The school was unusually quiet all of that day, but every second of silence was punctured with all of the things no one was saying but everyone was wondering in their heads. The entire wizarding world was suddenly aware that it was facing a great enemy, but almost nothing about this enemy was known. Somehow that made him much more frightening. People everywhere were starting to shudder merely at the mention of the Dark Lord.
Five students who had lost parents or other family members that day went home to their families. When James and Lily were sitting in front of the fireplace in the common room that afternoon, they saw Cynthia Kinkaid come down from her dormitory and hug all of her friends goodbye. Up until they saw that, it had been easy to just not think about what was happening, but after Cynthia left the room Lily was close to tears and James had to hold her a long time until she was okay again. James wished they could go out for a walk, or maybe even a fly on his broomstick, for it probably would have helped them both feel a little better. Being stuck inside where someone in every room was still talking about the massacre and the air was thick with grief and shock didn't help their moods much, especially since classes weren't in session and there was nothing better to do but keep talking about it. But for good reasons, all students had to stay off the grounds, so instead he walked her down to the owlery so she could send the letter she had written to her family.
After dinnertime Remus, Sirius, and Peter had started to get just as restless, so all five of them went to the library to work on the few assignments they had to do. Wanting to stay as far away from all the talk about inevitable war as they could, they occupied the two couches on each side of a small table that were in between two aisles near the front of the library, far away from the study tables where many other students were gathered. Sirius and Lily were both finished with all of their schoolwork and disappeared to other parts of the library looking for something to read while the others studied.
When Lily hadn't come back after fifteen minutes and James was too bored with his ridiculously simple Herbology homework, he went looking for her and found her sitting on a stepping stool in the Muggle Studies section reading a book. She looked at him with a feeble smile as he approached, and he glanced down at what she was reading, seeing a picture of a fierce-looking man with a toothbrush mustache with his arm raised in the air to a large army of uniformed people in the same position.
"What are you reading?" he asked her.
She looked like she didn't want to admit it, but then closed it to show him the title on the cover: A Complete History of Muggle Warfare.
"I just wanted to remind myself of how foolish and pointless so many of their wars have been," she said. "Not to mention how many they've gotten into."
"Why?" James asked.
"Because...we're kind of lucky. It's horrible that the wizarding world is going to be at war, but at least this is the only one in our recent history. And at least in our situation, many people who may be lost will at least be fighting for a good cause. Nobody will die for ridiculous reasons like some Muggles have in wars."
James kneeled in front of her. "Are you scared people you know are going to die?"
"Of course I am, but that's not all I'm thinking about." She paused, possibly wondering how much she should say at this point in time. "There really aren't that many Aurors, you know. And lots of them just died. I was thinking about how much the wizarding world will need a lot of help. And how - well - it would just definitely be worth it."
And she left it at that, letting James think about it. She stood up and put the book back on the shelf. Then she took James's hand and said, "I'm still not feeling well. I think I'm going to go upstairs and rest."
"Maybe you better go to the hospital wing," he suggested.
"No, it's nothing serious. My head just feels like a balloon. I'm going to get to bed."
With a squeeze of his hand, she turned and left. When James went back to the group, Sirius was lying across one of the couches reading something he'd found in the fiction section, but he didn't look very entertained by it. William Bell walked by them and he and James exchanged somber nods of ackowledgement. William stopped when Noriko Takanashi ran up to him from his right.
"Hey, Will," she said breathlessly. "When are you going to help me train that friend of mine for Quidditch?"
"Riko, it's winter," he said simply.
"So? It isn't too cold."
"What's her name again? What position is she trying out for next year?"
"Eliza. She's thinking about taking his place," she said, pointing to James. "As Seeker."
Will looked behind him at James and gave a small laugh. "Well. No one can really take his place. But since I won't be around, what do I care?"
"Why don't you have her learn from the master?" James asked. "I could give her some tips."
"Would you really?" she asked in surprise. "Will was only going to help out because I've been helping him with his homework."
"Well, I have a little more House pride than Will and would like Gryffindor to keep kicking arse even after I'm gone."
Will lifted up the book he was carrying as if he was going to hit James with it. He flinched away from him for a second and laughed.
Noriko giggled and then said, "Hey, why don't I go get her and introduce you guys?"
James shrugged. "I've got nothing better to do. Heck, I bet I've got an old nicked Snitch hidden somewhere in my dresser. We could practice today in the hallways, even if we can't go anywhere."
