A/N: Wow... 3 years later, and I've finally been struck again with the writing bug! I feel so inspired for this story right now. Hopefully I can get a few chapters out of this wave of-whatever the opposite of writer's block is. If you've been waiting for updates on this one for years, I hope this addition can bring a smile to your face (and maybe a bit of angst, too.) If you're new here, welcome to Melody's journey. I hope you'll continue to follow along!

A week later, they were back to practicing nonverbal spells in Defense Against the Dark Arts; as Professor Dragoon had decided to work on the Patronus Charm every other lesson, while still continuing to perfect their skills in nonverbal spellwork.

Facing off across from Sirius, Melody braced herself; ready to cast a Shield Charm—hopefully, without whispering it aloud this time. Expecting to hear Sirius's incantation, she was caught off guard when he successfully shot a nonverbal Disarming Charm at her. Melody's wand flew off to the side as she was hit with the force of the spell; spinning through the air and landing hard on a heap of cushions.

Sirius raced over to Melody, looking aghast at having thrown her across the room. James jogged over to retrieve her wand. Melody propped herself up onto her elbows and accepted Sirius's proffered hand.

"Are you all right?! I swear I didn't mean to send you flying," Sirius apologized fretfully.

"She won't be able to fly at all if you end up putting her in the Hospital Wing," James grumbled; holding out her wand.

"I swear, I'm fine," Melody assured them; taking her wand back. "I've fallen from my broom harder than that."

Some of the other students had paused in their spellwork to see what was going on, but when Professor Dragoon saw that Melody was unharmed, he waved the onlookers off; telling them to continue. Remus, who was still looking at Melody, was pale; clutching his wand with a sweaty hand.

"Look sharp, Moony," James called as he jogged over to resume their practicing. Sirius kept apologizing until Melody hit him so hard with a nonverbal jinx that he cartwheeled through the air, landing in a heap of cushions.

After class, Remus was exceptionally quiet; hanging back as James and Sirius jostled each other, laughing about the look on Filch's face when he'd found a dozen Fanged Frisbees whizzing through the Entrance Hall after dinner the other night.

Melody looked at Remus, concerned. It was only the middle of the month—nowhere near the full moon. He looked so shaken up.

"What's wrong?" she asked quietly, so that the other boys would not overhear.

A muscle in Remus's jaw jumped slightly. "I... I thought you had gotten hurt."

Melody blinked, taken aback. "You did?"

Remus nodded jerkily.

"Oh." Melody smiled gently. "I thought I wasn't supposed to worry about you. It's not fair if you get to do a bunch of worrying, when I'm not allowed to."

His gaze softened. "Maybe it's all right if we allow ourselves to worry about each other... Just a little bit."

Melody wanted very much to reach for his hand. However, Remus wasn't publicly touchy in the way that Sirius was; always slinging an arm over her shoulders or ruffling her hair. She didn't want to do anything that might make him uncomfortable. Instead, she fiddled with the strap of her bag. "That's fair."

Quidditch practice felt like a breath of fresh air. Melody went through her warm-up exercises with vigor, and opted to take a few extra laps around the pitch before practice began. By the time the session was over, she felt like her sense of self had returned. Quidditch really had a way of clearing her mind and making her feel like there was nothing to worry about in the world: it was just her, the team, the pitch, and the Snitch.

Remus and Sirius were waiting for her and James outside the locker rooms, and they trooped back to the castle together; Melody enjoying the crisp breeze through her still-slightly-wet her from her post-practice shower. She couldn't help looking over at Remus as they walked—his silhouette was so picturesque against the colors of the sunset in the sky. The timbre of his voice as he talked quietly with James was so comforting, even though she wasn't listening too closely to what he was actually saying. Melody glanced down at his hands, which were slender like a pianist's. Did he play the piano? He should; he certainly had the fingers for it. But his hands were just as beautiful while holding up a dog-eared textbook and gracefully turning the page... Lifting a fork to his lips as he ate breakfast, smiling bemusedly at whatever subject James and Sirius were debating... Holding Melody close against his chest in her robin form. What would it be like if he held her close, without her having transformed?

Melody tore her gaze away from Remus's hands as he used them to illustrate something he was describing to James. She then promptly tripped over a tree root and barreled into Sirius.

"Whoa there, little bird," he chuckled, steadying her with both hands. "Spin a few too many times on your broomstick?"

"Just tripped," Melody forced out, flushing. "Must be hungry!"

