Chapter 40 Past, Present, and Future
Time passed quickly at Hogwarts after the Easter holidays, and before the seventh years were ready for it, it was May, which meant that NEWTs were just round the corner. Those seventh years that hadn't yet begun studying were now beginning to panic, and there was actually a crowd in the library most evenings as the fifth and seventh year students crammed for their OWLs and NEWTs respectively.
Severus Snape was not one of those in panic mode. Never one to wait till the last minute, Snape had been on a NEWT study timetable since January. This was just as well, since Snape had more pressing matters to concern himself with.
In the weeks since the Dark Lord's summons, Snape had been making rounds of discreet inquiries among his peers who had been involved in the disastrous attack on the Ministry; there was no way of knowing who, if anyone, was reporting his findings back to Voldemort. It was a pointless exercise of course, but it was crucial that he keep up appearances, lest anyone suspect the truth.
And Snape was quickly running out of time. The Dark Lord was trusting Snape to produce results, but it seemed as though the more Snape searched, the fewer options he had. His subtle inquiries had produced no solutions, and Snape was beginning to feel nervous. It was only a matter of time before he himself became suspect.
True, Snape would do a great deal to preserve himself from suspicion and, consequently, harm. But he somehow fell short of actually giving one of his classmates to Voldemort as a traitor. Though he held affection for none of them and respect for few of them, these people were at least familiar to Snape and for that reason he found, to his own disgust, that he could not wrongfully condemn them to die. His life would have been made a good deal simpler if he could have.
No, he would try to look outside of his own house, Snape decided finally. He had been shut up in his customary study room for a good part of the day, pacing and thinking. He couldn't bring a Death Eater spy to Voldemort for execution if there wasn't a Death Eater to bring. But if someone from a different house had somehow overheard something, it would absolve Snape and his housemates from any guilt in the matter.
The more he considered this option, the more appealing it became to Snape. What he had to do now was look for his opportunity and when he found it, he could not afford to hesitate to seize it.
Coming back to Hogwarts from the Easter holidays had been like crashing back to reality for James. Nothing, it seemed, had gone his way since that one perfect week with Lily.
For one thing, he hadn't been alone with Lily since that Saturday they'd spent together in Muggle London. Not that privacy was remotely possible for them at Hogwarts, but he missed being alone with Lily all the same.
NEWT hysteria was sweeping the seventh year, and while Lily was remaining calm in the face of it, this was not true of the majority of their classmates; if Lily wasn't busy with her Head Girl duties or studying, she was helping everyone else to prepare for their exams.
Quidditch was another dividing factor; the Quidditch Cup finals were on Saturday, and any time James wasn't studying or trying to see Lily, he was holding practice on the pitch. It would be Slytherin versus Gryffindor in the final once again, and James had all he could handle trying to keep his players from hexing the Slytherins senseless, and more importantly, keeping the Gryffindors from being hexed senseless by the Slytherins, who had no such scruples about fair play on or off the pitch.
Therefore James wasn't in the best of moods when Sirius and Peter woke him as they returned to the dormitory late Thursday night.
"But it wasn't MY – OUCH!"
"Shhh! D'you want to wake everyone up, you great git?"
"But that was my FOOT, Sirius!"
"I don't give a bloody damn about your foot, and I STILL wouldn't give a bloody damn even if it was your – "
"Will the pair of you SHUT THE HELL UP?!" James roared, sitting up in his four-poster. "Some of us have an early Quidditch practice tomorrow and you lot AREN'T HELPING!"
"Hear, hear,"came Frank's sleepy voice from across the room.
"Well you didn't have to shout," Peter huffed. Catching sight of James' expression, however, he quickly abandoned his injured dignity.
"Er, why were you lot out so late anyway?" Remus asked hastily, defusing the situation before James could do more than glare.
Sirius and Peter exchanged a glance. "We went to – er - visit the Slytherin dorms," Sirius answered after a brief pause.
"Well, that's great, Padfoot," James snapped. "That's just fan–bloody- tastic. I hope you had fun, because the party in the common room is bound to fall a bit flat on Saturday after we're DISQUALIFIED FROM THE MATCH!"
"I said we WENT to visit the Slytherin dorms," Sirius shot back, a bit irked himself at this point, "not that we VISITED them, so you can just bloody well take the broomstick out of your arse!"
"What do you mean you 'went' to visit them?" Remus asked sharply. "What happened?" Sirius shot a pointed glance toward the bed by the window, but Frank, long used to the Marauders' nocturnal activities, had gone back to sleep. Nevertheless, Sirius drew the curtains round Frank's bed and cast a soundproofing charm on them before replying.
"What I mean," Sirius said, making his way to his bed, "is that that's where Peter and I set out to go, but we didn't get there."
"All right, so where did you go instead?" Remus asked, playing along. James simply glowered.
"Filch's office," Peter said, exchanging another glance with Sirius.
"And what exactly were you doing there?" Remus eyed his friends narrowly.
"Getting a detention," Sirius answered, pulling at the neck of his robes as if they were suddenly strangling him.
"How'd you manage that?" James was coming out of his strop, interested in spite of himself. "You have the Marauder's Map with you, don't you?"
"Er, we HAD it with us," Sirius mumbled, looking down.
"What do you mean HAD?" James and Remus asked in unison.
"He means that we don't have it anymore," Peter burst out, looking ready to cry. "Filch confiscated the Marauder's Map."
It was one of the darkest days the Marauders had known at Hogwarts. The Marauder's Map, the product of five years' worth of effort, their invaluable prank-playing asset, was gone.
Remus, Peter, Sirius, and James sat up the rest of the night, going over and over Peter and Sirius' story.
