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'What do you want Potter?'

'Oh nothing, I'm just, dropping by.'

'Well your drop in has long expired Potter.'

'Ooh, that stings.'

Just then Padfoot came by.

'Hello Prongs,' said Sirius brightly. 'Hello. Snivillus,' he sneered.

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'What do you want Black?'

'Oh nothing Snivillus, just dropping by.' Sirius pretended to trip over his feet. He smirked.

'As I said to Potter, you're drop in has long expired.'

'Oh no I don't think so,' said James, 'you see, Lily and I organized this. We shall go where we want. Be grateful Snivillus.'

'Oh and why should I?'

'Oh and why shouldn't you?'

'Severus, what are you doing?' Came a voice from somewhere to James's right. 'Potter. What do you want?'

'I was just about to ask you the exact question Malfoy.' James walked around Lucius Malfoy and said, 'I was just having a conversation with Snivillus here.'

'Oh?' Replied Malfoy.

'Yes, I was just telling him that we, Lily and I, organised this Ball and therefore that means that we, Lily and I, may go where we wish. Padfoot here,' James put his hand on Sirius's shoulder, 'has my permission to be here, thankyouverymuch.'

'Hah! In your dreams Potter! You two blood-traitors and the mudblood allowed to go wherever?'

James's quick reflexes he had developed over the years from Quiditch moved and in a second, his left hand was pinning Lucius Malfoy to the wall, James's eleven inched mahogany wand in is right hand.

'What did you call her?' He demanded.

Lucius Malfoy's lips curled. 'I called her a mudblood. Is there something wrong with that? Blood traitor?'

James's grip tightened. Malfoy's gave a small gasp. 'How dare you call her a mud – mud – a you-know-what,' James said through gritted teeth. 'How dare you call her that.'

Malfoy was finding it a little difficult to breathe but he pressed on. 'Scared to say mudblood? And yes I do dare to call her that Potter. The filthy thing shouldn't even be in this school. Thanks to Dumbledore, She has, along with many more mudbloods. You Potter, your family should know better than to mingle with the dirty blood. Same to you too Black.' Malfoy shot.

Quick as a flash, Sirius darted to James's left and with his right hand, and also grasped Malfoy's neck.

'I don't care that I'm pureblood. I know that some pureblood families have cold blood. E - G your family.'

'How dare you!' spat Lucius, 'how dare you insult my family. My family is more pure than pure.'

'Yet so cold,' snarled Sirius. James could now see that Malfoy's face was turning slightly blue.

'Loosen your grip a bit Padfoot, we don't want his papa running up to us and trying to curse us for killing his so precious son,' James muttered.

Both Marauders let go slightly and colour started to flow back into Malfoy's cheeks.

'What did you say about my father?'

'I was just telling Sirius here to loosen his grip on you. How nice of me. We don't want your father trying to – uh – curse us for killing dear little Lucy-wucy.'

Severus Snape rammed his body into Sirius and James which caused them to lose their grip on Malfoy.

'Don't you insult Mr Malfoy, blood traitors.'

'Well then go tell Mr Malfoy not to insult muggle-borns then,' said Sirius pulling out his wand.

'Mr Malfoy is only expressing his opinion Black.'

Both Marauders raised their wands. 'And we were only expressing our opinions Snivillus,' James said.

'Try think of better comebacks, you'll never win,' Sirius said.

Snape and Malfoy reached into their dress robes-

'A-a-ah… take your hands out like good little boys,' Sirius said.

Snape slowly pulled his hand out from inside his dress robes.

Malfoy's hand was also retreating, but when the back of Malfoy's palm was exposed, James recognised that the muscles weren't relaxed.

'Leave your wand Malfoy.'

Malfoy didn't listen and flashed his wand at James just as James muttered-

'Expelliarmus!'

Sirius caught Malfoys wand lazily. 'You'll have to do better than that,' he said.

James grinned at his best mate.

Big mistake.

'Rictusempre!' Snape cried.

James fell into a heap on the floor and shook violently. Snape had used the Tickling Charm. James rolled about on the floor for a few seconds then he pointed his wand and at Snape Malfoy and cried, 'Impedimenta!'

'You two should know that that charm doesn't work on me,' he said to two nearly rigid bodies as he got to his feet stably. 'It hasn't worked on me for a long time. I'm not going to mention why…You two will get ideas.'

