A/N: Hey guys! I know, it was another long wait before an update, but you should be excited that I updated at all because I was seriously thinking about just letting this story go. Fortunately for you though, I decided to keep going. I'm pretty sure I like this chapter. Who knows, I might rewrite it later. I think I might have left out a few things.
Be excited though because the Marauders are finally here! Well, ok, it's only James and Sirius so far, and not TOO much of them, but they have been introduced and will be in the story here on out. I think they're pretty in character, tell me if you disagree.
Well, I suppose there should be less ado and we should just get on with the story!
Hermione woke with he head pounding furiously. She quickly realized that she was not lying on the floor in their compartment on the Hogwarts Express, but was instead lying in one of the beds in the hospital wing.
"Good, you're awake," said Ginny, sitting in a chair to the right of Hermione's bed. "You hit your head awfully hard there. You should have told us you needed help." She shook her head at Hermione.
"What happened?" asked Hermione, still a little dazed.
"Well, we were talking about the latest quidditch move, the Parkin's Pincer, that was just invented last season by the Wigtown Wanderers. Can you believe it? Ha! As if! They were making a huge deal about it when in our time any quidditch team knows how to do it! There are several quidditch moves that haven't been invented that I could do and have them named after me! It was so weird not-"
"Ginny!" said Hermione loudly, "I don't want to hear about your quidditch conversation! I'm sorry, but I really don't care about the 'Parker Splinter'-"
"Parkins Pincer," interjected Ginny.
"-I want to know how I got in the hospital wing and where are the other girls!" finished Hermione somewhat heatedly. Her head her very badly and she did not want to listen to quidditch prattle at the moment.
"Fine," said Ginny, sulking slightly. "You were lucky: right as you had your little 'accident'," Hogwarts was coming into view. After you quite literally crashed on the floor of the compartment with all your belonging falling on top of you, we all figured it was probably best if we just quickly got all your stuff put away and then took you to the hospital wing once the train stopped. You know, you're lucky you didn't get a concussion, with all those ridiculously heavy books in your trunk, it probably weighed more than my Auntie Murrell. I still can't believe you spent so much of the money that Dumbledore gave us on books."
"Well I daresay my books will prove more useful than your quidditch supplies," retorted Hermione, acidly. "How did you manage to get me off the train with the huge crowd?"
"We waited for it to thin out a bit," responded Ginny. "Lilly was actually pleased with the excuse to stay behind because then Potter wouldn't be able to try and ride in the same as her like he did last year," she added with a smile. "I wonder how Harry's dad is gonna change her mind about her."
"I'm sure he'll think of something," said Hermione. "I suppose after you all brought me here the girls went back to the feast? Why didn't you go?"
"I told Madam Pomfrey that I should be here when you woke since you'd be waking up in an unknown place," said Ginny with a small smirk. "I said I didn't want you to be lonely. She ate it up. I don't really mind missing the feast that much anyway. Everyone would probably stare at us since we're new."
"I suppose we're going to how Harry's always felt," responded Hermione. "Thanks for staying with me."
"No problem," said Ginny. "Dumbledore did tell us to stay together. And let me tell you: I do not like this 'not knowing our way around Hogwarts' thing. As the girls led the way up to the hospital wing, it was so weird recognizing corridors and staircases, but having no idea to where they lead. We're going to get so lost tomorrow when we go to breakfast."
"Well," said Hermione, "at least tomorrow is a Saturday so we'll be able to wander around and try and learn our way around a little bit. I suppose if we stick with Lilly and the other girls then we'll be alright."
"Yeah, I suppose," replied Ginny. "but I still think we're in for a rough year. We don't even know if we're gonna fit in in this decade."
"I'm sure we have nothing to worry about," said Hermione, "just as long as we don't get on anyone's bad side."
Ginny knew exactly where she was. She was standing in front of the statue of Barnabus the Barmy. Her problem was that she didn't want to be standing in front of the statue of Barnabus the Barmy. She wanted to be in the library. But she didn't have the faintest idea of how to get there.
