Chapter 24 - The Plot Thickens

James simply couldn't be prouder of himself. He and Sirius had discovered a genuine death eater plot. He was sure that's what it was. Why else would their git-faced, curse-obsessed DADA teacher be sneaking off to meet a known member of the group in a pub on a Friday night? Frustratingly, the hardest part for them now would be actually getting there.

"There must be something Gideon and Fabian aren't telling us about this." James said, examining the statue of the one eyed witch on the second floor and wondering why on earth the twins had told them it was so important. "Maybe a password?"

"Maybe we have to tickle her, like the pear on the painting to get to the kitchens?"

James eyed the statue. The witch, albeit carved in stone, looked very cross. "You want to try?" He asked Peter a little warily.

Peter did so. Nothing happened.

"Worth a go." Sirius said consolingly.

James was surprised Sirius was being so nice to Peter after discovering it was him who'd got him in trouble by hiding his DADA textbook earlier that month. Remus, who'd spent a whole day practicing summoning spells, had discovered it in the dormitory (where he was sure Sirius had mislaid it in his constantly messy wardrobe). The book had zoomed right from under Peter's mattress.

Once Sirius had finished yelling at him (which was quite some time it had to be said), he was perfectly friendly with the shorter boy again. James liked that about Sirius. He didn't bear a grudge and he forgave easily, which was lucky as Peter was often incredibly stupid.

"Shall we ask McGonagall?"

"Oh bloody hell Peter, do you have a brain between your ears or cotton wool?"

And Sirius was often incredibly unkind.

"I have a brain!" Peter snapped. "Go on then, what are your clever suggestions for how to get to Hogsmeade?"

"Tickle the witch again?"

"I think we should try somewhere else." James said, as someone had to speak sense and his friends were clearly incapable of doing so. "There must be more secret passageways out of Hogwarts other than this one."

"Well there was that funny mirror." Sirius said.

"The one we saw Slughorn coming out of?"

"Well, Slughorn suddenly appeared near it."

"Slughorn doesn't 'suddenly appear' anywhere. It takes him about a week to walk across the classroom."

"That's my point. It was suspicious."

"Well then let's go!"

They hurried up to the mirror in question on the fourth floor. It was a huge thing, far too heavy in James' opinion for them to lift alone. If there was a secret passageway behind it, James wasn't sure how they'd ever get to it.

"Here, help me lift it." Sirius said, grabbing one corner of the mirror, his train of thought clearly having whizzed off in another direction entirely.

"Don't! We'll break it!" Peter said.

"Yes, I don't think that's a good idea." Remus said quietly.

Sirius turned to him.

"What?"

"You have an idea."

"Do I?" Remus said, but he was smiling.

"I know you, Lupin. Go on, spit it out."

Remus grinned. "Alright." He said. "The spell you need is wingardium leviosa. We all learned it in our first year, but this will be trickier as the mirror is much heavier than a feather. We'll need to do it together and very carefully. Just a small swish and flick and make sure the intention is clear in your mind, that's very important."

"Yes Professor Lupin." Sirius said impatiently. "Can we get on with it now?"

Remus gave him a look highly reminiscent of Professor McGonagall but agreed that they could. The four of them pointed their wands at the mirror and, in unison, cast the spell. It lifted off its hinges and came down to rest on the floor, revealing behind it a crack in the stone wall.

"Excellent!" Sirius said, running forwards and pushing, causing the wall to slide across. "We've done it! What a minute…"

He stopped short as he'd clearly seen something that had horrified or disturbed him (or perhaps both at the same time).

James hurried over too.

There was a group of students already here. Nearly a dozen of them, including Lucius Malfoy, both Lestrange boys, Mulciber, Avery, Wilkes, Rosier and Snape.

Malfoy, who seemed to be leading the group, told James and Sirius to do something very rude.

"Language, Malfoy." Sirius said. "What are you snakes doing here?"

"Holding a private meeting. So bugger off because you're not invited."

"Plotting how to overthrow the statute of secrecy, are we? Planning on becoming death eaters too like your loser of a father?"

