All in the Family

Chapter 11: Halloween

A really Lily centric chapter, which I didn't do on purpose, but I'm okay with considering how much focus I've been giving to the Marauders. Decided to knock this fic down to once a week on Fridays, you guys don't seem that interested and I'm gearing up for HBP anyways.

HPHPHP

Which did absolutely nothing to prepare them landing in such a place. The shattered porcelain, stank of dripping water still leaking onto the cracked tiles, and burnt out candles leaving the windowless room in virtual shadows made it hard to even identify for a moment they were still in Hogwarts, let alone in a girls bathroom.

"Is this Moaning Myrtle's bathroom?" Alice asked, staying crouched where she'd landed underneath the loan intact sink that was still cracked as if something heavy had impacted it anyways.

"More importantly, what is that smell?" Remus grumbled, plugging his nose as it lingered and intensified rather than dulled in the room around them. He wanted to go over and blast the door open simply for a breath of air now more than just getting out for once.

He was ignored, though all of them had scrunched up faces for this fact as well.

"No, even that place isn't this destroyed," Lily disagreed in return to Alice, having to wade out of a particularly deep pool of water that had drowned her shoes and most of her lower half on impact. She had to nudge a broken pipe out of the way as she stepped out.

"Anyone else having the fear that crazy three headed dog somehow did this?" Frank asked, having to heave himself off of a toilet that he hoped was just filled with dirty water, though he couldn't blame someone otherwise if they'd witnessed this mess while being in here.

"I don't see that," Remus disagreed, prodding an obliterated bathroom stall with his wand and inspecting how it was clearly smashed apart, judging by all the splintered wood around yet no marks, from teeth or claws, in sight. He was also still breathing through his mouth more than anything, looking like he was panting slightly but only accomplishing at having his mouth be dry now and still tasting the air and somehow increasing the rank around him.

"Dumbledore's had that thing pinned up for a good few months before Harry found it," Sirius agreed. "Though I'm sure if something did change, I'm getting the feeling Harry's going to be involved in finding out what."

"Thank you for that encouraging statement," James sighed, his reflection in a shattered mirror showed how pale he'd been pretending he wasn't seeing all this.

Regulus had landed in half a cracked basin and shattered the rest of it beneath him, but he also didn't have the inclination to move away and towards the center of the room like the others did. He wasn't entirely sure that whatever had done this wouldn't be back any second to finish the job, and he'd rather not be in a crowd when that happened.

Peter finally found the book wedged into the wall that had the largest hole in it, and he stepped away from it just as fast back over to James to start reading rather than imagine what could make such an impact.

"Yes, Halloween!" Sirius whooped. "The one day a year we're all encouraged to eat candy!"

He bellowed this loudest of all in Prongs' ear, having noticed full well his eyes flipping to Lily in a panic. No one had forgotten the date earmarked for their deaths, but Sirius refused to linger on that and he was loath to let anyone else.

Remus gave him a sympathetic look, but thankfully attention was easily caught for all of them as the main portion of this chapter seemed to hold more chat of Quidditch.

Lily seemed the only one in protest of this, as she went down to the first and only undestroyed stall and leaned against the post, glaring at anything but Potter as he enthused over what he was calling a prodigy in the air. She wasn't sure how long it had been since all this mess had started, it already felt like days though she was sure it couldn't have been but a few hours. Yet clearly they weren't even passing in any normal amount of time frame anymore than locations, so who knew, maybe it had been years since she'd been out of his company already.