CHAPTER NINETY
"don't scream"
The Slytherin common room was full of students from all years trading their smuggled Honeydukes sweets, playing Exploding Snap, or seeing who could eat the most Pepper Imps in a row without the steam coming out of their ears making them pass out. In the left corner of the room, Lucius and Theodore were playing an intense and strategic game of wizarding chess that Roldolphus and Regulus were only half watching. Leaning forwards on his thighs, Theodore ordered his rook to move just so that Lucius's advancing pawn was now blocked from its attack on Theodore's knight.
Lucius sat back in the high backed black velvet chair with frustration, dragging a thumb across his bottom lip.
"Dammit, Nott," the pale boy muttered, carefully studying the board to see if there was any way he could save his last pawn.
Taking this as a surrender, Theodore ordered his knight to viciously attack Malfoy's white marble pawn. Smirking slightly, he raised his light brown eyebrows with an arrogant, challenging gaze.
"Well, we all know if I play Lucius any longer he's going to start crying, so who's up next?" Theodore asked, folding his hands on the polished black and white marble checkered chessboard.
Before anyone could reply, a piece of parchment fluttered down on to the board with a soft impact. Looking around to see who had done this, none of the four Slytherin boys had managed to get their eye on them.
"What is this?" Roldolphus murmured with a questioning tone to himself as he picked up the piece of parchment with dozens of little ribbons floating across its yellowed surface in crimson, navy, black, and emerald ink.
Upon closer study, all four boys that those ribbons had names.
"Hold on," Regulus said, picking up the paper out of Roldolphus's grip firmly. Squinting his eyes, he was the first of them to realize what this was. "Is this Hogwarts?"
With further consideration, Theodore noticed the inky footsteps trailing behind the names.
No matter how greedy and haughty he could be, Nott was as smart as they come. It didn't take long for him to realize that this map of Hogwarts was tracking people, marking their every movement across the castle with exact precision.
Looking up with his observant brown eyes, Theodore scanned the room for who had delivered this extraordinary map to them.
"Did any of you get a good look at who dropped this off?" he asked in a low tone to the other Slytherin three boys.
None of them replied, they were too busy looking at what Lucius had just discovered.
"No, but I think we've got a bloody good idea of who made it."
Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs, and Nyx are Proud to Present the Marauder's Map
Theodore frowned at the mysterious nicknames that the five sixth years had assigned themselves. It didn't matter to him who was who, though, Theodore knew that one of them represented Hollis.
A bolt of jealousy pierced through him light white hot lightning.
Theodore didn't like it when Hollis had broken off from him a year ago to join those two Gryffindor girls at all. But he had liked it even less when the Rosier had started to become insufferably close to the Marauders. So close, even, that those boys acted as she had always been a part of her group. Like Hollis had never been with him.
That made Theodore mad, his pride deeply wounded.
And the opportunity to avenge some of that pride had just been dropped in his lap.
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After what felt like an hour of running nearly across the entire castle and looking out the window anxiously to check the status of the setting sun, Hollis finally made it to where Sirius and the others had rendezvoused and were waiting by the statue of the eight foot tall wizard.
All five of them were paler than usual with nerves, but Remus was by far the worst.
Everyone had a bad feeling about tonight but said nothing because they each believed that they were the only ones who felt this way and didn't want to bring down the group's spirits.
"We don't have long before the sun sets," Hollis pointed, glancing out of the iron paned window set deeply into the stone wall.
James hurriedly pulled the invisibility cloak out of his bag that was hastily slewn over his shoulder. The shimmering, translucent, fabric was quickly draped over all of them but Hollis. Lifting up the patterned edge, James made his head visible.
"What are you waiting for?" James whispered frantically, motioning his hand for her to join them. "We need to hurry."
The black haired girl looked over her shoulder at him, determination set on her features.
"Since one of you dumbasses left the Map somewhere, we need someone to look ahead. And I'm doing it," Hollis declared, leaving absolutely no room for questioning in her voice.
"Be careful," Remus warned quietly.
"I always am."
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Lily and Marlene were sitting in a towering oak tree that grew within the courtyard just outside where McGonagall usually monitored the hallways. The bloodred light of the sunset coated the two girls in its warm light, making Lily's red hair seem like it was on fire and Marlene's blue eyes turn an almost purple color.
Looking up through the leaves and branches overlapping to form a sort of roof over their heads, Lily closed her eyes for a few moments. The ginger took in several deep breaths of the crisp air, relaxing as much as she could for the first time in quite a bit.
