Fic: Marauders 2.0
HP Gift fic for Alyce
Disclaimer: Claiming to own Harry Potter would get me mauled to death by at least a thousand rabid fans, and I prefer to avoid messy deaths, thanks.
A/N: This was written as a Christmas gift for akimaru_chan who came up with the basic personality for all of the main OC’s. I haven’t written much HP fic, so we will see how this goes. Please enjoy.
--
Okay, it was one thing for Trinity to stay up until 4 in the morning since it was after all for extremely important reasons, such as making sure that Daniel Lawrence knew exactly which of the two of them was better at World of Warcraft (the last time he won did not count because she had had a four foot transfiguration essay to write). However when Madrid decided to stay up? That’s when their housemates all start attempting to hex the bloody telly that Madrid insisted on keeping in the common room because Madrid could just not stop squealing.
Why Madrid even had a telly was beyond Trinity’s understanding. The honorable house of Bane was pureblood as far as Trinity had ever heard, but the Baron had adopted the Muggle custom of naming his eldest daughter after a capital city of Europe and had then proceeded to spoil the girl with everything she wanted, which included Muggle tellies to watch fanciable Muggle actors.
The only reason that Madrid had even attached herself to Trinity was that since Trinity was a half-blood whose Muggle mother had insisted on her daughter knowing the Muggle world as well as the wizarding world, she was one of the few in Slytherin who could even understand what Madrid was busy fangirling about this time.
Currently, it was Inception.
“Oh my God, Arthur is just so hot,” Madrid sighed dreamily for what felt like the trillionth time.
Correction: it was Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
“I’m going to watch 10 Things I Hate About You after this; does anyone want to watch with me?” Madrid yelled.
“Go to sleep!”
“Shut up!”
“Stupefy!”
“Protego,” Trinity flicked without looking away from her screen, “Stop it Scorpios; your aim sucks, and you’ll make me not get the high score.”
“Joseph Gordon-Levitt sucks!”
Madrid whirled around like an avenging fury, striding towards the boy’s room while screeching, “Is that you, Albus? I’ll get you and wring your-”
“Impedimenta,” Trinity casually tripped Madrid with a flick of her wrist, leaning back and sighing with the well-earned satisfaction of having beaten old Slime-Trail again.
“But Muzzle,” Madrid whined, wand in hand and sparking, “Albus is speaking sacrilege.”
Trinity stood up and began dragging Madrid behind her, “It’s time for bed,” she said patiently, “How else are you going to have energy to go do a makeover on Twitch tomorrow and then go to the Yule Ball?”
Madrid gasped dramatically and automatically flopped into bed, “I will be taking my beauty sleep now!” she announces to the room.
Their fellow Slytherin girls have gotten way too used to Madrid to even wake up.
--
“Done!” Madrid announced happily, fluffing out Rebecca’s auburn curls, “And can I just say that Twitch now looks absolutely amazing?”
“Twitch always looks good,” Sally instantly replied, pinning three Pikachu clips into her nut-brown hair and grinning, “Don’t ever let Yippers or anyone else tell you any different.”
Rebecca examined herself in the mirror, fingers tapping out the beat of the music drumming in her ears from her Zune, “I look…different,” she said doubtfully.
“That’s the whole point,” Madrid adamantly stated, “So now-oh no, Muzzles, you are not going out like that!”
Trinity looked down at her plain black dress robes, “What’s wrong?”
Madrid flounced over to Trinity and began to jab at her with her wand, “You look like you always do,” she bemoaned, trying to remember the spell to produce that cute little flip (kind of like Ariadne, but even better) in short hair, “You’re even wearing black dress robes.”
Trinity waved her off, “These are my only dress robes. I never saw much of a point in getting any others.”
Madrid rolled her eyes, “Accio dress robes,” she commanded and quickly began snatching robes from the pile of her own dress robes hurtling toward them, “Black is so shabby,” she commented, holding different dress robes up to Trinity, “Besides, with your complexion, you should go more with a…a red! Yes that’s it! It’ll make your black hair and eyes pop!”
“And then I’ll be murdered by all of our housemates,” Trinity stated dryly, shrugging off Madrid to sit with Sally.
Madrid scrunched up her nose in disgust, “We shouldn’t even have school colors,” she complained, considering a pale blue dress robe, “I mean honestly? Yellow and black are absolutely hideous. It’s an eyesore.”
“Go ahead and diss my house,” Sally said lightly, pulling a brown scarf around her neck that spilled down her canary yellow dress robes, “We’re secretly plotting to take over the world.”
Madrid triumphantly held up a pale green dress robe, “This one! This one will look fantastic on you Muzzle!”
Trinity glanced dubiously at the intricate leafy and flowery white embroidery covering the dress, “I don’t know, I mean what’s the point? Who am I trying to impress?”
Madrid gaped at Trinity, “You have a date!”