Noriko was starting to look excited. Then she frowned. "Oh. But my friends are all studying, and Fifth Years and under aren't supposed to go anywhere by themselves right now."
"Even in the castle halls?" Remus asked. "I didn't hear that."
"I know, isn't it stupid?"
James heard slow breathing, and noticed Sirius seemed to be dozing off in the couch with the open book lying on his chest. A girlish yelp from Noriko's mouth brought his attention back to her; Frank Longbottom had just walked by and tickled her in the ribs.
"Be quiet!" Madam Pince hissed from her desk at the front. Frank giggled. Sirius stayed sound asleep.
"Fraaaank, walk me up to the common room," Noriko said in a pouting tone as he started walking back away.
"No way," he said. "I just got here."
"I could walk you up there," Peter offered. "I need to get something out of my room anyway."
"Oh, great! Thanks!" Noriko said, and he got up and left with her.
Will turned to James once they were gone. "Well, aren't you the nice little tutor?"
He shrugged. "Anything to get my mind off of all this."
Will's face turned serious. "Yeah. I know. You know I have a cousin who works in that building? She went home last night just an hour before the attack."
"Jesus."
"Yeah. She had really good friends who got killed there and actually feels kind of guilty about leaving them. Despite what everything looked like in there, she still feels like there's something she could have done if she had been there."
"Well," James said, "I can understand that. No matter how bad things looked and how small my chances were of surviving, I guess I couldn't leave my friends to die. It would just seem better to go with them than go on without them because I got lucky."
"But it's not like she knew what was coming."
"Right. But...just being philosophical here..."
Will laughed.
And just then the long, high-pitched scream of a girl split the quiet air; Sirius snapped awake, sitting up alertly with such sudden force that he rolled off the couch onto the floor with a loud thump. It was similar to a sound they had heard a moment before, only it wasn't the playful scream of someone getting tickled by her friend, but a desperate, terrified, blood-freezing scream.
The boys sat there frozen for a moment with their eyes wide, along with everyone else in the library. Then Will said, "I think that was Noriko."
Remus said, "It came from the hall-"
They were up from their seats and running to the door before everyone else, the first people out of the library entrance. Remus was in front, the only one out in the hall in time to see Peter running away around a corner in the opposite direction of where one would go to get upstairs to the common room.
"Peter?" he called, but everyone else was already running the other way, and he followed.
They turned a corner at the end of the hall. And froze.
"Oh my God," Sirius said quietly, his voice dark and serious.
Suspended in the air high at the top of the corridor was a glowing green skull with a snake coiled through one of its eye sockets and coming out of its mouth. A symbol of nightmarish evil which they had seen in pictures in the paper, but never this large and close and blindingly bright, and never this frighteningly real. The Dark Mark.
Noriko was standing right underneath it completely still, and they heard her let out a soft moan. Will ran up to her just in time to catch her from falling as she fainted.
As other students who had come out of the library to see what was going on came around the corner and saw it, the hall gradually erupted with screams and panicked speech. Then, before anyone noticed she had made it out of the library among the chaotic stampede of children, Madam Pince shouted above everyone else's voices, "Be quiet!"
Everyone looked behind them at her, almost going completely silent.
"Everyone go down the southeast stairway and get out of the castle as fast as you can. Stay together and go down to the lake - do not leave the group no matter what. Go, now!"
Students ran down the hall to the southeast end in seconds and were soon flooding the stairway trying to get down to the first floor. Madam Pince vanished down the hall in the opposite direction, obviously going to warn the teachers. Sirius, James, and Remus were the only ones who didn't move.
"Hey! You blokes crazy?" Will called, looking back at them as he started down the stairs carrying Noriko.
Someone urgently yelled, "Will!" and then Yvette appeared out of the crowd and pulled him away.
"Where's Wormtail?" Sirius asked first. "And Lily?"
"Oh no," James said. "She went up to bed! She won't know!"
Sirius's eyes widened. He looked at Remus, as if for an idea, but he didn't seem to have any.
"Madam Pince told us to stay with those other kids for a reason," Remus said. "I'm sure they have ways of making sure every student gets out safely...she won't just get left there..."
"Moony, do you really think that this school is prepared for something like this?!" Sirius said. "Never got around to practicing what we'd do in the circumstance of a Death Eater attack, did we? Professor Dumbledore isn't even here! The whole castle is going to be a chaotic circus of panicking people within five minutes, no doubt!"
"Okay," James sighed, catching his breath and trying to think clearly. He put his hand on Remus's shoulder. "Moony. Find Peter. He can't have gotten far. Find him and get out of here. Sirius and I will get Lily."
