Hey everyone! This chapter is dedicated to Spatula for literally hounding me on every single social media we share! Love ya ♥️♥️♥️
agentbot08

(15th June 1977)

James gazed down at the letter in front of him with enough pique and upset to fuel a world war and perhaps set the fucking place on fire while he was at it.
Nothing could ever have prepared him for a letter of this kind. Of course he'd known something like this was bound to happen and it really was just a matter of time before the ticking bomb of his balanced Potter life would erupt like a sadistic metaphorical Pompeii and destroy his harmonious way of life; and yet still the calligraphic loops of his father's handwriting did something to him he'd never dreamt up in his worst nightmares. (He rarely even had nightmares).

He was alone when he opened the letter. By the fire of the Gryffindor common room letting the unbearable heat lick his face as the shadows danced around the room in a foreboding jovial way that drove him mad.

How dare they be so delightful when Pompeii –or a bomb– or whatever paraphrasing you wanted to use– had decided to ruin his life! How dare they!

He didn't dare move away from the heat. If he moved he might be reminded that he was, in fact, real and this was, in fact, happening to him right now. If he moved, the flames might see him for the fraudster he was and decide to swallow him whole with a spark of embers. But perhaps that's what he wanted? If the flames were impervious to him then perhaps they might be tempted to spit something awful at him that might combust him. He might as well meet his demise by fire spark. If not he might do just that by firewiskey. He'd have to decide later; because future plans were for the moving, which he was not.

If the past, horrific month hadn't given him enough reason to put off the MPP meeting tomorrow (or he supposed technically it's was today since it must have been well past midnight) then the letter he held had enough confirmation.

Attending meetings– especially those you were in charge of– was a rather exigent task to accomplish while not moving and even if he was mobile he didn't suppose he'd be up to holding his final Magical Prejudice Protection meeting of the year. It would be a miracle if he could move again never mind organise and chair a meeting of more than thirty students in attendance. (Especially given the circumstances.) In fact, it might just be a rare form of biblical divinity if he could get in the bastard lost-and-found room seen as you had to want to find it to get in and in that moment he didn't quite think he'd ever want anything again besides to reverse the words on the letter he had gotten white knuckles from clutching so tightly.

Four months. It was curious how much could change for the horrific in the four months since the storm of February.
He'd have given everything to go back to normal but perhaps normality was just a mirage? Perhaps it had never existed in the first place? Perhaps he'd made it all up?

Whatever it was didn't matter now because he wasn't moving and he wasn't going to hold the meeting tomorrow –or today– or whatever. He didn't very much care because he probably wasn't even going to move. What was the point when he couldn't be eternally frozen in time, clutching a letter to tightly he might lose a wrist? Sounds appealing...

♣ ♣ ♣

(16th March 1977)

Meeting at 5 - James

That was the message that appeared on the pin badges of the members of the MPP on the sixteenth of the month. Meetings, for no particular symbolic reason, were always held on the sixteenth of the month. For March that fell on the Thursday, and a Thursday (for the majority of the sixth year Gryffindors) consisted of a double Defence Against The Dark Arts in the afternoon; a stellar lesson to set one up for an extra curricular. DADA took the very life blood out a person as it was, without fighting the many prejudices of the wizarding world afterwards.

This was what irked Marlene McKinnon when the small message popped up and began to spin on her silver and bronze pin badge just above her left breast pocket. It wasn't as if she wasn't expecting it but something about the confirmation that her attendance was required seemed to boil her blood.

She looked up with exasperation at the table two rows to her right to shoot a nasty glare at James and Peter (poor wormtail wasn't supposed to be the target of such an incriminating look but being on the outside seat he took the brunt of the pain).

Marlene glanced around the room to see a few other faces drop or light up around her as other badges began to spin.

Noticing the distraction, Professor Playford took the opportunity to snap his pointer on a few tables with far too much conviction for what one would expect from a character like him on sight.

Professor Playford was a reasonably handsome man in his early thirties with chestnut brown hair and an angular face. A few of the female students found him reasonably dishy but Marlene never exclusively agreed, she had always found him a little too by-the-handbook-blowhard to be her type.

"Miss McKinnon? I'm under the impression you're finished judging by your daydream; disregard for the textbook in front of you and sudden fascination with the cosmos!"

Marlene glowered at the Professor just enough to get her hostile point across but elusive enough to get away with it. Playford nodded curtly.
"I'll take that as a no?"

"Yes you will, sir."

