The Marauders: Year Two | #Wattys2016

Slughorn's Store

Slughorn's Store

Sirius was sitting on the floor with four potion ingredient kits open around him in the dormitory, counting out dead lacewing flies. "Twenty-one," Sirius said. "It was twenty-one, wasn't it, James?" He looked up at his mate, who was sitting on the bed, looking over the page labeled The Draught of Change in Releasing the Animagus Within.

"Yes," James said, "Twenty-one."

Sirius held up the cup. "There we are, then." He stood up and put the cup on the desk next to the other cups and bags that they'd already fielded from their kits. "That's the last of what we've got already, then," he said, turning around. "What is it we need to knick, then?"

"Powdered bicorn horn, fluxweed, and shredded boomslang skin," James replied.

Sirius nodded, "Well, that's not as much as I thought we might have to knick."

"We've got to figure out where to brew this lot, too. Can't exactly set it up in the common room," James pointed out.

"Yeah. Well." Sirius frowned. "We'll cross that bridge once we get all the ingredients, I s'pose. Maybe in the Trophy Room tunnel?"

"Brilliant!" James replied, grinning.

"We'll just have to keep Remus out of the tunnel for the month."

"Shouldn't be too hard."

The dormitory door opened and Peter slouched through, carrying a bag of food from the kitchens. It was late night, the day after Valentine's. Remus was off in the Shrieking Shack, giving the boys time to begin planning. James and Sirius had excitedly begun making lists and schedules and Peter had gone to get the snacks to keep them all energized while they worked. "I got sandwiches," he announced, "And Butterbeer and hardboiled eggs and chocolate chip cookies."

Sirius followed Peter over to the desk, where Peter was unloading the food he'd gotten and Sirius excitedly grabbed a bottle of Butterbeer, tossing it to James, who caught it from the bed easily, and unscrewing a cap himself. "Good job, Peter," Sirius said happily taking a long pull off the neck of the Butterbeer. "Ah, this is perfection."

"Did you lot figure out what we need from Slughorn's store?" Peter asked, looking over the assorted ingredients that Sirius had stacked on one of the other desks. He made a face at the sight of the plateful of dead leeches.

"Sure did," James said. Sirius said something that sounded something like the same, but it was hard to tell as his mouth was positively stuffed with sandwich. "Oi, pass one over this way," James said, reaching out a hand.

Peter held out the sandwich. "And we go tonight?" he asked.

"Of course," said Sirius, swallowing the bite of sandwich with an almighty gulp. "Otherwise Remus will be asking questions about what we're up to and it'll blow the surprise. We gotta get this started while he's out in the shack so he doesn't get suspicious."

"Yeah," said James, tearing the crusts off his sandwich, "All we need to do is figure out how to keep him out of the Trophy Room passage for a month while the Draught of Change brews."

Peter snorted, "Well that'll be a hard job, won't it?" He shook his head.

Sirius looked at James, concerned, then turned back to Peter, "Why would it be hard? Remus doesn't go down there without us."

"Course he does," Peter said, "He brought Evans down there not even a month ago - remember?"

"Bloody hell," Sirius turned to look at James, "He's right."