Interviewer (I): So, Lily, what is it that you disapprove of so much about the Marauders?
Lily (L): Well, they just don’t consider people’s feelings, you know? I mean, yeah they’re funny and stuff, but that doesn’t mean they’re automatically good people. They need to learn to respect others’ emotions.
I: I see. And you think they can learn this ...
L: Well, by someone doing what we’re doing now. By making them feel guilt for the consequences of their actions. We can’t just go around cutting everybody slack, or people will think they can get away with whatever they want. Plus, they’re all evil.
I: Right. And how long will Operation Guilt Trip continue for?
L: ... Operation ... Guilt Trip?
I: Yeah, I decided if we give it a name, it will seem less like we’re playing mind games and more like we’re actually teaching them something.
L: Okay. Well, you can’t put a timer on these, things, so we’ll just have to wait until they seem to be truly sorry for what they did and fully understand the consequences. It would be best if they come to the point where they think you’ll never forgive them first, before you go around forgiving them all over the place.
I: Okay. If you say so. Now, what would you say is your most treasured ... actually, maybe that’s not the best question. Which memory of the Marauders has left the deepest impression on you, would you say?
L: I think it has to be the time Sirius was dared to run naked through the Great Hall, during the Hallowe’en feast. That particular memory has never quite left me, I’m sad to say.
I: (Laughing) That was a funny day. He had a banner streaking along behind him that said “Trick or Treat: You Decide”. Final question. If the naming of this book was up to you, what would you call it?
L: Hmm ... “Secrets, Lies and Deceit: The True Story of Four Hypocritical and Scum-filled Tyrants and How Their Black Hearts of Evil Lead Eventually to Their Celebrated and Timely Demise”.
I: Uh ... that’s certainly a special one. You know, the book hasn’t ended yet, I don’t remember them all dying.
L: Well, in that case, one can only live in hope.
Chapter Fourteen: Very Bohemian
[Remus]
“Okay, guys, what have you got?” I ask.
James clears his throat. “I think mine’s pretty good.”
I take the parchment from him and read it hopefully.
Marty we’re as sorry
As a big Muggle lorry
That crashed in the middle of a road
Marty we’re so stupid
Peter looks a bit like Cupid
And Sirius has a romance with a toad
Marty you must forgive us
We don’t mean to shout and cuss
But our brains evaporate by the load
Marty it wasn’t our fault
Except each of us is a dolt
And occasionally speak only in code
Marty we need your time
Just to help me find a rhyme
Because poems make my head explode.
I sigh. James looks hopeful, but not very convinced. “It’s creative,” I say to try and find a positive.
“Forget it,” James sighs. “Maybe a poem won’t cut it after all.”
It has been two days since Marty stopped speaking to us. At first we were consumed like fire by our own guilt, but then we decided that the best thing to do would be to win back her friendship. Only it’s hard, when she keeps ignoring everything we do. She’s friends with Lily and they’re working on her Cause; on Eugene Cardrac. The werewolf sympathiser guy. That was the Cause I was supposed to be helping her with. I had actually started to believe in this one, unlike the others, where we just sort of humoured her.
“Maybe we should express our feelings in some sort of play,” Sirius suggests.
“Or a musical!” Peter proclaims. “We could call it ‘Marty!’ with an exclamation mark. All musicals are best if the titles are one word and an exclamation mark, right?”
“I don’t think we have time to compose and choreograph an entire musical,” I point out.
“Maybe just a song taken from the musical,” James considers. “Sirius can play the part of Marty. I will play the part of Sirius. Remus can double as me and Peter and Peter can play Remus.”
“Why don’t we all just play ourselves?” Sirius asks.
“Well who would play Marty?” Peter looks confused. It’s a testament to our desperation that we can seriously sit here and discuss playing ourselves in a scene from a made up musical about how sorry we are.
“No one plays Marty,” James explains. “It will be a song to express our feelings of anguish in a dramatic and metaphorical way. We can wear chains to symbolise how we have tied ourselves to guilt and whip ourselves on stage to show our remorse. We can also writhe around in emotional agony as we sing the deep, mournful tenor lyrics of self-loathing and sorrow. It will be very bohemian.”
