Cold Fog
The snow patches of dreary February would eventually disappear as warm weather came around with March and April. The brown grass finally turned green, and more and more students ventured outside for fresh air. Many felt relieved to no longer be cooped up inside. Birds were seen migrating back, flowers were springing up once again, and leaves were reappearing prominently on all trees. Nature seemed renewed enough to return once again.
James Potter, however, barely noticed any of it, if at all. His argument with Lily back in February still came into his thoughts more than he would have liked, and the “peace of mind” he had talked about clearly wasn’t what he had. He spent many nights lying on his bed ridden with sleeplessness, and during those moments of insomnia, he possessed all the time in the world. There was nothing to do but think though, and think about Lily Evans was usually what he did.
On the other hand, no longer waiting for Lily had its benefits.
His usual nervous, show-off attitude he had around Lily vanished immediately. He no longer had to think of new ways to ask Lily out. James didn’t sweat or ruffle his hair as much every time he caught the smallest trace of her. He didn’t have to badger the Marauders for advice or tell them about the dumb thing he had done around her. Even when James saw Brendan Fraser, he no longer welled up in jealousy or anger but felt slightly glad that Lily was with somebody that would make her happy.
As the months passed, James had to agree with the rest of the Hogwarts' student body that Lily Evans and Brendan Fraser were quite the couple. They were seen holding hands between classes with Lily cocking her red head to lean on Brendan’s built shoulder. They were also often found giggling and laughing while they studied together in the library. Lily and Brendan both had busy schedules (seeing as he had Quidditch practice, and she had prefect duties), but they both managed to always spend a little bit of time together almost everyday.
One eventful scene James could recall was when he couldn’t help himself glance at Lily and Brendan talking to each other during dinner. At the time, James was chewing on a piece of chicken while Remus explained a charms lesson to a group of girls. Sirius and Peter were engaged in conversation about Natasha and Audrey. As James grasped a cup of pumpkin juice, he looked up to see Brendan lean over slowly, whisper something in Lily’s ear, and kiss her lightly on the lips.
James had coughed and spluttered a bit on his juice. Remus had stopped talking mid-sentence to ask if James was alright, and even Sirius and Peter turned to him.
“You alright there, Prongs?” asked Sirius.
“Fine,” gasped James while clearing his throat, “just fine.”
Meanwhile, the fact that Sirius Black was dating Audrey Filendale finally spread throughout the whole of Hogwarts. On Valentine’s, Sirius announced his frustration of all this “secrecy”, and the two both agreed they were much better off facing the publicity and being together openly. Girls were just a bit more than jealous and couldn’t quite seem to pinpoint what was so great about that “purple haired freak”. Audrey didn’t seem to mind though and ignored the gossip completely.
James was happy to see the two as a couple, but he missed the Astronomy Tower lessons he had had with Audrey. He longed to talk to her one-on-one again without Sirius being there. There were occasionally a few times they would briefly talk between classes, but never enough time to have a full on conversation like they used to.
After James had come back from Christmas break, Audrey had said that she was finally starting to understand Transfiguration, and that she no longer needed the lessons.
“If I need any help, I can ask you, Sirius, Peter, or Remus,” explained Audrey. “You don’t have to worry about me, James.”
James knew he didn’t need to worry about Audrey. He needed to worry more about himself.
Still, James enjoyed seeing Sirius be so wrapped up on Audrey. He remembered when Sirius came back from a Hogsmeade outing with Audrey in April. Sirius had come inside the dormitory with a dreamy, glossy eyed look, and Remus and James both inquired immediately how his date had gone.
“We,” was the first word to come out of Sirius’s mouth, “kissed.”
“Finally!” declared James with relief as he leaned back on his bed. “My little Padfoot is finally a man!”
“I have kissed a girl before, Prongs,” retorted Sirius playfully.
“You’ve never meant it before though,” said Remus smartly, and James chuckled.
“He’s got a point, mate,” stated James with a grin.
Sirius had flopped onto his own bed to explain in full detail how it had happened.
