CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
AND FIFTY NINE
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-: fifth year :-
── IN WHICH THEY BREAK
INTO UMBRIDGE'S OFFICE
. . .
"Dumbledore sacrificed himself to keep you in school, Harry!" Hermione whispered, raising her textbook to hide her face from Umbridge. Aviana rolled her eyes again. Their Defence Against the Dark Arts had been a constant stream of this, Hermione sat before the pair of them at the front of the classroom with Ron, as Aviana and Harry sat behind her and continuously whispered back to them reasons why they shouldn't talk to Sirius through Umbridge's fireplace.
And as annoying as it was, Aviana was most pleased to hear that everything was directed to Harry. Hermione might be being outrageously annoying in her attempts, but she wasn't trying to tell Aviana no. There was simply nothing that Hermione could say to her that would convince her otherwise, and Aviana was glad she recognised that.
Although, she simply couldn't understand why Hermione refused to understand and accept that Harry wanted to speak to Sirius. Who else was he meant to speak to about whatever went on?
"And if you get thrown out today it will all have been for nothing!" Hermione added, still in a rushed whisper. She had become more and more hasty with her warnings, and now that the clock was ticking merrily closer to the end of school, she had upped the ante on the emotional level of her deterrents. "Don't do this Harry - it's more trouble than it's worth, if Umbridge catches you-"
Harry shifted silently in his chair, Aviana let out a sigh. The bell rang to signal the end of the class.
"Don't do it Harry, please don't do it!" Hermione continued.
She still got no answer, as the class ignored Umbridge's calls about homework and other meaningless what-not. Ron seemed determined to not give neither his opinion nor his advice, as he and Harry stood awkwardly as they waited for Aviana and Hermione to pack up their various things; ink wells, parchment, textbooks.
Thankfully, as Harry was becoming less and less patient with the constant attempts at dissuasion, Aviana was the first to pack up. "Shall we get going, Harry?" She asked. "We only have so much time...." She trailed off, smiling pointedly over at Hermione as they made towards the door.
"Harry, don't do it!" Hermione carried a stack of her books, having forgone packing them away with favour for further warning them. "This is what I was saying, all that time ago-"
"I don't even know what he wants to talk to him about, Granger." Aviana sniped, pulling Harry away. "Regardless, I need to get to her office, for you-know-what purposes."
Hermione made a noise of discontent, as the two hurried forward, joining the stream of students trying to leave the classroom. "Give it a rest, okay?" Ron muttered, as they too joined the queue. "He can make up his own mind."
Harry was unwittingly nervous, and kept glancing up at Aviana for some kind of reassurance. There was no measure of anxiety in her expression, but instead a kind of expectance, as her attention wavered down the corridor, focusing on a vague point ahead of them, trying to hear something.
And then it came. The unmistakable sounds of the promised diversion going off in the distance, just as they left the classroom. Screams and yells reverberated in the corridor above them, the students below looking up at the ceiling fearfully. From behind them, Umbridge came pelting out of her classroom as fast as her short, stubby legs would carry her. She withdrew her wand from her robes and hurried off in the opposite direction. That was their cue.
"Harry." Aviana began pulling him along at speed in the opposite direction.
"Harry - please!" Hermione's last plea came weakly. Before he could even think about it, his feet had begun to carry him off in Aviana's direction, and the two of them weaved in and out of students hurrying in the opposite direction to see all the fuss at a run.
They reached the corridor with Umbridge's office with ease, and were glad to find it deserted. In a matter of moments, they hid behind a large suit of armour whose helmet creaked around to watch them as Harry handed Aviana Sirius's knife and pulled the Invisibility cloak over the both of them. As slowly as they could manage - Harry's heart was thudding in his ears and Aviana kept whispering for him to get a grip and hurry up, she had done this too many times to count - they made their way up to the door and Harry watched as Aviana inserted the blade of the knife into the thin crack around the door, moved it gently up and down then withdrew it.
There was a click, and the door swung open. They pulled the door back to a close quickly behind them after they entered and glanced over. It was entirely empty. Nothing was moving except what remained of the horrible kittens on plate frolicking on the wall.
Harry pulled the invisibility cloak off of them, and made his way to the fireplace. He found the Floo powder in a small box and crouched down in front of an empty grate, before pausing. "What are you doing?" He asked. Aviana was stood by the locked up broomsticks, fiddling with the chain and muttering to herself whilst simultaneously, and without looking, pulling the kitten plates off of the wall and sending them flying out the open window.
"Multi-tasking." Aviana paused in her muttering. "Never you mind, you'll find out soon enough - and I'll be there in a minute."
Regardless of what she was doing, and how it confused him so, Harry stuck his head into the grate and dropped the large pinch of Floo powder onto the logs stacked neatly below. They exploded at once into emerald-green flames. "Number twelve, Grimmauld Place!" He announced, clearly. It was one of the most curious sensations he had ever experienced, his head spinning as he travelled through the flames that connected the entirety of the Wizarding fireplaces in the country.