Trinity snorted, waving a hand dismissively, “With old Slime Trail! Who asked Pouches first and probably wanted to ask Twitch next, except was too scared of Pouches to do so!”
Sally laughed, adjusting the sky blue ribbons in Rebecca’s hair, “He only asked me because he thought I would be a safe option,” she said fondly, “Really, he wants to go with you, except he’s a dork and was terrified of rejection.”
“Speaking of which, he better have worn that suit!” Madrid exclaimed, forcing the dress robe into Trinity’s hands, “It’s Dior Homme! It’s almost the exact same one that-”
“Joseph Gordon-Levitt wore as Arthur in that scene in the beginning of Inception, we know,” all three girls chorused.
Madrid pouted, “None of you are any fun!” she announced to the room.
--
It was not the most awkward event in Trinity’s life (Daniel’s various other attempts at romance that she had been dragged into helping with through contrived shojo anime-esque scenarios had always been much worse), but it was close. She knew that Daniel wanted to dance a slow dance with her. On the other hand, she never saw the point of slow-dancing (which couldn’t even be said to be dancing. All it was was swaying back and forth. Boring).
But it wasn’t like Slime-Trail, who was such a geek (and she of all people should know), would say anything, oh no. He would just stand there, look awkward, and stare at her.
There was also of course the fact that they were one of the very rare species of an interhouse couple, Gryffindor-Slytherin to boot. They were getting some strange looks and frankly, she was tired of it.
The slow song switched over to the much faster paced Do the Hippogriff, and Trinity grabbed Daniel by the hand and hauled him over to the dance floor.
“Think of this as DDR without the TV, mat, or any other sort of controller, okay?” she asked him brightly, happily twisting and turning to the music.
Daniel sneered, “I do know how to dance you know!” he yelled over the music, mimicking her movements hesitantly, “I do DDR once a day at home!”
Trinity rolls her eyes and notices Madrid happily yelling over the music into her pureblood heir date’s ear about most likely JGL, Sally happily spinning to the music, and Rebecca with an almost dreamy look in her eyes as she moved to the beat.
Thinking about it, they were a pretty odd group to be friends.
It all started on the train, as many Hogwarts relationships begin. Trinity had been sitting in a compartment by herself, when in came Sally, trailed by Rebecca, who announced that “Hi! I’m Sally Wallace, and this is my friend Rebecca Thorn! We’re both half-bloods; my mum’s from the Smith family, and Twitch’s mum works in Diagon Alley. Pleased to meet you!”
They were pleasant company, and they were soon joined by a Muggle-born boy named Daniel Lawrence, mainly because Sally spotted the stuffed Pikachu he was holding and would not stop barraging him with questions about it.
Madrid had stormed in ten minutes later with a flurry of her billowing black robes (evidently still in fashion back then) and dramatically demanded, “Please tell me that someone here knows who Brad Pitt is!”
Both she and Daniel raise their hands slowly, and since Trinity knows more about Brad Pitt than Daniel, Madrid instantly pronounces Trinity her “new BFF!”
She is entirely ready to discount it until they are both sorted into Slytherin, and her potentially more reasonable newfound friends are sorted into Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw.
Her next expectation that she would most likely never see her other three companions on the train again is completely invalidated when it turns out that slime_trail657 is Daniel Lawrence, and therefore her main competition for highest score in World of Warcraft, leading to much verbal abuse on both sides in both online and in person. Sally hangs out with Daniel because he is the one who introduced her to the wonderful world of Pokémon and Pikachu, and Rebecca is Sally’s quiet shadow who is always listening to music.
So one thing leads to another, and the next thing Trinity knows, she’s somehow in a group of friends who have become the symbol of what the headmaster likes to proudly call “Friendly interhouse relations.” Personally, she thinks it’s a load of B.S.
Slytherin is still the most feared house, even with Harry Potter’s own son in it, and Gryffindor is still the most revered. Besides, she doesn’t think they’re that functional of a group.
She fights with Daniel every time they talk, Sally annoys her to death half of the time just with how happy she always is, Rebecca can barely look her in the eye, and most of the time she just tunes out whatever Madrid is saying. But in between the shared detentions (Madrid keeps dragging her into her fangirl fights, Daniel has a tendency to try to watch anime or play video games in class, and Sally keeps trying to transfigure people into pikachus both for her own amusement and to punish those who dare to pick on Rebecca who can cast a mean Muffliato herself), Quidditch matches (Trinity is Slytherin’s ace Chaser, Madrid has somehow convinced a group of girls from various houses to be cheerleaders with herself as captain, Daniel is the commentator who never fails to crow about her missing a shot, Sally is the cheery Beater, and Rebecca is the extremely focused Keeper that Sally refuses to ever aim a bludger at, and it drives the Hufflepuff Quidditch captain absolutely batty), study sessions (No one wants to be Trinity’s partner during Defense Against the Dark Arts because she always wins, but she can’t charm a teacup to even totter a few steps, Daniel is a potential Potions Master but he can’t cast a simple Protego to save his life, Sally is an expert at Transfiguration with all the Pikachu practice but always manages to make things explode in Potions, Rebecca can finish Charms lessons in ten minutes flat to go off and listen to music but can never stay awake for Astronomy, and Madrid excels at Muggle Studies from sheer enthusiasm but practically crawls out of her skin during Professor Binn’s lectures), and weekly explorations of the castle (it seems like new wings just keep popping up, and no one else is as interested in finding everything as they are), they become a group.
