From The Beginning Till The End

"Watch where you are going, Mudblood," Lucius Malfoy snarled, hovering near a boy who was much shorter and smaller than he was.

"Apologise," Vaness Crabbe sneered at the blonde-haired boy while Gordon Goyle pinned the poor boy on the wall and tugged at his hair.

"Sorry," the boy muttered inaudibly.

"Louder!" Severus Snape yelled at the now messy haired boy.

"What in Merlin's name do you think you're doing?" James barked across the corridor, directly at Lucius.

"Look, it's Potty, Blackie and Loony again," Lucius sneered at James, Sirius and Remus before he looked to his cohorts, and they broke into laughter.

"Let him go or we shall not let you off." Sirius came forward and glared at Lucius.

"Well, you don't think you're a hero, do you?" Severus returned the glare at Sirius.

"Let him go," Remus said in a calm and composed manner. He was staring impassively at Gordon.

"Why should we?" Lucius replied in a slick voice, grabbing the boy's collar tighter as he spoke. The boy winced and looked like he was about to burst into tears.

"Four guys bullying a poor, little fellow. What do you think people will say about you, Malfoy?" James retorted, holding onto his wand in his pocket.

Malfoy and his gang took out their wands and pointed at The Marauders.

"So big boys Marauders needed little girls to protect them," Lucius snorted in derision and the few of them started laughing as they retrieved their wands.

"So are you going to let him off?" James asked menacingly. Passing students who saw the two groups of second-year students all rushed off as quickly as possible, sensing trouble in the air.

"What if we say no?" Severus replied and pulled the boy's hair until the boy whimpered.

All the spells were said at the same time by each of them. Sparks came out from each of their wands and hit someone opposite. The next thing everyone stopped and reacted towards the spells.

Lily and James suffered from the leg locking curse and fall backwards knocking Remus down together. Sirius's front teeth suddenly enlarged until it dragged his head down. He fell forward supporting his head from being weighed down using his hands. Arabella dropped in a full body-bind, collapsing onto Stefanie and landed on top of her.

At the opposite side, Lucius was stunned and fell backwards stiffly. Severus started laughing hysterically due to the tickling charm. Gordon started dancing along the corridor madly while Vaness had a serious outburst of boils all over him.

"WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU ALL DOING?!" came Professor McGonagall's voice from the end of the corridor, which was now cleared because of the duel between the two groups.

All of the Gryffindors were injured in a way or another responded while the Slytherins were in no condition to reply Professor McGonagall. She conjured up stretchers to take the eleven twelve-year-olds to the hospital wing.

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"Where am I?" Lily muttered. She heard noises around her and sat upright.

"Cool off. This is a hospital wing!" Madam Pomfrey was shouting around the hospital wing, trying to stop the fight.

"How dare you stun me, Potter?" Lucius shouted across the hospital wing at James, ignoring Madam Pomfrey pleas.

"Well, you offended me first," James said calmly as he tried to move his legs.

"So the Marauders are just cowards who don't dare to admit their mistakes?" Severus growled at Sirius as he massaged his aching muscles.

"You tried to disfigure my face first!" Sirius yelled at Severus angrily.

"What do you think you're doing, body-binding me?" Arabella glared at Vaness menacingly.

"Who is suffering more now?" Vaness returned Arabella's glare.

"All of you are a bunch of dolts!" Remus shouted at the Slytherins as he rubbed his back.

"Petri-" James wanted to cast a body-binding to all the Slytherins and made them shut up once and for all when Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Professor Porky entered the hospital wing.

Everyone kept quiet all of sudden.

"One week of detention for all of you," Professor McGonagall told all of them.

"It wasn't my fault! Malfoy started first!"

"I'm the victim here!"

"My dearest Professor McGonagall, you can't do that to us!"

"Malfoy and his gang were bullying the poor boy!"

"We were trying to help that boy!"

"Potter and his gang attacked us!"

"I was attacked!"

"Keep quiet!" Professor Porky shouted. Suddenly silence filled the hospital wing once again.

"Mr. Pettigrew, would you mind explaining to us what happened?" Dumbledore asked the shivering boy who was at the last bed. He started explaining about how Malfoy was bullying him and calling him a Mudblood until James and his friends came to save him. He went on to explain the exchange of spells and how he had ended up with the leg-locking charm.

"Well, to be fair, all of you will have a week of detention which will be settled by the head of your House. No buts," Dumbledore said calmly.

The Gryffindors and the Slytherins were exchanging death glares as their head of houses began telling them about the week of detentions ahead. Usually the Marauders would be ecstatic to receive more detentions for their pranks, but today, they weren't into the mood.

When the three professors left, they returned to their respective beds but nevertheless constantly exchanging chilling glares.

"I just want to say 'thank you' to all of you for standing up for me." The boy walked up in between James and Sirius's bed.

"Don't mention it! We just can't stand those idiots," James told the boy with a slight smile.

"Thank you very much," the boy said and headed back to his bed, limping slightly.

"Don't tell me the Marauders want a Mudblood to become part of them," Lucius asked Severus loudly.

"Mudbloods might affect the pure blood Potty, whose father is none other than the Minister of Magic himself," the greasy-haired Slytherin replied to Lucius equally.

James got out of the bed and went to have some discussion with Sirius and Remus. After several minutes, he returned to his bed.

"Hey there, what's your name by the way?" James shouted to the boy at the corner bed.

"Peter Laurence Pettigrew."

"So Peter, you wanna become a Marauder?" Remus asked him kindly.

"W-What?" Peter asked, too shocked for words.

"Yeah, so Peter, do you want to join us?" James asked, looking at Peter, who was looking shocked, surprised, and happy at the question.

"B-But I'm not a pure blood wizard."

"We don't discriminate Muggle-born like some gits," Sirius added.

"I-I don't know."

"Being a Marauder is an honor which some people can never get in their whole life," James said pointedly.

"I-I guess that would be okay... If you all don't mind," Peter replied, smiling. Step one succeeded, my Master, I have followed your instructions to join the Marauders to break up the six of them. Peter turned and saw Arabella and Stefanie looking intensely at him. Master is so brilliant to cast a spell to block my mind from mind readers. They can never guess.

Arabella looked at Peter, trying to keep her expression bland. I have an ominous feeling about this guy. She went ahead and tried to read Peter's thoughts. Hmmm... He doesn't seem to have any motive. Is it possible that he knows that we can read minds? I seriously can't 'hear' anything from him...

Stefanie took a sidelong glance at Peter. This person doesn't seem to be who we think he is. She turned and saw Arabella looking at him as well. I'd better enter her thoughts and see what's going on.

Bell?

Stef?

You don't trust him? Stefanie formed her thought clearly.

Stefanie turned and looked at Lily while Arabella concentrated on Peter's thoughts.

Stefanie left Lily's thought and returned to study Peter.

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