Peter and Sirius had just come out of the secret passage, en route to the Slytherin dungeons, when they'd run into Filch. Naturally, Peter had created a diversion to give Sirius time to clear the map, but there'd been no getting round it. Filch had dragged them both to his office, issued them each a detention to be served tomorrow night, and confiscated the map, threatening them with thumbscrews and disembowelment if they didn't tell him what it was for. Peter had tried to create another diversion by pretending to faint from his fear of Filch's threats, but Sirius hadn't been able to take the map in time.
All thoughts of sleep now cast aside in view of this emergency, the Marauders immediately planned and executed an extraction, armed with James' Invisibility Cloak. However, when a thorough search of Filch's office failed to turn up the map, reality had to be faced: the Marauder's Map was lost.
The four Marauders went about on Friday with dark circles under their eyes and woebegone expressions, all of them thoroughly depressed over the loss of the map. It seemed depressingly possible that they would never recover it.
James and Sirius were less than their usual brilliant selves at Quidditch practice, Remus' attention actually seemed to be wandering in class, and Peter seemed even more nervous and fidgety than usual. Naturally, Lily and Kathleen, excellent girlfriends that they were, attempted to cheer their boyfriends up, but even this didn't seem to help.
The Marauders' spirits rallied a bit by dinnertime as thoughts of tomorrow's Quidditch match began to encompass everything else. Remus, Sirius, James, and Peter spent dinner discussing Quidditch tactics with the Gryffindor team, and continued the discussion in the common room until James, aware that it was getting late, ordered the team to bed.
Saturday morning was clear and bright as James, Sirius, and the rest of the Gryffindor team made their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. As he sat listening to the sleepy conversations of his teammates and the hissed insults and threats from the Slytherin team across the hall, James found himself wishing that Lily were here to wish him luck before the match. But undoubtedly Lily, who was no more of a morning person than he was, was still asleep; the match wouldn't start for two more hours, and undoubtedly Lily was taking the opportunity to sleep in. James would've done the same if he hadn't been playing in the match.
Sighing, James drained his pumpkin juice and stood up to lead his team to the pitch. Something red caught the corner of James' eye before he could move, however, and James turned to see Lily hurrying toward him.
"I came to wish you luck," Lily explained breathlessly, pushing hair out of her eyes. Clearly she'd run all the way from Gryffindor Tower, but she was smiling at him nonetheless. James felt a tightness in his chest as he smiled back at her.
"Not that I need it," James retorted in his cockiest tone, determined not to show emotion in front of his team or the Slytherins. Lily rolled her eyes at him but leaned in to kiss him anyway.
"I can't believe you got up early for me," James said admiringly a few minutes later.
"Don't get used to it," Lily blushed, embarrassed to have been caught doing something that proved that she was as head over heels as James was.
"Right," James smirked at Lily infuriatingly as he sauntered off to join his grinning teammates.
James was still smirking almost three hours later as he looped round a Slytherin Chaser and expertly stole the Quaffle from his grip before the hapless Slytherin could become fully aware of what had happened. The Gryffindor crowd went wild, and James directed another smirk toward the Gryffindor stands before a close call with a Bludger returned his attention to the match.
Observing this from the stands with Alice, Morwenna, Kathleen, Remus, and Peter, Lily felt torn between intense relief that the Slytherin Chaser hadn't brained James and the desire to brain him herself. The Slytherins were playing even dirtier than usual, which for them was really saying something, and James was lucky to have gotten away with his head, let alone the Quaffle. He was showing off, no doubt for her, and it was likely to get him knocked unconscious at least. Lily had lost count of the number of penalties Gryffindor had been awarded.
"Ooooohh!" The crowd's groan and the crack of a Beater's bat against something solid turned Lily's attention back to the match. Anxious, she scanned the Gryffindor players for James.
"And it seems that Gryffindor Beater Black has finally had enough of Slytherin Beater Wilkes' taunting," Ludo Bagman's voice boomed over the crowd. "Penalty for the Slytherins!" Lily caught sight of the Slytherin Beater in question, still miraculously on his broomstick, holding his head and regarding the Slytherin captain, who was waving three fingers in front of his face, with a rather glazed expression. Sirius, on the other hand, wore an expression of poorly concealed glee on his face as he received not- so-subtle congratulations from Higgins, the other Gryffindor Beater.
"Ugh," came Alice's voice from Lily's right side, "I don't think I could stand to watch those Slytherin bastards make this shot. Let's go to the loo, shall we?"
As it turned out, Morwenna and Kathleen didn't care to watch Wilkes make the goal either, so the four girls set out, Remus and Peter barely noticing their departure. It was next to impossible to negotiate the cheering crowds in the stands, so Lily, Alice, Morwenna, and Kathleen made their way under the seats, where there were a good deal fewer people.
Alice, who was trying to hear Morwenna over the noise, wasn't paying attention to what was in front of her and collided head first with someone.
"Oh," Alice gasped, disentangling herself and staggering to her feet. "Oh, I'm so sorry! It's all my fault, I wasn't watching where I was going. Here, let me help you – "
Alice's voice simply died away. Lily glanced round at her friend sharply, but Alice, seemingly unhurt, was staring at the figure in front of her as though possessed. Unable to see in the dim light, Lily drew her wand and whispered "Lumos."
The wandlight cast shadows over the walls and Morwenna and Kathleen, giving the area below the stands an ominous feeling. Unnerved now, Lily brought her wand closer to the figure Alice had bumped into and found Bellatrix Black grinning back at her.
