Be ready another one is coming soon.
Chapter 38
Turning the Unturnable
"What are we supposed to do? " James moaned throwing himself face first onto his bed in the boys dorm of Gryffindor tower.
Pete walked through and sat on the window ledge overlooking the grounds, Sirius was obviously agitated and was throwing random things out of his trunk and back into it. Remus seemed to be the only calm one of the bunch, he sat down beside of James and smiled feebly.
"We are going to do what we used to do. You lot are going to stay here and I am going to go to the shack, I will see you afterwards."
"Like hell, I am still going!" Sirius argued.
Remus shook his head and sighed.
"Pads you aren't strong enough on your own to keep me in line and you know it, I could literally kill you. That won't work you are staying here."
"I will just change, that's all there is to it. I will be fine." James said sitting up and stretching.
"No you won't. Poms said one month. It has been little over two weeks, even McGonagall flipped when you tried to do a human transfiguration today. Your spine may be healed by magic but it is still weak and if it broke again it could kill you, and you know it. Do you think I would even want to live knowing that you died, my best friend died because of me?"
"I..I…I can't leave you alone. Where would you go? You can't go to the shack and you know it. So stop pretending like that is even a possibility. We broke the wards on it, you can get out easily. Without us there it would be a disaster. Where would you go?" Sirius said miserably.
James sat up suddenly.
"My house, Potter manor, that's where you are going. Mum and dad are out in the field right now, it is empty, you can use the safe room dad has in the study in case of death eaters. That's where you can go, it is four rooms, you won't be chained or in a shed alone. C'mon we just have to tell McGonagall…something…."
"You have a safe room in your house?" Peter said his head tilted in wonder.
"Yeah, with dad being a auror and all we had to have somewhere if someone retaliated against him by attacking my mum and I. It is impenetrable and you have to be able to speak the password to get out. The only way in is with my father's wand, my mum's wand or my own, well and Sirius' now I guess. It only reacts to the wands that reside within the house. Plus no one knows where in the house it is. I honestly think I even forgot to show Siri."
Sirius nodded looking amazed at what was coming out of James' mouth.
"How are we going to convince Dumbledore that I am going there? You know Poms is going to have to pick me up."
"Well, just tell him that you are going to see your dad, floo home and then floo to James' " Peter said softly.
All three boys looked at Pete in shock.
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"Alright Mr. Lupin as it is a Friday you have until Sunday to be back. You are certain you want to go home for this transformation? I would think you would be more comfortable here with all of the warding and room."
"Yes ma'am I would be, however my Pa wrote and said he was home and his new fiancée was going to be there. They won't be home again for a year due to his work and I would really like to meet her before she becomes my step mother."
"And you aren't going to be able to be present for their wedding? I can't believe your father wouldn't want you at his wedding." McGonagall said softly, a look of pity on her face.
"No ma'am, the wedding is right in the middle of NEWTS and it just won't work. It is alright really, I am not too fond of the idea of him remarrying anyways so I just want to meet the woman and that is it." He said trying to look innocent.
It apparently worked because in 5 minutes he was standing in the fireplace in his sitting room covered in soot."
He smiled benignly as his father looked up from his morning paper stunned.
"Remus, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, well, I just needed to come home for a minute, we are starting NEWT revision and I left some of my notes from previous years in my room here like a dunderhead. McGonagall gave me special permission because I didn't think you would be home." He said shuffling from foot to foot.
"You all are starting awfully early, it's only the first week of February." John Lupin said.
"Yes, well you know me. And James' new girlfriend Lily is big on starting early too. I didn't mean to catch you off guard, I didn't think you would be home."
"It is fine. I never said you couldn't come home son, you made that choice."
"Of course I made that choice, you lied to me and you care more about your girlfriend than you do me."
"That is a lie." His father said, anger written all over his face.
"It is not." The unusually rigid teen spat back. "If it was not true than you wouldn't hide me from her, you wouldn't pretend that I am not here. I understand that you are ashamed and that you feel guilt for what has happened to me but you care more for yourself than you do me. And that is alright because I have friends that are a much better family than you and my maman ever turned out to be. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get my books and I have to go, as tonight is the full moon and I am also picking up something from James' mum."
He strode out of the room and reappeared quickly. He turned and grimace at his father before disappearing into the green flames with a shout of "Potter Manor".
He threw his russack on the floor and pulled out James' wand, putting his own back into the bag and stashing it on James' bed before heading out into the manor following James' written instructions.
He was amazed with the security features. It was brilliant, you could use any of the occupants of the house's wand to get in but the magic recognized if the user was given permission to use the wand. They had to be a rightful user or the door would not release. He walked through the halls and into the library where he stepped to the doorway that was pretending to be a bookshelf.
"Merlin you got here fast."
Remus turned stunned to see Sirius and Pete gasping for air in the doorway.
"What are you doing here?" he said, stunned.
"We aren't leaving you all alone! Prongsie had to stay behind…apparently apparating and floo are similar to transfiguring as they alter your body makeup for a bit. He wasn't too happy when we left." Sirius replied, walking forward and running his fingers over the books.
"Blimey you can't even tell it is there! I have been in here hundreds of times and had no clue, not a one."
Pete was also looking around in awe.
"So you'll come in here but the library at school is evil?" Pete said staring up at the golden mural of a huge tree, it shimmered as if in the sun, though there were no windows here. "What is this, look it looks as if it is blowing, like it is alive." He said in reverence.
Sirius smiled and touched the base of the tree,.
