The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

The Walls Have Ears

James was hard to rouse, but Sirius persisted until he'd sat up and put on his glasses and blinked away the sleep dust that sealed the corners of his eyes. Sirius had simply nodded toward the door and James nodded, getting up from his bed and grabbing hold of the invisibility cloak and following Sirius down to the common room. "Blimey," James yawned, "I'd meant we could go - during -- during the day." He shook the cloak out as they approached the portrait hole. "Here," he said, "Get under."

Sirius grabbed hold and ducked under the cloak with James and was just about to open up the portrait hole when he heard a creak on the stairs. His eyes widened as he looked at James and the two invisible second years ducked out of the way of the portrait hole, looking back at the stairs behind them. A shadow was creeping down slowly, though whoever it was clearly had not been close enough to see the boys before they'd put on their cloak. For a moment, Sirius thought perhaps it was Peter, following along behind them, not wanting to be left out as usual, and was about to think up an excuse for why Peter couldn't come along when he realized it wasn't Peter at all.

It was Derek Bell.

Derek crept quietly down the stairs, tiptoeing, wincing when the staircase creaked or groaned beneath him. He was clearly quite skilled at descending those stairs noiselessly, though, as he slid his feet side to side and leaned in strange ways on the way down. James made a mental note of the way the elder boy moved to get down and planned to try it next time he needed to sneak out of the dormitories at night. When Derek had finally made it to the bottom, he quickly hastened to the portrait hole and pulled it open, glancing up at the girl's dormitory stairs, making sure nobody had woken up, and he ducked out into the hallway.

Sirius and James scrambled to follow him.

Derek Bell walked quietly down the corridor, pausing rather often to listen carefully to the castle. James and Sirius had to freeze still when he paused, afraid that Derek might hear them. Once or twice the older boy had glanced back over his shoulder and James had held his breath in fear of being found out. They weren't sure why they were so worried about Derek Bell finding them - after all, it was just Derek, the bloke was their mate, he wouldn't care if they were out of bed! He'd probably find them funny. Or, at least, he might normally, but there was something about the way he was moving, something about how secretive that he was acting, that made Sirius doubt Derek would be pleased to see them. Luckily, James seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

They followed Derek through the castle, down the staircases to the third floor corridor. Then came a heart stopping moment. Derek had paused, frozen, back pressed to the wall by a portrait of a fat wizard charming a prince into a toad, when echoing down the corridor came a little meow.

Sirius had winced. Derek was certainly about to be caught by Filch. He'd get detention for sure. All the protecting him that the whole of Gryffindor had done since the incident with the Firewhiskey... it was sure to all be undone in one go, and all thanks to that filthy old cat!

But Derek had thought ahead.

He knelt down as Mrs. Norris neared, her tail swishing through the air in annoyance. She was about to turn and go to alert her master when Derek clucked his tongue quietly and reached into the pocket of his robes. Mrs. Norris sat at the corner of the corridor, where she had just come from, and peered, interested, through the dark at Derek's outstretched palm. She licked her foot carefully, considering him, her little pink tongue wetting her paw before she swept it over her ears

"C'mon Mrs. Norris," whispered Derek, "You've never once refused a snack of crab meat, have you?"

The cat could resist no more. She inched closer, her nose twitching in interest at Derek's palm.