The Losing One || Sirius Black

37. Happiness and Fury

This startled him at first so he quickly withdrew his hand, but as soon as he composed himself, Sirius decided to just take a step towards the display. He squeezed his eyes shut as soon as the cold feeling overtook him, but it was over before he could even process it fully. Sirius turned around and observed his surroundings.

He was freaking in.

"Sirius?!", there was a concerned voice coming from behind him which definitely belonged to James, but once Sirius turned around, he was face to face with his friends.

It was like the whole display just disappeared. I love magic, he thought to himself, but something seemed funny. Nobody was quite looking at him. The rest of the Marauders still had really concerned looks on their faces, so Sirius exclaimed, "I'm here you idiots. Come on, let's see where this leads."

He turned around and started walking, but there were no steps following him, just another panicked whisper-yell from James, "Sirius! Where are you?!"

"No way.", Sirius said more to himself and hurried back towards his friends. Maybe he was stuck on this side? But as soon as he reached the space where shelf once stood, he simply walked through it and back into the Trophy Room.

"Sirius! What the fuck!", James hugged him so hard that he thought his eyes would pop out.

"You scared us, you dimwit.", Remus said as he flicked Sirius' head. Sirius saw Peter just clutching his chest and trying to compose himself from shock.

"Wicked.", was all Sirius was able to utter. James gave him a funny look once the two separated, "What's wicked?"

He went back towards the trophy display, "Look at this.", he stepped through it once more and there were joined sighs of awes from his friends. Then he just popped his head back, "It's like an illusion and while you're in there,", his hand popped from the display to point to the Trophy Room, "you can't hear anything from in here, so come on. Get in."

The boys obeyed and in less than two seconds, the four Marauders found themselves in another secret passageway with James still holding the golden Snitch.

"You were right.", he whispered to Sirius, "This is wicked."

This secret passageway was nothing like the other two they discovered. It was really clean with polished stone, not particularly wide, but wide enough for two people to walk side by side comfortably.

The Marauders didn't have to walk for too long, but they did need to walk downhill which meant no secret exits to the upper floors. At the end of the tunnel, they were faced with small, stone steps. There was five of them in total going upwards.

James went forward and up the stairs, but all of them could see that there was nothing there except the stone sealing. Sirius watched as James carefully groped the square slabs above his head and he caught the exact moment when his friend found something because a huge grin spread across James' face.

He gave the rest of them an arrogant smirk as he pushed the stone slab up and slid it to the side, revealing a square hole in the sealing.

"Nice.", Peter muttered as he, Remus and Sirius followed James through the hole. Thankfully, this passage had stairs unlike the mirror one where they had to hoist each other up.

Once Sirius emerged from the floor, he knowingly grinned at James who mirrored his look. I know where we are, he said to James telepathically and James responded with I know you know where we are.

"Where are we?", Remus and Peter questioned while looking at them suspiciously.

"My dear Marauders,", James started, "We are in a broom shed.", he and Sirius lit their wand lights once more, illuminating the space around them which held quite a lot of brooms.