Werewolf Hunting
Disclaimer: I accidentally threw my ball over JK's fence, and the Marauders bought it back for me and I invited them to stay for story time…
Authors Note: Proud of me? Got this chapter out sooner!
Thankyou to my reviewers – I HAVE REGULARS! YES! I LOVE YOU GUYS!
13 days
Chapter Seventeen: Revealing
Lily waited impatiently in the common room for three of the four Marauders to come down. She checked her watch, it was quarter past twelve. They were late.
I should have known it was a trick. She thought angrily.
"Hey, Lily." Spoke a sudden voice behind her. She jumped into the air and spun around seeing James, Sirius and Peter snickering.
"That's payback for the whole book on the table thing" Sirius informed her.
"How did you do that?" she questioned, her curiosity overrode her anger.
James walked forwards and threw an arm around her shoulders.
"There are several secrets we must tell you, and we can only tell them if you promise us something."
"I will not go out with you." Lily said dryly.
Sirius and Peter laughed. James scowled.
"I was not going to say that, although…"
"Drop it, Prongs. Just make her promise already so we can get this over and done with."
"Alright! Don't be so pushy, Padfoot!"
"Make me promise what?" Lily butted in.
"Oh right. You must promise not to tell a single soul what we are about to tell and show you. Got it?"
Lily sighed, "I promise. If just for the sake of Remus."
"Good. Padfoot, cloak!" From behind his back Sirius drew a silvery cloak,
"Excellent! Wormtail, Map." Peter withdrew from behind him a piece of parchment.
"Wonderful! Let's go."
"Go where?" Lily questioned suspiciously.
"We can't tell you things here, we have to go somewhere where we can guarantee that we won't get heard. And since it is after midnight, we can hardly walk around the school in the open. Now, you need to join us under the cloak."
"If this is some perverted excuse to…"
"My dearest, we would never! Trust us for once ok? For Remus?"
"Fine" Lily sighed, "For Remus"
"Spiffing. Let's go." James seemed very exuberant about all this.
Together the four huddled under the cloak and left the common room. travelling for some time, Peter frequently checking the parchment which Lily noticed had the castle drawn onto it with moving, labelled dots on it. Lily was slightly dumbfounded, but didn't say anything. The last thing she needed was to get caught, after curfew wandering the corridors under an invisibility cloak with the schools most well known troublemakers.
They came to a sudden stop near a large tapestry of what could only be described as stupid. James checked the map quickly then ducked out from underneath the cloak. Lily watched as he walked backwards and forwards three times and then a door appeared. She stared at it open mouthed in shock. Where had that come from? She stumbled as Peter and Sirius moved towards the door without her. She heard a sigh and Sirius removed the cloak.
"Stop staring, Lily. Inside you go."
The entered the room which looked very similar to the Gryffindor common room, only it was much smaller and housed only four chairs in front of the fire.
"Sit." James prompted. She did so, watching as the three boys followed suit.
"Right" she muttered distractedly, there was a brief moment of silence then she spoke again.
"So where is Remus"
"We don't know." James sighed. Lily looked at the three boys. All of them looked solemn, for the first time they didn't look like the world was about them, like they were planning something, or that they knew something everyone else did not. They just looked… lost.
"Remember last Hogsmeade visit?" Sirius asked softly.
"Yes"
"We went ran ahead to Zonko's while he took his time. Remus wasn't feeling very well, you see. We were supposed to meet him outside but he never showed up. We asked around but nobody had seen him. He's been gone since."
Lily gasped, of all the things she had considered this wasn't one of them.
"He's been kidnapped?" she asked, feeling horrified
The three boys nodded.
"Dumbledore seems to thinks so." Peter's voice was just as soft as Sirius'.
"But surely the ministry is looking for him?" She asked while thinking They have to be!
"Not exactly" James looked apprehensive, "There is someone looking for him, two someone's actually. But Dumbledore doesn't know how well they're doing. He hasn't got any contact from them."
"Only two? Why only two? Who are they?" Lily felt she needed to know more.
"Look we can't go into too much detail OK. Dumbledore made us promise not to tell anybody! We're only telling you because you are friends with Remus AND we trust you."