A giggled and gentle poke on her shoulder broke her out of it.
"You like a hippy," Marlene laughed, and Lily rolled her eyes.
"I'm just trying to enjoy the nature," she replied, sitting back up from her reclined position on the branch. "Hogwarts really is quite beautiful."
Marlene laughed again at how dreamy Lily could get. Right as she was about to reply to Evans, though, Mckinnon caught a tight, quick formation out of the corner of her eye.
Looking down on to the courtyard below, she watched as Lucius Malfoy, Theodore Nott, and Roldolphus Lestrange cut through the slightly frosted grass with a disturbing amount of ambition.
As the three Slytherin boys left their view, the Gryffindor girls turned their necks towards each other with concern.
"Every single thing those boys do just scares me," Lily muttered, leaning back up against the thick bark of the tree bough. "Did you see what they almost did to Mary the other day?"
Marlene frowned deeply.
"Yea, I did. Hopefully, it's just some stupid Halloween outing where they all end up getting lost in the Forbidden Forest for forever," she declared, fidgeting with a strand of her curly blonde hair.
"Yea, hopefully."
The two Gryffindor girls had not the smallest idea of how wrong they were.
As eventful as the day had already been, Halloween was just getting started for the worse.
James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus were carefully following behind Hollis through the busy corridors that led the way to the nearest exit to the grounds that would take them to the Whomping Willow. They all cringed with every wooden side table that they bumped into or person on their way to see their friends that they almost toppled over. The four boys had all been walking with such a low crouch so that the cloak would keep them completely hidden that their thighs were on fire and were going to give out if they kept this going for too much longer. Hollis was having to act as natural as possible walking alone while simultaneously signaling the Gryffindors that they were okay to come forward.
So far, they had succeeded in not being seen, although Hollis was the receiver of quite a few odd glances.
Letting out an exhale of relief, she could see a clear shot from an open-air archway on the east edge of a courtyard that would take them straight to the Willow. Thinking quickly, Hollis whispered into her bracelet so that it wouldn't look like she was talking to someone that wasn't there.
people will notice if we freeze the branches - h
i thought of that too - s
so can we press the knob twice and it will undo whatever makes it stop moving? - h
brilliant - r
in theory - j
i can work with in theory - h
Taking one more subtle glance behind her, Hollis jogged towards the Whomping Willow as casually as she could.
It didn't take long for the monstrous tree to sense her presence.
With a sudden movement that made the air swoosh around it like the crack of a whip, a flexible branch as thick as a python slapped onto the ground an inch away from Hollis. The impact made the earth around her shoot upwards, hitting her sweatpants with the small specks of dry, dusty dirt. Despite having her foot almost crushed by the tree, Hollis hadn't moved. After the first full moons, she had gotten used to it.
Hollis had nominated herself to take the risk of transforming tonight. If they all did under a tree like usual and then went into the tunnel, there was a much higher chance that someone would see them. So, the smartest thing was for only one of them to turn into an animal and the other four to enter with the cloak.
The next time when a branch came down next to Hollis, she disappeared from view. The other Marauders watched anxiously as the gnarled branch peeling itself out of the dent it had made in the ground.
And revealed a bloodred tiny fox that had been standing behind it.
The four Gryffindors let out a shuddery breath of relief.
They watched as the small creature gracefully avoided the violent boughs of the willow tree with slight awe. Taking an enormous leap forward, Hollis pressed the protruding knot of the tree with two minuscule outstretched paws.
As if time had taken a pause, every single branch of the Whomping Willow froze in mid attack. A single rust-colored leaf fluttering down onto the slightly frosted ground was the only sort of motion.
The fox turned its small black snout towards them with urgency, its eyes as dark as the night sky glittering in the sunset. I didn't do this for nothing, hurry up, the fox seemed to say as she narrowed her wide eyes.
Snapping out of their trance, the Gryfinndors clambered across the ground as quickly as they could without tripping from underneath James's cloak.
Hollis didn't see if the boys had made it through the tunnel or not a few seconds later, but she pressed the knob anyway.
Thankfully, Peter managed to slide into the tunnel just in the nick of time.
The boys had done it, and the tree had only been frozen for a few moments.
But now Hollis had to get in.
Taking in a deep breath, she transformed back into her human form and hopped deftly down into the path leading to the tunnel. The tree instantly swiped at her one, two, and then three times.
Hollis managed to dodge all but the last one.
