Notes: Third part in the story of the lady Marauder. Major fluff. Marauders with mood swings! That is, not really a part important to the plot. *GASP* Yes, it has a plot! It's just not apparent yet. Well, there is a bit of one of the subplots revealed-- or maybe two of the subplots. I've lost count. Bwa ha ha ha ha!.~Draca Thanks to everyone who reviewed telling me the colour of Riddle's eyes. Green finally won. "Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sand of time." ~Longfellow *** The Marauders Part 3: Muffins and Mood Swings "Right, then.' said James, sparking his wand and lighting a candle. "What's it say?" "This is the most difficult spell I've ever seen." said Adara, running her finger down the wrinkled page. "Look! Look at this! This could take us years!" "You're such an optimist." remarked Sirius dryly. "Let me see that, will you?" He seized the huge book and pulled it into his lap. It was a bit before midnight on the day they"d managed to pilfer the Animagi text, and the five of them were seated in a circle on the floor in Moaning Myrtle"s bathroom. A long, tapered candle dripped wax into a dish in the middle of the group. "It's really dark in here." Adara said, prodding Remus, who was slowly proceeding to nod off next to her. "I don't care where, but we are definitely going to have to find somewhere better to meet then an abandoned bathroom." "I agree." said James, yawning widely. "This is simply not appropriate." He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, and Adara bonked him with a rolled-up parchment. Peter was snoring quietly against the opposite wall. She'd long ago given up trying to keep him awake. Sirius continued studying the gargantuan book. "This really might take us years. It's a potion and a spell, too." He pushed the book over to James and they leaned over it together. "Where are we gonna find all this stuff?" "Uh-oh." said Adara suddenly, reading over their shoulders. "What?" Remus asked, snapping his head up. "Look here." she said, pointing to a passage further down. "It says you don't pick what animal you become. You take the potion and do the spell and it decides for you-- what creature you're most like." "So?" asked Sirius absently, scratching his ear and turning the page. "Well... what if one of us turns into an earthworm or a-- a leech or something?" James laughed suddenly and cracked, "I can see it now. Sirius Black the goldfish." "Really, I mean it. This could be harder then I originally expected." Adara said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Or what if something goes wrong and one of us gets stuck as an animal? Or gets turned into half an animal or something like that?" She was looking increasingly nervous. "Relax, Adara." said Sirius confidently. "Who are the cleverest in our year?" "Us?"guessed Remus, while Adara bit her fingernails down to the cuticle. "Correct." affirmed Sirius, reclaiming the book from Remus. "I'm sure we'll get it right eventually." "But-" started Adara. "But me no buts!" he cried, clapping his hand over her mouth. "Mwumph mmm mmph mmm mph!" she replied indigently. Sirius removed his hand. "What was that? Didn't quite catch it." I said, "Since when are you my mother?" she told him, wiping her mouth with the back of her palm. "And I meant it." Sirius and Adara had been picking fights with each other since they'd met on the train two and a half years ago. James couldn't put his finger on it, but something about the two of them made them argue about everything down to the most minute detail. Worse, they were doing it even more now that they were spending so much time together. "Uh, listen, guys." Remus said suddenly, simultaneously managing to wake up James and Peter and distract Adara and Sirius from the brewing fight, "I gotta thank you for doing this. Nobody-and I mean nobody- could ever do anything so wonderful." His voice cracked violently, and he drew his knees up to his head and buried his face in them. His speech became muffled. "You're all great." There was silence for a moment until the four around him began exclaiming random blurbs of affection out loud. "I'd do anything for you, Remus!" declared Adara, and tears started clinging to the thick black lashes framing her unusually dark blue-violet eyes. "Of course, we all would, we're your friends!" James told him, clapping him on the back. "Yeah, Lupin old boy, you're stuck with us! For life!" Sirius added, sounding a bit choked up himself. "You can count on us, Remus!" agreed Peter. "Forever and a day!" The scene was depressing and happy at the same time. The five Marauders sat sniffling around a candle that was slowly going out, the last drops of wax running into the dish. Adara was holding Remus as he sobbed onto her shoulder, her face wet with tears that were dripping onto her robes and leaving damp polka dots. James and Sirius were making valiant attempts not to cry, but were sadly unsuccessful. Sirius was pretending to be acutely interested in tying his shoelace, and James had his face turned away from the candle and was blowing his nose into a handkerchief. Peter was weeping into the sleeve of his robes. It was not a terribly uplifting sight. Unexpectedly, the candle fizzled and went out, simultaneously plunging the bathroom into darkness and fixing the wagons of the over-emotional students crowding around it. They all became silent for about ten seconds and then burst out into near-hysterical laughter. "I can't believe it!" declared Sirius through his chuckles. "All it takes us is one day with a girl and we become snivelling idiots?" "Hey!" giggled Adara. "There's nothing wrong with being a snivelling idiot! I bet the snivelling idiots of the world are