Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: So this is the Marauders as Thieves AU that no one asked for but needed anyway.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 12); MC4A
Individual Challenges: Shadow HP Bribery (Y); Gryffindor MC (x5); Magical MC (x5); Criminal MC (x5); Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion (x3) (Y); Ethnic & Present; Ship Sails; Lovely Triangle; Hold the Mayo; Lunar Era; Old Shoes (Y); Short Jog; Bucket Listing (Y); Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Green Ribbon
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 12 – Assignment 8
Subject (Task No.): Technomancy (Task#1: Write about searching for a hidden treasure.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Insane Prompt Challenge [08](Fight); 365 [219](Noise); Herbology [Individual Plot] ("I'm only here to establish an alibi."); Pinata [Easy] (Animagi); Cat Collecting [07] (Something Rare); Foolish Fish Tanks [F09] (An argument/debate/duel); Days of the Year [April 30th] (Someone being brutally honest); Spring Theme [15] (Basket); Colors [05] (Lime Green); Well Behaved Women [Lily Evans](Thieves/Assassins AU) [Mixed Gender Friendship]; Earth Prompt [07] (Dust); Hufflepuff Theme [T07](Modest); History of Spring [06] (Encountering a Basilisk)
Other MC4A Challenges: Sp Bingo [4C](Sheep/Lamb); Tr Bingo [2A](Even Evil Has Standards); Hunt [Sp Settings](Cottage); Ship [Sp Big](Glass Figurine); Chim [Doug] (Family/Friendship)
Representation(s): ADHD James Potter; Marauders as Family; Desi Potters; Black Lily Evans
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Found Family; Nontraditional; Zucchini Bread; Fizzy Lemonade; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; White Dress); Chorus (Pear-Shaped; Wabi Sabi)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3 (Toad); SN (Rail; Ameliorate)
Word Count: 1317

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Hidden Treasures
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"This place has been abandoned! Why are we here again?"

"Don't look at me," Lily answered as she took a sip of her smoothie. Despite the order, both Sirius and Remus turned away from watching James unraveling the protective wards on the building they were gathering behind. She rolled her green eyes dramatically. "I'm only here to establish an alibi."

"You really don't understand the concept of an alibi," Remus said. "It's supposed to place you somewhere other than a crime scene!"

"Crime scene?" Sirius questioned. He gave Remus a grin that would have been at home on his canine form. "I don't know about you, but we've been at the Natural History Museum all afternoon. It's fascinating stuff."

"Got the ticket stubs to prove it, too," Lily added. With her free hand, she showed the torn tickets to Remus. She gave them all a wolfish smile. "Marlene is apprenticing under the wix in charge of the magical section."

"That is establishing an alibi!" Remus argued. "Not being at the scene of the crime!"

"That still doesn't answer the question," Peter complained. "Why are we breaking into someone's glorified garden shed?"

"It has an expansion charm," James explained as he worked. "You can tell from the stress marks on the wood at the corners." He pointed at the frame of the cottage door with a wave of one brown hand. "They should have used birch or yew. Oak doesn't take that class of spell well. It also doesn't let wards sink in as well." With his other hand, he made a gesture like he was grabbing a handful of threads and yanked. A small shower of sparks followed the motion. "Tch, their loss and our gain. We have only ten minutes before the Aurors respond to the ward breech. In and out, people."

"And don't forget," Lily mentioned as she vanished her smoothie instead of just dropping it and leaving behind evidence, "Alice and Frank have said they won't hesitate to arrest us."

"They'll have to catch us first," Sirius said, slipping through the door behind James. Peter squeaked as he shifted to his rat form and scurried after them. Remus rolled his eyes at their antics but let Lily go first.

Inside was nothing like an ordinary garden shed. It looked more like the parlor of some fancy manor. Well, if said manor belonged to someone with absolutely no sense of interior design. Everything was ornately expensive but it was also overdone in a way that screamed its owner's desire to show off their wealth. Also, none of it actually went together. There was also a fine layer of dust on all the horizontal surfaces.

"My mother would die if she saw this," James said before shaking himself of his shock.

