Marlene

17- Lightning Storm

"Marlene!" Marlene heard yelling from the bottom of the stairs to the girls dormatry.

She put her books aside and got to her feet, making her way down the stairs to see an excited looking Sirius standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"What?" Marlene asked him.

He merely pointed outside one of the windows. Rain was hammering the glass like little bullets, and as Marlene watched she saw a flash of lightning.

"What are we waiting for?" Marlene demanded, "let's go!"

Sirius grabbed her arm and they hurried out of the common room.

"Where are the others?" Marlene asked as they sprinted down the stairs towards the grounds.

"Waiting for us." Sirius replied excitedly. They didn't speak again until they met the other three down by the lake. All of them were soaked to the bone, but all looked excited.

The sky was dark, even though it was the middle of the day, and the rain was making an absolute racket on the lake.

"Go on then!" Marlene yelled so that James, Sirius and Peter could hear her.

The three boys exchanged glances and then pulled the phials with the mushy leaf potion out of their robes.

She saw all of their lips moving, chanting the spell that they had memorised, then they drank the potions.

Nothing happened.

"It didn't work!" Remus yelled to Marlene.

"Wait!" Marlene held a hand out. The three boys were making strange expressions with their faces.

Peter's features seemed to be shrinking, Sirius's face was elongating and something appeared to be growing from James's head.

In no time three animals stood in front of them. A large stag where James had stood, a rat where Peter was, and where Sirius had stood was a large black dog.

"Oh this is just perfect," laughed Marlene, "absolutely perfect!"

It was quite a slight to see the strange group. But they were all soaked to the bone and shivering, so they changed back into themselves and all hurried towards the castle.

"You know what this means?" Sirius asked as they made their way back into the entrance hall and wrung out their robes.

"Oh no," groaned Marlene.

"Oh yes. I won the bet, I didn't turn into a fish," he was grinning widley.

"What do I have to do then?" Marlene squeezed water from her hair, which was plastered to her face.

"Go on a date with me," Sirius said, then darted off after his friends. Marlene was left standing in the middle of the entrance hall, a stunned expression on her face.

She made her was back towards the common room very slowly. Hardly understanding what had just happened.

She returned to the dorm and reached absentmindedly into her trunk to grab a change of clothes.

"You look like you've just been swimming in the lake," Lily observed.

"No, I went for a walk," said Marlene.

"You went for a walk when it's raining like this?"

"Stranger things have happened."

Lily shook her head at Marlene, "you're impossible."