Remus opened his mouth to try to say something about what he had seen...How he was quite sure Peter was already gone and it was pointless. "But you two...and Lily...I can't-"
"Remus, there's no time. Don't worry about us. None of the staff knows how to get around this school as well as we do, much less some dumb Death Eaters. We'll be fine."
Remus seemed to be summoning some strength from somewhere deep inside of him for a moment, and then he nodded. Sirius and James watched him leave down the stairs and then rushed to the stairway at the other end of the hall that would take them up to the Gryffindor Tower.
Not to their surprise, the common room was completely deserted. Even if word about the danger they were in had not traveled up here already, practically no one was ever up here at this hour of the day. James walked over to the dormitory stairs and sighed.
"Dammit," he said, standing looking at the steps. "Got any ideas?"
He heard no answer from Sirius, but felt something brush past his leg. A black dog passed him from behind and went right up the stairs. James gave a dry laugh, thinking that it figured that Sirius, of anybody, would have figured out from experience that the spell that kept boys from going up those stairs did not work on male animals.
James waited for a minute, getting a bad feeling when he didn't hear any footsteps accompanying the padding of Sirius's paws on the steps as he came back down. He changed as he descended quickly down the stairs, his still-tranforming legs tripping clumsily on the last step. "She isn't up there," he said.
Then James heard a meowing and looked behind Sirius at the steps to see Galadriel following him down.
"If someone told her what was going on and she was going to get out of here, she would have brought her cat," James said hollowly, looking down at the animal with his hopes diminishing.
"You sure? Your really think it's likely the Death Eaters want to torch the place or something?" Sirius asked.
James exhaled heavily in a sigh of frustration, walking over to Galadriel and picking her up. "I don't know, Padfoot. Come on."
When he turned back around he saw Sirius was closing up his record player.
"What in the bloody hell are you doing?" he asked in disbelief.
Sirius looked up guiltily. "If you really think they would destroy the castle-"
"Come on!"
After leaving the room, they snuck around all of the nearby areas that Lily might be if she was just now leaving Gryffindor Tower, trying to be cautious, fast, and almost silent at the same time.
"Why would she go to bed so early anyway?" Sirius asked just above a whisper.
"She's been feeling sick," James said.
"Well, a hell of a time to get sick. But doesn't this seem weird? It always seemed like the Dark Mark is something they leave after they attack someplace. And if they like making a big show so much, then where are they?"
How Sirius could be wondering about these things at such an urgent time only baffled James, who was worrying about nothing but getting Lily away from those people she probably didn't even know were in the castle and regrouping with their other friends to be sure they were all safe. He looked back and forth at the eerily silent corridor they were in and hit the wall with his fist. Galadriel, who had already been acting anxious like she knew something was wrong, got startled and started trying to claw her way out of his arms.
"I don't know, but all we're doing is wasting time." He bent over to set the cat on the ground and crossed his arms, thinking. And Sirius seemed to know just what he was thinking.
"We'd be safer if we could hear better, and run faster," he said.
James thought about it carefully. "Yeah, but how do we know if we hear somebody that it's her?"
"You git," Sirius said. "What do Muggles use dogs for?"
James's face was blank. "Guiding blind people?"
He rolled his eyes. "Hunting. Listen - do you have anything with you that would smell like Lily?"
James didn't immediately understand the purpose of the question, and looked at him in a way that made Sirius realize just what a strange thing to ask that was. "Excuse me?"
Sirius's eyes rolled again. "With a dog's sense of smell I can probably track down anybody in this castle in ten minutes, but it's no use if I don't know what I'm sniffing for."
James sighed. "Well, what can we - Wait."
Suddenly remembering something, he opened up his bookbag and took out the sweater Lily had left at the table that morning. He had completely forgotten to give it back to her.
Sirius took it and said, "Ah, brilliant!"
Galadriel caught their attention with a high-pitched mew. Sirius looked down at her and said regretfully, "Best of luck, babe. Can't take you with us any further."
Remus was mentally beating himself up for not opening his mouth and telling James and Sirius the truth. He'd known what he really should do - and what he wanted to do - was help them go find Lily. For he knew, deep down in his gut, that there was no reason to worry about Peter. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to tell them what he had seen, or what it might mean, for even suggesting it if it wasn't what it looked like would have been terrible.
Peter, running away from the Dark Mark as fast as he could, leaving a Fifth Year girl defenseless and all by herself when the Death Eater that conjured it could quite possibly be hiding right around a corner. Not stopping to alert anybody.
