The Prank
Part III
Title: Some Act of Glorious Heroism (conclusion)
Word Count: 3,369
Rating: PG-13 for some swearing and violence
Genre: Drama
Summary: (Missing Moment as outlined in Prisoner of Azkaban) [James] went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life... Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel.
Written to complete my entry in the Beware the Ides of March challenge at fandomfusion .
“I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down there-"
Snape’s whole face contorted and he spluttered, “Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends’ too!"
-Deathly Hallows
***
Pomfrey’s voice was still ringing in James’s ears-‘Please do not spill a drop’-as his gaze fell to the half-shelled pile of snails lying on the tabletop. They bore an odd resemblance to Snape: cold, yellow, and full of bile…
But he isn’t a snail.
He’s human, flesh and blood.
And Sirius just told him how to gain access to a werewolf.
James’s eyes traced over the polychromatic pool of residue swirling on the black laboratory tabletop.
Will he really take Sirius’s advice and try to get into the tunnel?
Can there be any doubt of it? He followed us so deliberately this winter that he once caught us all suspiciously gathered around the hump of the One-Eyed Witch.
James’s brain panned an image of the sallow-skinned Snape, slinking down the tunnel, his wand held aloft, rapt face illuminated in its glow, en route to finally discovering their closely-guarded secret.
What if he gets all the way to the house? What if he meets Moony, ears flattened, lips turned back, teeth bared in a snarl?
Merlin’s Beard…
James hadn’t even noticed that he was still holding the mirror up to his face when a shuffle in the corridor broke through his racing thoughts. Slughorn rounded the corner again, floating an ottoman in front of him at wand point and carrying a replacement box of elaborately-wrapped confections in his other hand; he stopped dead three feet inside the doorway when he caught sight of James.
His eyes fell to the mirror in James’s hand. “Boy, how many times do I have to tell you to shell?! Not play with your hair-shell!” Color rose in his normally-jovial cheeks.
James stood frozen, too stunned to feign this time.
With a hefty sigh which fluttered the tails of his ginger mustache, Slughorn proceeded to his desk as though determined not to concede his entire evening to disciplining an incorrigible hooligan. Before he’d reached it, however, James’s eyes locked on the doorway…
You need to escape. Run-NOW! Run before he turns around!
His chucks squelched tellingly in Filch’s fresh polish as he pivoted away from the lab desk-Slughorn’s back was still turned as he rocketed through the doorway.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING, BOY?!” Slughorn shouted after him.
James didn’t spare a look back. He only hoped Slughorn wouldn’t have a clear shot at his back to immobilize him before he reached the stairwell. Consequences, later!
The torches guttered in his wake as he sprinted down the dungeon corridor, faster than even Peeves could have pursued him, fringe pinned back, feet smacking out a rhythm on the flagstones... He cut an arc around the last corner and leapt into the stairwell just as Slughorn popped into the hallway and bellowed out a futile, “GET BACK HERE, POTTER!”
The imperative echoed after him as he scampered up four flights of stairs and bolted through the deserted entrance hall where Sirius had earlier spoken to him in the mirror. That conversation seemed an age ago. An age he now had to make up for. Barely breaking speed, palms bracing wood, he threw open the great oak doors and burst into the cool evening air.
Out on the Hogwarts’ grounds, dusk was beginning to swirl its grey cloak over the horizon; only the glow of warm yellow light from the high West Tower and the milky white moon held it at bay as James ran down the sloping lawns.
Snape musn’t reach the Shack! How far ahead can he be?
His chest pitched urgently ahead of his legs as his body gained speed. Crickets shrilled, thick spring grass sprung underfoot, and his pulse throbbed in his ears as he dashed across the lawn.
Fuck, Sirius…Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? repeated through his head.
You should have known Snape would try to get in, the idiot!
Within strides, the Whomping Willow loomed into sight, a quiet skeleton of branches weeping in the waning light. No sign of Snape-he must be inside the tunnel already! I’ve no time to prod the knot! James instinctively dove, headfirst, toward the hole in the roots, hoping to evade the slumbering branches before they came to life…
His rib cage skidded across the grass, his upper torso dashed down the hole, followed by his waist, and a celebratory cheer flashed through his brain: I’ve made it! I’ve managed to sneak through!
But this thought was interrupted by an abrupt yank on his robe where it harnessed his shoulders. What the-? A tear rent the air. Ack-the hem had snagged on a root! He wriggled and kicked furiously as the trunk groaned to life, his feet sticking up like an umbrella in a stand.
