Selenophile // Marauders

|87| Summer 1977 - Part II

31st of July, 1977

Riley reached the Potter Manor and knocked on the door. Harley the house elf opened the door with a kind expression on his face and then left.

"Prongs?" yelled Riley. "Padfoot?"

"Crim!" exclaimed Padfoot as he ran downstairs and hugged her. "I was starting to forget what you looked like!"

"It's been a month..."

"Exactly! I'm becoming more and more like a dog every day!" whispered Padfoot.

"Dogs have good memories," said Riley, Sirius rolled his eyes. "Are the others here?"

"Moony's here, and Lily," said Sirius. "Moony came a day ago, Lily came a week ago, I have no idea where Wormy is."

"Wow, so organized," said Riley sarcastically. She dropped the small bag she was carrying on the floor. Lily slowly walked downstairs.

"What did you even fit in that?" asked Sirius as he looked at the tiny bag. "That would only take a pea in it!"

"Don't be dramatic, you can fit a lot of stuff in that," said Riley. Lily looked at the bag and then gasped.

"Did you use an undetectable extension charm?!" she said with a sharp whisper. Riley grinned. "That's not supposed to be used for personal use, Riley! You can get caught for that!"

"But it's 'undetectable' so they can't technically detect it, right?" she said with a smile. Lily looked nervously and then walked away.

The house filled with people soon. Marlene and Dorcas arrived at the same time, people still didn't know about the two dating each other. Marlene's hair had a light wave, she was wearing a pink t-shirt along with short jean shorts. Peter then entered, panting as he carried a tent on his back. He dropped it with a thud.

"Why do we have like a gazillion tents?" asked James.

"We only have like — how many do we have?" asked Dorcas. Remus was holding a tent, Dorcas was holding a tent, Peter had one, Riley had two. There were five tents for only nine people...

"I have two, I thought only Peter and I were supposed to bring the tents," said Riley. "And Mary and Marlene were supposed to bring the snacks." Mary and Marlene exchanged glances. They both looked down with nervous smiles. Riley exhaled and then facepalmed.

"Great work!" said Lily sarcastically. "Now we don't have food?"

"I have some chocolate bars with me but I don't think I want to share it," said Remus innocently and shrugged.

***

They reached the place they were going to spend the next few days, maybe even a week. The place looked peaceful, there were many bushes around, no trees. There was a small lake nearby, just beside the hiking area. The lake looked still, birds were around it, flapping their wings at each other as if they were having a conversation. The place didn't have a proper name or sign nearby. Them finding out about it was a complete coincidence, a good kind. Riley immediately noticed the lake and wanted to swim. Although she was stopped by Lily.

"All right, lads. That's the starting point," said James as he pointed to the little red flag dug into the soil.

"Shouldn't we set up the tents before that?" said Remus as he slowly started to take the pieces of the tent out of the bag.

"Yeah, that makes sense," said Mary. She then sat on the ground and took out sunglasses. Everyone turned to Mary.

"Come on, Mary, teamwork!" said Marlene and Mary grunted as she stood back up. "As your leader, I will sit down and watch you servants do all the work."

"That's not called being a leader, that's called being a bossy," said Remus as he started to build the tent on his own. Surprisingly, he didn't struggle with it, it took him some time to fully finish it, but at the end, they had a set tent.

"How did you do that so fast?" asked Sirius in amazement. "I don't even know what the pieces are called!" Remus just shrugged.

Three tents were built, the other two were not. They decided not to set them up after all, realizing they have enough room for everyone.

They eventually decided to hike — though they didn't actually hike. They were more looking around and walking without a purpose. There was a path for them to follow, going in between the bushes and the smaller trees nearby.

"Holy shit! That was definitely a snake!" screamed Peter.

"There's loads of two faced snakes in school, Pete," said Lily as she continued to walk. James cackled.

"He's worse than a snake," said James.

"Who?" asked Peter cluelessly.

"Snape," said Riley. "Sorry, I meant Snivellus."

"DORCAS LOOK AT THIS!" shouted Marlene.

"At what?!" asked Dorcas excitedly as she followed Marlene down the path. Marlene had gone next to an old looking string up in the air with a handle attached to it. The string wasn't so high up in the sky, it was a zipline, a zipline without any kind of security.

"A ZIPLINE!" yelled Marlene as she quickly grabbed the handle.

"Marlene, no!" said Dorcas as she pulled her back.

"That looks like one of those abandoned, rusty, old mysterious objects in horror films," said Lily. "No way I'm riding it."

"Why?!" shouted Riley followed by James and Sirius. "It looks safe, it doesn't matter that it doesn't have those straps that holds you. You glide like six feet up in the air. And then you let go and fall into the lake!"

"I'm going first!" said Sirius and pushed Marlene away.

"You dick!" said Marlene.

"There's no need to fight!" said Mary suddenly. "It's obvious I'm going first."