The Marauders: Year Four

Cinnamon

Cinnamon

Remus ran up to the dormitory after he'd given Sirius an appropriate amount of time for being alone - expecting to find him on his bed, ready to talk it out, but the dorm room was empty. He stared at Sirius's unmade, empty bed for sometime and reached to upright the chair that had fallen from the ceiling. He spotted James's tie laying across the bed... and Sirius's leather jacket, missing.

Red flags went up in his mind.

Those two were always - always - always in trouble when they were left alone.

Peter came running in the dorm, "I've gotten us butterbeer and tarts!!"

"Well, it's snack for two, the lads have turned up missing," Remus said. And he spotted the parchment lying on his pillow.

"Turned up missing?" Peter looked worried. "You don't reckon someone's imperiused them and dragged them off to some other death eater's house to get us back for what happened at the Lestrange's??" His voice pitched with legitimate fear.

Remus, however, was staring down at the note Sirius had scribbled out.

Messers Padfoot & Prongs do solemnly swear that they are up to no good. Messers Moony & Wormtail are advised not to fear, we shall return once we've had our share of fun, firewhiskey, and whatever other mischief we can get our paws (and most hopefully hooves) into...

"Oh bloody hell," he murmured, handing the parchment to Peter.

Peter read the parchment over and looked up. "S'all the more butterbeer for us, then?" he asked hopefully.

Remus shook his head, "We've got to go find them."

"I knew you were going to say that," muttered Peter, shaking his head and putting down the butterbeers he'd collected from the kitchens on the seat of the one chair. "Can't we at least eat the tarts first?"

But Remus was already tying his scarf about his neck.

The shaggy black dog slid beneath the gap in the fence that surrounded the Shrieking Shack, clutching the bag in his teeth, and looked back briefly to be sure nobody had followed him before running across the field. Somewhere far off, a bird called, the caw-caw echoing over the snow-covered grass. A stag stood beneath the trees lining the far side of thickest part of the field, where the grass loomed taller than the dog. The blades swished as he ran through, the paper bag crunching as it swung from his teeth. The stag looked up, lifting his head from a log, where he'd been peeling bar from the wood and chewing on it as though it were gum. He watched the dog approaching with twitching ears, his long-lashed eyes blinking calmly. The dog came to a halt where the snow tapered off into dry bracken and dropped the bag unceremoniously before transforming back into an evilly-grinning Sirius.

"Bloody hell," he said, "Hogsmeade is right busy. Should've seen it, crowded as could be. The Three Broomsticks was busting at the seams and even the Hogshead had loads of people going in and out of it. Wonder what's going on? I haven't heard about anything going on, have you?"

The stag stared at him, chewing the bark in one side of his mouth and grunted in his throat.

Sirius grabbed the paper bag and opened it up. "Got the firewhiskey, though. Knicked it pretty easy. We'll be owing the Hogshead a galleon or two for it, I'm sure, but that's what the old blighter gets for leaving the storeroom unlocked I reckon..." He pulled the bottle out of the bag. "Also managed to get these..." he pulled out a bag of rolled cigarettes and grinned quite rebelliously.