Partners in Crime || PJOxHP || Marauders' Era

A Reply

Lily and Alice came to the Great Hall, panting. They looked around at the Gryffindor table, trying to find their friend. The two were wearing their Hogwarts uniform already. Only three students sat at the Gryffindor table at that moment- Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Jessica Potter.

Jessica was sitting a few meters away from the boys so that she wouldn't have to engage in conversation with them. Lily ran to the girl. "Where have you been?"

Jessica calmly poured her milk into her cereal. "Woke up early," she said. "Went to the Owlery, and having breakfast now." Jessica visited the Owlery almost every day, looking for the owl that she had sent to come with her reply.

"Couldn't you have told one of us?" Alice grumbled, sitting opposite Jessica.

"You were sleeping," Jessica replied. Her mind wasn't really in the conversation. She was thinking about her dream. Kronos had said something about the Fleece- Golden Fleece. If the daughter of Zeus does not join us, he had said.

"Jessica!"

"What?" the girl looked up. 

"Are you alright?" Lily asked. Her green eyes shone with concern.

"Yeah, yeah," Jessica lied, smiling. "Bad sleep is all. You know, new bed."

"Right," Lily said, although still looking unsure.

***

"Where's Marlene?" Jessica asked, hoping to change the topic. 

"Oh, she got lost somewhere on third floor," Alice said. "It was Lily's plan."

Lily grinned evilly. "Well, she lied to me about the sorting."

"But that was like a year ago!" Jessica sighed, "I'm sure she can find her way out."

"I wouldn't be too sure," Alice said. Jessica knew that she was right. 

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. 

Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. 

The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop waste-paper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!'"

Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. He was suspicious of everything that moved in the castle, which was saying something, because everything in the castle literally moved. Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp-like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. 

Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

*** 

"Hey, sista!" James called, striding into the Great Hall.

"Morning, James," Jessica replied weakly.