That Saturday morning, the Gryffindor common room was empty. The portraits on the walls looked relaxed, with their eyes closed, probably enjoying the uncustomary calmness.
The rays of sunshine that came in through the windows, illuminating the room, highlighted the red hue of the wall tapestry and the velvet of the armchairs.
There was a very unusual serenity in the room, in which one could hardly ever not hear the rowdy clamour of the Gryffindors, or at least, the murmur of the last people that stayed at night before going to sleep, talking quietly.
The silence was a result of most of the students being at the Great Hall, taking advantage of there being no classes to have breakfast later and more calmly than the weekdays.
However, not everybody had descended to the Great Hall; one of the dormitories, to which one of the staircases led, was occupied by four boys. They were the only ones who had stayed inside, instead of following the crowd.
The dormitory was circular and spacious, with the five beds attached to the grey walls, forming a circle around the centre. There was considerable space between each bed, where there were long crystal windows and little bedside tables.
The room was mainly built with stone for the structure and wood for the furniture, but it was adorned with tapestries, curtains and carpets, which gave the predominant colour of the room, scarlet red.
The four-poster beds had heavy red curtains that hung around them, now open and collected at a side with their gilded ropes. The curtains of the windows, red with a golden finish, were open too, to let the morning light come in. At the foot of each bed there was a copper trunk, and the floor at the centre of the room was covered by two thick carpets. At some point during their stay there, one of the boys must have added several posters around his bed, which displayed moving images of Quidditch players flying through the skies on their brooms, with their cloak flailing behind them, chasing a small golden ball, or throwing another bigger and darker ball in a perfect shot.
All in all, the dormitory would seem welcoming and pleasant, if it weren't for the big disorder that had been established over the last two weeks.
The beds were unmade, with the sheets and blankets of three of them hanging over the sides and falling onto the floor. There was more than one pillow lying carelessly on the floor. Only one trunk, the only one on which the initials hadn't been carved carefully but in a rushed manner, fulfilled its function of keeping the clothes inside correctly. Two other trunks kept all kinds of things inside except clothes, and they were beside the beds whose columns had scarves, cloaks and robes hanging with no harmony. Spread out over a trunk which read 'S.B.,' there was a mantle with the emblem of Gryffindor embroidered.
To make matters worse, this morning the disorder had been increased with several bags and baskets that contained chocolate gateaus, custard tarts, cinnamon rolls, and even Yorkshire pudding with fried eggs, scattered around the room.
The four boys had taken out of some drawers the provisions that they kept for the days in which they couldn't or didn't want to go eat with the rest of the school, and now the packages of food laid on the floor and the beds, almost all of them empty and forgotten, since they had probably finished eating enough, or even someone more than enough.
On one of the beds closest to the door — the one on the right side of the dormitory — laid Remus, wrapped in a blanket. He looked rather sickly; he was pallid and feeble, but his friends knew that he could get much worse as his worst day of the month approached.
There was a week left for that day, the one of the first full moon of the year, and since that morning they had noticed that he didn't feel well when he said that he wasn't going to go down for breakfast, they had all decided to stay with him to keep him company.
The two beds on the left side were unoccupied, although the furthest from the door had several lumps on the blanket, which was dispersed over the edge, and its respective trunk was half open revealing the chaos inside.
On the bed opposite to the entrance, between sheets, food bags, and Quidditch equipment, laid the famous Chaser and Captain of the Gryffindor team.
James had his hands under his head in a casual posture, and the legs supported, one feet over the other, by his flying broom, which was floating motionless half a meter over his bed. He was looking at the ceiling of the room with a smile, lost in his thoughts.
His friend Sirius was sprawled over his own bed, the adjacent to James'. He was raised by the pillows under his back, with his head resting on the dark headboard of cedar wood.
'What Animagus form will you guys be?' asked the smallest and chubbiest of the four suddenly, from the stretch of floor between Sirius and James' beds, where he was sitting with his legs crossed.
James fell off his cloud abruptly, and looked at Peter, who was observing him eagerly.
'You can't choose your Animagus,' James clicked his tongue, tired of the little attention of Peter.
Peter lowered his eyes somewhat ashamed and disenchanted.
'If we could choose our Animagus form,' intervened Remus, sitting up with his elbows and looking at his friends, 'you can rest assured everyone'd be adorable puppies. Or magnificent animals, like eagles, lynxes...'
'I'd be a lion,' said Sirius, grinning satisfied, looking out of the window, thinking about something external to the boys, probably related with annoying his family being extremely Gryffindor.
'Realistically, the Animagus form is closely linked to your personality,' Remus pointed out.
'Basically, what he's trying to say is that I'd be the lion,' said James, thoroughly convinced.
The two boys, Sirius and James, were brave and rebellious, so they both pondered the idea of being lions on their Animagus form.
'Don't think that just because you're Gryffindors you'll have a lion Animagus,' insisted Remus, making Sirius and James look at him pretending to be offended. 'Not even you, and you are about as Gryffindor you can get,' he added, chuckling. 'The lion is very unusual. And anyway, the Animagus form is very specific to each person. You'd have to take into account your most individual characteristics.'
Peter, who had been listening to his friends agape, asked another question enthusiastically.
'What d'you think I'll be?'
The other three examined him for some silent seconds.
'A rat,' proposed Sirius, making James fall about.
Peter closed his mouth, confused, thinking about whether that'd be bad or not.
Remus rolled his eyes and lied on his bed, with his back to them again.
'Before you talk about your Animagus form, you should make sure that you'll be able to complete the transfiguration,' was the last thing he said, before he fell asleep due to the fatigue that he had on occasions when the full moon approached.
![](https://img.wattpad.com/cover/210780206-288-k148393.jpg)
YOU ARE READING
Meeting the Marauders (Sirius Black)
Fanfiction❝ 'Lily... That's unfair. I try to hold back, but if you do that... I fail miserably,' whispered James. Lily stared at him dumbfounded and almost dropped his glasses. ❞ ❝ 'There's a lot of things I wanna do to you, but I don't think any of them is a...