The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Mandrake Leaves

Mandrake Leaves

Peter woke to the feeling of a hand on his shoulder, shaking quite hard. He snorted as he gathered his bearings, looking about blearily in the dark. Sirius and James loomed over him, dimly illuminated by the pale moonlight coming in through the dormitory window. Sirius laid a finger over his lips, silencing Peter before he could speak and nodded toward the door. The floor was cold compared to the warmth beneath the duvets and Peter quickly stuck his feet in his slippers and tied his bathrobe 'round his waist as he followed James and Sirius out of the dorm and down the steps to the common room.

None of them spoke until they were all the way to the Secret Room, where James whispered the need to get into their secret place three times to make the door appear. They had gotten quite good at getting in since their first time visiting the room - especially James, who was best at it. Inside, once the door closed, Peter complained, "It's so late it's early again!"

"Yes, but that's true as soon as the clock strikes midnight isn't it?" Sirius pointed out.

"Besides, we didn't want Remus to wake up and see us putting these in our mouths, and wonder why we're eating mandrake leaves," said James, withdrawing the little curled up handful of Mandrake leaves. He put them down on the counter and they all scrambled to sit in the stools around it, looking down at the leaves on the table, still curling a bit from being in James's robe pocket all day since Herbology.

Peter picked one up and looked at it carefully. "What if they taste nasty?" he asked.

Sirius took one up, too, as did James, and Sirius brought the leaf tentatively to his mouth and stuck his tongue out and licked the back of it very slightly. He shrugged.

"What's it taste like?" asked Peter.

"Like nothing, I didn't really taste anything. 'Cept maybe dust. We should probably wash these before we put them in our mouth," Sirius pointed out, and he quickly took up his wand and sprayed each of the leaves with a stream of magic water.

James was looking at Releasing the Animagus Within. "Do we chew them or do they just sit in there all whole and leafy?" he asked.

Sirius looked over his shoulder at the book, as did Peter from the other side. "Dunno," Sirius said after a few minutes, "It doesn't really say, does it?"

James shook his head, "Not at all."

"It says it has to be a whole mandrake leaf here," Peter pointed to the line toward the top of the paragraph.

"But does it mean an entire mandrake leaf or that it must stay in one piece?" Sirius wondered.

Peter didn't know and so he didn't answer that question. Instead, he posed one of his own. "How are we going to talk?" he asked, turning the rather large mandrake leaf over in his hands.

James looked at Sirius. He hadn't thought of that, either.

Sirius shrugged. "Just... you know... around the leaf. It's only for one month. Nobody'll notice, really."

"Nobody will notice you being quiet? For a month?" Peter demanded.

James snorted.

Sirius looked offended, "I'm not that loud," he said. "James is louder than I am."

James looked up, "I am not."

"Are, too," Sirius said.

"You're usually loud together," Peter amended. "Maybe neither of you can hear how loud you're being over the sound of the other."