The sound of a whip sliced the air. SSSSTHWOOOOOOOOOOOOP!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF! A spiky node lambasted his foot like a Medieval flail.
OWWWWW!
With one last urgent push to rip his robe free, he heaved himself face first onto the floor of the tunnel. Bits of gravel stung his skin and his nostrils inhaled the thick scent of moldering leaves as he landed in a mulch pile at the base of the roots. He crawled along on all fours, the gravel stabbing him in his bony knees and fleshy palms, until the flood of moonlight from the entrance ran out.
It was then that he remembered he had-no wand!
Balls! He couldn’t see the hand in front of his face… How would he get down the tunnel at this rate? And survive an encounter with Snape?
It didn’t matter-he’d have to think on his feet. Wand or no wand, he couldn’t turn back now-not on Snape’s life.
He blinked into the darkness-Is it safe to stand?-and scuttled to his feet; his head grazed the ceiling. He set off at a compromised run, back severely bent, trailing his fingers along the rough ceiling above to prevent smashing his head…
He blundered through the tunnel’s first few twists and turns, his shoulder impaling into the side wall each time he failed to anticipate a new one, but he didn’t dare slow down. And when the ceiling dipped low, constricting the way, he ducked back onto his hands and knees, crawling until some sixth sense or a quick reach up told him it was safe to stand again. In the pitch darkness, under the coursing of his own adrenaline, his senses seemed to funnel every touch, smell, and sound into his brain-the acoustics of his breath resonating against the earthen walls, the sound of pebbles clacking together underfoot and emitting the occasional spark, the uneven curvature of the floor…
Where is he-? Where is he-? Where is he-?
Trailing his fingers along the craggy ceiling, still bent double, his body was begging him to slow down. A stitch skewered his side and salt began to sting his eyes in the thickly humid air...
He’d followed this tunnel plenty of times before with his friends. Padfoot had always trotted along in the lead, acting as a body guard. Peter either rode on the black dog’s furry back or scampered along at its feet. Meanwhile, he, James, brought up the rear, always in his human form because his antlers wouldn’t fit. Or, as Sirius took delight in putting it, ‘Prongs’s head’s too big for the tunnel.’
'You try slinking down the tunnel with a chandelier mounted to your head,' had been his rebuttal.
Partly for his sake, it’d been months since they’d last used the tunnel. More recently, they’d taken to gamboling to the shack via the forest. This had in turn led to their convincing Moony that he, too, needed to run wild and free with them-“It’ll make the time pass by far more quickly. Think of how ace it’ll be! You’ll be harmless-you’ll be with us.”
And of course, the passage from the One-Eyed Witch to Honeydukes still served them well on nights they dared not tempt Filch by descending any lower into the castle from Gryffindor Tower than the second floor.
No matter the route, it had always been a short jaunt with friends. Laughter had made the time pass quickly. Tonight, it felt interminable.
James’s mind raced ahead to the gap in the floorboards, the gap by which they would slip into the old parlor. The old parlor, where they’d passed many a wee hour sparring or simply bringing a raging Moony under control. A control they’d become so confident in over time, it had clinched their argument that Remus would be harmless outside the confines of the old house.
James’s mind raced ahead to the gap in the floorboards, the gap from which a shaft of light spilled out, the gap at which Snape would arrive first if he, James, failed to overtake him…
Had Moony barricaded it before transforming, as Nurse Pomfrey had initially instructed him back in first year, and as was his cautious habit?
‘Which way will you lot be coming?’ Remus asked.
‘Forest,’ Sirius answered simply. ‘It’ll be late. We’ll want to get there quickly.’
‘Thanks,’ Moony replied with that little arched half-smile.
Fuck, Sirius…Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? refrained anew in James’s head.
James’s fingers rasped over a serrated patch of rock, the ceiling flared, and the tunnel’s blackness unexpectedly thinned to charcoal grey. He rounded yet another bend and beheld-light!-illuminating the curved walls ahead. Against its glow, embedded cobbles jutted out in sharp relief, shadows toothed long, but at the center, a living darkness shifted and moved: The black fabric of a robe… a figure bent double… an arched backbone. Snape!
James broke step and flattened himself against the wall.
Make the right move, James. You’re unarmed. Make the right move. He’ll not spare curses on you.