Earlier that morning, right after Ginny and Hermione finished eating breakfast in the hospital wing, Lilly, Jen, and Katya had come, know Hermione and Ginny didn't know their way around, to show them where the Gryffindor common room was. Once the girls went to their dormitory and chatted for a bit, Hermione begged the other girls to take them to the library. First day of term and no homework yet she wanted to go to the library. That's Hermione for you, thought Ginny. Ginny wanted to spend as little time in the library as possible, so she decided to take a shower and let the girls go ahead and meet them there later. Stupid idea, really. She was now stuck in some corridor, and after so many trickster staircases that changed difections as soon as she stepped on them, she didn't even know what floor she was on.
Her patience growing thinner by the second, Ginny continued through the corridor past Barnabus's statue. She came to a door she hoped might take her to the main staircase and opened it. Rather than finding a staircase, however, it turned out it was just an old classroom. Before her stood, with their backs to her, two tall boys with their wands out who were standing over another boy who was on the floor and whose wand was lying several feet away from him. The two boys who were standing were laughing at the boy on the floor. Ginny put two and two together and realized that the two boys who were standing must be nothing more than bullies. There was nothing Ginny hated more than bullies. Sure, she enjoyed a good prank, but ridiculing someone and laughing at their helplessness was not something she tolerated.
The boys hadn't heard the door open and were unaware of her presence, so without really thinking she quickly walked around them to stand in front of them, pulling her wand out as she did so.
"Leave him alone," she said forcefully.
Both boys were shocked for a moment and exchanged glances. During the second that they did so, Ginny finally saw their faces and was shocked to see that one of them was Harry. Or wait, no, just a boy that looked nearly exactly like Harry. He could only be one person: James Potter. That meant the other dark-haired boy must be Sirius Black. What have I gotten myself into? She thought.
In the split second that Ginny made her realizations, the boys had already turned back to her, their initial surprise gone.
"Who are you?" asked James with a somewhat puzzled yet accusing glare.
"Ginny Bennett," Ginny replied, finally having gotten used to her new surname and now trying to look calm and confident in the face of two boys who she knew were extremely talented.
"Are you new or something?" asked James.
"Yes," she answered, not offering any further information about herself.
James and Sirius exchanged another glance, only one that was knowing rather than puzzled.
"Well, Bennett," said Sirius who was standing directly in front of her, as he began to walk towards her, "since you're new, I suppose it's our job to explain a few things about the way things work around here. First off, we and our two other friends are known as the Marauders. We do what we want, when we want, and no one gets in our way. Or else they pay the consequences. Now my advice to you, Freckles, is to get out of our way and let us finish our business." With each statement he took another step towards her until he was only inches away from her. He was very tall and loomed over her, and while she desperately wanted to take a step back, she knew he was trying to intimidate her, and she couldn't have that.
"Oh, and I suppose your business is terrorizing defenseless people?" she demanded, but without waiting for a response she continued, "Well, sorry as I am, I refuse to follow your silly little rules and just stand by while you bully innocent people!"
Sirius looked taken aback by her answer and opened his mouth to respond, but was distracted by a sudden cry from James.
"Oy!" James yelled and pointed his wand at the third boy in the room.
While everyone else had been talking, the other boy had crept to his wand and was about to hex James and Sirius. However, they were still too quick for him and James easily disarmed him. Sirius quickly pushed Ginny out of the way and sent a body-bind hex at the other boy. Ginny hadn't really looked at the boy when she had come into the room, but now as she turned around she saw that he had lank greasy hair and a very ugly expression on his face. She had a pretty good suspicion she knew who he was, but she didn't really care. She was too mad at James and Sirius.
"Leave him alone!" she shouted at them.
Both boys rolled their eyes and Sirius turned to James and said "Looks like we have another Evans on our hands."
James gave him a look and turned to Ginny once more, "Listen, Bennett, you're starting to get annoying. Just run along and go paint your nails or something."
"Uh!" Ginny said disgustedly, and before either boy had time to react, she quickly sent her famous Bat-bogey hex onto both of them. While they were stuck with bat wings flapping in their faces, she undid their hex on Snape and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him up and out of the room and slamming the door shut behind them.
"Prats," she spat angrily, "Who do they think they are?"
"Get off of me," said Snape irritably pulling his arm out of her grasp and stepping away from her, "I didn't need your help."
"Oh, so I suppose your capable of taking on two talented wizards all by yourself?" she replied back, now getting mad at him as well.
