Chapter Twenty-Two

Chip, Chip, Chip

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, of you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after

~J.R.R. Tolkien

James, Sirius, and Peter hurried after Remus Lupin. James was quite surprised how fast the boy could move when he was determined. By the direction of travel, James was pretty sure that Remus was headed for the library, though what he sought there was a little unclear. The boys had just been discussing researching spells, but surely Remus didn't think they would be able to find anything at that precise moment. Their curfew would be coming up in less than ten or fifteen minutes. Even with Remus' crazy fast research abilities, James wasn't sure that would be enough time to find anything of use.

He jogged quicker, trying to catch up with Remus to discuss it all with him but James, after an evening of sitting under the invisibility cloak on a cold floor was a little stiff and unable to move very well. His movement was closer to a hobble than anything remotely athletic. Giving up, James decided they would just have to talk about whatever had sent Remus nearly running to the library so close to their curfew.

"What do you think's gotten into him?" Sirius asked once James slowed to join the other two once again. James shrugged his shoulders, having been asking himself similar questions only seconds before. Peter, who was huffing quite a bit as he tried to keep up with his friends, shuffled his eyes between the two before responding.

"We were in the library earlier and he was writing notes on spells he thought would be helpful. Maybe what we were talking about reminded him of something. He did look through his notes and exclaim 'ah ha' before he shot off." Peter's words came out in between huffs and deep breaths. Feeling a little bad for his friend's obvious distress, James slowed their pace even more. They would meet up with Remus soon enough; there was no point in causing Peter to drop from exhaustion. Sirius, however, obviously eager to discover the source of Remus' strange behaviour continued on down the hallway at the same pace as before, leaving James and Peter behind.

The two walked in companionable silence for a few seconds before a nagging thought took hold of James. It was something he'd been worried about for a few weeks but had kept pushing aside. However, now that he was alone with Peter for the first time in a long while, James couldn't help but think about it.

"Hey Pete," James spoke into the silence. Peter, whose face was still a little red from the strain of their pace, turned to look eagerly at his friend. "Do you think all of this," James waved his hands around his head in an attempt to indicate what he meant by 'all of this', "is worth it? Do you think we should be pushing this hard to try and clear our names? Sirius obviously thinks it's' silly and I think Remus just likes the research it involves and the solving of a mystery aspect of it, but what do you think? Should we keep at it or should we drop trying to expose the Slytherins and move on with our prank?"

James looked earnestly down at Peter, hoping that the other boy would be honest with him. James wasn't so sure about Peter's honesty; at times it felt like the younger boy was saying exactly what James wanted to hear not necessarily what Peter thought. He wanted Peter to know that his friendship didn't ride on Peter always agreeing with what James said. Sirius and Remus certainly had their disagreements with him, but it seemed that Peter only wanted to please James.

Peter was quiet for several seconds, which James took as a good sign.

"I think we should keep doing it," he finally spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. "The Slytherin's ruined our good names and they can't just get away with it. And I think we are making some progress, despite what Sirius believes. We will eventually break into the Slytherins'' secret meeting; I just know it." As Peter spoke, his voice increased in volume, almost as if he was becoming more confident. When James didn't immediately question the other boy, it was like he felt more assured in what he was saying, like James was approving.

For his part, James smiled at his friend. He truly believed that Peter had been honest with him in that moment and did actually agree with him. Peter wasn't just giving him platitudes to appease him.

"Good. Now let's go see what progress Remus has made!" James exclaimed, taking off down the hallway once more.

When James walked into the library, he didn't see Remus at first. Sirius was standing, a little awkwardly, in the middle of the open area with the tables. James walked up to his friend, a questioning look on his face.

"Where is Remus?" he asked. "Did the librarian eat him?" he chuckled slightly at his joke. Sirius just shrugged.

"I got here like twenty seconds before you did. I think he's somewhere in there but I'm too afraid to cross the threshold. The last time I was here this late, working on schoolwork mind you, Herbert nearly took my head off. It's a self-preservation thing." Sirius spoke, a shiver running up and down his spine at the memory of the normally meek and mild mannered librarian losing his mind at the fact that Sirius dared to be in the library ten minutes before the curfew. James shuddered at the memory too.

"Guys!" the distant, slightly disemboweled voice of Remus sounded from somewhere within the stacks of the library. James shot Sirius a look and the other boy responded by motioning him forward. It was clear that Sirius was still traumatized from his previous library experience and would not on this occasion be entering the library. James turned to Peter who looked a little terrified, but the other boy nodded that he would join James.

Together, the two boys set off into the stacks. James had heard the muggle children who lived around his house playing a game in which one of them hid and the others had to find him by yelling out something, and he thought it might be helpful in that moment. Except, he didn't know the words that you were supposed to yell, and he also didn't know if Remus would know what he meant by it when he yelled them. Luckily, James didn't have to worry about that for so long because they quickly found Remus two rows in, a stack of books surrounding him.

"I think I've found a book that will help us with our unlocking charm problem," Remus spoke, holding up said book. It looked plain, covered in a deep blue. James' couldn't see the title but decided to take Remus' word for it. If anyone knew books, it was Remus Lupin.