"Think nothing of it, poppet," Bellatrix said to Alice, an odd glitter in her eyes. Lily saw now that four Slytherin girls stood behind her, wearing expressions of malicious excitement. "Clumsiness does seem to run in your family, after all."
Morwenna stepped forward, fists clenched. "How DARE you speak to Alice about her family?" she hissed, trembling with fury.
Bellatrix quirked a mocking brow at Morwenna. "Ohh, so ickle Miss Marchbanks has claws, does she?" Bellatrix singsonged as her friends tittered behind her. "Been spending a bit of time with the Mudblood, have you, Marchbanks?"
"You bitch!" Alice snarled. And, before anyone could stop her, Alice launched herself at Bellatrix, Morwenna close behind her.
"Uh....?" Kathleen looked round at Lily uneasily as their friends began to pummel Bellatrix.
"There doesn't seem to be much choice," Lily indicated the Slytherin girls who had now entered the fray and moved toward the screeching mass of girls with a purposeful air.
"Right," Kathleen answered grimly, rolling up her sleeves as she followed Lily into the brawl.
Brandishing the Quidditch Cup, James scanned the cheering crowd for any sign of red hair and was disappointed to find none. Where was Lily, for Merlin's sake? James was reasonably sure that he'd seen her in the stands, but there was no sign of her now. He'd just won the Quidditch Cup for the sixth consecutive year, and his girlfriend was missing it.
Dejected, James accepted congratulations from everyone but Lily automatically, glancing round him. Professor Dumbledore was speaking with a wizard James had never seen before, gesturing toward the Gryffindor team. Dorcas and Frank stood off to one side, smiling widely as they talked to each other. So Lily wasn't congratulating Dorcas.
"Oi! Prongs!" Sirius, Remus, and Peter made their way through the throng to him, all three of them grinning.
"Where's Lily?" James asked Remus and Peter. "Wasn't she sitting with you?"
"She was," Remus replied, frowning now. "But she, Kathleen, Morwenna, and Alice went off somewhere a few minutes before the match ended."
"We'd assumed they were here," Peter put in, looking round worriedly.
"Don't panic yet, Prongs," Sirius said quickly, recognizing the look on James' face. "There're Frank and Dorcas; they might know something." James, with Sirius, Remus, and Peter at his heels, started toward Dorcas and Frank, who were now in conversation with Hestia Jones, a Ravenclaw seventh year.
Before the Marauders could get there, however, Frank and Dorcas exclaimed "WHAT?!" in perfect unison, remounted their broomsticks, and kicked off, flying hard in the direction of the castle.
"Hestia!" James shouted, toppling third years as he ran, "What's happened? What did you tell Dorcas and Frank?"
"Oh, James," Hestia blushed a bit, seemingly embarrassed. "I-it's nothing to be upset about, Morwenna just asked me to come and tell you lot so you wouldn't worry about them."
"Tell us what?" James asked, feeling panicked.
"Er," Hestia fidgeted. "Just that they – Morwenna, Alice, Lily, and Kathleen, that is – are in the hospital wing."
"WHAT?!" the Marauders cried in perfect imitation of Dorcas and Frank and immediately began asking questions all at once.
"WHAT HAPPENED?" James shouted, making himself heard over the din.
Hestia shook her head. "I'm not supposed to tell you that part," she said apologetically. "I was just supposed to tell you that they're okay and not to worry."
The Marauders snorted at this, but wasted no more time debating the point as James and Sirius mounted their broomsticks, pulling Remus and Peter on behind them.
"Thank you," Remus called to Hestia over his shoulder as James kicked off.
Panting and out of breath, James and Remus, with Peter and Sirius right behind them, raced down the corridor toward the hospital wing. Professor McGonagall's voice drifted toward them; clearly their Head of House was in rare form over something.
"......ABSOLUTELY DISGRACEFUL!" McGonagall was saying as they approached. "I have come to expect better behavior from all of you! Fifty points from Gryffindor! You will all be serving detentions and you will write letters apologizing for your shameful conduct!" Not wasting anymore time, James burst into the hospital wing, his friends behind him, and stopped, shocked, at the sight in front of him.
Professors Astral and McGonagall stood in the middle of the room, acting as a buffer between the four Gryffindor and five Slytherin girls, all of whom were nursing injuries ranging from minor scrapes and bruises to what appeared to be broken arms and concussions. If James hadn't known Lily better, he'd have thought this looked like the aftermath of a particularly vicious fistfight.
Professor McGonagall spun round and noticed the Marauders. "I might have known you lot would be turning up," she sighed, shooting the four boys a narrow look. "You may stand over there with the others; I'm not finished with these girls yet, and you may not speak with them until I am." McGonagall indicated a small knot of students in the corner that included Frank and Dorcas. Madam Pomfrey ushered the Marauders over to join them.
"What happened?" James whispered to Frank as soon as Madam Pomfrey had turned away again.
"Apparently Alice, Lily, Morwenna, and Kathleen got into it with Bellatrix and her lot," Frank whispered back, casting a wary eye toward McGonagall, who was now lecturing the Slytherin girls.
"What about?" Sirius wanted to know.
"Don't know," a Hufflepuff boy answered him, "but I've never seen anything like it before in my entire life. I was going under the bleachers toward the pitch when I saw all nine of them going at each other."
"Where's Bellatrix?" Remus asked, glancing round. "I don't see her anywhere."
"She's behind that curtain," the Hufflepuff boy indicated an enclosed bed. "She was hurt a bit worse than the rest."
Before the Marauders could inquire further, the Slytherin girls, sniffling and clutching one another, made their way out of the hospital wing behind Professor Astral, who looked very cross. Not wasting any more time, James made his way straight to Lily.
