The Marauders: Year Four

Petrificus Totalus

Petrificus Totalus

James was laying across his bed, head over the footboard, legs up on the headboard, the paper crown Peter had put on his head earlier in the evening tilted a bit crooked but still on his head, his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook open on his angled lap, butterbeer halfway to his lips... Peter came in the room, humming, looking quite pleased with himself. James lowered the bottle, a grin playing upon his face as he watched Peter shuffle happily across the room to his bed. "Alright, Pete?" he asked.

Peter looked up, seemingly startled by James's presence in his own bed. "Yeah," he said, "Yeah... I'm alright."

"Brilliant," James said. He watched Peter turn down his bedclothes and crawl under the duvet, resuming his humming. James's lip was hung up on his tooth as he grinned and he ran his tongue over the tooth, and thought errantly of Lily and how important that funny quirk to his smile had been to her, but he pushed it out of his mind, returning his focus on Peter. "So my birthday party went well for you, then, mate, 'ey?"

Peter looked over, "It was wonderful!" he answered. "James, she kissed me!" He sounded in awe of the thought that a girl would want to kiss him. His cheeks were flushed and the tip of his round little nose.

"Good on you, Pete," James said, and he meant it.

Peter fell into good dreams rather quickly and James lay awake staring up at the window, at the stars beyond the glass, thinking about being fifteen and what it meant to be growing up. They were halfway through their time at Hogwarts already - it seemed like just yesterday he was going positively bonkers over boarding the Express for the first time and so much had changed since then. It was the sort of reflecting one ought to do on one's birthday - particularly on a milestone birthday like fifteen.

When the thinking got too deep for him, he stirred and looked over at Peter, who was smiling even in his sleep, hugging on his pillow like it was Annalee herself, and James smirked. Beyond him was Remus's unmade, empty bed. He wondered how Remus was doing out there in the Shrieking Shack, if he was alright all alone or if he was laying out there scratching his own skin off and he felt bad for having been selfish and staying inside... so he decided to go out and check on him.

James rolled off the bed and scooped the Marauder's Map up from the desks and slipped out the door and into the common room. The fire was dying in the hearth, ashes falling from the spent logs, and he tiptoed by in the glow of moonlight pooling on the carpet, the Map tucked into his belt. The portrait hole swung open and James climbed through to the corridor beyond and was halfway down the grand stairs, headed down to the entrance doors to sneak out to the whomping willow and on to the Shack, when he heard somebody crying.

James instinctively ducked down behind the rungs of the stairwell, and peered down into the entrance hall below, where the crying was coming from. Stained glass windows coloured the moonlight various shades of red and green in a pattern of the Hogwarts Crest on the flagstones, long tapestries framing the doors to the Great Hall... a large plant with funny turnip looking fruit stood in the corner (he remembered tripping over that thing's fruit the night that Snape had done the sectumsempra curse on him), but he didn't see any person down there that could be crying.

Intrigued, he crept on, down to the hall, and he peered 'round the end of the rungs, looking out over the room. Light spilled out from the parlor room beside the Great Hall - just a crack from a slightly open door. James presumed the crying was coming from there and, being quite nosey, he crept forward, reaching up and pulling the paper crown from his head as he walked. He put it down on a bench by the doors to the Great Hall and leaned 'round a small trophy case that held the house cup and pressed himself to the wall just beside the door, listening.