The Marauders Part 8



Today's Notes: Whoa, it's been awhile. Sorry about
that. But the lovely reviews I've been receiving egged
me on, hehe. First, I must brag about my fifth-row
Aerosmith tickets.  WHOOPEE! Second, I have two book
recommendations for those of you getting impatient for
Book Five - The Forever King and The Broken Sword by
Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy. If you're into
Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table plus
awesome villains, they're terrific.(Plus one of the
characters might be cameo-ing in Marauders sometime
soon. . .I'll let you know if that happens.) Third,
there's one curse word in this chapter. Consider
yourself warned. Fourth, I promise I'll try to speed
it up. And there you go. Now read, review, etc. But
especially review. As I've mentioned, they keep me
going. =)



Hang on! Last thing. All my chapters have lyrics.
They're all relevant to the Marauders and their
current or near-future situations, so I suggest you
obtain the mp3's.



***



Breathe, breathe in the air

Don't be afraid to care

Leave but don't leave me

Look around and choose your own ground

For long you live and high you fly

And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry

And all your touch and all you see

Is all your life will ever be

For long you live and high you fly

But only if you ride the tide

And balanced on the biggest wave

You race toward an early grave



Pink Floyd, 'Breathe'





James Potter was rudely awakened by someone poking him
in the chest. He groaned, rolled over, and pulled his
feather pillow over his head. The poking continued.
"Go 'way, Remus." James muttered. "I still have a
couple hours."



"'Fraid not, James." Remus replied cheerfully. "Seven
o'clock and all's well. Happy Monday. And it's your
turn to wake up Sirius."



"Augh!" James faked a scream of horror. "Not that time
again!" He vaulted out of bed, hiked up his pyjama
pants, and approached Sirius' bed apprehensively. Loud
snores were emitting from it, and the curtains were
drawn tightly.



James gingerly stood about five feet away from the bed
and yelled, "HEY, SIRIUS! WAKE UUUUUUUP!" 



Sirius rolled over and fell out of bed in a tangle of
curtains and sheets. Muffled griping and cursing
emitted from the mass of burgundy fabric. Most of it
was corroding observations upon James' character, and
general bellyaching about Mondays. It was interrupted
at intervals by loud yawns and yells as he struggled
with the knot of covers. 



James stepped back and opened his wardrobe. "Well,
that's done. Surprisingly easy, too. Nobody was hurt."
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror inside
the tall wooden structure, noticing that his hair was
sticking up in all directions, even worse then usual.
There was a cowlick at the back of his head and wisps
obstructing his vision. He brushed it out of his face
irritably and pulled a clean set of robes out of the
dresser, slamming the double doors shut. 



Peter got down on his knees and peered under the bed.
"Where do all my socks keep going? I'm down to the
last." As the words were out of his mouth, James's
hyperactive black cat Valkyrie shot out from under the
dust ruffle and dropped an unrecognisable piece of
fabric on Peter's foot. 



He sighed. "James! Can't you keep control of this
thing? This is the seventh sock this month." He held
up the object the cat had brought him and displayed
the shreddedness. 



Sirius stood up and corpsed over to his own wardrobe,
swaying back and forth. There were circles under his
eyes. "I hate, hate, hate Monday mornings."



"Well, we have Potions lab first." Remus reminded him.
"You and Adara can grumble to each other, like every
Monday."



"Potions!" Sirius perked up. "Brill."



James came out of the bathroom, drying his face with a
towel. "Yes, yes, yes. But first, breakfast!"



*



When the first period bell rang, the Slytherins and
Gryffindors filed sleepily down to the dungeon. The
corridors that led down to the lower levels of
Hogwarts were dark, sloped down, and grew
progressively colder as you got further under the
castle. The four boys got there first and draped
themselves over the tabletops tiredly. The professor,
Attalus Snape, was walking back and forth from one
side of the room to the other. He looked a lot like a
German officer, complete with monocle, but luckily
Professor Dumbledore had forbid him to carry a riding
whip. 





Snape had a tendency to strike trepidation into the
hearts of anyone under the age of 150. Adara used to
joke that inanimate objects ran in fear when he
entered a room. Being a Slytherin, she was exempt from
most of the torture, but she didn't like him any more
then the Gryffindors. Nobody did. And, fortuitous
enough, she was in the same year as his son, Severus,
whose personality will be demonstrated shortly. 



Adara walked what she liked to call "the gamut of
shame" past the Slytherin side of the otherwise
completely segregated room over to the Gryffindor
half.  Then she pulled out a chair at the long table
James and Sirius were sitting at with a scraping noise
and collapsed into it sleepily, dropping her bag on
the floor.



