Chapter 4 – The Marauders
TR: reference to torture, reference to child abuse, advocating for violence against babies.
Sunday, September 5th, 1971
The Great Hall
James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were sitting on the Gryffindor table talking about school work. Remus was helping the three understand the Transfiguration alphabet. Sirius would have asked Bella, but she was at the library. Sirius knew that fifth year would be hard for Bellatrix because of the OWLs and her Prefect duties, but man, his cousin was too stressed. Bella was the brightest witch of her age, she will surely get 12 Os in her OWLs.
Coming back to reality, Sirius addressed James.
"Thank you for staying my friend even though you hate Slytherin."
"Well, I don't hate all Slytherins. My mother is one and who can hate his Mum?"
Sirius couldn't suppress his snort.
"What's funny?" asked his friend.
"You should have seen my harpy of a mother."
"My mother told me about her niece, but she can't be that bad."
"Believe me, she is. She keeps screaming like a banshee and saying that even Muggle newborns should be tortured to death."
"You can't be serious!"
"I am seriously Sirius, Sirius Black at your service." The Slytherin replied with a grin.
"So guys, do you know any secret place we can meet to plan some fun?" asked the Gryffindor.
"Bella told me about a room on the seventh floor called the Room of Requirement. You go to the left corridor opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. You have to walk past the room three times thinking I'd what you need and the door will open."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" exclaimed James.
The Room of Requirement.
"Now that we are here," started James, "how about we start planning pranks?"
"Are you serious? I am down."
"No, you are," responded the Gryffindor.
"And Remus here is a Ravenclaw, he will be the group's brains," added Sirius.
"Are we sure it's a good idea?"
"Peter, don't you want to have fun?" asked Sirius.
"But what if we get caught?" asked Peter.
"Then don't get caught," replied James.
"What should we call our group?" asked Sirius.
Remus closed his book and said, "if we are going to marauder around the school, we might as well call ourselves the Marauders."
And thus, the Marauders started wreaking havoc on the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Minerva McGonagall didn't know what hit her.
At 5 PM, Bellatrix had her weekly tea with Professor McGonagall. The latter was like a mother to Bellatrix since her parents didn't care about her (and her father preferred the Cruciatus Curse over his daughters). Of course, Bella couldn't tell anyone at school about her home life since it would make the torture worse. After all, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is above the law. The Ministry won't do a thing about her father torturing his daughters or her aunt turning her sons and her nieces.
Bellatrix knocked on the door and waited for the other brightest witch of her age to answer. After a few seconds, the older witch opened the door to the youngest one and welcomed her into her office.
Hello Miss Black, how was your first week back?" asked the Transfiguration teacher.
"It was nice, Minne. Only Reggie is now missing."
"Good. Was it you who told your cousin to call me Minne?"
Bellatrix chuckled, "Of course it was me. You're my favourite professor and I am pretty sure Siri will soon agree with me."
"I remember the first time you told me that I was your favourite teacher, I was surprised that a Slytherin would be that find of the Gryffindor Head of House."
"Yes, you said "You can't be serious?", and I replied: "No, that's my cousin."
The two witches laughed and then started talking about Bellatrix's latest readings: time magic.
In the evening, Sirius sent Regulus a letter about his newly-formed mischief group and promised his brother to break Bellatrix's mischief record.
