The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

The Werewolf's Saliva

"Ferfucksake, can't a guy get a decent sleep around here anymore?"

Remus was shaking him. "Will you wake up, you bloody buffoon? I swear... How you slept through that thing to begin with is positively beyond me... A bloody nuclear weapon could detonate beside your ear and you would go on sleeping like a baby."

Peter was tugging on his trousers, his eyes wide with fear. "It's the middle of the night, Remus," he said hoarsely. "What could be so important that Dumbledore would call us all together NOW?"

Remus shook his head, then lifted up his wand, "Sirius Orion Black if you don't get up right this instant, I'll blast you so hard..."

"Gods alive, Moonpie, you haven't got to be so dirty about it," Sirius yawned. He rolled lithely off the bed. "Wusshappnin' anyway?" he looked at Peter scrambling to get dressed and at the empty, unmussed bed that would normally hold James Potter. "Oi, someone's going at it, 'ey?" he grinned mischieviously.

Remus rolled his eyes. "Get up! There's been an emergency meet of the Order of the Phoenix called in an hour's time down in the Great Hall. Urgent, it sounded. Dumbledore sent a Patronus to summons all members."

Sirius's eyes went dark. "What's Moldywart done now?"

"I don't know," Remus said. His voice was level despite the panic that danced in his eyes, and he carefully buttoned his jumper up. Peter, meanwhile, had done up his shirt all wrong so that the buttons didn't line up right and the thing hung crookedly from his shoulders.

The three of them hurried down the steps into the common room and saw Lily and James just coming down from the girls' dormitory. The moment James's foot touched the stairs they flattened into a slide and he tripped in a cartoonish way, flipping onto his face and rolling down the stairwell on his stomach with a great oomph as the air was crushed out of him.

"Very graceful," Sirius snickered as he held out a palm to help James up to his feet and Lily slid down the ramp.

James rightened his glasses. "Anyone know what's going on?"

"No," Remus replied. "You've gotten the Patronus as well, then?"

"Yes," James nodded. "We've better hurry downstairs... Say, Sirius, do you reckon Regulus would've got the Patronus? Actually, no he wouldn't, would he? Dumbledore doesn't know... Hey, could you get Kreacher to tell Regulus what's going on? So he knows we're having an emergency meeting and perhaps tell him we'll meet him up afterward to tell him what's afoot?"

Sirius hesitated. "Why don't we just contact him after we know what's going on?"

James replied, "Because, Sirius, he's a part of the Order, and he ought to know ahead the same as us."

Sirius frowned, "But if he's gone and betrayed us then giving him cruicial information about the Order meeting would be daft."

"Regulus hasn't betrayed us," James said sternly.

Sirius shrugged.

"If anyone's done, it's Frek."

It took some persuading to get Sirius to summon the Black Family elf, and they very carefully worded the message that Regulus should expect a message from them after a meeting that was taking place, leaving out the name of the Order specifically, just in case the information got into the wrong hands - or in this case, ears. Kreacher agreed to obey Sirius, then disapparated away, carrying the message to his Master Regulus.

When the elf had disappeared, Sirius, Remus, Peter, James, and Lily started downstairs. They were quickly followed up by Ali Prewitt, who came rushing in her nightgown and all, a flurry of worry. "What if something's happened to my Frank?" she whimpered, and Lily hugged her as they passed down the stairs, caught up by trickles of students who had signed up for the Order under James's command - Emmaline and Marlene from the Ravenclaw corridor were exuding nervous energy and Sirius quickly began to play the clown, goofing off boisterously as he frolicked alongside the crowd of them, all the way down the stairs and into the Great Hall.