Are you all right?" he asked her, kneeling down next to the bed she was sitting on and squeezing her tight enough to cut off her oxygen supply. Sirius crowded in behind him.
"I'm fine," Lily answered, pulling back a bit, and with the exception of the fingernail gouges running down one cheek and a rather bruised forearm, she seemed to be.
"What in the bloody hell happened?" James asked, touching her gouges carefully with one finger.
Quickly Lily gave an account of the exchange between Alice, Morwenna, and Bellatrix and the subsequent fistfight that had finally been broken up when the match had ended and a group of students on their way to the pitch had found them.
"Professor McGonagall was livid," Lily finished up, glancing round at her friends. Alice and Frank were huddled on one bed, talking quietly; Alice, sporting a black eye, was clearly on the verge of tears. Nearby, Morwenna, Dorcas, and Peter sat together while Madam Pomfrey examined a lump on Morwenna's head. Remus, who was a bit pale, sat with his arms round Kathleen, who was giving him an animated account of the proceedings, her bandaged ankle propped on the bed.
What happened to Bellatrix?" James remembered to ask. "A Hufflepuff boy said she was bad off."
"Er – yes, well, she has a couple of broken ribs and some really nasty bruises," Lily said, not quite meeting James' eye.
"Not that the bitch doesn't deserve everything she gets, but how exactly did that happen?" Sirius asked, watching Lily closely.
"I should imagine it happened after Alice and Morwenna finished jumping up and down on her," Lily answered innocently, the corners of her lips twitching suspiciously.
"Wish I'd been there to see that," James said, grinning.
"Me too," Sirius seconded in a reverential voice, a faraway look in his eyes.
"If you all are sufficiently recovered, you may make your way to Gryffindor Tower," Professor McGonagall said a good deal more cheerfully than anyone would have thought she would be. "By the way, Potter, Meadows, Professor Dumbledore wishes to see you both in his office at the earliest possible convenience." With that, Professor McGonagall made her way toward the door.
As she passed Alice's bed, her handkerchief fell to the ground. "Oh, here, Professor, you dropped this," Alice said, holding the handkerchief out.
"Thank you, Miss Prewett," McGonagall said formally, taking it from her. "Fifty points to Gryffindor." Professor McGonagall reached the door, ignoring the shocked gasps all round her, and exited with her customary briskness, but Lily could have sworn that there was a satisfied twinkle in her eye.
More than an hour later, James and Dorcas made their way to Professor Dumbledore's office, still talking about the Quidditch match and the Gryffindor girls' fistfight, stopping only when they reached Dumbledore's door.
"Enter," came Dumbledore's voice in response to James' knock. Dorcas and James pushed open the door and came in to find the Headmaster standing with a strange witch and wizard.
"James, Dorcas, may I present Crispus Colepepper of the Wimbourne Wasps and Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies," Professor Dumbledore said in a smooth voice. "They saw you both play in today's match and are interested in discussing your prospects with you."
James and Dorcas had just enough time to exchange bemused glances before Colepepper and Jones began a barrage of questions, asking them about everything from how long they'd been playing to when their exams were to their favourite players when they were children. It was nearly half an hour before Dumbledore, as tactfully as possible, suggested that they give James and Dorcas some time to consider their offers. The next thing James knew, he and Dorcas were standing back out in the corridor, both feeling like they were in some sort of dream. Whether the dream was good or bad, James wasn't quite sure.
"I never would have thought I was good enough to play Quidditch professionally; I always thought I'd be an Auror like my dad wanted me to be. It might be sort of cool though to play for an all-witches' team, and Gwenog Jones seems like she's really good," Dorcas mused excitedly as they made their way back to Gryffindor Tower. "Of course, I'd love to play for the Wasps, but I think Mr. Colepepper was more interested in you than in me. What do you think, James?"
"Huh?" James, still a bit dazed, was having trouble focusing on Dorcas' voice.
"I asked you what you thought," Dorcas repeated, a hint of exasperation in her voice. "Honestly – James? Is something the matter?" Dorcas peered into James' face. "You don't look at all well."
"Just shocked, I expect," James smiled distractedly.
"Right," Dorcas echoed uncertainly, giving James a discerning look. They continued in silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts.
"This is what you want, isn't it, James?" Dorcas asked suddenly. "To play for England, I mean?"
"Yeah," James replied, completely truthfully. "I used to dream about this."
"Then there's no problem, is there?" Dorcas said triumphantly, the note of excitement back in her voice.
"Nope, no problem," James echoed weakly, trying to shake himself out of it.
"This is wicked!" Dorcas exclaimed, throwing her arms round James. "The pair of us, playing for England together! Who'd have thought? I'm going to write to my parents!" With that, Dorcas dashed off toward Gryffindor Tower, leaving James behind.
Playing Quidditch professionally used to be what he wanted, James reflected as he made his way to the common room more slowly, pausing to gaze out a window at the Quidditch pitch in the distance. The crowds, the uniforms, the adoring fans – James had practically been able to taste them. But when he thought of Lily and of Professor Dumbledore and his parents and Voldemort and all of the terrible things that happened to people like Alice and Morwenna every day, James could feel the doubt swirling round in his gut until it was almost painful.
With an effort, James continued on his way, his thoughts chasing each other round and round his brain.
Author's Note:
Thanks so much, everyone, for your reviews! I'm glad people enjoyed reading this chapter ( I had loads of fun writing it) and I always like to hear what people's favorite parts were or what parts related to their lives (who knew funnel analogies were so popular?) If I thanked people individually, the list would be stupidly long, so I'll just say again, thanks to everyone. 'Til next time!