Leaving us, his friends. SAVING HIS OWN SKIN.
Remus blinked and shook the thought out of his head. He followed the other students from the library down the stairs, his heart pounding, feeling like he was drifting somewhere far outside of what was going on and not actually moving with his body. Find Peter. That's what he was supposed to be doing instead of leaving. What if Peter had been going to use the toilet before he went up to Gryffindor Tower?
Running away from Noriko after she had screamed. Everyone heard it.
Wormtail...
When the group reached the bottom floor, Professor Phlox was passing by the bottom of the stairs carrying some plant pots. He stopped and stared when she saw all the students rushing for the doors, and Will broke apart from the group and ran toward her. Remus saw him start explaining everything to him, and then there was a crash as he dropped all of the pots and they splattered into a hundred pieces of ceramic. Looking so shocked that his hair seemed to nearly be standing up, he touched Will's shoulder, saying something brief, and then ran off.
Will rejoined the group and yelled, "Keep going, everyone! Don't worry. Everyone will know in a few minutes."
Something nagged Remus in the back of his mind. If the Death Eaters had any intelligence and wanted to infiltrate and attack an enormous school, wouldn't they not start by leaving their mark in several places all over the castle, practically as a warning for everyone to get out?
Not if they were confident enough to think it wouldn't make any difference in the outcome of the attack. And not if they had good reason to be confident.
Remus shivered, thinking of the name "Voldemort." Hogwarts, in many ways, was an even more important place to go after than the Ministry office where the Aurors were. Probably important enough for their leader himself to show up. And if the way the massacre last night had happened was a good indication of how powerful he was, they probably weren't much safer outside than they would be in the castle with no warning.
Everyone hugged their arms around themselves once they got outside. The winter night was freezing cold, and the snow seeped right through their shoes and soaked the bottoms of their robes, making their clothes heavy to run in. Will had practically appointed himself to be in charge of the forty-odd kids there since there were no adults with them and he was one of the only Seventh Years; He was running ahead of everyone else hand-in-hand with Yvette and guiding them toward the lake. Noriko had regained consciousness and was running in between Frank and Alice Nightingale. Remus ran the slowest, falling behind at the rear, glancing behind him at the castle constantly and fearing that he would see smoke coming out of one of the windows any moment, or even worse, a flash of green light.
When all of the students finally stopped within thirty feet of the glassy frozen surface of the lake, Remus looked around at all of the parts of the grounds he could see, looking for movement. Where would Peter have gone? Maybe into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. He would be safe down there.
He would be safe, though his friends might be dead for all he would know.
"Hello?"
Lily's voice echoed down the empty hallway. There was not a single sound to be heard; it was as if she was the only person left in the entire castle. She kept hoping to hear the murmuring of someone's voice from inside a room or some footsteps from the stairs, but there was nothing but the very distant, barely audible whisper of the wind outside hitting the windows in classrooms. She had never been in Hogwarts before when it was so quiet she could notice sounds like that.
She had been in bed, curled up under several warm, heavy layers of blankets and very near to drifting off to sleep when she heard some elevated voices from down in the common room, very briefly. The speakers had sounded a little scared, but she had thought nothing of it, and a second later it was so silent in Gryffindor Tower she was sure everyone was gone. Then, only two minutes later, quick and heavy footsteps were coming up to the girls' dormitories, the door to Lily's room opened, and Tanya Korsakoff crashed into the room, her breath coming out in pants like she had run the whole way there. Lily had opened her eyes in time to see her pick up her rat and quickly coax it into the pocket of her robes before running back towards the door. She clearly hadn't noticed Lily lying there in the dark; by the time Lily started to sit up in bed it was only to see her back leaving through the door. When Lily got out of bed and called for her down the hall she was already long gone. She put her slippers on and went down to the common room and out of the portrait hole to look around and see if she could make any sense of what Tanya had just done. She turned around, figuring she could ask the Fat Lady which direction she had just gone, and that was when she noticed.
The Fat Lady wasn't there. The people from all of the portraits on the wall were gone, only their inanimate backgrounds remaining in the painting frames.
Lily's breath hitched in a small, inhaling gasp, and she wrang her hands together nervously.
"Tanya?" she called, not expecting an answer. "Anyone? Is anybody here?"
Silence.
Lily looked back at the painting where the Fat Lady should have been, wishing she had grabbed her wand before she left the dormitories. With nobody to give the password to, she couldn't get back into Gryffindor Tower.
