Some very nice people have been kind enough to start following my only-okay story. I thank them for their time and goodness. Indescribable music has turned off the private messaging feature, therefore thank you from my AN. Similarly, some nice guests have been nice enough to review. Since I couldn't respond to their reviews on the website, I would like to say to CrazyPotterhead that whoever they are, they are really sweet and that I try to make the story good enough for my marvelous readership. As for the other guest, thanks for the review, and I shall keep going for you sake :)
I own this wonderful copy of Harry Potter, which is the dearest thing on the planet. In case that counts, I don't own Harry Potter.
Barred and Broken
one o'clock (1300 hours) Library, Girl's Dormitories and Hogsmede
She hasn't been doing anything much, Mary, I really don't see what you're talking about. She hasn't done anything except go to the library as such. What say you, Dorcas? -Marlene
Just keep the tail, Marlene. - Mary
Concentrate on not letting her see you, McKinnon, and we'll all be fine. - Dorcas
Don't forget that bit about that demotion, dear. - Marlene
Try finding out what she's reading Marlene. Dorcas, Benjamin has just gone with Julia to Scrivenshaft's. Nothing exciting really.
I say, isn't this getting a bit confusing? - Mary
Head bent on the task, McDonald! I'll go ninjaing to see what book she's reading. - Marlene
Good girl, Marlene. - Dorcas
Three thirty (1530 hours) Library, Girl's Dormitories and Hogsmede
Something odd is going on here Ladies. - Marlene
Shush, Marlene. Apparently Benjamin took her to the spot under the oak. That's our spot! - Dorcas
I know, idiot, I've been getting the same mails! Something really odd is happening! - Marlene.
What is it, Marlene? - Mary
Lily just went into Professor Slughorn's office and returned with a bottle of what looks like a mud colored potion. - Marlene
Hello?
Anyone?
I might be mistaken, you know.
What is she doing now? - Dorcas.
What she said. - Mary
Going to Professor McGonagall's office. *insert scared face here* What the fudge is going on? o.O - Marlene
That is odd.
What she said.
Six o'clock (1800 hours) Hogsmede
"Six o'clock, gentlemen." Remus quietly announced.
They stood up all at once, and nodded to each other.
"On three?" asked James.
All of them nodded again, as if this was judgement day.
"I solemnly swear that I am upto no good," they said together.
"And let's all hope it stays that way." Sirius finished gravely.
James laughed and Remus shook his head in resignation.
Six forty five (1845 hours) Honeydukes' tunnel, Hogsmede
"Moony, you're stepping on my foot!" exclaimed Peter.
"Really Moony, you have to stop throwing your weight about in the literal sense," drawled James.
"Do keep quiet James," hissed Moony, "Ouch! who is tha-"
"It's me you oaf!" Sirius snapped, "Stop fidgeting, there is little space as it is!"
"This is hopeless," sighed Remus, "Lumos."
"Smart thinking Moony," James said as if it had been his idea all along. Remus rolled his eyes.
The light illuminated a tunnel, dark and narrow. There were sounds coming from the shop above them. The voices of loud hagglers hummed in the suffocating air of the tunnel and the smell of liquorice was in the air.
They were in the tunnel under Honeydukes, and not exactly the happiest about it.
Seven (1900 hours) Library, Girls Dormitories and Hogsmede
I'm getting a bit worried about our Lily flower. - Marlene
What's happening now? - Dorcas
What she said. - Mary
She disappeared behind the burnt Gregorian tapestry and has now returned looking a bit flushed. In her hand she carries nothing at all except what looks like a few notes. She is heading for lunch.
Speaking of which, Benjamin has taken Julia to that horrible little shop of Madam Puddifoot's - Mary
He's taking her to the place where love goes to die? - Marlene
Exactly so.
What is going on in the world?
What she said.
Seven Fifteen (1915 hours) Great Hall, Dinnertime.
"We're ready," Lily whispered to James.
"Good," James muttered back, and leaned sideways to say quietly, "Me and the fellows will leave in about five minutes, you follow us five minutes later,"
Lily nodded quickly, ignoring the involuntary jump in her stomach when James had leaned in.