His blue eyes narrowed at her, eyeing her with an irate fixation that one might a red light on a duel carriageway.
"Excuse me?"

Marlene looked down, shaking her head ever so slightly so her blonde beach waves could hide her face, "sorry sir."

"Indeed."

She felt his eyes burning her for a moment or two while she copied the desired page of notes from the textbook: something about resisting imperious curses that she would take advantage of Remus to help her with later. Right now, she wanted to sulk.

It wasn't that she didn't enjoy the Magical Prejudice Protection: she loved it, but it was more the fact that after a long day she couldn't quite be arsed to climb all the stairs to discuss matters that would only get her passionately angry.

Marlene had always been an ardent person and was usually on the brink of annoyance at any given time. A low gust of wind might be enough to push her into a canary! Despite this she often lapsed into periods of serene –or haply perilous– calm and it was in these times she was most dangerous.
Currently she was neither: passively vexed would have to do.

However when five o clock rang round she was more in the perilous calm mood; the type that should be treated with trepidation to avoid fatalities or even possible casualty.

"Anyone still to come?" James asked as Marlene took her seat on one of the blue settees that filled the back of the room.

"Mary and Julia."

The Lost and Found Room in the seventh floor corridor was probably a very wise choice of accommodation for a club such as the MPP but by god did it have a lot of stairs! She nearly huffed a poor third year (Maisie Clein) right off her perch and onto her arse.

"Of course. Mary'll want us to wait," James nodded, glancing towards the door whilst absentmindedly waving his wand around the room (grimacing when he heard a lightbulb hit the ground twenty feet away).

Today the Lost and Found room was assembled in its standard way: azure sofas and armchairs assembled in a small, in-confrontational cluster in the middle of the room; in front of them was a blackboard and behind them a fire which was only lit during the winter, it was uncharacteristically warm in the Lost and Found room.

"Sorry! The door took an age to open, you know?" Came an out of breath but still cadence London accent from the top of the room.
Mary MacDonald was the speaker, with Julia (a fourth year) in tow.

"No worries, 'mon in," James jerked his head to a pile of empty seats and took his own. Mary nodded, timorously tucking her goldish brown hair behind her ear and flattening her skirt before taking a seat.

"Right. So we've got a few things to be getting on with but I think we'll start with Jasmine Sempere, who's new here. I'll let her introduce herself:" James gave Jasmine (a girl with black hair, tanned olive skin and a pair of specs) an assertive nod.

"Alright," she coughed, "I'm Jasmine Sempere. Or Jazzy, I don't mind. I'm seventh year, a Hufflepuff and some of you might know I'm Head Girl. I decided to join the MPP because I've recently come to the realisation I'm pansexual and I know it might seem a little late for me –being seventeen–but being a halfblood living in a Tory community there isn't really much time or patience for sexuality discovery, but I'm here now." She spoke rationally and evenly; a fitting Head Girl if one was ever to meet one.
"And funnily enough, James asked me to come along a few months ago with the reasoning I'm sure he'll discuss in a minute. But ironically he's, technically, my ex boyfriend and current cigarette supply so I'd like to hold it over him that he needs me here as, like, a sort of 'win the breakup bonus point' so if you could remind him at any and all given moments I'd appreciate that greatly."

James grinned and ducked his head, "lovely sentiment Sempere. I'm sure all members of this Committee enjoyed that little speech. Anyway, thank you for coming we need all the members we can get. Anyway, you're not a member until you've gotten a badge and luckily Mary made about a million so," he handed Jasmine the box who took one out and began to examine it, "here you go. Mary'll show you how it works."
James nodded to Mary who shifted in her seat to face Jazzy and help her with the pin.

Prongs then stood up, sharing a glance with Marlene that seemed to hold all the dialogue necessary, "now," she stood up with him and whipped her wand from the belt loop in her uniform trousers, flicking it to summon a piece of chalk.

"Now," he repeated, "we've got a small itinerary today but nothing major. I spoke to McGonogall about the incident with Julia's sister and she's told me to speak to Slughorn. I'm going to need Julia to come with me and we'll see how far we can take it. When a first year –Julia's sister– is attacked for a reason like this while she's also a muggleborn it's very difficult to prove, but either way the Slytherin's need punished so, one way or another, we'll have to do something."

