Chapter 90: Incarceration
"C'mon, we're going to have Hogwarts to ourselves for one whole month!!" Lily said optimistically. It was the last day of the semester and everyone was so excited upon returning, except the Marauders of course.
"Sounds very positive." Remus agreed with a half-hearted laugh.
"We're all going to be together. What different does it makes to be at home and in Hogwarts??" Stefanie pointed out.
"The main difference is we're watching everyone returning and not returning with everyone." James said as he finally managed to drag himself off his bed towards the bathroom. He was behaving the most normally among the four guys. Sirius was hiding in his bed under his comforters, curtains drawn; Remus was sitting by his bedside, looking rather messed up; Peter head popped out from the curtain, hair messy due to the night sleep or lack thereof.
"Just to point out that we're staying as Filch's slaves."
"It's like detention without fun." Sirius said in a muffled voice.
"Boys!! C'mon!!" Lily shouted at the four guys who were still dilly dallying around. It was breakfast time and the sound of students chattering could be heard.
"We're skipping breakfast." James muttered.
"Everyone will think you guys are cowards. Pulling a prank and no courage to face the consequences." Lily told them, annoyed with how childish the boys were behaving.
"Who says we're cowards??"
"No way." Sirius jumped out of his bed and ran straight to the bathroom to wash up.
"That's the Marauders we know and believe in." Stefanie said encouragingly.
"First in history of Hogwarts." Sirius boasted. The Marauders made a grand entrance into the Great Hall for breakfast. By now everyone had already more or less returned to his or her original size.
"Wow!! It must be really cool to stay in Hogwarts for the holidays." A second year commented. The whole school had already heard of the incident between the Marauders and the Slytherins the night before, and everyone knew the Marauders were confined in school for a month worth of detention.
"Well, we never tried before." James said modestly. "It might be fun."
"What can you guys do in the holidays??"
"Won't it get boring??"
"The Marauders will never be boring anywhere." The Marauders were basking with all the attention the moment they stepped into the Great Hall. Everyone just wanted to know what had happened. The Slytherins, for obvious reasons, did not made it clear why the Marauders were retained in school.
"We want to stay in Hogwarts for the holidays too."
"But McGonagall just didn't allow that."
"To us it's holiday, it's the same for the teachers too." Remus said as a matter-of-fact. The younger Gryffindors were surrounding the Marauders, cornering them since their appearance.
"Can we break some major school rule now so we can all stay in Hogwarts for the break??" Someone suggested.
"That's a great idea!!"
"No, I totally forbid that." James said firmly. "You all have to go home, your family would be expecting your return by today."
"Pr-James, this is the most 'prefect' sounding thing you ever said since you started wearing the badge." Remus said in a complimenting tone. James' prefect badge was so rarely polished that it had several scratches over it and it had lost the shine that it used to have.
"I must lift up my title as a prefect, you see." This comment earned some cheers from the younger female students.
"Ok, we really need to make our way to the table for breakfast." Sirius told the surrounding group. With that, they dispersed and returned to the various spots of the Gryffindor table.
"Thanks!!" Remus added. "Finally." He said in a low voice, which only the few of them could hear. The six teens made their way towards their usual spot in the side of the Gryffindor table and settled down.
"I could just feel those jealous Slytherins staring at us." Sirius commented.
"Well, they are indeed staring at you guys." Lily looked up and saw several Slytherins giving the Marauders a hateful, loathing look.
"Who cares?? Let's eat." James said nonchalantly and started scooping food onto his plate.
"Who were the ones who were too chicken to leave their dorm this morning??" Lily told Stefanie.
"Yeah, those cowards." Stefanie agreed.
"Hey, hey, hey." Sirius defended. "We were just mentally and emotionally tired."
"Yeah, right." Both girls replied.
"POTTER, BLACK, LUPIN, PETTIGREW!!" A fierce sounding voice could be heard from afar accompanied with a loud meowing sound.
"Who's that??" James asked. The six of them had just bid goodbye to their fellow schoolmates at Hogsmeade station before returning to the Gryffindor tower common room to hide and hibernate.
"Don't know and don't care." Sirius replied, lying lazily on the couch that he had declared his.
"POTTER, BLACK, LUPIN, PETTIGREW!!" The voice came again.
"I've got this feeling that it's Filch." Stefanie commented.
"Who cares??"
"Just pretended we are all asleep and didn't hear him calling." James said in a low voice and all of them shut their eyes and pretended to be sound asleep.
"Mrs. Norris, I swear I could hear voices from the Gryffindor tower." The voice was now directly outside the entrance of Gryffindor tower. The password 'home sweet home' could be heard and the door swung opened.
"WAKE UP!!" The now impatient Argus Filch shouted at the six who looked like they were sound asleep.
"Five more minutes." Remus said and turned over to face the other direction.
"Ssshhh!!" Lily turned around as well.
"POTTER, BLACK, LUPIN, PETTIGREW!!"
"Who's that??" Sirius mumbled in a sleepy tone.
"This is Mr. Filch, the Caretaker, for your information."
"Oh, hello Ar-gie, what's bring you here at this wee hour??" Sirius opened his eyes a little as he mumbled those words before turning the opposite direction.
"I DO NOT TOLERATE SUCH NONSENSE!!" He walked over to pick up Sirius and James by their collars and pulled them up.
"Woah!! Relax, this is a new shirt." Sirius was now wide-awake all the sudden. James was sitting upright as well; both guys exchanged a glance while Filch was pulling Remus and Peter off their couches.
