Four To The End (prev Shifting Lines) - Book One (Marauder Era)

Chapter Seventy-Three - The Fight

"It's dangerous," Remus answered. "Loads of dark creatures. Some we haven't even studied in Defense yet. Some we won't until years ahead of us."

"Like Hungarian horntails," Sirius said, patting the rock beneath them.

"Oh, be serious," James said.

Sirius grinned. "I mean. I'm always Siriu--" He broke off, rolling away as James tried to hit him. "You're the one who said it, not me!" he said from the other side of the rock.

"What kind of... creatures?" Peter asked, eyes darting around at the trees around them.

Remus began listing some of the more dangerous things that could be lurking around from the tiny doxie to the huge graphorn, though graphorn wasn't as likely since they preferred the actual mountains to the forest. "But they might come down here occasionally," Remus added. He leaned back against the sun-warmed rock. "There's rumors of acromantula too but that's impossible."

"Acrowhatchula?" Sirius asked. He and James were now throwing rocks at a tree, trying to hit a small knothole. It made Remus think of the way to get under the Whomping Willow. Pomfrey started getting him to throw rocks and despite his clumsiness he had gotten quite good. Well, decent. Well... okay. One out of ten times. That didn't seem too bad for someone who tripped over their own feet.

"Giant spiders. But they're native to parts of Asia so they can't be here. Probably someone used an engorgement charm on a spider and let it loose so that's what whoever started the rumor really saw."

Peter pulled up a piece of grass. "Giant spiders sounds scary." He put the grass between his thumbs and brought it to his mouth. He blew a couple times until a piercing sound came out. He kept making the annoying sound until Sirius pointed out some animal probably peed on the grass and Peter flung it away, wiping his hands off on his jeans.

James finally managed to hit the knothole. Remus half expected a secret tunnel to appear but of course nothing happened. "We should make a hideout here." Suddenly he sprang up, jumping up and down. "We should build one! A fort! Fort Dragon! We could do it, with sticking spells."

"Plus it's easy to get here," Sirius said, hands on hips as he surveyed the area. "Nice clearing too."

"Let's do it!" Peter exclaimed.

It was afternoon at that point so they drew straws (well, sticks) which James lost. So while the other three began gathering big sticks, James went to steal some food from the castle kitchens. He returned to find a pretty big pile of wood waiting, and the four of them took a break to eat. Once finished, Remus, James, and Peter would hold pieces together while Sirius did the sticking spell, something he was quite good at (though at one point he accidentally stuck a stick to Remus's hand and they spent quite a while doing a reversing spell to get it off of him; thank Merlin it wasn't the permanent sticking spell!). While they worked building a wall James suggested the coat the Slytherin benches in the Great Hall with the sticking spell.

"Yeah cause using anything like that went sooooo well for us before," Peter said, crinkling his nose.

"Least you were only stuck to the ground," Remus said. "I was stuck to Sirius." Sirius used the sticking spell, jamming his arm against Remus's arm. Remus looked at their arms then glared up at the grinning Sirius. "Why are you such an idiot?"

"Hereditary, in my opinion," he replied cheerfully.

James and Peter went back to holding up sticks while Sirius stuck them together and Remus worked on getting him unstuck from Sirius. Finally he managed then spent his time fetching more sticks. Soon they had a small wall that was as long as the dragon rock though only a couple feet high. Sirius stuck it to the ground before they began working on another wall, and then a third until Remus heard some crashing in the woods a bit aways. He froze, then the sound came close enough that the others heard it. That's when they decided to (quickly) head back to the castle; it was getting late anyway.