Chapter 1 – Your neck just asked me to sniff it!
Thursday 2nd September, Period One:
I love my life! We have been seated in alphabetical order in Transfiguration due to “intolerable behaviour” last year. Any normal person would be completely devastated, like my friend Katerina Pane who has to sit next to Peter Pettigrew, but I am not normal (clearly I am much more talented in ways that no others possess). I get to sit next to the most infamous Marauder, and most handsome, Sirius Black. Can you believe it? Thank you oh great father of mine; it is you who gave me the privilege of our beautiful family name.
Let me introduce myself. I am, as you probably already know, but it’s only polite, Rozabela Bland or Rosy. I am also the most devoted Marauder fan. In fact I am so devoted to them that the majority of my diary is based on them, as is my life. I don’t like to call what I am doing stalking, but rather dedicated watching. They will thank me when my brilliant work is published; their names will be known the world over.
Anyway, it’s the first day of term - or is it second? We arrived here yesterday after all. Why do I confuse myself with my own mindless thoughts? Where was I? Oh yes, it’s the first day of lessons in my sixth year (that’s less confusing for my more simple-minded readers). I am sitting in Transfiguration, I am being lectured about NEWTs - which, may I add, are about six centuries away - by Professor Mcgonagall. I am managing to keep my rebellious activities (i.e. writing my diary) hidden. I’ve achieved this through the miracle of balance – I have stood my textbook up, giving the pretence that I am reading from it, I am actually writing my diary behind it. But nothing can spoil my mood; I am becoming light-headed from breathing in the heavenly scent of Sirius Black’s aftershave.
Sirius just coughed! Must make note:
9:45, Period One, Transfiguration: Sirius Black empties his lungs and windpipe of bacteria, he then quickly returns to being sexy.
Oh my! That doesn’t sound as appealing on paper as it does in my mind. Anyway, I am sitting here, turning dizzy from inhaling Sirius Black’s scent, come to think of it I am always dizzy. What is that aftershave he is wearing? I recognise it, and so I must get a closer sniff.
Double dung! Sirius caught me sniffing his neck and is now looking oddly at me. Understandable considering I just shoved my nose under his chin and inhaled rather deeply. He is looking expectantly at me!
Say something clever…
Say something, quickly…
Say anything; it doesn’t matter what it is, just let it be words…
I must look like a first-prize idiot; I am simply staring up at him after just smelling his neck…
Talk, you brainless cow talk…
“Your neck just asked me to sniff it!”
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother opening my mouth; it doesn’t do much good for my reputation. I must change my name at once to “Queen of the uncontrollable gobs”. I shall live forever in hiding with my fellow uncontrollably gobby minions and will never speak again, in order to save myself from humiliation. Oh kill me, someone please kill me now!
I think I managed to get away with my explanation. After cocking an eyebrow at me, he just looks up at James Potter. James is the second most infamous Marauder, and second most handsome, who is currently staring at the back of Lily Evan’s head. I may have to release my uncontrollably gobby minions on her. Sirius has now gone back to his doodling. Maybe he experiences crazy, dim-witted cheesecakes sniffing his neck regularly. I wouldn’t be surprised because he smells really good.
Well, I think I can say I received his attention. Perhaps not in the way I had planned, but it is his attention none the less.
Must go, McGonagall is looking suspiciously at me, perhaps because I look like I am concentrating hard, which I have never done before. I do not possess the brain power to do so properly.
9:52, Period One, Transfiguration: Sirius just received a note from a fellow Marauder. This is where my incredibly sneaky skills come in. After copying so many classmates’ work during lessons, I have perfected these skills., I shall read it over his shoulder.
The note reads:
Padfoot,
It appears that we have lost dearest Prongs again to the never ending desire to win Lily’s heart. Wormtail has just informed me that there are a considerable amount of drool patches on his parchment, so many that Wormtail can no longer copy his work. This calls for drastic action, what do you say mate? Any suggestions?
I must also inform you that we will be strolling in the moonlight in two weeks time. You forgot about it last year, repeatedly. Even Wormtail remembered.
Your dearest friend,
Moony
Padfoot, Prongs, Wormtail and Moony? Who are these people? I think it is time to use my, even handier, detective skills.
Padfoot- I’m guessing this is Sirius, seeing as the letter was chucked at his head.
Prongs- I’m thinking this is James as he is staring at Lily, hence the whole winning Lily’s heart (how on Earth does Lily manage to get everything decent?)
Wormtail- it says in the letter that Wormtail can’t copy Prong’s work. “Prong’s” is only sitting next to Peter, so he must be Wormtail.
Moony- My calculations show that Remus is the only Marauder left, so he must be Moony.