James and Sirius turned to leave but they were hit with –

'Expelliarmus!'

Malfoy's wand flew out of Sirius's hand and landed on the floor. A hand shot out and made a grab for it. James and Sirius flung around.

'Don't mess around with us,' said now a perfectly fine Malfoy. Regulus Black, Sirius's Slytherin brother, was behind them grinning. He was obviously the one who used the Disarming Charm on Sirius.

Malfoy now had his hand raised and his wand pointed at them.

Snape also had his raised too. 'Well, well. Some people would have never expected this. Potter and Black at the mercy of Lucius Malfoy and Snivillus,' laughed Snape.

'But we knew that we are superior and that you are nothing,' Malfoy added.

'Now, it is your turn to be in the place,' Snape began.

'Of being inferiors,' finished Malfoy.

'Stupefy!' Cried Snape.

James flashed his wand in Sirius's direction and thought 'Enervate!' Then flicked his wand at Snape and said, 'Rictusempre!'

'Stupefy!' James heard Sirius yell.

'Imperdimenta!' James shouted, but Snape reflected it using a Shield Charm.

'Tarantallegra!' Regulus Black shouted. The spell had hit James and now his feet were dancing uncontrollably. Regulus Black and Malfoy laughed.

'Finite incantatem,' James muttered as he pointed his wand to his feet. He felt his feet stop but he acted as if that the spell was not lifted.

'Levicorpus!' James shouted in his head. Both Regulus Black and Malfoy were hoisted up into the air by and invisible rope, dangling from their ankles.

'Reducto!' Both of them yelled. James smashed into the wall behind him and heard a loud 'CRACK!'

'Libracorpus,' James thought, but before Ragulus Black and Malfoy could realise that they were on the ground again, James yelled -

'Stupefy!'

James had just when James started to help Sirius with fighting Snape, Snape had freed Regulus and Malfoy, and they were once again on their feet.

Malfoy pointed his long wand at James and said 'CRU-'

James was shocked. Malfoy had just attempted an unforgivable curse on a fellow student in front of Dumbledore! 'OH NO YOU DON'T. DON'T YOU KNOW IT'S ILLEGAL?' He yelled. 'AND YOU DO IT IN FRONT OF DUMBLEDORE?'

'Do you think we care potter?' Malfoy whispered, 'The Dark Lord...'

Malfoy and Regulus Black had both raised their wands in a spooky manner, preparing to cast another curse at them

'PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!' Yelled James.

Regulus Black and Malfoy's body became rigid and both fell over backwards with a deafening 'CRASH!' that shook the floor slightly.

What did those two have for supper this evening? James thought.

Snape, who was losing against Sirius saw what happened and he dodge Sirius's Disarming Charm and swished his wand at James and cried, 'SECTUMSEMPRE!'

James was thrown back to the wall and slumped into a heap. He felt knives slashing his skin and blood running down his dress robes. He screamed.

Distantly he heard screaming and shrieking but he could not take it in. His brain wasn't functionally properly.

He felt a knife cut across his face and blood oozing out from his nose and his eyes.

James blinked, trying to blink back the tears and the blood but neither disappeared. The two liquids clouded his vision.

He felt something long and sharp shoot through his right leg. He fell back into a heap on the ground. He grasped his leg painfully and flung his head back in pain. He breathed heavily, panting. He had just managed to raise his head a couple of inches to look at his leg. He could see the white, now stained red, marble floor of the Great Hall through it.

He felt a knife cut across the back of his neck which forced his head to be flung back.

He could not scream. The pain was so intense that James could make no sound. He could only open his mouth trying to make noise, while withering in pain.

James then felt as if a Quidditch Beater's bat had just given him the blow on the left side of his head. His head swung to the right, then to the left as he had just felt another blow on his right. Just as he thought that the 'bats' had finished, he felt something like a glass bottle crash down on his head.

James was yet again flung back again against the wall. He was pinned there by an invisible force and he could feel fire etching a cross across is chest.

James tried to move, he tried to squirm and wriggle away from what seemed like a blazing fire.

After what seemed hours of torture, it all disappeared very slowly. James was limp and flopped down onto the ground.

James panted on his knees and tried to look up but having a cut on the back of his neck was no help.

And the last thing James heard was-

'We won, Potter, we won.'

-before he fainted.