offended!" "Adara, that made absolutely no sense!" howled James, losing it completely and bursting out in guffaws. "No, no, it made plenty of sense," cried Remus. "Snivelling idiots have feelings too!" With this proclamation, he proceeded to crack up. Peter tried to say something, discovered he was laughing too hard, and that only made him laugh harder. Adara was crying again, from giggling uncontrollably, and James wordlessly handed her another handkerchief. She blew her nose with a sound like a foghorn in the dark and everyone burst out into a fresh spurt of chuckling, which she sounded only mildly offended at. "Hey! Okay, calm down! You're all going to make yourselves sick!" she ordered, and they quieted down a bit. "Yeah, we should try and-- get this stuff as soon as possible." said Remus, who had remembered the reason they were sitting in a dark bathroom. "And I guess we ought to go. We're not really getting much done in the dark." There was a whispered word and a flare like a match and Adara's wand and Sirius's sparked up at the same time. Adara's wand illuminated her face in which her rolled eyes stood out clearly, and Sirius's lit his big grin. "Honestly, man, are you a wizard or aren't you?" he demanded, propping up the wand in the soft candle wax left in the dish. "Where were we?" asked Remus, ignoring Sirius. "We were ahem-- trying to figure out how to get all this stuff." replied Adara, holding her wand up to the page and running her finger down the list of ingredients. "Well?" asked Sirius pointedly. "Well what?" she said in an irritated sort of voice, sitting back against the wall. "Well, what's the plan, Miss Idea Machine?" "Hopping hippogriffs, I don't know!" exploded Adara. "I got us the book! What more do you want from me?" She spread her hands palm-up in front of her. "All right, all right!" interloped James quickly. "Shut up the both of you. Most of the stuff we need, we can get from Professor Ankor's dangerous ingredients cabinet. Do you think we can get the rest of it in Hogsmeade?" he questioned. Adara and Sirius scanned the page. "Oh, without a doubt." she said positively. "We can snag it next trip. Right before Christmas." They all sighed loudly. "I didn't know this was going to take this long." Sirius said unhappily. "When do we get started?" Adara shrugged in the semi-darkness. "As soon as possible, I guess. Tomorrow's Saturday-- I can probably get most of this stuff from Ankor's lab after breakfast, she's never there. And even if she is, she won't punish me half as bad as she'll punish any of you." "True." agreed James. "So she'll get the base, and we can get started right after that." "Yay!" said Remus hopefully. There was a quiet moment. "One thing's for sure." Adara remarked suddenly. "Good grief, this is really not going to be easy." *** The next morning when Adara woke up in the Slytherin dungeons, tingling excitement ran though her. James had gotten them the book, and now it was her turn to show them how brave she was. She couldn't believe she was about to break into a professor's private stores, but she was perfectly willing. She wanted to be an Animagus incredibly badly. She bounced excitedly out of bed and looked out the window. Thick snow was falling ,so she pulled on her woolen robes and lucky blue and purple striped socks and started down toward the Great Hall. She was walking through the twisting passages that connected the Slytherin dungeons to the hall when she was approached by someone whom she was not at all fond of: Lucius Malfoy. He was just one year older then she was, and acted like he owned at least part of Hogwarts and all the students in it. Almost everyone tried to stay away from him, except a small group of his minions waiting to obey his every beck and call. And he walked up without saying "hello." "What do you think you're doing, Adara?" he demanded abruptly, startling her out of her plans for the afternoons's escapades. "Walking to breakfast, and you?" she asked mildly, walking a little faster. He might be older, but she was quicker. "You know what I mean, you-- Why do you insist on consorting with those Mudbloods, those trashy Gryffindors?" he said, striding in front of her and blocking her way. "That is not your business. At all." she said calmly. "I have somewhere to be, so...I'll just be going now." "It is my business. You are a Slytherin and a pureblood and obviously superior. "We're supposed to be exclu-" Before either of them had a chance to get really steamed, Sirius appeared calmly from around the corner. "Good morning." he said cooly. And before Adara had a chance to register, he had his arm around her shoulders. Malfoy just stared at them with an expression of extreme distaste before spinning on one Armani loafer and stalking back toward the dungeons. Sirius let go of Adara and backed away. "Sorry." he muttered. "I just... I didn't think." "No." she told him, picking a fleck of lint off her robe sleeve. "It was nice. Thanks for getting rid of him." They walked the rest of the way to the Great Hall in silence. *** "Sirius, are you all right?" asked James, piling scrambled eggs onto his plate. "You're acting weird." "Mmm? No, I'm fine." he said, buttering his muffin like it was of deathly importance. Remus looked up from his omelette. "You sure?" "Yeah, why?" replied Sirius, taking a gigantic bite of the muffin. "Well, for one thing, that was a cranberry muffin." James pointed out. "You're allergic to cranberries." Sirius dropped the muffin. "Oh, for the love of Quidditch-" *** I need reviews to live! Please! That's all I ask, I don't get paid for this, I just do it because I like it and because *sniff* reviews make me happy! Is the guilt thing working yet? ~Draca