The Marauders: Year Two | #Wattys2016

Slughorn's Store

James looked concerned. "So what do we do?"

"Maybe we should get Evans in on this," said Peter hopefully, thinking it might be a good idea to have one of the near genius Second Years in on the plan - given how much could go wrong with the process of becoming an Animagus.

Sirius made a face, "Of course we can't let Evans in on it! She'll go off to Dumbledore or something of the like and that'll end it right there, won't it? Evans is far too much of a goody-two-shoes to help us out with this." Sirius frowned and looked at James, "What do we do?"

James sighed, "I dunno. Maybe we should use one of the other passageways from the list that we haven't really explored yet... Remus won't go exploring without us."

Sirius took a deep breath, "Maybe... maybe."

Peter nibbled his sandwich while the other two talked.

"Eitherway," Sirius said after a few moments, "Whether we know where we're brewing yet or not, we need to get down to Slughorn's store and get the bicorn, fluxweed, and boomslang before it's morning and everyone's up."

James got up and took the invisibility cloak out of his trunk.

Twenty minutes later, the three of them had snuck through the castle under the cloak and arrived in the Entrance Hall of the castle. They were headed for the stairs into the dungeons when there came echoing footsteps below and they moved quickly out of the way, only just in time as Severus Snape came sweeping through the stone doorway. Snape's cloak hung off his arms like he were some sort of bat in the night emerging from a cave. Sirius watched with narrowed eyes as Severus Snape climbed the stairs two at a time, looking each way carefully at the top, searching for any signs of Mrs. Norris, and, seeing none, disappeared into the darkness that filled the Second Floor.

"What the bloody hell is he up to?" James murmured as soon as Snape was out of each shot and they felt it safe to speak again.

"Who knows with that dunder-head?" Sirius said, "Could be anything..."

"Maybe we should follow him," James hissed, already half-turned.

Sirius shook his head, catching James by the arm before he could go after him. "We need to get the stuff for the potion so we can get started -- for Remus's sake. We can follow Snivelly around the castle some other time."

James sighed, knowing Sirius was right, and he followed Sirius's lead down into the dungeons corridor. It was dark and dreary and they followed the wall until they came to the steps that led up to Professor Slughorn's storeroom. Peter glanced at the bathroom where, last time he'd been down on this floor, he'd seen the horrible reflection of the Dark Lord. He shivered at the thought of the bleak, hatred-laced man that had filled the wall-sized mirror of the bathroom.

"Alohamora," Sirius whispered, aiming his wand at the handle of Slughorn's store. But nothing happened. He looked at James.

"Must be locked tighter than the alohamora can handle," James whispered. He paused, then, "Dissolvo," he whispered. The lock melted.

Sirius looked at James, "Brilliant."

"Because Slughorn won't notice that his lock is melted?" Peter hissed.

"Oh I'm sure he'll notice it's melted," said James, "But that doesn't mean we're going to get caught for it. After all... we already know we aren't the only ones up and about the castle tonight." He shrugged and followed Sirius, who was already stepping into the dark, narrow little space.

The storeroom was lined with shelves with various sized bottles, boxes, bags, and binders. There were creepy things floating in colored waters, sealed with oozy wax, and great bushes of plants tied upside-down and hanging from the higher shelves. In the ceiling rafters hung knots of silvery hair and there was even a great horn of some sort balanced on the top shelf of the furthest case. The boys' eyes were quite wide as they looked around them.