Chapter Three: Exploring
Maraudering! Mara-dering! Lalalalala! –poses for every syllable- I'm in a weird mood today. Short chapter, as well. Enjoy!
After the incident with the fins, Remus refused to talk to the rest of the marauders and took to leaving the room whenever they were around. He was the first to bed every night, his crimson curtains drawn tightly around the bed, and he was the first up every morning, the matching sheets neatly folded and tucked away. This greatly irritated Sirius to no end, because he wasn't one to be ignored.
"That's it," Sirius said finally, after tossing and turning in his blankets one night for an hour. "If he's not going to talk to us, then we're going to talk to him, right?"
"Shuddap…" Peter mumbled, and rolled over in his sleep. The moonlight streamed in through the window. "Cap'n…request permission to throw stuff."
James flailed about at his night table, looking for his glasses. "Permission granted, Private," he yawned. Sirius yelped as various objects of varying weight thumped into his curtains and then smashed to the carpet. After a minute or so of this, someone banged on the floor from below.
"DON'T MAKE ME COME UP THERE!"
"Good night to you, too, Prefect Hewlett," James muttered, reaching through the curtain to yank Sirius out of bed. The both of them staggered to Remus' four-poster and threw open the crimson fabric blocking their way.
"Wha?" Sirius said. "Where'd the Lieutenant go?"
James pointed at the properly made bed. "It hasn't even been slept in," he said sleepily. "We musta really pissed him off…"
"Maybe we should look for him," Sirius said, pulling a pair of pants on over his shorts. "What if he's wandering around in the halls?"
"Without us?" James said, raising an eyebrow in outrage. "He wouldn't!"
Sirius grinned and stretched. "This looks like an excuse to wander the halls, dear Jamesy." He picked up a wind-up clock from the floor and threw it at Peter's half -closed bed curtains. "Peter! You coming?"
"Nuh uh… I'm not sneaking around when prefects can see me. Too bad."
Sirius shrugged and turned to the other raven-haired boy. "Ready?"
"Oh! I have a surprise!" James grinned and flung his hands out at Sirius. Sirius threw his hands up as he felt fabric brush up against his face.
"What in Godric's Socks is that?"
James flicked on a lamp (much to Peter's dismay) and twirled dramatically around the room. "I found it yesterday – in that hall when Hewlett caught you! It was hiding an empty portrait frame behind the curtain that Remus was hiding behind – right beside the window!"
Sirius reached a hand out and came in contact with the unseen sheet. "Is that—"
"An invisibility cloak, Admiral," James put it on with a flourish, vanishing out of sight. "What do you say we go and look at that empty frame?"
Peter cleared his throat, shuffling around under his blankets. "What about Remus?"
Sirius hesitated, but turned to Peter. "Private, guard the area and keep a look out for Lieutenant Lupin. If he returns, hold him for conversation. If Hewlett asks about us, say we went to the loo, 'kay?"
Peter's arm poked out between the curtains and lazily saluted the wardrobe. (Sirius assumed it was supposed to be directed to him.) The arm retreated and Sirius was abruptly pulled under the cloak with James.
"Let us be off!" James said with a lopsided grin.
-et puis-
To both James' and Sirius' great disappointment, the picture frame was just an ordinary picture frame. However, when a portrait of a large family of pointy-eared girls heard them talking about it in the corridor, they offered to give the boys a secret passage in trade for the frame.
"Aw, I should have gone with you!" Peter moaned, after hearing the exaggerated story featuring riddles to be solved and a snitch to be caught. "Where does the passage lead?"
"It goes from the seventh floor to the first floor," Sirius said excitedly. "That means no more flights and flights of stairs to get to the Great Hall in the morning!"
"Brilliant," Peter breathed, "That's great!"
"Anything about Remus or Hewlett?" James asked. Professor Binns lazily instructed them all to take down notes on his lecture – the Crisis of Carrot Creek (1314-1623) – and didn't notice when everyone nodded and went back to talking in their own little groups.
Peter shook his head. "Nope. He didn't show up. I dropped a bunch of books around 5:30 and Hewlett yelled at me to stop, so he didn't suspect that you were even gone."
James gave Peter a mini salute. "Good job, Private," his brow furrowed for a moment, and he leaned back, the front two legs of the chair lifting in the air. "It's weird, though, about Remus. He's not even in classes today…"
Sirius doodled randomly on James' scroll, "He can't be that mad at us, right? It's only the second week of classes, so it's not like he can just not come to class…"
"As much as we don't want to…" Peter muttered.