There is a pause. “It will be downright mentally scarring,” Sirius says after a moment of consideration. “She might think we’re not taking it seriously.”
“Are you kidding? Did you not hear the part about the self-flagellation?” James sounds appalled at his best friend’s ignorance.
“Maybe it is a bit over the top,” I reason. “What if we wrote a letter? Or ... an essay? Like, a mock essay about how sorry we are. We can give it a title like ‘Explain fully, in 500 words, how four boys can go from happy to grief-stricken in one easy step and the horrible feelings they are left with afterwards’ and then we can give it to her to mark out of a hundred and grade and stuff. I think she’ll appreciate the humour.”
“Remus, only you would seriously consider solving all of life’s problems with an essay for someone to mark,” James snickers. I sulk.
“Do you have any better ideas?”
“Actually I do. We will stage the scene from the musical during lunchtime to amplify the dramatic desolation of our deeds and “”
“No musicals,” Sirius says firmly. “The best way to do it is simply, I think. A simple, sincere apology and an offer to give her all of our pudding for the next month.”
“What if she doesn’t buy it?” Peter asks.
“She will,” Sirius assures us. “Believe me. I know girls better than anyone here and they’re always persuaded by the simple yet elegantly tasteful cliché.”
“Well ...” James sounds reluctant to give up his epic self-flagellation ideas. “I suppose you are the closest thing we have to an expert ...”
“Exactly,” Sirius confirms, confidently. “Are we agreed?”
We nod. Let the simple apology strategy commence ...
[Marty]
It really is quite difficult pretending not to care about the Marauders. I can’t be around them without wanting to laugh at how pathetic they’re being. It’s all so touching. So me and Lily have been busying ourselves campaigning against the destruction of Eugene Cardrac’s house. We’re planning a protest outside it this weekend, which is a Hogsmeade one. Everything we do is carefully planned to try and get the Marauders to think hope is lost and I’ve moved on. I’m going to give a talk about the protest in the grounds at lunch this afternoon, because we know they’ll be outside. Not only that, but we have a trick up our sleeves that should really send them loopy.
Lily says we can’t stop until they truly think I won’t forgive them, because only then will they realise the consequences of their actions. At the moment, they still think I’ll come round with time and apparently the only way they will learn is if they honestly do think all hope is lost. I suppose I do agree with her and it is funny to watch them try to win me back. I’ve already received two poems and a public apology, but I ignored both (I didn’t even read the poems until they weren’t looking. They weren’t exactly a literary stroke of genius is all I’ll say, but they were rather amusing).
As we predicted, they are outside during lunch and perk up when they see me heading towards them (apparently Lily and all the megaphones don’t bother them). They nod at each other and stand up, walking towards me. But before we meet, I stop, turn around to face the school and pick up the megaphone, shouting down it about injustices, heritage and taking a stand, while Lily hovers posters and banners in the air behind me, obscuring them from view with a simpering look of pleasure on her face.
They walk around the posters and wait for me to take a breath before jumping in.
“Marty! We need to talk to you!” Sirius says boldly.
“Are you hear to support my tireless work against the demolition of the house of Eugene Cardrac?” I ask down the megaphone, even though they are right in front of me.
“Not exactly,” James says.
“Then move along. Serious protestors only please,” I say, smiling as if they are people I’ve never met before.
“Marty,” Lily says, unable to completely hide the malice from her smile. “Our spokespeople are here.”
“Excellent,” I say, waving to the Maraudering Four (a group of wannabe Marauders three years below us from Hufflepuff. There are one or two groups of boys who want to be as famous and popular as the Marauders, but the Maraudering Four are the most annoying. They just try too hard, like desperate tributes to their heroes. Asking them to be our spokespeople is the secret weapon which we hope will send the real Marauders to insanity).
“You’re getting those idiots to represent you?” Remus asks, horrified. “But you asked us! We’re much more influential!” Oh and another thing they hate about the Maraudering Four: the real Marauders didn’t give themselves a name, it just sort of happened over time, until eventually everyone knew them as the Marauders. The Maraudering Four gave themselves that name and then insisted everyone call them it.