Of course, things had to get awkward with Slime-Trail and her around fourth year. Maybe it was inevitable since in their group, Madrid is much too flighty, and Sally and Rebecca are inseparable, but that doesn’t make things less awkward now.
However, there are good things about being in their group of friends. After all, it’s hard to ignore five people constantly badgering you about becoming animagi, even if you’re McGonagall (this is where being Madrid’s BFF comes in handy because if anyone knows how to whine, it’s Madrid).
The results were pretty funny too, if Trinity does say so herself.
Her own result turned out fairly well, and she is very pleased with turning into wolf without any of the disadvantages of being a werewolf on Wolfsbane, Sally was fairly happy with turning into a kangaroo since it sort of resembled a Pikachu (kind of? She didn’t pretend to quite understand Sally most of the time), and Rebecca is perfectly content with turning into a squirrel since it allowed her to hide even more easily than before.
The hilarious results were Daniel and Madrid.
Who knew that Daniel chose his screenname so appropriately? And they had nicknamed Madrid Yippers in their first year because she seriously could not shut up, but wow were they accurate.
Daniel had fumed for at least a month about turning into a snail instead of something so much cooler like a tiger or lion, and Madrid had shrieked loud enough to break several windows as soon as she had turned back from being a Chihuahua (she had previously convinced that she would turn into a long-haired white Persian cat).
The two of them still refused to turn unless absolutely necessary (such as making sure Filch doesn’t catch them on their midnight expedition to find the rumored rooms that don’t open until past midnight), and even then they pout.
“Hey, Trinity?”
She blinked, torn out of her reverie by a grinning Albus, holding out a small brightly wrapped parcel.
“I was your secret Santa this year,” Albus said, scratching the back of his head, “I thought about getting you one of those new video games you know, but then you guys helped me out a lot this year with finding me a place to test out new joke products, so I decided on this.”
She examined the parcel curiously, “What is it?”
Albus grin grew even wider, “Oh trust me, you guys will like it. Just tap it with your wand and say ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” When you’re done with it, tap it again and say ‘Mischief managed.’ And don’t worry, I really don’t need it; it didn’t have all the stuff you guys know anyway. Maybe you can add to it? That chamber below the second floor girl’s lavatory is enough for me. But it does have some stuff I don’t think you guys ever found. Think of it as my gift to the Marauders 2.0, you guys spent a lot of time getting me that room.”
Trinity raised her eyebrows. They would never have bothered to help Albus if they hadn’t been interested, and it was true that it had taken a lot of time to get that room open (everyone had heard about the Chamber of Secrets, and when Albus had asked for an empty space, they had decided to find him the chamber. Rebecca had had to study books from the Restricted Section for two months before she could adequately imitate Parsletongue well enough to get the sink open, and then it had taken Sally and her awhile to figure out the correct spells to create a permanent ladder that long, and then Daniel and Madrid had to figure out the potions and light fixtures needed to make the dank place suitable as a lab), but none of them considered it a bother. Either ways, Albus usually made sense (as long as he wasn’t loopy from testing his new joke products for too long. He was really dedicated in his ambition to take over Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes), but right now he was babbling along like Madrid.
Albus shrugged and said, “You’ll understand after you get a look at it. Now I’m off to save Scorpios from the latest clingy pureblood heiress.”
As Albus walked away to go find and save Scorpios, Trinity called over the rest of her group over to her in one of the unoccupied corners of the ballroom (and this was a difficult task. It required gently levitating the many preoccupied couples into a different space, which she let Rebecca do since her own levitation charms had a tendency to shoot objects up to the ceiling and then abruptly drop them).
“This better be good, Muzzle,” Daniel grumbled, tugging at the collar of his suit.
Madrid slapped his arm down, “Stop picking at that! You’ll ruin the gorgeousness of Arthur’s suit!”
Tearing open the wrapping paper, Trinity stared blankly looked at what seemed to be a large folded piece of parchment.
Daniel snorted, “Well that’s exciting.”
Trinity glared him into silence as she held up her wand and lightly tapped the parchment, “I solemnly swear that I’m up to no good.”