"OW! That was my foot, you moronic-"



"Shut up, Severus." she said irritably, not bothering
to pick her skull off the table. The younger Snape
sneered at the back of her head and continued on to
his seat at the front of the class. Sev wouldn't have
been popular except for the fact that to be friends
with him was to get in good with Attalus, which was
otherwise quite impossible. As it was, only the
Slytherins even tried. Everybody else pretty much
thought he was a prick. Although Adara wasn't exactly
famous friends with Severus, she got along with him
all right, but she still endured the same taunting
thanks to her constant Gryffindor entourage. 



First period Potions seemed to be a rather aggravating
tradition with the class of '77. This was the third
year in a row they'd had it. Sirius regarded it purely
as nap period. Out of everyone in the school,
Professor Snape despised Sirius Black and James Potter
the most, because both of them possessed the amazing
ability to answer his questions correctly, even if
they had been woken out of a sound sleep. It was
infuriating. 



The professor stopped in the middle of the room and
glared effectively at the students, producing dead
silence. "Happy Monday, my little flobberworm maggots.
Today, we shall be continuing in our productions of
the Japanese misery serum, and hopefully, we will have
a voluntary test subject. However, if not, I'm going
to pour it down each and every one of your putrid
little throats." His eyes glinted maniacally. Adara
and Remus groaned in unison and slammed their
foreheads down on the table. All of the Marauders had
sacrificed themselves as guinea pigs at one time or
another to prevent the entire class from having to be
forcibly maimed. Misery serum, however, sounded like
even less fun then the time Sirius had drank
Personality Reversing Potion and had behaved like a
particularly wrathful Slytherin for a whole day. 



"You have spent almost half a month learning how to
prepare this concoction." proceeded the professor. 
"It is ridiculously complicated, because if the
ingredients aren't added at exactly the right time, in
exactly the right order,  it could turn into any one
of a number of different poisons. If done properly,
when swallowed, it creates a deep, dark depression
that is, sadly, only temporary. We will be testing
this potion in small doses so that none of you have
time to go throw yourselves out of the Tower window."
He smiled slightly. "Not that the sight of your
splattered corpses wouldn't amuse me."



Does Headmaster Dumbledore know he talks to us like
this? Adara wondered, drumming her fingers on the
desk. James, apparently irritated by the sound, put
his hand over hers and stopped it. 



"Right, get to it." Snape continued, waving his arms
at the students. "Double period, so you all better
finish today. Groups of two or three per cauldron."



Remus stood up. "I'll get our stuff." he said to Peter
sleepily. The five of them normally worked together,
but they made it look like two groups as to not peeve
Professor Snape more then necessary. James went with
Remus and stood in the line of students proceeding in
and out of the ingredient supply closet. They returned
with armfuls of stuff and dumped it on the table.
James pulled the list out of his mouth and started
making checks with his quill.



"Right," he said, after a moment. "This is enough for
two cauldronsful." 



Adara seized a vial full of bat saliva and drizzled it
into her, James, and Sirius's cauldron. "Terrific.
I'll dump, James'll check, Sirius'll time." Sirius
nodded tiredly and pulled up the sleeve of his robes,
revealing a wristwatch on a black leather band. He
pulled out his Potions text and flipped to the page
they were on. 



"Okay," he read aloud, "right after the saliva, we add
the crushed water lily powder and stir. Then we need
to wait three minutes until it's simmering, and then
we add the ice adder eggs, eh?"



Adara poured some tiny dried eggs the size of
jellybeans onto the table and began counting them.
"How many of these do we need?" 





"Seventy-six," said James, peeking over Sirius's
shoulder. He continued reading the notes. "Ice adder
eggs are known to cause effective depression when
swallowed whole, and are useful also in misery
potions..."



"Depressing teenagers is like shooting fish in a
barrel." grumbled Remus.  "I hate Potions." 



"I know, dear." Adara said reassuringly. "I'll keep an
eye out in case you're doing anything explosive." She
smacked his hand away from his shaggy light-brown
bangs. "Moony, stop twiddling with your fringe, it's
bloody annoying!" 



He rolled his eyes in reply. "I prefer the recipes
where the only instructions are to bung the stuff into
the cauldron and let it boil." 



"We have a free period next," Sirius said to him
brightly, looking for the light at the end of the
tunnel. "I think I'll go back to the commons and have
a kip, eh?"



"Lucky you." murmured James, checking Adara's count of
the tiny snake eggs. "We have advanced Magical
History." 



"Why did you take advanced M.H.?" Peter wanted to
know.



"Because it's great." James said with relish. "We get
to learn all the gory and grisly stuff that happened
instead of just the facts." 



