"Lumos!"
Chapter Sixteen: The Lair
Over the next few weeks, James noticed an immediate change in Sirius's behavior toward Remus. In turn Remus had begun to warm back up to the whole group. He stopped wandering off to the library every afternoon, or, as he had admitted later to James, that he had gone down to visit with Madam Pomfrey in her office a few times. James, when Remus revealed this information, said simply that it had made sense for him to go down there considering how many times they had been to the infirmary in only the last few months. Then he smiled awkwardly at the boy after he had finished the statement. Remus said nothing more that evening to James or to any of the others and just went back to his work, which was steadily getting more difficult as the teachers kept loading the homework on them. They seemed to have more charts, graphs, and essays to do in the last week than they had had in the last month. Due to this recent development most of the students decided to fill the common room until well into the night. Therefore, the four boys had taken to hiding in their dormitory after the day's lessons had ended. They routinely started to make themselves comfortable on the floor in the middle of the room by grabbing all of their pillows and using them to sit or lie down on, as they worked on their homework.
James stared at Sirius, who was on the floor comfortably lying on top of his pillow. They had formed their typical circle, which was now referred to as "the homework ring of doom" and were currently swapping answers for Astronomy's latest chart. James laughed as Peter whined about how confusing the assignment was, and opened his mouth with what he thought was a clever reply but was cut off by Remus.
"It's not that difficult, it's just a matter of memorization. Plus, there are only nine phases of the moon anyway."
"That's too many to memorize," Peter whined back and then continued pitifully. "The only ones I know are the new moon, full moon, and first- and last-quarter moons."
"You have half of them down already," Remus said, slightly irritated and then at the frustrated look on Peter's face he retorted, "copy what I say down and don't lose the paper." Sirius and James laughed in unison, they all knew Peter wasn't very good at keeping things, but shut up when they saw the hurt look on Peter's face. Remus ignored them and continued once he was sure Peter was listening. "There's, if we start with the full moon, the full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, waning crescent, new Moon, waxing Crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, and then it goes to the full moon once again. It just repeats; it's not hard at all."
Sirius just stared in slight awe at Remus. He knew the phases but since Remus had missed that particular class because of yet another one of his infamous disappearances (which had caused yet another uproar between James and Sirius, and had started when James cleverly pointed out that Remus's getting sick fell on the full moon), he was doing quite well. Sirius turned to look at James who looked rather smug and glared down at his paper. That was yet another point to James in the ongoing werewolf debate. When he looked up he noticed that James was giving him his notorious 'don't' look that was only good for him and only he ever knew its true meaning.
"So whose notes did you copy?" Sirius asked off-handedly wanting to see if James' thoughts could be logically disproved.
James glared at Sirius not wanting to say anything in front of Remus that would make the situation get too uncomfortable, but finding, in his mind, what Sirius had just done a particularly rude thing to do. He watched Remus as the boys face turned a light shade of red and he replied simply, "My dad's an astronomer."
Sirius smiled smugly at James with a face that said simply see, James just sighed he was having a very hard time distinguishing between the lies coming from both sides of their friendship. Maybe Remus was telling the truth, but that didn't change what he was, in James's mind. Yet, Sirius still couldn't admit to the truth. He was just too stubborn for his own good sometimes. James stared down at his finished chart and then looked through his other papers only to find that he was completely done with the night's assignments. He grinned at his paper and then looked at Sirius, who also seemed to be done since he was occupying his time by doodling on a scrap piece of parchment. On the parchment Remus was helping him draw what appeared to be a cross between Filch and a half dead looking dragon. James laughed to himself and then thought of Filch's bad attitude which led him to thinking that it might be fun to get out and look at the castle. He got up from his position on his pillow and walked over to his trunk and pulled out his invisibility cloak. He smiled down at it forever thankful that his dad had given it too him to "start his schooling off correctly." He returned to the circle and dropped it in the middle of the ring. Slowly all eyes turned to him. He smiled mischievously.
"Want to do something fun?"
All the boys looked at each other in turn, their faces all mimicked James's expression, and in return they quickly slammed their books shut and stowed them in their own secret hiding places. James walked back over to the remains of their circle and picked up his cloak. He looked down at his watch, ten o' clock. That left plenty of time for them to go and explore the castle. Sirius's face was lit with nothing short of glee when he returned from his post by his bed back over to James' side with Remus in tow, who despite current absences, looked to be very up to the challenge of exploring. Peter joined up in the center of the room last; having had to finish the last few answers to his chart, and smiled unsurely at the other boys. He was up to investigating the castle, yet at the same time he didn't know exactly what to expect having only been on one other adventure of this kind with these boys. James noticed that those few fears were written plainly on the boy's face. James smiled at the boy, giving him what he hoped to be a confident smile.