But what does it all mean? My mind is on overtime, must close eyes for a minute; my brain is too simple to think this much.
9:56, Period One, Transfiguration: Sirius is replying to the note. Wow…he has such nice handwriting!
Moony,
I never forget anything; I just sometimes lose my way. Wormtail never remembers anyway, James just drags him along.
Prongs has been romanticising in this way regularly for the past two years, but you are right, it is time he was given a slap around the face and brought back to the real world. Come to the Room of Requirements at ten. Bring Wormtail along because we have some Sirius plotting to do!
Padfoot
P.S. I have charms next, what about you?
He then lobbed the note at Remus’ head, once Mcgonagall had turned around to write something on the board, which was tough considering Remus was several rows behind us. Once I had recovered from my fit of giggles over the Sirius/serious joke (he is so clever) my mind began to run on overtime again. The Room of Requirements? Wasn’t that the room that Katerina and I found, one day when we got lost on our way to the toilets? It certainly was an interesting room, and we returned there ever so often. It always gives us what we are looking for. And the Marauders are going to have a meeting there at ten! Katerina and I could use her invisibility cloak and spy on them. I’m getting excited now. Not only are we going to spy on the Marauders tonight, but I have Charms next too. Let’s hope that our behaviour is intolerable in that class aswell!
Oh, there goes the bell!
Thursday, 2nd September, Period Two, Charms:
It turns out our behaviour is perfectly tolerable in Charms, in fact Professor Flitwick rather adores us. I am therefore sitting next to Lily Evans, as Katerina is not in this class. Lily proves very adept at performing the conjuring charm, and has given me a few pointers. She is very nice actually, and I may not set my uncontrollably gobby minions on her after all. I will have to think about it.
Nothing else interesting has really happened concerning the Marauders, except I think Sirius told them about the neck-sniffing incident, they are looking over. But that might be because of Lily, who knows?
Have to go, Lily is trying to read my diary over my shoulder, it seems she has developed sneaky skills as well!
Thursday 2nd September, Break:
I’ve just spotted Katerina hovering around on the other side of the courtyard. I will go and tell her about “operation: desire” (I’m quite pleased with that name; it is filled with passion and is also quite fitting to my cause I think). On second thoughts, I may wait a few minutes, she looks like she is angry.
Thursday 2nd September, Lunch:
Break went surprisingly well I suppose, Katerina certainly seemed up for tonight’s challenge. I went over to her a few minutes later.
“Katerina! Guess what I found out!” I screamed. Running over to her whilst trying to make sure my skirt didn’t fly up in the wind!
“What?” she growled. Yes I was right, she was in a bad mood (she had just had Potions with the Slytherins, who wouldn’t be?)
“Temper, temper! Listen, Remus and Sirius are having a meeting in the Room of Requirements at ten tonight,” I informed her. That brought her out of Grumpy-land.
“Are you serious? We have to go! We can use my invisibility cloak! I cannot wait!” she squealed with excitement.
I told you it would brighten her day up; she is just as obsessed as I am with the Marauders.
Thursday 2nd September, 9:00pm, Girls dormitory:
Katerina and I are tarting ourselves up; we want to look good just in case the lads catch us, and I have a really big nose that I need to cover up somehow, possibly by enhancing my lips.
We are about to set off, Katerina is getting out her invisibility cloak. It’s quite chilly under it; I think it is because of the material. Okay, she is ready. On with our journey!
Thursday 3rd September, 3:00am, in bed:
Tonight was unusual, and horribly embarrassing. We left the common room at about 9:15 so as to get there early - Katerina is also a very slow walker and usually doesn’t walk in straight lines. It took us a while to find the room. We had a general idea of where it was but girls are always too busy to remember things like that. We finally found the stretch of wall opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. We thought about what we wanted –somewhere that was cosy and comfortable; a place where we could listen to the conversation; somewhere we definitely couldn’t be seen, and, most importantly, somewhere with hot chocolate and cookies. The door appeared and we went in to a pretty bland room (no pun intended). In one corner was an invisibility curtain with a tray behind it filled with goodies. It took us about twenty minutes to find the curtain because, funnily enough, it was invisible. It was only when I grew bored and pretended to be blind that I felt the soft material in my hand, followed by the sensation of the cookies and hot chocolate falling down the front of my top.
We settled behind the curtain; we were snug, warm and hidden from view. Passing the next fifteen minutes by munching on cookies and drinking hot chocolate, we chatted about the day’s events. I recollected the neck sniffing incident whilst Katerina snorted into her hot chocolate, which I thought was rather rude, and disgusting.