Immediately, spirals of ink began to curl away from the tip of her wand, quickly forming the words “The Marauder’s Map” emblazoned on the front, and spreading into the parchment. Trinity opened the map to be greeted by the sight of a complete map of Hogwarts with moving ink dots.
“This is so cool!” Sally exclaimed, “Look at the little dots! They’re all marked with names!”
“They move the way the people are,” commented Rebecca, pointing to the swirling dots on the part of the map marked Ballroom and then pointing at the people in the center of the dance floor.
“It is pretty cool,” Daniel admitted grudgingly.
“Look at that!” Madrid said excitedly, pointing to a section of the map on the seventh floor, “‘The Room of Requirement,’ isn’t that where Ravenclaw’s diadem was hidden? And didn’t it disappear after the fire? We have to go look at it!”
“Now?” Trinity asked, looking longingly over at the long tables covered in food, “I haven’t eaten yet…”
Madrid made a high noise of impatience, quickly grabbed Trinity by the arm, looped another arm through Sally’s arm, and pulled the five of them out of there through sheer determination.
“Didn’t you hear the rumors?” Madrid demanded as she dragged her friends up the stairs, “That room gives you whatever you want! So you can have all the food you like, and I can get JGL!”
“Oh hell no,” Daniel groaned, trying to get out of Trinity’s iron grasp (if she had to suffer Madrid’ inane plots, good old Slime Trail damn well was as well).
Madrid snorted, somehow still managing to drag them at a fairly fast rate despite the insanely high and thin dark blue stilettos she was wearing (Trinity had absolutely refused when Madrid had offered. There was no way she would be able to walk in those without breaking an ankle. She was still convinced that Madrid had charmed them to somehow support her feet), “You can get all the anime and video games you like,” she said scornfully, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder.
All five of them were now rushing up the stairs.
“I can finally watch Durarara!” Daniel yelled ecstatically.
“I can finally beat your ass at Halo 3!” Trinity yelled back, casually leaping over to the next flight of stairs as the stairs began to move (all five of them had memorized the stair movements by second year).
“Real live Pikachu! Real live Pikachu!” Sally was busy chanting.
Rebecca grinned and quietly hummed the theme to the Sherlock movie (the one they had been forced to watch at least 17 times so that Madrid could try to determine if Robert Downey Jr. was hotter or if it was Jude Law. It had been inconclusive).
Skidding to a halt in front of the nondescript door marked by the map, they all stared intently at it before frantically pacing in front of it, chanting “JGL!” “Durarara!” “Halo 3!” “Real live Pikachu!” and “All the music in the world!” respectively, and then flinging the doors wide open.
A crackling fire surrounded by large overstuffed red, blue, yellow, and green sofas, along with a gigantic TV screen greeted their eyes.
Madrid’s eyes fastened on a piece of paper set on a dark coffee table, and she rushed over and lifted it up with screeches of, “OH MY GOD! IT’S JGL’S AUTOGRAPH! JGL’S AUTOGRAPH!”
Sally had already rushed over to the small animal that Trinity had first mistaken for a striped pillow on the yellow couch, and lifting it up in paroxysms of delight.
“It’s Experiment 626! The one with the Pikachu plushy! Look, it’s alive and moving and everything! I told you I wasn’t lying when I said it ran away!” she cooed, hugging the squirming plushy to her.
“That’s great Sally!” Rebecca said cheerfully, flipping a CD into the state of the art sound system.
Daniel frowned as he flicked through the cases in front of the TV, “How come there isn’t any Durarara?” he complained.
“Because apparently what you require is to get your ass beaten at Halo 3,” Trinity replied smirking, holding up the game.
Daniel snorted, “Oh, it is on.”
And while Sally cuddles with her Pikachu, Rebecca quietly pets the Pikachu while listening to the music being played with her eyes closed, Madrid busily fangirls over all the JGL stuff she is finding (suits, shoes, T-shirts, you name it, the room is providing it), and Daniel’s avatar narrowly avoids being stabbed by her energy sword, Trinity reflects that the only way this could be better would be with some dark hot chocolate.
Cups of steaming hot chocolate appear before all five of them, and Trinity grins.
“Merry Christmas everyone, even you Slime-Trail,” she says happily, blocking his rocket launcher with her sword.
Daniel grunts in response, Madrid is still too busy squealing to respond, Sally chirps, “Merry Christmas!” with another quick squeeze of her Pikachu, and Rebecca simply opens her eyes to smile, and Trinity would not want it any other way.
--
A/N: Okay, I had so much fun writing this story. It was just a blast coming up with all the little details for all the OC’s and then tossing in canon characters as well. I hope it came out okay. If it seems odd that they’re all obsessed with Muggle things, blame Madrid and Daniel, I guess. I hope you didn’t mind me tossing in my own interpretation of the character outlines, Alyce. I didn’t put the original Marauders in because the time frame didn’t work, but I hoped you liked it!