"It's all in the details." Adara added. 



"Bollocks!" Sirius snorted. "Twice as much homework,
if you ask me. I've seen some of the essays your lot
writes."  He checked his watch and motioned to James,
who dumped all the jellybean sized eggs into the
cauldron. It emitted a hissing sound and turned pink.
"I can't handle regular M.H. It's a snooze and a
half."



"Shock! Horror!" said Remus dryly. "Let it be known
that Sirius Black doesn't like Magical History,
because it wasn't obvious from the loud snoring he
does during it." His long slender hands expertly diced
scallions. Remus wasn't much of a Potions brewer, but
he could cook like a madman. 



Peter raised the sleeve of his robes to his eyes and
wiped them. "Those things are really strong!"



"Well, they're going in the pot in a moment anyway."
James said calmly. "Pity the poor sod who has to drink
this mess."



"And you know it's going to be one of us." Adara told
him. "Noble souls, willing to sacrifice ourselves in
order to prevent the class from being poisoned."



Sirius let out a moan, he'd sliced himself with his
curved root knife. Blood welled out of the deep cut on
the pad of his index finger. "Bugger this stupid
class!" he yelled. "I can't wait for summer!"



"Sirius luv, we live in the back of beyond." Adara
said, taking his hand and pressing a handkerchief over
the gash to stop the bleeding. "At least at Hogwarts
we have some human companionship besides each other."



"Well, if you live in the back of beyond, I live in
the back of the back of beyond." James reminded them.
"I'll try to get over this summer, though. Raven's
Ravine has a lake to swim in, we don't even have
that." He lived in Wilson-on-Hamble, a tiny village
extremely close to Sirius and Adara's, and spent most
of his time with them in the summer.

"I'll work on Dad to see if you could come up to the
orchard for a few weeks." offered Remus. "Not much to
do up there but eat fresh apples and watch the telly."



"You've got a telly?" Peter was confused. "Thought you
were pureblood?"



"My father's obsessed with Muggle stuff." Remus
explained, concentrating on his minute caterpillar
sections. "We've got it all."



"I'd like to come to Wales." Adara said energetically.
"Bet it's beautiful."



"No neighbours, though."  the brown-haired boy warned
them. "It's an orchard, remember."



"Sounds relaxing." Sirius said, inspecting his finger
to see if the bleeding had stopped. It hadn't. He
pressed Adara's handkerchief against it again. "We'll
have to check into this."



"Sirius, drip that into the cauldron." ordered James,
running his finger down the list of ingredients. "Says
here, four drops of human blood per batch."



Adara wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue.
"Ewwwwwwwwwwww! That's totally grotty! I'm not
drinking it this time! That's gross right the way
round."



Sirius removed the cloth from his cut and held it over
the two copper cauldrons in turn. "This can't be
sanitary."



"Do you think Snape cares if we die?" Peter asked.
"He'd be doing the Mashed Potato down on Hogsmeade's
Main Street if we all croaked." 



Drip, drip, drip. "I think I'm gonna throw up." Remus
said, whitening slightly. "Sirius, could you . .
.please. . ." He put his hand on the table edge,
gripped it tightly, and swayed back and forth. 



Adara, sensing an imminent unconsciousness, grabbed
Sirius's hand and covered the cut. "I didn't know you
objected to the sight of blood, Moony."  



"Runs in the family." he replied, swallowing. "I'm
fine. James, could you hand me that little orange
bottle of crushed bugbear fangs?"



All of a sudden, Adara dropped Sirius's hand and
gripped the table edge rather like Remus had been
doing. "Um," she said in an odd, hollow voice. "I'm. .
.er, I'm feeling a little sick myself. Can you boys
handle not blowing anything up for the next few
minutes while I step outside?" Without waiting for an
answer, she stumbled up the aisle, said a few words to
the professor, who snapped at her, and staggered
unattractively to the door. She struggled to pull it
open, left, and slammed it behind her. 



James blinked and looked at Sirius. "What was that
about? She wasn't sick a minute ago." 



"Well, neither was he." said Sirius with a shrug,
jerking his thumb at the still-pale Remus. "Probably
she doesn't want us to know she's afraid of blood,
eh."



Outside the noisy classroom, Adara sank against the
stone wall and slid to the floor, taking deep breaths,
trying to dismantle her agitation. "God damn it!" she
swore softly to herself, pounding her fist on the
flags so hard that it hurt. "I gotta start. . .wearing
heavy gloves at all times or something like that." She
shook her head back and forth violently, and her
shaggy mane of waves flowed around her shoulders like
black silk. "I'm going to see Dumbledore right after
classes. This has to stop. When a girl can't even hold
her friend's hand without seeing his future, it's got
to bloody stop!" One tear leaked out of the corner of
her blue right eye. "And besides," she told herself
convincingly, "there is positively no way. . .no
bloody way. . . any of the stuff I saw is going to
happen."



