The Forest - R.L.

Chapter 62 - The Meeting

When the Marauders made it to the designated corridor, they found Sam, Abbey, Ely and Lily talking quietly amongst themselves to one side. The chatter stopped once they spotted the others.

"Where are we...?" Sam began.

"This way." James lead both groups further down the corridor, deliberately thinking as hard as he could about the type of room they needed. Something with a black board would be nice. He wasn't exactly sure what he'd draw on it, but people always seemed to have diagrams and such when explaining things.

Sure enough, when they reached the right place along the corridor, a patch of wooden patterns began to spread outwards across the wall, earning gasps from those who hadn't seen it before. Soon, a large, ornate oak door stood in front of them, with round silver handles, a howling wolf engraved on each.

Remus flinched.

Grace reached over to grab one of his already shaking hands and gave it a squeeze. Despite the others' suggestions that he stay behind and let them take care of it, Remus had insisted on coming along. As terrified and nervous as he might be, he wanted to be a part of this; he couldn't just dump this on his friends.

He stayed on the far side of the group, refusing to meet the eyes of the Hufflepuffs or Lily in fear of what he would find there. Disgust, hatred, fear...

He knew he shouldn't blame himself for what had happened. He couldn't have just left Aiyana, although she would've most likely been able to take care of the situation herself, he had to help. Perhaps if he'd been quicker in getting back to the Shrieking Shack. Or perhaps if he was a better dueller, he'd have been able to get rid of the Death Eater faster

James reached forward, gripping one of the door handles and swinging the door open. The group walked in, Abbey, Sam, Ely and Lily looking around the room that hadn't been there a minute earlier, whilst James made a beeline for the blackboard that sat at one end of the room, a collection of armchairs gathered around it.

Despite there being the exact number of chairs, Remus pulled Grace over to one and they squeezed in together, Grace sitting sideways with her legs draped over Remus and feet dangling off the arm of the chair. She leant her head on his shoulder, glancing up at his pale, tired looking face. He gave her a weak smile that did nothing to hide how anxious he was.

"Breathe," Grace whispered, before taking a deep breath herself, allowing Remus to copy her movements so that they were breathing in sync.

The others all followed their lead, sitting in the various arm chairs and waiting attentively for James to start. When discussing how this meeting would go, he had immediately put his hand up to lead it, knowing that Remus wouldn't want to. After all, he was the one who had told Abbey and Sam that he would explain everything.

And so that was exactly what he was going to do.

---

The Headmaster's office was quiet as Dumbledore sat down at his desk. His phoenix, Fawkes, was fast approaching another Burning Day and was physically so old that all he did was sleep.

Dumbledore pulled out a letter from one of the many pockets in his robes. It had arrived that morning, delivered by a frazzled grey owl, however, upon recognising the handwriting scrawled across the front of it, he had decided to tuck it away for later.

Carefully, he opened the envelope, finding a single piece of parchment inside.

Albus,

There was an attack near the Shrieking Shack last night. I thought I heard loud voices when I went out the back to get something. It turns out that I was right. I could see the whole thing through the back window, lit by the full moon.

He began to grow worried. An attack, the Shrieking Shack, a full moon...

I couldn't make out much because of the distance, but it looked like there was a Death Eater holding Mrs Eade from two doors down, another woman and three of your students. That Black boy, the boy with all the scars, and a blonde girl. I think the Death Eater was on the younger side as well – they were able to scare it off quite easily.

The scarred boy made it inside before he transformed, however, with the help of the other two. It appears you have some unlicensed animagi on your hands.

I thought you might be interested in these happenings.

- AD

That made Dumbledore smile. Although he should've been angered by their rule breaking, he couldn't help but feel proud. His students had stopped a Death Eater attack – albeit, by a rubbish Death Eater by the sounds of it, but an attack none the less – and had come up with the ingenious idea of becoming animagi to help their friend.

Of course, he had had strong suspicious beforehand regarding their status as unlicensed animagi – he liked to be on top of everything that happened at Hogwarts. Now that those suspicions had been confirmed, he was curious as to what their Animagus forms would be.

---

I'm actually starting to hate Extended Investigation. It is bringing me nothing but pain.

aaaahhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

- Grace