The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

The Witch With the Humped Back

The Witch with the Humped Back

James went right to bed when they got up to the dormitories. He pulled the covers up over his head, never even bothering to put on his pyjamas and covered his ears with a pillow, not wanting to hear the other Gryffindors in the common room below partying in celebration of the new quidditch team. He hugged his knees to himself, feeling rather miserable.

"Dunno what you're so torn up over," Sirius commented later that night, when he, Remus, and Peter came up to the dorms. He'd pulled the blanket down off James to find him blearily staring straight ahead, his eyes red 'round the corners like he'd been crying. "You made the team!"

"Yeah. As a Chaser," James said thickly.

Sirius rolled his eyes, "But James. You made the team, I didn't even make the team at all, how do you think I feel?"

James didn't answer.

Sirius sighed; obviously there was no talking to him, and he gave it up as a bad job and got ready for bed, leaving James to wallow in his own unwarranted self pity.

James couldn't sleep, though. He stared bleary-eyed at his glasses on the nightstand and the reflection of the moonlight on his cup of water until he could hear the snores of the other three. He sat up then, and opened the drawer of his night stand to find the snitch that Sirius had stolen from the locker rooms the term before. He remembered the night he'd brought it back, how he'd jumped all around their dormitory only to have Peter catch the bloody snitch first. It had been a sign, he thought, even then he hadn't been meant to be a Seeker.

Angrily, he threw the snitch back into the drawer, slamming it shut so hard that one of the little gold wings got caught sticking out. He grabbed his invisibility cloak and snuck out of the dorm. He made his way through the dark corridors of Hogwarts, up to the owlery, where he found Bubo and scrawled out a parchment to Charlus. Better to get it off his chest now, he reckoned, and tell Charlus he'd failed at their dream of him becoming Seeker for the quidditch team. He scribbled out the note, miserable, and finally tied it to Bubo's leg. "There. Go be the bearer of bad news, then, why don't you."

Bubo flew off and James watched until the owl was nothing but a speck over the trees.

The corridors were dark and gloomy, like James was feeling, and he slouched along them, only half listening for Filch or Mrs. Norris. He wasn't far from the portrait hole when he heard a funny noise and ducked into a corner behind a large statue of a witch with a hump on her back. He stood quietly there, his hands on the statue's back, listening carefully.

The sound had been crying. Somebody was crying. Quite heavily, too, the sort of crying that turns your stomach inside out practically, and hurts in your throat. James hesitated, wondering if he ought to check on the person and see if they were alright. He was just about to when he heard a doorway squeak from the other end of the corridor and the sound of Filch's shuffling footsteps echoed through the dark.

James pressed himself even harder against the wall as the caretaker walked by, quickening when he heard the sound of the crying, too.

"What's the meaning of this?" James heard Filch say, agitated, "Students out of bed!"

"I am not a student," came the strong voice of Chriselda Blythe, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. "I am a professor."

"Well he's a student," Filch replied.

James craned his neck, hoping to see who Filch was talking about, but he couldn't see anything except the faint glow of Filch's torch on the ceiling and the long shadow of Mrs. Norris's tail on the wall as she swished it in glee at having found a delinquent student.