Marauders, the next generation

Names

The room was full of practical jokes. Mousetrap gum, trick sweets, things to slip in to people's drinks, fake wands, blow up vanishing chairs so you could carry them in your pocket (just add magic!) and even shrinking keys.

On the far side of the room was a long golden plaque. On it was a long list of names. I ran my fingers over the lettering. All different types of handwriting, scorched into the metal. Joseph started to silently read the names, lips moving as he memorised them one by one. Gregory and Lucy moved either side of me and started to point excitedly.

"Look!" said Gregory pointing to two names near the bottom of the list. "Fred Weasley, George Weasley. My Dad and Uncle! This must be a list of pranksters from the past. Wow! James Potter!"

"Sirius Black," read Lucy, "Raoul Hamlin, Brenda Cobble, Edward Lewis, Tim Bryden, Amanda Sharpe, Lucy Wilkin. Look! A Lucy!"

"No Gregories," said Gregory, disappointed. "But two people called Darius."

"I think there was an old singer called Darius," said Joseph, "It's a very rare name. But there we go, a pair of Dariei."

"I think everyone inscribed their names themselves," I said.

I pulled my wand out of my pocket and looked at it curiously. Joseph stepped forward.

"I think I know a spell like that," he said, pointing his wand at the wall. "Escribtus!" The wand flared for a moment. "Joseph Bower."

We all watched as...

...Nothing happened.

Joseph stepped back looking put out. I gazed at the wall thoughtfully.

"It's handwriting," I mused aloud.

Gregory pulled out his own wand and moved forward. Pressing it against the wall he cried out.

"Escribtus!"

He moved the wand like a pencil, and then stepped back to admire his work. Underneath the last name it read 'Gregory Weasley'. Taking the hint, one by one we moved forward to write our names. Once we were finished four names were left, glowing. Gregory Weasley, Lione Davies, Joseph Bower and Lucy Malfoy. There was also a tiny smiley face next to Lucy's name that she couldn't help but add.

***

"Up!"

I jolted out of my daydream and hurriedly told my broom to do just that. We were in flying class the next day and I was half asleep. So was Lucy by the look of it, I knocked her with my broom until she got the idea and called "Up!"

The broom shot up in to her hand, she was one of the lucky ones. Several other Gryffindors and Slytherins were in real trouble. At the end of the line Gatrine Byway was getting so mad she pulled out her wand, pointed it at her broom and screamed,

"If you don't go up this minute I'll curse you so hard all that'll be left is a bunch of twigs and a humorously shaped splinter!"

The broom shot up in to the air with the force of a NASA rocket then fell back down, neatly, in to Gatrine's waiting hand.

I yawned. We'd been up half the night looking at all the pranks in the room. They were amazing. Then there'd been that other argument with Gregory because we'd wanted to prank the Slytherin Quidditch captain right before the match next week and so did he. Then Gregory had said something about Colubra or something. I glanced over at Gregory; he had a small bruise on his cheek. Had Lucy hit him?

"Right," said Madam Hooch, our flying instructor. "Now when I blow this whistle, you kick off. No-one is to go before I blow."

She was giving Samuel some very odd looks. Laura was looking at Samuel's confused expression and laughing.

"One, two..."

Madam Hooch looked positively shocked that Samuel was still on the ground and blew her whistle.

We took off. I felt the wind in my hair as I sailed through the air, and I'm not a person who usually rhymes. It felt exquisite. I felt as free as a bird. I closed by eyes to enjoy the sense of it. I felt as if there was nothing holding me down, no consequences and no rules. No Teachers, no family, no gravity, nothing stopping me from being me.

When I opened by eyes things were a bit fuzzy. I blinked. I blinked again. Something swung in to place. Something... pale. I jumped, the entire flying class, Slytherins and all, jumped backwards.

I looked around. What was I doing in the Hospital wing? I didn't remember how I got there. The students around me looked shocked.

"What?" I asked.

"We were going to ask you that," said Jane Jordan, coldly.

Lucy gave her a look halfway between annoyance and fear.

"You fell off your broom," said Lucy.

"How'd you manage it?" asked Robert, jumping forward. "We all saw you flying. It was amazing."

"Couldn't have been that good if she fell off," Jane pointed out.

Everyone shushed her, even her housemates.

"Look you guys," came Gregory's voice from the back of the crowd. "She fell off her broom, it happens. She probably got a little too confident in her skills. Leave her be."

