Chapter 16:
While James mind still reeled from this unexpected outcome, his best friend was having troubles to concentrate. His gaze kept wandering to his little Hufflepuff that had had a growth spurt during the summer holidays. She was still short in comparison to him but her face had matured as well as her figure.
Dear Merlin he had to still his hands from wandering over her body. He had always liked to run his hands over a female figure during his escapades but he had never felt such a strong urge to create contact between him and another girl like he felt with Marianne.
He swallowed and steeled himself, Marianne wasn't one of his conquests and he would keep his hands to himself and not cause her distress! At least that was what he was telling himself.
His hands twitched again as she sent another one of those secret little smiles at him, Merlin! He had no idea how he would survive the next year without ravishing her she had just turned 15 in June while was going to be 18 in two weeks.
The new school year began and with it came his 18th Birthday. The Gryffindors had thrown him an enormous party on the first Friday after returning for the Marauders last year. The party on the 4th of September had lasted long into the morning, with copious amounts of alcohol and pastries from the kitchen. Under the party goers was also a certain blonde Hufflepuff, who had later landed in one of the female Gryffindor dorms because it had been too late or more like too early to go back.
In contrast his actual birthday had been a calm day; only his closest friends spent time with him and gave them their presents. He received a lot of pranking materials and also Quidditch equipment. From the girls there had been a giant Honeydukes package as well as the beginner guide of the Auror training.
Marianne was the last to give him her present, inside the big package was a black muggle leather jacket that took his breath away. The buttery leather felt unbelievable soft and when he slipped into the jacket it fit him like a glove.
Remus and James wolf whistled at him and gave thumbs up while the girls giggle and looked at him appreciative.
Marianne came over to him and showed him the various pockets she had added as well as the rune sequences that were stitched over the inside of the material.
Marianne had added the Runes against, wear, tear, cold weather, theft as well as some heavy duty protection and fortune Runes that would keep him safe.
The blonde Hufflepuff had seen the jacket on one of her trips to the coast of England and had instantly thought about Sirius. His birthday present had somehow become a small summer project for her.
The happy twinkle in his eyes and the way he swooped her up into his arms made the long hours she had spent researching Runes and learning to stitch well worth it.
And so the start in the last year began with a lot of happiness for true Marauders.
Peter on the other hand seemed to have finally completed his transformation into a human rat. His laugher was a lot squeakier than before and he seemed to be nervous all the time. Marianne had the suspicion that the cowardly Gryffindor had acquired a certain tattoo over the holidays. She decided that she would keep a close eye on the soon to be traitor.
Besides her school work Marianne had also make decisions concerning her company. McKennzy started to send Marianne bi monthly updates on the happenings.
In the last September week his asked her for permission to buy a bankrupt magical publishing and printing company. Stating that it would be easier to take over an already existing company than found a new one, especially now that the purebloods took a closer look at Marianne's fast growing business.
Charles had discovered that Marianne was also writing books in her free time and had decided to make it easier for her to publish them. That this also was an opportunity to branch out into another sector of the economy was of course also noted, and so White Publishing was renamed into MagicalWord only days later.
This take over let Marianne think about the audio books that had been common in her old world. She writes Charles about her idea and only a few days later she can listen to a prototype over her own audmo. Charles had taken Marianne's own book as the first recording because with that he didn't have to go through a lot of lawyers and agreements and just start with recording.
Charles also told her how some of the more popular muggle books were already in process of being recorded and how he had begun to negotiate with the magical authors they published in MagicWord about bringing out audio book versions of their books.
The research and development department had also improved the way of payment and the information sheet.
The audmos came now with a small book instead of an information sheet.
The book contained the bought songs in the first section, with at tip to the column you could arrange the songs after interpret, song, album, etc.
In the second section there was an overview of the newest songs as well as a search option to search for certain songs, the search option had an automatic delete sequence incorporated, as soon the book was closed the search section was clear again to write into. If you decided to buy a song there was a small buy bottom on the right side that had to be tipped on to send off the order.
The third and last section of the book contained the client information. The name, customer number as well as the balance of the audmo account. People now just sent a certain amount of money along with their name and customer number to the MagicSound company and the money they had sent would appear on the customer sheet. From this number was the amount for the song was subtracted. With this the customers were always aware how much money they had left on the account.
It had become popular for parents to give their teenage children MagicSound gift certificates to further their music collections.
Marianne's anonymity lasted only until middle of October.
She had already a bad feeling at that Saturday morning when she sat down between Kate and Marvin at the breakfast table. When the post came a sudden hush fell over the normally quite noisy Great Hall. Marianne glanced at the paper to see what had everybody so entranced and gasped horrified when she saw her photo on the front page.
Kate beside her looked at Marianne with giant eyes while said Hufflepuff grabbed the article and began to read.
