Mortem . Sirius Black

chapter twelve

October 23rd – Room of Requirement

The marauders were all sitting in the room of requirement, waiting for Nephera to show up in order for her to help them with their Halloween prank. The three of them noticed that Sirius was irritated by the way his leg kept bouncing, and he kept glancing over to the door. They had gotten no answers from him regarding what Nephera and he had talked about in the forbidden forest, except the very vague "we talked about the truth" that he kept repeating. What the truth was, no one knew.

"Alright Sirius, for the love of fuck, I cannot take this any longer," exclaimed Peter "What the bloody hell happened in that forest?"

"And I swear to Godric, if you say 'the truth' again, I will hex you," threatened James

"That's what Nephera said too," added Remus

"Winchester," he spat "That's what happened to me. That wretched woman and her- and her words. And her metaphors, and her truths."

"Oh merlin," muttered James "We just opened the can of worms didn't we?" and Remus and Peter nodded

"I mean who does she think she is?" continued Sirius "She just enters someone's head and then- and then she messes everything up in there! Going on about shit like control and power, and how she respects me, and how we're equals and all that crap! Why is she such a bitch!"

"Ah yes, how dare she say that she respects you..." said Remus

"And- and asking me those questions! Why did you pull me away from Lestrange, Black? Why did you do this? Why did you do that?" he mocked "Making me think about her, bloody hell she's horrid!"

"Talking about me again? Seems like my evil plans worked after all," mused the Slytherin, walking into the room

"Nephie, Padfoot wasn't-" started James, trying to show to her that they weren't gossiping about her behind her back

"It's quite alright, Jay," she smirked back "I can understand why Black would be intimidated by a powerful woman,"

James scoffed at the use of the nickname. It annoyed him to no end, but according to the girl, as long as he kept calling her Nephie, she'd keep calling him Jay.

"Hey, I'll have you know that I am a femini-" said Sirius, but Peter interrupted him before he could get any further and start an argument

"So, about the prank!" he said, raising his voice higher than Sirius's

"Right, what is it that you need my help with?"

"We need a potion that will turn everyone into skeletons, you know, for Halloween?" explained Remus "So at first, we were thinking Polyjuice, but then we realized that skeletons don't exactly have hair. You're the best at potions right after Snape, so we thought you could help."

Nephera seemed to think for a moment before her eyes lit up "What if it's not a potion, but a spell?" she said, flicking her wrist and making a book appear on the table in front of the couch

"What's that?" asked Peter, eyeing the old and tattered book suspiciously

"Cerci's grimoire. Nicked it from the manor during the summer," she explained vaguely, flicking through the pages

"You don't mean the ancient Greek witch? From the Odyssey?" exclaimed Remus, his eyes twinkling with excitement and curiosity

"That's exactly what I mean. Muggles think that Homer was just writing fiction, but it was all true. She used a spell to turn Odysseus's crew into pigs, I figured we could just alter it a bit and it can work with skeletons too."