𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐀 | 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬

✧ chapter 7 ✧

1976

The first feast of the school year dragged on, as it usually did. After a while the novelty of the sorting ceremony wore off and it became a tiresome bore. The twelve Gryffindor sixth years sat in a group at their table, the four boys on one side and the four girls on the other with Alyssa, Morwenna, Lillian and Alice still electing not to sit within throwing distance of the Marauders, a little further down the table in their own group. They clapped halfheartedly whenever a new Gryffindor was announced and studied the enchanted ceiling or the long tables in the intervals. Sirius busied himself carving his initials deeply into the worn surface of the table with a pocket knife he always carried. Remus attempted to hide the book he was reading under the table. James divided his time evenly between staring at Lily, and making irritating popping sounds with his cheeks. Peter stared off into space, daydreaming of the feast to come. Lily, like James, divided her time evenly between ignoring Potter and attempting to look engaged and interested. Mary sat slumped over the table with her chin resting on her hands. Marlene had decided to use this time to reshape and buff her nails. She'd just finished her second hand and produced a bottle of bright red nail polish from her robes. Aurora was using the lengthy sorting period to catch up on meditation. She sat cross legged on the crowded bench and was whispering positive affirmations to herself in order to put herself into the right frame of mind to succeed in her sixth year.

Finally, the sorting ended, and Dumbledore signalled for the feast to begin. There was an audible sigh of relief from everyone in the room as a lavish feast materialised in front of their eyes. Aurora, who at home lived off a strict plant based and organic diet, mostly things harvested from her parents' garden, and only ate eggs that their chickens laid, was the first to dig in, immediately piling her plate high with mashed potatoes and gravy, boiled peas and roast chicken. Her diet back home was less about the animal rights and more so that her parents hated wastage. They believed that store-bought foods were far too processed and half the product would be thrown out at the factory. They preferred to harvest all their own food so they knew where all of it came from and where it all went. Aurora agreed with these principals, and thus took it upon herself to singlehandedly devour the entire feast so that none of it was wasted.

After a lengthy dinner, followed by an abundance of rich deserts which Aurora was adamant about trying all of, the eight retired to Gryffindor tower for the night. On their way up, Lily was accosted by a very sheepish Severus Snape. James immediately stepped in front of her defensively but Lily brushed him off.

"Lily, can we talk? Did you get my letters? I tried- "Severus was cut off mid-sentence by Lily herself, who had stuck her nose in the air and sniffed deeply.

"Aurora, do you smell something?" Lily sniffed again. The others caught on quickly and began sniffing as well, all muttering in agreement.

"The air is rather stale."

"Something rather pungent is indeed wafting through the hallways."

"I can't quite place my finger on the smell."

Towards the end of fifth year, around the time they were all sitting their OWL's, Severus and Lily had the fallout to end all fallouts. Lily stood up for Severus when James and Sirius were tormenting him, as usual, only this time he didn't take too kindly to it and stated that he 'didn't need help from a filthy mudblood'. Lily stormed off, humiliated and fuming with rage and immediately after Sirius, Remus and Peter had all drawn their wands, ready to hex him into oblivion. However, James beat them all to the punchline, quite literally, as he chose the good old fashioned muggle way and punched Severus square in his beak like nose. Severus spent the next few days in the hospital wing with a minor concussion and a deviated septum. James got off a lot better, only breaking two fingers and bruising his knuckles, which Remus quickly mended for him. After that Lily's attitude towards James changed; she still thought he was a prat, because in all honesty, he was, but she found it more endearing as opposed to irritating. She even took him aside before dinner one night to formally thank him for his chivalrous actions and rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek. Upon their entrance to the great hall the remaining Gryffindor's couldn't help but giggle as Lily was blushing profusely and James looked like all his Christmases had come at once.

Ever since the incident the eight all pretended like Snape didn't even exist whenever he was around or attempted to make contact with Lily. The only other attention he received from the Gryffindor's was when the Marauders couldn't resist sending a particularly nasty hex his way. Aurora was also on the offensive, insisting on conducting a pagan ritual at midnight on the first full moon since the incident. It required the four girls to push all the furniture from their dorm to the edges of the room and set up candles in the shape of a star. She then tipped out salt on to the floor to form the shape of a pentagram with a candle at each point. In the centre of the star Aurora placed an advanced potions text book, a photo of Lily with a broken heart drawn over the top of it and a lock of Snape's hair which she had stolen during potions. The idea was to place an item from the person who was harmed (Lily), an item from the person who did the harm (Snape) and an item the perpetrator holds dear to them. In this case the token of Lily acted as the victim and something Snape held dear to him, they also added the potions book for good measure. The salt represented the pain they wanted Snape to feel, as if they were rubbing salt into his wounds. The candles were to attract the spirits. Mary, Marlene and Lily all thought Aurora was stark raving mad, but humoured her anyway and agreed to take part in the ritual. They all sat in a circle around the makeshift altar and held hands while Aurora muttered incoherently. The other girls tried their best to contain their laughter, but one look at Aurora's ridiculous turban made from a plaid pyjama shirt and tied on with a Gryffindor scarf and they were all set off into uncontrollable fits of giggles. To conclude the ritual each girl had to pick up a candle, smear the salt from the point they had removed the candle from and blow it out. Almost immediately after the girls had blown out their candles and were plunged into darkness, a howl was heard off in the distance as if on cue. The howl scared the pants off Mary, who spilt candle wax all over the floor which mixed in with the salt, only adding to the mess. Aurora explained that this ritual was designed to send bad karma to Snape. Marlene explained that she thought it was complete and utter bollocks. Lily explained that she thought it had just made a huge mess.

"Perhaps Mrs. Norris has urinated in the hallways again?" Sirius offered helpfully, sniffing the air once more, then giving an exaggerated grimace as if he had smelt something so offensive he couldn't believe his nostrils.

"Maybe a first year ate too much pudding and has emptied the contents of their stomach on the moving staircases?" Peter added, earning looks of disgust from everyone at the thought. James inhaled deeply through his nose and pretended to faint from the fumes, slumping dramatically into Remus' arms. Remus rolled his eyes at the theatrics, but caught him nonetheless. 

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it won't follow us to Gryffindor tower." Lily shot icily, staring straight through Snape as she continued down the hallway.