WHEN WE WERE YOUNG : marauders era

03. the surprise

Finally the cat stirred.

Mareena could sense the presence of chocolate somewhere.

She willed herself to wake up, slowly opening her blue cat eyes and stretching her body, which had gone numb from the curled-up position she had been sleeping in. She finally took in her surroundings. She was in a train compartment. But why?

'Oh. The Hogwarts Express,' she remembered.

I'm going to Hogwarts.

As her beady cat eyes scanned the compartment, she saw two boys in front of her; one had messy black hair with glasses and the other had long black hair and dark grey eyes. They seemed to be quite enjoying their sweets at the moment.
She looked on with an amused expression as she saw one of them gag as he accidentally ate a vomit flavoured bean.

She looked sideways and saw a boy with sandy brown hair quite engrossed in his book while eating a chocolate frog.

Ah. So that's why I could smell chocolate.

Then she noticed his scars. There were several cuts across his face.
Hmm.. wonder what happened to him. Mareena thought to herself.

Suddenly she heard a noise from her left. Her heart skipped a beat as she sensed the aroma of chocolate from somewhere else.

Someone was opening chocolate bar wrappers. And she knew who it was.

She turned left sharply and jumped on Juliana's lap.
"Oh! You're awake, Ree. Great! I think you should-"

But before she could finish her sentence, Mareena said,
"Give me some chocolate please."
This obviously came out as cat sounds but Juliana could understand her.

"Yeah you can have some, once you say hello to these guys."

"Oh. Okay. Are you sure they're alright? I hope they won't panic.."

Both of them turned their heads towards the boys. They were looking bewildered as it was not a very common thing to see a human and a cat talking so normally. Even in the wizarding world.

"Yeah. They're alright. I'm sure they won't panic. Besides, one of them wants to be in Gryffindor so he's supposed to be brave, isn't he?" Juliana said, gesturing towards James with a smirk, who looked confused.

"Oh. Alright. Let's get this over with," Mareena said decisively.

"Umm.. what's going on here?" Sirius asked looking amused.

"Okay guys. Please say hello to my older sister," Juliana said as Mareena jumped off her lap and went back to her seat.

"Wait. What?" James asked.

But then they all saw what she meant. Where the cat had once been, Mareena appeared sitting on her seat and looked casually towards them, as though she hadn't just appeared out of nowhere.

James, Sirius and Remus looked shocked out of their wits.

"Hello. I'm Mareena Vasilios. I'm sorry if I gave you a fright," Mareena smiled apologetically.

"Blimey," James muttered. "Blimey. You're an animagus! That was quite an entrance!"
Sirius and Remus agreed, looking impressed.

"An unintentional one though," Mareena said with a chuckle. "Just needed a quick nap before reaching Hogwarts. And I'm a metamorphmagus by the way."

"A what?" Sirius asked.

"A metamorphmagus," Mareena replied. "A person who can change their appearance at will. Julie is one too. But unlike other metamorphmagi, who can do only human transformations, we can also take the form of any animal we want. It's come in handy a lot," Mareena added with a smile, recalling past memories.

"Merlin's beard! That is amazing!" Sirius exclaimed while James and Remus looked on with shocked expressions.

"No big deal. Anyway, I'm really sorry but I'm afraid I still don't know your names. Would you mind introducing yourselves again?"

"No problem. I'm Remus Lupin," Remus extended a hand with a smile.

"Hi Remus," Mareena smiled back as they shook hands.

"I'm James Potter. Nice to meet you Mareena," James said as they shook hands as well.

"Nice to meet you too James."

"And I'm Sirius Black," said Sirius with a grin and they too shook hands.

"Now Julie," Mareena turned towards her sister, "I think you owe me some chocolate."

Juliana handed over a chocolate bar and now, Mareena could finally enjoy her chocolate:)

After a few seconds of silence, James spoke up.
"Can you show us some of your transformations?"

"Oh. Of course," Mareena replied as she shoved the last piece of chocolate into her mouth. "Animal or human?"

"Both, if you don't mind," Sirius said.

"Sure. I'll show you the animal transformation and Julie can show you the human one if she agrees."

"Of course," Juliana replied excitedly.

Mareena stood up and said, "Here I go then."

And in place of Mareena, there appeared first a snowy owl, a huge black dog, a wolf, a fox and finally a majestic looking unicorn.

Then Mareena was back in her seat, satisfied with the looks of shock on the boys' faces.

"Unbelievable," Remus muttered.

"Julie, your turn now."

"Okay. Who do you want me to turn into?" Juliana asked, rubbing her hands eagerly.

"Turn into Sirius," James answered with a laugh.

"Alright."

And there, in place of Juliana, sat Sirius Black who grinned and said, "Hi there. The name's Sirius Black. Nice to meet you,"
Juliana-Sirius said as he brushed his hair out of his face.

"Look at that!" Sirius exclaimed. "That is amazing. Although I'm more handsome of course," he added as he brushed his hair out of his face arrogantly.

Juliana rolled her eyes and transformed back into herself.

"That was awesome! Both of you!" They all exclaimed with a round of applause.

"Thank you," the two girls replied modestly.