Eventually his head stopped spinning and feeling rather sick and exceptionally dizzy, and he opened his eyes to find that he was looking up out of the kitchen fire, at the long wooden table, where a man sat poring over a piece of parchment. "Sirius?" He asked.
The man jumped and looked around. It was not Sirius, but Remus instead. "Harry!" Remus looked thoroughly shocked. "What are you - what's happened, is everything alright?"
"Yeah." Harry nodded. All of a sudden, he felt exceptionally stupid. "I just wondered - I mean, I just fancied a - a chat with Sirius."
"I'll call him." Lupin agreed, getting to his feet and looking perplexed. "He went upstairs to look for Kreacher, he seems to be hiding in the attic again..." Remus hurried out of the kitchen, and Harry was left with nothing to look at but the chair table and legs. His knees were already beginning to ache - how had Sirius not mentioned how uncomfortable speaking through a fire was before.
"Shove over." Came Aviana's voice, and Harry almost thought he had imagined it, it was so distant. But he could feel a hand gently pushing at his side and all of a sudden Aviana was sat next to him in the fire. "Bloody hell, I hate travelling by Floo." She commented "No one here?" Her eyebrows raised.
"Remus just went to fetch Sirius." Harry explained, and not a moment later did they return.
"What is it?" Sirius asked urgently, pulling long dark hair out of his eyes and dropping to the ground before the fire. Remus sat down too. "Aviana... is everything okay? Has something happened. Do you need help?" He asked.
"No." Harry shook his head. "It's nothing like that... I just wanted to talk... about my dad." He said.
"What?" Aviana was the only one who said anything. Remus and Sirius shared a look of great surprise. There was no time for that, no time for surprise or questioning, and instead Harry launched straight into an explanation of what had happened in his last Occlumency meeting with Snape. The Professor's memories of his father hoisting Snape up by his ankles.. the voice of his mother disapproving entirely.
When he had finished, Aviana was sat quietly. Nobody spoke for a moment. "I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry." Lupin said quietly. "He was only fifteen-"
"I'm fifteen!" Harry replied heatedly.
"So am I!" Aviana added. "And I did that exact same thing to Draco the other week. Oh Merlin." She shook her head, suddenly lost in thought.
"Look, Harry," Sirius began placatingly, although he had grinned at Aviana's comment just moments before. "James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other, it was just one of those things, you can understand that, can't you? I think James was everything Snape wanted to be - he was popular, he was good at Quidditch, good at pretty much everything Snape wanted to be. And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts - whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry - always hated the the Dark Arts."
"Yeah." Harry said. "But he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because - well, just because you said you were bored." He finished.
"I'm not proud of it." Sirius said. Harry was too distracted to notice the look on Remus and Aviana's faces.
"Look, Harry, what you've got to understand is that your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did - everyone thought they were the height of cool - if they sometimes got a bit carried away-"
"If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean." Sirius interrupted.
"He kept messing up his hair." Harry said, in a pained voice.
Sirius and Remus laughed. "I forgotten he used to do that." Sirius said affectionately.
"Was he playing with the Snitch?" Remus asked eagerly.
"Yeah." Harry nodded. He watched, confused, as Sirius and Remus beamed. Aviana was watching them steadily. There was an unrecognisable expression in her eyes. "Well... I thought he was a bit of an idiot." Harry managed to get out.
"Of course he was a bit of an idiot!" Sirius told him. "We were all idiots! Well - Moony not so much," he said fairly, looking over Remus, who shook his head.
"Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape?" He asked rhetorically. "Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?"
"Yeah, well," Sirius shrugged. "You made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes. That was something..."
"And," Harry continued, determined to get out everything that was on his mind now that he was here, distraction and all. "He kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!"
"Oh, well, he was always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around." Sirius waved his hand dismissively. "He couldn't stop himself showing off whenever he got near her."
"How come she married him?" Harry asked miserably. "She hated him!"
"Nah, she didn't." Sirius said.
"She started going out with him in seventh year." Remus continued, a more reassuring tone to his words.
"Once James had deflated his head a bit." Sirius grinned. "And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it."
"Even Snape Harry asked.
"Well," Remus began slowly, "Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?"
"And my mum was okay with that?" Harry pressed.
"She didn't know too much about it, to tell you the truth." Sirius said. "I mean, James didn't take Snape on dates with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?" Sirius frowned at Harry, who was still looking wholly unconvinced. He hazarded a glance at Aviana, who still was saying nothing, quiet and thoughtful. Sirius heaved in a sigh. "Look, your father was the best friend I ever had, and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it."
"Yeah, okay?" Harry said heavily. "I just never thought I'd feel sorry for Snape." Aviana scoffed.
"Now you mention it," Remus began, a faint crease between his eyebrows. "How did Snape react when he found you'd seen all this?"
Harry felt more nervous at that moment than he had all afternoon.
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a/n
writing about the young
marauders makes my chest
hurt