And that left her with nowhere to go but away from it.
So now she had been wandering around the third and fourth floor for five minutes looking for any sign of life or indication of what was happening, calling out every once in a while, but nobody answered. As the minutes went by and it became clear she seemed to have been left completely alone, she started to realize more and more that she could be in great danger, and she started running instead of walking. Her loose and bulky slippers made it hard to go very fast, so eventually she kicked them off and went on barefoot.
As if the castle was somehow aware that something serious was going on, the stairs were staying put and not changing. Although this helped Lily get down the floors faster, it was so unusual that it made her wonder even more what could be happening and made her feel much more uneasy. She finally got down to the second floor, where she had been with her friends half an hour ago. The tall double doors of the library were hanging wide open, and she could see there was absolutely no one inside.
Lily hugged her arms around herself. Her heart was starting to pound in her chest. She didn't know if she felt safe calling for anyone now. Whatever the reason was that everyone had completely evacuated the school this fast, she couldn't imagine it was something good.
As she passed the library entrance, something at the end of the hall caught her attention: the floor there was reflecting some kind of soft green light. The glow looked like it was coming from something she couldn't see around the right corner.
Taking a long, deep breath, Lily prepared herself for whatever she might see and slowly stepped over to the wall on her right. Trying to be completely silent, she cautiously crept toward the corner, staying shrunk against the wall, thinking to herself that she would just take a quick peek for one second, just to be safe.
But when she got to the end of the wall and looked, she found she couldn't move. Her first thought hit her right in the face like the Dark Mark's bright light hurting her eyes: Oh no. Everyone is dead. Everyone is dead! Before she could realize the irrationality of that even in these circumstances, something she heard brought more horrifying thoughts into her head.
It was very short and quiet, but she heard it coming from her left: someone laughing. She looked away from the Dark Mark and down the other end of the hall - There were dozens of suits of armor standing along the walls on each side, but she couldn't see anyone there. But Lily hadn't learned nothing from seven years of magic school; seeing nothing didn't mean anything.
Commanding her legs to move on the count of three, she waited just one moment before darting back towards the library to go back down the stairs she'd come from. Then, the strangest and most unexpected sound made her slow down and then stop. She knew that sound.
It was the galloping of hooves. She remembered the night in the dark tunnel when she'd followed her friends down under the Whomping Willow. And miraculously, even at a time like this, a kind of warmth spread through her at the thought of that memory and the smallest smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
The large black dog appeared first around the corner she'd been running toward, leading the way with something white in his mouth. The stag came up behind it, looking gigantic and powerful running on the stone floor inside the building. Lily ran toward Prongs as he stopped and her first instinct was to wrap her arms around his huge neck even though trying to hug a large animal like that didn't work very well. At once she felt the tight muscles loosening and shrinking, but she told him, "No! Don't change back!"
She walked around to his side and he seemed to know right away what she was thinking, and bent forward a little so she could more easily lift one of her legs over his back. Seeing her start to do this, Sirius barked loudly, and in that one bark Lily could practically hear his voice saying, "Are you bloody joking?!"
But they had few other options. Lily was almost sure there was at least one Death Eater near enough to them to know they were there, and if they could get away from there any faster than they would running on their six human feet, she was willing to do something as strange as riding on James's back.
She knew she would never be able to stay sitting up with nothing like reins to hold onto, so after she was on him and he stood up to his full height, she wrapped her arms around his lower neck and hooked her legs tightly around his torso. Then James started running and leaping down the stairs, and Lily closed her eyes and hoped she could keep holding on, seeing Sirius beside them right before she did.
What looked like the entire student body and all of the staff had now run outside and were congregated in a loud mob by the lake. It was Professor Fangora who made the first attempt to bring order, holding her wand to her throat to amplify her voice and yelling, "Everyone calm down and be quiet! You must separate into your Houses so your Heads can make a count of everyone here. Slytherin there, Ravenclaw there, Gryffindor by that tree, Hufflepuff right over here next to me. Look around and see if you know of anyone missing. Go on!"
Remus was almost knocked off his feet as several people pushed past him trying to hustle over to where the children from their Houses were supposed to go. He made his way through the crowd to the group of Gryffindors assembling by a large tree.
Professor McGonnagal appeared, the color completely drained from her face, although her voice sounded as strong and dominant as usual when she called, "Silence! Raise your arms so I can count you, please."
Remus said, "Professor - "
"Not now, Mr. Lupin!"