As if it were a whip, a small branch off of the larger bough cut her right across the cheek. Gritting her teeth so that she wouldn't cry out, Hollis knew that she had to keep moving no matter how badly it stung. Tumbling gracefully underneath the next branch that tried to hit her, she could feel the wind on her face from how close it had been. With one last desperate motion, the Rosier took a long jump to the secret entrance.
To her relief, her momentum carried her underneath the roots where the other Marauders were waiting for her.
Shoulders heaving from the exhausting game of not getting killed by a bloody tree, Hollis noticed how the four boys were looking at her with concern.
"Your cheek," Remus said, his brows furrowing as he looked at the blood trickling down to her jaw. "You're hurt."
Hollis quickly wiped away at it with the back of her hand.
"Just a small cut, I'm fine," she said and started to walk forward. "We have more important matters at hand."
Yea, everything is always more important than your safety, Remus thought with a frown as he followed Hollis through the rooty, dusty, tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack. Just let yourself need help.
"Hollis," Remus called, jogging slightly to catch up with the hurt girl.
She slowed down in her strides so that he could walk next to her. "Yes?" she asked, still plowing forward uphill.
"You don't have to act fine all the time you know," Remus whispered, gently taking Hollis's hand. "It's okay if you're not okay."
I really can't hide everything from you, can I? she thought resolutely.
"Look at our lives, Remus," Hollis replied earnestly. "Running around with a werewolf every month and then healing you, getting an O.W.L's worth of work every single night, being a part of a Defence Against the Dark Arts club that we all know is so much more than that, all while simultaneously finding times to play pranks and just trying to be a bloody teenager."
She could have kept listing, but that would reveal far too much. She knew that she had hit a mark with the growing up too fast by the change in Remus's expression.
"Think about how much living now is killing our youth, Remus. The last thing I want is for another layer to be added on to that by being negative," Hollis finished with a sigh.
There was only silence for a few moments as they kept walking.
"Don't you understand, Hol?" Remus asked, turning his neck so that he was looking right into her deep brown eyes. "The fact that all of this stuff is happening just means that I, all of us, should care more about the things that happen to each other. Showing you're not okay isn't negative."
Hollis frowned slightly, knowing where he was going with this.
"With all of this pressure is adding up, do you really think that secrets and hidden pains are going to help at all?" Remus questioned, tone both pleading and strongly insistent. "What if one day it all becomes too much and something horrible happens? And then maybe you won't be able to act fine anymore and it will be too late."
It took every single ounce of willpower in Hollis's body not to tell him everything. So they walked in complete silence until she reached for her wand for some light and realized it had fallen from her loose pocket somewhere among walking down the uneven tunnel or dodging the branches. She must have been too distracted by either Remus or the Willow to notice.
"I dropped my wand, keep going," she muttered, turning back through James, Peter, and Sirius, who had been walking a few yards behind them.
Remus watched helplessly as her back turned, wanting to keep talking to her, trying to explain, to help. But he knew that they had to keep walking in order for him to transform within the Shack safely.
"What the bloody hell did you say to her, mate?" James whispered, glancing at Hollis's back.
Remus frowned.
"I just want her to stop hiding stuff from us. It's been too long."
Hollis could hear Remus say this, but she kept just scanning the dusty ground for her black wand. Every second that she and the Marauders got farther apart, an odd, uncomfortable feeling grew in her gut.
The tension got so bad that she was about to just turn back around before she saw her dark wand lying on the ground, slightly covered in dirt. Sighing with relief, she bent down to pick up her wand and slid it into the waistband of her sweatpants.
Right as she began to walk away, though, an arm gripped around her waist and pulled her against the wall forcefully, while another strong hand was shoved over her mouth.
"Don't scream."
There was nothing about being told not to scream and getting slammed against a dirt wall that made Hollis want to cry out any less. The hand over her mouth was surprisingly strong, while she had gotten the wind knocked out of her stomach with the force of the arm. She had immediately shut her eyes out of instinct, and now that she had she was scared to open them and see who it was.
"It's just me," whispered the familiar voice that Hollis had recognized a few seconds earlier.
Her brown eyes flew open to see Regulus standing there, his black hair tousled and a smudge of earthy dirt contrasting with his pale cheek. His expression was desperate and scared, and he looked like he had been running for hours with how exhausted he was. He quickly removed his hand from her mouth and forearm from her stomach once her eyes relaxed slightly.