James drew his wand by his side. He didn't know why Sirius insisted on escalating any situation with Malfoy or Snape in but he was prepared to defend them both if he had to.

"Who else is there?" Malfoy asked, peering past Sirius to where Remus and Peter stood.

There was loud laughter from within the little room. "It's Peter Pettigrew!" Rabastan Lestrange cried. "Hey, Pettigrew! Wilkes and I have been doing some research. We think we know how to do animal transformations now. Care to step inside and we'll give you a tail and a snout to make you even more of a pig than you are already?"

Peter squealed and hurried out of eyesight. The others laughed unkindly.

"Well, you snakes enjoy yourselves." Sirius said, making to slide the stone door closed. "Regards to your parents, Lucius." And he slammed it.

"How do you know Malfoy's parents?" James asked him as they walked away from yet another potential passage to Hogsmeade.

"Had them round for dinner. To dinner." He corrected. "We didn't eat them."

"What were they like?"

"Boring and snobby. Just like their son. Well no that's not true, the mum wasn't too bad. Abraxas is definitely up to his eyeballs in it all though."

"I wish we could have heard what they were saying."

"Don't worry Potter. One death eater plot at a time."

As it was now past curfew, they decided to call it a night and explore again the next day, Sirius muttering angrily about the 'bloody Slytherins' all the way back to the tower.

"But we are going." He insisted, a determination in his eyes that James knew no one could say no to. "Even if I have to scale the castle walls myself, we're going."

James felt oddly satisfied in DADA the next day. Though Yaxley was just as unpleasant as ever, it gave James great pleasure to know that they would very soon be proving to the world he was a death eater.

"Something funny, Potter?" Yaxley snapped at him as some of this must have shown on his face.

James shook his head and went quickly back to making notes from the textbook. He didn't quite have Sirius' courage (or stupidity) when it came to talking back to the man.

After DADA they had potions and James was seized by a sudden idea. "Sir?" He asked Slughorn as the man came over for his customary mid-class chinwag. "Professor McGonagall has been telling us about secret passageways out of Hogwarts but she couldn't quite remember all of them. I wondered… would you kindly… could you tell us? I'm sure you must know everything there is to know about the castle. If you can't tell us I don't suppose anyone can." And he sighed a little sadly.

He had to hand it to himself, it was well done. He knew Slughorn wouldn't be able to resist one-upping his superior and the flattery would have enticed him like lettuce to a slug.

"Well…" he said, stretching a little and grinning. "I suppose it can't really hurt…"

"You, Potter, are a certified genius." Sirius told him as the four of them hurried down the corridor after potions. "And if I'm ever rude to you again…"

"I'll remind you of this moment." James said, grinning. "I know. I am brilliant."

"Passageway behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy..." Sirius repeated. "Trust Slughorn to know about that one."

The passageway in question was on the ground floor. They poked around behind the statue until Peter let out an excitable squeak. "There's a lever, look!"

"Well don't tell us about it, pull it!" Sirius said impatiently.

Peter did so and the stone wall behind the statue slid to the side, just like the one on the fourth floor had.

"Excellent!" James and Sirius said together and they pulled Remus and Peter through with them into the passageway beyond.

They walked for a few minutes before the stone walls became muddy and it appeared that they were underground.

"You alright, Remus?" James asked his friend, who was saying very little.

Remus nodded. "Yes." He said, but James still thought he looked uneasy.

"Don't worry. We won't get caught." He reassured him.

"You can't promise that." Peter said.

"I can." James said. "I just can't promise I won't break it."

The tunnel eventually came to an end and they saw in the ceiling a small trapdoor. Remus looked more unnerved still. James thought he might have understood what was causing his friend distress this time. He, Sirius and Peter had broken into the place he went to transform last term, determined to find out where Madam Pomfrey was taking him every month. The similarities were eerie, surely even more so to Remus. James supposed the shack Remus transformed in must have been in Hogsmeade too but it would surely be far too insensitive of them to point this out.