He talked about how Audrey had clung onto his arm gently and leaned against him as the two went into The Three Broomsticks. The two had ordered a butterbeer, and they talked for what seemed like hours. Finally, the two exited the café (tipping Madam Rosmerta for her kindness) and walked along the cobblestone streets of Hogsmeade. On their way back, Sirius had bought Audrey some sweets from Honeydukes, and she was extremely flattered by his simple gesture.
When the two had finally made their way back to Hogwarts, they strolled around the lake until the sun finally began to set. The two both stood underneath a beech tree as they watched the sun’s beams reflect off the water. They gazed in silence with Sirius having his arm around Audrey’s shoulder, until Audrey glanced up at him.
“Sirius Black,” she had said, “you are the most amazing person that I have had the greatest luck to meet and be with.”
Sirius had smiled back at her, “You are unlike anybody I have ever met, Audrey Filendale. You have the sweetest heart and the greatest understanding of any individual I have known. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
With that, Audrey had closed her eyes with that familiar shyness that James and Sirius grew accustomed to love. Sirius had leaned down and kissed her.
James could have sworn that Sirius had blushed ever so slightly after the telling of the story.
Meanwhile, Peter seemed to also be wrapped up with a girl, Natasha Wellings. The Marauders finally discovered that Peter met Natasha while studying in the library and asked her to go to the Christmas Party with him a few days before the party. The tiny, blond girl that Peter had introduced to James and Remus was now seen almost permanently with Peter Pettigrew. The two both ate together, walked to classes together, and studied together. There was barely a moment that the two were apart.
“C’mon Wormtail, just one prank,” said Sirius one night in the Gryffindor common room in an attempt to get Peter to go out with himself and James to pull a prank.
“Why don’t you ask Moony?” replied Peter with a frown.
“Why don’t you do some pranks with us? Besides, Moony is busy ‘studying’ with some other people,” explained Sirius as he sat down on a large, furnished arm chair.
“You don’t bug him.”
“Well, that’s because Moony is Moony.”
“I don’t care. I’m going to go spend time with Natasha.” And Peter slid out of the portrait hole rather offended.
Sirius rolled his eyes before he turned to James coming down the boys’ dormitory stairs and asked, “What’s his problem?”
Remus Lupin was also wrapped up in his own life. After his conversation with James at the Christmas party, he seemed to loosen and open up. He was often found talking to many different people; popular and not-popular. Remus was extremely busy jumping to and fro between different groups of people and talking to everybody. His friendly nature was a turn on with many, and they all appreciated his company. He was becoming even more popular than he already was.
“Moony, you’ve been pretty occupied with many fine looking ladies recently,” said Sirius one night in their dormitory, and Peter peered up from his thick book to glance at Remus curiously.
“Might I remind you that you do have a girlfriend,” replied Remus sarcastically, and James and Peter let out a snort of laughter.
Sirius scowled before saying, “Is there anything you want to tell us?”
Remus glanced at Sirius with a smirk and replied, “No, not that I know of.”
Sirius raised an eye brow. “There is something you’re hiding. You haven’t been this loose since...” He paused because he couldn’t really recall when the last time was. “Well, whatever the last time was. Something has got to be up!”
Remus shrugged nonchalantly and shot a grateful smile at James that Sirius did not catch. James chuckled to himself and plopped into bed.
The Marauders were busy with their own business and personal lives, but that still didn’t stop them from getting together.
One late night, the Marauders had all decided to work on the Marauder’s Map. Getting all four of them to work on the map was a bit difficult, however. It took a lot of bribing on Sirius’s part to get Peter to not go out and spend time with Natasha. It also required persuading from James to stop Remus from going to a pre-arranged social get together. Finally though, the four close friends were together in their dorm.
Getting the four together was not the only problem though.
After many hours with fiddling around with the map with no success, the four were almost about to give up for the night when Remus yelled a random spell out of frustration. The spell ended up hitting the map and created a hundred glowing, red sparks. The four boys cautiously approached the piece of parchment to see that it showed all the names of the people in the building with a dot representing each person.
The friends laughed hysterically for what seemed like hours until deciding to try it out by hexing Mrs. Norris, Filch’s cat. To the delight of the Marauders (and the horror of Filch), Mrs. Norris was turned into a can of sardines, and with the help of the map, the four were not caught.