"Don't worry we won't get caught. You already know this thing works well enough for pranking." James held up the invisibility cloak a bit higher off the ground and watched as his friends grinned madly at each other as they thought of Snape dancing in his dorm singing to the version of "Help" that had been playing in his head that fateful night. "So let's just go for a stroll. We'll still have to be careful do to Mrs. Norris lurking around, but other than that I think we'll be fine."
The four boys then walked out of the room down the boys staircase to the common room where only the Weasley family and Lily sat talking around the fireplace. They crawled out through the portrait hole and James noticed, just before the portrait shut, the look of disgust intermingled with awe on Lily's face that they would deliberately break yet another rule. James felt slightly bad as her face disappeared behind the Fat Lady's vicious glare but pushed the feeling aside not wanting to think about actually having the power to disappoint someone like that.
He turned to the group of boys and gave one more reassuring glance at each of them in turn. Then he proceeded to throw the cloak around Sirius's and his shoulders as the other two clamored underneath it. They heard the Fat Lady give them a quick but heated scolding as they left. None of them listened to the words the angry tones were making as they walked down the staircases away from Gryffindor Tower. They clamored down to the defense hallway whispering directions to each other every so often as they decided where they would run off to next or what they might have wanted to take a closer look at until they found themselves just outside of McGonagall's office. They stood there a while without saying anything at all and just looked around, each of them deep in their own thoughts.
"This is pointless," Peter whined through the silence. "We'll never find anything."
Sirius glared at Peter, not appreciating his pessimistic beliefs. James just sighed, not knowing what exactly to do next, and instead just pointed down in the direction of the Infirmary wing. They all walked together as one. Peter slowly but surely fell back into his habit of stepping on the back of James's heels making the dark haired boy realize just why he hadn't offered to do one of these ventures in such a long while. He fought the urge to scold the boy until he heard a voice from beside him.
"That painting always creeps me out a bit."
James turned to Remus and followed the boy's finger with his eyes to where he was pointing. He looked at it and smiled to himself. It was a picture of the founding fathers of Hogwarts all standing around the sorting hat, which was seated on the stool all four boys had had the privilege of sitting on while they had been sorted. Sure enough, the painting was a bit creepy due to the dark shades it was composed in. The paint was peeling off and the people depicted barely moved at all as they stared directly at the boys as if knowing they were there despite the invisibility cloak's properties.
James looked back over his shoulder at the others trying to read their expressions, all of which seemed to be a blank canvas of awe with the exception of Sirius who was busy giving Salazar Slytherin a dirty look of utter disgust. James, unknowingly, shrugged his shoulder at his best friend and went back to looking at the portrait. He looked at each of the founder's faces. Each of them was smiling at the boys in their own special ways. His eyes moved downward to the sorting hat, which wasn't tattered in the least but appeared to be new. In the background it appeared that they were in the great hall around where the head table should have been, due to the style of windows located behind them.
James stared at the detail in the painting, watching as the founders gave disgruntled looks at the boys, still barely moving out of their poses, which was, in James' opinion, the exact reason why this painting seemed to be so disturbing. It didn't move in the typical manner most wizarding paintings or pictures did. The occupants stood mostly in the same spot, only moving their eyes and on occasion they would stop to talk to one another but this seemed to be very rare.
James felt Sirius move at his side and turned to look at him. Sirius' face seemed to be set in wonder as he stared in one certain area of the painting. James followed the tall boys gaze to the bottom of the painting where, on the floor in the midst of the cracked paint was a small painting of the Slytherin coat of arms. James furrowed his brow; that certainly did not belong in that painting, let alone in that spot. He stepped back slightly and looked more intently at the picture as a hole and suddenly he saw it. All four coats of arms were hidden in the painting. He gawked at it for a moment and then reached out to the stained glass window located behind Godric Gryffindor, where, in the glamorously painted glass laid their own House's coat of arms. He softly touched the seal on its cracked paint.
Peter let out a low gasp of breath behind him as the painting slowly morphed into an old oak door that was elegantly decorated with the Hogwarts seal. James stared for a long while amongst the silence of his friends and then reached out to the gold door handle, turning it slowly, not knowing what to expect, and pushed it open. He stepped inside, Sirius, Remus, and Peter following closely behind him, and entered the pitch-black room, or corridor. James willed his eyes to adapt to the sudden darkness but found that it was impossible.
"Lumos," Sirius whispered by his side. Nothing happened. He tried once more, and still nothing came from it. "LUMOS!" he yelled into the abyss only to find complete silence as his only answer and still there was no light.
"What's wrong with that bloody thing?" James asked. Sirius just groaned in disgust and put his wand away finding that if it couldn't even perform a simple spell it was completely worthless.
