A/N: I'm very sorry for the month-long delay. I know not a single one of you cares about my personal life but I've had a gymnastics competition every weekend for the past four weeks so I've been at the gym for about 17 hours a week. And for anyone who cares I qualified for the Level Seven State Meet on November 26, wish me luck!

A/N II: Thanks to Malina and Emily for pre-reading and improving this chapter, I didn't realize how crappy my writing was until you guys pointed it out, your constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. Thanks to all my readers and reviewers. This chapter is dedicated to someone special, you know who you are.

Chapter Seven

Two Birds With One Stone

"Lily, stop pacing, you're making me crazy!" Sarah cried.

"I can't help it!" Lily said, flopping into the chair beside Sarah's. "It's been nearly three hours, where the hell are they? How long does it take to go down into the dungeon and get a stupid book?"

"Calm down, it's ten o'clock, you should get some sleep." Sarah replied.

"That's my point! It's ten! What if Snape caught them and they get detention, or worse, they got hurt?" Lily heaved a great sigh, "I really hope they're okay. I mean, most of the time I can't stand James, but he's my brother, you know, and I love him."

"Don't worry Lily, they'll be okay," Sarah pulled Lily into a tight hug, "They'll be fine."

"I hope so," Lily said.

"This was a stupid idea, probably the dumbest one you've ever had. Even worse than the time you decided to see what would happen if you drank that pink potion in the vile. You didn't bother to read the label, did you? 'Makes the drinker fall in love with the first woman he sees!' Well, the first woman you happened to see was my mother! Thank God that wore off after an hour, Mum was getting really-"

"Oliver! Is it possible for you to be quiet for just five minutes! You're almost as bad as Lily, and that's sating something," James said, frustrated. They had finally found their way into the Shrieking Shack and were walking down the crumbling, dust-covered staircase.

"There! Look, Oliver! A door!" James cried.

"Finally!"

But they had just entered another room. Everything in the room was broken and, just like the rest of the house, wallpaper was peeling, there were stains on the floor and all the windows were boarded up.

"Ugh! Is there no end to this nightmare!" Oliver yelled.

James walked around and scanned the room while Oliver continued to mutter to himself.

"Look at this!" said James. " It's a tunnel!" he stuck his head into the hole, "Lumos," he said and climbed inside. "Are you coming or what?" he asked Oliver.

"I dunno," said Oliver, looking at his feet, "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Well, what do you propose we do?" James was becoming frustrated. "Do you just want to wait here until someone realizes we're gone? I would just love to be expelled when we haven't even been in school for two months!"

"Alright, alright, fine, let's go," said Oliver.

"Thank you!" James exclaimed and climbed back in.

"That's it, I'm going after them, this is ridiculous, come on," Lily said.

"Sit down and relax, Lily. We can't go after them. They have your cloak and they're invisible. We don't have that privilege so it would be much easier for us to get caught," Sarah said reasonably.

"I don't care!" Lily said, throwing her arms up in the air, "Either A) They got caught. B) They got lost. Or C) They got hurt."

"You forgot D)."

"What's D)?"

"They took a detour," said Sarah.

"I'm going," said Lily, beginning to make her way to the portrait hole.

"Lily, I don't-" Sarah started.

"C'mon. We'll just go look in the dungeons and see if they're down there. Please Sarah, I know I'm being rash, but we've got to find them, please?" Lily began to look desperate.

"Alright, fine, but if anything happens, I blame you," Sarah said. Lily smiled.

The passage way seemed to be as long as the one at Honeydukes. James and Oliver had been walking for what seemed like hours when the finally reached the end. But as soon as James climbed out, something whacked him in the stomach and threw him off his feet.

"James!" Oliver cried, climbing out quickly. But he had barely taken two steps when another of the Whomping Willow's branches hit him as well.

"What the hell? James, we need to get out of here, where's the cloak?" asked Oliver from the ground.

"Oh, it's er, right here!" replied James.

RIP!

James had attempted to pull the cloak out from beneath him but tore it into several pieces.

"James!" Oliver moaned.

"Oh, we can fix it later, let's move!"

The two boys took off running toward the castle.

"Okay, they're not here, let's go."

"Sarah, I'm not leaving until I find my brother, and his annoying little friend," Lily added as an afterthought.

"You know, his annoying little friend happens to be your cousin," Sarah replied.

"Oh, be quiet!"

"Sorry."

But Lily had to admit that Sarah had a point: being out in the dungeons in the middle of the night was not a good idea. It would be bad enough if they we're caught by McGonagall, but if they were caught by….

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" sneered Snape. Warren Malfoy was at his side.

"But these aren't them!" Malfoy said, "It was Weasley and the Potter boy, not his sister and her," he indicated Sarah.

"Well, it seems you've killed two birds with one stone," Snape said curtly, "Come, both of you!"

They didn't need telling twice.

As the four of them walked down the dungeon corridor, Snape in the lead, Malfoy whispered to Lily "I deserve revenge on both you and your stupid brother, after what your father did to mine."

Lily and Sarah were silent. They had reached the entrance hall to find James and Oliver bickering in the middle of it. In between them, lay the remains of the invisibility cloak.