Don't kill me. This story might take a few years...but I think that in two or three chapters, I'll be done with part one and on to part two, where the marauders can figure out Remus' little secret. Also...I've been reading the reivews (and I love most of them) but I have a request. Some of them are anonymous. Now, if you're going to write a constructive criticism, that's fine, but please, write your name. I'm not going to come and murder you. It just seems more cowardly if there's not even a name or something like that. It makes me angry without even reading the comment. One kid wrote random letters. That's fine. Well, the point is, I wanted to address one anonymous person who wants to see more transformations. You'll see them more in the next book...whenever I may get around to writing it (sorry, again), but for now, I hope this satisfies you. OK, now that I've said my piece. ON WITH THE SHOW!

Chapter 19-The Secret Passageway from HELL!

"What were you screaming about, little boy!" An old hag asked, as the shopowners stared at Sirius.
"I'm not a little-" Sirius started, but Madame Rosmerta gave him a wide-eyed look that plainly said "Shut up". And who could resist Madame Rosmerta? Sirius thought this to himself as he got lost in her low cut-
However, (and fortunately for all the ladies in the house), Sirius never got to finish that though, because James barged right into Sirius at that moment.
"What happened?" James asked, looking panicked. "Are you alright?" Sirius blinked a few times, trying to grasp everything that had happened. Then, he wonded if he should be mad at James for interupting his day-dream. One more look at the shopowners' faces and he knew he was damn lucky James was there with him.
"Fine...I just got spooked." Sirius said, attempting to worm himself out of trouble. He smiled his most innocent smile and hoped for a bit of melting.

Twenty minutes later, he knew that something had melted, all right. But it wasn't the anger at Hogsmeade. Oh no, that had followed him and James right to Professor McGonagall's office.
"You two are lucky that Professor Dumbledore is out of town or you would be in much more trouble that you are in right now! But don't think I won't be telling him! Oh no, you're not getting away that easily. 50 points from Gryffindor! AND detention! For a month!" Sirius groaned. That was on top of the three weeks he had gotten for putting a frog in Lily Evans' bag. And that wasn't even a good prank. "DO NOT GROAN AT ME MR. BLACK! I knew you were trouble from the minute you walked in here and I am determined to set you on a proper track!" James almost let a giggle out at this proclamation. Setting Sirius on the right track was like Severus Snape to wash his hair and keep it clean. It just wasn't possible. "MR. POTTER! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME" James straightened up at the pronounciation of his name and nodded. "Now, I forbid you EVER to go near the Shrieking Shack again. Do you hear me? Both of you are NEVER to go anywhere NEAR the Shrieking Shack. EVER. And if I hear one more word about you two gallavanting off to Hogsmeade before your third year again, I will make sure you never make it there. AT ALL!" McGonagall seemed done with her rant.
She straightened out her robes and sat down."You may go." She said, not looking at them anymore. James and Sirius walked briskly out of her office, and as soon as they reached the staircase, they both started laughing.
"Oh man...I thought that would never end!" James said, taking off his glasses to wipe them off while attempting to stop laughing.
"Kinda sad that I'm trouble, though, isn't it?" Sirius laughed, wiping back his hair. It was getting fairly long now, and he enjoyed it.
"You know. Now that she's forbidden it-"
"I know. We have to get to that Shrieking Shack"
"We just need to find another passageway." Sirius thought about this last sentence and smiled.
"What about..." He started and James looked at him.
"What about what?" James asked.
Sirius looked deep in thought for a few seconds and grinned.
"We have to go to the common room"
Sirius ran up the stairs past the portraits, who by now had heard about these troublemakers (a few of them had been at the end of some awful pranks, all which included a black magic marker-"They don't call them magic for nothing") and were shaking their head disapprovingly at the Black boy, who was shoving other out of the way for him to have the fastest route to the common room. James, not far behind was apologizing to most of the people for Sirius, but knocked over a few teachers on his own.
Once they finally got to the common room, James was frazzled.
"Sirius, what is this about?" James asked, and Sirius walked over to the fireplace. He looked at the brick on the border of the fireplace, and picked one directly beneath a marking on the red and gold wallpaper (an-just guessing there's wallpaper...). Sirius then looked at James.
"I noticed a rather odd mark above the fireplace the other day. At first I thought it was a piece of dirt, but now that I think of it, it can't be, beacuse the house elves around here are fantastic, and wouldn't leave a speck of dust, let alone a stain on the decor. So I started thinking. And I've come up with it."
"Come up with what"
And then, Sirius put his finger on the "stain" Which wasn't a stain at all. No this stain was a hole. A hole that magically appeared to be filled in. But as Sirius put his finger in the hole, the fireplace swung wildly. Now, there was an opening to possibly the most useful secret passage they would ever find in all of Hogwarts. And also, the most secret.
James and Sirius went through this passage on this particular day, and almost a half-hour later, they were still walking.
"Maybe it's a dead end." James said, but Sirius shook his head. His wand, lit up, shook with it.
"No. There's no use in a dead end"
"It could be a hiding place"
"Why would students need to hide"
"Voldemort?"
"Not likely"
"Some other evil wizard"
"Again, not likely. This needs to go somewhere..." Sirius kept walking, but soon he started thinking that maybe James was right.
"I won't say I told you so. Don't worry." James said, turning around. But when he did, he almost stumbled. "Uh, Sirius"
"What?" Sirius was damn pissed that his passageway was a dud.
"I don't think we can get out this way..." James said, looking scared.
"Why?" Sirius said, turning around. His wand fell to the floor with a loud clatter. "What the"
In place of the route back to Gryffindor's common room was a brick wall. A very solid, impassible, brick wall.
"How are we going to get out of here..." Sirius said.
"Well, I guess we walk on." James said, pushing Sirius ahead. James was deathly afraid of closed spaces, although he didn't wanna tell Sirius this, and was scared to bloody death that they would be trapped in this damned passageway forever.
Sirius and James walked through the passageway some more, looking back every-so-often and seeing that, yes, the brick wall moved with them. James walked a little faster every time he looked behind himself, and soon enough, Sirius noticed.
"If you're claustrophobic, stop looking, you dimwit." Sirius said, although there was a definate shake to his wand at that moment. He didn't fancy the idea of being trapped, either.
About a quarter of an hour later, they met up with something dark and heavy obstructing their path.
"Is it another brick wall?" James asked, a clear quiver in his voice.
"No...it's a...tree trunk..." Sirius replied, slowly climbing through the pathway into the trunk. "Is this normal"
"Are we gonna be stuck in a tree or something? Becuase, if we are" James was trying not to be scared "I will massacre you"
"Don't threaten me, Potter." Sirius said, slowly walking down the stairway...oddly placed in the tree trunk.
"Odd place to have a staircase, eh"
Sirius disregarded this comment and continued to walk. This time, the path was considerably shorter, but with every step, Sirius and James were filling up with dread.
"Maybe this was a bad idea...we should go back." James said.
"We can't, remember?" Sirius sighed. He did not like this passageway one bit.
"Oh...yeah..." James said, sounding more depressed by the minute.
And then, they reached the end of the passageway. A secret doorway into the lower level of none other than the Shrieking Shack.
James and Sirius all of a sudden knew why McGonagall had forbade them to ever go near here. And she was right. Damn right