In the flash of an instant, James caught a glimpse of Snape: A lank drape of hair obscured his face, but he held his wand out in front of him in a posture of extreme investigation; Lumos shone from the tip as he skulked cautiously upwards. Upwards... His head and shoulders edged around the eclipsing corner, then his skinny hips. Upwards…
Suddenly James realized Snape was ascending the final rise to the gap in the floor. It was as though he were watching the Quaffle slide through Gryffindor’s rings from a helpless position at midfield…
“DON’T!” he shouted, his voice resonating off the narrow walls, all intentions of ambush forgotten.
A fleeting moment of silence rang out in its wake. Then Snape’s feet scuffled and a volley of red sparks ricocheted down the passageway-James just barely managed to dodge them by flattening himself further into the wall.
“BACK OFF, POTTER! YOU’RE TOO LATE!”
“TOO LATE FOR WHAT? CUT IT OUT!” James shouted back around the corner.
“TOO LATE TO STOP ME FROM FIGURING OUT YOUR LITTLE DISAPPEARING ACT!”
“IT’S NOT AN ACT! YOU’VE NO BUSINESS HERE!”
"AND YOU DO?"
Bastard!
Idiot!
Take him down. You don’t need a wand-just quick reflexes. Take him down, Potter. Think on your feet.
James scooped up a handful of gravel from the tunnel floor and sprinted around the final bend in a fury. In the split second he rounded it-before he’d even fully registered the sight of Snape-he beamed the rocks into his face, unleashing them with all the force of a game-winning Quaffle.
They struck full on the mark above Snape’s beaky nose. Snape let out a roar, averted his eyes, tried to turn and run, but James lunged and snatched his robe hood, yanking him back so fiercely Severus came toppling into him.
“YOU IDIOT! THIS ISN’T A GAME ANYMORE!”
Snape let out a venomous choke and twisted himself around, still tethered by his own robes as James heaved him into the wall of the tunnel. Snape’s whole face squinched in fury as he tried to fight him off.
Snatch the wand, James.
They wrestled so close to the house now that the light flooding out the crack in the floorboards set the left sleeve of their robes aglow as they contorted against each other.
“Come-off-it!” James panted, surprised at how forcefully the Slytherin writhed, like an animal in the throes of death. Snape’s hot breath and hair swiped his cheeks; his knees punched out, trying to make contact with his crotch and gut.
James pinned a forearm across Snape’s windpipe and levered himself off the opposite wall to overpower him as he tried to extend his reach down Snape’s sinewy arm… He needed the wand… His fingers groped along Snape’s outstretched wrist… then his closed first… and contorting knuckles…
ARROOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! A howl broke the air, freezing them both in place.
The hairs on the back of James’s neck prickled.
Massive paws pounded down the stairs-
A shot of adrenaline hit James’s veins.
Nails clicked across the floorboards-
Coming closer- and closer-
Snape’s eyes darted over James’s shoulder to the hole. James’s head spun and-
A werewolf’s muzzle sniffed at the narrow gap in the floor, its snout wrinkling up at the tip; James could have counted the lines. Standing so near, in the flesh, his nerves shriveled, little assured that Moony couldn’t get out.
He smells prey at hand. He could smash that dresser to pieces if he wanted to. You’ve seen what he’s capable of.
After three twitches of its snout, the wolf’s grizzled lips curled back over its fangs and a slow growl tickled the air.
James turned back to Snape, whose eyes had gone wide, pupils dilated, irises glittering with a mixture of fear and excitement. In the split second they met James’s, Snape’s upper lip curled revoltingly into a trace of a smile. Incensed, James made a final lunge to grab the wand-and his fingers snatched wood!
He wielded the point at Severus’s face and shouted, “Petrificus Totalus!”
Expression frozen, Snape slumped rigidly onto the floor of the tunnel.
The wolf growled again in a low, deadly twinge, pulling James’s attention back: He pivoted and fired off a powerful Stinging Hex, causing the wolf to yip and flee. At the moment, James didn’t have the surfeit of emotion to feel sorry for his friend. With a second wand flick, he quickly mended the floorboards shut and the tunnel snuffed into darkness around him.
Panting, chest heaving as though it might burst, James slumped against the sidewall, slowly relaxing his grip on the wand. His nerves were shattered, his body blown, the image of Moony’s growling snout still etched behind his eyes. Above him in the house, he could hear the wolf howling and tossing furniture in a rage. Something landed with a fantastic crash on the wooden floor above his head.
Cloistered in the pitch darkness, James could feel the throb of his pulse trying to circulate oxygen as fast as he’d been consuming it. His mind raced with an excess of thoughts. But it was the lump pressing into his toes on the cramped floor space which quickly recaptured his attention: Snape, lying at his feet.
