In the blink of an eye the first term at Hogwarts had all but vanished and the last few days before Christmas induced a riotous atmosphere inside the castle. The frosty winter air positively crackled with the excitement of expectation. The school grounds had been covered in a thick, fluffy coat of dazzlingly bright snow for some time now. It was a breathtaking sight at dawn and dusk. The girls had found themselves drawn to the Astronomy Tower whenever their schedules permitted. Late on the last Saturday afternoon before the term ended they were to be found huddled in a corner of the front steps wrapped tightly in their heaviest cloaks, snacking on a few sandwiches they had managed to pinch from the lunch table. Kim, who was by far the most studious of the group, had taught herself a Melting Charm from their Charms textbook and had thawed a section of the stairs big enough for them all to relax on. They were chatting away quietly as they watched the sun slide down behind the blanched tree-tops of the Forbidden Forest. “Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?” Nat suddenly asked in a brief moment of silence. Elysa turned on the step below and stared at her friend wide-eyed while their other companions chuckled quietly. Natalie had a habit of asking the most random questions.
“What in the name of Flamell makes you ask that?” Lex asked between spurts of giggling.
“It’s something that’s been bothering me for a while now,” Nat replied, apparently oblivious to the comedic nature of her enquiry. “I mean, when you put a woolly jumper in the wash it shrinks. So why doesn’t a sheep shrink? It’s the same thing.”
“Not really,” Marie chipped in thoughtfully.
“How so?”
“Well, your jumpers only shrink when the water is hot. Rain water is cold,” she answered.
“When did you get so clever?” Kim joked.
“I’m not really sure…” Marie said with a smile. The girls returned to their quiet until the sun was completely gone and an inky blue had crept across the sky, which was when they returned to the castle.
There was just enough time for them to quickly return to their dormitory to hang up their cloaks before it was time to go to the Great Hall for the final feast of the term. Dumbledore was sat in his usual spot smiling genially at his exuberant young charges. When everyone had found themselves a seat the headmaster gently tapped the handle of his fork against the side of his empty challis.
“The season of goodwill is upon us once more and the twinkling eyes before me assure me that the spirit of the season is alive and well, and for that I am very glad. Myself and the staff hope that you all have a joyous and fruitful holiday. I believe I have rambled quite long enough. Let the feast begin!” Dumbledore clapped his wrinkly hands as copious amounts of food appeared on the five tables and energetic consumption began.
The Hall was filled with a variety of sounds, the rumble of laughter, the clanging of plates and goblets, the murmur of conversation and the screeching of moving chairs. All this was interrupted by sudden yelps emanating from the Slytherin table. As students from the three other houses craned their necks to see what was causing the commotion it became clear that a section of the table’s occupants had fallen victim to a cruel joke. The words ‘Another fine Marauder prank!’ were being formed by green and silver streamers above a large group of Slytherins who had now sprouted shiny black horns on either side of their foreheads. Roaring laughter swept through the breathless crowd. While Professor Slughorn was demanding calm, several of his students were running from the hall shrieking, as the majority of the others chortled into their Yorkshire puddings.
“There’s something that I need to tell you all,” Mar muttered so quietly that it was barely audible over the noise. The rest of the girls looked up at her seriously, but the small smile playing at the corners of Marie’s mouth gave them leave to relax. They eagerly swallowed the rest of their food and walked back to the Hufflepuff common room so quickly that they practically ran the whole way. They shuffled through the bustling crowd in the room and made a dash for their dormitory quarters. Once the door was closed, and the noise of their house-mates muffled, the girls stared at Marie expectantly.
“I know who the Marauders are,” she pronounced with a large grin.
“Who?” Elysa asked eagerly, she was bouncing slightly on the end of her bed.
“You all have to swear that you won’t tell anyone,” Mar looked at each of the girls intently.
“It goes no further than these walls,” Lex confirmed with a nod. The others did the same.
“The Marauders are James and his friends,” the girl announced with a proud sort of giggle.
“What?” Natalie looked up rather sharply.
“Don’t start that again,” Kim mumbled quietly.
“I’m not starting anything, I just want to make sure that I heard right there. You’re saying that your cousin and his pals are the Marauders?” Nat looked to Marie for confirmation, which she got in the shape of a fervent nod. “So they’re the ones responsible for that prank earlier?” Marie nodded again. “They’re the ones responsible for all those pranks that have happened over the last couple of years?” Marie nodded yet again. “Well, knock me down with a feather...” Nat breathed.
“Hold up, I think Nat might actually be impressed there!” Lex exclaimed.
“What is it?” Mar asked in confusion. Natalie had had a deep-rooted hatred of James as long as the girls had known her.
“Do you remember that I told you about my friend Joanne?” Mar and Kim nodded, but Lex and Elysa continued to sit on their beds bemused having missed out on that conversation. “James and the others setup up an Invisible Puddle at the top of the stairs outside the Charms classroom,” Natalie explained for their benefit.
“That explains why you hate him so much,” Elysa commented as the penny finally dropped in her mind.
“Well, after that happened there were this bunch of fourth years, who started picking on her because of what happened. They kept making fun of her. Jo was really upset, she cried all the time. A few weeks later, they all woke up with purple spots on their cheeks arranged into a word,” Natalie paused dramatically. Elysa immediately jumped in to ask the question they all wanted to.