All the class departed, well, almost all of it.

Gregory moved forward.

"OK," he said, "Why'd you do it?"

"Why'd I do what?"

"You got a death wish of something?"

"What are you talking about?"

Gregory sighed. "I saw you," he said, "You were flying so well. Then you closed your eyes and just threw yourself off. I was right next to you. Why'd you do it, Lio?"

I concentrated. I remembered a sense of freedom, so much freedom. But I didn't remember any absence of broomstick. Come to think of it I didn't remember there being a broomstick from the moment I took off. It had felt like I was soaring through plain air.

"I don't remember jumping," I told Gregory.

He gave me an odd look.

"You're weird."

I smiled. "I know."

Gregory smiled. "How's about we prank Captain Aquillis together?"

***

We ran havoc on Hogwarts for the next weeks and months. Teachers found themselves sitting on nothing, students turned in to all kinds of creatures and even ghosts had to watch where they wal- floated. Our friendship grew stronger and stronger. We had a thing going.

Joseph was the decision maker, judging which prank to pull next by all manner of factors only he could remember.

Gregory and I would come up with the delivery. I was good at ideas but couldn't match Greg's enthusiasm. He came up with more ridiculous ways of playing the jokes faster than I could knock them down for being, well, utterly moronic.

Lucy was the perfect delivery girl. Her fake innocent look was so convincing I fall for it. She did have a tendency to giggle a bit when the victim's back was turned but she could explain that with so much conviction people walked away feeling they'd received a perfectly good explanation. She had her own type of logic that could be applied to any circumstances and, more amazingly, it worked!

One evening we were sitting by the fire in the common room, talking. Christmas was drawing closer and we were discussing the possibilities of ice related pranks. Lucy and Joseph were writing up their History of Magic homework. Gregory, quick as always, and I had finished ours and were examining something we'd found in the room called 'The Marauder's map'.

"You know," I said, "This could be the single greatest aid to pranksters ever created."

"I dunno," said Gregory, dreamily. "That bubble gum that gives you all the symptoms of Chicken pox is pretty sweet."

I stared down at the map again, paused, and then looked back up at Greg.

"Very bad joke, Greg."

"Took you long enough."

"I wonder who the Marauders were. I mean, there's no Moony, Prongs, Wormtail and Padfoot on the board."

"They may not have been called the Marauders. Marauder means buccaneer, swashbuckler, explorer, pirate."

"Pirate!" squeaked Lucy, "There are pirates around. I don't want to go near any pirates. They're nasty and they stab you through the heart without even thinking about it. Right there!"

She tapped her chest at the place where she believed her heart was, just below her left shoulder.

"Try a bit more to the right," I suggested.

Gregory sniggered

"Try doing a bit more research before having a rant, Air Jet," said Gregory, "Pirates are dead."

"Air Jet?"

Lucy sounded more curious then angry.

"Yeah," said Gregory, "'Cos you talk a lot."

I grinned

"Suits you Lucy."

Lucy smiled.

"What about you, Asher?"

"Asher?"

"Yeah. 'Cos you've got fiery red hair and eyes. Fire - Ash - Asher."

"My eyes aren't red."

"No," said Joseph, thoughtfully. "They're red. But you couldn't describe them as sparkling. A better word would be... alight."

"Hmm," I said, "Asher and Air Jet. What next?"

"What about you?" Lucy turned to me, homework forgotten. "What seems appropriate for Lee?"

Joseph and Gregory appeared to consider it for a while. Gregory broke the silence first, as he often did.

"Kettle."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah!" said Lucy, "Kettle is so you Lee. I mean, if anyone were to pick an animal to describe you it'd be snake. You're kind of sly and slippery. Snakes hiss, so do Kettles."

"Interesting," I said.

"What about Joseph?"

We considered Joseph.

What were those names again?" I asked, eventually.

"Padfoot, Prongs, Wormtail and Moony."

"Couldn't we do a play on Moony?" I suggested, "I mean, you've seen him in astronomy class, Mr Know-it-all."

"Well my father is an astronomer," said Joseph, defensively.

"Starsy," said Lucy.

We all nodded.

"Couldn't we have a group name?" said Lucy, "You know, like the Marauders?"

"I'm telling you, they weren't called the Marauders," cried Joseph, "It was probably a map for Marauders. Something that would be useful to a plunderer or a raider."

"Where do you get these words from?" I asked.

