There had been what people would call as a prank war between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors, since what happened with the clocks and watches, everything had changed back to normal. However, one thing wasn't as normal, the amount of blame that Snape piled onto the Marauders, he still hadn't clocked that I had helped too, thankfully.
Marlene had complained about the Slytherins for the past few weeks now, as they had managed to turn her hair pink.
"How is it still pink? It was pink last week, and yesterday, and the day before," Marlene sighed as she threw herself next to me in Defence Against the Dark Arts. I didn't know what to say to her, sorry or it looks good, both were plausible, only one ended up in exposing people however. I heard Dorcas from behind me say, "You rock it though Marls."
The brunette leant forward and hurried to gossip with Marlene about anything and everything. I wondered who to feel sorry for now that Dorcas was talking to Marlene, but I turned around to see Evelyn. Evelyn Green and I had been best friends when we were younger, nowadays, we hardly spoke, in fact, I was sure we hadn't spoken since the beginning of the year.
"How did the prank wars start?" Evelyn asked me, eyebrow raised. I shrugged nonchalantly and she just laughed and whispered, "Don't worry. I trust you, well, I trust you enough to know it wasn't only you, the boys helped too."
After a long defence lesson, we were walking to lunch, but this time I decided to sit with the girls in the courtyard, considering I hadn't spent enough time with them recently. I would also be spending more time with the boys tonight as it was the full moon again, it felt like it had been ages since the last one. Sitting with the girls was like a reward, a break from all of the chaos and the constant attention that the Marauders got.
"Marls, your hair, it's brown at the top, it looks like that spell is wearing off," Aafiya pointed out to the blonde girl who immediately pulled out a mirror from her pocket to inspect it. Speaking of mirrors, I hadn't been in many detentions lately so I found no use for the two way mirror but James and Sirius used it non stop. It was quite a nice sentiment that they offered it to each of us who gained a detention.
"Look who we have here, it's the traitor and her filthy friends." I knew that voice anywhere, even if I couldn't see who was speaking. It was Avery and as I turned around to face him, he was stood with all of his 'friends' and they were whispering snidely to each other. "Having a nice day Avery?" I asked him, I wasn't scared of him anymore.
"Well I was, until I encountered the older Black brother who warned me to stay away from you. So here I am Pattinson," Avery smiled. His smile was more of a smirk, an evil one which showed some of his extremely white teeth. He looked down at us girls condescendingly and pointed something out to Mulciber, his finger pointing first at Lily, and then at Mary.
The two girls didn't seem to find this amusing. "Do what he said and leave us alone Avery," Mary said, annoyed. Mulciber laughed nastily at her and mumbled something I couldn't hear.
It must not have been all too nice however, as Mary heard him and brought out her wand from her pocket, "Say that again, I dare you." Marlene and I stood up too, the blonde trying to lower Mary's arm. Lucius Malfoy made his way over to the group as he spotted us all, grinning smarmily.
"This is giving me flashbacks to their first year, isn't it boys?" he said, taking in the situation. I knew what he was talking about, this brought me back to the day that I found the Slytherin boys bullying Alexandra Wang and we tried to stop it. "Lower your wand and let us hex you then we'll leave. Or don't, we'll do it either way," Snape said from standing in Zabini's shadow.
"I recommend you don't do that Snivelly," a male voice said. I looked to my left and saw the Marauders jauntily walking over to us all, Sirius was speaking. Sirius had noticed that his brother was with the Slytherin group, and his eyes flashed a spark of disappointment but then he brushed it away and stared fiercely at Snape. "Yeah, I recommend you stay away from us Gryffindors," James said.
"Or what? You're going to roar at us, beat us in Quidditch?" Lestrange drawled. James and Sirius both drew out their wands, Peter fumbling to get his own out, but Remus stood there, prefect badge on his chest, not caring if the two houses were about to have a duel.
Avery whispered something to the Slytherins and muttered, "You're lucky this time," then he walked off. I wondered what had caused this change in attitude and saw Slughorn coming up from the greenhouses.
