A/N: *cough* Here. Part four. I'm alive and very sorry it took so long. You see... well, it'll be explained in the after word. comments and even complaints are diligently contemplated and will be responded to in at least a somewhat timely fashion unless i have other things on my mind dracamalfoy@aol.com The Marauders Part 4- Hives and Hysterical Herbage "Hey." Adara greeted Remus airily, sliding into the empty chair next to him. "Where's-" "Hupthifal wimpth." he replied through a mouthful of sausage. "Hospital wing?" asked Adara, who, being best friends with four males, was getting quite used to food-speak. "Why? What did Peter do now, put Dissolution Solution on his waffles instead of maple syrup or something?" Remus swallowed. "Not Peter. Sirius accidentally ate a cranberry muffin, and you know what that does to him." "Yeah." "He's been acting sort of funny lately. You know anything about that?" he continued in an innocent tone of voice, watching her face carefully. Remus always had an underlying, wolflike sort of sense; he could perceive when something was bothering someone, or hurting them. "No." she said positively. "James and Peter-" "Went with him." finished Remus. "I've been left to tell you where they were." "Thought so." she told him as the last of the students filtered out to their weekend activities. "Shall we go?" "Sure." he said, standing up. They walked out together. "You all right, Adara?" Remus asked curiously. "Mm hmm." she said distractedly. 'Fine. Tired.' She faked a huge yawn. "I'm not surprised,' he grinned. 'we were up until, what?" "About two, I think. Oh, hey, listen, I had an idea." "Yeah?" "Instead of that bathroom, we can meet in the Shrieking Shack." she told him triumphantly. Remus's face fell. "Oh, Adara, I spend way more time in there then I care to already." "It's for a good cause!" she insisted. He hesitated. "Well, ask Sirius and James." "Oh, fine, be that way." she snorted as she pushed open the hospital wing door. Adara seemed to be in a particularly foul mood at the moment. James and Peter nodded greeting as they entered. "Is he.." Adara asked warily. "Nah, he's all right." James assured her. "Bit itchy." They walked over to Sirius, who was covered with swelled red splotches. "Don't you dare laugh," he said crankily to Adara, who promptly sat in between James and Remus on the bed across from his and smirked. "Nice look you got goin' there, Black." she cracked. If looks could kill, she would have left the room in a basket. "Not funny." he responded furiously, scratching his neck with angry vigour. James grinned wickedly. "I don't know, Sirius, red is a good colour for you." he commented innocently. Sirius hurled a pillow at him, and he dodged it. "Shaddup! Shaddup!" "No, Sirius, we're really sorry to see you here." said Adara, with an extremely sweet-- and extremely fake-- smile. "In fact, I brought you some flowers." She pulled a perfect bouquet of lavender out of her sleeve and handed them to him. He smiled too, and it was a lucky thing his face was already red. "Thanks." Remus snorted loudly. "What?" "Nothing, nothing." James jumped in. "Well, Sirius, we'll be seeing you." "Huh?" "We've got to go, Sirius. "Adara said. "We have--- you know-- a plan?" Sirius nodded glumly. "I was just hoping for a little company." "Don't worry," Remus assured him, hurrying Adara out in front of him. "We'll be back later." "You promise?" he asked suspiciously. James, who was propelling Remus out the door, smiled and nodded. "Of course!" chimed in Peter, bringing up the rear. "Bye!" Sirius settled back onto his pillow and yawned. Well, the day was off the a good start, he thought sarcastically. He surveyed his surroundings. Nothing too exciting. Empty beds in a row, except for one Slytherin girl who had been sneezing violently since he'd arrived and looked extremely unpleasant. Sirius sighed and decided to check if he was still covered with blotches. He turned to face the brass bedpost next to him and his eyes grew wide. His hair was bright, electric blue. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" * Adara was giggling. "Shhh!" James said, barely containing his own laughter. "What were you thinking?" "It's payback for turning all my ink pink!" Adara declared. "Oh, dear, I'm a poet and I didn't know it." Remus burst out laughing and sat down in the middle of the hall, leaning against the wall and gasping for breath. "He's not Sirius Black, he's Sirius Blue!" "Seriously, Adara, that was cruel!" laughed James, holding his stomach. "How'd you do it, anyway?" Peter asked, through chuckles. "Those flowers." she explained. "Turn your hair blue if you touch the stem. I handed them to him with my sleeve wrapped around my hand, see?" "Ingenious." Remus snickered. "He'll have your head." "Yeah, well, he'll have to catch me first." Adara said brightly, wiping her eyes with her robes. "I believe I'm done with my hysterics. Shall we go?" * Sirius slumped grudgingly against his pillows. "What a little... I can't believe... I'll kiss her! Kill her, kill her, I'll kill her!" He looked around to make sure nobody had heard his little slip of the tongue, and then bellowed, "Madam Pomfrey!" She banged a door open and glared at him. "Punk wizards- " "No, no, no!" Sirius tried to explain hastily. "It was a-- an accident." She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I'm sure. Next, you'll be punching holes in your ear with a fork so you can get four earrings in--" "It was!" he persisted. "Change it back, please?" Secretly, he didn't think that was such a bad idea... She walked away and came back with a bottle of all- purpose Magical Mishap restorer. "My, my, how do you get into these things?" Sirius watched her. "I dunno. Just unlucky, I guess." He hurriedly swept the lavender flowers under his pillow and tried to look innocent. "Unlucky, indeed!" Madam Pomfrey snorted, measuring out a large spoonful of the thick purple solution. She stuck it into his mouth before he could protest. "Mmmmmmph!" Sirius said queasily, the spoon protruding from his lips. The liquid tasted horrible. "Don't complain." she snapped. Sirius yanked the spoon out. "Pee-yew! What's in this stuff?!" The nurse shook her head. "Trust me, you don't want to know." she advised him wisely , screwing the lid back onto the bottle. * While Sirius was trying to keep down his breakfast back in the hospital wing, Peter, James, Remus, and Adara climbed up four flights and then one more long, winding staircase to the Astronomy Tower. Adara sighed. "I thought we were nicking the stuff from Potions." James stopped for a minutes, adjusted his glasses, and consulted a parchment. "Well, you wanted to start at the beginning. We have to collect this Greensavage Root extract first." Peter trotted up to him and peeked over his shoulder. "Then why are we heading up to Astronomy?" "Because Greensavage plants attack if they're not collected under the right astrological conditions." explained Remus, whose second favourite subject was Herbology. Adara pushed open the door. "Okay, good, nobody's here." They filed in. Remus drifted immediately over to the window. "I love it up here. Look, you can see everything." He was right, The sweeping view covered most of the northern grounds, including the lake and a good portion of the Quidditch field. White flakes fluttered thickly down from the grey sky. That reminded James of something. "Oh, no. Tonight's Quidditch game might be canceled." Adara, who was pulling books out of a shelf and handing them to Peter, grumbled. "That's not fair. It's not supposed to snow in November." "Uuuurgh." groaned Peter, as she added another thick text full of star charts to the already sizeable pile he was carrying. "Actually, it probably won't." pointed out Remus, perching on the window seat. "I mean, you do play in torrential rain, why should snow be any different?" "I can't catch the Snitch if I'm busy freezing to death." James contradicted. Adara snorted, pulled a chair out and plopped into it. "Who said you'll get it anyway? Slytherin's got a fine Seeker this year." "What, Marius Halfelven? He spends half his day walking into walls because he can't take his eyes off his mirror!" Remus laughed. "Yeah, well." she admitted. "But when we do get him to put it down, he's pretty good. But I guess the task of accumulating points will fall to us Chasers. I'd say we have a pretty good shot, with one of your Beaters out of commission." Peter dropped the stack of volumes down on one of the tables with a series of heavy thuds. "That's right. Sirius was covered with hives." "I wish he was here, I'm no good at Astronomy." James admitted, taking a seat next to Adara and opening one of the dusty tomes. "Me either." said three voices. Adara winced. "Okay, no problem. I'm sure we can handle this. Remus, um... get over here." Remus