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Slughorn’s Store


Sirius was sitting on the floor with four potion ingredient kits open around him in the dormitory, counting out dead lacewing flies. “Twenty-one,” Sirius said. “It was twenty-one, wasn’t it, James?” He looked up at his mate, who was sitting on the bed, looking over the page labeled The Draught of Change in Releasing the Animagus Within.

“Yes,” James said, “Twenty-one.”

Sirius held up the cup. “There we are, then.” He stood up and put the cup on the desk next to the other cups and bags that they’d already fielded from their kits. “That’s the last of what we’ve got already, then,” he said, turning around. “What is it we need to knick, then?”

“Powdered bicorn horn, fluxweed, and shredded boomslang skin,” James replied.

Sirius nodded, “Well, that’s not as much as I thought we might have to knick.”

“We’ve got to figure out where to brew this lot, too. Can’t exactly set it up in the common room,” James pointed out.

“Yeah. Well.” Sirius frowned. “We’ll cross that bridge once we get all the ingredients, I s’pose. Maybe in the Trophy Room tunnel?”

“Brilliant!” James replied, grinning.

“We’ll just have to keep Remus out of the tunnel for the month.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard.”

The dormitory door opened and Peter slouched through, carrying a bag of food from the kitchens. It was late night, the day after Valentine’s. Remus was off in the Shrieking Shack, giving the boys time to begin planning. James and Sirius had excitedly begun making lists and schedules and Peter had gone to get the snacks to keep them all energized while they worked. “I got sandwiches,” he announced, “And Butterbeer and hardboiled eggs and chocolate chip cookies.”

Sirius followed Peter over to the desk, where Peter was unloading the food he’d gotten and Sirius excitedly grabbed a bottle of Butterbeer, tossing it to James, who caught it from the bed easily, and unscrewing a cap himself. “Good job, Peter,” Sirius said happily taking a long pull off the neck of the Butterbeer. “Ah, this is perfection.”

“Did you lot figure out what we need from Slughorn’s store?” Peter asked, looking over the assorted ingredients that Sirius had stacked on one of the other desks. He made a face at the sight of the plateful of dead leeches.

“Sure did,” James said. Sirius said something that sounded something like the same, but it was hard to tell as his mouth was positively stuffed with sandwich. “Oi, pass one over this way,” James said, reaching out a hand.

Peter held out the sandwich. “And we go tonight?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Sirius, swallowing the bite of sandwich with an almighty gulp. “Otherwise Remus will be asking questions about what we’re up to and it’ll blow the surprise. We gotta get this started while he’s out in the shack so he doesn’t get suspicious.”

“Yeah,” said James, tearing the crusts off his sandwich, “All we need to do is figure out how to keep him out of the Trophy Room passage for a month while the Draught of Change brews.”

Peter snorted, “Well that’ll be a hard job, won’t it?” He shook his head.

Sirius looked at James, concerned, then turned back to Peter, “Why would it be hard? Remus doesn’t go down there without us.”

“Course he does,” Peter said, “He brought Evans down there not even a month ago - remember?”

“Bloody hell,” Sirius turned to look at James, “He’s right.”

James looked concerned. “So what do we do?”

“Maybe we should get Evans in on this,” said Peter hopefully, thinking it might be a good idea to have one of the near genius Second Years in on the plan - given how much could go wrong with the process of becoming an Animagus.

Sirius made a face, “Of course we can’t let Evans in on it! She’ll go off to Dumbledore or something of the like and that’ll end it right there, won’t it? Evans is far too much of a goody-two-shoes to help us out with this.” Sirius frowned and looked at James, “What do we do?”

James sighed, “I dunno. Maybe we should use one of the other passageways from the list that we haven’t really explored yet… Remus won’t go exploring without us.”

Sirius took a deep breath, “Maybe… maybe.”

Peter nibbled his sandwich while the other two talked.

“Eitherway,” Sirius said after a few moments, “Whether we know where we’re brewing yet or not, we need to get down to Slughorn’s store and get the bicorn, fluxweed, and boomslang before it’s morning and everyone’s up.”