He’d just seen Moony in the fur. A secret they’d kept so vigilantly, a secret which meant the world to his friend, was out of their safe-keeping and had fallen into the worst hands.
The meddling idiot could have died. Yet here he was, alive, and only temporarily petrified. James couldn’t deny his inward relief at the ‘alive’ part, though there was nothing he actually liked about Severus. The ‘temporarily petrified’ boded decidedly ill; it meant Snape would have to return to the castle eventually…
You have to take him back, James. You can’t just leave him here.
And what-deliver him to Slughorn or McGonagall? Bring him up to the hospital wing for Sirius and Pomfrey to deal with?
If I deliver him to a teacher, maybe they’ll forbid him to tell anyone? But if I deliver him to a teacher, they’ll find out what Sirius did-
Every prank they’d ever pulled suddenly seemed like a petty misdeed compared to this. James wanted nothing more than to go back to the Great Hall, start the night over again, spoon the very same apple crumble onto his plate that he’d been dishing out when Slughorn had hauled him off. He’d gladly serve a tedious detention in the Potion’s dungeon shelling oozing gastropods while Moony inflicted himself with a few good wounds that Pomfrey would clean and they could later help him cover up or invent excuses for.
James ran a hand through his hair and slumped further down the wall as though to sit on his haunches and think about what to do next, but as quickly as he’d done it, he pulled himself back up to his feet. He felt no shred of enthusiasm for the task at hand, but it had to be done. He lit the wand and panned it over Snape’s face: He was laying sideways, his hair webbing across his pocked skin, his huge conk of a nose protruding between greasy strands. Then James spied that frozen curl of lip again, the twisted little victory smile he’d donned at the sight of Moony. Was it satisfaction at having found them out-or simply his morbid fascination with the Dark Arts?
It didn’t much matter: Moony would be devastated.
Fuck, Sirius…Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it?
Using a silent Levicorpus, James floated Severus up off the floor and began conducting him down the tunnel in front of him. He focused purely on navigation at first, but it wasn’t long before the implications of what had just transpired came swarming back into his head.
Is Snape’s the better part of the guilt for coming here? Or is Sirius’s for telling him how?
'C’mon, if he’s really so bloody clever as to have figured it out, why would he go looking for a werewolf?'
'Because he’s obsessed with the bloody Dark Arts?!'
No matter what happens, I’ll stick by Sirius, James resolved.
But what if Sirius gets expelled…?
Bloody hell…
James didn’t even want to be at Hogwarts without Sirius. They’d quickly become best mates ever since they’d met that first day on the train-a matched pair, right down their black hair and senses of mischief. He couldn’t imagine donning a set of dragonhide gloves in Herbology with anyone else. They’d learned to duel together… played on the Quidditch team together since second year… mastered the wandless magic of the Animagus transformation together…
It would be miserable without Padfoot. James suddenly pictured asking his parents to hire them a tutor. At least they’d be together, together as exiles. Could they be happy without Hogwarts? And all that came with it-feasts, friends, Quidditch, a common room, a convoluted castle, girls…?
Abruptly, he rounded the last corner of the tunnel and spied the shaft of moonlight pouring down the hole at the base of the Willow. For the first time in a very many steps, James became aware of his surroundings again: He heard the crunch of his feet on the bits of gravel, heard the faint sounds of night just yards away, saw the eerie glow of the moon illuminating the twisted roots in a way that made them appear as some grotesque animal, bony and edged in shadows…
He temporarily set Snape down by wand point on the floor of the tunnel as he climbed out. His hands grasped the exposed roots, the moon’s glow blanched his skin, and the pain in his ribs and his shoulder suddenly became apparent. Before he fully pressed himself out of the hole and placed his feet back on grassy earth, he reached up to press the knot.
The tree moved before his hand touched it-not in its usual violent thrash, but softly and rhythmically as something landed in its branches above.
“TRRRRRREEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY… TTTRRRRRRREEEEEEEEWWWWWW”
An otherworldly cooing trickled into his ears. Scarlet and gold wings flashed with mythical softness as Fawkes took perch, wrapping his talons on a low branch. All the while, the normally cantankerous tree rested idle.
James stared in awe. The pheonix’s golden eyes settled on him as though propagating a message into his brain.
“Dumbledore’s Office?” James asked quietly.
Fawkes softly ruffled his wings.
-*-*-*-
Return to Part I / Return to Part II
Attribution: James's mental musing, 'Run-NOW!' is from the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire. I sometimes like to try to give echoes of canon when writing missing moments.
