James nestled next to Remus as his stag Animagus as he sat hunched up with his hands clutching his head and screaming out in pain. Sirius patted in dragging a satchel full of medicine after stealing it from the Infirmary when no-one was looking. Remus seized it, ripped it open, and drank the entire contents of the bottles desperately, easing back to the floor when they started to work. The medicine brought short relief and they all knew soon nothing would be able to overpower the feeling of skin ripping off and turning to fur.
Before the screaming started again Peter came scuttling into the room, frantically nodding towards the door and squeaking. James and Sirius both agreed that they should leave Remus in peace and left after licking his cheek reassuringly.
After James had shut the door they hid in a room down the hall to wait to Remus to change.
Then, howling replaced the screams, and a werewolf went tearing past the doorway, so the stag, wolf, and rat took after him, and went to run out of the shack to what they thought would be their next adventure.
Kara and Sasha had appeared at the base of the Whomping Willow just as James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus disappeared into the base. The tree was lifeless and still, the branches lying limply on the ground.
"Is it sleeping?" Kara prodded the branch and flinched in case it came back into life.
"Trees don't sleep you idiot, those stupid marauders probably just did something to it! Now come on, we'll loose them!" Sasha charged towards the base of the tree, and through the gap near the base.
It was a dark, damp passageway, with soil crumpling in on it as they ran through it. Shrieks echoed through the walls, and pierced their ears.
"What on earth is going on?" Sasha whispered in alarm, considering turning back.
"You know Sirius, they probably saw us coming and tried to freak us out in case we found their base" Kara suggested, shoving her further down the passage.
Through the light at the end of the tunnel they noticed they were no longer underground, but in a house.
"The Shrieking Shack!" Kara exclaimed, looking out of a nearby window down at Hogsmeade from a point of view she'd never seem before.
"Oh God, what are the Marauders messing about at!" Sasha had started desperately looking around for quick escape routes, but before Kara could come up with an idea a whimpering came from the next room, so the two peered around the door frame to find James stood in the middle of the room, wand in hand. Then before their eyes he turned into a majestic stag, stood tall in the middle of the room.
"Illegal animegi!" Kara stated almost too loudly, but they both shot back round the door before James looked up.
"Sirius was clearly the wolf, have you ever seen a wolf with such good hair?" Kara joked "But where are Remus and Peter?" Another scream came from the room across the hall and the stag shot out, not noticing Kara or Sasha, and into the end room. Wanting to investigate, the two crept into the room James was just in to look around.
While their guard was down a rat jumped out from behind a chest, stopping dead in front of Sasha and Kara shaking it's head vigorously.
"You've got to be Peter!" Kara shouted, but couldn't be heard over the screams coming from the next room. Looking panicked, the rat charged into the room to warn the other three, his frantic squeaks being misinterpreted as a suggestion to leave Remus in peace.
After Peter had left Kara and Sasha leapt into the chest before James and Sirius came in, they'd ignore Peter if they thought he was just seeing things.
"What on earth's going on?" Kara whispered to Sasha, who was squashed in next to her.
"Shh!" She warned and gestured toward the doorway where the stag could be seen pulling the door to with its head. When the coast was clear they crept out the room and started to tiptoe down the hallway when howling replaced the screams, and a vicious werewolf burst out of the room, eyes locked on the two girls, and it ran after them, hunting them down.
"Run!" Sasha yelled, and they flew down the stairs, the werewolf closely following.
As James, Sirius, and Peter ran out of the door they came face to face with their worst nightmares. Sasha and Kara were stood in shock on the staircase as Remus charged towards them, and they shot out the door just before Remus lashed out at them.
Without any thought the Marauders followed, trying to get Remus' attention, but he was only concentrating on Sasha and Kara. James knew he could have no effect on Remus as a stag, so as he ran he changed back into his human form and charged onward, his wand clutched in his hand.
"Incarcerous!" He bellowed, ropes flying from his wand that wrapped themselves around Remus and he fell to the ground, howling and rolling about helplessly.
Kara and Sasha fell to the floor out of breath, and the wolf fell next to them, licking their faces.
"Get off Sirius, I know it's you!" Kara panted, wearily pushing the dog off her to the floor where it turned into the worried looking Sirius Black lying flat on his back out of breath from the running.
"Would you mind telling us what the hell just happened?" Sasha wheezed, rolling off her face and glaring at the now human Marauders.
"Would you believe us if we told you we where trying on our Halloween costumes?" Sirius asked unconvincingly.
"Well no offence to Peter, but I don't think he would fit in a rat costume!" Kara stated sarcastically after catching her breath. "Now can we please leave this stupid werewolf before it eats us all and go find Remus?"
"Uhh, sure, but he's probably gone back to the castle by now, too scared" Sirius lied.