Time passed quickly at Hogwarts after the Easter holidays, and before the seventh years were ready for it, it was May, which meant that NEWTs were just round the corner. Those seventh years that hadn't yet begun studying were now beginning to panic, and there was actually a crowd in the library most evenings as the fifth and seventh year students crammed for their OWLs and NEWTs respectively.
Severus Snape was not one of those in panic mode. Never one to wait till the last minute, Snape had been on a NEWT study timetable since January. This was just as well, since Snape had more pressing matters to concern himself with.
In the weeks since the Dark Lord's summons, Snape had been making rounds of discreet inquiries among his peers who had been involved in the disastrous attack on the Ministry; there was no way of knowing who, if anyone, was reporting his findings back to Voldemort. It was a pointless exercise of course, but it was crucial that he keep up appearances, lest anyone suspect the truth.
And Snape was quickly running out of time. The Dark Lord was trusting Snape to produce results, but it seemed as though the more Snape searched, the fewer options he had. His subtle inquiries had produced no solutions, and Snape was beginning to feel nervous. It was only a matter of time before he himself became suspect.
True, Snape would do a great deal to preserve himself from suspicion and, consequently, harm. But he somehow fell short of actually giving one of his classmates to Voldemort as a traitor. Though he held affection for none of them and respect for few of them, these people were at least familiar to Snape and for that reason he found, to his own disgust, that he could not wrongfully condemn them to die. His life would have been made a good deal simpler if he could have.
No, he would try to look outside of his own house, Snape decided finally. He had been shut up in his customary study room for a good part of the day, pacing and thinking. He couldn't bring a Death Eater spy to Voldemort for execution if there wasn't a Death Eater to bring. But if someone from a different house had somehow overheard something, it would absolve Snape and his housemates from any guilt in the matter.
The more he considered this option, the more appealing it became to Snape. What he had to do now was look for his opportunity and when he found it, he could not afford to hesitate to seize it.
Coming back to Hogwarts from the Easter holidays had been like crashing back to reality for James. Nothing, it seemed, had gone his way since that one perfect week with Lily.
For one thing, he hadn't been alone with Lily since that Saturday they'd spent together in Muggle London. Not that privacy was remotely possible for them at Hogwarts, but he missed being alone with Lily all the same.
NEWT hysteria was sweeping the seventh year, and while Lily was remaining calm in the face of it, this was not true of the majority of their classmates; if Lily wasn't busy with her Head Girl duties or studying, she was helping everyone else to prepare for their exams.
Quidditch was another dividing factor; the Quidditch Cup finals were on Saturday, and any time James wasn't studying or trying to see Lily, he was holding practice on the pitch. It would be Slytherin versus Gryffindor in the final once again, and James had all he could handle trying to keep his players from hexing the Slytherins senseless, and more importantly, keeping the Gryffindors from being hexed senseless by the Slytherins, who had no such scruples about fair play on or off the pitch.
Therefore James wasn't in the best of moods when Sirius and Peter woke him as they returned to the dormitory late Thursday night.
"But it wasn't MY – OUCH!"
"Shhh! D'you want to wake everyone up, you great git?"
"But that was my FOOT, Sirius!"
"I don't give a bloody damn about your foot, and I STILL wouldn't give a bloody damn even if it was your – "
"Will the pair of you SHUT THE HELL UP?!" James roared, sitting up in his four-poster. "Some of us have an early Quidditch practice tomorrow and you lot AREN'T HELPING!"
"Hear, hear,"came Frank's sleepy voice from across the room.
"Well you didn't have to shout," Peter huffed. Catching sight of James' expression, however, he quickly abandoned his injured dignity.
"Er, why were you lot out so late anyway?" Remus asked hastily, defusing the situation before James could do more than glare.
Sirius and Peter exchanged a glance. "We went to – er - visit the Slytherin dorms," Sirius answered after a brief pause.
"Well, that's great, Padfoot," James snapped. "That's just fan–bloody- tastic. I hope you had fun, because the party in the common room is bound to fall a bit flat on Saturday after we're DISQUALIFIED FROM THE MATCH!"
"I said we WENT to visit the Slytherin dorms," Sirius shot back, a bit irked himself at this point, "not that we VISITED them, so you can just bloody well take the broomstick out of your arse!"
"What do you mean you 'went' to visit them?" Remus asked sharply. "What happened?" Sirius shot a pointed glance toward the bed by the window, but Frank, long used to the Marauders' nocturnal activities, had gone back to sleep. Nevertheless, Sirius drew the curtains round Frank's bed and cast a soundproofing charm on them before replying.
"What I mean," Sirius said, making his way to his bed, "is that that's where Peter and I set out to go, but we didn't get there."
"All right, so where did you go instead?" Remus asked, playing along. James simply glowered.
"Filch's office," Peter said, exchanging another glance with Sirius.
"And what exactly were you doing there?" Remus eyed his friends narrowly.
"Getting a detention," Sirius answered, pulling at the neck of his robes as if they were suddenly strangling him.
"How'd you manage that?" James was coming out of his strop, interested in spite of himself. "You have the Marauder's Map with you, don't you?"
"Er, we HAD it with us," Sirius mumbled, looking down.
"What do you mean HAD?" James and Remus asked in unison.
"He means that we don't have it anymore," Peter burst out, looking ready to cry. "Filch confiscated the Marauder's Map."
It was one of the darkest days the Marauders had known at Hogwarts. The Marauder's Map, the product of five years' worth of effort, their invaluable prank-playing asset, was gone.
Remus, Peter, Sirius, and James sat up the rest of the night, going over and over Peter and Sirius' story.