"Hey, Remus, isn't your shack in Hogsmeade too?" Sirius said. "This tunnel and trap door look mighty similar. Maybe we could use that to get to Hogsmeade some time?"

James wanted to kick him. "I'm sure Remus doesn't want to go down that tunnel any more than once a month you dolt."

"Oh. Right." Sirius said. "Of course." But James could tell he hadn't really understood. His friend could be incredibly thick sometimes.

The trap door led them into the open air where they climbed up to find themselves in a little thicket of trees. "Perfect!" James said. "And look - there's the village."

They all looked as Hogsmeade village was indeed visible over the hill. "It's beautiful." Remus breathed.

"Do you think we can go to Honeydukes?" Peter asked.

"What about The Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer?" Sirius asked.

They were both looking at James as though waiting for him to grant or deny them permission. "I don't know!" He said. "I'm not in charge!" He considered their options. "But I think we should go and find where the Hog's Head is. That way we'll save ourselves time on Friday."

They did as he suggested, attracting a few strange glances from Hogsmeade villagers as they went as they were in their school robes and clearly not supposed to be there.

"Ah, playing truant are we?" An old wizard said, catching sight of them. "I used to do that in my day at Hogwarts… did you use the passageway behind the mirror?"

"We tried but the Slytherins had blocked it." James explained.

"Bloody snakes."

The man looked affronted. "I was in Slytherin house." He said, puffing himself up and glaring at Sirius. "Now get back up to the castle before I report you. Go on!"

They promised him they would but doubled back again once he was out of eyesight. "Well there was a one in four chance." Remus said as the ex-Slytherin vanished round a bend.

"Those are good odds!" Sirius said defensively.

But James knew his friend didn't really have the same sensitivity to others' feelings as he or Remus did. He wasn't cruel, James just supposed he channeled his affection more deeply to those he loved and he was grateful to be one of them. Sirius' loyalty really was second to none.

They found the pub mentioned in Dolohov's letter to Yaxley. Remus denied Sirius' request to pop in for a firewhisky, but they did all agree to humour Peter by nipping into Honeydukes.

"Oh how wonderful!" The shop proprietor cried, coming over to greet them excitedly. "You must tell the others how you managed to sneak out. I'd love to have you students here all the time. It makes no sense to me why you don't get free run of the village. Don't you think boarding schools are just the most oppressive, unnatural environments? Ah well, I suppose Dumbledore's better than Dippet at least…"

Peter helped himself to something of just about everything, asking the shop keeper a hundred different questions about flavour, texture and effects which they answered enthusiastically.

"Sugar quills!" Peter said happily, taking a stack full. "And pepper imps! Ooh, Drooble's best blowing gum!"

When Peter finally took his stack of sweets to the counter, the price was quite staggering.

"Three galleons on sweets?!" James laughed, seeing the price on the till.

Peter's face fell. "But I've only got twelve sickles."

"Oh here you go Pettigrew." Sirius said, sticking his hand in his pocket and throwing three fat gold coins on the counter. "My treat."

James stared at him. "How do you have three galleons?!"

"Well unlike Pettigrew here, my mum doesn't dock my allowance when I'm naughty."

"That's so nice of her." Peter said, gathering his armful of sweets as they left the shop. James saw Sirius open his mouth to speak but then he shook his head and closed it again and they fell into step behind Peter, happily munching his sweets.

They arrived back at the castle just before dinner. Despite having gorged himself all throughout the journey back, Peter still managed to eat a full meal. James looked up at the staff table as he ate, eyes trained on Yaxley, who was talking stiffly to Professor Flitwick. We've got you now, you death eater bastard… he thought savagely. They would have their evidence for Dave and Bill on Friday, make no mistake about it.

He was distracted all throughout their classes on Friday and accidentally produced a flock of white birds in transfiguration that he had no idea how he'd managed.

Sylvie Smethwyck delighted in this and managed to capture one, stroking it gently in her arms as it beat its wings to escape.

"James Potter, what is the matter with you?" McGonagall said crossly, vanishing the birds at random with her wand. "Oh don't be so silly Mary, it won't hurt you." She said, vanishing the bird that had settled on Mary's desk and then vanishing the mess it had left there too (which seemed to be the real issue at hand).