Merry Christmas Alyce!
Disclaimer: Claiming to own Harry Potter would get me mauled to death by at least a thousand rabid fans, and I prefer to avoid messy deaths, thanks.
A/N: This was written as a Christmas gift for akimaru_chan who came up with the basic personality for all of the main OC’s. I haven’t written much HP fic, so we will see how this goes. Please enjoy.
--
Okay, it was one thing for Trinity to stay up until 4 in the morning since it was after all for extremely important reasons, such as making sure that Daniel Lawrence knew exactly which of the two of them was better at World of Warcraft (the last time he won did not count because she had had a four foot transfiguration essay to write). However when Madrid decided to stay up? That’s when their housemates all start attempting to hex the bloody telly that Madrid insisted on keeping in the common room because Madrid could just not stop squealing.
Why Madrid even had a telly was beyond Trinity’s understanding. The honorable house of Bane was pureblood as far as Trinity had ever heard, but the Baron had adopted the Muggle custom of naming his eldest daughter after a capital city of Europe and had then proceeded to spoil the girl with everything she wanted, which included Muggle tellies to watch fanciable Muggle actors.
The only reason that Madrid had even attached herself to Trinity was that since Trinity was a half-blood whose Muggle mother had insisted on her daughter knowing the Muggle world as well as the wizarding world, she was one of the few in Slytherin who could even understand what Madrid was busy fangirling about this time.
Currently, it was Inception.
“Oh my God, Arthur is just so hot,” Madrid sighed dreamily for what felt like the trillionth time.
Correction: it was Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
“I’m going to watch 10 Things I Hate About You after this; does anyone want to watch with me?” Madrid yelled.
“Go to sleep!”
“Shut up!”
“Stupefy!”
“Protego,” Trinity flicked without looking away from her screen, “Stop it Scorpios; your aim sucks, and you’ll make me not get the high score.”
“Joseph Gordon-Levitt sucks!”
Madrid whirled around like an avenging fury, striding towards the boy’s room while screeching, “Is that you, Albus? I’ll get you and wring your-”
“Impedimenta,” Trinity casually tripped Madrid with a flick of her wrist, leaning back and sighing with the well-earned satisfaction of having beaten old Slime-Trail again.
“But Muzzle,” Madrid whined, wand in hand and sparking, “Albus is speaking sacrilege.”
Trinity stood up and began dragging Madrid behind her, “It’s time for bed,” she said patiently, “How else are you going to have energy to go do a makeover on Twitch tomorrow and then go to the Yule Ball?”
Madrid gasped dramatically and automatically flopped into bed, “I will be taking my beauty sleep now!” she announces to the room.
Their fellow Slytherin girls have gotten way too used to Madrid to even wake up.
--
“Done!” Madrid announced happily, fluffing out Rebecca’s auburn curls, “And can I just say that Twitch now looks absolutely amazing?”
“Twitch always looks good,” Sally instantly replied, pinning three Pikachu clips into her nut-brown hair and grinning, “Don’t ever let Yippers or anyone else tell you any different.”
Rebecca examined herself in the mirror, fingers tapping out the beat of the music drumming in her ears from her Zune, “I look…different,” she said doubtfully.
“That’s the whole point,” Madrid adamantly stated, “So now-oh no, Muzzles, you are not going out like that!”
Trinity looked down at her plain black dress robes, “What’s wrong?”
Madrid flounced over to Trinity and began to jab at her with her wand, “You look like you always do,” she bemoaned, trying to remember the spell to produce that cute little flip (kind of like Ariadne, but even better) in short hair, “You’re even wearing black dress robes.”
Trinity waved her off, “These are my only dress robes. I never saw much of a point in getting any others.”
Madrid rolled her eyes, “Accio dress robes,” she commanded and quickly began snatching robes from the pile of her own dress robes hurtling toward them, “Black is so shabby,” she commented, holding different dress robes up to Trinity, “Besides, with your complexion, you should go more with a…a red! Yes that’s it! It’ll make your black hair and eyes pop!”
“And then I’ll be murdered by all of our housemates,” Trinity stated dryly, shrugging off Madrid to sit with Sally.
Madrid scrunched up her nose in disgust, “We shouldn’t even have school colors,” she complained, considering a pale blue dress robe, “I mean honestly? Yellow and black are absolutely hideous. It’s an eyesore.”
“Go ahead and diss my house,” Sally said lightly, pulling a brown scarf around her neck that spilled down her canary yellow dress robes, “We’re secretly plotting to take over the world.”
Madrid triumphantly held up a pale green dress robe, “This one! This one will look fantastic on you Muzzle!”
Trinity glanced dubiously at the intricate leafy and flowery white embroidery covering the dress, “I don’t know, I mean what’s the point? Who am I trying to impress?”
Madrid gaped at Trinity, “You have a date!”