Julia nodded, going slightly pale when James addressed her but looking determined.
Marlene had begun scrawling notes on the blackboard while James spoke, him glancing at her now and again to make sure she was keeping up.
"Secondly the Muggleborn population in Hogwarts is becoming harder to protect and so I've requested –along with Sempere, which is the reason I've been hounding her presence here– to allow a few select senior members of the MPP to take patrols at night with the prefects once or twice a week. If that were to go ahead I'd need volunteers from sixth and seventh year to help and Jazzy and I will choose a select few. If you'd be interested can you talk to me at the end and leave your name on the blackboard. Marlene will leave it up in this room if you want to change your mind later. Remember sixth and seventh years only."

Jasmine, Head Girl, nodded earnestly and looked around her, getting a gage for the amount of nodding heads. There were about ten or twelve.
"Can I just add, Potter," she readjusted the glasses on her nose in a manner that seemed trained with professionalism, "that we'd only need about five or six members to work on a rota of two or three weeks. The Head Boy isn't fully signed off on this idea yet but if Dumbledore is on board he won't have much of a choice."

James nodded, a soft smile on his lips, "exactly. And remember also that a lot of the prefects you'll be assigned to won't like this idea either. Specifically prefects like Snape and Flint."

This had now dampened a few volunteers as they shrank into their seats like one would shrink from a bad smell. James chuckled.

The rest of the meeting consisted of various members reporting any incidents; Marlene scribbling each down with her chalk while the remaining members either listened or contributed to the decision of what should be done.

"Well, it's getting close to dinner now so I'll set you free," James announced, pushing up his glasses and using the same hand to comb through his shock of raven hair.
"Remember to stick your name up on the board if you'd like to patrol, alright?"

The MPP nodded.
"Alright then off you get!"

Marlene stayed behind for a moment to help note down the names of more people than she originally thought there would be. It filled her with an odd sense of assurance to know there were people passionate enough to consider working with sleazes like Snape in order to protect Muggleborn and other magical minorities.

"Are you signing up?"

Marlene whirled around to see James slipping out the door and leaving only herself and the speaker in the room.
"What?"

Jasmine Sempere smiled, "are you going to sign up? I understand you're a sixth year, it would be a good idea, no? I've always found you marginally intimidating. Perfect match for the job?"

Marlene laughed softly, not the same melodic ring of her best friend but it was hearty, real.
"There's a lot of names up there already."

"But yours isn't." Jazzy shrugged, "I think it should be."

"Do you?"

"Of course! You're respected, liked –notorious for packing a decent right hook– and pretty. I've not heard of many people that don't respect your authority. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see you as Head Girl when I've pissed off into the real world!" Jasmine smirked, pulling a cigarette from her robes, "James isn't always my only supply– want one?"

Marlene nodded, the mere suggestion of a smoke was enough to make her kill for one within seconds. She reached out eagerly and took the white and orange stick off her company like an animal at feeding time of London Zoo.

"Christ! Mind and not take my hand off!"

Marlene blushed as she clamped the cigarette on her teeth, "apologies."

"Not at all."

They were quiet for a few wistful moments while the two of them lit their respective cigarettes and inhaled the pernicious magic with open lungs.

"Gimme that!" Jasmine said eventually, snapping her fingers together and pointing towards the chalk still in Marlene's hand.

"This?"

"No The Sword Of Gryffindor— of course that!"

The blonde laughed, tossing her companion the chalk and stepping away curiously from the black board.
"What are you doing?" She ventured, letting her waves hide the corners of her oceanic blue eyes as they became perfectly trained on Jasmine's every move, watching her –and perhaps it was the beguile cigarette smoke– but she was quite pretty. She wore her Hufflepuff robes open with a blouse that must have been ironed twice. A skirt that fanned just above her knees, a jumper tucked neatly into a belt and ankle boots that looked like she took the same amount of pride in them than Marlene's stepfather took his Mustang. Her hair was a foreboding shade of black that was tied into a severe ponytail discounting two locks that lay loosely by the side of her face. Her glasses set her off. They gave her the sort of conviction and sharpness not dissimilar to James. It was easy to tell why they got along.

"What are you doing?" She asked again but Jazzy just smiled.

"I look forward to working with you."
Her ebony ponytail flounced in a spiral when she spun on her heal with the sort of elegance (or arrogance) of a politician and fled the room.

Once she was safely gone Marlene snuck a look at the black board and grinned in such a way she found herself recoiling for the oddity of smiling without someone else to joke about it with. Jazzy had taken matters into her own hands. On the board was written:

Marlene McKinnon.

