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Pensieve Times by ImperialJedi

Chapter 2: A Fall While Searching

October 5, 1973

"Moony! Come here!" A 6th year with brown hair and a somewhat unhealthy constitution stood up from among a mountain of dusty books and unorganized pieces of parchment. He reached his neck up over the various items and junk piles to find the source of the call.

"Where are you?" he asked seeing no sign of his friend.

There was a sneeze followed by some inaudible voices. These stopped and then Sirius yelled back. "Go back to the entrance and put your back to the door. Turn around 3 times. Hey! Ouch! James, stop that! Okay, okay! Remus? You don't need to spin around 3 times."

Remus smiled. "I didn't think so. I'm at the entrance, what's next?"

"Go to the right until you get to the picture of the elephant and then take a left. Okay? Next go up to the black shelves with the calendars and take a right. You should be able to see us from there." He followed their directions through the masses of stuff and tried not to knock anything over or tread on anything. The Marauders, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, had found this room the week before and it was a gold mine of interesting magical objects. Best they could tell the previous headmasters used it as a storage room, but none of Dumbledore's possessions were to be found. They had been exploring it in their freetime, but when Remus found a pile of books the others went off to find something more interesting.

Remus came upon his friends standing around a stone basin holding a very unique liquid of glistening silver. "What did you find?" He pointed at the basin after deducing that it was the reason for their summons.

"We have no idea," Sirius grabbed his wand, "but we can sort of make out some people moving. See? This thing must do something more and I want to find out what." He moved forward to probe the liquid. Its sparkling seem to call to the four boys to come closer.

Peter squinted at it. "Look there's some gold dust in it," he exclaimed. "Doesn't look like it belongs there does it?" James shot a glance at the others in question. Just then Sirius submerged his wand tip. Peter squeaked, James' jaw dropped, and Remus had enough presence of mind to reach out and try to grab their friend. Sirius was rapidly being pulled into the basin. It was too late as their friend was quickly engulfed. Momentarily there was a large amount of confusion and yelling and the remaining Marauders ran around the basin calling Sirius' name and his nickname, Padfoot.

"Wait!" James shouted and everyone stopped. "Look, I can see him!"

"You're right, Prongs. He looks okay, too."

Peter looked skeptical and ventured to say so. "Are you sure? I can't see him all that well. How do we get him out?"

"For once, Wormtail, you have a good point." James made a face of concentration then turned to Remus. "Would a summoning charm work? Why don't you try?" Remus gave look that said, 'why me?' but positioned himself anyway at their encouragement. "Please, begin," James commanded with some exaggerated flourish of his arms.

Peter moved around for a better view as he was blocked off by the other two. Remus raised his wand, "Accio Si-". He was cut off when Peter bumped into him and he put out his arm to catch himself. Unfortunately his hand went right into basin and he disappeared faster than Sirius had. "Great going, Wormtail," James crossed his arms and looked scornfully down at him. Peter looked down at his worn shoes. He didn't look up again until he heard James inhale deeply. The basin had distracted James again. "Hey, they're waving to us." He grabbed Peter's arm. "Come on, they want us to join them."

It happened too fast. "Wha-," was all he managed to say before he found himself plunged in with James leaving the room empty of people. As the hours wore on the torches went out one by one, as they had not been placed under a special lighting charm.