"Let's get you to dinner, then. Can't have our Quidditch princess fainting from hunger!" Sirius slipped his arm around Melody's waist as they went inside, and she realized there was probably good reason for Lily to have believed that he was the one she was interested in.

After dinner and a fair bit of homework, which they had opted to complete in the boys' room because the common room was more full than usual, James stretched out on the floor with his glasses on his chest and Sirius yawned loudly. "Well, I suppose it's about time to turn in."

Melody couldn't help laughing aloud from the armchair she'd been occupying. "It's not even 10 yet and we have the whole weekend ahead of us. You're going to sleep?"

"Are you looking for some trouble to get into, Melody?" Remus asked, smiling. "I'm afraid we've been influencing you in rather the wrong direction."

"You're right; you're right! I'm sure we could find more mischievous activities to carry us through the evening, Mels," Sirius said grandly, pulling Melody up from where she was sitting. He pulled a bit too hard, launching her into his arms, the force of which resulted in the both of them falling backwards onto his bed.

"Oi, watch it," James exclaimed with a grin, snatching his glasses away from the ground before they could be crushed by flailing feet. Remus's smile faded as he watched Melody and Sirius detangle themselves from each other amid fits of breathless laughter.

"What I mean to say," Sirius began, jumping up from the bed and smoothing his hair down, "is that this seems to be a fortuitous night for... certain projects. Projects that, in fact, we may manage to complete before Christmas break, if we happen to work as solemnly as possible."

"Now we're talking," James agreed, rolling over on the floor to retrieve their map from a hidden compartment inside his trunk. "We've got most of the castle covered, and a good bit of the grounds. But I'm not convinced we've mapped out all of the secret passageways. There may even be hidden rooms yet to be discovered."

"Hidden rooms... Oh!" Melody exclaimed. She sat up excitedly. "Have you been to the seventh floor lately?"

"You mean, the floor we're currently on?" Sirius teased her.

"Well, yes; but not here—I mean, there's a specific spot," she rambled on. "And a specific room."

"We're listening," James encouraged her. "Here—I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." He tapped his wand to the unassuming piece of parchment, and the ink enchanted into it bloomed to life. "Can you show us where you're talking about?"

He spread it open on the floor, and the four of them knelt around it, watching to see where Melody's finger landed. Next to her, Remus tensed slightly as her dark curls brushed against his forearm.

"I think it's this general area. There's an odd tapestry with trolls in tutus... it's a weird one, where that wizard was trying to teach them ballet—"

"I know where that is!" Sirius exclaimed. "Are you saying you've found a hidden room all on your own? Our sweet little explorer! Soon I'll have almost nothing left to teach you."

"It's still early enough that we can head over there without any suspicion," Remus pointed out. "Though we should still bring the cloak. And if anyone asks, I suppose I can flash them my prefect badge."

"Good man," James said, clapping him on the shoulder. The foursome made ready to leave; ensuring that the map was blank once more. Melody made a quick trip up to her room to return her books, and they exited the portrait hole, calmly and serenely making their way to the corridor she'd found on that fateful night before the Hallow's Eve Ball.

Along the way, Sirius kept furtively looking around to make sure no one had spotted them, and they seemed to be in the clear by the time they reached the infamous tapestry.

"That is quite the tapestry," Remus said mildly, tilting his head as they appraised it. "This is where the room is, Melody?"

"Well...yes," she nodded, looking up at the tapestry. "But I have to admit, I'm not sure how or why the room revealed itself."

"What kind of room was it?" Remus asked, putting an ear against the tapestry and knocking to see if he could hear anything abnormal. "We didn't even bother to ask."

"It..." Melody trailed off, not quite able to look in the direction of those soft grey eyes that were focused on her. They had been so full of anguish that night—almost unrecognizable. She glanced instead towards James and Sirius, who had resorted to some sort of interpretive movement duet as a tactic to find the room. "Well, I was pretty upset, and tired. And cold, and a bit wet—"

"Wet, eh?" Sirius smirked, balancing on one leg with his arms poised above him like some sort of large bird. James smacked him good-naturedly, and they started swaying together in sync.

"And it seemed to have everything I needed in there. Even more things appeared as I thought of them. But I was very upset, so the details of that night are a little fuzzy. It almost felt like a dream; I hadn't really thought about the room since then, until tonight."

"I believe I know which room you've found," Remus said thoughtfully. "It really does give you whatever you need—according to what I've read. But with four of us here, we'll all have to really concentrate on the same thing. Something we all need. It should make the room more likely to appear to us."

"All right, I'm game," James said, pausing his increasingly complicated interpretive dance sequence. "What's one thing the four of us all really need right now?"