"FOLLOW ME TO THE DUNGEONS NOW!!" He ordered. The four guys picked themselves up to follow Filch. Lily and Stefanie got up as well since the act was over.
"I can't believe Filch make us clean the dungeons again." Lily complained as she scrubbed the tabletop manually without much enthusiasm. "This is like the tenth time were scrubbing Porky's classroom." It was a week into the detention and from nine to five, they were either cleaning one of the classrooms or doing the gardening.
"This is the job of the elves and not us." James pretended to be scrubbing the floor. In actual fact they had used charms to clean the whole classroom. Filch had confiscated all their wands but he did not know that James could actually perform wandless magic.
"It's not so bad, with magic, of course." Lily grinned. Filch had separated the six of them to clean various parts of the castle to make sure they could not create any chaos at any one place.
"You really gotta be honored to be partner with me for this."
"Well, I don't really need to stay, you know."
"Alright, having regrets??"
"No regrets. There won't be much thing I can do out there anyway."
"Sorry to remind you."
"Nah, I've already passed the sad phrase. It's ok."
"Good to hear that."
"So, what do you think about the Hogwarts that lack the population??"
"Well, it's a little too silent for comfort."
"Not to mention that Filch made us prepare our own meals!!"
"The house elves won't disobey him either. But at least we had fun cooking our own dinner, with magic."
"Yeah, pretty enjoyable considering I've never had the need to step into the kitchen to cook in my whole life."
"You're born with a golden spoon in your mouth."
"Yeah, you're the chef, huh."
"At least I know how to cook some muggle stuffs."
"The instant noodles you prepared for lunch was pretty interesting."
"It's a simple muggle dish."
"I've never eaten that before."
"Ok, you want that for dinner again??"
"Not today, maybe tomorrow."
"Filch must have been blind to put us as a group." Remus whispered to Stefanie's ear. Both of them were assigned to clean out the dormitories for the four houses.
"Why did you say that??"
"He has given us the chance to hanky-panky in here."
"Don't try to do anything."
"I'm a perfect gentleman, why would I do anything to my darling??"
"That sounds so egoistic!!" Stefanie gave Remus a gentle pinch on his nose.
"That's what a Marauder will say."
"Why am I stuck with this dirty work?!?" Sirius complained. Filch was patrolling, making sure the six of them were doing their work properly.
"Prongs and Lily must be the luckiest."
"I know what you mean." Sirius scrubbed the ground with such force that he nearly broke the brush. Both he and Peter were assigned to scrub the corridors of the entire school and it was pure torture.
"There are like only that few classrooms."
"Prefects sure get better treatments."
"And there are like million of corridors around."
"Pure torture."
"Without magic some more!!"
"Prongs, where are you when we need you??"
"What's that??" The other four joined Lily and James at the kitchen after their massive school cleaning session. "A letter from mum."
"You should be glad that it wasn't a howler." Remus told him. It was a strange thing that these pranksters had actually not received a howler all their life while most of the other students had already gotten at least one somehow.
"Well, our parents are understanding enough to know we need people like us here." Sirius boasted and started digging for some food around the kitchens.
"My parents hasn't replied my letter to them, I supposed they are not in the country." Remus commented as he joined Sirius in the search for food.
"Shall we get started or we probably just has to sit around for the whole evening??" Lily asked.
"And starved to death in Hogwarts kitchens??" Sirius joked.
"What a joke." Stefanie commented. "There are like countless amount of food here."
"Let's get started then." Peter suggested.
"This is supposed to be a horrible torture but I begin to find myself enjoying the whole thing." James admitted.
"It's pretty fun having the whole Hogwarts to ourselves." Sirius agreed.
"Don't tell me you guys are thinking of staying here for the whole of three months??" Remus asked.
"I did think of that, but can't leave my mum alone at home." James said. "She's not scolding me or whatsoever but I can sense she's feeling quite lonely without us when she's off work."
"How about we ask her to join us in Hogwarts??" Sirius suggested. "We can ask my dad, Moony's and Wormtail's parents, Bell-"
"Did I happen to hear someone mentioning Bell??" James asked cheekily.
"I thought I heard that too." Remus played along.
"Oh my, I thought my ears are playing tricks on me." Lily added, grinning.
"I thought I was the only one who heard that." Stefanie commented. By now a slight blush already crept upon Sirius' face.
"She's our friend, so naturally I would think of her." Sirius denied.
"Is that so??" James raised his brows. "I know you too well, Padfoot."
"Isn't anyone hungry??" Sirius asked, ignoring the previous comments.
"Let's get started." Peter repeated.
"Ok, so where's the potatoes??" Stefanie asked and gave her wand a wave to start the fire.
"Keeping them in Hogwarts might be the safest thing to do."
"But how long can we keep them here??"
"As long as we can. It's not like you don't know that Voldemort is searching for them."
"I understand that they will be safer in our hands, but still-"
"We just have to prepare them for the worst."
"Their families are still out there."
"And Arabella Figg is still out there."
"Do you know something??"
"I've spies who told me that Voldemort is now tracking down the six of them."
"So that means Arabella is in danger."
"Not so, afterall she lost her powers."
"Doesn't that endanger her even more??"
"Voldemort knows how to play mind games. Killing Arabella won't do him good. He would rather use her to lure the rest out."
"So what can we do now??"
"Remind them to practice their powers."
"That's all??"
"The rest are beyond our control."
"We really need to do something soon."
"I understand, just received news of another two muggle families became Voldemort's victims."
"We ought to gather them here."
"Not so soon, give them a chance to have some fun while they still can."