"I'm sorry, I just had to make sure that no one would hear me or you," Regulus apologized while she caught her breath.
Hollis's heart had never been racing so fast in her life, adrenaline rushing through her blood like fire at being pulled over so urgently.
"Merlin, never do that again, Reg," she cried, holding a hand over her chest. "You scared the living shit out of me." Brushing some dirt off her back, she immediately began to question him. "Now, what the bloody hell is going on? How did you get past the tree? Why are you following us?"
Holding up a finger to her for her to be quiet, Regulus glanced behind them hurriedly. "No time to explain all that," he whispered, brushing off his dirty hands on his black sweatpants.
Hollis's eyes widened at his frantic tone. "You're scaring me, Reg," she said quietly.
She wanted to get to Remus as quickly as possible, and Regulus needed to spit it out so that she could go help him with his transformation.
"Theodore got your and the other Marauder's Map that you made together," Regulus revealed hastily, cringing at his own words.
Hollis felt her head go light.
This was one of her very worst fears, the Map getting into the wrong hands. If Theodore had it, who knows what he who he would terrorize with its powers. Even worse, he could identify who was in the Shrieking Shack tonight, and that could mean something so terrible that Hollis didn't let her mind go any further.
"No," she whispered, staring at Regulus in the dim lighting. "How did he open it?"
He didn't know any better than she did. "I dunno Hol, it was just dropped off at our table in the Slytherin common room," he told her apologetically. "None of us saw."
The use of the word 'us' made the simple pit in Hollis's stomach turn into a cavernous ravine.
"Who the bloody hell is us?" she asked, terrified to hear the answer she already knew in her mind but prayed that it wasn't true.
"Nott, Malfoy, Lestrange, and I," Regulus confirmed regretfully.
All of this was crashing down on her so hard that she felt like she could throw up. Well, she actually couldn't because of how empty her stomach was.
"So let me get this straight," Hollis whispered with wide eyes, her voice cracking slightly. "Someone stole the Map from Sirius, who had it today. Probably at breakfast, we accidentally created our own perfect diversion with the glitter. And that same person then also somehow knew how to use it, unlocked it, and then gave it to you four because they knew that one of you were bound to do something bad with it?"
"Yeah, sounds about right," Regulus said with an immense amount of regret in his tone that he couldn't tell Hollis that her alarmingly clever guess was wrong.
She pulled her wand out of her waistband and looked behind him like he had done earlier. "And where are they now?" Hollis whispered, wishing so badly that she had the Map.
This was what he had been dreading telling her the most.
"They're coming our way, to the Shack and the passageway that you marked on the Map," Regulus disclosed, speaking very quickly.
The only thing that Hollis could think about was Remus.
If those Slytherin boys somehow got into the Shack, they would figure out about Remus in an instant.
"Regulus, I can't tell you why," Hollis told Regulus, grabbing his hand, "but we can't let them get into the Shack otherwise something very, very bad will happen."
Now it was Regulus's turn to be confused.
"Why, what-"
"I can't explain," Hollis replied, squeezing his hand reassuringly. "You're just going to have to trust me."
Regulus looked down at their hands for a few seconds before returning Hollis's stare.
"I trust you."
"Then we need a plan to keep them away."
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The sun had disappeared behind the rocky, pine-covered mountains of the Hogwarts grounds, and the moon was about to rise. Remus had his hands over his face leaning against a battered wall of the Shack, while James was furiously pacing.
"We have, what, two or so minutes until the moon rises?" Sirius asked, his black eyebrows furrowed. "That's enough time to go get her."
Remus was staring at the rickety staircase leading up to the highest floor of the Shack with hope.
"She might just be coming up any minute now," Lupin said softly, his voice becoming weak as his body started to ache.
"What if she got hurt?" James asked, still pacing across the dusty, ripped carpet haphazardly thrown over splintering, grey floorboards. "What if she's in trouble?"
Peter bit his thumbnail anxiously. "It isn't like Hollis to take this long when she knows that Remus needs her," he whispered anxiously, and James and Sirius nodded.
Remus was silent as a beam of full moonlight shone through the cracked oak shutters. It was too late.
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Having to crouch low in order to not hit his head on the dangling roots, Regulus followed Hollis to an inlet in the dirt wall a dozen yards or so away from the entrance to the secret tunnel. Hollis pulled him in, and it was a bit of a tight fit in order for both of them to squeeze in the small hole.
He looked over to her face, only inches away.
"What do we do now?"
"We wait."
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