All in all as the months passed, all the Marauders (with the exception of one member) seemed to be happy and satisfied with their lives. The relationship between Sirius and Audrey seemed to be going extremely smoothly (almost too smoothly in James’s opinion), and Peter dating Natasha brought out a certain small confidence in Peter. Remus was enjoying more of his time than any of his previous years, and he became looser and easy going around other people.
Even though the happiness of his friends was what mattered most to James Potter, he still felt a lingering emptiness as if he were missing a part of himself. No one noticed though, for everybody else was too occupied with their own intentions to notice.
James glanced outside. The rain fell hard onto the grounds of Hogwarts, and the sky was engulfed in a grey tint. He sighed as a small shiver made its way up his spine. He clutched his broom tighter in his hand and exhaled as he listened to the pitter patter of the rain drops on the stone steps before him. All of a sudden, without warning, James started to sprint across the green field of the Hogwarts grounds towards the Quidditch pitch as bucketfuls of rain splattered him in the face. He could have ridden his broom, but a sudden urge to get wet and out of breath abruptly came to mind.
Jennifer Wood had called a practice and said that even if it was windy, raining, thundering, or whatever the hell it was, there would be a practice, and attendance would be crucial. Everybody knew Jennifer’s serious attitude toward Quidditch, but the team always slightly doubted her common sense.
Clearly, the team was complaining when James clambered into the change room, soaked from head to toe, wheezing and panting for air.
“It’s a hazard!” complained Keira Jensen, always the first to do so. “It’s bloody raining outside, Jen! NO WAY can we go out there! At least one of us is going to catch a cold in this weather, and then we’ll have to get that stupid Hanson kid to replace one of us!”
The whole team shuddered at the thought. Harold Hanson was a third year spare player who was good enough to play Quidditch but didn’t seem to comprehend the meaning of “teamwork”.
“Hey! Suck it up, team!” barked Jennifer in an attempt to get everybody fired up.
The whole team groaned.
“Can’t we at least wait till the rain stops?” questioned Luke Brown, a Gryffindor Beater. “At least then there is less likely chance that any of us will get hurt.”
Jennifer raised an un-amused eyebrow. “Do any of you know how hard it is to book the Quidditch pitch especially at the last minute?!”
“Well, if you booked the pitch ahead of time then it wouldn’t be so hard,” said James smartly as he squeezed water out of the edge of his robes.
The whole team laughed in agreement.
Jennifer scowled at him furiously before clearing her throat. “Alright troops, here is the plan.”
She un-scrolled a piece of parchment and started to lecture the whole team on new techniques and moves that she was planning to enforce against the final game versus Ravenclaw.
This game was the one to make it or break it.
“Everybody got it?” asked Jennifer after an hour of explaining and planning.
Everyone nodded reluctantly.
As Jennifer grinned smugly, she ripped open the door of the change room to come face to face with an unusual site. Instead of heavy rain like everybody expected, the whole pitch was covered with thick fog. Barely anybody could see the rings, let alone two feet in front of their face.
“We can’t possibly go out in that!” complained Keira immediately as the rest of the team gawked in astonishment at the density of the fog.
“Come on, people!” exclaimed Jennifer with exasperation. “Stop making lame excuses and get on those brooms!”
Hesitantly, the team mounted their brooms and shot into the air carefully at the same time. James clutched his Nimbus tightly as he squinted in the distance at who he thought was Cory Callihan.
“Pass it!” yelled James into the fog, and suddenly the Quaffle came flying at him.
He grasped it and zoomed roughly toward the goal posts. Once there, he saw a figure blocking the goals. He was about to throw it into a post when suddenly, a Bludger came out of nowhere and banged against the back of his broom. The collision made him spin awkwardly and lose grip on the Quaffle.
“Keira!” shouted James in the distance but there was no response.
“James!” came a voice, and almost out of thin air popped Luke Brown.
“Luke, where the hell is everybody?!”
“I have no idea. You can’t see bloody anything in this mess.”
“Tell me about it.”
James and Luke circled around the thick fog until they nearly bumped into Keira who also seemed to be browsing around the pitch for the rest of the team.
“Oh, thank God!” said Keira with relief. “I thought everybody had left or something!”