They stood and thought for a moment. Melody glanced at the map in James's hand, and her eyes widened. "Well, we need to think of something before Filch finds us roaming the corridors at this time of night without a good explanation."

"We need to be able to hide," Remus clarified. Sirius paced up and down the hallway as James kept an eye on the caretaker's inky footprints on the map drawing nearer. Suddenly, the wall across from the tapestry rumbled to life, and a door materialized; swinging soundlessly open. Elated, the four friends scurried inside, and the door shut behind them.

The room looked different than it had when Melody had last visited. It was furnished more like the common room, with plush armchairs, a sofa, a fireplace, a pitcher of hot chocolate with a tray of buns and biscuits, and an assortment of board games and card games.

"It's too bad it hasn't got a loo," James muttered, though his eyes were wide with delight behind his circular glasses. "I could use one of those in just a few minutes after everything I ate at dinner—"

No sooner had he finished his sentence than a new section of the room opened up; divided into separate "Lady" and "Gentlemen" doorways with water fountains adorning the section of wall between the two washrooms.

"This is mad," Sirius breathed happily. "Anything we think of, the room just gives it to us."

"How have we never come across this before?" James exclaimed, grinning.

"I suppose it's not exactly easy to find," Remus said bemusedly, sitting in a cozy chair to begin enchanting the Marauder's Map to include their location. "But it's quite the room of—well, requirement. That's its official name, according to Hogwarts, A History."

"You must have really needed it the night you found it," Sirius called over to Melody.

"I did," Melody said softly; recalling how distraught she had been after finding the boys at the Shrieking Shack.

"What do we do now?" James asked, turning in a circle. "Any preferences?"

"We can probably do anything we've a mind to," Sirius said, shrugging. "Who's up for a game?"

"How long have we been in here?" Melody asked, looking up from their fifth game of Gobstones. Almost before she finished asking the question, a stylish grandfather clock materialized by the door.

James whistled lowly. "Just after hours. It's no wonder I was getting peckish — it's been hours since dinner." He reached for the platter beside him and popped another hot cross bun into his mouth.

"We should head back," Remus said, waking up from the doze he'd nodded off into. He rubbed his eyes absentmindedly. "Though I don't think all four of us will fit under the cloak. We barely get away with three."

Sirius raised his eyebrows at Melody, and she rolled her eyes good-naturedly. She twirled around and transformed; flitting into Sirius's outstretched hands.

"So cute," Sirius said fondly. "This is my first time seeing you transform, you know. You're so... little."

Melody chirped, spreading her wings to the sides in an attempt to appear bigger.

"Well, now you just look ridiculous."

Melody gently pecked him on the finger in indignation, but Sirius just chuckled and patted her lightly on the head.

"The only problem is that Melody doesn't have a nickname yet," James said lowly as they walked together under the cloak. "And she's been one of us for a while now. It's high time we fully inducted her into the Marauders."

"I came up with a good one," Sirius whispered, grinning down at the little robin. "Wormtail, since you eat worms and you've got a cute little tail."

Melody chirped indignantly, giving him as stony a glance as she could in her robin form.

"What about Wingtail?" Remus suggested quietly. "You always do look like a bird when you're up there, playing Quidditch. Your hair looks like dark wings in the wind."

She bobbed her head, and the Marauders snickered quietly. "Wingtail it is, then," agreed James.

They made it back to the common room without incident, though Mrs. Norris followed them for a bit until she lost interest.

"Mrs. Norris was this close to having you for a midnight snack, Melody," James said, flourishing the invisibility cloak before folding it up.

"I would have transformed and barked at her," Sirius assured them as Melody transformed back into herself.

"Or I would have transformed and chased her off myself," Melody insisted, laughing. On straightening up, she found herself inches away from knocking foreheads with Sirius, and stepped back quickly.

"Late-night, early-morning snack, anyone?" Sirius asked, patting Melody on the head like he had when she was in her robin form.

"I think I'll go to bed," Remus said, eyes darting away from the two of them. "Thank you for showing us the room, Melody. It's a wonderful addition to the map."

"It's probably time for all of us to turn in," James said ruefully. "Before we know it, it'll be breakfast time—and I do not want to miss that."

Four "goodnights" echoed quietly through the common room as Melody and the boys parted ways. Although she'd be tired in the morning, it felt so good to be counted as one of the Marauders, as James had called them. She had even earned her own nickname... Remus had even mentioned how her hair looked while she was flying on her broom.

Melody smiled as she tiptoed into the dormitory and slipped into bed.