Whenever Adara saw any future of Sirius's, it was
always in most alarming shades of greys and blacks and
metal and bars, and she wanted nothing more but to
hold his hand and just lace her fingers through his
without having to let go before she saw his death. 



** 



It was a good twenty minutes before Adara tottered
back into the now-silent Potions, and was greeted by
disapproving stares from her classmates and her
sadistic professor. She stared at the floor and sank
dismally onto her stool, and frowned into the
cauldron. 



"Hey," Remus whispered in an impossibly quiet voice,
patting her hand gently. "You okay, luv?"



"I'm still here, aren't I?" she whispered back, with a
shaky smile. Peter looked over at both of them and
motioned for them to be silent -- Snape was coming. 



"And who," the tall, anaemic professor was saying
twistedly, "who will be our test subject today? Will
we have a willing volunteer, or does someone get
strapped down with a funnel in their lips?"He stopped
behind Adara, and she rolled her eyes upwards until
she was looking at him upside down. "How about Miss
Dragomiroff, who effectively got out of actually
brewing the potion?"



Adara felt like she'd rather take a beating that
swallow a misery potion, but she could always hope
that Remus had screwed up and it hadn't turned out
right. Snape was still thwacking his riding crop into
his hand above her head, so she sighed. "Yes,
Professor. I'll do it."



The stuff she was supposed to drink was a vaguely
disgusting orangey colour and small bubbles rose,
popped, and sank in it. Adara wrinkled her nose and
downed the whole thing in two gulps, trying not to
think about what was in it, because gagging in front
of rows and rows of Slytherins was a very unwise idea.
She wrinkled her nose and clenched her jaw. "How long
does it take to work?" she asked, well aware of the
dozens of pairs of eyes watching her. 



Watching her suspiciously, Snape stated "It should
begin working immediately - -that is, if you
numbskulled twits have done it properly." 



James's face turned red. "We followed the instructions
perfectly, Professor." he said tightly, twisting his
quill. "All potions are ineffective to some people." 



Snape's long fingers were swiftly picking up and
examining the ingredients from their table, reading
the labels. "And you remembered the blood?"



"Yes, sir." Sirius said, displaying his finger. Remus
turned his head abruptly and gazed at the dungeon
floor. 



Scowling, Snape set down the bottle of bugbear fangs.
"As of right now, all five of you blunderers have
failed the lab. You may come see me later if the
potion manages to kick up in Ms. Dragomiroff. Class is
over in ten minutes, I suggest you all hurry and clean
up. I don't write late passes."There was a general
scurry to the sinks, and Peter scooped up the leftover
glass vials and carried them back to the supply
closet. 



The bell rang. Students filed out of the dungeon
listlessly, most of them muttering incoherently about
the sadistic Potions master. Sirius yawned again, his
longish black hair flopping over one eye. "We'll see
you two at lunch, right?" he said, punching James
lightly in the arm. 



"I'm sleeping through lunch." Adara said, her face
drained of all colour.



"You don't look so good, Adara." Remus said, with a
concerned note. "Maybe you were allergic to something
in the potion."



"No, no, no, Moony, I'm fine. Just tired, really." She
tucked her books under her arm. "We'll see you later."
She and James headed slowly up the first set of stairs
to the sixth floor, and the other three took off in
the opposite direction, back to Gryffindor Tower for
their free period. 



"I can't believe that bastard!" Sirius said to Remus
through clenched teeth. "She left because she already
wasn't feeling good and he practically forced her to
drink that stuff with my blood in it, no wonder she
doesn't look well."



Upstairs, Adara was walking alongside James down the
hallway and suddenly she seized his arm with her free
hand and stumbled, almost falling. He jerked his head
toward her in surprise and bolstered her up. "Do you
need to go to the hospital wing? You're acting like
Remus did when he came down with the Dragonpox."



"I've already had the Dragonpox." she told him,
convulsing slightly. "I'm all right, I think the
potion just didn't agree with me. Just please, James,
walk me to M.H. so I don't do a face plant in front of
anyone." she implored quietly. 



James linked his elbow around hers and walked a little
slower then his normal pace. "Are you sure you're all
right?"



"I'll feel much better once I sit down." Adara assured
him. "Then I'll take a nap during lunch and I'll feel
all better."



"Promise?" he asked her seriously, blinking his own
dark-blue eyes behind his round frames. 



