The Marauders: Padfoot

"Someone Fancy Calling The Hufflepuffs?"

In every story that we are ever told as children, good always defeats evil. The one thing we're not told about is how many good must die along the way in order for the light to triumph over the dark.

We knew that things were becoming serious when we were being called to Dumbledore's office almost every day. He would introduce us to aurors and ministry workers, anyone and everyone he trusted he recruited into the order of the phoenix.

Sirius and I no longer had lessons alone, there were always order meetings, almost every day we would do something, be it discuss tactics, tell each other news on Voldemort, or even dueling practice, even Dumbledore got involved.

He showed us how to make our patronuses speak, which was useless for those who could not yet cast a patronus but very useful for relaying messages between ourselves. He taught us lots over the coming months, so much that we almost forgot that we were fighting a war. Almost.

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The fateful day arrived in May. All pupils had already been ordered up into their common rooms and told to barricade the doors, but that didn't stop us from hearing the crashes and bangs as they attacked the castle, our home.

"We can't just sit here and watch, we have to do something!" Lily exclaimed, getting up from her seat where she had been sitting in silence for the last thirty minutes.

"We knew this was coming, we just have to wait them out." Replied Marlene, who had become a lot braver these past few months.

My mind divided, I was being torn apart from inside. What if there were pupils out there, what if I could help. What if I could kill Voldemort.

Silly thinking, I know, but even if it meant risking my own life I would have done it to save my friends, the people I had known for so long and who would give up their lives for me in a heartbeat.

When heads started nodding and eyelids started dropping I silently got up and began making my way towards the door, wand poised to take down the charms and quickly recast them from the outside when I felt someone grab my wrist.

"Where do you think you're going?" Remus whispered, though his face looked as though he wanted to scream.

I glanced around, making sure that nobody was watching.

"I have to do something. I can't just sit here and let our home get torn to shreds. He'll kill every muggleborn he comes across and I can't just sit back and watch."

He guiltily glanced at the floor.

"You're right." He said.

"Then let me go."

"Not alone."

He softly padded across the floor to where James, Peter, Sirius and Lily were sprawled in the corner of the room, tapping them each gently on the shoulder to wake them.

He whispered something and within moments they were all by my side, helping me take down the charms. We did it silently and quickly, while the crashes and cracks could still be heard from downstairs.

Suddenly we all stopped, all the charms were down. I glanced around at the five pairs of nervous eyes around me before nodding and leading them out of the portrait hole.

The staircase was covered in rubble, but the fight was elsewhere, the distant noises of war echoing around us as we quickly put the charms back up to protect our fellow Gryffindors.

A rock fell before my feet and I glanced up to find the Ravenclaw members of the order peering down at us before they descended the staircase.

"Someone fancy calling the Hufflepuffs?" One of them joked and we all laughed before a jet of green light came flying past us.