James got up and took the invisibility cloak out of his trunk.

Twenty minutes later, the three of them had snuck through the castle under the cloak and arrived in the Entrance Hall of the castle. They were headed for the stairs into the dungeons when there came echoing footsteps below and they moved quickly out of the way, only just in time as Severus Snape came sweeping through the stone doorway. Snape’s cloak hung off his arms like he were some sort of bat in the night emerging from a cave. Sirius watched with narrowed eyes as Severus Snape climbed the stairs two at a time, looking each way carefully at the top, searching for any signs of Mrs. Norris, and, seeing none, disappeared into the darkness that filled the Second Floor.

“What the bloody hell is he up to?” James murmured as soon as Snape was out of each shot and they felt it safe to speak again.

“Who knows with that dunder-head?” Sirius said, “Could be anything…”

“Maybe we should follow him,” James hissed, already half-turned.

Sirius shook his head, catching James by the arm before he could go after him. “We need to get the stuff for the potion so we can get started -- for Remus’s sake. We can follow Snivelly around the castle some other time.”

James sighed, knowing Sirius was right, and he followed Sirius’s lead down into the dungeons corridor. It was dark and dreary and they followed the wall until they came to the steps that led up to Professor Slughorn’s storeroom. Peter glanced at the bathroom where, last time he’d been down on this floor, he’d seen the horrible reflection of the Dark Lord. He shivered at the thought of the bleak, hatred-laced man that had filled the wall-sized mirror of the bathroom.

Alohamora,” Sirius whispered, aiming his wand at the handle of Slughorn’s store. But nothing happened. He looked at James.

“Must be locked tighter than the alohamora can handle,” James whispered. He paused, then, “Dissolvo,” he whispered. The lock melted.

Sirius looked at James, “Brilliant.”

“Because Slughorn won’t notice that his lock is melted?” Peter hissed.

“Oh I’m sure he’ll notice it’s melted,” said James, “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to get caught for it. After all… we already know we aren’t the only ones up and about the castle tonight.” He shrugged and followed Sirius, who was already stepping into the dark, narrow little space.

The storeroom was lined with shelves with various sized bottles, boxes, bags, and binders. There were creepy things floating in colored waters, sealed with oozy wax, and great bushes of plants tied upside-down and hanging from the higher shelves. In the ceiling rafters hung knots of silvery hair and there was even a great horn of some sort balanced on the top shelf of the furthest case. The boys’ eyes were quite wide as they looked around them.

“Blimey,” hissed Sirius.

James pointed, “Unicorn hair,” he whispered, awed, staring up at the silvery hair. “Incredible.”

Peter looked into a jar filled with salamander tongues which floated about in a blue solution. “Guys, I don’t like it in here. Let’s just get what we need and get out of here - before Filch or somebody catches us in here. Please.”

James rolled his eyes, but honestly he didn’t like it much more than Peter. Sirius had meanwhile found the boomslang skin. It was a nasty looking pile of nearly translucent paper-like skin that had been shedded from only Merlin knew what. Peter’s eyes were wide as ever as Sirius pulled the bag of skin from the shelf and handed it past Peter to James.

“Here’s the fluxweed,” Sirius said, reaching for a small bushel on a higher shelf. “Anyone see the powdered bicorn horn?”

Peter pointed a shaky hand to the great big horn on the top shelf. “Is that what that horn is? Just… not powdered yet?”

Sirius looked up at the horn too. “I bloody hope not.”

“How are we supposed to get that thing back to the tower without being caught if it is?” James asked.

Sirius squinted up at it. “I can’t see the label.” Quickly, he started climbing the shelves like he would’ve done the tree in the square back at Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

“Oh do be careful,” Peter whimpered, watching him.

“I’m always careful,” Sirius said, “I’ve climbed up things taller than this a hundred times and I’ve never ---”

But they wouldn’t hear what Sirius had never done. For he reached for the top shelf and there was a great creaking sound and the shelf which his foot stood upon snapped in half, sending jars of goop and goo and eyeballs and tongues and stones falling to the floor and spilling over James and Peter’s heads. Broken glass shattered on the stone floor, the racket unbelievable as that shelf broke the next shelf and the next and the next all the way down the entire wall. Sirius clung to the top shelf, hanging there, legs flailing.