“No, no,” I insist, putting all of my efforts into not falling into hysterical laughter. “It was definitely these guys all along. They have a real charisma, don’t you think?”
We all turn and look at the four Hufflepuffs as they make farting noises and laugh stupidly to each other. I’ve never been so repulsed in my life.
“Yes, it’s definitely the right move, asking them. Their sparkling originality is what does it. It makes people hang on to their every word,” Lily says brightly. “Come on, Marty, we have to let people know about the protest on Saturday. Will you four be coming?”
“No,” James says impatiently. “Marty, you have to stop it. We know you don’t really hate us ... you can’t. We’re really sorry we offended you, okay?”
“We’ll give you all of our pudding for a month,” Peter says hopefully.
“And best of all, I’ve written this really dramatic scene for a musical to express our everlasting “”
James is cut off by Sirius stamping on his foot without much subtlety.
“Come on, Marty,” Remus says. “We miss you.”
I try not to look them in the eye, but instead put the megaphone to my mouth and shout, “Please move back so others can see the posters, thank you. Now, the protest will be held outside the house in question at one o’clock this Saturday ... For those of you who don’t know where it is ...”
[Remus]
We sit in our usual seats by the fire dejectedly. James calls over his adopted first year, Luanne, whom he apparently still feels a strong paternal instinct for.
“Hey, Luanne, you’re a girl,” he says when she comes to sit with us, nervously.
“If you’re going to propose, then please spare me. It would just feel wrong to be asked out by a surrogate father,” she says. She’s really learnt some sass, that girl.
“It’s okay. I wouldn’t propose to my own daughter, no matter how surrogate. No, I just need your knowledge of the female mind ...”
Luanne looks doubtful. “What have you done?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Sirius cuts in, before James starts telling her the whole story. “But say we had hypothetically lost ourselves a friend we cared much more about than we knew, of the female persuasion ...”
“That Marty girl?” Luanne asks.
“Yes. Just say hypothetically, that’s what happened and then she turned into a psycho who wouldn’t forgive us, what would you say has taken place?”
Luanne sighs. “I’d say she’s come to her senses. I only talk to you because I don’t want to be sent to my room.”
“We’ll have less of that lip,” James says, frowning. Luanne rolls her eyes.
“Have you tried apologising?”
“Of course we have. We’re not complete Neanderthals. We even apologised in poem format and I wrote this really enigmatic scene from a musical, but the others refuse to perform it outside of the dormitory.”
“You’ve been practising scenes from a musical in your dormitory?” Luanne asks, horrified.
“Anyway, moving on ...” Sirius says hurriedly. “We don’t know how to make her forgive us.”
“You guys are so embarrassing,” she mutters. “Just leave her to come round herself, all right? There’s nothing you can do now.”
If only it was that easy. But I really like Marty, apart from that thing she has about pumpkin juice and I miss having her around. She was a welcome relief from the occasional idiocy of my friends. If she was around, she wouldn’t let such nonsense as musical writing take place. Or if she did, we’d be so paranoid about how she was interpreting it in her notebook that we would stop and do something normal instead.
“We’ll give it one last try,” I decide. “And then we’ll forget it. We’ll apologise at dinner, tonight and if she still ignores us, then we’ll wait for her to make the next move, all right?”
The others nod. “Good plan,” Peter says.
Luanne claps sarcastically. “Can I go now?”
“Yes, run along,” James says, smiling and shaking his head. “Little scamp.”
[Marty]
They apologise again at lunch, but I just smile and say, “How nice,” because Lily is glaring at me and I’ve started to get better at the cold shoulder thing. It’s for their own good after all, right?
They walk dejectedly away. Okay, I lied, I still feel bad about it.
“Just look at them,” I plead. “Look at the crestfallen way they’re walking away. They’ve lost all the bounce in their step.”
“Excellent, then our mission is almost complete.”