♣ ♣ ♣

(16th April 1977)

Sirius Black didn't care for homework. He never had much of a respect for any rules and the like but today he had a stronger disregard for authority. Sirius Black often found that when he felt like this, docility was not high up on his agenda; morals were not a particularly cardinal part of his personality. Unless, of course, one considered his ideology about his mates: that was utterly paradox and completely irrelevant.

Potions was the last thing on his mind as he tried to insinuate the blank parchment on front of him with telekinetic power alone. What valid reason did Keegan Trista really have for turning him down?

They had been 'seeing' each other for months and yet when he had brought up the idea of going to Hogsmede Keegan had practically fallen head over heels to evacuate. And of course he'd spilled all the 'im not ready for a relationship' bullshit but Sirius had still spent a grand deal of his free time attempting to puzzle as to why this was.

"You look homicidal, Padfoot."

Sirius looked up to see Remus Lupin over his shoulder; smiling in a way was wasn't quite sympathetic nor acerbic, it was an arbitraetory middle and he was grateful for it.

"Thank you," he quipped, fixating his stormy, grey eyes, once more, back on the (painfully) blank parchment that really should have contained an essay by now.

"No problem. What's the face for?"

"What face?" Sirius dipped the end of his quill into an ink pot and mimicked being mildly distracted from the conversation in hopes of being left alone. Something about Remus always made him feel uneasy; as if a thousand judgmental eyes were peering at him all at once.

"The one that says: 'I'm Sirius Black and something has mildly irked me so I'm throwing a dramatic strop until one of my mates asks me about it.'" Remus was smirking in that way he did. Not like James; more a robust, caustic mystery that made Remus Lupin all the harder to figure out.

"Shut up, Moony! It's not a mild irk anyway."

Moony drummed the desk triumphantly, "so it is an irk?"

Sirius swore.
"I'd rather not talk about it."

"You've already halfway told me!"

He supposed Remus was right. He had a way of knowing everything to an extent that Shakespeare might take notes from.
"Fine. Keegan Trista turned me down. We've stopped seeing each other and he didn't tell me why."

For a short moment –just a short moment– Remus seemed as though someone had struck an arrow through his chest. He didn't smile, nor did he laugh, nor frown, nor cry, he simply stared at Sirius with the blankest of expressions. His honey eyes looked instantly drained of any indication he was feeling anything and no matter how hard Sirius tried to search it was in vain. If Remus were dead then perhaps he'd give off more emotion than he did in that short moment.

"Oh?"

"Is that all you have to say?"

Remus didn't reply. He stood suddenly, vertigo clouding his vision with the peculiar iron deficiency he always seemed to suffer after or close to a full moon.
"You erm... you missed the MPP meeting. I've got a copy of the chosen patrols with the prefects if you want a look?" He dropped a small file of paper on the desk before shooting Sirius one last outlandish look and fleeing in such a way that might have given Jesse Owens a decent run for his money (so to speak)...

Remus found Keegan Trista in the library, thankfully alone, and pouring over a textbook Remus supposed he'd have to tackle next year, judging by the delightful complicatedness of the diagrams and charts.
"Trista?"

Keegan looked up, his honeycomb eyes were striking in the evening light of the cascading rows of fiction and nonfiction alike. He smiled, something in in expression made it clear he had foreseen this conversation a mile off.
"Sit down, Lupin. I won't kill you."

Remus sat somewhat hesitantly, wondering if he was grateful for the civility of the whole ordeal or if he'd rather punch some noses in. (Despite never being a violent sort of person; usually he was as timid as they come).

"I know what you're here for."

"I doubt it."

"You're here to ask me about Sirius, aren't you?"

The expression of superiority and haply a little madness disintegrated like being splashed with ice water.
"W-what," (he coughed) "makes you say that?"

Keegan gave Remus the sort of smile a mother would a child before bed. The sort of smile that suggested he could, and had, read Remus like a book; like the back of his hand. And yet nothing in his eyes was judgemental or hurt, simply pitying. (Remus was unsure which he might have preferred).

"Because I know. I know more than you think I do and that's why I didn't want to keep myself involved with Sirius any longer. Because all it would have done is prolong the fallout. There was always a fallout."

He didn't notice his mouth was half open until Keegan stood, making him aware that he still existed and wasn't just his own mirage, in his own imagination, his own dream.

"I hope it all works out for you in the end, Lupin. Sorry I was the one to delay things." And before Remus could ask what the hell Keegan meant he had fled into Madam Pince's labyrinth of paper and hardback books that dissolved into the smell of fiction and magic...