Joseph showed be a book about two inches thick. It wasn't a magic book; it wasn't even a storybook.

"Joseph," I said, slowly. "You carry a thesaurus around with you."

"And?"

"Why?"

"Just in case I need to look up a word."

"Ooh yeah," conveyed Gregory, "Bet that really impresses girls at parties, knowing sixteen different words for 'say'."

"Greg," I warned.

I turned back to Joseph to tell him to ignore Gregory but he was deep in to his thesaurus, riffling through the pages. We stared at him for a long while until he raised his head and asked,

"How do you feel about 'Corsairs'?"

So that's it, that's how Gregory Weasley, Lucy Malfoy, Joseph Bower and Lione Davies became Asher, Air Jet, Starsy and Kettle. But that's not where this story ends. There's still a lot more to go. I'm only on chapter six. There's a whole lot to do with snakes, vampires and evil madmen to come (honest). But not quite yet.

The next part takes place a few days before we broke up for Christmas. I woke up one night (Thank you, Cat the mouse) to find Lucy missing from her bed. I had a slight inkling of where she might have gone. I crept in to the boy's dormitory and checked under Gregory's bed. The invisibility cloak was still there. I padded down to the common room and once finding it empty I swung the cloak around me and went out through the portrait hole.

It didn't take long to find the room again; we'd been there several times. Every time we'd gone Lucy had stared at the plaque. As I entered the room I found Lucy sitting on the ground doing just that.

"Lucy," I whispered.

Lucy jumped and looked round. Her feet were bare and she was wearing the black and green striped pyjamas she'd worn on our first night. She must have been frozen walking through the stone corridors of the school in winter. And how she avoided Creevey without the invisibility cloak I have no idea.

I took the cloak off and kneeled down next to Lucy. I was wearing slippers over feet warmers and warm pyjamas with my nightie underneath so I was quite snug. I wished I'd brought my cloak for Lucy; she looked chilled to the bone.

"Come on, Air Jet," I said, "What's up? What's with the obsession over that list?"

Lucy stared at me silently, then turned to the plaque again. She gazed at it, eyes racing up and down, examining the lettering. I watched her for a while then followed her eyesight. Whatever it was she was seeing I wasn't. But that was the point.

"There's none."

I glimpsed back at Lucy's face. It was white as marble and just as still.

"None what?"

Lucy leant forward so she was on her knees at full attention. I looked back at the plaque, trying to see what she was seeing.

"There's none," she repeated, "I mean, look. All the old families are there. Potter, Ryan, Cobble, Dee," she turned to look at me, her eyes as deep as a vat of melted chocolate. "Weasley. But no Malfoys. There are Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Slytherins and Ravenclaws. All the Houses united in order to prank everyone else. But no Malfoys. We're as old a family as any of them, older! But there's not a single Malfoy among them. Why, Kettle? Why?"

I looked at her, confused.

"I don't think you're seeing it right," I said.

I moved forward and put my hand on the plaque, finger resting against the smiley face.

"There is a Malfoy, there."

Lucy put her head on one side.

"Oh, I don't count!"

"Then why does everyone else?" I asked, "Besides, everything's got to start somewhere. I mean, what if-" my eyes scanned the metal for some suitable name. "Peter Pettigrew thought his family weren't important enough to be pranksters and got all depressed like you. But now, if any other Pettigrew comes to Hogwarts he'll be able to point to Peter's name and go 'Look! A Pettigrew'. Everything's got to start somewhere Air Jet. If it could start with Pettigrew, then why not you?"

Lucy stared at me. I wondered what I had done wrong.

"Lee," said Lucy, "Peter Pettigrew went to Azkaban with my grandparents. He was a traitor."

My eyes darted between Lucy's face and Pettigrew's name.

"Ah."

Lucy smiled.

***

The next week was the last week of term. Those who were leaving left and those who were staying stayed. My parents had advised me to try out a Hogwarts Christmas just to see what it was like before deciding to be homesick and come home so I was staying.

Gregory claimed that he couldn't stand to spend one more Christmas with his annoying cousin Simon and weird Uncle Percy so was staying nice and far away from them as was currently possible.

Lucy claimed she had to go home for family stuff. Knowing Lucy's family consisted of her brother Colubra, her parents and no one else I figured that her parents wanted her to come home because they were worried about her.