"They aren't talented, I'm much more powerful than they are!" he said forcefully, "I can take care of myself."
"Yes, I could see you were doing a marvelous job at that," Ginny responded sarcastically.
"Stay away from me, Bennett," spat Snape, turning and walking away from her.
"Boys," she muttered, quite annoyed with the lot of them.
It occurred to her that she should probably get away from there seeing as James and Sirius were likely to be getting over her hex soon and very unlikely to be pleased with her. As she speedily headed off towards she didn't know where, her anger began to subside and worry began to take its place. She had just gotten on the wrong side of the two most popular boys in the entire school. Not to mention one of them happened to be the father of her brother's best friend. And the other one...
She had never known how good-looking Sirius had been! In her time he looked so gaunt from his years in Azkaban, but here in this time he was nothing short of a demigod. Ginny had always guessed that he had been better looking when he was younger, but she hadn't expected this. Apart from being intimidated by how much taller and (most likely) more powerful than her he was, she couldn't help feeling a fluttery feeling in her stomach when she looked into his deep, gray eyes. But even as she had this thought, she chided herself for it. Just thinking about the fact that he had been bullying Snape made her blood boil. No, she didn't like Snape. And yes, chances were he deserved what he got, but she couldn't help but side with him considering the fact that it was two against one. It wasn't fair, and that was all there was to it.
"Way to go, Ginny," she said to herself as she walked down the corridor. "You've just made enemies with the two most popular, good-looking boys in the entire school. Quite an accomplishment seeing as you haven't even been at school for twenty-four hours." She sighed deeply. She was beginning to regret ever having let the girls leave the dormitory without her.
Sirius loved it when September first fell on a Friday. That meant that their first day back at Hogwarts was a Saturday and they could get a head start on any sort of prank planning or teacher terrorizing. It seemed they always had a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher every year, with the occasional change of professor in a few other classes, so learning the ticks of teachers never quite got old.
And that was exactly what Sirius and James were up to on that fine Saturday morning: scouting out their new DADA teacher. Well, at least, that's what they were on their way to go do, but they ran into Snape on their way to the new professor's office. Well, more like they were watching the map and Snape's dot in an empty classroom caught their eye so they decided to go investigate. He was bound to be up to something. They were right, in a way. They actually never found out what exactly he was doing, however, because as soon as they charged into the room they disarmed him without asking questions.
After two and a half months of not bullying Snape, it felt good to have a go at him again. They went back and forth with their usual insults (Sirius and James naturally having the upper hand), hitting him with a good hex whenever he said something particularly nasty. And just as Sirius and James were having a good laugh at something Sirius had said, that girl burst in and ruined the fun.
And yet, hours later once he had gotten rid of the bat wings and sat thinking, Sirius couldn't help but marvel at her. Naturally, he had never seen her before, seeing as she was new, but he was quite certain he'd never met anyone like her. No one at Hogwarts had the guts to stand up to him and James, other than Evans. But Evans just did that to get attention from James (in Sirius's opinion anyway). True, this girl was new and didn't know how things were done, but all the same, she was willing to stand up for someone as pathetic-looking as Snape against less than favorable odds. Maybe she was just stupid, but Sirius couldn't help but think about the fire that had burned in her eyes as she insulted him and James. How dare she insult him and James! They were by far the best-looking boys to have ever graced the halls of Hogwarts, so…. Sirius really didn't know whether to admire her or hate her for it.
He decided to reserve judgment for later. Oh, yes, judgment would be passed. The Marauders could not let someone just insult and disrespect them like that, no matter how new they were. They had a reputation to keep up. Yes, they would have to find a way to punish, or rather, get back at this Ginny Bennett. The Marauders always got revenge on those who opposed them. Sirius just wasn't sure if in this case he really wanted to.
A/N: Well? What did you think? Ok, don't kill me if you didn't like Sirius's thoughts there at the end. I didn't know how to explain everything that was going through his mind without making it really long, but it will make more sense probably in the next chapter.
Por favor (please!) tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is great, and I'd love to know what you like and what you would like to be different. Thank you so much to everyone who has been reviewing so far!
Muchas smoochas!
Twinkling Blue Eyes