That was when the boys entered. The whole room transformed into a very classy, old fashioned cigar room, like the ones you see in Muggle movies; the place where old gentleman go after dinner for cigars and brandy. It had three squishy chairs in the middle and, rather appropriately, cigars and brandy. Miraculously our invisibility curtain was still there; we both sighed with relief. The door swung open and they appeared in the middle of the room, their invisibility cloak flung onto the floor. It gave me a bit of a shock (I say a bit, I actually squealed when I saw them, both with shock and excitement). I managed to contain myself in time, although Remus, being the most aware, looked puzzled at my sudden outburst.
Katerina was still munching her cookies and slurping her hot chocolate, let me tell you that her mannerisms aren’t the daintiest. She can be heard in Peru! I put a stop to it, though, by hitting her in the stomach. That clearly wasn’t the most intelligent thing to do as she squealed, spilt hot chocolate on herself and cursed - in that order. I swear Katerina will put me into an early grave! Luckily Peter let out a huge, and I mean huge, fart at the same time, causing Sirius and himself to burst out laughing. In other words, they didn’t hear us. But, again, Remus looked around.
Once the boys had settled, and wafted the methane gas in the air (and there was a lot), Sirius called the meeting to order.
“Gentlemen, I believe we all know why we are here!” he proclaimed. Remus nodded, but Peter shook his head.
“Actually no, you just pulled me out of bed and brought me here.” I was wondering why he was wearing pink, floral patterned pyjamas with an over-the-top rose embroidery on the front.
“Oh right, sorry about that, Pete. We are here to finally sort out Prongs’ little addiction, once and for all!” Sirius exclaimed, authority and excitement in his voice – I found that a very sexy combination.
Muttering under his breath, Remus said, “If that’s possible…”
“Moony, do you doubt me? After all the things we have achieved for you! We are, after all, the Marauders. We can do anything!” Sirius boomed heartily, his voice filled with passion.
“Here, here!” Peter squeaked.
“Any ideas, Moony?” Sirius grinned playfully, but Remus scoffed.
“What? Why me? You’re the ideas man!”
“That I am. That I am. But I left my thinking cap in the dorm!” he teased in response. He lit himself a cigar and poured Peter a brandy.
“Typical… Well, why don’t we, instead of getting him out of love with her, get her in love with him?”
“Brilliant, why didn’t I think of that?” Sirius pondered.
“Because you left your thinking cap in the dorm,” Peter reminded him, earning himself a thump on the shoulder.
“It was a rhetorical question, Wormtail! So, Moony, how do we do that?” Sirius questioned. He’s so inquisitive.
“Well, we may need some insiders, to find out what Lily likes, dislikes etc. We will also need to make James less conceited because that’s the main reason Lily hates him,” Remus thought out loud.
“I can take care of that,” Sirius boasted, which I agreed with, always the gentleman is my Sirius. Peter snorted and Remus looked doubtful.
“What I’m not conceited! I always respect the ladies,” he paused in thought (looking very sexy, I might add). “Well maybe you should do it Remus! But who is stupid enough to volunteer to help us spy on Evans?”
I already knew I was very good at spying; I had been a professional at it for all of today! But I wasn’t stupid enough to volunteer, not while we were spying on them anyway, that would look dumb.
“I think we should volunteer!” Katerina whispered. “Then we’ll be in with the Marauders, you know?”
“We will not volunteer, not right now anyway!” I fired back.
“Why not? It will be fun. We can hang around with Sirius and Remus! Besides we don’t like Lily much, anyway!” she argued, annoyingly. Katerina can really get on my nerves when she doesn’t agree with me, why should she have her own opinions?
“Because one - we are not worthy of hanging around with Sirius and Remus. Two - Lily is actually a very nice person, who is good at charms. And three - ssshhh!” I whispered back. Anger was rising in my voice.
“Number three technically wasn’t a real point! And since when have you liked Lily Evans?”
“Shut up Katerina or you will get us found out! Be quiet or I will set my uncontrollably gobby minions on you; do you want that to be on my conscience?” I screamed, realising, for the first time, that I am not actually that bright.
The conversation beyond the curtain stopped immediately leaving us in an uncomfortable silence.
“Oh good one, Rozabela, what a great way to get our cover blown!” Katerina hissed, pointlessly as we had already been discovered. I gave her my worst possible death glare and mentally added her to my hit list. I watched through the curtain as all three boys searched around the room for any sign of the two of us. I had a quick flash of inspiration and grabbed Katerina’s invisibility cloak, threw it over my head and ran out of the room as quick as I could, leaving Katerina to clean up her own mess.
A/N howdy people!! Thank you so much for reading, which I assume you have done as you are reading this, I'd be a little worried fo you if you randomly went around reading Author's notes :)... anyway, please review, constructed criticism is always welcome :) thanks !! xx