The Marauders: Year Four

What's Mopsus Playing At

Filch leaned over the desk, "We're taking care of the offenders! Taking care of them, not to worry, Dumbledore's on his way," he said.

Mopsus murmured, "Offenders?" His milky white eyes stared blankly, his fingers flexed over his cane. "These are my students."

"They broke into a classroom and attempted to steal --"

"Are you, a caretaker, arguing with a Professor, Mr. Filch?"

Filch silenced, looking quite reprimanded.

"I had requested these students to come to my classroom tonight," Mopsus said, his voice croaky.

"At this hour?" Filch demanded, "The middle of the night?"

"Divination requires odd hours for accuracy," Mopsus murmured. "These students have done nothing wrong."

Filch looked like he'd been robbed, "Well they - they were found with dungbombs!" he accused.

"The dungbombs were not detonated."

Filch's mouth opened and closed, "But - but just having them --"

"And did you confiscate the dungbombs?"

"Of course," Filch muttered.

"Then you've done your part, Filch." Mopsus turned his head as though to look around at the five of them, though his eyes were fogged and unseeing. "Students to bed, we'll hold our lesson another night, seeing as we've missed the bewitching hour already. Hurry."

All five of them stayed sitting, looking uncertainly between one another.

"You heard me," Mopsus said, "Go back to your dormitories."

Lily jumped up first and Peter followed suit, followed by languid Sirius, who stared at the old man as he passed by, then Remus and James taking up the rear, casting a glance back over his shoulder at the Marauders' Map, still sitting on the desk of Filch's office.

They walked down the hall, trying to stay calm. They could hear Filch shouting behind them, and Remus reached out to grab Sirius's hand as they moved along. Sirius could feel the nerves in him trembling. When they reached the stairwell, Peter broke into a run up the stairs.

"Bloody hell," whispered James.

Lily said, "Did you see his face? How... how old it was?" She looked at James with furrowed brows.

James nodded.

"What're you on about? He's always been old!" Sirius said.

"But he was even older just now," Lily said. "His cheeks were all sunken in and his wrinkles were much deeper than they were before."

"Perhaps we interrupted his beauty sleep," snickered Sirius.

Peter was waiting at the top of the stairs for them, looking quite terrified.

"What do you reckon Filch will tell Dumbledore when he gets there and finds we're not there?" James asked.

"Better, how are we going to get our map back?" Sirius demanded.

"Actually," said Remus as they reached the portrait hole, "I think the best question is: what do you reckon Mopsus is playing at, getting us out of trouble like that?"

They paused in the corridor, looking amongst each other.

"We gotta get our map," Sirius mumbled, then turned to the Fat Lady. "Godric." She swung forward and he climbed through.

Remus sighed. "I have a feeling we'll be visiting Filch's office again soon."

"Well we don't want him reading the map," James pointed out, "Or he'll know all our passageways."

Lily raised an eyebrow, "All? How many passageways do you know?"

"Loads," Peter said.

Sirius stuck his head back out the door. "I have a plan to get our Map back."

"That was fast," Remus said, climbing through the portrait hole as Sirius ducked back inside.

Peter followed.

James waved for Lily to go, "Gingers first," he said playfully.

Lily paused. "James... about that day, after the cinema..." she was flushed, and looked down at her fingernails as she tried to figure out how to word the apology, clearly very uncomfortable with it.

He smirked at her, "I know."

She looked up, "You know?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "You don't have to say it. It's okay."

"Thank you," she said.

He nodded.

Lily started for the portrait hole - she could hear Remus inside arguing with Sirius ("Well if you'd listened to me when I said tonight's endeavor was stupid then we wouldn't be needing to get the map back!") - and she was just about to go through when James caught her arm, stopping her.

"Evans," he said.

She looked back at him.

"Don't let her call you names like that, okay? Stand up for yourself because... well, you're pretty fantastic." He let her wrist go.

Lily stared at James for a long moment, then whispered, "Thanks, Potter. I suppose you're not always so horrible yourself."

He smiled -- and she turned away, climbing through the portrait hole into the common room to find out what Sirius's latest scheme would be.