya Jynx had put it "It's the class where your encouraged to learn some seriously cool curses, who wouldn't want to go?") but holding a lesson on the Dark Arts when the grounds were seeped in sunshine seemed strange. To learn anything on such a wonderful day was an unwelcome concept and being reminded of the horrors that might someday attack you when the only thing on your mind was lunch or returning to the sun drenched grounds just didn't feel right.

That wasn't the only reason why Remus was dreading Defence Against the Dark Arts though, he had skimmed through the set text out of curiosity and he had nearly had a heart attack when he was confronted by the title "Werewolves, The Whys and The Wherefores". It seemed naïve now that he looked back on it but until then he hadn't realised, hadn't wanted to realise that at some point in his school career there would be a class on werewolves…

He had been seriously depressed for the rest of the day, fortunately his mother had managed to convince him that the average pre-pubescent boy barely noticed that the sky was blue; connecting the signs of a werewolf with his friend Remus Lupin's monthly disappearances would almost certainly be beyond almost all of his class-mates' abilities.

He firmly squashed his doubts before he entered the classroom; he wanted to impress Professor Shadow, after all according to rumour she was the best Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor Hogwarts had ever had, mind you only the oldest former student could remember a time when she hadn't been a Professor. Despite this she was a complete mystery to most of the students; she was head of no house, ran no after school clubs and was invisible for most of the day, it was practically impossible to get to know her. Of course there were rumours, that was the trouble, there were so many rumours, she had been to school with Dumbledore, she had been brought up by Demiguise, her skin was made from a Demiguise pelt, she had been an Auror, she had been a spy, she had killed hundreds of Dark Beasts with her bare hand when her wand made of dragon scales, powdered manticore hoof and a hair from the mane of a Thestral had broken. There were even more farfetched rumours floating through the halls of Hogwarts, some people seemed to think that she was a giant in disguise, but the people who thought that tended to be the kind of people that stare several inches away from your left ear while telling you that they have discovered a strange species of bat that lives under the toenails of people who wear a certain type of socks.

However there was one thing that everyone agreed on, you would remember the first lesson she ever gave you for the rest of your life.

There was no one sitting at the desk at the front when they came in, despite this they filed into their desks silently, one week in the castle had given them a slight paranoia about supposedly empty places, Shadow had a nasty habit of turning up right behind you at the most inconvenient times. Anyway by now there was no need to disuse who would sit with who or even where they would sit, Sirius would head for the back and James would follow him after an unsuccessful attempt to sit next to Lily Evens, who would hurriedly gesture for Tanya Jynx to join her in the pair of desks as far away from the boys as possible, on the other hand Peter delighted in being as close to his hero's as possible, this generally meant sitting in front of them and nudging Remus when they said something funny, Dippet, the boy who wanted to be in Hufflepuff sat at the front of the class with the German girl who cried all the time and Kamilah White and Mary Marsh would turn up about five minutes late and slide in to the last available seats.

For once though they turned up on time, but Remus barely noticed their arrival, he was too busy staring at the desk at the front of the classroom. In itself it was quite an ordinary desk made of a slivery sort of wood that might have been pine but the bowl sitting on it was anything but ordinary. Strange runes were carved around the edge of the thick stone basin, they might have been Norse but Remus doubted it, he had seen Norse runes on a stone tablet in his Granny's sitting room and there were quite a few differences… But it wasn't the runes that had caught his attention; the slivery substance in the bowl fascinated him, it was as though light had been caught and sieved through clouds, as though mercury had been mixed with air, it was entrancing, hypnotising… He wanted to know what it felt like, what it did, why did it move as though wind whistled thorough it?

One of the small beams of radiance that reflected from it caught in his eyes making him blink and in the split second when his eyes were closed Professor Shadow materialized behind the desk. She was sitting quite calmly and appeared not to notice there jumps of surprise when she became visible, instead she got to her feet and turned to address the class.

"The bowl before you is a Pensive, it is going to aid me in teaching you the most important lesson you will ever learn in your life. Can anyone tell me what a Pensive does?"

Her question was greeted by silence and blank stares; she nodded and continued with her speech.

"A Pensive is quite simply a place to store memories, at this point you do not need to know how it does this or the various ways in which memories can be viewed, this is not a lesson on Pensives. Indeed this is not a lesson that is normally associated with school, in the normal course of things most of you would never learn it and I would pity the ones who did…"

Remus felt very confused. He was not the only one either, Kamilah White and Mary Marsh were exchanging baffled looks, Peter kept blinking and he could practically feel James and Sirius shrugging their shoulders and rolling their eyes at each other. Shadow didn't appear to notice her pupils' lack of understanding; she had turned away and was doing something to the Pensive with her wand, it seemed to involve a lot of prodding and muttering.

Finally she turned back to the class.

"Come on up here all of you," when she saw their dubious expressions she sighed, "don't worry it won't hurt you, gather round." She beckoned them up until they were all standing in a rough circle around her desk.

"Now, reach out one finger to the Pensive, as if you were about to touch it, no Mr Potter I did not say to touch it, wait until I tell you to. Is everyone ready?" At their nods of assent she reached out with her wand and gave the substance in the Pensive one last poke. Immediately the surface settled, forming a picture that looked so real it was as though Remus was looking down a hole, he could see what seemed to be a clearing in a forest, there was a large bonfire in the centre of glade, its smoke clouded Remus' view of the rest of the clearing, he couldn't see whether the shadows that flickered across the surface of thebowl were real…or imagined.

"What on earth?" whispered Lilly Evens from somewhere behind his left ear.

"Isn't this exciting." said James, who seemed to have taken up residence in Remus' hair.

"Humph." answered Lily.

"Quiet children," admonished Professor Shadow "Now every one reach out and touch the substance in the Pensive, don't jostle each other."

Hesitantly Remus reached out and as soon as his finger touched the almost liquid he was plunged forward; in to a world that was the stuff of nightmares.

Re

brennQT: She does seem very frail, doesn't she, ah well just one way of portraying her, we know so little about her and so I decided to change the commonly held view of her slightly. She isn't another Tonks, she is her own person,she may seem frail on the surface but believe me she does have a streak of fire in her that will come out later. Sorry you don't see much of DADA in this chapter, any guesses what she is going to show them? Sirius and James being friends is great,they are so much fun towrite.

Reader4ever: Wow, you reviewed every chapter, thank you so much for taking the time to do that. And thanks for the birthday wishes. I have a small confession to make about that scene, it was inspired by a very good story based on the start of the Marauders school days, from Sirius' point of view, really good, unfortunatly I can't find the link.

marauding-siriusly: It always annoys me when the potions classes in the days of MWPP have horrible teachers, it just seems unrealistic, unfortunatly I have never had a class like that, but wouldn't it be great if you did.

Amalynne O'hara: If anything I'm the witch for not updating properly, forget it. Thank you so much for the compilments, it means a lot to me, I have been looking back on my old chapters and I keep thinking, did I really write like that? It's a wonder people even stoped to review. James...probably prefers Transfigeration, he is better at it after all.

Dazzling Dame: Sirius and Andromeda have a really intersting relationship, that I hope to expand on in future chapters.

anonymous: Thanks, glad you like it.

The Roaming Gnome Named Fuzio: Wow what a big review, and so complimentery, but believe me I am not the best writer here, check out Mordred's MWPPfic if you want to se true brillience but hey I am flettered. I don't thinkI have the dedication to become a writer, you see how I stop updating this? I would never finish it!