“Are we even practicing? ‘Cause to be honest, I think we’re more looking out to prevent something or someone getting hurt than on our game plan,” stated Luke with a sigh.
A Bludger flew its way passed the three of them without warning, nearly hitting them.
“Holy shit, was that a Bludger?!” yelped Keira as the Bludger continued on in the distance.
“I’m guessing so,” answered James with disbelief.
“You three slackers hurry it up over there! Enough chit-chat!” barked Jennifer from out of nowhere.
“She can see us?!” questioned Keira with bewilderment.
The two boys shrugged comically and then zoomed off in different directions.
James swerved his broomstick to the left around the goal posts and peered around to see Cory with the Quaffle. James swung out in front of Gordon Flam, clutched the Quaffle Cory had passed, and threw it into a goal post to score.
“Dang it, Potter!” yelled Gordon as he saw the Quaffle go in. “I’m having enough trouble seeing as it is! What’s the big idea to score?!”
James laughed, and Gordon replied with, “I don’t think Wood is too happy about this practice.”
“I don’t even think she knows what’s happening in this practice.”
After James talked to Gordon, he flew off in the opposite direction, looking around for the Quaffle once again. Instead, he bumped into Cory Callihan, Keira Jensen again, and also Skye Fornei, the other Gryffindor Beater.
As James was conversing with Skye, the two both had to duck abruptly to narrowly avoid a Bludger.
“That is it!” announced Skye with frustration. “I don’t care what ‘Captain, slave-driver Wood’ says, I am heading down. This is just ridiculous!”
She flew downward gently, and James followed her until the two reached the ground. Once there, they saw that the rest of the team was huddled together in conversation around the change room doors.
“OI! James! Skye!” shouted Cory Callihan. “Over here!”
The two rushed over toward the rest of the team who were complaining in full swing.
“I think someone needs to give her a frickin’, bloody brain check!” Keira criticized fiercely. “I almost got hit by a bloody Bludger! A BLUDGER!”
“I hate to say it, but Keira is right,” remarked Luke half-jokingly while ignoring Keira’s glares. “I think we need to call it a day before somebody gets hurt.”
“I agree on that. I can’t see anything, and my glasses are starting to fog up a lot. We’d better tell Jen,” agreed James as he cleaned his glasses with his Quidditch robes.
“Has anyone seen Jen?” asked Skye with a tone of sudden concern as she glanced around.
The team was suddenly silenced as if a cold sheet of water had just fallen upon them.
“Jen!” called James into the thick blanket of fog but there was only silence that returned to answer him.
“Wood!” shouted Luke and Keira at the same time as Cory yelled the same in another direction.
“I think we should split up and look for her on foot,” said James, worry filling his body every second. “Callihan and Flam, you two go in that direction and circle around the edge of the pitch and meet back here. Luke and Keira, you two search the left side of the pitch. Skye, you’re with me, let’s look through the right half of the pitch.”
The team nodded quickly and hastily rushed over to their assigned spots to look for their captain.
For what seemed like hours, James and Skye searched through the right half of the pitch over and over. The two’s hands both started to become icy cold, and their faces turned a bright scarlet colour, but they continued to search. Then suddenly, a scream pierced the sky.
“Jen!” Skye and James both called as they ran toward the direction of the scream.
The two could faintly see a soft glow of lights being shot up from someone’s wand at the very left end of the pitch. They ran as fast as their chilled legs could carry them, and finally they saw Luke. He was kneeling down fanning Keira with his hand.
“What happened?!” exclaimed Skye as she rushed over toward Keira.
“She fainted when she saw Wood,” said Luke, his face an extremely pale white.
James glanced over next to Keira to see Jennifer Wood. Her dark hair was disarrayed as she lay on her back unconscious. Her head was bleeding slightly from what looked like a large blow to the head, and her left leg was twisted in a direction it couldn’t naturally have gone.
“Oh my God,” breathed Skye as she looked at Jen. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”
James saw Cory and Gordon running over toward them as Skye leaned on Luke for support.
“We need to get her to the Hospital Wing!” shouted Gordon in panic as he started to hyper ventilate slightly.
“I’m going to get help!” said James instantly, and before anyone could say another word, he dashed from the scene into the blinding fog as he broke out into a cold sweat.