The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Filch's Office

Filch's Office


James woke up to find he and Sirius were still sitting in the chair by the fire in the common room. Sirius's head leaned again James's shoulder and his hair fell over his eyes, which were puffy and red from crying. The fire was slowly dying in the hearth and outside the sky was a faint purple-color, the first vestiges of light coming through the clouds over the Forbidden Forest. It was still silent in the Gryffindor dormitories, but James could tell it wouldn't be long before everyone would be up. "Sirius," he whispered, rousing his friend, "We gotta go up to the dorm before everyone wakes up. C'mon, mate."

Sleepily, Sirius followed James up the steps to their beds, where James helped him climb up onto the mattress and carefully tucked him in. He felt very protective of his friend, fiercely – like he would go to war and win against a whole herd of giants if that's what it took to keep him safe from whatever had scared him during the night. Sirius drifted back to sleep the moment his head hit the pillow and James swept the hair off his forehead before crawling back into his own bed and tugging the blankets up to his chin.

It seemed as though his eyes had only been closed a second when he heard Remus's voice. "Oi, you guys better get up, we're gonna be late to Defense." James roused as Remus shook his shoulder. "James. Sirius. Get up."

"Shh," James grumbled, rubbing his eyes and sitting up blearily. He chucked his pillow at Peter's back to stop him from shaking Sirius. "Don't wake him up. We've been up all night, Sirius was – er, sick." James didn't feel like it was his place to tell them Sirius had been having night terrors. Being sick somehow seemed alright, though.

"We're going to be late to class," Remus replied.

James grabbed his glasses off the nightstand and shoved them onto his nose, "Go on without us. I think we're gonna skive off to sleep."

Peter looked at Remus.

"McGonagall will hear about it, though, you know she's not going to approve of you two skivving off class," Remus said, frowning.

James shrugged, "Sirius was sick. I'll explain it to her when she gets ear of it. I'll do the detentions if she's got a problem with it, too."

"But -"

"It's not your problem, is it?" James demanded, "You two go on to class so she's not angry with all of us, and when Tutman asks just tell him I've brought Sirius to Madam Pomfrey's."

Remus frowned, hesitant to listen to James's command – partly because he wasn't certain he wanted to be that close to alone around Tutman just yet, given what he sort of partway knew about the teacher – but he couldn't really force James or Sirius to go to class and he would be rubbish in fighting James, that much he knew, so he waved to Peter, "C'mon, Peter, let's go."

Peter glanced between James and Remus and down at Sirius, still asleep, and followed Remus out of the room and down the hall, tugging his book bag over his head as he ran.

James looked over at Sirius as their footsteps faded off down the stairs and slowly laid back into his pillow and fell back to sleep. It was several hours later when he opened his eyes again and the sunlight was streaming in the window, filling up the room. Sirius was sitting up on his bed already, his Charms book open on his lap, waving his wand and practicing a simple shield charm quietly. When he spotted James's opened eyes, he said, "Morning." He lowered his wand and closed his text book.

"Morning," replied James.

The happenings of the night before seemed to hang between them, as though each were waiting for the other to say something about it, neither being sure what would be best to say. James sat up and crossed his legs and stared down at his toes, which he held in his hands, keeping his legs bent up like a pretzel. Sirius cleared his throat. "Thanks," he said meekly, "For – you know – last night. Being understanding and... and all."

James nodded, "Anytime, Sirius," he replied. "You're my best mate." He hesitated, unsure what else would be appropriate to say, and then he offered, "If you ever want to, you know, talk about it... I'm here to listen, alright? I won't butt in or anything, but just so you know. If you want to, I'm here."

Sirius nodded.

James got up and walked over to his desk. He started to pick up his own Charms book, but his eyes fell on the box holding the invisibility cloak, still sitting on his desk, where they'd left it after they'd shown Peter the cloak's abilities the night before. He turned back to Sirius. "Do you want to give the cloak a go?" he suggested.

Sirius looked up, a grin spreading slowly over his face.





It wasn't easy, walking with both of them under the invisibility cloak. Neither boy was terribly short, either, so the cloak only just covered them both. They practiced walking about in the dormitory before they snuck down the stairs, through the empty common room and out into the corridor through the Fat Lady's portrait. Everyone was in their first classes, so the halls were mostly empty except for the occasional student on their way to the toilets or one of the free-period Hufflepuffs, who were wandering about.