Peter was yelling loudly, panicking as single batwings fluttered about in the air, disconnected from any body, just the wings themselves. He had some sort of green slimey stuff oozing over his blonde hair and squashy face and he was crying as he wailed.

Shut up!” James snapped, reaching out a hand and covering Peter’s mouth with his palm. He looked up, “Sirius, hurry up, get down, we gotta get out of here. Filch is surely on his way. The whole castle’s probably heard that.”

Sirius desperately grabbed hold on the whole bicorn horn on the top shelf and took a deep breath, letting himself fall back to the floor. His trainers crunched over the broken glass and squashed over the spilled potions ingredients. James quickly threw the cloak over their heads, though the horn was so large that their ankles showed as they ran out of the storeroom and down the corridor toward the stairs. They could hear echoing voices in the Entrance Hall and coming from behind, too, where the Slytherin common room was. They’d probably all heard the racket, too.

“This way,” hissed James, and he led them past the stairs and into the even darker part of the dungeons, through twisting halls that led them this way and that way in the dark. Eventually, there weren’t even torches on the walls, but there hadn’t been any places to hide yet, either. James pulled out his wand. “Lumos,” he commanded it and they continued running along. The walls were growing mossy as they continued on - this was a very old and very abandoned part of the castle indeed - and finally they turned a corner and found themselves standing at the shores of a little outcrop of the lake that came in beneath the castle.

“This is where the little boats we rode with Hagrid took us in first year!” exclaimed Sirius. He looked about, then pointed, “Those stairs go up to the Entrance Hall there. Remember? McGonagall came and collected us.”

The boys ran around the edge of the water, being very careful not to fall in - James even held onto Peter’s robes, just incase his clumsy tendencies caused him to trip. They reached the stairs and ran up them. At the top was a wooden door and James pressed his ear to it, hoping to hear if there was anyone in the Entrance Hall or if everyone who had responded to the noise they’d made was already in the dungeons inspecting Slughorn’s storeroom. He hoped the latter was the case, for he couldn’t hear a thing through the door, and he quickly yanked it open and they rushed through, closing it behind them.

The Entrance Hall was empty, save for Mrs. Norris, who flicked her tail and looked about at the sound of their scuffling feet, her eyes glowing like lamps in the dark. They held very still for a moment, slouched down so their trainers didn’t show beneath the cloak, waiting, watching as the cat twitched. Finally, she let go with a huge kitty-yawn and sat down to clean herself, licking her paws.

James looked ‘round at Sirius. “Carefully,” Sirius breathed. And they inched slowly toward the stairs that led up into the castle, Sirius keeping an eye on Mrs. Norris, who was now licking the fur on her back haunches, preening. They reached the steps and took the first stair. No reaction from Mrs. Norris still. The second step… third… The fourth step creaked and the cat’s ears flicked to attention. “Bloody hell, run for it.”

Sirius didn’t have to say it twice. All three boys started running up the stairs as Mrs. Norris let out a yowl. They darted ‘round the corner at the top and headed for the moving staircase.

“We’ll never make it all the way up before they catch up,” James panted.

“Go for the third floor entrance to the trophy room passageway,” Sirius answered.

They turned down the third floor corridor, sure that Filch or someone else was coming behind them. Peter was sobbing once more. James grabbed his forearm and dragged him along as Peter started to slow down from crying and his chubby legs aching. They reached the portrait that blocked the entrance and Sirius hastened to open it, ducking out from beneath the cloak to get ahead, still carrying the bicorn horn. James and Peter rushed through and Sirius quickly joined them, pulling it shut behind him.

The moment the portrait door shut, he turned around and slumped onto the floor in relief, the horn laying across his lap. Peter and James were already on the floor in a great pile on their backs, gasping for breath. Peter shook.

“Well then,” said Sirius, his face aglow from the rush of adrenaline, “Wasn’t that an adventure!”

“Oh yes, a real bloody treat!” Peter choked sarcastically.

James simply laughed.