Title: Some Act of Glorious Heroism (conclusion)
Word Count: 3,369
Rating: PG-13 for some swearing and violence
Genre: Drama
Summary: (Missing Moment as outlined in Prisoner of Azkaban) [James] went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life... Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel.
Written to complete my entry in the Beware the Ides of March challenge at fandomfusion .
“I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down there-"
Snape’s whole face contorted and he spluttered, “Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends’ too!"
-Deathly Hallows
***
Pomfrey’s voice was still ringing in James’s ears-‘Please do not spill a drop’-as his gaze fell to the half-shelled pile of snails lying on the tabletop. They bore an odd resemblance to Snape: cold, yellow, and full of bile…
But he isn’t a snail.
He’s human, flesh and blood.
And Sirius just told him how to gain access to a werewolf.
James’s eyes traced over the polychromatic pool of residue swirling on the black laboratory tabletop.
Will he really take Sirius’s advice and try to get into the tunnel?
Can there be any doubt of it? He followed us so deliberately this winter that he once caught us all suspiciously gathered around the hump of the One-Eyed Witch.
James’s brain panned an image of the sallow-skinned Snape, slinking down the tunnel, his wand held aloft, rapt face illuminated in its glow, en route to finally discovering their closely-guarded secret.
What if he gets all the way to the house? What if he meets Moony, ears flattened, lips turned back, teeth bared in a snarl?
Merlin’s Beard…
James hadn’t even noticed that he was still holding the mirror up to his face when a shuffle in the corridor broke through his racing thoughts. Slughorn rounded the corner again, floating an ottoman in front of him at wand point and carrying a replacement box of elaborately-wrapped confections in his other hand; he stopped dead three feet inside the doorway when he caught sight of James.
His eyes fell to the mirror in James’s hand. “Boy, how many times do I have to tell you to shell?! Not play with your hair-shell!” Color rose in his normally-jovial cheeks.
James stood frozen, too stunned to feign this time.
With a hefty sigh which fluttered the tails of his ginger mustache, Slughorn proceeded to his desk as though determined not to concede his entire evening to disciplining an incorrigible hooligan. Before he’d reached it, however, James’s eyes locked on the doorway…
You need to escape. Run-NOW! Run before he turns around!
His chucks squelched tellingly in Filch’s fresh polish as he pivoted away from the lab desk-Slughorn’s back was still turned as he rocketed through the doorway.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING, BOY?!” Slughorn shouted after him.
James didn’t spare a look back. He only hoped Slughorn wouldn’t have a clear shot at his back to immobilize him before he reached the stairwell. Consequences, later!
The torches guttered in his wake as he sprinted down the dungeon corridor, faster than even Peeves could have pursued him, fringe pinned back, feet smacking out a rhythm on the flagstones... He cut an arc around the last corner and leapt into the stairwell just as Slughorn popped into the hallway and bellowed out a futile, “GET BACK HERE, POTTER!”
The imperative echoed after him as he scampered up four flights of stairs and bolted through the deserted entrance hall where Sirius had earlier spoken to him in the mirror. That conversation seemed an age ago. An age he now had to make up for. Barely breaking speed, palms bracing wood, he threw open the great oak doors and burst into the cool evening air.
Out on the Hogwarts’ grounds, dusk was beginning to swirl its grey cloak over the horizon; only the glow of warm yellow light from the high West Tower and the milky white moon held it at bay as James ran down the sloping lawns.
Snape musn’t reach the Shack! How far ahead can he be?
His chest pitched urgently ahead of his legs as his body gained speed. Crickets shrilled, thick spring grass sprung underfoot, and his pulse throbbed in his ears as he dashed across the lawn.
Fuck, Sirius…Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? repeated through his head.
You should have known Snape would try to get in, the idiot!
Within strides, the Whomping Willow loomed into sight, a quiet skeleton of branches weeping in the waning light. No sign of Snape-he must be inside the tunnel already! I’ve no time to prod the knot! James instinctively dove, headfirst, toward the hole in the roots, hoping to evade the slumbering branches before they came to life…
His rib cage skidded across the grass, his upper torso dashed down the hole, followed by his waist, and a celebratory cheer flashed through his brain: I’ve made it! I’ve managed to sneak through!
But this thought was interrupted by an abrupt yank on his robe where it harnessed his shoulders. What the-? A tear rent the air. Ack-the hem had snagged on a root! He wriggled and kicked furiously as the trunk groaned to life, his feet sticking up like an umbrella in a stand.