Trinity snorted, waving a hand dismissively, “With old Slime Trail! Who asked Pouches first and probably wanted to ask Twitch next, except was too scared of Pouches to do so!”
Sally laughed, adjusting the sky blue ribbons in Rebecca’s hair, “He only asked me because he thought I would be a safe option,” she said fondly, “Really, he wants to go with you, except he’s a dork and was terrified of rejection.”
“Speaking of which, he better have worn that suit!” Madrid exclaimed, forcing the dress robe into Trinity’s hands, “It’s Dior Homme! It’s almost the exact same one that-”
“Joseph Gordon-Levitt wore as Arthur in that scene in the beginning of Inception, we know,” all three girls chorused.
Madrid pouted, “None of you are any fun!” she announced to the room.
--
It was not the most awkward event in Trinity’s life (Daniel’s various other attempts at romance that she had been dragged into helping with through contrived shojo anime-esque scenarios had always been much worse), but it was close. She knew that Daniel wanted to dance a slow dance with her. On the other hand, she never saw the point of slow-dancing (which couldn’t even be said to be dancing. All it was was swaying back and forth. Boring).
But it wasn’t like Slime-Trail, who was such a geek (and she of all people should know), would say anything, oh no. He would just stand there, look awkward, and stare at her.
There was also of course the fact that they were one of the very rare species of an interhouse couple, Gryffindor-Slytherin to boot. They were getting some strange looks and frankly, she was tired of it.
The slow song switched over to the much faster paced Do the Hippogriff, and Trinity grabbed Daniel by the hand and hauled him over to the dance floor.
“Think of this as DDR without the TV, mat, or any other sort of controller, okay?” she asked him brightly, happily twisting and turning to the music.
Daniel sneered, “I do know how to dance you know!” he yelled over the music, mimicking her movements hesitantly, “I do DDR once a day at home!”
Trinity rolls her eyes and notices Madrid happily yelling over the music into her pureblood heir date’s ear about most likely JGL, Sally happily spinning to the music, and Rebecca with an almost dreamy look in her eyes as she moved to the beat.
Thinking about it, they were a pretty odd group to be friends.
It all started on the train, as many Hogwarts relationships begin. Trinity had been sitting in a compartment by herself, when in came Sally, trailed by Rebecca, who announced that “Hi! I’m Sally Wallace, and this is my friend Rebecca Thorn! We’re both half-bloods; my mum’s from the Smith family, and Twitch’s mum works in Diagon Alley. Pleased to meet you!”
They were pleasant company, and they were soon joined by a Muggle-born boy named Daniel Lawrence, mainly because Sally spotted the stuffed Pikachu he was holding and would not stop barraging him with questions about it.
Madrid had stormed in ten minutes later with a flurry of her billowing black robes (evidently still in fashion back then) and dramatically demanded, “Please tell me that someone here knows who Brad Pitt is!”
Both she and Daniel raise their hands slowly, and since Trinity knows more about Brad Pitt than Daniel, Madrid instantly pronounces Trinity her “new BFF!”
She is entirely ready to discount it until they are both sorted into Slytherin, and her potentially more reasonable newfound friends are sorted into Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw.
Her next expectation that she would most likely never see her other three companions on the train again is completely invalidated when it turns out that slime_trail657 is Daniel Lawrence, and therefore her main competition for highest score in World of Warcraft, leading to much verbal abuse on both sides in both online and in person. Sally hangs out with Daniel because he is the one who introduced her to the wonderful world of Pokémon and Pikachu, and Rebecca is Sally’s quiet shadow who is always listening to music.
So one thing leads to another, and the next thing Trinity knows, she’s somehow in a group of friends who have become the symbol of what the headmaster likes to proudly call “Friendly interhouse relations.” Personally, she thinks it’s a load of B.S.
Slytherin is still the most feared house, even with Harry Potter’s own son in it, and Gryffindor is still the most revered. Besides, she doesn’t think they’re that functional of a group.
She fights with Daniel every time they talk, Sally annoys her to death half of the time just with how happy she always is, Rebecca can barely look her in the eye, and most of the time she just tunes out whatever Madrid is saying. But in between the shared detentions (Madrid keeps dragging her into her fangirl fights, Daniel has a tendency to try to watch anime or play video games in class, and Sally keeps trying to transfigure people into pikachus both for her own amusement and to punish those who dare to pick on Rebecca who can cast a mean Muffliato herself), Quidditch matches (Trinity is Slytherin’s ace Chaser, Madrid has somehow convinced a group of girls from various houses to be cheerleaders with herself as captain, Daniel is the commentator who never fails to crow about her missing a shot, Sally is the cheery Beater, and Rebecca is the extremely focused Keeper that Sally refuses to ever aim a bludger at, and it drives the Hufflepuff Quidditch captain absolutely batty), study sessions (No one wants to be Trinity’s partner during Defense Against the Dark Arts because she always wins, but she can’t charm a teacup to even totter a few steps, Daniel is a potential Potions Master but he can’t cast a simple Protego to save his life, Sally is an expert at Transfiguration with all the Pikachu practice but always manages to make things explode in Potions, Rebecca can finish Charms lessons in ten minutes flat to go off and listen to music but can never stay awake for Astronomy, and Madrid excels at Muggle Studies from sheer enthusiasm but practically crawls out of her skin during Professor Binn’s lectures), and weekly explorations of the castle (it seems like new wings just keep popping up, and no one else is as interested in finding everything as they are), they become a group.