"Aunt Dorea isn't the only one," Sirius agreed as he helped James go through the contents of the bookshelves along one of the walls. "I think my mother would die if she saw this crime of excess."

"Aunt Walburga dying wouldn't be a huge loss," James returned. He shoved a likely looking book into his moleskin satchel. "It might even be a good thing all around. Though I suppose Uncle Orion might have difficulties finding another cousin to marry, given that all cousins are settled."

"Gideon mentioned at the last Order meeting that Septimus is sick," Remus said as he took what Wormtail had brought him and shoved it into his own moleskin bag. "So maybe Cedrella will be available soon."

"Ugh, don't put that out in the universe," Sirius whined. "That would make what I'm doing with the Prewett twins too incesteous to continue."

"Dating twins is already kind of incesteous," Lily pointed out as she searched her own section of the room. A stretch of the wood paneling felt strange under her fingers. "Besides, your parents are literally cousins."

"Exactly," Sirius said. "They're the best example of why it's not the best idea to be kissing cousins."

"I thought you and Regulus were the examples," James teased. Sirius tossed a glass figurine at him. Like a good Chaser, James caught the figurine and shoved it into his bag. Lily ignored their fight and pressed her palm to the spot. It grew warm before popping open. "Oh, I wasn't expecting secret spaces!"

"We're in a secret space," Remus corrected as he took another object from Wormtail. "What's a few more? We're down to five minutes, by the way."

Lily swung open the panel, thinking only what possible treasures could have been hidden under all the wards of this place and then the secret panel. Then she froze at the sight that greeted her. Curled up in a wicker basket lined with a piece of lambskin stamped with runes was a lime green snake with a wedge-shaped head. Her heart stopped as she recognized the distinctive color and scale pattern of a hatchling basilisk.

"Get out," she ordered the boys. Her voice croaked instead of snapping. James and Sirius arguing easily covered it. She swallowed hard and tried again. "Get out now."

"What's wrong?" Remus asked. She heard him take a few steps closer.

"NO! Don't come any closer," Lily snapped. This time she was loud enough to silence James and Sirius. Unfortunately, the noise of it was also loud enough to wake the previously slumbering basilisk. "Oh, no, pretty, don't wake up."

The basilisk blinked sleepily at her but obligingly settled back down. Its tail gave a minute twitch to show that it wasn't really sleeping. Remus peeked over her shoulder. Then he stumbled backwards. She heard him calling to Wormtail. She also heard James and Sirius protesting as he urged them out the door.

She had never been so thankful for her unusual animagus form before. Magical creatures were rare as forms anyway, but dragons were hardly inconspicuous. It had made her form useless for undercover work for the Order as well as doing the preliminary investigations for their hits. But it did come with a few perks that came in handy from time to time. Immunity to the magical effects of other creatures was just one of those perks.

Lily had been born with the other talent that made her perfect for this encounter.

"Hello, lovely," she murmured in Parseltongue. The basilisk opened its eyes again to glare at her. "I know, I know. I woke you up, didn't I? I'm sorry for that. We didn't know you were here. Do you know if you have a name, pretty one?"

"The human before you called me Treasure," the snake answered. "You smell of fire and sky."

"I can turn into a dragon," Lily explained. She was not surprised that the man who owned the garden shed turned secret hideout had kept a basilisk. The Death Eaters attracted a certain kind of crazy which made suicidally stupid ideas like that seem reasonable. She was a bit surprised that he had such respect for a creature to name it the way he had. "How long has it been since you've eaten, Treasure? Are you hungry?"

"Starved," Treasure answered. "The not-you human has been gone for so long."

Lily looked around the room, once again noting the dust. James had picked this place because of the owner being in St. Mungo's as they tried to figure out why he was unconscious. She almost laughed when she realized that he was probably petrified from the basilisk's budding death gaze. To cover it up, she used her wand to hopefully summon any food he had kept for Treasure. A wooden box zipped towards her from the desk in the corner.

"One now," she told her new friend, "and then we need to get out of here."

"This is acceptable," Treasure answered. "I have always wanted to have a dragon."

Somehow, becoming the pet of a basilisk was not what she had expected to come from this job.