They were being closely watched by two people. One of the was Marlene McKinnon who was making furiously fast notes behind the statue of the weeping lady, and the other was June Leto who's quick eyes were darting from behind a suit of armour.
June's plan was ready and waiting. The chocolates were ready, and all she needed was for them to leave the great hall and do whatever it was that they wanted to do. She needed some time to start following them, but once everything was set in action everything would fall in place.
May Merlin have mercy on my soul, she thought to herself as she saw the marauders leave.
Seven Twenty (1920 hours) Library, Girls Dormitories and Great Hall
The marauders and Lily just left to go somewhere. As mentioned earlier, they were talking about something or the other. It's almost dinnertime. The wait goes long, and my suffering longer. - Marlene
Don't be dramatic, Marlene - Dorcas
Is anyone seeing what I'm seeing? - Mary
What's that?
I see a rogue suit of Armour that appears to be made of... chocolate, of all things. - Mary.
Dorcas, abandon your post. Mary's gone mad. - Marlene
I'm serious, Marlene. He's clanking about in a drunken manner spewing chocolate as he goes.
Can this day get any stranger? - Dorcas
What she said. - Mary
Seven Thirty (1930 hours) Gregorian Tapestry
"Alright boys, here we go." Lily said, taking out the stolen bottles of poly juice potion. "The left ones are Professor McGonnagal's, the right ones Professor Slughorn's, the center ones Professor Kettleburn's, the separate ones Professor Harris' and the ones in the corner are Professor Christon's. Choose."
They nodded quickly, and drank down the poly juice potion. Lily grabbed her own bottle and reached the handle of the door. She turned back briefly.
"It's been an honor knowing all of you," she said sincerely.
"And may our paths cross more than once." Sirius supplied.
Lily nodded.
"And now, let's go to the teacher's archives," said Remus.
Eight o'clock (2000 hours) Entrance Hall Staircase
Marlene's pretty blonde head whipped as she looked for Mary in the crowd. Dorcas and Mary quickly made their way to her, across the many students who had crowded around to watch the drunken suit of Armour covered in chocolate spouting what looked like tonnes of chocolate eclairs made from the school kitchens itself.
"Mary!" Marlene called as she chased to her.
"Where's Lily?" Mary gasped as she and Dorcas stumbled towards her.
"She disappeared somewhere! Where's Benjamin?"
"Never mind that!" Dorcas exclaimed, "Find Lily! We need to know what's going on!"
"Right!" Marlene groaned, and they pushed their way across the crowd, towards the Gregorian tapestry.
A sudden attack on her right made her gasp with surprise. There was yet another suit of Armour made of chocolate right up in front of her.
"What on earth is going on?" Marlene cried.
The suit of Armour decided it was wise to ignore Marlene all together and swiped at her head heavily, trying it's best to get her out of action. Marlene ducked quickly and Mary performed a quick stunning spell.
Whatever the effects of the stunning spell they had studied, copying the object you stunned into ten copies was certainly not one of them. They were surrounded by an entourage of suits of armors, spewing chocolate everywhere. Now, as mentioned earlier, most of the Hogwarts students were immune to the usual bout of strangeness. But this was a whole new level of strange.
"What is going on?" Dorcas despaired as she tried to hit the suit of Armour with a vanishing spell but it just exploded and the different parts melted into pools of chocolate.
"You might want to hold onto that phrase, I have a feeling we'll be using it a lot today," Mary said dryly as she whacked a suit of Armour on the head with her bag.
"We need to hit them physically!" Marlene yelled as she head butted one of them, "They appear to be immune to nearly all spells!"
"And what after?" Dorcas asked in a resounding yell as she hit her own suit of Armour with her fists.
"The great Hall!" Mary decided in a split second.
"Alright!" Marlene called. "Follow me!"
They broke into a run, with suits of Armour following them behind, and small spells being shot every now and then. As soon as she deemed it far enough, June scuttled out of her hiding place and made her way to the great hall. She needed to prepare things for them.
