Is It Over Now?

Chapter Five

The heat of summer died as September draws to a close, October fast on its heels with the promise of Halloween enticingly close by. It was a holiday that didn't truly mean as much within the magical as it did the muggle, but was a good enough excuse to have a feast and hold a party afterwards, smuggled liquor from Aberforth filling the teens as much as any food. It really shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone that chaos of some sort was bound to ensue in the time between the end of September and the beginning of October, and yet no one was on guard as they left the Great Hall from breakfast to go to class.

They really should have been on some type of guard.

Remus walked with the other three Marauders, instinctively tuning out Prongs' unending rants about a certain red headed girl, the boy almost wished that she would accept his affections so at least the rest of them would no longer have to hear about it. In the back of his mind though, he almost wondered if her doing so would only make it worse in the end as he would know even more about her than before.

The four, and almost everyone else leaving the Great Hall, stopped as a strange metallic sound was heard coming closer. The Gryffindor boy smiled as everyone glanced around at one another and the halls around them until a third year Hufflepuff boy pointed to the stairs.

"Are those... slinkies ?" Remus asked, as three of the metal coils raced down the stairs, each of them a different color from the other two.

No one seemed to notice how the fifth year Slytherins had drawn closer, a Ravenclaw and sixth year Slytherin girl quickly in toe as well. No one noticed the looks shared between the six, or how Regulus pressed closer to the older boy as Remus shared a sly glance with the other two fifth year snakes.

It wasn't their business anyways.

"Looks like someone tried and failed at a prank," Sirius remarked, his laugh barking through the hall as everyone began to stir.

The metal coils met one of the lands between the sets of moving stairs and stopped as all of the Marauders, save one, laughed at what appeared to be a botched attempt, others soon joining in. Remus smiled sharply at Barty and Evan as he saw that golden coil had gotten the farthest out of the three, and reached behind Regulus's back to collect the two golden coins from the younger boys, his fingers brushing the younger Black's hips in a rather like touch that made them both shiver.

The laughter died on each of the students' lips as a deep rumbling noise was heard from within the castle from the direction that original three slinkies had come from. The stairs stopped their movements for a moment and suddenly hundreds upon thousands of the metal coils in shades of green, gold, and silver were pouring downing the stairs like a relentless wave, one after the other. There were timed duplication charms set on an easy half of them that coasted even more to be created as they colored with the others that had piled up at the bottom of one of the flights of stairs, causing the pile to grow enough that it spilled over onto the next set of stairs again and again until there was enough that the metal could spilled from the sides.

Remus laughed as the magic worked well enough that the coils had soon made their way down to the last set of stairs and were beginning to roll at students' feet. Regulus only rolled his eyes, but the pressure at the older boy's side deepend, so Remus knew that the Slytherin boy could be too annoyed by it all.

"You were saying Pads?" James asked cheekily as the bespectacled teen elbowed the other, now scowling, boy.

"Still doesn't beat anything that our Moony has come up with," Sirius protested petulantly, his arms crossed like a child as the pair stole a glance at the boy in question, not noticing how the younger Black brother had slipped away from the wolf's side.