CW: Bullying

I awoke to the scent of smoke. I smelt it well before the others did, at around midnight. As soon as I smelt it my stomach clenched. My gut told me to warn my friends, but in my head, I thought about how stupid I would seem if there wasn't smoke at all or if it was far away and my sense of smell just picked it up as being close. So, I decided to ignore it and tried to go back to sleep.

Then James began screaming, and I was up like a bolt and sprinted across the room to his bed, to which place a flame had appeared on the curtains of the four-poster. I wanted to pull it back so James could get out, but the whole thing was on fire, and I was hit by a wave of fear.

Oh, don't be a wimp, I thought to myself, and quickly gripped the burning curtain and pulled it back, but as I did that, the entire curtain fell to the floor, which only spread the fire. James climbed out, and I could only see his face from the flamelight, but he looked terrified. Peter and Sirius were out of bed by now, having run over after me.

"What are we supposed to do!?" Peter sobbed.

Sirius rushed to the light switch and turned the light on, so we could at least see each other. The fire was slowly spreading, and it was getting hard to breathe from both the smoke and the anxiety that was rising in me. The fire spread and Sirius yelled at us all.

"WE NEED TO PUT THE FIRE OUT!"

"No shit, Sherlock," said James, stepping away from the quickly spreading flames, "But how!?"

"With water, you idiot!" I yelled. Why was I yelling? Why was I thinking about why I was yelling during an event where my friends and I were all about to die?

"AGUAMENTI!" Sirius shrieked, pointing his wand at the fire. The water spurted from his wand and smoke rose after a hissing sound as the fire disappeared, leaving the dormitory smelling like smoke as we all panted and sweated.

"What the hell!?" James cried, looking around at his destroyed curtains on the floor and the huge black patch on the carpet. "How… how did that happen? Did we have anything in here that might have caused that?"

"I can't think of anything other than our wands, but still… our wands couldn't have started a fire unless… unless one of us did it," said Sirius.

"No," James said firmly. "None of us would have done something like that."

"Well, what if we do that spell where we can see the last spell that a wand performed?" Sirius suggested.

"What?" said James, "Is that a thing?"

"Yeah," said Sirius, rolling his eyes. When we didn't respond, he continued, "Priori incantato? Have you guys never heard of it?"

"No, but is it going to help us fix James's curtains?" Peter asked.

"It shows the most recent spell a wand has performed," Sirius said, "maybe if we do it on all our wands, we could see…"

"Sirius, are you accusing one of us of setting a fire in our own dormitory!?" James cried.

"No, but maybe we should just check just in case," said Sirius. Nobody responded. "Fine, we'll do my wand first."

He did the spell, it was complicated, but it made an image appear of water spurting out, then he changed it to an image of a book levitating to show his innocence. He did it on James's and Peter's next, and theirs were both normal spells they'd been practicing that afternoon. But when Sirius did it to my wand, an image of fire appeared. Sirius's jaw dropped and he stared at me with disbelief.

I hadn't set that fire! I knew I hadn't! I would have remembered if I'd created a fire, and I never would have done that. So, out of instinct, I began pleading with them to believe me.

"Why would I do that, though? To our own dormitory! Please, please, I promise on everything I didn't do it!"

"I didn't think you would of, but your wand…" Sirius started.

"Sirius!" James cried, waving his wrist around in Sirius's face. "The bracelets you gave us! They're not broken! According to you, these bracelets would break if one of us betrayed each other, remember?"

I could have kissed James for saying that. Sirius opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, then opened it again, "You're right. Maybe someone took Remus's wand and made a fire."

"Well, houses other than Gryffindor don't know the password," said Peter.

"Should we try to figure it out tomorrow?" I suggested. It wasn't that I didn't care, I just thought we wouldn't make any progress at this time of the night, plus it had been the full moon the previous night and I wanted to sleep more than anything.

The others agreed, James complained a bit about not having any curtains, but we were all eventually able to go back to sleep in the smoke-scented room.

We didn't strut into the Great Hall as we'd thought we would have; in fact, I'd completely forgotten about the haircuts we'd gotten until Alice stared at us all as if we'd grown an extra head when we sat down at the Gryffindor table.

Something else I noticed was a note next to my cereal bowl, written on it a message in cursive but clear handwriting:

How was the fire?

-HBP

I felt my eyes widen and showed it to the others quickly.

"H-B-P?" Sirius repeated. "Does that stand for something?"

"Huge… big… poo…? Oh, I don't know," said James, taking the note from me to get a closer look.

"It could be… habapa?" Peter shrugged.

"Let's write them a note back!" Sirius cried, grabbing a quill and ink from his pocket.

"Why do you have…" I started, but then gave up on my question and shook my head.

Sirius turned the note around to write on the back:

Why did you set fire to our dormitory? We know you did, HBP.

"We need a codename, too," said James. "Uh… JSRP?"

"Oh, come on, James, that is too obvious," Sirius said, rolling his eyes.

"But won't they already know it's us if they set the fire? They must have intended to set it on us, anyone in Gryffindor could get into our dormitory," I said.

"But I thought it was against the rules to go into someone else's dormitory?" Peter said.

"Yes, but they can still get in," I told him.

"Couldn't you like… smell who it is or something?" Sirius grumbled.

"It doesn't work like that," I said in a low voice, "I can't tell who someone is from one smell unless it's someone I know really well, like my parents, and maybe you guys. I might be able to tell some things if I've met the person before…"

"Well, what are we waiting for?" James cried, suddenly standing up, "Let's go back and sniff out our room!"

"Wait, are we still going to write HBP a letter?" Peter asked, looking down at the half-written note.