"Well, we need light--" Peter started in his whiny voice of defeat and suddenly a fire erupted on the other side of the room and the candles around the room unexpectedly erupted with flames.
The four boys stood in shock as they stared at the room, open-mouthed, not daring to move for fear of what would happen if they did. James looked at the tapestries hanging on the walls all depicting the different House's coats of arms. Four separate portraits of the founding fathers also lined the walls. These moved more freely than the last painting and all held a certain sense of pride in the way they held themselves. He turned his attention from the walls' decorations to the fireplace that was elaborately carved out of marble with the Hogwarts coat of arms. Around it were a few chairs and a couch all in white fabric and along the walls were tables that were accompanied by wooden chairs that were also elaborately carved. James found himself smiling widely at their find and all of its beauty. They quickly broke off in there own direction to see what they could find that would fit to their liking.
James quickly noticed that there were bookshelves to his left underneath the portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw. He read some of the spines of the books and noticed that they ranged from anything from Quidditch to Advanced Charms books. James heard Sirius cry out triumphantly from behind him and knew instantly that he had found the book on the Chudley Cannons that was written a good one hundred years previously, when the team was still the best in the league. James chuckled slightly as Sirius took the book off the shelf and plopped down cross-legged on the floor instantly engulfed in the book. He turned away from his friend and swiftly made himself busy by pulling out his own wand and tried to cast assorted spells, none of which worked.
"That's pointless," James jumped when he heard the sound of Remus' voice.
"I noticed."
Remus smiled and walked over to the couch and sat down.
"This is, or rather, was the general common room. I always thought my grandmother made up those stories about it. Guess not," he said off -handedly more to himself than anything else. James just looked at the boy intently for a few seconds and then walked over and joined him on the couch. "It was shut down when my grandmother went to school here," he continued matter-of-factly, "due to fights breaking out among the houses, mainly between Slytherin and Gryffindor. After they closed it, no students were allowed back in afterwards."
"Then how'd we get in?" Sirius asked from behind them still on the floor looking through the book though he was listening to every word that was being said.
Remus smiled meekly to himself as he thought of all the stories his grandmother used to tell him about Hogwarts and soon found himself retelling them to his friends.
"Well, apparently they couldn't close off the ward because none of the staff at that time knew any spells tough enough to block Rowena's spells. So, according to what my grandmother said, they simply stationed the custodian at the entrance to the door. Soon people just stopped trying to get in and Apollyon Pringle quit guarding it day in and day out." He stopped briefly and stared at the flames in the fireplace before continuing. "I figure no one really went back to it after he left. They feared what might happen to them if they were caught doing so, and because of that, this room just died and became a myth like so many other things in this school."
James looked down in thought at his wand and noticed how useless it was at the moment.
"Yes, well, that still doesn't explain why our wands don't work."
He heard Remus laugh and then turned his head upward and looked at the boy only to find him staring at the flames dancing in the fireplace. He looked to the boys' right and found Peter sitting next to Remus listening intently, hanging on every word Remus uttered like a five-year-old would during story time. Sirius had moved from his spot on the floor and was now sitting on the wooden coffee table with the book still clenched in his left hand as his head lay on his right arm, which was perched on his knee.
"Well," Remus began to answer, "at one point of time you could do magic in here, when the founders were still here, but after Slytherin split; the fighting began. So duels and stuff would break out every so often between certain students and soon the remaining founders were forced to ban the use of magic in the general common room. They used very powerful spells to prevent the students from trying to hex each other too. When they did that everything was pretty much cleared up. Sure there was still fighting but you can't really stop that."
He sighed and turned away from the flames to look at the group.
"I don't know when things started to go bad again, but my grandmother said that it reached its peak when she was in school. Gryffindors and Slytherins had begun to fist fight in this room so the teachers eventually had to shut it down completely." He smiled weakly at the three boys, feeling slightly sorry that he couldn't explain the room to them in a way that seemed like it wasn't some story he'd heard somewhere.
James nodded to him somehow understanding what the boy was thinking and stood up, walked over to the bookshelves, and smiled. He stood thinking of all the things Remus had said and then about his mind turned over to the potential load of homework he would have the next day. He stared at the books and then a perfect idea fluttered into his head. Over all, this was exactly the kind of place that they needed to study in. The "homework ring of doom" was only as comfortable as they could make it with their pillows and poorly attempted cushioning charms. Yet, here they could be to themselves and have the luxury of having a common room. He felt his lips curl up into a mischievous grin and turned back to the whole group.
"Well, we're the only ones that know about this place now, why don't we use this to our advantage."
They all smiled back at each other. All of them first thinking of the homework get away they'd been silently hoping to miraculously receive for over a week, and then switching over to the other plotting they could do here. Oh, what they could do without the fear of being overheard or interrupted; for every mischief-maker needs his lair.