The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Filch's Chase

Filch's Chase

Peter seemed to teeter for the longest of seconds before actually tipping over the edge and disappearing into the darkness below, arms flailing about as he went, a look of pure shock on his face... and then, just like that, gone into the darkness.

"PETER!" bellowed Remus, running, coming to a stop just at the edge of the pit's gaping maw.

Sirius seemed frozen in place.

James, however, didn't even think twice. He ran as fast as he could, leaping over the edge and following after Peter, pure adrenaline powering him forward. "James! No! Wait!" Remus shouted, trying, and failing, to catch onto James's robes to stop him. "Ohhh Merlin! That's two of 'em down there!"

Sirius stared on, jaw dropped, unable to believe what he'd just seen. "Do we go get Dumbledore you think?" Sirius asked, voice edging on terror. "I dunno what he's going to do about it by the time we got him, they'd be splattered like bugs at the bottom. If there is a bottom. Oh bloody hell, what if Peter's right about bottomless pits that go right to the center of the earth? What do we do?" he asked.

Remus, for once, was utterly clueless and just stared back at Sirius with a look of fear in his eyes.

James fell... and as he fell he realized that in the moment of adrenaline that had made him run forward to rescue Peter, he'd thrown down both his broomstick and his wand. What he wouldn't do for either of those things now! He couldn't see a thing, it was all dark. It took just a moment, but then he felt the wall slowly come up behind him and catch him and curve slightly and suddenly instead of falling he was sliding. The stone had become a sort of chute that carried him down, but slowly less down, and then around a corner, and it evened out. He could see a patch of light ahead and the silhouette of Peter ahead of him. He was just about to call out to Peter, when he tumbled out of sight. A moment later, James found why as the chute came to an end and he slid out of it and found himself deposited neatly into a bin on top of Peter.

Peter was shaking so hard that he seemed to vibrate.

James sat up, shaking himself off to reorient himself with his surroundings, and realized that even if he hadn't landed on Peter's pudgy form, it would still have been a soft landing as the bin they were in contained sheets and duvets. By the color of them, he was guessing they were from Ravenclaw. He craned his neck to look over the edge of the bin. "It's some sort of laundry room," he announced, glancing about. "Peter, look. It's the laundry room. That must be where all the dirty laundry goes."

Peter refused to look. He had his hands covering his eyes and had curled himself into a little ball in the midst of the blankets and bed clothes.

James struggled to turn around and stared back up the chute they'd fallen down. "REMUS? SIRIUS?" he called as loud as he could. There was no answer. "IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, WE'RE ALRIGHT!"

"Sp - sp - speak for yourself," Peter whimpered.

"You're alright," James answered. "C'mon, we gotta figure out how to get out of here." Luckily, his bookbag had been slung 'round his shoulders, so he did still have the invisibility cloak. That was a break. He didn't know where in the castle the laundry room was, but he was willing to bet it was further than he and Peter could've gotten without being caught by Filch while visible. James climbed out of the bin and looked around.

Robes, shirts, school ties, socks, sheets, bed clothes and more were simply washing themselves by magic. He watched as a set of green Slytherin robes dunked themselves into a wash tub, scrubbed themselves against the board, wrung out and flew across the room to a long clothes line, where two eager pins held them fast to the line. Warm air was blowing from the ceiling at the clothes on the line, drying them quickly. From there, James noticed clothes that were already dried were folding up as they dropped into baskets across the room. It was quite mesmerizing to watch and James wondered who had set it all up and how. "Blimey," he whispered. "My mum would kill for a wash room like this!"