Later that night, we were all in or animagus forms, waiting for Peter to press the knot in the tree trunk before we could all go in. "Ready?" Peter asked us. He then scurried over to press the knot and the tree branches froze in place, the air becoming still and silent, the whipping of the branches no longer resent. Us four animals then made our way down into the tunnel and into the shrieking shack.
"Remus?" James called out. The four of us made our way up some steps and opened the door to a room that Remus was in last time. James opened it this time with his antlers, and we all stopped to stare at the wolf within. It took werewolf Remus a minute to re acquaint himself with us animals but after he did, the wolf was running around happily, chasing his own tail.
And suddenly, he stopped.
The wolf sniffed the air and growled, he made his way out of the room as we tried and failed to contain him in and made his way into the open space below. It was then that I was in for my biggest shock, expecting to see a small animal that made it's way into the tree. I saw the figure of a person. Of Snape.
Without questioning myself at why he was here, I turned to see if the other's had noticed him. It seemed that they had, Peter and Sirius were trying to distract the wolf, whilst James and I were trying to get Snape out through the tunnel and back past the Whomping Willow.
"What's he doing here?" James asked, but Snape never understood, we were in our animagus forms, he would never recognise us. "Don't ask me," I told him back as I tried to push Snape back into the tunnel with my head.
The wolf wasn't liking the disruption, and he side stepped the two animals that were trying to distract, and made a lunge for the only person in here. Snape. It was like a movie you would watch in a Muggle cinema. The wolf lunged for Snape. Snape was too slow at realising he was going to get mauled. James - in stag form - jumped in front of the wolf's claws, getting the full force of the attack.
It was by then Snape realised it was time to go.
It had been hours since Snape had left, and I could see the sun rising through a tiny, dirty window. James had obviously been hurt, he was lying in a corner the whole night, occasionally whimpering in pain when he moved. The four of us animagi decided to leave, so as to give Remus his space in the painful transition back. We needed to find out what to do with Snape and what to do with James' injury.
Changing back into ourselves and walking up to the dormitories for at least two hours of sleep was needed. The only difference than to last time was that James was limping and he was clutching his stomach in pain. Once we got to the common room, I inspected his wound, it seemed that the wolves claws scratched his stomach and left a deep cut. The thing was, I wasn't sure whether it would fully heal or it would scar, since it was a magical wound, a wolf wound.
"Stay there, I'll get Pomfrey," Sirius said to the three of us. James winced as he turned on his side to face his friend, I made to help him but the brunette just held out his hand, stopping me in my tracks. "No mate, I need to know something. When you spoke to Snivellus in Potions yesterday and didn't tell me what about, was that it? Was you planning to get him badly injured? Killed? Enlighten me, I'm sure we'd all like to know."
"I didn't mean to, I just wanted to scare him a bit since he was being an arsehole and threatening us. It wasn't supposed to be too bad. I'm sorry. You weren't supposed to get hurt," Sirius said in a quiet voice. It seemed that he was genuinely sorry for what he had done, but it wasn't my apology to accept, it was James, Remus, and even Snape's call for an apology that needed to be accepted.
After trying for half an hour to clean James' cut with just myself and Peter for assistance, he had a bandage wrapped around him and he was still lying on the Gryffindor couch. "No sleep for us tonight," Peter groaned. Just as he said that, Remus walked in through the portrait hole and looked at us all with a grave face, he took one look at Sirius and sighed deeply.
"Are you alright Moony?" I asked him, the look on Remus's face was tired, and I just knew that he was either going to collapse or cry.
"Dumbledore's sworn him to secrecy, Snape that is. But before he did that, he told Dumbledore everything, and the headmaster told me too. Sirius, why? I don't care, I just want to know what motivated you to let Snape see me like that. Was it vengeance? Well it was a bloody good one because look at what you've done, you've hurt James - that'll probably scar - and you nearly hurt the rest of us."
Sirius tried to talk to him but the scarred boy pulled a face, "Don't talk to me."