After a minute she had finished counting, and looked troubled by the final number. "Does anyone not have all of their friends here?"
"Professor," Remus said again, and this time she looked over at him. She gasped, and he knew he didn't have to tell her who was missing. She knew exactly who would be standing with him if they were here.
"But Mr. Potter - Black - Miss Evans - and Pettigrew? My word - where are they?"
"Not me," said a wincy voice behind Remus, waving his hand in the air. He looked around and saw Peter. Remus was completely taken aback, but then he realized that Peter might have joined the crowd a while ago but not revealed himself. Perhaps because he had something to hide...
"But where were the others when you last saw them?" Professor McGonnagal asked.
Remus hesitated. "They were with me," he admitted. "At least James and Sirius were. Lily was in her room, though, and they went to go get her. They were worried she'd be left behind."
McGonnagal raised her eyes up in the air, and it was obvious what she was thinking before she said it. "Would it kill Mr. Potter to get help from a teacher when things like this happen instead of having to be the hero himself?"
Remus got the idea she was probably thinking of the near-catastrophe last spring when Sirius had played his prank on Snape.
"How long ago was this?" she asked him.
He shook his head. "Fifteen minutes? We were the first to know what was going on."
She looked toward the castle fearfully, and then looked over to where Professors Constantine and Fangora were talking. She made her way over to them.
"Milo! Ellen!" she called breathlessly. "I have three students missing."
"Who?" asked Fangora.
"Potter, Evans, and Black."
"Yes, I'm short a Black as well," Constantine said in a regretful and serious, but not exactly worried, tone. "But one of his friends tells me he was talking about sneaking out of the castle tonight to practice flying on his broom. 'New rules be damned' were his exact words, apparently. I've sent Madam Higgins to check the Quidditch pitch for him. But my students don't seem worried about him."
"Of course they're not worried," Professor McGonnagal said darkly.
"Hm. What a thing to say," he said quietly.
"Oh, Milo - I didn't mean - " She looked around nervously, realizing that many students were listening in on their conversation. "Oh, we have no time for this! Ellen, you have all of your students here? What about Ravenclaw's?"
"They're all here," Fangora answered.
"All right. I'm going back inside - "
"Oh, Minerva - !"
"I'll have Horace come with me, he doesn't have students to look after. For the love of God, someone send Albus a message."
"I already did," Constantine assured her as she turned and ran away.
Professor Fangora glanced around her and met the faces of dozens of students who had overheard all of that and looked very frightened.
One person who had been standing very close to the three teachers and heard all they said was Sophia Stabbard, who was hidden within the crowd of Slytherins and had been struggling not to start a fight with anyone else in her House for the past five minutes she'd had to listen to their comments about this situation.
"Did I hear her say the Gryffindors are missing Sirius Black?" Rabastan Lestrange asked conversationally. "And two of his friends?"
"I believe so," Lucius Malfoy said in a voice that had a tint of amusement.
"My God, how unbelievably stupid," Bellatrix said, laughing. "They probably think they can face the Dark Lord all on their own."
"Do you think he's really here?" Narcissa asked her, looking toward the castle like the thought had her in awe.
Sophia didn't hear what Bellatrix said back because the next moment she had snuck away from the group, running behind the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs as all of the teachers' heads were turned and wouldn't notice her. She entered the group of Gryffindors from the back, getting quite a few strange looks as she nudged her way through to the front. She reached Remus Lupin's back, and tapped him on the shoulder.
Remus turned to see an extremely pale-faced, distressed-looking Sophia Stabbard. They stared at each other's faces a moment, their expressions establishing what exactly was happening here without them having to say it.
"Sirius is still in there? And James and Lily?" she asked quietly, her voice exposing clearly how scared she was.
Remus nodded, suddenly feeling very sorry for her, having to cross over to a group of students from another House to find someone else who cared that Sirius was in danger. He glanced around at the other students around him and saw that he seemed to be the only one who had noticed who she was; Peter was blocked by a tall student on Remus's left and couldn't even see her.
"I guess Lily was sick and she went up to bed early," he told her. "James and Sirius went up to get her because they were worried she wouldn't find out about the Dark Mark. But...they should have gotten out by now..."
Sophia looked over at the castle and hugged her arms tightly around herself.
"Did you see it?" she asked. "The Dark Mark?"
He had followed her gaze to the school and didn't look away as he nodded.
"What do you think is going to happen? What are they going to...?"
Her voice trailed off; she could hardly bear thinking about it, much less saying it. Remus just said, "I don't know."
