“Hm, that’s a great idea Padfoot,” he said sarcastically. “There’s only one little problem: You don’t know how to get into his office!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Sirius coldly. “Everyone knows Dumbledore is fond of sweets. And there are only so many sweets in the world, after all. So go on then, what’s your favorite sweet?”
“Er,” said James, thinking for a moment. He wasn’t prepared to rattle off a list of sweets. “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans,” he said finally.
Nothing happened. Sirius rolled his eyes.
“Don’t be stupid, he hates those,” he growled. “Chocolate Frogs.”
Again, nothing. The gargoyle didn’t so much as blink.
“Squeaking Sugar Mice,” James tried. “Er “ Peppermint Toad. Fizzing Whizbee.”
The gargoyle continued to stare at him.
“Wait a moment, I’ve got it!” Sirius cried. “Sugar Quill!”
To James’s immense surprise the gargoyle sprang to life, jumped aside, and the wall opened to reveal a moving spiral staircase. Sirius swept past James to step onto it, but James just stared.
“Come on then, we haven’t got all evening,” said Sirius, turning back.
James came to himself and followed him. A moment later they found themselves in front of a gleaming oak door with a brass knocker shaped like a griffin. Sirius knocked on it. There was silence, and the door remained closed. Sirius tried the handle. It was locked.
“He must not be back from London,” said James uncertainly, but Sirius wasn’t listening.
“Alohomora,” he said, tapping the door with his wand. He tried the handle again, but the door remained locked. Fuming, Sirius turned on his heel and stormed back down the stairs and into the corridor.
“Perfect,” he snarled, as he and James made their way back to Gryffindor tower. “My aunt is dead, my uncle is dying, one of my cousins is going” “ he paused, searching for a word to describe exactly what his cousin was; at last he found it “ “mental, another one keeps harassing me, a third one seems to be plotting my murder, and Dumbledore is in bloody London! You know what I think?” he questioned, rounding suddenly on James.
“No idea,” James answered honestly.
“I think Dumbledore is useless!” Sirius declared, resuming his march down the corridor. “Bloody useless! Because every time I could really use his help he’s nowhere to be found! In Hogsmeade he didn’t show up until after we’d gotten the situation under control! And then he disappeared on Ministry business before we could tell him about Bella! He showed up long enough to get Uncle Alphard to St. Mungo’s, and then disappeared again! And now Jocelyn is going mad and he’s in bloody London! I mean, don’t you think that’s ridiculous?”
“I have no idea,” said the Fat Lady irritably. Sirius and James had arrived at her portrait midway through Sirius’s rant. “But I think it is ridiculous that you haven’t given me the password yet!”
“Billywig,” said Sirius impatiently. “But that wasn’t the point “”
But at that moment the portrait hole swung open, and by the time Sirius had climbed through it he had forgotten what his point was, so he and James went up to bed without further discussion.
Jocelyn, oddly enough, was perfectly fine the next day, and acted exactly as she had before the attack in Hogsmeade, though she was considerably paler. The Marauders were much too afraid to bring up Narcissa in front of her, and were astonished when Jocelyn herself brought her up a few days later in Transfiguration, as they once again attempted to conjure pigs, this time out of thin air.
“I just don’t understand why she keeps seeking us out!” she said abruptly. She waved her wand distractedly, and a trail of flies streamed out of it.
“Ugh, Jocelyn, pay attention!” said Lily, making a face. James quickly vanished the flies for them.
“Who?” questioned Sirius, who wasn’t paying any more attention to his spell work than Jocelyn to hers, and was absentmindedly flooding the floor with tadpoles.
“Narcissa!” Jocelyn hissed, and all the Marauders winced.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” said Sirius. “She’s trying to intimidate us, isn’t she? Trying to scare us!”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said Jocelyn thoughtfully. “I mean, if we’re not scared after “ well, you know,” she said quickly. She jabbed her wand distractedly at the ceiling, and a shower of sparks fell onto her desk, blackening it.
“After they killed your mother?” Peter supplied helpfully.
Sirius, James, Remus, and Lily all glared at him. Jocelyn gave no sign she had heard, but the little color in her face drained out of it.
“Yes, well, Jocelyn’s got a point,” said James after an awkward pause. “I mean, if that didn’t intimidate us, I don’t see what Narcissa’s going to do.”
“Yes, exactly,” Jocelyn nodded. “That’s why it’s so strange. I mean, what does she hope to accomplish in all this?”
“She’s just evil,” said Sirius dismissively.
“You see, that is one of your greatest weaknesses,” said Lily suddenly.