They ate a hasty early dinner in the great hall ("honestly, you'll give yourselves indigestion!" Lily Evans said), and then grabbed James' cloak and set off down the passageway behind the statue of Steve the Smarmy.

They moved more quickly this time as they knew where they were going. Sirius made no more insensitive remarks about the tunnel to the shack and they made their way down the hill into the village again. As it was nearly summer it was still quite light so they could see where they were going. They found a little shop to hide behind as the clock in the town centre read eight thirty. They still had half an hour to wait for Yaxley's arrival.

"Well well well, look who it is." Came a loud voice from behind them making James jump and turn around.

It was 'Dave and Bill'. The aurors they had met behind a flutterby bush at Hogwarts who were paid to spy on Yaxley.

"You boys really take your jobs seriously." The larger of the men, Dave, said, grinning broadly at them.

"Yeah, you're going to put us both out of work." The other man, thin and balding, said.

"What do you know?" Sirius asked them excitedly. "Do you know what they're meeting to talk about?"

"Look, laddy," 'Bill' said, clapping a hand on Sirius' shoulder. "Your Professor Yaxley is a fully qualified wizard. And if he's doing something he shouldn't be he won't be happy to be found out. I think it's best if the four of you go back up to the castle. However you got here."

"But you said we could help!" James told him, feeling distinctly underappreciated.

"You've been great." The other man said. "But now it's time for us to do our jobs."

"Oh can't we just watch?" Sirius pleaded.

The larger man turned to him. "No." He said firmly. "It's more than our job's worth to let you hang around. I want you to go back to the castle right now. And we'll know if you've done it. We are aurors, you know. You can't kid us."

James and the others looked at one another. Then they sighed. "Alright." James said grudgingly. "But you have to tell us what you find."

"Yeah, it works both ways." Sirius added. "I had to spend two weeks with my awful family over Easter for you. It's only fair you keep us posted."

The men grinned at one another then back at the boys. "Never known kids as interfering as you before." One of them said but he didn't sound angry. "Alright then. Consider it done. Now go, now, or we'll hex you. And believe me, we know them all."

So saying goodbye to the aurors, James and the others headed back up to the castle.

They arrived just before nine and sat in the common room, James staring out of the window, wondering what might be happening now, whether Yaxley was being arrested. Would there be a fight? He longed more than anything to be there and be a part of it.

"I feel so bloody useless." Sirius said, speaking James' thoughts aloud. "Just because we're kids doesn't mean we can't be helpful."

"Not everyone sees it that way." James said. "I guess we'll just have to be patient."

It wasn't until eleven thirty that they finally had a message from the aurors. The piece of parchment they used to communicate with them gave its customary alert sound and Sirius ran over to it, tapping his wand, saying the password and his name and reading the message that was written. James moved over to have a look too. It read:

Helpful evening. Lots we have learned. Don't worry boys, you'll have a new defence teacher by the end of term. Sweet dreams, Dave and Bill.

"Well that's about as useful as a chocolate cauldron." Sirius said crossly. "Don't tell us anything. Let us spy for you, do all the hard work for you and you just go and do all the fun stuff."

"It doesn't sound like fun." Peter said. "If you're right and Yaxley's a death eater, fighting him won't be fun at all."

Sirius stared at him incredulously. "Pettigrew, sometimes I wonder if you and I are a different species. I can't possibly imagine anything in life that I would enjoy more than taking down sodding Yaxley."

James had to agree with Sirius. It surely would be brilliant proving to the world that their DADA professor, the man who had caused his friend so much pain, who was meeting known death eaters in run down pubs, was a death eater himself. He knew the wizarding world still saw them as irritating kids but James knew they were more than that. Sirius was right, it would be fun to try and take him down and if they succeeded it would be quite the most brilliant thing he could imagine.

….

A/N: Big thanks to neverenoughmarauders for her help with this chapter. Fleshing out Sirius' personality can be tricky and her help has been invaluable. Her story is also well worth checking out too!