The Marauders Story

Marauding Marauders Chapter ~ 18

YEAR 4

"JAMES! JAMES!"

James was sitting in the Gryffindor common room, doing his charms homework when he heard Peter Pettigrew calling his name. He looked up from the essay he'd been working on and motioned for his chubby friend to come over.

"What is it Wormtail?" James asked "Did you find someone to help us work on the..." He looked around and whispered "...map?"

"No!" Peter objected "Look at the latest news article from The Daily Prophet!"

James took the news paper out of his friend's hand and began to skim through the article on the front page. Sirius, who had been sitting on the other end of the table, looked over his shoulder to see the contents of the article as well.

"There have been over twenty recent sightings of a slim, skinny, faceless man with a suit lurking in many different forests across the world. Muggles and wizards who had embarked into these forests to see this strange creature for themselves have not come out since stepping foot into the masses of trees. The select few who had managed to leave the woods have reported sightings of mysterious notes that had been stuck to the trees, notes such as "help me" or "Don't look or it takes you", but they soon died several days later in their sleep. The corpses of many children have been found hanging from trees or drowned in rivers. Who could this mysterious faceless killer be? The public have decided to name it, Slenderman." James finished reading and took a deep breath.

"And this was in The Daily Prophet right Wormtail?" Sirius asked.

"Yes! And this Slenderman killer could come after us too!" Peter whimpered.

"Nonsense" Came a familiar voice. Remus Lupin entered through the portrait hole, into the Gryffindor common room "Absolute rubbish, how illogical. This "Slenderman" fellow is nothing but a made up hoax, made to persuade you to buy useless merchandise." Lupin declared.

"Oi Remus how would you know that? We live in a world of magic! Anything is possible here!" James said.

"Magic at least has a bit of logic behind it, but this rubbish story just sounds like that Bigfoot shenanigan." Remus said while flipping through his charms textbook.

"Oh shut up with your logic. Magic has just as much logic as a flying pig! If this is so fake to you, how do you explain all these deaths!" Sirius demanded.

"The forests are probably infested with some kind of disease, anyone can drown in a river and hanging yourself from a tree is a popular form of suicide." Remus stated.

"Then explain the notes!" Peter urged.

"Pranksters obviously" Remus sighed.

"Well I am 200% sure that this is all true, and I'm going to prove it to you!" James shouted.

Remus looked up from his textbook and glared at James "Oh really? Fine. Tonight we'll go out into the Forbidden Forest and search for Slenderman. If he's in any forest, he's bound to be in there. And I doubt he could resist catching a few children who are out alone. If nothing happens, then I'm right. If we do spot him, we run as fast as we can and get help from the professors, deal?"

James smirked "Deal. But instead of getting help, we'll capture him and end the snot-bag once and for all!"

"What's this I hear about snot-bags?" Another familiar voice came from the portrait hole as the red haired Lily Evans came through. "Sounds like we're talking about Potter." she said smugly.

"No, for your information, we were talking about Slenderman." James explained.

"Slenderman you say? What about it?"