"Yeah, that sounds like Remus!" Sasha laughed, and they ran away from the slowly escaping werewolf as quick as possible and flopped down in the common room.
"But Miss Pomfrey I assure you I'm fine!" Lily insisted "You have to let me go and see J-, I mean the quidditch match!"
"Lily Evans you were attacked by a spider twice the size of you and you want to leave just seven days later?" Madam Pomfrey could clearly see Lily wanted to go and see James, she wasn't blind, so she let Lily off with a note about her medication and Lily tore out of the hospital wing to go and see James before the quidditch match she knew was scheduled against Slytherin that Saturday, but she thought it was best if she got changed out of her hospital robes first.
At first she ran through the common room without even noticing who was in there, but after she'd washed her face and thrown on jeans and a jumper, and was running through the common room for a second time she noticed James, Sirius, Kara, and Sasha all completely out cold on the couches surrounding the fireplace.
"Uh guys!" She called over to them.
"Mom, five more minutes!" Sirius shouted, rolling over off the couch and landing flat on his face "What the hell happened?"
"Oh I'll tell you what happened" Sasha started, she was still angry and confused about the attack the night before and couldn't rait to tell Lily "We almost got ki..." Gauging the situation Sirius leapt up off the floor and put his hand around Sasha's mouth.
"We almost got kicked. By Slytherins. In the head." He stuttered, going wide eyed at Sasha to warn her not to say anything.
"Kicked in the heads, right" Lily raised her eyebrows "Any reason as to why this happened"
"We were lying on their picnic blanket" Sasha caught on and attempted to help, getting a face palm from Sirius who had to smile and nod along.
Lily wasn't going to stop until they'd told her what had actually happened until James groaned and dragged himself out from behind the sofa "Why does my head hurt so bad" he whined.
"Must have been all the head kicking..." Sasha suggested, James stood looking confused for a second before Sirius nodded at him.
"Ah yes, that darn head kicking" He agreed, rubbing his head over-dramatically. Luckily had gone into deep thought and was ignoring everything they were saying "Umm, Lily?"
"Hm, me? Oh yes" She stammered, looking around trying to pick up her train of thought, suddenly remembering why she'd come down "I was just wondering if you could help me with something James"
"Anything!" He gasped way too quickly.
"I want you to tell the truth. About Aragog."
Quickly looking to his friends for help and getting nothing James panicked and charged out of the room. Fed up Lily kicked a pillow across the room in rage and slumped back up to the Infirmary, to annoyed to go to the match.
"Lily?" Madam Pomfrey walked over to her and felt her forehead for a temperature. "What's wrong?"
"Madam Pomphrey I really don't think I'm ready to go outside yet" Lily faked an ill sounding voice, and pretended to have bad pains in her head, so Madam Pomfrey took her back to her old bed and ordered her to get some rest.
Lily had been lying on her bed doodling on the table next to her for half an hour before Professor Slughorn came bursting into the wing with a box of chocolates.
"Ah, Lily Evans! My favorite pupil!" He cheered, striding over and giving Lily a huge hug.
"Professor Slughorn!" Lily's face lit up. Slughorn was her favorite teacher, always inviting her to tea and is always interested in how well she's doing.
"Bit under the weather, eh" He chuckled, thrusting the box of chocolates into her arms "Shame you can't attend my next slug club get together, I'd booked the Dancing Skeletons, but, oh well I'll be sure to see you at the next one, hm?"
"Of course sir!" Lily crossed her heart to prove it.
"Anyway, Evans, must be off, meeting Hagrid in the three broomsticks for a butterbeer" and with that he was out the door and silence filled the ward, until Remus was rushed in on a stretcher.
"Oh God! Remus what's wrong?" Lily shouted, trying to get out of bed and catching a glimpse of Remus' scarred, bruised body and face.
"Miss Evans please go back to bed, this is none of your concern" Madam Pomfrey ushered her back to bed, ran back over to the bed where Remus was now lying, and shut the curtains around her.
All Lily heard after that was low talking and pained groans coming from behind the curtain, and when Madam Pomfrey finally emerged carrying belts and opened the curtains Remus was fast asleep, bandages covering his arms, and a large bottle of medicine on the table by his bed.
After about half an hour later Remus began to stir, so Lily tiptoed over and sat by his bed.
"James?" Remus croaked, slowly opening his eyes.
"No it's Lily, what on earth happened?" She asked, stroking the bandages on his arm.
"I, ur, fell down the stairs" Remus lied with a really bad smile on his face.
"Yeah, right, what's with you Marauders and lying – badly as well!"
"It'd take a better man then me to fool Lily Evans" He sighed "I couldn't tell you anyway"
"Come on, I'm not going to judge, and if you tell me anything about head kicking I'm not going to believe you"
"Head kick... no definitely not" Remus wondered if Aragog had hit her harder over the head then they'd thought.