“If you’re talking about not focusing enough when I do the spell, I was already aware of that,” snapped Sirius. Tadpoles were now wriggling all around his feet. He had already squashed two of them.
“No, I wasn’t talking about that at all,” said Lily impatiently. “Although that is a problem, of course. But I meant your conviction that Slytherins are purely evil! You underestimate them! They have other qualities besides evilness, you know!”
“All the Slytherins I know “” Sirius began angrily.
“We are all perfectly aware that you have some very nasty Slytherin relatives, Padfoot,” Remus cut in quietly. “But Slytherin house is not comprised entirely of Blacks, and to that point not all Blacks are evil.”
“Well if you’re talking about me and Jocelyn!” said Sirius hotly.
“But I’m not,” said Remus quietly.
“And anyway, that’s not the point!” said Jocelyn wearily.
“Then what was the point?” Sirius demanded.
“The point “ oh, never mind!” Jocelyn sighed as the bell rang. “You’re all hopeless, really!”
And swinging her bag over her shoulder, she started to leave the classroom alone. In her hurry to get through the doorway she accidentally rammed into another student.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she started to say, looking up, but the words died in her throat. She was looking into the most interesting eyes she had ever seen, a deep hickory with flecks of gold.
“It’s all right, Adhara,” said a voice she recognized, and suddenly she realized the eyes belonged to Hector Freemonte, the Hufflepuff prefect and, really, a very ordinary person. Jocelyn knew him by sight, but she had never seen him up close before. She would have remembered those eyes if she had. He smiled at her, and Jocelyn felt a strange jolt in her stomach.
“You’re blocking the door, Joce’,” said Sirius’s voice from behind her.
Jocelyn jumped, feeling guilty, though she had no idea why.
“Sorry,” she said quickly, squeezing past Hector. She hurried away from the classroom too fast to hear the exchange that took place a moment later.
“That was my cousin, Freemonte,” Sirius snarled at Hector.
“I know, Black,” said Hector quietly.
“My cousin,” Sirius growled. “Not my sister. Understand, Freemonte?”
“Perfectly,” said Hector.
“Good,” said Sirius, and pushed past him to pursue Jocelyn.
“Ready to go, James?” Lily questioned as they made to exit the portrait hole together.
“Yeah. Er “ Lily?”
“Yes?”
“Do we “ are we going to split up tonight?” he asked tentatively.
“Not if you don’t want to,” she answered hesitantly.
“Er “ well, it just gets boring alone, that’s all,” he said quickly.
Lily gave a small smile, thinking she knew what he meant. A few months before she would never have allowed him to abuse his position to spend time with her, but for some reason she didn’t mind it so much anymore.
“Yeah,” she said quietly, “wicked boring, James.”
They patrolled in silence for a few minutes. Lily waited for James to say it, to ask her one more time, smiling quietly to herself when she thought of the answer she would give. Finally James spoke one word.
“Hector.”
Lily, who had been examining a suit of armor, looked around at James very quickly.
“What about him?” she said sharply.
“Well, nothing,” he shrugged, “except that Sirius doesn’t seem to like him much. He seems to think that Jocelyn “”
“Is that why you wanted to patrol with me tonight?” Lily snapped. “So we could discuss Jocelyn’s love interests?”
“No, of course not!” said James in frustration. “It’s just that “”
“Sirius is worried that he has competition!” finished Lily angrily. “Look, not that it’s any of your business, but Jocelyn doesn’t fancy Hector, all right! She hadn’t even looked at him properly before this afternoon. And don’t ask me about it again!”
James didn’t say anything. Disappointment was flooding through Lily, and anger at her disappointment.
“I would think you’d be more concerned with the object of other girls’ affections besides Jocelyn’s,” she muttered after a moment, without looking at him.
James frowned.
“What d’you mean?” he questioned.
Lily gave a frustrated scream and stomped her foot, glaring at him.
“That you’re being thick, James Potter!” she snarled, and stormed down the corridor, leaving him to patrol on his own.
A/N: Hey guys! Sorry about the wait for the last chapter, I got back from vacation and then… stuff happened. (Ha! Thought I’d forgotten about you, didn’t ya?) Anyway, hopefully that’s the longest you’ll ever have to wait for an update (though judging by the upsurge in submissions here, I'd guess not. The poor mods... {have you hugged your mod today?}). Please be sure to check out my LJ (link on my author page) for some important info about where this story is headed (If there's nothing of that nature when you first go to it, check back in a day or two. It's important you go there if you ever want to find this story on this site again). Until next time, folks… ~ Trinsy