"Ouch! What the-"

"Where the bloody hell are we?"

"Can't breath-"

"I swear if someone doesn't get their foot out of my arse I'm going to-"

"Shut up!" Lily's voice finally managed to shout above them all, but when this still did nothing to alleviate their extremely cramped, dark conditions with all limbs mashed into one, she worked furiously to dig her wand back out of her pocket. She was aware of several more cursings, both hers and whoever she was painfully elbowing as she did so, before finally dislodging it and saying with confidence, "Lumos."

Her light didn't manage to illuminate much, now all she got was a close up of the seven others extremely pained expressions, cobwebs, and was that a spider darting across the slanted ceiling? They were unanimously standing on a single mattress, toddler sized, with one pair of trainers and exactly one article of clothing a person should wear tucked in the thirty centimeters of foot room that Remus was currently tangled up in. There was only the slight glint of metal to reflect off of, faintly gold with slits for bars but clearly covered with another layer of metal, but when Alice reached to try tapping frantically on it, nothing happened.

No one could move without shoving someone else into an even more uncomfortable crouch, it didn't seem possible they were even all squashed inside of this dingy place.

"Okay, that helped nothing," Frank said in an obnoxious tone that tried to sound conversational with his face smashed against the wall. "Someone want to try something else getting us out of here!"

Alice, to her credit, did just that, but no matter what spell she used on the thin bit of wall exposing the promise of the outside world, it yielded nothing.

"Hang on, that bloody thing Prongs was reading got us in here," Sirius said quickly, again trying to shift his weight to any form of comfortable, and only managing to knock Remus' jaw shut accidentally. "Someone grab that and try it again!"

"You want me to try going through another ten pages with Peters elbow in my junk!" James howled in protest.

"Hang on," Peter panted, wriggling around and profusely apologizing as frequently as he was cursing until finally he wrenched it out of his spine and frantically flipped to the correct page. "Whatever you do Evans, don't let the spell go out!" Peter begged as he began. He zipped right past the chapter title, no one could much care why glass would be vanishing at a time when that's all they wanted to do.

It would have been interesting, under normal circumstances, to finally get a feel for how James' kid was going to be, and the first few passages established quite a bit with it's time elapse, which made it all the more confusing when they did get to Harry and something just seemed slightly off.

Then they got the explanation.

"Oh, my, word," Lily managed to get out while also trying not to inhale so deeply her chest would keep brushing up against Potters.

"Peter, was it?" Regulus tried to ask of someone he'd never directly spoken to, and the fact that the two were now in each others laps wasn't a particularly friendly place for first meetings. His face was twisted from something other than discomfort though when he said, "I don't think I quite heard you right, but did you say this wizard's child, was sleeping in a cupboard, under the stairs, of the Muggles!"

"This cupboard!" James screeched, the echo eerily reminding them all of a bat and several people glanced up to make sure that wasn't in here as well.

"Look, I'm sorry you're kid is sleeping with shoes, I really am," Alice tried her hardest for the sympathetic tone, but it was lost on her with the increasingly strained way her neck was having to twist at to stop herself constantly smacking it against the low wall. "In case you hadn't noticed though, so are we! So can we please badger on about this at a later time!" She'd always enjoyed being close enough so Frank could wrap his arms around her, but this was ridiculous.

Peter tried his best to get through the rest, but none of it was exactly enjoyable material that made the passing time better. There were several scoffs of disgust all around, even in their current predicament they all still managed to have sympathy for this kid and his lowly life. Wormtail also had no more wish to state the plethora of insults accumulating in all of them that they wanted to lob at the people doing this to Harry's life, their misunderstanding of his accidental magical abilities would normally have all of them popping a lid with rage if the claustrophobic feeling wasn't keeping a damper on everything.

He just had time to snicker a bit for the smallest bit of laughter at Harry's wit, and wondering how much oxygen they had in this place, when he did stop in surprise at a particular revelation. "Err, James, you been hiding something from us?"

"I wish I could be hiding anything right now," he said through gritted teeth. Never in his life did he think he'd be complaining of having Lily Evans smashed against his chest, but he also didn't think he'd be sandwiched with Peter on his arse at the same time. This wasn't exactly the cozy life he'd wanted for his future.

"Then why is your kid a Parselmouth?" He had to ask through quick panting breaths now, and he really wished he was getting more air. There were wet patches appearing along him, his clothes growing increasingly more uncomfortable and strict as if their limited space was still managing to shrink. What he wouldn't give to transform right now...

"Don't be daft man, this is the worst time in the world for a joke!" Remus howled in protest as Sirius once again managed to knee him in the shins.

Peter declared the passage that said otherwise, there really was no other way to understand such an interaction between Harry and a snake.

Regulus arched his neck painfully to glance over Peter's shoulder, but no one needed confirmation Peter was not in fact making this up. Finally though Regulus' sharp prod and a hiss in his ear reminded him, "congratulations, the kids certainly something to talk about, after we get out of here! This thing isn't getting any bigger!"

Peter managed something of another weak laugh, he'd never heard Sirius' little brother crack a joke before and he did it remarkably in such a similar way as Sirius did, but finally he nearly got to the end with only the slightest bit more pause of shock at such a punishment being put on a child. No meals? Were they actually trying to starve the kid to death as well as confine him in the closest thing they could to a prison?

Then there was a soft click, a catch of breath from them all as the sound of the lock on this place finally being released, and they all fell on top of each other in a heap.


Hope you enjoyed the vivid mental image this chapter gave me, it was a hoot to write and keep giggling at the lot of them all pressed together like that.