"Forget I said that, I just don't want you to be in any danger, no matter how much I hate your friends I'm not going to let you get beaten up" Lily insisted, looking up and down at countless numbers of bandages.
"No-one's beating me up" Remus tried to think of a valid excuse, and considering his 'falling down the stairs' tactic didn't work he was even out of bad ideas.
"Oh my God you're being bullied" Lily gasped, clutching one of his hands "Remus it's ok I know social convention means guys have to be strong but you can tell me, I swear I'm not going to make it worse"
"For goodness sake, I'm not being bullied!" Remus yawned, he was tired and just wanted to go to sleep, nothing was making Lily go away "Look, we're pretty good friends, right? A year of being forced to do prefect duty does that to people, so I think I can trust you"
"One hundred percent"
"Ok, Lily. I'm a werewolf."
"Come ON James, get your game face on, we're gonna smash this, yeah, beat those Slytherins to the ground?" Marlene slapped him on the back after seeing him staring into the distance.
"Hm?" He muttered, grabbing his broomstick from his locker.
"James?" Sirius walked up to him and through a bucket of water over him. "SNAP OUT OF IT!"
"What the hell!" James recovered from the water, grabbed the bucket from Sirius, and whacked him round the head with it.
"Guys!" Darius Whithall the team captain raced over and grabbed the bucket off James "Both of you snap out of it! James, stop daydreaming, and Sirius, stop being a git!" and with that he strode off, grabbed his broom and walked into position.
"He's right Sirius, let's go." And they got into position and walked out onto the pitch, hit by a wall of screams and chanting.
They positioned themselves on their broomsticks, glaring into the eyes of their opponents, and kicked off into the air to fly into their places.
James looked down, but never really concentrated on the players, his eyes pierced the snitches glinting gold surface, and watched it like a hawk as it went sawing into the sky, and darting about in all directions, finally disappearing into the morbid grey clouds. And the whistle blew.
All hell broke loose underneath him, the quaffle had been thrown about with pinpoint precision and sailing into the goal for the first time with ease.
"Ten points to Gryffindor!" Grosvenor Tackle's voice echoed through the pitch, and that's when the Slytherins played dirty, but Sirius caught on, and sent bludgers soaring at their heads, knocking off their keeper so he had to be taken off, replaced by the under practised reserve.
The game was tougher then they first thought, and James had to fly down and stop a quaffle going in a number of times, then when a bludger almost whacked him in the head he yanked the stick from Sirius and whacked it towards a Slytherin player, knocking her off her broom, earning a massive roar from the Gryffindor crowd, they loved Sirius and James' relationship on the pitch, always helping each other out and having arguments.
Just as the two were getting into the act, at one point Sirius hopped onto James' broom and did a twirl before hopping back onto his own, which the crowd loved, Darius yelled and James to start looking for the snitch because things were getting so desperate. So James flew up higher, ignoring the carnage beneath him, scouring the pitch for any sign of the snitch.
Then he saw it. It was flying about the top of the teachers tower, so he bolted for it. The Slytherin seeker was quick to cotton on and raced after him, the want for glory speeding him on. James closed in on the snitch and chased it around the stand while the teachers spun round wanting to catch the action.
The snitch stopped racing about and hovered above Dumbledore's head, so James leapt off his broom, ran across the front of the stand, grabbed the snitch just before he reached the end and jumped off the edge.
"Pads!" He shouted, and Sirius flew over quick as a flash, caught him on his broom, and they flew back down to the ground, giving James enough time to run to the base of the stand and catch his broom, gigantic cheer ringing in his ears, and when he turned around he saw Sirius doing the worm on the floor in celebration.
On their way back up to the common room what seemed like thousands of students, even from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff went up to James to congratulate him and pat him on the back.
"Prongs, you know what this means!" Sirius grinned.
"Marauder party!" They shouted at the same time, getting huge cheers from around the common room. Even though they were only in fifth year the Marauders knew how to throw a party, and even seventh years would turn up to witness their awesome plans put into action.
Although some did get out of hand, like the one where Sirius decided to start a water fight, and they ended up drenching Mcgonagall when she came in to congratulate them on their victory, or the one where he had snuck in a miniature dragon to scare everyone, but it just ended up setting the common room on fire, earning them a month long detention with Filch. Really all of the wacky party ideas were Sirius', so the party he was planning for that night was bound to be, well, remember-able.
Ok, I may have said midnight yesterday, but I was bombarded with work and couldn't fit it in, but I've been typing non stop into these last two nights to get it finished :-) Do not forget to comment! Go on, right down there, type a comment :-) Anyway got to go, so that's
Mischief Managed :-)