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Chapter 8
The Beginning of an Era
There were only fifteen minutes left of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Professor Liefer was really starting to worry about the Gryffindors. For the past two weeks, they had been lazy and sluggish, and were almost always sleeping. He hadn't seen a hand in the air for days, and it was slightly disturbing. It was as if they had been up late at night working, but that was highly unlikely. It was more likely that they had been up late at night doing something else. Professor Liefer continued with the lesson, not knowing what else to do. As long as their grades didn't seem to be slipping (which they weren't) he supposed it must have been all right.
*
With only a few minutes left of their last class of the day, James began waking up. It was strange that the thing he had begun dreading more than anything else was the end of the day. Usually, the end of the day signified a chance to relax and have fun, but now, it only signified a chance to walk back and forth, doing absolutely nothing other than walking back and forth getting blisters on the backs of his feet.
There had to be a way to get out of it, but how? All of the boys had to do what they were told when they each had a girl breathing down their necks. Professor Liefer dismissed the class, and James went over to speak to Lily.
"Hey, Evans," he said, smiling sweetly (Hey, a little sucking up never hurt anyone).
"What do you want?" she asked moodily.
James chuckled. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the desk just now," he joked. She didn't find it very amusing. "Anyway, I was thinking, we've been doing this spying thing all week, and we haven't been making any progress at all."
"And your point?"
"Well, Peter says that nothing ever happens over by the staff room, and Remus says that Dumbledore only ever stays in his office, so it's impossible to hear anything at all. So I was just thinking, that if we split into two groups instead of four, and only tailed Zeus and Eris, we'd make a lot more progress!"
Lily thought for a moment. "You know, you're right! Ok, so you can go with Sirius, Marlene, and Dorcas, and Remus, Peter, and Emmeline can come with me!"
"Well, I was thinking more along the lines of my friends with me, and your friends with you…" he said delicately.
She thought for a moment, and then realized that she would probably have a lot mor fun with Marlene, Dorcas, and Emmeline. "Well, ok, but you better not be goofing off. I expect you to be listening for information."
James smiled. "Yea, ok. We'll be watching Zeus like a hawk."
*
"So where did Zeus go?" Peter asked.
"Who cares?" Sirius laughed. They had been walking around the school for at least an hour, and they hadn't caught sight of Zeus since he had left his room.
It was interesting walking around the castle, talking to all the paintings, and going in all the rooms, as long as they were sure there was no one in there. The castle was huge, and they had been in some rooms that they had been quite sure no one had been in for years.
Suddenly they were in a large corridor with cheerful paintings lining the walls. None of them had ever been in this part of the castle, but they were having fun, so they just walked through looking at all the paintings.
James was looking at a painting of a large cake, when he heard Peter trip over something behind him. He turned, and saw Peter was leaning on a large painting of a fruit bowl trying to get up. He had his had on the pear, which suddenly started giggling, and turned into a giant, green doorknob.
Peter gasped and jumped back from the painting, slipping again, and ending up on the floor. The other three boys came over quickly, very impressed with what Peter had discovered.
"What d'you suppose is in there?" Sirius asked quietly.
"No idea… let's see," James replied, reaching for the doorknob. He gave the door/painting a tug, and it swung open, revealing a high-ceilinged room filled with pots, pans, and house elves.
One of them, upon seeing the four boys enter the room, scurried over, looking quite shocked. "No students is ever coming into the kitchens," said the creature, which had bat-like ears, and huge green eyes. "What is you doing here?"
Peter was rather taken aback by these creatures, and began taking small steps backward.
James, however, thought quickly, and stammered, "We're, uh… marauding…"
The elf didn't look like it understood remotely what James meant by this, but wasn't going to say that. "Ah, I sees. Would the marauders likes some foods?"
"Do you have any cream cakes?" Sirius asked immediately, as if he had been practicing saying it his entire life (and James wouldn't be particularly surprised if he had).
The elf ran off, returning quickly with four platters of cream cakes. And so, naturally, the boys stuffed their faces, forgetting all about whatever it was they were supposed to be doing.
*
"How much do you wanna bet that the boys have forgotten all about what they're supposed to be doing and are off somewhere stuffing their faces?" Lily asked after at least two hours of following Eris around.
"Well, since that is most definitely what they're doing, I think we could probably afford to take a break too…" Marlene said carefully.
"Well, ok, but only because Eris doesn't seem to be doing anything right now," Lily sighed. "And also because my feet are hurting."
Laughing, the girls turned the corner, where the four boys were walking towards them, laughing and joking, their arms full of more sugary foods than Lily even knew the names of.
Fuming, Lily stood with her arms crossed on her chest and her eyes filled with fire. Upon seeing her, the boys immediately dropped their gooey, sugary, messy food all over the nice, clean floor.
And Lily almost exploded.
*
Marlene was actually faring for hr life as Lily screamed at the boys. If Filch didn't hear this, then someone had to. And even if they didn't get caught, Lily's eminent explosion would surely kill them all.
"How DARE you!" she was shrieking. "I knew you weren't following Zeus! What if something interesting had happened and you'd all missed it?"
Marlene actually thought Lily might have been overreacting a bit, especially since the girls were just about to take a break themselves, but she decided that whether or not this was the case, she would have to stick by her friend (mostly because she was just glad it wasn't her being yelled at), so she stood tall, glaring at the boys, but staying out of Lily's line of vision, just in case.
James, however, was not so easily intimidated. (Well, he was, really, but he couldn't let it show.) He moved toward Lily, and said in as casual a voice as he could muster, "Where's Eris, then?"
Marlene would have laughed, had this not been such a serious situation, but as it was, she liked her head just the way it was, and Lily would undoubtedly have bitten it off had she done anything of the sort. So she just watched as Lily flipped her hair, and stomped off in the opposite direction, salvaging whatever dignity she had left.
*
Lily had been sitting on her bed for over an hour when the other three girls ambled in, laughing and talking happily.
"James is so funny! Especially what he said about Severus Snape!" Marlene was saying until she saw Lily, and immediately became more serious. "Are you ok?"
"No," Lily pouted.
"I don't see why you're so angry," Dorcas said delicately. "I mean, we were taking a break too…"
"But where did they get that food from? It was very obvious that they never had any intention to help at all."
"Well, you've got to admit it is hard work, and I have thought numerous times of quitting myself," Emmeline added. "It's only natural for them to want to do other things."
"Yea, I guess so," Lily sighed. "But I can't help thinking that it wasn't fair for them to expect us to do everything for them. They should have come to us if they didn't want to do it anymore."
Marlene smiled and hopped onto Lily's bed. "I've got an idea. What if we didn't tell them anything we found out. That way we'll always know more than them, and we'll have them right where we want them.
Lily smiled. "I like it."
*
"That was great!" Sirius barked as the four boys strolled into their room. "Who knew it would be so easy to steal food from the kitchens?"
Peter laughed. "Yea, those things are dead friendly."
"We should do this more often," James laughed. "We could be like the Four Musketeers!"
"No! Not Musketeers…" Remus added, thinking. "What was it those house elves called us? Marauders?"
"Yea!" James shouted. "That's perfect! We'll be the Mauraders!"
"Do we have to have a name?" Sirius whined.
"YES!" James and Remus bellowed, making Sirius jump.
Sirius sighed. "Alright, just as the as we can go to bed now."
"The Marauders," Peter whispered, with almost a sense of awe.
James smiled. "I like it."
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