The sound of a whip sliced the air. SSSSTHWOOOOOOOOOOOOP!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF! A spiky node lambasted his foot like a Medieval flail.
OWWWWW!
With one last urgent push to rip his robe free, he heaved himself face first onto the floor of the tunnel. Bits of gravel stung his skin and his nostrils inhaled the thick scent of moldering leaves as he landed in a mulch pile at the base of the roots. He crawled along on all fours, the gravel stabbing him in his bony knees and fleshy palms, until the flood of moonlight from the entrance ran out.
It was then that he remembered he had-no wand!
Balls! He couldn’t see the hand in front of his face… How would he get down the tunnel at this rate? And survive an encounter with Snape?
It didn’t matter-he’d have to think on his feet. Wand or no wand, he couldn’t turn back now-not on Snape’s life.
He blinked into the darkness-Is it safe to stand?-and scuttled to his feet; his head grazed the ceiling. He set off at a compromised run, back severely bent, trailing his fingers along the rough ceiling above to prevent smashing his head…
He blundered through the tunnel’s first few twists and turns, his shoulder impaling into the side wall each time he failed to anticipate a new one, but he didn’t dare slow down. And when the ceiling dipped low, constricting the way, he ducked back onto his hands and knees, crawling until some sixth sense or a quick reach up told him it was safe to stand again. In the pitch darkness, under the coursing of his own adrenaline, his senses seemed to funnel every touch, smell, and sound into his brain-the acoustics of his breath resonating against the earthen walls, the sound of pebbles clacking together underfoot and emitting the occasional spark, the uneven curvature of the floor…
Where is he-? Where is he-? Where is he-?
Trailing his fingers along the craggy ceiling, still bent double, his body was begging him to slow down. A stitch skewered his side and salt began to sting his eyes in the thickly humid air...
He’d followed this tunnel plenty of times before with his friends. Padfoot had always trotted along in the lead, acting as a body guard. Peter either rode on the black dog’s furry back or scampered along at its feet. Meanwhile, he, James, brought up the rear, always in his human form because his antlers wouldn’t fit. Or, as Sirius took delight in putting it, ‘Prongs’s head’s too big for the tunnel.’
'You try slinking down the tunnel with a chandelier mounted to your head,' had been his rebuttal.
Partly for his sake, it’d been months since they’d last used the tunnel. More recently, they’d taken to gamboling to the shack via the forest. This had in turn led to their convincing Moony that he, too, needed to run wild and free with them-“It’ll make the time pass by far more quickly. Think of how ace it’ll be! You’ll be harmless-you’ll be with us.”
And of course, the passage from the One-Eyed Witch to Honeydukes still served them well on nights they dared not tempt Filch by descending any lower into the castle from Gryffindor Tower than the second floor.
No matter the route, it had always been a short jaunt with friends. Laughter had made the time pass quickly. Tonight, it felt interminable.
James’s mind raced ahead to the gap in the floorboards, the gap by which they would slip into the old parlor. The old parlor, where they’d passed many a wee hour sparring or simply bringing a raging Moony under control. A control they’d become so confident in over time, it had clinched their argument that Remus would be harmless outside the confines of the old house.
James’s mind raced ahead to the gap in the floorboards, the gap from which a shaft of light spilled out, the gap at which Snape would arrive first if he, James, failed to overtake him…
Had Moony barricaded it before transforming, as Nurse Pomfrey had initially instructed him back in first year, and as was his cautious habit?
‘Which way will you lot be coming?’ Remus asked.
‘Forest,’ Sirius answered simply. ‘It’ll be late. We’ll want to get there quickly.’
‘Thanks,’ Moony replied with that little arched half-smile.
Fuck, Sirius…Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? refrained anew in James’s head.
James’s fingers rasped over a serrated patch of rock, the ceiling flared, and the tunnel’s blackness unexpectedly thinned to charcoal grey. He rounded yet another bend and beheld-light!-illuminating the curved walls ahead. Against its glow, embedded cobbles jutted out in sharp relief, shadows toothed long, but at the center, a living darkness shifted and moved: The black fabric of a robe… a figure bent double… an arched backbone. Snape!
James broke step and flattened himself against the wall.
Make the right move, James. You’re unarmed. Make the right move. He’ll not spare curses on you.
