WHEN WE WERE YOUNG : marauders era

25. an unplanned party

Mareena's POV

I let out a soft purr as I walk along the dark empty corridors, my furry black paws making no sound. Beside me, Julie playfully runs along the corridors, her brown cat eyes watching the portraits in awe, enjoying her first night time stroll.

Over the years, I've got to admit- we've become experts at disguising ourselves and sneaking around. After all, we've sneaked into the Ministry of Magic multiple times without being caught by our parents. That was a couple of years ago... we stopped going after some time since it started getting boring. We used to visit the Auror Office since that's where dad works. We also roamed around a couple of other departments and believe me when I say we've seen almost every part of the Ministry by now.

Without any trouble, we make our way to the basement, in front of the portrait of the fruit basket. After making sure Mr. Filch or Mrs. Norris were nowhere to be seen, I quickly transform and tickle the pear as I saw Sirius doing before.

"What are you guys doing here?!" Julie exclaims as we enter the kitchen.

"We could ask you the same question!" James answers back, looking amused. "We just arrived now too. We were going to call you but we thought you'd be asleep by now. It's a good thing you guys made it anyway. Come join us!" He said with a wide grin.

As Julie and I make ourselves comfortable amongst the piles of food, mostly near Peter who looks very much at home with all the pumpkin pasties and treacle tarts surrounding him, I hear a small, high-pitched voice from behind me say:

"Welcome, Miss Mareena!"

"Oh hello, Happy," I say with a smile as I look at the tiny house-elf in front of me. "How are you?"

"Happy is doing very good, Miss. Thank you! What would you like to have Miss?"

"I'd like a bowl of chocolate ice-cream please," I say with a sheepish grin. "By the way, this is my sister I told you about," I add as I gesture towards Julie.

"Hi Happy," Julie says politely. "I'm Juliana. Nice to meet you."

"Happy is pleased to meet you too, Miss. What should Happy bring for you, Miss?"

"Some treacle tart please," Julie replies with a smile.

"You come here often, don't you?" James points out with a playful smirk as Happy goes to get us our food.

"Yup," I reply with a grin.
"Thank you, Happy," I say, patting the house-elf lovingly on the head as he brings me my ice-cream. "It's Julie's first time here," I add as I have my first spoon of ice-cream. There's nothing better than ice-cream in the whole wide world!

"Yes, because someone never told me she's been coming here almost every night to have some extra treats," Julie replies, rolling her eyes as she receives her treacle tart from Happy as well.

"I said I'm sorry," I say with a playful nudge and a smirk.

"Fine then. If you let me have three bowls of ice-cream tonight, I might consider forgiving you," Julie answers back with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Absolutely not," I reply, shaking my head. "Daddy wouldn't have allowed it. Besides, too much ice-cream won't be good for your health."

I'm not at all surprised at the request of course. She is my sister after all. Julie pouts but agrees reluctantly.

I catch James, Sirius and Remus looking at us with amused expressions while Peter goes back to the house-elves to ask for more pumpkin pasties. I look at Remus as he returns his attention to his chocolate cake and it immediately reminds me of that morning when I had made a fool of myself. What would he be thinking of me? Of course, he's still been really sweet and just as nice as he always was. I'm glad it didn't cause any awkwardness between us. That would have been awful.