Of course, things had to get awkward with Slime-Trail and her around fourth year. Maybe it was inevitable since in their group, Madrid is much too flighty, and Sally and Rebecca are inseparable, but that doesn’t make things less awkward now.
However, there are good things about being in their group of friends. After all, it’s hard to ignore five people constantly badgering you about becoming animagi, even if you’re McGonagall (this is where being Madrid’s BFF comes in handy because if anyone knows how to whine, it’s Madrid).
The results were pretty funny too, if Trinity does say so herself.
Her own result turned out fairly well, and she is very pleased with turning into wolf without any of the disadvantages of being a werewolf on Wolfsbane, Sally was fairly happy with turning into a kangaroo since it sort of resembled a Pikachu (kind of? She didn’t pretend to quite understand Sally most of the time), and Rebecca is perfectly content with turning into a squirrel since it allowed her to hide even more easily than before.
The hilarious results were Daniel and Madrid.
Who knew that Daniel chose his screenname so appropriately? And they had nicknamed Madrid Yippers in their first year because she seriously could not shut up, but wow were they accurate.
Daniel had fumed for at least a month about turning into a snail instead of something so much cooler like a tiger or lion, and Madrid had shrieked loud enough to break several windows as soon as she had turned back from being a Chihuahua (she had previously convinced that she would turn into a long-haired white Persian cat).
The two of them still refused to turn unless absolutely necessary (such as making sure Filch doesn’t catch them on their midnight expedition to find the rumored rooms that don’t open until past midnight), and even then they pout.
“Hey, Trinity?”
She blinked, torn out of her reverie by a grinning Albus, holding out a small brightly wrapped parcel.
“I was your secret Santa this year,” Albus said, scratching the back of his head, “I thought about getting you one of those new video games you know, but then you guys helped me out a lot this year with finding me a place to test out new joke products, so I decided on this.”
She examined the parcel curiously, “What is it?”
Albus grin grew even wider, “Oh trust me, you guys will like it. Just tap it with your wand and say ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” When you’re done with it, tap it again and say ‘Mischief managed.’ And don’t worry, I really don’t need it; it didn’t have all the stuff you guys know anyway. Maybe you can add to it? That chamber below the second floor girl’s lavatory is enough for me. But it does have some stuff I don’t think you guys ever found. Think of it as my gift to the Marauders 2.0, you guys spent a lot of time getting me that room.”
Trinity raised her eyebrows. They would never have bothered to help Albus if they hadn’t been interested, and it was true that it had taken a lot of time to get that room open (everyone had heard about the Chamber of Secrets, and when Albus had asked for an empty space, they had decided to find him the chamber. Rebecca had had to study books from the Restricted Section for two months before she could adequately imitate Parsletongue well enough to get the sink open, and then it had taken Sally and her awhile to figure out the correct spells to create a permanent ladder that long, and then Daniel and Madrid had to figure out the potions and light fixtures needed to make the dank place suitable as a lab), but none of them considered it a bother. Either ways, Albus usually made sense (as long as he wasn’t loopy from testing his new joke products for too long. He was really dedicated in his ambition to take over Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes), but right now he was babbling along like Madrid.
Albus shrugged and said, “You’ll understand after you get a look at it. Now I’m off to save Scorpios from the latest clingy pureblood heiress.”
As Albus walked away to go find and save Scorpios, Trinity called over the rest of her group over to her in one of the unoccupied corners of the ballroom (and this was a difficult task. It required gently levitating the many preoccupied couples into a different space, which she let Rebecca do since her own levitation charms had a tendency to shoot objects up to the ceiling and then abruptly drop them).
“This better be good, Muzzle,” Daniel grumbled, tugging at the collar of his suit.
Madrid slapped his arm down, “Stop picking at that! You’ll ruin the gorgeousness of Arthur’s suit!”
Tearing open the wrapping paper, Trinity stared blankly looked at what seemed to be a large folded piece of parchment.
Daniel snorted, “Well that’s exciting.”
Trinity glared him into silence as she held up her wand and lightly tapped the parchment, “I solemnly swear that I’m up to no good.”