♣ ♣ ♣

(16th May 1977)

Trudy Nott was a pureblood. She didn't have much trouble in her Hogwarts career; no one would have batted an eyelid if she were to opt out of becoming an MPP member. But she didn't.

Trudy Nott was perhaps a little too compassionate for her own good. Sometimes, she felt responsible for fixing things that weren't her problem to begin with. The only way one can begin to understand her is to use analogy: an imaginative way to get a gage of a young child's injury is to see if they stop complaining of pain once a plaster is over their scrape. If they stop crying it was never serious, they just required a material fix to the pain.
Trudy, although not a bandaid, was like that. She went around plastering up juvenile inconveniences in hopes of stopping the crying.

Sometimes this came with the assumption she was nosy, or that she interfered with things but Trudy would argue that one had to be aware of their surroundings before they could fix them.

Aliona Connolly was not a pureblood. She was a muggleborn, one of the very few left in the school once the muggleborn phenomenon had ran its bitter course throughout Hogwarts.
And it was for that reason that Trudy Nott became instantly connected to Aliona Connolly: desperate to put a plaster over Aliona's problems, sometimes even before they arose. They had become friends since their second year and remained as close as Sirius and James, despite it being debatable that the basis of this friendship was pity.

So Trudy Nott was not a member of the MPP for her blood status, nor for her sexuality, but for her best friend, whom she had covered with bandaids since second year.

May was a fine month she had always thought. The days are longer, the nights warmer and the bird's songs are evermore frolicsome.
And it was perhaps for that reason that she didn't expect she would need so many plasters...

Trudy Nott was in the library, talking to a third year about Divination, completely and blissfully impervious to the cries from the third floor...

Aliona Connolly was alone. Alone was not a desirable place to be in the evening of Hogwarts regardless of the time of year.
The third floor corridor was commonly empty, largely because no-one really had much business being there on a Saturday. No-one apart from her, and three figures by her back, the mark of the Dark Lord etched onto their skin underneath long sleeves.

By the time she'd turned around it was too late. They stood on front of her like a pack of hyenas, she felt like a paper doll, one blow and she would tumble to the ground; one rip and no plaster would ever fix her again.

One of them, the tallest, was smiling dauntingly, his eyes filled with malice, an aberrant quirk in the corner of his lips. She could tell it was Kieron Mulciber from a mile away.

His wand was made of a wood so dark it was black, and it pointed to her perniciously, her heart crept into her throat and she swallowed it down.

A cutting laugh came from her left. Her eyes were too stricken with tears to catch its owner, nor could she distinguish the ominous shadow of the final hyena, watching her like they might stalk prey.

Her wand was in her dorm. Her heart was in her throat.

She really should have gone to the library with Trudy...

Marlene was the first to join a prefect on the rounds of the school, accompanied by Jasmine Sempere (by, what she insisted, was no construction of her own).
They didn't seem in any hurry to get their rounds done. Nothing was to be found in the castle besides a couple of cocky, first years hexing a portrait.

They didn't hear the first cry of Aliona Connolly coming from the third floor. Nor the second, nor third...
By the time they reached her she had no cries left. Aliona was face down on the marble floor, crumbled like a paper doll...

Time seemed to stop when Marlene set eyes on her roommate. Everything seemed to spin apart from her. Her hair, the colour of a fine red wine, was sprawled in a mess of tangles and stained with blood. Her robes were damp with the same, thick scarlet liquid coming from an undetermined place on her person. She looked like a corpse. She'd never been so scared in all her adolescent life.

Where Marlene failed to respond, Jasmine seemed born ready. She hurried over to Aliona's mangled form and turned her over. It was clear most of the blood was coming from the back of her head and her chest. Her once crisp white Muggle jumper was stuck to her body and seeped with blood and stretched across her torso her capillaries. She didn't respond when Jasmine called her name gently, nor when she patted the sixth year's face.

"Go and find Trudy, I'll take her to the hospital wing." Jasmine's voice was eerily calm, working to level where Marlene was panicking. She nodded, fleeing the corridor with tears in her eyes, the war on muggleborns inching closer to home with every step...

Not a soul had been allowed into the hospital wing since Aliona's arrival but when Trudy reached the top of the stairs she ignored the small pile of MPP members and took the door at a run. If it had been locked it wouldn't have been surprising if she broke the damn thing.
The group didn't try to stop her. The simply let her go, exchanging glances of disquiet for their fellow member. Those that knew her well doubted if she would ever be the same again...