The boys hadn't even had to discuss where they would go once they had the cloak on, but instinctively headed in the direction of Filch's office with the goal of getting their hands on the information about the secret passageways for their map of the castle. They crept along until they were only down the corridor from Filch's office and hung out there, peeping 'round the corner, trying to decide if the office was empty or not. "Have you seen Mrs. Norris any where?" James asked, and Sirius shook his head. "I wonder if cats can see through invisibility cloaks?" he wondered.

"Dunno," replied Sirius.

They waited for several long moments, and then James said, "I don't think Filch is in there."

"Shall we go for it then?" Sirius questioned.

"Alright," James agreed, and the boys counted to ten before creeping out of their hidey nook and scrambling down the hallway to Filch's office door. James pressed one ear to it, listening carefully through the thick fabric of the invisibility cloak. Not a sound stirred with in. "Sounds clear," he hissed.

Sirius pushed the door in and they stepped inside the caretaker's office.

Sirius let out a low whistle.

Filch had a very impressive collection of ancient torture devices hanging up 'round the walls with thick chains and a motley collection of prank items spilling out of a drawer in a big mahogany desk. Trick wands, bendy fish, tires, and more, all clustered together in the depths of the drawer. James slowly pulled the cloak off their shoulders so they could look about more easily, folding the cloak over his shoulders like a shawl. Sirius was opening up the drawer and rummaging around in the stuff Filch had confiscated over what had to be years.

"Right on – fanged frisbee!" muttered Sirius, taking the frisbee out and shoving it carefully into his pocket, "And dung bombs! These'll come in handy..."

As Sirius filled his pockets with prank items, James had a look around, spinning an old globe on a low bookcase filled with textbooks that looked as though they'd been magicked by crafty students – one of which was hiccuping. The windows were high and narrow and little light was let into the dusty office. Considering how uppity Filch was about dirt getting in 'round the castle, the office was awfully dank and musty, thought James. There was a filing cabinet and he reached for a handle to the drawer, opening it up. The drawer sprang out a lot longer than James had expected and it hit him in the stomach and made him stumble back several feet for the length of it. "Blimey," he laughed, pulling out a random folder. "He keeps notes on every misdemeanor ever!" He replaced the random file, which had a several notes about a student who consistently tracked in mud on their trainers, and grabbed for a thick one labeled 'Weasley, Bilius'. "Look at this, Bilius's got his own folder!"

"I've found a whole stash of Filibuster's, James!" Sirius replied.

James leafed through the impressive laundry list of pranks Bilius had committed during his career at Hogwarts. The entries ranged from the more innocent mud tracking to the extreme of Mrs. Norris's tail, touching on bewitching toilets to belch back what was flushed during his second year and sliding down moving banisters to dancing on the staff table in the Great Hall during the Yule Ball in 1969. James laughed at the idea of Bilius Weasley running a pair of knickers up the ramparts, as was described to have been done during his fifth year – funnier yet was that the knickers belonged to Lucius Malfoy. "Bilius is a bloody genius," muttered James.

Sirius appeared at his side with a pair of omnioculars he was staring through backwards to make everything look far off and bumped into James's shoulder with a chuckle. "What's that?"

"It reads like a bloody guide book to mischief," replied James proudly.

Sirius lowered the omnioculars to have a look and laughed, "That's a thick folder!" he exclaimed, then, with a grin, "I hope ours is as thick by the time we're in sixth year."

"We'd better get crackin' if we're going to keep up with Bilius," replied James with a smirk.

James started to put the folder back but Sirius stopped his hand. "Keep it. We might be able to mine it for ideas." He winked.

"Good call," James replied, and stuffed the folder into his book bag at his hip.

"Where do you reckon the map could be?" Sirius asked, looking around.

"Desk drawer?" James suggested.

They converged on the desk, each taking a separate side and pulling open the drawers. More joke shop items cluttered these, along with broken quills and dried ink wells and bits of parchment. They unfolded every bit of parchment they came upon, hoping to find a map on the opposite side. They got to the very bottom drawers before they found anything worth mentioning to one another. "Look," Sirius said, waving a list at James, "These look like passwords. Yeah, see, Gryffindor Tower – Bat Bogey Hex. That's our common room password. These must go to everything all over the castle."

"Are there prefect's toilets on there?"

"Sure are," Sirius replied, "Look, Slytherin prefect's toilet – Salazar. Figures, they use their founder's name, how bloody original."

