Chapter 33 - The Door

6.7K 241 170
                                    

I thought I'd show y'all what my lil pup Sirius looks like.  

LOOK AT THIS PUP

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

LOOK AT THIS PUP

ISN'T HE ADORABLE

___

The night following Sirius' apology, the five of them all sat together in the Gryffindor common room, reunited once more.

"I still can't believe you got up and sang in front of the whole school," Remus said with a chuckle.

"Well, it seems to have done the job, doesn't it?" Grace asked, looking at James and Sirius who were sitting next to each other for the first time in a week.

"Sure does. And I have to admit, it was a bloody good song," Sirius replied.

"If by bloody, you mean it made my ears bleed, then yeah!" Grace told him, earning her a hit over the head with a pillow.

"Well, you did help to wri-"

Their conversation was cut off by a high pitched squeal.

"Merlins beard! Talking about making ears bleed..." Sirius commented, turning to see a sixth year girl standing in front of the notice board.

"What is it?" one of her friends asked, standing in front of the notice board herself. "Oh, the-"

"The Winter Ball!" the first girl cut her off, eliciting a series of mixed reactions from the rest of the Gryffindor house.

Every three years a winter themed ball was held for the fifth, sixth and seventh years in the last week before the Christmas holidays.

Grace groaned. The whole ordeal of finding a dress and finding a partner and doing your hair and make-up really didn't appeal to her in the slightest.

"Oh yeah, the ball," Sirius remembered. "It would've been three years since the last one, wouldn't it?"

"Guess who I'm going to ask to go with me?" James asked.

"Hmm, gee this is tough, what about..." Peter trailed off, pretending to be deep in thought. "Lily Evans."

"No, I was actually going to ask McGonagall, but she's my second choice," James corrected him with a grin.

"Dammit, Prongs, I was going to ask McGonagall," Sirius commented, shaking his head.

"Speaking of Prongs, we should probably get back to our Animagus training, shouldn't we?" Grace reminded them.

"But where would you do it? You can't exactly just transform into animals in the middle of the Gryffindor common room, can you?" Remus questioned.

"Would the dorm room be too small?" James asked.

"What about a classroom? If we push all the desks to one side there'll be plenty of room," Sirius suggested.

"Yes, that'd be an excellent idea – if Filch hadn't started to lock classrooms over the weekend after that prank we pulled on McGonagall," Grace sighed.

"Can't you just, I don't know, Alohamora them?" Peter asked.

"Magical locks – it won't work," Remus said.

"Well, maybe we can find one that he forgot to unlock," James offered. "Surely, out of all of the rooms in the school, he missed at least one."

So the five of them left the Gryffindor common room with their now nearly perfect Marauder's Map in hand, using it to avoid any teachers or prefects wandering the halls. They checked the door of every classroom they came across but all were either locked or were occupied by a teacher.

"I'm beginning to think we've underestimated the thoroughness of Filch and his cat," James commented as they tried what seemed like their millionth door.

"Guys, we have two prefects coming up on our left, I think he's heading this way," Peter whispered, his finger following the names on the map. "If we head down this corridor we should be safe."

They wordlessly followed him around the corner and ducked behind a pillar, listening as the sound of footsteps came closer and then slowly drifted away as the prefects walked in the other direction.

Grace stood up and looked around at the corridor they'd found themselves in. There was a bizarre tapestry on the wall depicting a man trying to teach a group of trolls ballet. She faintly remembered seeing it the last time they had come down here, mapping out all of the different corridors on their map.

The tapestry wasn't the only odd thing about this particular corridor, there was also the fact that there were no doors, just a large plain area of wall with nothing on it, not even a painting.

"Do you think we should head back?" Peter asked. "We've been searching for ages and there's nothing unlocked."

"Who would've thought that it would be this hard to find a nice, quiet place to practise becoming Animagi?" Grace sighed, leaning against a wall, before immediately jumping forward as it began to rumble. "Merlins beard, what was that!?"

"What was what?" Remus asked, concerned.

"The wall! It just- here, feel this." She took his hand and pressed it against the wall.

"It's- it's vibrating!"

A small brown patch appeared under his hand, and Remus immediately pulled away. Slowly the brown patch spread until it covered majority of the previously bare wall.

James, Peter, Sirius, Remus and Grace, just stood back in awe.

"It's a door!" Peter cried, stepping forward to run a hand over the large wooden doors that had just appeared.

---

Sorry for not updating on Sunday I was sick and then I had a bunch of leadership meeting and stuff and there's just been a lot going on but HERE HAVE THIS.

-Grace

The Forest - R.L.Where stories live. Discover now