15 year old Hufflepuff behind Audmo phenomenon!
Yes you have read right my fellow witches and wizards! The just 15 year old Marianne Abbott is the genius inventor of the little gadget had has the whole Wizarding world in a frenzy. The second child of Lord Abbott had submitted for right of the patent only a day after finishing her fourth year at Hogwarts,…
Marianne grimaced, great now everybody knew and would either hound her with questions are would want to take advantage of her.
And just as she predicted the sound level suddenly exploded around her as everybody and their neighbor tried to ask her questions.
The blonde Hufflepuff flinched and her heart began to beat uncomfortable fast in her ribcage everybody was looking at her and some were even trying to touch her! This was not good. Panicked and close to a panic attack she just sat their and stared at them with big eyes while she helplessly searched for an escape.
Suddenly Kate grabbed her arm and forced her way through the crowd and as fast away from the table as possible. They reached the entrance hall and now were close to running, on floor up and two corridors down they finally stopped to get some air.
The blonde Hufflepuff leaned against the wall and let out a relieved sigh while Kate braced her hands against her knees while she gasped for air.
After a few moments of silence Marianne finally broke it, "Thank you." she said heartfelt to her fellow Hufflepuff, Kate's fast reaction had given her time to handle the situation and think of ways to diffuse it.
"Merlin, this was madness out there! No wonder you kept quiet about your invention. They are worse than a pack of werewolves!" the other girl stated while she shook her head in disbelieve.
"Thank you for understanding. This is such a mess; I would like to know how they have found out about it. Everybody in the company knows to keep quiet about me." The younger Abbott now contemplated.
As an answer Kate just snorted, "Please, you had to file the paperwork at the Ministry didn't you? It wouldn't be too hard for a reporter to access the info with the right bribe."
Marianne sighed and just sadly shook her head, of course. The stupid Ministry always messed things up.
"Should we try to get back to the common room?" the Macmillan asked tentatively and slightly unconvinced herself. The common room would also be full of over eager students that wanted to know as much as possible.
Marianne just shook her head, "Thanks but I will stay outside the common room a little bit longer. I've got a place where I can hide,… Please don't take that personally but this location is rather personal to me,…"
"I understand. I will see you later in the dorm room?" the other witch just said with a slight smile.
Relieved Marianne nodded and they parted ways.
Determined the younger Abbott made her way through the halls to the Den. She had to avoid two excited groups of students before she finally reached the abandoned classroom.
Inside she found Sirius already waiting. Beside him on the table sat a plate with pastries along with what looked like hot chocolate.
The blonde witch sighed contently while she sat down beside the older Gryffindor and reached for a chocolate éclair. After the first few bites she relaxed willingly into Sirius arms and let him play with her hair and snuggle with her on the coach.
Their relationship had changed a lot in the last months, ever since last Christmas they had become more and more affectionate with each other. It made her very happy that she seemed to be important to him. Sure, Sirius dated and had flings with girls but they neither lasted those long nor was he as affectionate with them as he was with her.
Marianne had to admit that she felt jealous whenever she saw those girls with him, but had resigned herself to the fact that she wasn't what Sirius wanted in a girlfriend or lover. And so she just took what he would give her.
They stayed like this for close to an hour until Sirius slightly winced, the position on the short couch didn't do anything for his back and if he wouldn't move soon he would regret it in the morning. Unsure what to do he stroked over Marianne's right cheek and chin.
Said witch had recognized how uncomfortable Sirius had been and tried to get up. This just provoked a displeased grumble from the dog animagus. Marianne just shook her head amused and pulled on Sirius hand so that he would get up too from the couch.
Without another word she led him to the bedroom and climbed into the bed after getting rid of her shoes. To be honest Marianne wasn't sure what was bigger her fear that Sirius would reject this idea or the curiosity of what said Black heir would do now.
While occupied with her shoes Marianne missed the way Sirius gulped and his eyes widened for a second. When she was finally finished and climbed into bed he had to think disgusting thoughts to keep himself from getting hard. Didn't she know what she was doing to him? … Right, of course she didn't know.
With a last prayer up to the deities Sirius followed Marianne's example and climbed in behind her. Inside he begged his body to not betray him while he was in bed with Marianne.
Marianne soon fell asleep with the warmth surrounding her and that stressful morning behind her and slept through lunch. In the afternoon Sirius sneaked the two of them dinner and they had spent the rest of the day lazing around and Marianne composing letters to her family and Charles about the happenings, she hoped they could give her some advice to work through this situation.
The rest of the weekend was either spent with Lily and the Marauders or in the female Hufflepuff dorm room. Her roommates had been placated and warned my Kate to give her some space and after she had answered some of their questions they calmed down and things returned more or less to normal.