“What word?”
“Marauders,” Nat nearly whispered. “They went to Madame Pomfrey, and it looked like she had managed to cure them all. They were wrong. Every time one of them tried to pick on Joanne the purple spots sprang up again. It only took a day or two for them to realise what was happening and they left her alone.”
“That’s brilliant!” Elysa trilled as she chuckled. Nat nodded solemnly, the realisation that she had been unreasonably mean to James was sweeping over her.
“Does this mean you’ll stop being horrid to James?” Marie asked eagerly.
“I didn’t say that,” Nat replied hastily.
“But you just admitted that he helped stop those people picking on Joanne…”
“Yes, but if he hadn’t played that stupid prank then they wouldn’t have been picking on her in the first place!” Nat continued adamantly.
“We all make mistakes, Nat.” Lex gave the other girl a significant look, silently reminding her chubby friend of the way she had behaved just a few months previously.
“We do, and we’ve all got to accept our punishment for them. When he shows that he’s actually sorry for what happened then I’ll stop being mean.”
“You’re really very stubborn, you know,” Kim commented with a sigh.
“I know, that’s why you all love me,” Nat replied with a big grin. With that the girls retired to bed and the only noises that filled the room were the rustlings of pyjamas, and the opening and closing of drawers. Just as the lights dimmed, as they did every night, the chorus of goodnights swept the room followed by gentle breathing and some light snoring.
The next morning was a bit chaotic in the girls’ dormitory as Elysa revealed that she hadn’t actually done any packing for her visit home.
“You haven’t packed anything?” Kim exclaimed with her eyebrows disappearing into her hair.
“Erm….no…” Elysa gave what she hoped was a little, casual shrug.
“Elysa, the train home leaves in an hour!” Marie yelped.
“I didn’t think I’d really need to take anything with me…” Now that her friends were looking so panicked it struck Elysa that she’d actually been a bit stupid.
“Right, everyone, action stations. Marie, you get the wardrobe, Nat, you go for the chest of drawers, Kim, you take the bathroom, and I’ll pack the trunk. The girls immediately dispersed to their stations and began picking out the things they thought might be needed for the trip home. Marie started tearing robes and cloaks out of the wardrobe with gay abandon, and threw them in what she hoped was Lex’s direction. Nat opened the top drawer of the oak cabinet and stared at it rather emptily, unsure what he friend would really need for her two week holiday. Kim was the only one who seemed to strike the balance between taking everything and taking nothing, she returned from the bathroom with Elysa’s toothbrush in one hand and her facecloth in the other. When Lex finished folding the robes that Marie had managed to land on her head she looked up at Nat expectantly, when she just stared back Lex rolled her eyes. Marie immediately shot round the bed, grabbed the open drawer, and in one swift action she emptied Elysa’s entire underwear collection into the travelling trunk.
“That’s how it’s done!” she rumbled happily and she gave her hands a satisfactory wipe on the front of her school uniform.
“No wonder you had trouble getting your trunk closed this morning,” Lex muttered as she flipped over the lid of Elysa’s trunk and locked it.
Their exuberant mood continued through breakfast and right up until they saw the Hogwarts Express at Hogsmeade station. As soon as they laid eyes on the glistening red locomotive their spirit seemed to ebb away. The five of them had been in almost constant company for the last three months, the prospect of not seeing each other for two weeks suddenly looked horribly daunting.
“It’s only two weeks,” Nat muttered at random intervals. The others weren’t sure whether she was talking to them, or to herself.
“We can always write to each other,” Kim added every fourth or fifth time Nat mumbled. The other girls nodded.
“Two weeks isn’t long. Look how quickly the past three months have gone by, we’ll be back on the train before we know it,” Elysa reminded them all comfortingly. This seemed to put a little bit of spark back into them and they spent the rest of the journey alternating between games of Exploding Snap and Gobstones, the latter of which Kim was getting surprisingly good at.
When the train pulled into King’s Cross, the girls all saw their parents on the platform. Mr and Mrs Cura seemed delighted to see Kim laughing as she disembarked the train with Natalie on the other end of her trunk, they had worried terribly about her. Mr and Mrs. Brownlie were a little further up the platform and whilst happy to see their eldest daughter again, they were having some trouble trying to keep their rabble of small children all in one place. Mrs. Taylor appeared to be scowling at Lex for no apparent reason; it quickly became clear that she and Lex’s younger sister had had an argument earlier in the day. Marie quickly rushed over to a large group of people who were all ecstatic to see her; there was some kind of Potter family reunion going on. The only person left without someone to greet them was Elysa, she nervously looked around in the hope of spotting her parents but couldn’t see them anywhere.
“They’re probably on the other side of the barrier,” Nat assured her. Sure enough, when they tumbled through the barrier between platform nine and three quarters and the Muggle world, Mr. Montfort was standing close by trying to comfort his wife. They hadn’t been able to get through the magical wall, something which had upset Mrs. Montfort terribly.
As they all divided off in their separate directions with their families, they waved to each other cheerily and wished each other a Merry Christmas, two weeks wouldn’t be long in passing them by.