At first sight, the Shrieking Shack is not so bad. New furniture-somewhat ugly-but new never-the-less. A kitchen, bathroom, and living room-all on the bottom floor. However, as one observes, they will see severe scratches on all the furniture, the purple cushions torn from their home on the sofa, the wallpaper already peeling as giant scratches break up the design of snitches and broomsticks.
And in the middle of the living room was a man-no a monster. A monster with fangs and claws and brown hair that looked like it was already greying. A horrifying, terrifying, scary monster that made James and Sirius want to scream. But Sirius, quick to remember McGonagall's warning, put his hand over James' mouth.
"We can't scream." Sirius whispered in James' ear. "We'll just stun him, ok? On my count" James lifted up his wand meekly, and attempted to hold it straight. "Just imagine it's Voldemort." And James grew stronger at the name.
"One...two...three"
"STUPENDO!" Both of them shouted as loud as possible. Later, people at Hogsmeade will say that at that moment, they heard the ghosts of Hogsmeade moan in the night. The first time the ghosts had spoken since the rumours had started.
But what they hadn't known was that this particular monster didn't respond to stunners, either that or they weren't very good at stunning, (most likely the prior, but the latter one makes a lot of sense.
Instead, this particular monster got very VERY angry and chased James and Sirius onto the second floor. "We've got to split up!" James said and motioned to Sirius to run into another room. The monster chased after James into the bedroom and backed James into a corner. James, scared enough to do anything, pleaded with the monster to go away.
"Please don't eat me! I didn't do anything to you! I'll never come here again! Just don't EAT me!" James said, and seemed to have gotten through to the monster. The monster looked at James, and it might have been in James' mind, but it almost seemed to look at him with curiosity for a few seconds. Then, it jumped up on it's hind legs and growled. James saw this as a possible escape and ran out of the room, down the stairs and was halfway out the door before he remembered Sirius. Taking a deep breath, James sprinted up the stairs and went into the other room, which was some sort of storage space, it seemed. He arrived just in time to see Sirius staring at the monster-no, staring DOWN the monster. Slowly, but surely, the monster was backing up, away from Sirius and his wand. James leapt out of the way as the creature stalked off to another room.
James and Sirius ran all the way to the Three Broomsticks in silence, where Madame Rosmerta was serving three ogres some Firewhiskey.
"Madame Rosmerta, do you have a way back to Hogwarts where we won't be seen?" Sirius asked.
"You're back again? I would think that you would at least wait until tomorrow to break your Hogsmeade ban!" Madame Rosmerta said, disbelieving. "And where have you been? You look like you've just had some rows with each other..." Her eyebrow went up on this last part.
"Look, we really just need to get back to Hogwarts. May we please have a way?" James asked, taking off his glasses to wipe them off when he realized they were broken. He put them back on clumsily, and the barkeep took pity on the two boys.
"Go through the back alley. You'll need a key to get back there, though. It will lead you to the gate without having to see anyone. But you need to promise me that this will be the last time you come in Hogsmeade without permission. OK?" She asked. Madame Rosmerta knew she shouldn't have even suggested the back alley, as it was only to be used in emergencies, but she didn't want these boys to get in trouble again that day. They had been through enough.
"But"
"No!"
"Then no key." She said, turning back to the ogres, who were demanding refills very rudely.
"...Fine." Sirius said, and Madame Rosmerta handed Sirius a little white key. The two boys walked through the bar into the storage room where there was a locked doorway. Sirius put the key through the doorway and ran back to Madame Rosmerta to give it back. They walked slowly through the snowy Hogsmeade, attempting to go over the events of the past hour or so. They arrived back at the castle, and shivered as they went into the warm Great Hall. James looked at Sirius and simply said;
"Next time, we bring cloaks."

Again, sorry for the delay, but I hope this chapter satisfies you all...please review...

Leora