"Oh, yes," said James, reluctantly sitting back down. It was clear he just wanted to cut to the chase. "We should still have a codename, just to top HBP."

"How about, 'The great and glorious Sirius Black and his friends'?" Sirius suggested.

"No, Sirius!" James cried. "It has to be from all of us. How about PBLP? Our last names instead?"

"Again, too obvious," I said. "We need it to be subtle."

"'The pranksters?'" Peter offered.

"No… like another word, I think," I said, "like… like… remember that word that James used, to describe us, last year? What was it… marauders!"

"Yes!" Sirius cried, scribbling it down. "Let's leave it here for them to find and go back to the dormitory now."

"Finally!" James cried as he ran out of the Great Hall, Sirius, Peter, and I struggling to keep up.

When we were back in the dormitory, I did a walk around the room, sniffing. It was hard with the scent of smoke, but I did recognise them from somewhere, and I could tell that they were male, and their thoughts had been full of hatred when they'd been in there. This just left us with even more questions than we'd been with before we came in for the sniff.

"Who could possibly hate us?" James cried. "I'd think a Slytherin, but I don't see how they could have gotten in, though…"

"Only if a Gryffindor let them in or told them the password… accidentally or on purpose," I said, thoughtfully. "There's only one person I could think of who might of, but…"

"Who?" Peter asked.

"Well, I don't think she would, but… but she's friends with Snape, she might have just wanted to show him around, but…"

"If you're talking about Evans, then you've gone mad," James said, crossing his arms angrily.

"So, you think Snivellus did it?" Sirius asked, and I nodded in confirmation.

"I can't believe you guys would think Evans would have let him in!" James sat down on his bed now, looking at us all in disbelief.

"Why don't we just ask her, see what she says… we might be able to tell if she's lying," said Sirius.

"How could you accuse her!?" James cried, standing back up and creasing his eyebrows.

"Just because you have a little crush on her doesn't mean…" Sirius started.

"I don't have a little crush on her!" James cried. "I… I love her! I really, really, love her. It started as just pining, yes, but now… now… I would do anything for her, I'd die for her, I… I…"

"Alright, James, we believe you, you're in love with Lily Evans," said Sirius. "But we still need to ask her if she let Snivellus into the common room. Stay here if you want, but I want to know who burnt my best friend's curtains to shrivellines. So, I'll be right back. Does anyone else want to come?"

Peter stayed with James, and I went with Sirius back out to the Great Hall to find Lily. It didn't take long to find her talking to Dorcas.

"Hey, Evans," said Sirius.

"Yeah?"

"Could we talk to you please for a minute?" Sirius asked. "Like, alone?"

"Uh… yeah, alright," she said, standing up and following us to the corner of the Great Hall. "Need a silencing charm?"

"If you can."

"Muffliato," she said, after drawing her wand.

"What is that spell?!" Sirius cried.

"Severus taught it to me," said Lily. "Anyway, what do you want to talk to me about?"

"Did… did you let Snape into the common room? Or tell him the password?" Sirius asked.

"No, I didn't," she said, "but… he did find out the password."

"How?" I asked.

"He… he read my mind," she said quickly. "Legilimency. I don't think he knew I could feel him coming into my mind, but I did feel it, I didn't say anything, but I should have! What did he do, then?"

"So, he did set a fire in our dormitory!" Sirius cried.

"Wait, he read your mind?" I cried, raising an eyebrow at Lily. Why would he do that to her? He was supposedly her best friend! That was such an invasion of her privacy!

She looked down. "He's been doing it for a while, actually. Just reads my thoughts whenever he feels like it. I don't really know what to do about it."

"Lily… that's not right for him to do that. You need to talk to him about it," I said.

"Oh, gosh, I didn't mean for you to get all sympathetic!" she cried. "I'm sorry for dumping that on you… please don't tell anyone, and I'll just go. Sorry!"

She got rid of the silencing charm, then walked back to the tables. Sirius and I exchanged a look, then went back to the dormitory together. Once we shared the news with James and Peter, James started pacing around the room, each step with more force, and he was practically shaking with anger.

"He's been reading her mind!? How could he do that!? I'm going to kill him… I'm going to destroy him, annihilate him, pulverise him, demolish him, ruin him, any other words that mean I'm going to tear him to shreds!"

"OK, maybe killing him isn't the best option…" I started, but James was already pushing past me.

"Get out of my way, Remus," he snarled.

"Think about it, James!" Sirius cried. "If you hurt him now, you'll pay for it later. Please… calm down."

"Fine." James said, his voice sharp. He turned away from us. "I'm going to get ready for class."

We had Potions as our second class that day, and Lily acted as if nothing was wrong. I wondered how long she'd been doing that, and if Snape was reading her mind at that point.

Everything was fine until we were leaving the classroom. As soon as we were out in the halls, James grabbed a chunk of Snape's hair and threw him to the floor. Then, as Snape yelled out and tried to stand up, James knelt and began to continuously punch Snape right in the nose.

I wanted to step in, but it was just too good to watch Snape suffer, the cries between each punch, his struggling to stand, the blood that poured faster and faster from his face each time it met James's fist, the humiliation on his face almost our entire class cheered James on. Lily wasn't seeing anything as she'd gotten an early mark, being the star student.

After what seemed like forever and not long enough at the same time, Professor Slughorn finally emerged from the Potions classroom and broke the one-sided fight up. James was still shaking with anger, glaring across at a bleeding and coughing Snape as Slughorn yelled.

"MR. POTTER! MR. SNAPE! FOLLOW ME! NOW!"