In the flash of an instant, James caught a glimpse of Snape: A lank drape of hair obscured his face, but he held his wand out in front of him in a posture of extreme investigation; Lumos shone from the tip as he skulked cautiously upwards. Upwards... His head and shoulders edged around the eclipsing corner, then his skinny hips. Upwards…
Suddenly James realized Snape was ascending the final rise to the gap in the floor. It was as though he were watching the Quaffle slide through Gryffindor’s rings from a helpless position at midfield…
“DON’T!” he shouted, his voice resonating off the narrow walls, all intentions of ambush forgotten.
A fleeting moment of silence rang out in its wake. Then Snape’s feet scuffled and a volley of red sparks ricocheted down the passageway-James just barely managed to dodge them by flattening himself further into the wall.
“BACK OFF, POTTER! YOU’RE TOO LATE!”
“TOO LATE FOR WHAT? CUT IT OUT!” James shouted back around the corner.
“TOO LATE TO STOP ME FROM FIGURING OUT YOUR LITTLE DISAPPEARING ACT!”
“IT’S NOT AN ACT! YOU’VE NO BUSINESS HERE!”
"AND YOU DO?"
Bastard!
Idiot!
Take him down. You don’t need a wand-just quick reflexes. Take him down, Potter. Think on your feet.
James scooped up a handful of gravel from the tunnel floor and sprinted around the final bend in a fury. In the split second he rounded it-before he’d even fully registered the sight of Snape-he beamed the rocks into his face, unleashing them with all the force of a game-winning Quaffle.
They struck full on the mark above Snape’s beaky nose. Snape let out a roar, averted his eyes, tried to turn and run, but James lunged and snatched his robe hood, yanking him back so fiercely Severus came toppling into him.
“YOU IDIOT! THIS ISN’T A GAME ANYMORE!”
Snape let out a venomous choke and twisted himself around, still tethered by his own robes as James heaved him into the wall of the tunnel. Snape’s whole face squinched in fury as he tried to fight him off.
Snatch the wand, James.
They wrestled so close to the house now that the light flooding out the crack in the floorboards set the left sleeve of their robes aglow as they contorted against each other.
“Come-off-it!” James panted, surprised at how forcefully the Slytherin writhed, like an animal in the throes of death. Snape’s hot breath and hair swiped his cheeks; his knees punched out, trying to make contact with his crotch and gut.
James pinned a forearm across Snape’s windpipe and levered himself off the opposite wall to overpower him as he tried to extend his reach down Snape’s sinewy arm… He needed the wand… His fingers groped along Snape’s outstretched wrist… then his closed first… and contorting knuckles…
ARROOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! A howl broke the air, freezing them both in place.
The hairs on the back of James’s neck prickled.
Massive paws pounded down the stairs-
A shot of adrenaline hit James’s veins.
Nails clicked across the floorboards-
Coming closer- and closer-
Snape’s eyes darted over James’s shoulder to the hole. James’s head spun and-
A werewolf’s muzzle sniffed at the narrow gap in the floor, its snout wrinkling up at the tip; James could have counted the lines. Standing so near, in the flesh, his nerves shriveled, little assured that Moony couldn’t get out.
He smells prey at hand. He could smash that dresser to pieces if he wanted to. You’ve seen what he’s capable of.
After three twitches of its snout, the wolf’s grizzled lips curled back over its fangs and a slow growl tickled the air.
James turned back to Snape, whose eyes had gone wide, pupils dilated, irises glittering with a mixture of fear and excitement. In the split second they met James’s, Snape’s upper lip curled revoltingly into a trace of a smile. Incensed, James made a final lunge to grab the wand-and his fingers snatched wood!
He wielded the point at Severus’s face and shouted, “Petrificus Totalus!”
Expression frozen, Snape slumped rigidly onto the floor of the tunnel.
The wolf growled again in a low, deadly twinge, pulling James’s attention back: He pivoted and fired off a powerful Stinging Hex, causing the wolf to yip and flee. At the moment, James didn’t have the surfeit of emotion to feel sorry for his friend. With a second wand flick, he quickly mended the floorboards shut and the tunnel snuffed into darkness around him.
Panting, chest heaving as though it might burst, James slumped against the sidewall, slowly relaxing his grip on the wand. His nerves were shattered, his body blown, the image of Moony’s growling snout still etched behind his eyes. Above him in the house, he could hear the wolf howling and tossing furniture in a rage. Something landed with a fantastic crash on the wooden floor above his head.
Cloistered in the pitch darkness, James could feel the throb of his pulse trying to circulate oxygen as fast as he’d been consuming it. His mind raced with an excess of thoughts. But it was the lump pressing into his toes on the cramped floor space which quickly recaptured his attention: Snape, lying at his feet.
