A muggle-born Slytherin whose parents are terrified of her.
A pureblood Gryffindor whose parents are disappointed in him.
The arrival of her Hogwarts letter was meant to make everything better.
Asteria Halloway finally had an explanation for her p...
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"Please, Sirius, you can't go."
Asteria begged, gripping onto the boy's hand and desperately trying to convince him to stay. She knew (despite the irony) that Sirius' favourite days were those of the full moon where he could spend the night hedonistically exploring the grounds in his animagus form. That's how Asteria knew there was little hope she could convince him and the other Marauders to stay out of the Forbidden Forest that night.
Once Asteria had informed the group of the Death Eater's plan, the group had tried desperately to get any teacher's attention on the matter. However, nobody wanted to believe there was any threat within the castle walls. Even Professor McGonagall, who had entertained the possibility of their predicament, had only sent an owl to Dumbledore under the instructions that they would get a response in the next couple of days.
"Don't you understand? We could use the full moon to our advantage. If what you say is true, Moony could scare everyone away as a werewolf so the Death Eaters can't attack." Sirius shrugged casually.
It didn't make any sense. Not so long ago Avery had sent a curse at Asteria. The result of that action caused Sirius to become enraged with such anger that he was almost unrecognisable. Yet, here were people in the same state of risk that Asteria had been in and Sirius didn't seem fazed in the slightest.
"Explain what happened again." James spoke out. He seemed to be the most understanding of the urgency of the situation.
Asteria took a deep breath, "There's a plan, organised by some students in Slytherin who have secretly become Death Eaters - supporters of that dark wizard. Filch is taking some second year Gryffindors into the Forbidden Forest for a detention tonight. The Death Eaters are going to practice the spell Snape created on the students to check it works. Then they'll attack the whole school, like a cleansing. It's sick that these students have been brainwashed in such a way and we need to stop it before they regret what they've done. Not only are those Gryffindors in danger, it's the full moon. You guys could just be protecting Remus but then get accidentally hit with a curse. Or Remus could attack one of the students, how would he feel if that happened?"
"We could just attack the Slytherins ourselves? If they're going to kill students, surely they need to be willing to sacrifice their own lives for that kind of action." Sirius spoke quietly, his voice falling flat and eerily monotone.
"Are you insane?" Asteria countered, "We can't let anybody die. I don't think we should try to control that."
"None of those students deserve to die." James agreed, messing up his hair with one hand whilst throwing his golden snitch into the air and catching it again with the other. "Then what do we do?"
Several hours later, darkness cloaked the grounds of Hogwarts. The only sounds that emerged was the faint creaking of the towering trees that lined the Forbidden Forest. A glimmer of light trickled down from the moon to illuminate the silhouette of a small bird perched on a pumpkin just at the edge of the forest. Slowly, the white hummingbird turned its head from watching the shadows of the trees to see a rather large black dog bounding down the hill towards it.