I consider her for a moment. “Lily, are you sure this isn’t just some scheme of yours to break their hearts because of your own personal grudge? Am I just a pawn in your game of evil temptress chess?”
She laughs. “Of course not. Oh, look, you have visitors.”
I turn to see some second years nervously behind me. “Hello,” I say brightly. “Can I help you?”
The bravest one, a girl with a very high pink ponytail, takes a deep breath. “It’s about the protest in Hogsmeade. We’re not allowed to go, but we want to show our support. I’ve always been interested in Eugene Cardrac and I don’t want them to destroy his house ...”
I smile brightly. It really does warm my heart to have people I don’t even know interested in making the world a better place. Now that I have more influence, people are actually paying attention to me! Why didn’t I think of befriending the Marauders before? This would never have happened without them.
I look over to where they are sitting, miserably pushing mashed potato around their plates. Hopefully this charade of Lily’s will be over before too long.
“Have you signed the petition?” I asked the pink-haired girl. She nods and her hair wobbles dangerously on top of her head. “Super. All right ... well, there are some other things you could do to help this noble Cause too. How would you feel about raising awareness in your peer group?”
She blinks. “What does that mean?”
“Well ...”
“Marty!” Lily hisses.
“Lily,” I say patiently. “I’m a little busy right now. These lovely young ladies are interested in “”
“Come on, we need to spy on the Marauders! They’re leaving!”
Well. That’s something else entirely. “Tell your friends about it!” I gabble quickly to the girls. “We’ll rendezvous here tomorrow! The future of wizard-kind is in your hands!”
I hurry off after Lily. We reach the doors out of the Great Hall and into the Entrance Hall and sneak out slowly. The Marauders haven’t seen us, but are standing around listlessly.
“What are we going to do?” Peter asks.
Lily puts her finger to her lips and beckons around the corner of a corridor, where we are less easily seen.
“What can we do? It’s over,” Sirius sighs.
“Luanne said to let her come to us,” James says without much hope. “She would know. I raised her to be truthful, didn’t I?”
So he’d been asking his adopted first year about me, had he? No wonder she kept throwing me evil looks (not that she’s any more capable of evil looks than I am, but I’d give her full marks for effort). That’s one loyal daughter of his, despite her feigned attitude.
“Oh, great,” Remus says, looking at something Lily and I can’t see from our vantage point. “Just what we need.”
Some Slytherins come into view, but they don’t acknowledge the Marauders just yet.
“Do you think we should bother making a scene?” Peter asks. “It might make us feel better.”
“I dunno,” James mutters. “Marty wouldn’t want us to.”
Lily and I look at each other ecstatically and give silent high-fives.
“So? It’s not like she’s coming back. We blew it. It’s over. She’ll never speak to us again. She doesn’t need us anymore, she has Lily for company. She doesn’t even want us to be her spokespeople. She wants those twits who copy everything we do. She wouldn’t care anymore whether we started a fight or not, so why bother keeping to the rules?” I never thought I’d hear the day Remus Lupin was encouraging fighting with Slytherins. Is this what I’ve driven them to? The world has gone mad!
“Maybe we should let that be a lesson,” Sirius suggests. “We should stop picking fights for no reason. We lost a friend over it. We should just keep to ourselves ...”
They trudge up the marble staircase to the Common Room. I stare at Lily. She stares back. I think we’re both in shock. Sirius had been identified as the main culprit of stupidity. If he was the one suggesting they leave some Slytherins alone ...
“Mission accomplished,” Lily says as if she doesn’t quite believe it. “Wow. I never thought we’d actually pull it off.”
“Does this mean I can be friends with them again?” I ask, delighted at the idea. Lily nods.
“I think it does.”
A thought occurs to me and I suddenly get worried. “Will YOU still be my friend if I forgive them officially?”
She laughs. I guess she’s over the shock. “Of course I will! I always knew you’d forgive them in the end, Marty, wasn’t that the whole point?”
I grin. I can’t help it. “Can I go now?”
She smiles. “Go get ‘em, tiger. The world is your oyster.”
AN: This chapter was so much fun, it was unbelievable. I hope you enjoyed it too, please leave a review!