He’d just seen Moony in the fur. A secret they’d kept so vigilantly, a secret which meant the world to his friend, was out of their safe-keeping and had fallen into the worst hands.
The meddling idiot could have died. Yet here he was, alive, and only temporarily petrified. James couldn’t deny his inward relief at the ‘alive’ part, though there was nothing he actually liked about Severus. The ‘temporarily petrified’ boded decidedly ill; it meant Snape would have to return to the castle eventually…
You have to take him back, James. You can’t just leave him here.
And what-deliver him to Slughorn or McGonagall? Bring him up to the hospital wing for Sirius and Pomfrey to deal with?
If I deliver him to a teacher, maybe they’ll forbid him to tell anyone? But if I deliver him to a teacher, they’ll find out what Sirius did-
Every prank they’d ever pulled suddenly seemed like a petty misdeed compared to this. James wanted nothing more than to go back to the Great Hall, start the night over again, spoon the very same apple crumble onto his plate that he’d been dishing out when Slughorn had hauled him off. He’d gladly serve a tedious detention in the Potion’s dungeon shelling oozing gastropods while Moony inflicted himself with a few good wounds that Pomfrey would clean and they could later help him cover up or invent excuses for.
James ran a hand through his hair and slumped further down the wall as though to sit on his haunches and think about what to do next, but as quickly as he’d done it, he pulled himself back up to his feet. He felt no shred of enthusiasm for the task at hand, but it had to be done. He lit the wand and panned it over Snape’s face: He was laying sideways, his hair webbing across his pocked skin, his huge conk of a nose protruding between greasy strands. Then James spied that frozen curl of lip again, the twisted little victory smile he’d donned at the sight of Moony. Was it satisfaction at having found them out-or simply his morbid fascination with the Dark Arts?
It didn’t much matter: Moony would be devastated.
Fuck, Sirius…Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it? Why’d-ya-do-it?
Using a silent Levicorpus, James floated Severus up off the floor and began conducting him down the tunnel in front of him. He focused purely on navigation at first, but it wasn’t long before the implications of what had just transpired came swarming back into his head.
Is Snape’s the better part of the guilt for coming here? Or is Sirius’s for telling him how?
'C’mon, if he’s really so bloody clever as to have figured it out, why would he go looking for a werewolf?'
'Because he’s obsessed with the bloody Dark Arts?!'
No matter what happens, I’ll stick by Sirius, James resolved.
But what if Sirius gets expelled…?
Bloody hell…
James didn’t even want to be at Hogwarts without Sirius. They’d quickly become best mates ever since they’d met that first day on the train-a matched pair, right down their black hair and senses of mischief. He couldn’t imagine donning a set of dragonhide gloves in Herbology with anyone else. They’d learned to duel together… played on the Quidditch team together since second year… mastered the wandless magic of the Animagus transformation together…
It would be miserable without Padfoot. James suddenly pictured asking his parents to hire them a tutor. At least they’d be together, together as exiles. Could they be happy without Hogwarts? And all that came with it-feasts, friends, Quidditch, a common room, a convoluted castle, girls…?
Abruptly, he rounded the last corner of the tunnel and spied the shaft of moonlight pouring down the hole at the base of the Willow. For the first time in a very many steps, James became aware of his surroundings again: He heard the crunch of his feet on the bits of gravel, heard the faint sounds of night just yards away, saw the eerie glow of the moon illuminating the twisted roots in a way that made them appear as some grotesque animal, bony and edged in shadows…
He temporarily set Snape down by wand point on the floor of the tunnel as he climbed out. His hands grasped the exposed roots, the moon’s glow blanched his skin, and the pain in his ribs and his shoulder suddenly became apparent. Before he fully pressed himself out of the hole and placed his feet back on grassy earth, he reached up to press the knot.
The tree moved before his hand touched it-not in its usual violent thrash, but softly and rhythmically as something landed in its branches above.
“TRRRRRREEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY… TTTRRRRRRREEEEEEEEWWWWWW”
An otherworldly cooing trickled into his ears. Scarlet and gold wings flashed with mythical softness as Fawkes took perch, wrapping his talons on a low branch. All the while, the normally cantankerous tree rested idle.
James stared in awe. The pheonix’s golden eyes settled on him as though propagating a message into his brain.
“Dumbledore’s Office?” James asked quietly.
Fawkes softly ruffled his wings.
-*-*-*-
Return to Part I / Return to Part II
Attribution: James's mental musing, 'Run-NOW!' is from the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire. I sometimes like to try to give echoes of canon when writing missing moments.