He looked to the side at Peter, who looked terrified, but had seemed to be avoiding looking at him ever since he made himself known in the crowd. He had gotten out of the castle just fine, after all, without his help. And suddenly he felt a deep loathing for himself. As he looked back up at the school, a vivid memory suddenly passed through his mind of his first day of school at Hogwarts, when Sirius and James had rescued him from being bullied. Then, the train ride back from school at the end of last year, when Lily had fallen asleep sitting next to him in the prefects compartment with her head on his shoulder. His third year, when Sirius once mocked Remus's piano playing by singing along to a jazz song in a deliberately terrible singing voice. And a random memory from last winter of Sirius and James wrestling with each other in the snow after Sirius had jinxed some snowballs to fly after him, playfully cursing at each other, as he and Peter watched them and laughed.
And after thinking about all those things, Remus suddenly felt like his heart was being torn right out of his chest as he stared at the enormous building that James, Sirius, and Lily still were still somewhere inside and in serious danger. And without thinking about it or even meaning to, he said quietly, "I should be in there with them."
Sophia looked at him with a meaningful expression, like she understood what he was thinking. Then she put her hand on his shoulder.
"Sirius and James are so smart," she said, her voice still hardly louder than a whisper. "They'll know what to do, they'll be okay. They have to be."
It sounded like she was pulling at whatever small hope was available. She was squeezing his shoulder now, as if desperately waiting for assurance that she was right, and he nodded quickly. But he was only assuring himself as well.
Then - movement.
"Look!" Yvette shouted, pointing.
Two dark figures came from around one of the castle walls, then another three, moving more slowly behind them. As the two in front got closer, Remus saw that the two figures were actually three; James running forward as fast as he could with Lily on his back, and Sirius.
"YES!" cried Will once they came into view, which was followed by many loud exclamations and cheers from other students.
Remus felt so weighed-down with such immense relief that for a moment it was like he couldn't move. But as his friends came closer, he took off running to meet them. Lily saw him and dropped from James's back, running with them with her bare feet in the snow. When they all met they collided together, their arms all forming a circle as they hugged each other all at once, reunited as a group.
"Did you find Peter?" James asked.
"Oh," Remus remembered, "I...Yes." And practically on cue, Peter came forward and joined them with an enthusiastic smile, and he gestured at him. "Here he comes."
With Peter, Remus remembered Sophia. But when he looked back, he saw that she had vanished. He took a quick glance at the Slytherin students and thought he saw her head dissapearing behind Lucius Malfoy. He looked away before Sirius noticed, only to catch him looking that way himself. He wondered how much Sirius might have been worried about her throughout this whole ordeal, and almost said something to him. But if she wanted him to know, she wouldn't have run off as soon as she knew he was safe.
That made two people whose secrets he would be keeping for them tonight. He was so glad the others were safe he couldn't manage to be angry at Peter anymore. And he knew too much about wanting to keep the few friends one has to say anything.
Everyone's attention was only then turned to the others who had just come out of the school: Professor Marlewe, who had accompanied Progessor McGonnagal inside, was wandering off now that he was no longer needed. McGonnagal, curiously, was dragging a loudly complaining Regulus Black by the ear, looking so furious it seemed a wonder she wasn't melting the snow under her feet.
At the sight of a student from his House being treated this way, Professor Constantine came forward. "Minerva, what is the meaning of - ?"
"Oh, here's your Death Eater, everyone," she said furiously, throwing Regulus forward for everyone to see. "His brother found him hiding behind a suit of armor in the same hall where the Dark Mark was, looking quite pleased with himself. He conjured the Dark Mark."
Gasps were heard from all around, and Professor Constantine looked genuinely shocked.
"I suppose you thought that was extremely amusing, Mr. Black?" she said. "Well, you won't find it so funny once Professor Dumbledore gets back and we figure out what we're going to do with you -"
"We?" Professor Constantine repeated. "As he is a student from my House, I believe the decision will be made by Albus and myself."
"Oh, do you really think it will make any difference?" she asked in disbelief. "That boy has just begged to be expelled with no question!"
As he and McGonnagal continued to steam and shout, Lily was starting to jump up and down in the cold snow. James took his robes off and put them on the ground so she could stand on them and put his arms around her, trying to warm her up. "Great, now you're going to get more sick because of his brother's stupid joke."
Remus asked, "How did you guys find him? You ended up back outside the library?"