"Did he look sick to you?" James asked suddenly, falling forward so his chair hit the floor with a 'clack.' The students in the class faked an attentive pose as Binns looked at them, and dropped it once he went back to pacing. "I mean, the last time we saw him – Saturday when he was lying on his bed when we came in – did he look kinda wishy-washy to you?"
Sirius exchanged quills and chewed on the tip of his new one thoughtfully, "I wasn't going to say anything, myself… I'm glad you mentioned that, Captain." He grew tired of the charade and bit off the top of the sugar quill. He munched on it, "But I thought it was just cause he just got rid of those fins on Thursday. Who knows what that does to the system?"
"True…" Said James slowly. He shook his head and smiled. "Well, we'll get him to talk to us the next time we see him. Find out what happened."
"Good idea," Sirius said absently, finishing his quill.
Peter rolled his scroll from one side of the table to the other. "What if we never see him again?"
"Don't be silly. What could possibly happen to him here?"
-et puis-
They seemed to have a natural knack for it – sneaking about the castle and worming its secrets out. In the period of five hours, the three of them discovered three secret passages, two exits from the school and eight large, hidden rooms. They were only almost caught twice, and one of them was because they turned a corner to end up right behind Filtch.
Sirius tumbled out of the wall, next to the portrait of the blind deaf man, James and Peter landing on top of him. In the middle of untangling themselves, James suddenly hissed for them to shut up.
Madam Pomfrey, one hand braced against the door beside the Hospital Wing sign, was peeling mud-covered shoes off of her feet. A fresh welt was cast across her left cheek, bright and rosy even in the shaded darkness of the corridor. She cursed under her breath, muttering about 'flapping bloody trees' and 'great trickery of knots." She picked up her shoes, making a face at the mud, and carried them into the Hospital Wing. The door shut firmly, a loud click sounding in the hallway.
"Can I move?" Peter whispered. James shoved him, and the three boys suddenly pulled apart.
"So…" Sirius said, poking the wall with his wand. "Sixth floor tapestry leads to here…the password…um…"
"Hillious Flimmis," James said.
The wall in front of them shimmered and rippled like jelly.
"And viceversa on that passage," Sirius said. He moved through the wall again, the whole scene with Madam Pomfrey already forgotten.
-et puis-
Three of the four marauders found Remus sitting in the Great Hall the day after, determinedly trying to eat an omelet with a plastic spoon and knife. After watching him for a few minutes, mystified by the mysterious appearance, they finally went over to talk to him.
"Hi, Remus," Peter said slowly.
Remus rocked the spoon back and forth in the omelet and made an indistinct sound at him. "Good morning."
"Why the-"
"My fork unfortunately passed away in the night," Remus answered, cleanly cutting Peter off. "It was a difficult passing, but the other utensils will move on…"
"Where were you yesterday?" Sirius said bluntly, deciding to sidestep Remus' newly revealed sarcasm and get straight to the point. His efforts earned himself identical exasperated looks from James and Peter.
"Hospital Wing," Remus replied. "Nursing my cutlery back to health. Around 2:30 we though the knife might have had a stroke, but it was a false alarm." He was cutting his breakfast into pieces small enough for him so scoop up with his spoon.
The other three exchanged a glance. "Look, about the fins-" James started.
"What?" Remus looked up at him, his concentration finally broken. "Oh, right – it's fine. No hard feelings, right?"
Sirius glanced uneasily at James who returned the look. The same phrase that they had used seemed a bit bitter coming from Remus. The three of them stood silently around Remus as he renewed his quest to eat his egg. Peter, by far the only one who had qualms with strange eating habits, finally gave an annoyed sigh and picked up silverware from the next place setting.
"Here," he said, sticking it in front of Remus.
The three boys jumped as Remus suddenly jerked away, sliding down the table and nearly falling to the floor. He looked up at them with a strangely even, unblinking look and the two remaining plastic utensils snapped between his clenched fingers. The boys were struck dumb by the intensity of his gaze, and all hesitantly took a step back. They were held in the moment for a long heartbeat until Remus abruptly stood, turned around, and calmly walked out of the hall.
"That was weird." James murmured.
James: What's your problem with dinnerware?
Remus: Um…mine's…an enchanted set that's been in the family for generations?
James: A plastic breakable heirloom?
Remus: LOOK! A SNITCH!
James: WHERE? –jumps up to look around-
Remus: -runs-
James: I THINK I SEE IT! –dashes off-
I figure for once, Remus can be the sarcastic one. He needs a good defense mechanism, and I've already written him as the strong, silent, ghosting type. He's not just intelligent; he's witty too! Oh, and you know what else I love doing? Making up random subjects for Professor Binns to lecture on. It's fun. –grin- Yes, I am pathetic, I know…
Cheers and sporks, OV