"Al!" She cried through wracking sobs, her usual level tone thrown into anarchy by the burning in her throat.

Aliona was lying on the far away bed, her usually twinkling grey eyes were closed, like extinguished stars.
"Al, please!" Trudy collapsed by her best friend's side. Unable to protect her, unable to plaster up her wounds, to make it go away.
"Please," she whispered brokenly, this time there was no more fight in her voice, no more urgency.

Poppy Pomfrey came out of her office armed with a small bundle of potions and plants to see Trudy collapsed by Aliona's bed. Her head on her arms and wracking with sobs. If it wasn't for the small shakes she gave off then she might have looked eerily like a second corpse. Poppy didn't have enough strength to try and shift her out the room like she might normally have done and so she merely sat down next to her, on the marble floor, and stroked her back; saying nothing until Trudy's cries stopped...

♣ ♣ ♣

(16th of May 1977 Continued...)

The Gryffindor sixth year dorm was horribly quiet that night. Trudy wasn't there to insist the light be shut off; Aliona wasn't there to moan that she hadn't finished her homework; Mary was too tired to bang on the bathroom door and Marlene didn't bother taking a lifetime in the shower to annoy her. Esme-Leigh's hair was a deep shade of red, painfully similar to that of their roommate.

Esme switched off the light without being asked by anyone and instead of climbing into her own four poster she crawled into Marlene's.
She didn't say a word, just wrapped her arms around her best friend and did her best to close her eyes and fake sleep in hopes it might creep up on her. It wouldn't...

That night James and Sirius found themselves in the corridors of Hogwarts, roaming without intention, not feeling like pranking or doing anything thrilling. It felt disrespectful. Aliona was in the hospital wing, barely alive despite everything the MPP had worked for over the past two years. They spent their blood, sweat and tears to make sure these things didn't happen and, as far as James was concerned, they had failed.

Trudy Nott spent four hours by her best friends side. The first three and a half were spent collapsed, looking much like a paper doll herself, but the last thirty minutes she had managed to bring herself to look, once again, in the face of the person she had devoted years to protect. Her best friend.

She stroked Aliona's hair, whispering to ears that likely wouldn't hear her empty promises.
"I'll fix this. I promise I will. Whatever needs to be done I'll fix it."

The dilemma with Trudy's pathological need to plaster problems was that sometimes it hurt more to rip the bandaid off where it wasn't needed, or sometimes all it did was reopen the wound...

Kieron Mulciber.

That was who it was. There was no doubt. He was the only one that had the gall to do something like this to someone so seraphic like Aliona. Trudy was in no doubt.

She promised she would fix it. Whatever needs to be done...

Unsurprisingly Kieron Mulciber didn't hold curfews in high regard. He didn't hold much in high regard that wasn't himself and those he surrounded himself with.
Trudy knew this, of course, and that was why he wasn't all that too strenuous to locate him, strolling apathetically along the third floor corridor. Fitting.

"You..." Her voice was venomous, she didn't try to bite it back, a bellicose cloud filled her vision and all she saw was red. She licked her lips, they tasted of poison.
Mulciber turned, an aloof, elusive smile on his lips. If Trudy didn't know better she would assume it was self-satisfied.

"YOU!" She repeated, marching towards him with murderous power. Trudy wasn't very tall (in fact she barely grazed five feet) but it wasn't her height that made her domineer; it was her eyes. Her usually kind eyes, the colour of milky tea, looked like vipers ready to snap his neck at any moment.

With a flick of her wand his was rolling along the floor, falling with a clatter that echoed through the otherwise silent castle.
"You did this didn't you?" She had reached him by now, her eyes dead set on his, black as winter midnight.

Kieron Mulicber didn't say a word. He watched her with amusement that made her shake head to foot.
"DIDN'T YOU?!" Her wand was at his throat, he stood, without having opened his mouth against the wall, looking nonchalant to the untrained eye. She could tell he was worried. He was windless after all...

"You almost KILLED HER!"

Kieron Mulciber was not a nice person. In fact, he was a horrible person. A poison that worked its magic quite similar to cyanide. One's system died painfully within twenty minutes of it in one's system (or in Kieron's case: one's presence).

His lips twisted in an elusive smile.

That was all he managed to do before Trudy threw the first curse. Then the next then the next.
Screaming and hollering profanity in between for the whole school to hear (of course the third floor corridor was nearly always vacant as it had become erudition the previous day).