Peter and Sirius had just come out of the secret passage, en route to the Slytherin dungeons, when they'd run into Filch. Naturally, Peter had created a diversion to give Sirius time to clear the map, but there'd been no getting round it. Filch had dragged them both to his office, issued them each a detention to be served tomorrow night, and confiscated the map, threatening them with thumbscrews and disembowelment if they didn't tell him what it was for. Peter had tried to create another diversion by pretending to faint from his fear of Filch's threats, but Sirius hadn't been able to take the map in time.
All thoughts of sleep now cast aside in view of this emergency, the Marauders immediately planned and executed an extraction, armed with James' Invisibility Cloak. However, when a thorough search of Filch's office failed to turn up the map, reality had to be faced: the Marauder's Map was lost.
The four Marauders went about on Friday with dark circles under their eyes and woebegone expressions, all of them thoroughly depressed over the loss of the map. It seemed depressingly possible that they would never recover it.
James and Sirius were less than their usual brilliant selves at Quidditch practice, Remus' attention actually seemed to be wandering in class, and Peter seemed even more nervous and fidgety than usual. Naturally, Lily and Kathleen, excellent girlfriends that they were, attempted to cheer their boyfriends up, but even this didn't seem to help.
The Marauders' spirits rallied a bit by dinnertime as thoughts of tomorrow's Quidditch match began to encompass everything else. Remus, Sirius, James, and Peter spent dinner discussing Quidditch tactics with the Gryffindor team, and continued the discussion in the common room until James, aware that it was getting late, ordered the team to bed.
Saturday morning was clear and bright as James, Sirius, and the rest of the Gryffindor team made their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. As he sat listening to the sleepy conversations of his teammates and the hissed insults and threats from the Slytherin team across the hall, James found himself wishing that Lily were here to wish him luck before the match. But undoubtedly Lily, who was no more of a morning person than he was, was still asleep; the match wouldn't start for two more hours, and undoubtedly Lily was taking the opportunity to sleep in. James would've done the same if he hadn't been playing in the match.
Sighing, James drained his pumpkin juice and stood up to lead his team to the pitch. Something red caught the corner of James' eye before he could move, however, and James turned to see Lily hurrying toward him.
"I came to wish you luck," Lily explained breathlessly, pushing hair out of her eyes. Clearly she'd run all the way from Gryffindor Tower, but she was smiling at him nonetheless. James felt a tightness in his chest as he smiled back at her.
"Not that I need it," James retorted in his cockiest tone, determined not to show emotion in front of his team or the Slytherins. Lily rolled her eyes at him but leaned in to kiss him anyway.
"I can't believe you got up early for me," James said admiringly a few minutes later.
"Don't get used to it," Lily blushed, embarrassed to have been caught doing something that proved that she was as head over heels as James was.
"Right," James smirked at Lily infuriatingly as he sauntered off to join his grinning teammates.
James was still smirking almost three hours later as he looped round a Slytherin Chaser and expertly stole the Quaffle from his grip before the hapless Slytherin could become fully aware of what had happened. The Gryffindor crowd went wild, and James directed another smirk toward the Gryffindor stands before a close call with a Bludger returned his attention to the match.
Observing this from the stands with Alice, Morwenna, Kathleen, Remus, and Peter, Lily felt torn between intense relief that the Slytherin Chaser hadn't brained James and the desire to brain him herself. The Slytherins were playing even dirtier than usual, which for them was really saying something, and James was lucky to have gotten away with his head, let alone the Quaffle. He was showing off, no doubt for her, and it was likely to get him knocked unconscious at least. Lily had lost count of the number of penalties Gryffindor had been awarded.
"Ooooohh!" The crowd's groan and the crack of a Beater's bat against something solid turned Lily's attention back to the match. Anxious, she scanned the Gryffindor players for James.
"And it seems that Gryffindor Beater Black has finally had enough of Slytherin Beater Wilkes' taunting," Ludo Bagman's voice boomed over the crowd. "Penalty for the Slytherins!" Lily caught sight of the Slytherin Beater in question, still miraculously on his broomstick, holding his head and regarding the Slytherin captain, who was waving three fingers in front of his face, with a rather glazed expression. Sirius, on the other hand, wore an expression of poorly concealed glee on his face as he received not- so-subtle congratulations from Higgins, the other Gryffindor Beater.
"Ugh," came Alice's voice from Lily's right side, "I don't think I could stand to watch those Slytherin bastards make this shot. Let's go to the loo, shall we?"
As it turned out, Morwenna and Kathleen didn't care to watch Wilkes make the goal either, so the four girls set out, Remus and Peter barely noticing their departure. It was next to impossible to negotiate the cheering crowds in the stands, so Lily, Alice, Morwenna, and Kathleen made their way under the seats, where there were a good deal fewer people.
Alice, who was trying to hear Morwenna over the noise, wasn't paying attention to what was in front of her and collided head first with someone.
"Oh," Alice gasped, disentangling herself and staggering to her feet. "Oh, I'm so sorry! It's all my fault, I wasn't watching where I was going. Here, let me help you – "
Alice's voice simply died away. Lily glanced round at her friend sharply, but Alice, seemingly unhurt, was staring at the figure in front of her as though possessed. Unable to see in the dim light, Lily drew her wand and whispered "Lumos."
The wandlight cast shadows over the walls and Morwenna and Kathleen, giving the area below the stands an ominous feeling. Unnerved now, Lily brought her wand closer to the figure Alice had bumped into and found Bellatrix Black grinning back at her.
