Chap 2

"Geraldine?" A smooth voice came out of the dark. "What are you even doing here still?"

"I came to keep Toni some company and then snuck under the bed and hid there when Pomfrey came to lock up. Now shush, I have to leave."

"Why leave, Adams? Stay, I'm sure we could work out some sort of arrangement with the beds-"

"Oi, Padfoot. Shut up. Let her leave," a flustered second voice came out of the dark. "There's a door about twenty paces to your left, Dina. Leave before this arse actually gets you in trouble, as he seems quite efficient at this."

Furious whispering ensued while Dina slipped away.

"Oh, hi, Toni. So, I've been thinking," Dina sat down at the breakfast table and thunked her notebook down next to her. "I have a detailed plan that I was just filling Lily in on."

Lily wiped some ketchup off her face and opened the notebook. "So. The plan is that we get Marl to ask Avery to come to the Astronomy Tower. Once there-"

"Toni will be waiting in the shadows and cast her Bat Bogey Hex. This is where the boys come in. Because let's not deceive ourselves, we need their resources. Lily, you said something about a map."

"Yes, so Remus told me about this map they made which they can use to locate the rest of Avery's goons. Potter and Black will then be happy enough to take over- well- distracting them for the time being."

"And then I perform the Body Bind Curse on Avery, while also keeping a lookout for Macnair or any others who might get past Potter, Lupin and Black, while Pettigrew keeps an eye out for Filch or any professors who decide to go on a night stroll," Dina crammed some eggs into her mouth as she spoke.

"And then Marl tells Avery that it is over between the two of them, and his shitty comments about her blood status are uncalled for and horrible, and if this went any further we were going to the Head, or the Ministry if required, because this qualifies as hate crime."

"And if that isn't a scary prospect for dear old Avery, we always have the threat of our own violence. With the boys' map, he'll never know when we're coming for him and his gang of miscreants." Lily got up and straightened her robes. "Alright, girls, I think this is a good plan. I'm going to go tell Remus the details so he can inform the rest of those idiots and hope that they don't bungle this."

"I'm guessing they won't," this came from Toni, who was lounging in her chair like it was a throne, her hair spread over the back of it. "You tell them it's a prank, and it will go off with a bang. And a prank pulled on the Slytherins, at that."

"Yes, I'd almost forgotten that special hate they reserve for Snape and his ilk. Speaking of which, Lily, how are things with him?"

"You know how they usually are." Lily scrunched up her face, looking angry and a little sad. "He keeps talking to me, and I really like talking to him, but then some nonsense comes up about him wanting to go to Hogsmeade with me, and I say no, and then it gets very strange because he sulks for days. Oh, and lately we've been having fights again because I told him I don't like Avery and Macnair and that bunch he's been hanging out with this year, that they're cruel. He took offence to that and asked me why I don't reserve my ire for Potter and Black. Anyway, there's nothing I can do. I think it's a bit of a failing friendship."

"Yes, there's only so long you can keep pandering to his childish crush on you because you feel some sort of obligation," Dina was thinking of John from last year and how long it had taken her to break that off even though she knew she didn't like him much at all after about the second nauseating evening at Madam Puddifoot's. She thought she would have drowned in the pink while being stifled by his insistent kisses. I am so glad that is over.

Sirius, Remus, James and Peter were lounging near the Lake under their favourite tree. Remus was sitting with his back against the tree, nose buried in a fat volume concerning the evolving nature of wizard relations with Muggles. James was on his stomach, scanning the grounds lazily, presumably for targets to prank, or possibly Lily to moon after. Sirius was idly waving his wand and making the red-brushed leaves fly softly into Peter's open mouth as he dozed in the late afternoon sunlight. Peter kept waking up, mildly cursing Sirius and settling back more comfortably.

"So boys, what do you think of the plan?" Sirius ran a hand through his hair. Remus looked at him and smiled. He always did that when he was thinking. He probably also thought it made his slightly long hair brush his collar just a tad more gracefully. There were girls sitting across from them, and one exceptionally pretty boy from Hufflepuff, who looked particularly nice with the light glinting off his bronze hair.

"Well, I think it is a lovely one. I love the fact that we can tweak it a little to our own liking," James sat up, now fidgeting with the clasps on his bag.

Remus put his book down, marking the page with one of the leaves from the pile he'd made his seat on. "Tweaking is fine, but I do think we should have the finer details of this worked out better. So tomorrow night after dinner, we head to the dorm to get your cloak, James. At around ten, Lily gives us the signal and we head towards wherever the Slytherins are."

"Probably won't need the map, we could just follow the stink-"

"Thank you for your input, Padfoot. Next, we wait until Marl asks Avery to go with her and then Prongs and I distract Macnair and Snape-"

"Won't need the two of us, I could handle that greasy idiot with one hand tied behind my back. Once that's taken care of, Peter," he leaned over to poke him with a stick.

"Yes, yes. I go to the bottom of the Astronomy tower with the map and keep a lookout for anyone who happens by and cast a silencing charm on the area," and having said his bit, Peter rolled over and dozed again, his nose twitching a little.

"Well, that seems…simple. Now all we have to do is make sure Prongs here doesn't end up taking our wonderful Sev's nose right off his greasy face."

James grinned. It was a lovely afternoon, and they had a plan. Term was turning out well after all.

All through dinner the next day, Dina twitched impatiently in her seat, turning to look at Marl, checking if she was fine, and going over the plan to herself. Unfortunately, she was also going over the plan aloud, to make sure everyone around her heard the details yet again.

"So, when we're at the Tower, Toni, you're hidden behind the-"

"- the second telescope to the left, yes, Dina, we've gone through this about ten times already, and that is just this evening. Relax, if things are going to go wrong, they will anyway, and no matter how much you write in that notebook of yours, you can't control every detail!"