"Excellent!" James exclaimed. "This is fantastic Remus! How'd you find it?"

"I'd written it down in my notes, thinking it might be helpful if our current line of advancement to get a professor to catch the Slytherins didn't work. I didn't mention it before because you seemed to intent on convincing someone to catch them. But now, I think it will be really helpful. It has all different kinds of unlocking, locking, and revealing charms." Remus stood from the floor where he'd been sitting amongst the books. As he did, James felt a presence behind him, one that hadn't been there before. Thinking it might be Sirius, James turned around excitedly, ready to exclaim his excitement.

Instead, he found a rather perturbed looking Fitzhew Herbert, the school librarian. He was glaring at Remus and the mess the other boy had made with the books. Then, the normally quiet and unassuming man looked down at a pocket watch he kept within his robes. Before Herbert could begin yelling at the first years, James jumped into action.

"Alright chaps. Let's be off. Might have to leg it to make it back before curfew!" James turned to leave but was almost immediately halted by a bony hand grabbing tightly onto his arm.

"Not so fast, Mr. Potter," the whisper-quiet voice of Mr. Herbert spoke. "You've got a mess to deal with." The librarian then nodded his head in the direction of the pile of books, indicating that he wanted James, Remus, and Peter to clean them up. James groaned internally. Doing that would surely take them more than the few minutes they had before they were no longer allowed in the hallways and Herbert was most definitely not likely to give them an excusatory note.

"Right. Sorry Mr. Herbert," Remus spoke before waving his wand around and muttering a cleaning spell. The books quickly sprung up from their pile and began to reinsert themselves in the bookshelves nearby. It took only a few seconds, and, in that time, James felt his jaw slacken. That wasn't a spell that they had learned in school yet; James wasn't sure how Remus would have come across it, let alone master it.

With the library clean, Herbert let go of James' arms, though not before giving it an extra painful squeeze. Without looking back, James, Remus, and Peter quickly walked away from Herbert and the library stacks. They met Sirius, who was still standing in the large open atrium-like space of the library. Without offering a word of explanation, James grabbed his friend's arm, not as hard as Herbert, and steered him out into the hallway.

The boys stumbled into the Gryffindor common room five minutes later than they should have. They had rushed back from the library at top speed, hoping beyond hope that someone didn't catch them when they hadn't actually broken any school rules. Sure, they were a little late, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that much.

Luckily, as they crossed the threshold of the Fat Lady portrait, stumbling over each other and ending up in a large, limbs-akimbo pile, they had made it apparently scot free. James scrambled up from their pile and let out a joyous whoop. Things had been so negative, so against him, for so long that even this small win made James feel so excited he had to let those few students who were congregated in the common room know about it.

"Okay," Sirius spoke up, brushing off dust from his robes as he stood, "we may have a spell that can get us into a Slytherin meeting, provided that one of the spells that Remus' has found actually works. Now we just have to find a way to convince a professor of what we've heard. They've all basically said they won't believe our word on it."

"We'll find something, I'm sure," James said, trying to sound reassuring. He was still riding high from their triumph of only a moments prior and didn't want Sirius, with his practical, reasonable question bring down his mood. Sirius shrugged in response, obviously not truly believing James' optimism.

The rest of the group was quiet for several seconds before Remus suddenly started moving towards the dorm rooms.

"I may have something to help us with the professors overhearing an incriminating conversation," he stated simply before heading off towards their dorm rooms. James, Sirius, and Peter stood staring at several seconds before following Remus for the second time that night.

'Might have to talk to Remus about these sudden exits with only minimal explanations,' he thought as he climbed the stairs in front of his other friends.

James leaned against his bedpost, anxiously watching Remus dig through his trunk. The skinny, light-haired boy had been extremely stingy on the details surrounding his solution to their lack-of-believability problem. He'd simply walked into their dorm room and begun digging through his trunk. James and Sirius had thrown him a few questions, but no answers were forthcoming. Remus had just been silently digging.

"Ahh, here it is!" he finally said, rising out of his trunk. Clutched like a precious baby in his hands was a glass-like orb. It was clear at the moment, though James knew that, once filled it would cloud over. His eyes grew wide in excitement and a feeling much like the one when he'd gotten the invisibility cloak washed over him.

"No way! Where'd you get that?" James asked, his tone incredulous. It was a recording orb, one where you could record information and store it for later. It could then be played back as many times as was necessary. However, they were exceedingly rare, extremely hard to get your hands on. Even with their immense wealth, the Potters had only ever owned one. James' father had explained that the ministry possessed nearly all orbs in existence and only a few had managed to filter into the wider market.

"My dad, ah, liberated it from his job at the Ministry when he, ah, left," Remus looked at the floor as he spoke, obviously trying to be evasive about the topic of the orb. In all honesty, James didn't really care how Remus had come to possess the orb. He was just glad that once again they'd had a small win and made even more progress towards their end goal.

Slowly and surely, they were chipping away at the Slytherins.