Joseph said he didn't believe in Santa but that his sister Caitlyn did so if he went home there was a higher probability of his getting more presents in stockings and such like. This shocked us as it was very unlike him. That was, until he secretly confided in me that what he was hoping Santa would bring him was a nice book about all the constellations in the night's sky.

It was the last day of term, the day everyone was supposed to leave. Or, to be more precise, the hour everyone was supposed to leave, the final five minutes before everyone was supposed to leave, and Lucy was missing.

Not missing exactly, I knew where she was and what she'd be doing. As I entered the room she was sitting, cross-legged on the ground, staring at the plaque.

"Oh Lucy."

"Don't worry," said Lucy, turning to me. She was smiling. "I'm not moping, I'm just having one final look. I understood what you were going on about last time and I'm just thinking about all the Malfoys that will come after me. Descendants of Colubra, of course. It was just a little mope. Like Brenda."

"Who?"

"Brenda Cobble."

Lucy held up something to me. It was a small, red, hardback book. On the cover was written, in gold leaf, 'My inner prankster, by Brenda Cobble'.

"She was just like me," said Lucy, "Ancient family, uncertain of what she was supposed to be doing. It's all about how she held Hogwarts in fear through her pranks, her friends, the gravity ring, her family, all sorts of stuff. Here," she placed the book in to my hands. "Read it while I'm away, might give you some ideas for pranks. I better go, I don't want to miss my train."

As she stood up I just gaped at her. She didn't seem to notice.

"The gravity ring?" I asked, "As in that thing Mr Creevey was muttering about the night we found this place?"

"Yeah," said Lucy, brushing the dust off her jeans. "And some stuff about vampires. You know, Brenda was around when Dumbledore was a first year. Says in there 'Pulled the old hair soup trick on that 1st year Worm Albus Dumbledore today. Serves him right for not listening when a prefect tells him not to go down there.' or words to that effect. Amazing really, I'd wondered how his hair got that long. Beards don't usually trail, do they?"

She was out the door before I could stutter a reply.

***

The book fell with a thud on the table in front of Gregory. He looked up at me.

"Oh come on Lio," he said, "You know I'm not that big a reader. Give it to Joseph."

"Read the cover won't you?!"

Gregory juddered backwards and cowered slightly under my glare. His eyes flicked down to the book and, obediently, read the cover. Five seconds later he grabbed the book and began to flick through the pages.

"Try page fifteen," I suggested, "That's the first time she mentions the gravity ring."

"The gravity ring?" said Gregory, "As in that thing Mr Creevey-"

"Yes, yes, yes," I said, "We've been through that."

"I haven't"

"Well I have, with Lucy. She ignored it as if it wasn't important. Mentioned Vampires and hair soup or something. The point is... Well... Vampires!"

"What about them?"

I glared at him again.

"Do you remember anything we learnt in Defence Against the Dark Arts?"

Gregory began to shake his head but after seeing the look I was giving him, stopped and turned it in to an enthusiastic nod instead. I wasn't fooled.

"You know those rumours about Vampires flying, making things float around and throwing people against the wall without even touching them?"

The enthusiastic nod again, this time with a confused grin. The sort of grin that says 'I have no idea what you're talking about but you'd better continue or I get the feeling you're going to kick me in the head. Or other places...' I'd never seen a grin with so much to say for it's self before.

"Well this is where they come from!" I cried, hitting the pages of the book with my hand.

"One vampire got hold of this ring and poof! Everyone thinks vamps are born with that power. This ring can give anybody, and I mean anybody the power to bend gravity to his or her will. That's what the rumours were all about. Changing the way gravity worked. It's incredibly powerful. You know all those rumours about vampires on the move?"

Another nod, this one genuine.

"That's why the ring is here! If they got their hands on it, there's no telling what chaos they could cause. First there'd be..."

I trailed off as Gregory's face slowly bended it's self in to the widest grin I had ever seen, even on him. And Gregory was capable of some wide grins.

"Chaos?"

I nodded, uncertain of what he was getting at. The grin only seemed to widen, if that was at all possible.

"Lio."

I nodded again.

"Yes?"

"We've gotta find it."

A/N: First of all I'd like to say that I don't see anything wrong with carrying a Thesaurus around with you. You get really good words out of it like 'Vivacity'.

Secondly I should mention that hair soup is taken from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

And Lastly I should say; see! No cliffhanger. I don't always put them in you know! I hope you're happy now.

*Goes off to sulk because she likes cliff-hangers*