"Yes, yes, so you keep saying. I'm keeping a copy of that charmed parchment we had, so I can contact Lily when it is time."

"Yes, do, just cram some food into your mouth now and we can leave."

"Bugger you idiots, what the hell are you doing at this end of the corridor? Move, move, you need to be there when those four come through!" Remus was hurrying the boys and an apprehensive looking Marlene along. Marlene looked a little green, and noticing the way her fingers twisted in her robes, he drew her to the side. "You know, you could still tell us to stop whenever you think we should. If you feel like you are not ready…"

"I am. Or not. But I have to be. I've done this for long enough and this cannot go on. I have to face this and be done with it. I cannot go on pretending that love is what drives his cruelty." She gulped.

Remus scanned her face, and he saw that she looked scared, but determined. He squeezed her shoulder. "Here, have a bit of chocolate."

"Moony, get behind that wall, they're turning the corner!"

Up in the Astronomy tower, Dina was pacing relentlessly and counting the seconds while Toni lounged in her habitual pose in one of the more comfortable chairs in the room. "Where do you think they are? I factored in five minutes for Marl to get her with him, and it's been four, and I don't hear either of them."

"It's fine, Di, stop stressing. They'll be here soon."

Not a minute later, they heard steps on the stairs, and soon, Marl's voice raised to a teary pitch, mixed in with Avery's deep bass, telling her she should be happy he consented to touch a filthy Muggle-loving half-blood like her. Before he could get to next sentence, Toni was out of her chair with an almost equine grace and had performed an excellent Bat Bogey Hex. Marl stood stricken five paces from him, and Dina waited for him to be fully engaged in retaliating before she hit him with a well placed Body Bind curse that sailed in right under his wand arm. Avery froze, his limbs snapping together as his body crashed to the ground.

God, I hope Pettigrew put that Silencing Charm around the place, this sure is noisy. She brushed the stray thought away and gestured Marl forward to speak to him as she and Toni settled into the shadows again, their wands trained on Avery. This was going to be a long conversation.

The relative calm of Marlene speaking to Avery was suddenly ruptured by the sound of running feet. Remus burst into the top of the Tower with James and Sirius close on his heels. Peter panted up the stairs behind them.

"We've incapacitated Snape and Macnair for now. But they're only out of the way for a maximum of fifteen minutes," he gasped out.

"Yes, and my dear brother is heading their way, so if he finds his idols on the floor charmed into growing all kinds of fuzzy tentacles on their mugs, I can wager the consequences will have to be faced. How many of you can run, and fast?" Sirius was smoothing his hair while speaking, looking a bit rumpled but still immaculately bored.

How on earth does that face never change? Dina piped up. "I think Marl and Toni can run, but I can perform a pretty good Disillusionment charm that will stand up to inspection, unless we run into Mrs. Norris."

The four Gryffindors exchanged a look and took a minute before they seemed to reach a consensus.

James cleared his throat a little awkwardly and then said gruffly, "There's no need for that. Sirius and I can get Marl back, Peter could go with the map and Toni and use one of the secret passages, and you and Remus could, um, share this cloak I have and that would buy us some time."

"A cloak?"

"Yes, well, an Invisibility Cloak. It's a pretty good one." James looked a little defensive and Dina decided not to pursue this line of enquiry.

"Sure. Let's get going, then."

James' cloak was a huge one, and neither Dina nor Remus were large people. But somehow the space under the cloak seemed just a little too small two minutes into their progress towards the Ravenclaw Common Room. Dina could hear every breath she took and each of Remus', and she was uncomfortably conscious of his strong, warm hand around her shoulders, holding the cloak in place. She was also unusually- but, she realized with a rush of blood to her cheeks- not entirely unhappy with this arrangement that required her to walk enveloped in his warmth, with her chin close to the hollow of his throat. A minute later, she thought perhaps conversation would be a better idea than considering the merits of leaning across that infinitesimal distance and-

"So, Dina. These are strange circumstances for us to be talking, really, for the first time". Remus had spoken, and his crisp whisper pierced what thoughts she'd been having, so she floundered for a while before she returned his remark with a weak giggle and a nod of assent. Talk, you great big lump, what are you doing?

"Uh, they are, I suppose. I've never really thought of speaking to you before, because Potter and Sirius seem like such-" Oh no, no, no.

"Such idiots, I know. Believe me, they are, no one knows that better than me. They're lovable idiots, though, most of the time, and I don't think they mean too much harm for all their bluster. They have their hearts in mostly the right place."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be unkind at all, and your pranks are always top shelf, really spiffing stuff, you know. I quite appreciate the planning that went into disrupting the Potions class that one time when you had small vials strewed around the room that let out noisy fireworks at precisely the moment Slughorn was to give us our test. That was very well done, really."

"Thank you, I planned the timing myself, though the idea of the fireworks came from James and P- Sirius."

"I do appreciate good timing. And-" she'd tripped on a folds of her own robe, and Remus' arms went out to steady her. She caught a whiff of a fresh smell, like soap, and freshly cut grass, and it threw her off kilter before her brain caught up with her. " What I was saying was, that time you kept your mouths shut in all classes for about a month, that was hilarious, but I don't really think people understood why-"

"We've reached your common room." Remus was smiling down at her, and she wondered what it would feel like to reach out and brush his hair off his forehead.

"Goodnight, Remus."

"Goodnight, Dina. And I too, appreciate the mark of good planning and a plan well executed. Thank you for this evening." He grinned at her, a suddenly wolfish grin before he disappeared under the cloak. She turned to the brass knocker and didn't hear its question for several minutes, thinking about the particular shade of green of a certain someone's eyes.