James grinned, "At least now we can find out what Tutman was up to in the toilet!"

"Or else just see what a Slytherin toilet looks like. Could explain Snivelly's greasy hair if there's no bath in there!" laughed Sirius.

"Else none of the other Slytherins let him use it, in fear of an oil slick," James quipped.

Before Sirius could respond, there was a sound in the corridor – Filch's voice! - and James rushed to pull the invisibility cloak from 'round his shoulders as Sirius dove toward him and they raced to the corner of the room, wedging themselves between the bookcase where the hiccuping book lay and the wall. They'd only just gotten the cloak over them – in fact, Sirius was bent over making sure their trainers were under, when the door opened and Filch came in.

"Skivving off classes to muck about in the library," Filch was grumbling, "Causing trouble, no doubt, trying to look up some restricted book, were you?" He was dragging a student along behind him, "Lying about it, too... Sit. Sit." He shoved the student into a chair opposite his desk and scurried around it himself, nearly walking into the filing cabinet's open drawer, which James had forgotten to shut. Filch paused at the drawer and stared at it for a moment suspiciously. "Somebody's been here," he croaked lowly.

James was so busy worrying over Filch that he didn't even notice who the student was until Sirius elbowed him and pointed. It was Severus Snape, looking sour with his arms crossed and his greasy hair hanging long over his forehead, casting a shadow over his nose.

"I was just looking up something for homework," Snape snapped, "For Tutman's class. You can ask him. He'll verify I needed to look something up."

Filch was too busy being distracted by the open drawer, though, his eyes running over the files and James winced when he saw Filch pause at the gap where Bilius's folder should have been. He couldn't believe he forgot to close the damn drawer! Filch's lips slowly mouthed Weasley and his face turned quite red.

Severus's eyes had widened, meanwhile, and he turned to look around the office anxiously, his eyes darting 'round the room for a moment, a wild, confused look on his face. Sirius had the very unsettled feeling that perhaps Severus somehow knew they were there. He looked at James and nodded his head toward the door. They slowly inched their way away from the wall, trying very hard not to make a sound.

Filch turned around and glowered at Severus a moment. "Were you being a distraction?" he demanded, "Trying to lure me away from my office? What are you playing at?"

"A distraction?" asked Severus, looking back at Filch instead of the place where the boys had been, "A distraction for what? I told you, I was trying to look something up for Defense Against the Dark Arts, that's it." He glowered right back at Filch.

"Well somebody's been in my files!" snapped Filch, "Somebody's been rummaging about in my office!"

James and Sirius were nearly to the door.

"I didn't have anything to do with that," Severus snapped angrily, "I was just trying to use a bloody library."

"Before it was opened!" shouted Filch. He paused at the sound of a knock at the door. Sirius had reached out and rapped his fist against it in hopes of making Filch open it up. Severus turned around and glared at the spot where they were, twisted in his chair. "I'm busy!" Filch snarled, "Who could possibly – with a student – how can I be expected to – punishments are never doled fairly – should've let me keep my chains – bloody interruptions..." Filch stormed 'round the desk to the door and Severus's eyes narrowed at the empty air by the doorway as Filch flung open the door to reveal nobody was in the corridor. "PEEVES!" shouted Filch, overcome with rage, unsure which he was more angry over – Peeves, the idea that Bilius Weasley had stolen his file, or the trespass in the library. He shook with anger and rushed into the hall. "SHOW YOUR SELF, POLTERGEIST, OR I'LL HAVE YOU THROWN OUT OF THIS CASTLE ---" his voice echoed down the empty corridor.

Severus knew James and Sirius had been in the room, but how and where was another question. James's thoughts were as clear to him as a radio transistor now, whenever he was near by they simply seemed to invade Severus's head, filling his mind with the nonsense of pranks and admiration for his Lily. Nothing would've given him more pleasure than to figure out where James had been and use him as an excuse for having been caught breaking into the library...

James and Sirius ran faster than they'd ever run in their lives, panting and wheezing by the time they reached Gryffindor Tower. "BAT BOGEY HEX, BAT BOGEY HEX!" wheezed Sirius as they approached the Fat Lady, tearing off the cloak as they fell through the portrait hole and into the common room, dropping to the carpet in a heap of cloak, trainers, sweat, and giggles.

"Blimey, that was a close one," laughed James, tears of amusement in his eyes.