"Sirius was the one who found him," James explained. Then he looked at Sirius and pushed him a little angrily so that he almost fell back into the snow. "And you arsehole! You scared us! Lily and I thought you were right behind us, and then she noticed you weren't there and we had to turn back!"
"I...sorry," Sirius said rather pathetically. James shoved him again, but more playfully this time, and then stepped forward and gave him a strong hug.
"I would have told you guys, but I didn't notice his scent until we were halfway down the first flight of stairs. At once I kind of had an idea of what was up. But in case I was wrong, I thought I better let you two get out."
James gave a mix between a sigh and a shudder. "Padfoot..."
"Scent?" Peter asked, looking lost.
"Yeah," Sirius said, lowering his voice. "Lily had left her room, so I had to have Padfoot find her. Then as we were leaving I noticed somebody else's smell."
"It could have been a Death Eater!" James said.
"No," Sirius said in annoyance. "Don't you think I know my own brother's scent? I used to change into a dog so I could hide from my family under my bed for entire days. Anyway." He turned to Peter and Remus, who still didn't know the rest of the story. "I found my brother, heard Prongs galloping back up the stairs and started panicking a little because you were about to charge right up there with Lily riding on your back, an image so ridiculous I don't think he ever would have stopped laughing about it, not to mention he'd tell everyone he knew about it," he said to James, who started laughing. "So I took his wand, hung him up on one of the knight's staffs by his robes, and ran out there to stop James from rounding the corner before he was himself again. Although I'm sure Regulus is still confused about why it sounded like there was a horse inside the school. Then we heard Marlewe and McGonnagal shouting our names and dragged Regulus along with us to them."
All of them were giggling a little now, even though the situation was essentially not very funny at all; they were all so relieved that everything was okay and the whole thing hadn't been real that it was just coming out that way.
Many of the Slytherins far away were all having a laugh themselves, but for different reasons. As McGonnagal talked to Constantine and Marlewe, holding onto Regulus by the back of his robes as if he was going to try to run away, his friends shouted comments to him.
"You little liar, giving me some story about sneaking out of the castle when I asked where you were going! Nice one, Regulus!"
"Yeah, gave us a nice bit of entertainment," said a girl.
"How did you figure out how to conjure it, Regulus?"
"Will you lot be quiet?" Professor McGonnagal yelled, who was having trouble hearing the other teachers. Then looking at Regulus, she seemed to decide there was no point in keeping him there. "Oh, go on, I don't want to look at you anymore. Professor Constantine will deal with you later."
With that, she came forward and let go of his robes forcefully. Her tight grip on his clothes had actually been lifting him off the ground a little, and the release tossed him forward onto the ground where his face fell forward into the snow.
He looked up and met the face of Sophia Stabbard, who was standing right above him. She immediately got a firey look in her eyes and seemed to be trembling with anger, her hands balling into fists. Everyone went a little quiet as she took her wand out from inside her robes, but she just held it at her side for a moment instead of pointing it at him, thinking for just a moment. But then she lifted her high-heeled foot back and kicked it forward at him, just missing his face and splattering his whole head with snow.
As she turned and walked forcefully away, the other students called after her with mocking remarks, assuming she had been too scared to do what she really wanted to do him. Slytherins helped Regulus off the ground and brushed the snow off of him, shaking his hand and giving him pats on the back, but not in such a loud and animated matter that they brought attention to themselves.
Lily was going numb all over, freezing in her pajamas. Sirius, who was pretty good at warming charms, had done ones all over her, but they seemed to wear off after twenty seconds.
"Er...Professor!" James called to the congregation of adults many feet away.
As he had not said a name, half of the teachers glanced his way, but it was McGonnagal who irritably snapped, "What?"
"If you don't mind...Can we go inside now?"
All the teachers looked around, having been so involved in talking about the present matter with each other that they forgot about the students, and many of them looked like they now felt foolish for forgetting about them.
"All right then, back inside!" she said.
Lily sighed exasperatedly. "Boy, I can't wait to curl back up under those covers...I'm going right back to bed."
Sirius then said, "Oh, I am a dolt," realizing something only then, and pulled Lily's sweater out of his back pants pocket where it had been hanging from the whole time. He looked over it once, wiping his sleeve over a place where he spotted a little bit of dog slobber, and handed it to Lily. "There, that might make you a little warmer."
Lily spread it out to see exactly what it was and, recognizing it, stared at it as though she had never seen anything so strange in her life. "Where did this come from?"
James and Sirius laughed so hard that everyone else felt like they were missing out on something.