Eight Five (2005 hours) West Tower
"What is all that noise?" Lily asked, head whipping in the direction of the great hall. Or rather, Professor McGonagall's head whipped in the air,
"Never mind that, Evans, we need to concentrate," Sirius said tersely. He was a replica of Professor Harris – tall and dark.
"Right," Lily muttered, "Me first."
"Don't be silly," James immediately said, stooping like professor Kettleburn,"You're prefect, if anything goes wrong, you'll don't want to be caught first."
Lily opened her mouth to say something but James was already gone, in front of the blind dragon, holding his breath. Remus gave James and Lily a curious look – even though he was dressed as professor Slughorn.
After the initial shock of seeing all the professors whom she admired and/or hated, Lily had hit freefall. She was simply going with everything that came at her in a trance, as if she wasn't in control of her body anymore, as if none of it really mattered.
The dragon didn't say anything, merely woke up suddenly and sniffed James quickly. It appeared to go into thought for a minute before letting him in.
A silent whoop of happiness ran through the crowd of people watching James and one by one, all of them entered.
Eight Seven (2007 hours) Great Hall
All the students had assembled in the great hall, watching the antics of the Chocolate suits of Armour from far. They peered from behind the cracks of the doors interestedly, chatting animatedly and excitedly about the going ons.
Mary, Marlene and Dorcas rushed inside, and noticed at once, the sheer number of students clamoring at the door. This was undoubtedly the biggest prank to have ever been played in Hogwarts and many people were laughing hysterically.
Marlene pulled a little note book out and stuck a pencil out. She began scribbling into the notebook, her tongue sticking out.
"The night grows weary and the hours long, as me and my comrades wait for freedom from this dreadful nightmare. The knights celebrate in drunkenness outside, while we starve,"
"It's hardly that dramatic Marlene! And we have plenty of food!" Mary said exasperated.
"Never mind that, Marlene McKinnon carries a notebook? Can this day get any weirder?" Dorcas said.
Mary rolled her eyes, but her comment was lost as just that moment, there was a commotion at the doorways and the students came rushing towards the back of the hall. Marlene, Mary and Dorcas looked up. The doors were shaking.
The three of them scrambled to the back of the great hall.
The suits of armors began to bang the doors open.
"The enemy approaches. Me and my comrades have taken shelter at the back of the hall, but our time grows thin. The knights of the land of chocolate arrive with speed," Marlene muttered.
The doors bang open and the suits of Armour canter in drunkenly. Whoever had charmed them had obviously not done it properly. The suits stop for a second, as if to survey the situation properly. Everyone was waiting for something to happen.
"What are you waiting for?" came a voice from the crowd, "EAT THE CHOCOLATE!"
It took a moment for that to sink in, before someone rushed forward to break the suit's Armour and ate a piece of the arm.
And all the students of Hogwarts surged forward, and the massacre of the suits of Armour took place. June hoped they appreciated the fact that she had said that without stuttering at all. June had practiced it all last evening.
Eight Seven (2007 hours) West Tower
"Woah," Peter muttered when he had entered.
They were standing in what looked like a vast labyrinth of books and books, at the centre of which was a gigantic round table, with numerous little instruments on it. There were notes spread everywhere. There were around five or six separate parchment sheets, spread across stands so that they were easier to look at. On them were drawn, the maps of Hogwarts.
The ceiling wasn't that high, giving the room a profoundly wise look: as if it kept it's information to itself. There were books with the strangest titles: Spells to Create Different Magical Creatures, World of Torture vol. 10, Secrets of the Darkest Arts, and so on. The library had nothing on this.
These were the Teacher's Archives.
Momentarily stymied, all five of them simply stared at what seemed to be something they could never get tired of.
A distant call of 'CHOCOLATE' woke them from their stupor.
"Drop it," Peter said to James.
"Excuse me?" began Lily hotly, "We didn't come all the way here to 'drop' the whole plan-"
"Not that!" Peter exclaimed, motioning towards James.
James rummaged through his robes, and pulled out a grubby looking snitch. "There," he said quickly and levitated it to the nearest chandelier, fixing it in the iron stands so that it won't look conspicuous.
"What's that?" Lily asked.