Lily blinked. They trusted her?
Wow…
"Well can you at least tell me who is looking for him?"
The three boys shared a glance, clearing pondering this.
"I guess it wouldn't hurt." Sirius muttered.
"You know that crazy Auror? Mad-Eye Moody?"
"The dark wizard catching fanatic?"
"Yeah. He is. And some other guy. Boewyn, I think Dumbledore called him. Apparently he's good at tracking werewolves."
"Well that's good." Lily announced distractedly, feeling very worried for Remus.
---
But you had to wonder… was it really?
---
"Oh the grand old Duke of York! He had ten thousand men! He marched them up to the top of the hill, and crushed all the nations of the world and brought them under the rule of Satan our master!"
Moody ground his teeth together.
I swear, if he sings one more time I will remove his voice box and use it as a doggy chew toy.
Boewyn had sung for the entire three day walk. Moody had been forced to listen to that lunatic sing non-stop for three whole days! Boewyn was slowly beginning to drive Moody crazy. At least to the point where Moody had caught himself silently singing along with one of Boewyn's favourite songs. He had stopped doing that as soon as he realised he was doing it.
"Let's go, Al" Boewyn was cheerful despite three days straight of walking. He hadn't seemed to notice in fact.
It had been late on the third day of walking when they had reached the small and seemingly insignificant town. Luckily (according to Boewyn) the town had a tavern, as so many small towns did. They had decided to spend the next day there to rest and rethink their plans.
It was early morning when Moody made his way downstairs for a decent breakfast. Not surprisingly Boewyn was not there.
No doubt he drank himself to the brink of death last night. Moody thought gruffly. Why on earth that man felt the need to drink so much was beyond him.
If was nearly noon when Boewyn came stumbling downstairs looking like, as Moody had suspected, death.
"Morning Boewyn" Boewyn replied with a word that in all Moody's career, he hadn't heard anybody say and mean it nicely. Boewyn sat carefully on the seat opposite Moody, who had spent the morning watching the taverns other occupants while having several good cups of tea. Moody watched as Boewyn stared at him blearily for a moment before letting his head drop forwards, landing with a loud bang on the table. Moody winced, there was no way that that couldn't have hurt, especially with a hang over the size Boewyn should have.
"Regretting all that booze now aren't we?" Moody said, unable to keep the smugness from his voice.
"Not really." Came the hoarse, muttered reply. Boewyn sat back up again and leaned right back staring at the ceiling.
"I would have thought that you would be immune to hangovers by now, with the amount you drink."
"Are you crazy? Hangovers are all part of the whole drinking experience. If you don't have a hangover how are you supposed to remember the drinking you did?"
"I'm surprised you remember anything."
"Don't be nasty."
They sat in silence for a while. Boewyn ordered a drink (booze) and drank it slowly, 'to avoid throwing up violently.' He informed Moody.
Two men entered the pub. They were seemingly insignificant fellows wearing ordinary clothes. They sat at the table behind the duo and ordered drinks. Moody rolled his eyes; they were as bad as Boewyn. They sat in silence drinking their drinks slowly and grimly.
"How much longer?" One of them hissed to his companion suddenly, his voice barely audible.
"A while yet. The Dark Lord wants to break him a bit more before he tries anything."
"Why? The boy is weak."
"Not so weak. Werewolves have a higher immune system, they are more resilient. He has to have no will to fight back."
"Got it."
Boewyn took a drink. Moody swirled the tea in his cup. While neither of them looked it, both were listening attentively.
Both men stuck around a bit longer, each ordering another drink, but neither of them spoke about werewolves or a Dark Lord again. Finally they left.
Moody raised an eyebrow then nodded his head towards the stairs.
"My room" he mouthed.
Boewyn nodded then raised a hand stopping Moody his face showing he had just had an idea.
"One moment" he mouthed back, and then ordered another drink.
Moody banged his own head on the table.
Authors Note: The grand old Duke of York nursery rhyme isn't mine. It's from 'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. A very good book and very funny. S'bout the apocalypse.
OMG! Let's play... drum-roll Spot the plot device!