𝘁𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗹𝘆, james potter

-ˋ 61

CHAPTER SIXTY ONE
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-: sixth year :-

── IN WHICH THEY FIND OUT

. . .

Peter was the first to move, darting forward out of his seat and back in it quicker than a flash, one of the sheets of paper - which were actually several, stapled together - in his hands. 

Soon the others followed suit, and Tiger didn't blame them. Everyone was going to find out, if anyone else decided to look at one of the leaflets. She just sat there, resigned and defeated. 

Lily hesitated, staring down at the pieces of paper in her lap, face down so she couldn't see the writing. "I don't know.." She said. "I thought you were wanting to tell us when you were ready." 

"Just look at it, you might as well." Tiger shrugged. "Peter isn't wasting any time." She commented, and the boy in question didn't even look over, immersed in reading.

"Why aren't you getting one, James?" Olivia asked, from where she was stood, looking almost like she was surveying the scene. "Too scared to find our your perfect little girlfriend isn't so perfect?"

"It's because he already knows, dipshit." Remus rolled his eyes, staring down at the first line of the paper. "I would rather you tell me." He looked to his cousin. 

"Well seeing as Olivia's gone through all the effort of having it printed." Tiger shrugged. "We're all here aren't we, might as well have it done with."

Remus hesitated, before reading on. James turned to Tiger, only to find her completely zoned out, her hands turning in circles on her lap, trying to somehow hope that time was passing quicker than it actually was.

"Are you ok?" James mumbled to her, having to repeat his words twice more in order to break her out of whatever trance she was in. 

"Sort of... at least I don't have to do it now." Tiger replied, letting out a short, nervous laugh. "I think I'm going to take a walk, stay and do damage control?" She asked, and James nodded, watching as she got up and left the Common Room.

Waiting for the others to finish reading was almost like some form of torture. James forced himself to not watch each and every one of them, reading in to every single emotion that flickered across their faces, observing every single microexpression, worrying that whatever Olivia had written was so far away from the actual story. 

"So what she's trying to tell us is that Tiger is a murderer." Lydia said, rather flatly. She leaned forward, placing the stapled sheets of paper back down on the low table. 

"Bullshit." Sirius said, almost slamming his copy down onto the table. "There is nothing in this world that can tell me that she has killed someone." 

"James, what did she tell you? I have a feeling that this might be the majority's tale of what happened, and not necessarily the true one." Lily said, her voice a little shaky. 

Voice low enough for those around them not to hear them, but loud enough for the other six to hear him, James told them exactly what Tiger had told him weeks before. 

Lydia was almost in tears after it, Marlene draping her arm around her. Lily, Remus and Peter looked shocked, and at some point had risen out of his seat and was pacing back and forth in front of the fire. 

"I knew it was strange she wasn't talking about Leo over the summer." Remus muttered, looking up at Sirius, who was still pacing, slightly concerned. 

"And you let her go on a walk?" Sirius ranted, not exactly caring that it was James who had let her go - rather the fact that someone had let her run off. "You know her history, she disappears for Merlin knows how long."

"Sirius-" Marlene said, but stopped, watching as Remus stood up from his chair, and arm around Sirius's waist guided the boy back down into their shared sofa. 

The group watched as Remus muttered something to Sirius under his breath, directly next to his ear. Arm still swung around Sirius's waist, Remus seemed to repeating something to him, the long-haired man visibly looking less and less distressed. 

"Sirius agrees that we should wait until morning until properly panicking." Remus said, more matter-of-fact then suggestful. "If we really want to worry now, then we should go to McGonagall." 

"Tiger might not have run off?" Marlene offered, and the group seemed to consider it. "I'm not sure where she would go?"

"Shrieking Shack?" James said. "Somewhere in the woods, she knows all the passages in the castle, both in and out of it." He suggested, and they all fell silent.

The silence was broken by the sound of heels clicking, and they looked up to see Olivia approaching. "Well you all look rather glum." She said, sounding far too happy. "Oh, and looks like our little murderer ran away. Typical Tiger."

"Olivia, I don't know what you're trying to achieve, but you've got it all wrong." Lily said, and it looked, just for a minute, that Olivia was considering that fact.

But then she burst out laughing. "As if. Not that I care of anything, but the skank can go to hell. I hope she falls off the fucking Astronomy tower." Olivia turned on her heel, stalking out of the common room.

"She wouldn't, would she?" Remus asked, and the group all shrugged. Olivia's words had struck some sort of fear into them, and they got up from their chairs. 

"We should look for her. I'll go to the tower, just in case, Moony and Padfoot, you take the upper floors, Wormy and Lydia the middle, and Marlene and Lily the bottom floors." James instructed, naturally taking position as leader of the group.

But whilst her friends began searching the entire school for her, Tiger was walking up a small flight of stairs, past a gargoyle statue and stepping into an office. 

"Good evening Miss Howell. I must say, it is rather late." The extremely calm voice said, and Tiger sat down in the chair across from the speak, hands folded in her lap. 

"Professor Dumbledore, I think I'm in trouble." She said, raising her eyes to meet the ones that hid behind half-moon spectacles, that - despite her words - seemed to twinkly in some manner.

If anyone could get her out of this, it was him. Or she hoped so, anyways.

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