The Losing One || Sirius Black

56. The Forms

Sirius was so eager to use the knocker out of pure curiosity since last time he didn't get the chance, but the rest of the Marauders protested because it will blow their cover, so Sirius stayed put. Grumpy, but put.

They stepped onto the platform where the door was and shuffled to the corner where the chances of someone running into them were the smallest. Thus, the waiting began.

Sooner than later, just standing there got really boring. Every time the tall door opened, excitement overtook the boys, but then they would see that the person leaving the Ravenclaw common room wasn't William.

Waiting was so boring that Sirius and James started the game of guessing the person's name by their appearance for each Ravenclaw that left the common room. So far, James was in the lead.

But just as Sirius was about to even the score the game ended. He was trying to decide whether the girl who just stepped onto the spiral staircase looked more like Samara or Samantha, when William finally emerged from behind the door.

"Hi, Sarah.", he said to the girl as he hurried down the stairs.

"I win.", James whispered excitedly to Sirius as four boys were finally able to move.

It was easy to follow William through the fifth floor corridors, but the real challenge came when the older boy stepped onto the Grand Staircase.

The Marauders needed to be fast enough to catch the right stairs before they moved and also avoid the sinking steps and the cloak not revealing them while they struggled. Sirius thought that maybe all four of them coming to this mission was a mistake.

They managed to get down to the ground floor with William still right in front of them, but the dinner had just began resulting in a sea of students filling the corridors which wasn't really the best scenario when you were wearing an invisibility cloak.

The Marauders quickly took the cloak off behind one huge armor and hurried up towards the next corridor they saw William enter. They rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of his cloak. He was going on another flight of stairs. Descending stairs.

Sirius ran towards it as fast as he could, desperate not to lose William, but just as he was about to step onto the stairs, he crashed into someone. Both of them fell to the floor and Sirius quickly got ahold of his head. His forehead hurt like hell, "I'm sorry. I wasn't looking—", but the rest of the Marauders were there in no time, "Are you both okay?", Peter asked as Remus extended his hand to the person Sirius knocked down while James was helping him to get up.

"Yeah, sorry, I wasn't looking as well.", the girl in yellow robes said. A Hufflepuff. Once both of them were back on their feet, Sirius apologized one more time before the girl left for dinner. Needless to say, once the Marauders went down the stairs, William was gone.

At least they still got the cake.

The next problem was about who to actually invite to the party. Couple of days ago, they wanted to invite McKinnon, Greenford and Evans, but, for obvious reasons, that plan needed to be changed.

James really wanted McKinnon to be there, so they settled on just inviting her because it felt awkward to only not invite Evans.

Everything went beautifully. They laughed and ate so much sweets that Sirius felt like he will not be able to look at another Chocolate Frog in a long time. James and Remus blew their candles together and McKinnon snapped a picture of all of them with the cake. Of course, as midnight struck, the Hogwarts grounds were showered in different colors from the fireworks coming from one particular window in the Gryffindor Tower.

Then April arrived.

That month was filled with pranks and research. They finally found an answer to the map-moving problem. Peter found some spell that could temporarily connect all the parchment pieces. It was like they were glued together when Sirius tested it, and Remus discovered a compact charm that literally packed the connected map in seconds, without any creases. Sirius called him a genius again.