left the window and took his spot at the table, picking up a thick book bound in leather. "Okay. What are we looking for?" James fished the parchment out of his pocket and handed it to him. "I think we need the star charts." A large portion of the walls of the circular room were covered with lots of pigeonholes. Each one contained a star chart, several for every day of the year. "I'll get 'em." Adara jumped up. "All right, here we go. November 22, 23, 24, and 25 to start." She extracted the rolled parchments out of the pigeonholes and dropped them in a pile on the table. Then, she seized the one marked Nov. 23 and unrolled it. Peter snatched James's scribbles from Remus and read them aloud. "Mmm. The roots of the Greensavage plant have to be collected during the late waxing moon..." "Damn." muttered Remus. The late waxing moon was not his favourite time of the month. "What's an oris?" asked Peter, screwing up his face. James blinked and opened a few books. "Um, I think it's a galaxy." Remus turned one of the star charts upside down, trying to decipher it. "It said when the Nebulae Oris was in the blue stage...I don't see any blue stars here!" "Perhaps it would help if you took those glasses off, Moony?" James said, not looking up from his own chart. Adara plucked Remus's round yellow sunglasses off his face. "Better?" He consulted the parchment again. "Nope. They're still not blue." "Must be the wrong phase, then." James commented. Peter waved his parchment in the air. "This one's the blue stage." "Wrong nebulae. That's Erisi." Adara said, taking a look at it. "We want Oris." There were several minutes of silence as Remus fished a few more charts out of the pigeonholes. "Why are there so many? It'll take us years to go through these." "Here's the blue stage of Oris, but it's during the waning moon." James sighed, rolling another scroll up. Adara groaned. "Where's Sirius when you actually need him?" "We could wait until he's out of the hospital wing." suggested Peter. "Nah." Adara mumbled. James and Remus looked at each other, but knew better then to disagree. * An hour later, the four had moved from the table to the floor and were surrounded by open books, unrolled parchments, and scribbled calculations. Adara sank backwards and stared at the ceiling. "I give up!" Remus looked around. "Think how long it'll take to clean up this mess." "It's almost worse than our dormitory." James said dryly. "This is bloody impossible. This would be bloody impossible even if Sirius was here." Remus groaned. "If Sirius was here, he'd have the right chart in five minutes." Peter remarked. Adara sniffled. "It's not our fault we're not good at Astronomy." James stood up and started gathering star charts in his arms. "We better clean up. It's almost time for dinner." The other three followed suite, slipping the parchments back into their pigeonholes with a depressed air. "Hey." said Remus suddenly. Adara looked up with a slightly sour expression. "What?" "Here." He slid his fingers deep into one of the seemingly unoccupied holes and loosened something inside it. "Look! We didn't see this one." They gathered around the chart that Remus unfurled and stared at it in amazement. "Nebulae Oris." James said in disbelief. Adara had a similar astonished expression. "Blue phase!" Peter blinked. "Waxing moon?" "And look here- November 25!" Remus smiled. "That's tonight!" Running a hand through her hair, Adara grinned. "Well, if that isn't dumb luck, I don't know what is." * "Okay. This way." James murmured. "Past Hagrid's cabin." The four of them slunk slowly beyond his window, which was shining and flickering with firelight, illuminating the trees in the fading twilight. The booming, cheerful voice of Hagrid floated out to them, talking apparently to some sort of strange beast. "There ya go, t'caterpillars, eat them nice caterpillars, not t'fingers, there." Adara snickered and shifted under her corner of the Invisibility Cloak. "Wonder what he's got in there." "Something that no doubt likes the taste of human flesh." Remus responded darkly. Peter coughed. "How nice." "James, do you know where we're going?" Adara hissed. "I can't see a thing except the back of Remus's head." "Hush. I know exactly where we're going, we're going right to the edge of the forest. Okay, everybody go a few steps to the left--" The four oscillated a bit, like some sort of oversized paramecium, trying