She managed to chuckle. "James, sun, moon, and stars!
I'm not dying, I just don't feel good right now. We've
all had a bad potion some time or another. Sirius once
heaved for six hours, remember? He's allergic to
scarab beetles." 



"Right, then." He opened the door to Professor Binns'
class grandly and waved her in front of him. "My
lady?"



"Oh, thank you, Lord Potter." she said with a grin in
her ghastly pale face, sweeping through the door. "I
do hope you've remembered to do your essay." she said,
as they took their seats at the very back of the small
classroom. 



"Of course. Too bad it's an inch and a half short." he
told her regretfully. 



True to her word, after Adara had been sitting for a
little while, a bit of the colour came back into her
cheeks and she did look much better. James was
somewhat relieved. For all Adara pretended to be one
of the boys, she really was quite weak, and she
couldn't handle a bad potion like they could,
especially not something with so many dodgy
ingredients, and he'd been worried. 



Advanced Magical History was a really interesting
class, one that Remus had wanted to take, but his
course load had already been full with his advanced
Defence. Students of advanced M.H. read all sorts of
mesmerizing literature, including journals of infamous
Dark wizards. James loved the class and he'd even
learned to tune out Professor Binns' annoyingly
drawling voice. At the time, they were learning about
the Druids, which Adara found thoroughly fascinating.
Remus had Druid ancestors; he lived in the
history-crammed Tintagel, in the southern tip of
Wales. 



During the opening lecture and before Binns collected
the homework, Adara busied herself scribbling an extra
inch onto James's homework under the table. He looked
over her shoulder. "Whoa! You're copying my
handwriting!"



"No I'm not. Your handwriting's almost just like mine.
Sloppy and illegible." She finished and passed his
essay up with her own. "That's not the first time I've
saved your arse, James Mercutio Potter."  



"Nor will it be the last, I'm sure." James told her,
laughing. "But I think I make it up to you perfectly
well with my share of your Transfiguration essays."
Adara was awful at Transfiguration. 



The end of the period came swiftly, and they went in
different directions. Adara went down to the dungeons
and the Slytherin commons, while James headed up to
meet Sirius, Remus, and Peter in the Great Hall for
lunch. 



Adara slipped through the door, pleased with how empty
the gigantic room was. She headed for her favourite
wing chair with the idea of having a nap, and was
disgusted to find it already occupied. 



"Lucius!" she said brightly. "I've cracked it. My life
is just like Hell, except without all the good things,
like pitchforks and brimstone." She slumped into a
chair facing away from him and kneaded her forehead
with one of her hands. 



He got up and stood behind her, massaging her
shoulders with his long white fingers. "What's wrong,
my dear? Why aren't you eating lunch?"



"I'm fine." she muttered. 



Laughing, Lucius shook his head. "Oh no, Adara
Dragomiroff. You're not catching me with that. I
happen to know your version of 'fine' stands for
'fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.' Now
why don't you tell me what's bothering you?"



"If you must know, I had some sort of bad misery
potion and I don't exactly have an appetite." she told
him forlornly. "Oh, Lucius, what on earth does
Professor Snape have against me?  I'm a good brewer. .
.I'm a Slytherin. . .and I'm even nice to Severus.
Well, sometimes."



The boy leaned down until his face was next to hers
and she could feel him smiling. "Why, it's the same
thing everyone else has got against you, my love." he
whispered into her ear. "It's the Gryffindors." 



Adara visibly bristled. "What do you mean?"



"Come now, you must know." His long blonde eyelashes
brushed against her cheek. "I believe the tern is
'fraternizing with the enemy.' Hobnobbing with the
goody-goodies. Associating with the adversary?"



"You can't tell me the Slytherins are plotting my
death because I hang around with Sirius and James and
the boys."



"Not exactly your death. We just don't trust you as
much as we would ordinarily." Lucius explained. "My
dear, it's a predisposed world. Since nobody around
here trusts the Gryffindors and you 'hang around' with
them, you're in their camp."



She sighed. "Lucius, that's ludicrous. I'm one hundred
percent Slytherin, just like you." 



"I know, sweetness. Unfortunately, not everyone has
the good fortune of knowing you as well as I do."



"For the last time, you don't know me, Malfoy." Adara
was getting fired up. That was the only time she used
his last name. "I know you think you do, but you're
wrong."



Imperceptibly, he shrugged and planted a quick, airy
kiss on her cheek. "Well, that may be. But either way,
I'm off to lunch. See you tonight." He left, his
footfalls echoing heavily on the stone. 



**



That's it for part 8, and the next episode might
actually be out in the next couple of days! So speed
me up ~ send a review!