"Think nothing of it, poppet," Bellatrix said to Alice, an odd glitter in her eyes. Lily saw now that four Slytherin girls stood behind her, wearing expressions of malicious excitement. "Clumsiness does seem to run in your family, after all."
Morwenna stepped forward, fists clenched. "How DARE you speak to Alice about her family?" she hissed, trembling with fury.
Bellatrix quirked a mocking brow at Morwenna. "Ohh, so ickle Miss Marchbanks has claws, does she?" Bellatrix singsonged as her friends tittered behind her. "Been spending a bit of time with the Mudblood, have you, Marchbanks?"
"You bitch!" Alice snarled. And, before anyone could stop her, Alice launched herself at Bellatrix, Morwenna close behind her.
"Uh....?" Kathleen looked round at Lily uneasily as their friends began to pummel Bellatrix.
"There doesn't seem to be much choice," Lily indicated the Slytherin girls who had now entered the fray and moved toward the screeching mass of girls with a purposeful air.
"Right," Kathleen answered grimly, rolling up her sleeves as she followed Lily into the brawl.
Brandishing the Quidditch Cup, James scanned the cheering crowd for any sign of red hair and was disappointed to find none. Where was Lily, for Merlin's sake? James was reasonably sure that he'd seen her in the stands, but there was no sign of her now. He'd just won the Quidditch Cup for the sixth consecutive year, and his girlfriend was missing it.
Dejected, James accepted congratulations from everyone but Lily automatically, glancing round him. Professor Dumbledore was speaking with a wizard James had never seen before, gesturing toward the Gryffindor team. Dorcas and Frank stood off to one side, smiling widely as they talked to each other. So Lily wasn't congratulating Dorcas.
"Oi! Prongs!" Sirius, Remus, and Peter made their way through the throng to him, all three of them grinning.
"Where's Lily?" James asked Remus and Peter. "Wasn't she sitting with you?"
"She was," Remus replied, frowning now. "But she, Kathleen, Morwenna, and Alice went off somewhere a few minutes before the match ended."
"We'd assumed they were here," Peter put in, looking round worriedly.
"Don't panic yet, Prongs," Sirius said quickly, recognizing the look on James' face. "There're Frank and Dorcas; they might know something." James, with Sirius, Remus, and Peter at his heels, started toward Dorcas and Frank, who were now in conversation with Hestia Jones, a Ravenclaw seventh year.
Before the Marauders could get there, however, Frank and Dorcas exclaimed "WHAT?!" in perfect unison, remounted their broomsticks, and kicked off, flying hard in the direction of the castle.
"Hestia!" James shouted, toppling third years as he ran, "What's happened? What did you tell Dorcas and Frank?"
"Oh, James," Hestia blushed a bit, seemingly embarrassed. "I-it's nothing to be upset about, Morwenna just asked me to come and tell you lot so you wouldn't worry about them."
"Tell us what?" James asked, feeling panicked.
"Er," Hestia fidgeted. "Just that they – Morwenna, Alice, Lily, and Kathleen, that is – are in the hospital wing."
"WHAT?!" the Marauders cried in perfect imitation of Dorcas and Frank and immediately began asking questions all at once.
"WHAT HAPPENED?" James shouted, making himself heard over the din.
Hestia shook her head. "I'm not supposed to tell you that part," she said apologetically. "I was just supposed to tell you that they're okay and not to worry."
The Marauders snorted at this, but wasted no more time debating the point as James and Sirius mounted their broomsticks, pulling Remus and Peter on behind them.
"Thank you," Remus called to Hestia over his shoulder as James kicked off.
Panting and out of breath, James and Remus, with Peter and Sirius right behind them, raced down the corridor toward the hospital wing. Professor McGonagall's voice drifted toward them; clearly their Head of House was in rare form over something.
"......ABSOLUTELY DISGRACEFUL!" McGonagall was saying as they approached. "I have come to expect better behavior from all of you! Fifty points from Gryffindor! You will all be serving detentions and you will write letters apologizing for your shameful conduct!" Not wasting anymore time, James burst into the hospital wing, his friends behind him, and stopped, shocked, at the sight in front of him.
Professors Astral and McGonagall stood in the middle of the room, acting as a buffer between the four Gryffindor and five Slytherin girls, all of whom were nursing injuries ranging from minor scrapes and bruises to what appeared to be broken arms and concussions. If James hadn't known Lily better, he'd have thought this looked like the aftermath of a particularly vicious fistfight.
Professor McGonagall spun round and noticed the Marauders. "I might have known you lot would be turning up," she sighed, shooting the four boys a narrow look. "You may stand over there with the others; I'm not finished with these girls yet, and you may not speak with them until I am." McGonagall indicated a small knot of students in the corner that included Frank and Dorcas. Madam Pomfrey ushered the Marauders over to join them.
"What happened?" James whispered to Frank as soon as Madam Pomfrey had turned away again.
"Apparently Alice, Lily, Morwenna, and Kathleen got into it with Bellatrix and her lot," Frank whispered back, casting a wary eye toward McGonagall, who was now lecturing the Slytherin girls.
"What about?" Sirius wanted to know.
"Don't know," a Hufflepuff boy answered him, "but I've never seen anything like it before in my entire life. I was going under the bleachers toward the pitch when I saw all nine of them going at each other."
"Where's Bellatrix?" Remus asked, glancing round. "I don't see her anywhere."
"She's behind that curtain," the Hufflepuff boy indicated an enclosed bed. "She was hurt a bit worse than the rest."
Before the Marauders could inquire further, the Slytherin girls, sniffling and clutching one another, made their way out of the hospital wing behind Professor Astral, who looked very cross. Not wasting any more time, James made his way straight to Lily.