to stay under the cloak. "Ouch!" Peter's voice came sharply. Adara's response was just a bit irritated. "What?" "Remus stepped on my foot." he answered pathetically. Remus snorted. "Sorry, I didn't see it." "Well, considering that we are under an Invisibility Cloak..." James's voice pointed out with a tinge of sarcasm from the head of the pack. Adara couldn't do anything but laugh. "Heh heh!" "Okay. Cloak off." James said optimistically. "Look, there they are." Peter pulled the sheet of silvery fabric off the group and they regarded a patch of innocent looking plants, which had leathery dark green leaves and purple flowers. Remus looked up at the sky. "I'll just go with the somewhat farfetched hope that we didn't make a mistake with those star charts. Here, I brought my Potions knife, let's do it." He fished a curved blade with a wooden handle out of his robes and handed it to James. Adara pressed an empty corked bottle into his hand and stepped back a little. James took a deep breath and, as he always did when he was nervous, adjusted his glasses. He strode forward, took hold of one of the gnarled plants, and uprooted it. Adara inhaled sharply. James nicked the root with Remus's knife and held the flask to the cut. He only had got a drop of the thick black liquid before he was thrown backward forcefully, and knocked Adara to the ground with him. "Ouch!" she cried. And then, "Oh, no." The seemingly harmless little plant was pulling the rest of its roots out of the ground, and there seemed to be no end to them. It rose high above their heads, the moonlight reflecting off the leathery leaves, the pretty purple flowers unfurling to reveal rows of sharp incisors. Whiplike tendrils curled and uncurled menacingly around it. The plant and the four appraised each other for approximately three seconds, before one of the humongous blooms lunged forward and snapped its many teeth half and inch from Remus's face. "We must have made a mistake." Adara panted. "That's impossible. We had all those star charts perfectly in line with the waxing moon cycle." James informed her. Peter took James's notes out of his robe pocket. "Yeah, we- " Adara suddenly snatched the notes from Peter and unrolled them. "Oh, NO! Peter, you dim wit!" "What, what?!" panicked Remus. "WANING moon! WANING moon, you idiot!" she shouted, whacking Peter over the head with the parchment. "Great! Now we're all gonna die!" "It's not my fault, it's James's horrible handwriting!" squealed Peter. "We are not all going to die!" decided James, ignoring him. "I had the right parchment, remember? We just have to find it again. Now the only problem is-" "HOW TO GET RID OF THAT THING!" Adara shrieked, jerking her thumb at the gigantic green plant, which was flinging its vines around and spraying them with some kind of thick foam. "Rrrrps." Remus gritted his teeth, backing away. "Ropes!" shouted Peter. "Ropes are good. Um- What's the spell for ropes?" Remus darted back and forth, his wand out. "I don't remember, that was the week I was sick with Dragonpox, what's your excuse?" A long tendril whipped out of nowhere and wrapped around Adara's arm, leaving a long pink welt. She winced, but didn't cry out. "Something. Do anything." She pressed up against a tree trunk. "Ropes. Ropes." James muttered. "Fire?" "No, we can't use fire, somebody'll see." Adara thought aloud. "Ferula!" Peter shouted suddenly. Adara peeked out from behind her trunk. "Bandages?" "Learnt it in Potions last week when Professor Ankor fixed my arm." Peter answered proudly. White linen wraps started spinning around the leviathan herbage, binding the long green whips to the stem. The purple snapping blooms were quickly muzzled, and all four of them watched in astonishment as the plant became quite mummy-like in appearance. "I cannot believe that worked." James croaked. *** I'm sorry. I probably won't get any reviews for this part. It's incredibly mundane and stupid. I I was industriously working on the later chapters until I realised that I couldn't post them until I posted this! I'm just really obsessed with the middle and end of this story. Please, if you could find it in your heart to review....~Draca Oh yeah. Thanks tons, Maple, for helping me a LOT with those later installments and bestowing compliments upon me, which gives me the urge to keep writing! And while, I'm at it, let's thank the underappreciated beta readers everywhere, shall we?