"First snitch I caught. Souvenir for the teachers," James winked.
"They will find it and we will be caught," Lily replied testily.
"You said our escapade will be noticed even still. Besides, we've wiped all trace of everything from it." James said reasonably.
"Anyway, what are you leaving?" asked Sirius suddenly.
"Why would I leave something?" Lily asked, flummoxed.
"To prove you came," Sirius said slowly, as if explaining to a child.
"Remus really needs to sort you boys out," said Lily.
"It's a lost cause, Lily, believe me." Remus said exasperated, "Just leave something from your robes and we can get out of here."
Lily shrugged her shoulders in annoyance and looked at her robes. She had a bright idea. She pulled out her prefect's badge and muttered quietly, Gemino.
The badge's replica was perfect.
Lily quickly dumped it behind a book.
"Why? Why would you leave a replica of you prefect's badge of all things?" asked Sirius in anguish.
"People have to know that it takes a prefect to get in," she said with a wink, "Now come on, we have only until eight fifteen before someone senses something!"
"Where?" Remus asked tersely.
"There." Lily pointed at a door with a sign that said 'Records'.
"Alright," Sirius began seriously, "You two go and get what we are looking for," he said pointing towards James and Lily, "You two examine those lovely maps," he pointed at Remus and Peter, "I'll stand guard at the door," he added, hurrying over to the creaky door.
James and Lily hurried over to the door. They both gave a small, silent sigh, before Lily pushed the door open.
It was a large room, filled with endless shelves with endless drawers. Each shelf had an alphabet of the English language printed on the top. The records seemed to be classified according to the surname first and name later.
"L," they said together.
They stomped over to the shelf with a large, embossed 'L' on it, Lily quickly scanned it. She opened the drawer right at the bottom. 'LzGin', 'Lyperon', etc, etc, etc. She closed the drawer and opened the first drawer on the top. 'Larmer' 'Laster', Larker', etc, etc, etc. She checked the last file on the shelf. 'Larter'. She opened the fifth drawer on the top.
Eight Twenty (2020 hours) Entrance Hall
June rushed out of the hall and towards the Gregorian Tapestry (she had snooped around enoug h to find out that they were having their meetings there). On her way she encountered Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, rushing in the opposite direction. She stuttered to a halt when she heard Professor McGonagall say something in a hushed tone about an alarm going off in the – teacher's archives. June had no idea what that was, which was why she stuttered to a stop to eavesdrop.
"- started ringing a little while back – yes, in the west tower - Albus, I sent Horace to see what it was. Do you think someone did this thing with the armour to distract us?" McGonagall muttered to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore was thoughtfully stroking his beard, waiting for Minerva McGonagall to say something else.
"Besides – look at the magic! Clumsy. That's why the animation is drunken." McGonagall said softly. June sighed with relief. She had done the magic well.
"I doubt it Minerva – Animation like this at this scale is beyond anything we have taught even the seventh years – if someone has done this animation, they had made the knights drunken deliberately." Dumbledore said with a twinkle in the eye.
June gasped audibly. How on earth had Dumbledore known that?
Dumbledore caught June's eyes. "Good evening Miss Leto. Aren't you having chocolate with your class fellows?" he asked her pleasantly, watching her expression of horror with amusement.
June muttered something inaudible and disappeared down the hall – not towards the Gregorian tapestry – toward the Dungeons.
"Leto! Yes!" exclaimed Lily. James stood at the doorway, wand aloft. "Better hurry, Lily-Flower. Potion's wearing out."
"Damn! You're right!" Lily muttered, holding her now turning red hair in her hand.
She extracted the file out of the drawer carefully, only to inflict horror upon herself. As soon as the file was successfully pulled out of the drawer, it burst into multiple copies and singed Lily on the hand. Lily groaned loudly but didn't let go of the file. "Gemino and Flagrante curses!" she muttered, eyes watering in pain.
Right at that moment there was a siren call in the room, and Lily Evans knew that now they were going to be caught.
And DONE. Next Chapter shall be available by Sunday. It's called 'Keeping is Real' and will be the final stage of Halloween