The Shrieking Shack || The Marauders (Book 1)

SIRIUS

Three months had passed and the term was about to end already. Everyone was in high spirits in the Gryffindor house as Mark Mason, their Quidditch captain, had won them their first Quidditch match against Slytherin. The celebration for the Gryffindor victory had lasted throughout November, all thanks to James who could very efficiently sneaked out snacks from the kitchens late at night, unnoticed by the patrolling teachers and prefects.

One early December morning Sirius woke up to find the grounds covered in several feet of snow and the lake frozen solid. Christmas was near. As the others rejoiced the prospects of Christmas holidays, Sirius's heart felt weighed down by the slightest idea of going back home. Sure he missed his family but just not quite enough to make him want to go back home.

He sat lazily under their usual beech tree watching James, who had somehow managed to bewitch a fat little snowman that Peter had made to swear loudly at everyone who passed.

"What is wrong with you?" James elbowed him, his cheeks flushed red with all the laughing.

"Ouch! That hurts, you know."

"Oh, cheer up!"

"I would, if you stopped doing that," said Sirius, elbowing James back.

"Alright, this is getting quite boring now," said James after a while, pointing at the snowman as it suddenly yelled 'poop head' at a passing by Ravenclaw second year boy who shrieked like a baby and then fled the scene. James got up and brushed the snow off his cloak. "I say we go and meet Hagrid."

Sirius shrugged and stood up and together they walked towards Hagrid's hut at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"You know," said James, "someday, we should check out the forest. It's the only place we haven't been."

"That and the willow," added Sirius. "Peter heard Davey Gudgeon tell Jason that there's a tunnel between its roots. He saw it just before he got smashed."

Davey Gudgeon was a Hufflepuff fifth year who had nearly lost his eyes earlier that month while on a dare to touch the Whomping Willow's trunk. This incident had made the tree all the more interesting for Sirius and James, though it had also made Dumbledore put a blanket ban on students from going anywhere near it.

"I know," said James. "But I doubt that we'll be able to do that, especially since Dumbledore's asked Hagrid to keep watch."

*

"All right, I'm done!" said Peter as he slammed his Transfiguration book shut. "This is it. I can't do it. Transfiguration is not my piece of cake."

He rolled up his incomplete homework and started stuffing it in his bag. They were sitting on a table by the fire in the crowded Gryffindor common room. Sirius was helping Remus come up to scratch with all the school work he had missed while he was home to see his sick mother and James sat there absentmindedly rolling his wand between his fingers as if in deep thought.

"Why don't you just copy mine," said Sirius as he dug his homework out of his bag and passed it to Peter who took it looking extremely relieved and grateful. Remus opened his mouth, probably to protest, but then changed his mind and continued with his DADA homework.

"You know," James said abruptly, "I wonder what's at the end of the tunnel."

"The tunnel?" asked Remus stealing a glance at James and then continuing with his school work. But Sirius knew from their talk earlier what James was talking about. They had spent the afternoon bugging Hagrid about it too after all. And then discussed it later on their way back to the castle. According to James, the Whomping Willow was just a convenient way to hide a path which led outside Hogwarts.