She didn't stop to think. She didn't take a breath. She didn't care. She didn't care.

She screamed and she screamed through tears of belligerence and frustration. Her usually, angelic olive skin was stained with hot, salty, bellicose tears, tearing her skin like paper. She was burning.

She was almost entranced by her blinding anger; too far gone to notice Mulicber was no longer moving. And that a little too much blood was seeping from various cuts along his body...

It was just as well James and Sirius didn't feel like pranking that night. Otherwise they would never have found themselves on the staircase up to the third floor to hear the heinous screams of a girl possessed with the need to fix the world, so much so she had broken it even more.

They shared a single look that seemed to communicate novels before charging into the corridor, wands drawn and robes billowing out behind them.

"NOTT!"

"TRUDY!"

She turned at neither, but the curses had stopped slipping from her wand like an abhorrent waterfall of malice.

James caught up to her first, looking over her shoulder and staring with an expression no one had seen on James Potter's face before. A mixture of horror, shock, anger... it looked like his emotions were gaging in battle for superiority on his face and none were winning.

When Sirius reached Trudy he saw she had finally awoken from the hypnosis of her destruction. Her wand hit the floor in the same clatter Muliber's had not so long ago. Her eyes were wide, the animalistic hatred melting back into milky tea.

The three of them stood there for a long, painful moment, the precious seconds ticking by while they were stupefied.

In her desperate plea to eradicate a monster she had become one herself. If the boys hadn't arrived she might have killed him. She was just as bad as him. Maybe even worse...

With that thought she fainted, leaving Sirius to catch her in his arms...

♣ ♣ ♣

(15th June 1977 morning...)

A month later. On the morning James was due to receive the letter that turned his life upside down he found himself in the office of Professor Dumbledore, holding the hand of Trudy Nott reassuringly.

Both Aliona and Kieron remained in the hospital wing and their chances of recovery hung in the balance. As did Trudy's place at Hogwarts, and the future of the MPP. That was what brung them here on the morning of the fifteenth of June 1977: tomorrow was intended to be the last meeting of the MPP this year.

Dumbledore welcomed them in with a sad sort of smile. Pity, James presumed.
"Take a seat," he invited, gesturing to a pair of wooden chairs on the confronting end of the desk that belonged to the headmaster.

Trudy and James sat, him not letting go of her hand, instead giving it a short squeeze which she returned.
"Now, I think you know why you two are here?"

The both of them nodded.
It was fairly easy to read a person's thoughts while holding their hand like James was now. He could get a gage for her breathing, her stress and whenever something worried her James felt her squeeze his hand tighter. Trudy was, he discovered, an open book.

And it was this that caused James to almost lose a limb when Dumbledore informed them of exactly why they were here.

"I'm afraid you face expulsion, Miss Nott. And Mr Potter, the continuation of the Magical Prejudice Protection next year will have to be put under review. I'm sorry children but there is simply no other way to proceed."

Time stopped for James and at first he barely registered how tightly Trudy was squeezing his hand. Time ticked by but it didn't exist to James. Years of collective work crashed down at his feet.

"Now I know this is dire news but I assure you, if there was any other way then it would be in my best interests to push for it but staff simply cannot see an alternative. Miss Nott, over the course of next week –the final week in school– you will go under review by a select group of students and teachers. The same goes for the MPP, Mr Potter. Whatever decision we come to, I'm sure it will be the right one."

Twenty minutes later they left the office in a daze, both spinning a million miles a minute. As soon as they reached the corridor Trudy crumpled into James' arms, sobbing like a child, completely and utterly broken.

James would look back on that moment as the first time he considered Trudy Nott, that small, caring girl his friend. In that moment he had resigned himself to helping her. Because James Potter would die for his friends; that was just his way.

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(15th June 1977 evening...)

James was on his own when the letter arrived. It was late and he was enjoying the dancing light of the fire across the stone walls of the Gryffindor common room, revising quidditch plays.
He didn't expect to see Fitzgerald, his family owl, tapping at the window to his left. The letter was from his father, James realised once he'd let the bird in and fed him a treat. It was easy to recognise his formal, ministry trained, calligraphic writing.

He should haply have seen the ominous air to the letter before opening it. Usually his father wrote letters with minute precision and sealed with a ministry stamp. Today there was no such formality.

It didn't take him long to read the letter. It wasnt particularly long and so his eyes scanned over the words and after a few minutes he'd digested its contents and simultaneously felt himself leave his body and drop to the floor like a corpse, or a paper doll. He realised this was how Trudy must have felt, how Aliona must have felt...