Immediately, spirals of ink began to curl away from the tip of her wand, quickly forming the words “The Marauder’s Map” emblazoned on the front, and spreading into the parchment. Trinity opened the map to be greeted by the sight of a complete map of Hogwarts with moving ink dots.
“This is so cool!” Sally exclaimed, “Look at the little dots! They’re all marked with names!”
“They move the way the people are,” commented Rebecca, pointing to the swirling dots on the part of the map marked Ballroom and then pointing at the people in the center of the dance floor.
“It is pretty cool,” Daniel admitted grudgingly.
“Look at that!” Madrid said excitedly, pointing to a section of the map on the seventh floor, “‘The Room of Requirement,’ isn’t that where Ravenclaw’s diadem was hidden? And didn’t it disappear after the fire? We have to go look at it!”
“Now?” Trinity asked, looking longingly over at the long tables covered in food, “I haven’t eaten yet…”
Madrid made a high noise of impatience, quickly grabbed Trinity by the arm, looped another arm through Sally’s arm, and pulled the five of them out of there through sheer determination.
“Didn’t you hear the rumors?” Madrid demanded as she dragged her friends up the stairs, “That room gives you whatever you want! So you can have all the food you like, and I can get JGL!”
“Oh hell no,” Daniel groaned, trying to get out of Trinity’s iron grasp (if she had to suffer Madrid’ inane plots, good old Slime Trail damn well was as well).
Madrid snorted, somehow still managing to drag them at a fairly fast rate despite the insanely high and thin dark blue stilettos she was wearing (Trinity had absolutely refused when Madrid had offered. There was no way she would be able to walk in those without breaking an ankle. She was still convinced that Madrid had charmed them to somehow support her feet), “You can get all the anime and video games you like,” she said scornfully, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder.
All five of them were now rushing up the stairs.
“I can finally watch Durarara!” Daniel yelled ecstatically.
“I can finally beat your ass at Halo 3!” Trinity yelled back, casually leaping over to the next flight of stairs as the stairs began to move (all five of them had memorized the stair movements by second year).
“Real live Pikachu! Real live Pikachu!” Sally was busy chanting.
Rebecca grinned and quietly hummed the theme to the Sherlock movie (the one they had been forced to watch at least 17 times so that Madrid could try to determine if Robert Downey Jr. was hotter or if it was Jude Law. It had been inconclusive).
Skidding to a halt in front of the nondescript door marked by the map, they all stared intently at it before frantically pacing in front of it, chanting “JGL!” “Durarara!” “Halo 3!” “Real live Pikachu!” and “All the music in the world!” respectively, and then flinging the doors wide open.
A crackling fire surrounded by large overstuffed red, blue, yellow, and green sofas, along with a gigantic TV screen greeted their eyes.
Madrid’s eyes fastened on a piece of paper set on a dark coffee table, and she rushed over and lifted it up with screeches of, “OH MY GOD! IT’S JGL’S AUTOGRAPH! JGL’S AUTOGRAPH!”
Sally had already rushed over to the small animal that Trinity had first mistaken for a striped pillow on the yellow couch, and lifting it up in paroxysms of delight.
“It’s Experiment 626! The one with the Pikachu plushy! Look, it’s alive and moving and everything! I told you I wasn’t lying when I said it ran away!” she cooed, hugging the squirming plushy to her.
“That’s great Sally!” Rebecca said cheerfully, flipping a CD into the state of the art sound system.
Daniel frowned as he flicked through the cases in front of the TV, “How come there isn’t any Durarara?” he complained.
“Because apparently what you require is to get your ass beaten at Halo 3,” Trinity replied smirking, holding up the game.
Daniel snorted, “Oh, it is on.”
And while Sally cuddles with her Pikachu, Rebecca quietly pets the Pikachu while listening to the music being played with her eyes closed, Madrid busily fangirls over all the JGL stuff she is finding (suits, shoes, T-shirts, you name it, the room is providing it), and Daniel’s avatar narrowly avoids being stabbed by her energy sword, Trinity reflects that the only way this could be better would be with some dark hot chocolate.
Cups of steaming hot chocolate appear before all five of them, and Trinity grins.
“Merry Christmas everyone, even you Slime-Trail,” she says happily, blocking his rocket launcher with her sword.
Daniel grunts in response, Madrid is still too busy squealing to respond, Sally chirps, “Merry Christmas!” with another quick squeeze of her Pikachu, and Rebecca simply opens her eyes to smile, and Trinity would not want it any other way.
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A/N: Okay, I had so much fun writing this story. It was just a blast coming up with all the little details for all the OC’s and then tossing in canon characters as well. I hope it came out okay. If it seems odd that they’re all obsessed with Muggle things, blame Madrid and Daniel, I guess. I hope you didn’t mind me tossing in my own interpretation of the character outlines, Alyce. I didn’t put the original Marauders in because the time frame didn’t work, but I hoped you liked it!
Merry Christmas Alyce!