Are you all right?" he asked her, kneeling down next to the bed she was sitting on and squeezing her tight enough to cut off her oxygen supply. Sirius crowded in behind him.
"I'm fine," Lily answered, pulling back a bit, and with the exception of the fingernail gouges running down one cheek and a rather bruised forearm, she seemed to be.
"What in the bloody hell happened?" James asked, touching her gouges carefully with one finger.
Quickly Lily gave an account of the exchange between Alice, Morwenna, and Bellatrix and the subsequent fistfight that had finally been broken up when the match had ended and a group of students on their way to the pitch had found them.
"Professor McGonagall was livid," Lily finished up, glancing round at her friends. Alice and Frank were huddled on one bed, talking quietly; Alice, sporting a black eye, was clearly on the verge of tears. Nearby, Morwenna, Dorcas, and Peter sat together while Madam Pomfrey examined a lump on Morwenna's head. Remus, who was a bit pale, sat with his arms round Kathleen, who was giving him an animated account of the proceedings, her bandaged ankle propped on the bed.
What happened to Bellatrix?" James remembered to ask. "A Hufflepuff boy said she was bad off."
"Er – yes, well, she has a couple of broken ribs and some really nasty bruises," Lily said, not quite meeting James' eye.
"Not that the bitch doesn't deserve everything she gets, but how exactly did that happen?" Sirius asked, watching Lily closely.
"I should imagine it happened after Alice and Morwenna finished jumping up and down on her," Lily answered innocently, the corners of her lips twitching suspiciously.
"Wish I'd been there to see that," James said, grinning.
"Me too," Sirius seconded in a reverential voice, a faraway look in his eyes.
"If you all are sufficiently recovered, you may make your way to Gryffindor Tower," Professor McGonagall said a good deal more cheerfully than anyone would have thought she would be. "By the way, Potter, Meadows, Professor Dumbledore wishes to see you both in his office at the earliest possible convenience." With that, Professor McGonagall made her way toward the door.
As she passed Alice's bed, her handkerchief fell to the ground. "Oh, here, Professor, you dropped this," Alice said, holding the handkerchief out.
"Thank you, Miss Prewett," McGonagall said formally, taking it from her. "Fifty points to Gryffindor." Professor McGonagall reached the door, ignoring the shocked gasps all round her, and exited with her customary briskness, but Lily could have sworn that there was a satisfied twinkle in her eye.
More than an hour later, James and Dorcas made their way to Professor Dumbledore's office, still talking about the Quidditch match and the Gryffindor girls' fistfight, stopping only when they reached Dumbledore's door.
"Enter," came Dumbledore's voice in response to James' knock. Dorcas and James pushed open the door and came in to find the Headmaster standing with a strange witch and wizard.
"James, Dorcas, may I present Crispus Colepepper of the Wimbourne Wasps and Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies," Professor Dumbledore said in a smooth voice. "They saw you both play in today's match and are interested in discussing your prospects with you."
James and Dorcas had just enough time to exchange bemused glances before Colepepper and Jones began a barrage of questions, asking them about everything from how long they'd been playing to when their exams were to their favourite players when they were children. It was nearly half an hour before Dumbledore, as tactfully as possible, suggested that they give James and Dorcas some time to consider their offers. The next thing James knew, he and Dorcas were standing back out in the corridor, both feeling like they were in some sort of dream. Whether the dream was good or bad, James wasn't quite sure.
"I never would have thought I was good enough to play Quidditch professionally; I always thought I'd be an Auror like my dad wanted me to be. It might be sort of cool though to play for an all-witches' team, and Gwenog Jones seems like she's really good," Dorcas mused excitedly as they made their way back to Gryffindor Tower. "Of course, I'd love to play for the Wasps, but I think Mr. Colepepper was more interested in you than in me. What do you think, James?"
"Huh?" James, still a bit dazed, was having trouble focusing on Dorcas' voice.
"I asked you what you thought," Dorcas repeated, a hint of exasperation in her voice. "Honestly – James? Is something the matter?" Dorcas peered into James' face. "You don't look at all well."
"Just shocked, I expect," James smiled distractedly.
"Right," Dorcas echoed uncertainly, giving James a discerning look. They continued in silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts.
"This is what you want, isn't it, James?" Dorcas asked suddenly. "To play for England, I mean?"
"Yeah," James replied, completely truthfully. "I used to dream about this."
"Then there's no problem, is there?" Dorcas said triumphantly, the note of excitement back in her voice.
"Nope, no problem," James echoed weakly, trying to shake himself out of it.
"This is wicked!" Dorcas exclaimed, throwing her arms round James. "The pair of us, playing for England together! Who'd have thought? I'm going to write to my parents!" With that, Dorcas dashed off toward Gryffindor Tower, leaving James behind.
Playing Quidditch professionally used to be what he wanted, James reflected as he made his way to the common room more slowly, pausing to gaze out a window at the Quidditch pitch in the distance. The crowds, the uniforms, the adoring fans – James had practically been able to taste them. But when he thought of Lily and of Professor Dumbledore and his parents and Voldemort and all of the terrible things that happened to people like Alice and Morwenna every day, James could feel the doubt swirling round in his gut until it was almost painful.
With an effort, James continued on his way, his thoughts chasing each other round and round his brain.
Author's Note:
Thanks so much, everyone, for your reviews! I'm glad people enjoyed reading this chapter ( I had loads of fun writing it) and I always like to hear what people's favorite parts were or what parts related to their lives (who knew funnel analogies were so popular?) If I thanked people individually, the list would be stupidly long, so I'll just say again, thanks to everyone. 'Til next time!