Dearest James,
I thought it necessary to inform you as soon as possible the news. I know you're busy with your MPP and quidditch commitments, especially in the final weeks of school but I thought it insensitive not to tell you right away.

Your mother went to see a healer about her fever yesterday and she's been informed that it is something more serious. James I really didn't want to ever have to tell you something like this but your mother is dying. They think it's dragon pox but there's an equal possibility that it's a Muggle disease she's developed. They've given her six months to a year.

Your mother wishes you well and wishes me to inform you not to come storming home like she knows you want to and that you should live the rest of your final week out in peace. (I know you won't listen but to put her mind at rest).

I'm sorry son.
Love your father

"James?"

He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there, on the floor, clutching the letter with white knuckles and staring at nothing. Refusing to move. Refusing to think.

"James?" Said the same voice again and James registered who it was.
Marlene McKinnon crouched down next to her friend and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Prongs are you alright? It's two in the morning. You don't look like you've moved all night."

She was right. But still he didn't move.
Marlene gently plucked the letter from his hand and read it quickly, chocking back a sob before wrapping her arms around him as tightly as she could. That was all she could think to do.

Marlene didn't quite know how to solve all the problems of the world but she did know how to make one forget them; if only for a while...

They sat there for a few moments, on the floor, her arms around him, a hand in his hair and him stiff as a board. Not daring to move.

"It's alright," she whispered, "it's alright. We'll find a way."

James doubted it but allowed himself to be consumed by the canards of optimism. Finally he allowed himself to move, wrapping his own arms around his friend and losing himself in an embrace. He began to cry.

Marlene had come to realise that the best way to go about comforting James was to simply ignore his tears. He'd always been like that, since they were children. If one remained heedless of his tears then they found it easier to coax them away.

"Do you remember the day I came running to your house when my mum and dad were arguing?" She began, stroking his hair and placing her chin on top of his head. They were an awkward entanglement of friendship but somehow it was the most comfortable either had been in a while.
"You let me in through the window and let me talk about it for hours. And afterwards we sat on your bed and played chess until the sun rose. When you're mum came in and realised we hadn't slept she almost had a fit but I reckon she knew I needed it. Otherwise a nine year old wouldn't run through an entire pureblood estate to the next in order to climb in another boy's window." Marlene felt him smile softly from under her chin. He remembered the day just as clearly as her.

"It became somewhat of a routine before my parents got divorced. I was like your childhood Sirius. You've always been the same, James, letting other people in through the windows of midnight and comforting them. That's why you're so good at chairing the MPP. And that's why we can't afford to lose that club. We'll fight for it, I promise. Just like we'll fight for Trudy."
She didn't say anything for a while after that, just carefully running her hand through the hair at the nape of his neck.

"And then when my mum met my stepdad we got this massive infatuation with all his Muggle things. We used to play football until the sun went down and i was so eager to impress my stepdad that I'd learn everything about his favourite team off by heart and have you quiz me. It was the only thing we really had in common in the beginning. Football. And you helped me practice it because you knew it would make me happy. That's what you're like, Prongs. You get it from your mother. And that's what's going to stay in you after she's gone. Your kindness and willingness to do anything for anyone. Esme-Leigh may be my best, but you will always be my oldest friend. I'd trust you with my life and anyone who wouldn't is a fool."

She could feel the tears slowly die.
"Thank you, Mar. I love you, you know?" It was the first thing to slip out of his mouth since the arrival of the letter. And after every single shitty thing that had happened in that day and the past four months since the storm it was probably the words that would stick with Marlene forever. James and Marlene had never been the type of friends to say 'I love you' all the time. When it was said it was meant. And James meant it more than anything in his life.

Maybe Trudy would never return to the school, maybe Aliona would die like a ripped paper doll, maybe the MPP would never have another meeting; but none of it really mattered as long as James knew he had someone that loved him as much as he loved her. Someone that would let him in through the window at midnight.

And when the time came for his mother to die he knew he wouldn't be alone. It wouldn't make it any better but it made him less scared. James was never scared. He refused to be.

Hey lads c'est moi! Thanks for reading! Sorry Lily and her gang didn't feature this chapter I just thought there was so much going on in this one that I wanted the keep it just the marauders! Hope you like a little drama cause there's more coming up!

Let me know any predictions because I'm genuinely curious to see where you think this is gonna go!

Love you all

Abbi ♥️