"It is alive Petey. All the pureblood families have something of this nature, but none are as beautiful as this. This is the Potter family tree."
"There are no names." Pete replied as he looked closely at one of hundreds of leaves.
"No there aren't, this tree shows signs of life as long as there is a living heir, if the final heir was to die, the tree would fade and appear to die, as long as the family has a future, so does this tree." Sirius said turning and smiling at his two friends.
"How do you know that?" Remus asked, he mouth popped open.
"Because we have something akin to it at Grimmuld place and because I live here." Sirius shrugged.
He watched Remus' eyes narrow.
"Speaking of here. What are you doing here and how did you get here?"
"You really didn't think we were going to let you do this alone did you? Honestly, you are a twat sometimes. And we took the floo from the Hog's Head, you know Alby doesn't care and he wouldn't tell Dumbledore on us to save his own life. We will be fine. James was fired up that he can't be here at all. I do not envy Lily today. Jamie is going to drive her crazy."
"You can't be in that room with me, I go nuts when I am cooped up." Remus said nervously.
Pete gripped his shoulder and Sirius smiled sadly.
"We aren't going in with you. But we will sit out here and wait for you and we will be here when you wake up to help you floo into the hospital wing tomorrow. It will be better because we are here. Now, we have all day lets go eat and pull Jamie's old brooms out and fly for a bit.
The three spent the day joking around and trying to keep Remmy's spirits lifted as the dusk got closer. There were only minutes to spare when Sirius opened the door and took James' wand from Remus' hand.
"You will be fine, I promise, and we will be here when you wake up." Sirius said.
"You have this in the bag." Pete added
Remus looked doubtful but stopped and turned before closing the door.
"If you were coming why didn't you tell me? And why did you give me James' wand?"
"Well we couldn't be sure that we were going to get to come, you know anything could have happened to stop us. We didn't want you to get here and not have a way in. James is fine, he has Lily with him, she is assisting in our coverup, I think we have turned the unturnable." Sirius said with a smile.
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Meanwhile back in the castle
"This is such shit!" James said angrily.
Lily tried to play with his hair and calm him down but it wasn't working.
"James it is fine. They will all be alright. You and I have pranks to play. Come on, you know you have been waiting for this day forever." She said with an evil grin.
He couldn't resist smiling back. He had been wanting to get Lily to prank with him forever. He stood up and held out his hand.
"Well let's get to it Miss Marauder in training. We have a distraction to make." He said with a grin.
Today's plan was simple. Pull off as many pranks as possible without getting caught and without James being seen all day. As long as the school thought they were pulling another prank war the professors wouldn't question where Peter and Sirius had gone to. Lily's job was to follow James' instructions as he had no wand, and pretend to be trying to catch the boys at it thus keeping her from classes. James threw on the invisibility cloak and grabbed her hand, letting her know where he was. And then strode out of the room together, intent on causing mayhem.
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"My word Mrs. Evans what is going on here?" Professor McGonagall said as she skidded to a halt sliding on a very wet floor.
"Oh, are you alright? Course you're not…Well it is was raining in the hallway. I got the rain to stop. But now it is a bit flooded, and I sent the first year that got buzzed by the lightning to the hospital wing. I won't be able to make it to class while I am getting this cleared up."
"Right, this prank stinks of three rambunctious seventh years, oh when I find them." She muttered as she slipped all over the hall.
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"Oi, hullo Lily dear, I take it you are trying to clean this mess up?"
Lily grimaced and sighed as she looked around the walls of the dungeons, all dripping with green and black slime.
"Yes Professor Slughorn, I vow that when I find those bloody marauders I am going to curse their wand arms off."
"Now now Lily. Watch that mouth, and if I find any spare limbs laying about I shan't turn you in. 15 points to Gryffindor for your help." He said with a chuckle.
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"Stop! Wait! No!" Lily winced as Professor Kettleburn fell prey to the thousands of gobstones rolling across the entrance hall. Not only did she step on them and slide across the floor, once the marbles began to hit each other they squirted a foul smelling black goo all over the old professor."
"One of these days, I am going to retire." He said before standing and turning and going right back out of the building.
"Does everything we do have to be so messy?" Lilly hissed as she walked out of the hall shaking her head listening to James chuckle.
"You know you are all going to get a ton of detentions for this?"
"We are already anticipating it." She heard the empty space to her left mutter.
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The rest of the day was spent with Lily (seemingly alone) running about like crazy and professors searching high and low for the culprits, they were nowhere to be found. From Slytherins with green speckled skin, to Ravenclaws that temporarily sprouted black feathers and some even sprouted wings. Hufflepuffs found their common room filled to the top with long stick glitter, as such they were all walking around the school glittering. The dishes in the great hall sang with every bite, the goblets spit drinks back into the drinker's face and Lily was exhausted.
She was sitting at her house table, her head on her folded arms trying not to fall asleep. Everyone at the heads table looked similarly worn out. It wasn't until she heard Marleen's giggle and Alice's voice that she looked up.
"Uhm Lily, what happened to you?" Alice squeaked.
"I have spent the day cleaning up after the missing Marauders." She replied.
"Oh, weren't you able to despell your hair?"
"WHAT!" she yelped and stood to look at her reflection in the darkened windows of the great hall.
Her mouth dropped to her chest as she felt a movement from the "empty" spot to her right when she looked at her hair. Her horribly frizzy, horribly messy, horribly PURPLE hair.
"JAMES POTTER I AM GOING TO BLOODY KILL YOU!"