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Loads of Chocolate Frogs


James and Sirius were in the library. Madam Pince, the librarian, eyed them suspiciously as they moved through the shelves, looking at the dusty spines of books. It wasn’t a usual occurance to find the two of them in there, especially without Remus, and she was going to keep an eye on them, to be sure they weren’t up to any mischief. They weren’t, though, so she was having quite a boring watch of it.

“There’s no such thing as a wolf language,” said James, following as Sirius led the way through the shelves. “It’s not like learning Italian or French, there isn’t a textbook on speaking in Bark.”

Sirius said, “There’s got to be a spell or something that could make it possible…”

James sighed.

Sirius had shared his thought with James about how talking to Remus in his wolfish form might help him to remember himself and cut back on some of the injuries that their mate inevitably returned with from the Shrieking Shack each month. “If only we could ask Madam Pince, I’m sure she would know where to look for a spell like that,” Sirius murmured, pulling a book about caring for magical creatures down from the shelf and flipping through it, hoping for a chapter on communication. The book held everything from fang cleaning to M.O.M. classifications but nothing about how to go about learning to talk in your pet’s language. He jammed the book back on to the shelf.

“She’d want to know why we want to talk to a wolf,” James argued, “And what’re we supposed to tell her? It’s not as though there’s wolfs walking ‘round the castle everyday.”

“Well, in a way there is,” Sirius said with a smirk.

“Yes, but we can talk to him regular when he is,” James said. He leaned against the shelves behind Sirius, his eyes scanning the titles as Sirius pulled another volume down. “The only way to speak in the animal tongue is to be an animal,” he said.

Sirius paused. “Wait. Say that again.”

James looked at him with a question on his brow. “What?”

“Say that again.”

“What? The only way to speak in animal tongue is to be an animal?”

Sirius slammed the book shut, “That’s it. Merlin’s beard that’s it.” He darted away down the aisle and out of the section on magical beasts and ducked ‘round the corner without any further explanation.

James stood upright and followed after him, confused, glancing down each aisle between the shelves, trying to find where Sirius had gone. Finally, he found him back in the section on Transfiguration. “What was that all about?” James asked, looking up at the tomes that filled the shelves. “What are you looking for now?”

“You’re brilliant, James,” Sirius said, grinning, “If we’re going to talk to Remus when he’s a wolf, then we need to be wolves ourselves… We need to transfigure ourselves.”

James looked warily at Sirius, “You can’t transfigure a human into an animal. You need to be able to keep your wits about you and if you transfigure yourself, you’d be like to lose your human abilities.”

“Yes, if we straight up transfigured ourselves we would,” Sirius agreed. He spotted the title he needed up on the top shelf and he quickly climbed up on the lower shelves to reach it. James held a hand up to catch him in case he fell.

“Be careful, will you? Pince will murder us if you fall and break your neck in here,” James hissed.

Sirius grabbed the book and jumped back down to the floor and held the book up for James to see.

James stared at it a second and then looked up at Sirius’s face. “Oh blimey, you are mental.”




Meanwhile, Peter had made his way to the Statue of Gunhilda of Gorsemoor on the third floor and was standing before her, clutching his chocolate frog card uncertainly. Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure what to do. He wished James and Sirius had been in the dorm to come along with him - but they were probably off having their own adventures without him. The thought of it made him feel determined all over again and he cleared his throat and stared up at the witch’s one eye.

“Hullo… Miss - um - Gunhilda?” he tried, leaning so that he was staring up at the stone eyes. “Can you - er - hear me?” Nothing happened. He swallowed and inched closer. “Hullo? I’d like to get into the passageway you’re hiding, if you please?” But nothing happened. He licked his lips and backed away, staring at the ugly form of the witch from across the hall. He looked down at the chocolate frog card uncertainly. What would James and Sirius do? he wondered to himself. “Dragon Pox,” he tried. “Elixir. Potions. Cure. Uhh.. cauldron. Er… Gorsemoor. St. Mungo’s. Pineapples. Dissendium.” He paused, and narrowed his eyes at the statue, then withdrew his wand and inched closer. “Dissendium?” he tried, though the spell came out more as a question than a command.

The statue twitched.

“Is that it, then?” he asked, excitement and fear fluttering together in his stomach. “Dissendium,” he tried again, waving his wand and tapping the old humpback witch right on the nose… and to his very great surprise, the hump in her back trembled and then sank in and revealed a narrow chute.

Peter’s heart was practically in his throat. He was so nervous he started into a coughing fit, doubled over before the witch, unable to breathe properly for several moments. “Oh Merlin,” he choked, eyes all watery from the fit. “Ohhhh Merlin. I’ve done it. Me, on my very own, I’ve done it!” He wasn’t sure if he was saying it out of celebration or absolute terror. James and Sirius would never have believed he could, he never would’ve believed he could. And yet he had.

But now what?

Peter inched closer to the witch and stood on his very tippy-toes to peer down into the chute, his throat thick with nervousness. Should he climb into the chute? Was he brave enough to chance getting in there and finding where it went all on his own? He shivered at the thought of it, and quickly backed away. The witch stared down at him with her one stony eye, the smirk on her face seeming to judge his cowardice. He looked around. What he wouldn’t give for James and Sirius, or Remus, or even Lily Evans to come walking ‘round the bend and discover him here, to join him in exploring down that passageway. But nobody came.

The hump twitched again, threatening to close, and a rush of nervous adrenaline went through Peter and he made his decision in a snap. “Wait! I’m going through!” and he leaped for the hump, struggling to wedge himself down the narrow gap. He had to suck in all his breath and wriggle, but he managed to pop through the hole and it sealed closed behind him.

“Oh bloody hell what’ve I done?” he whimpered the moment the darkness engulfed him. “I want to go back.” He scrabbled in the dark for a way out and found that all he could feel was smooth walls. It took him several long, panic-filled moments before he recalled that he could make light. “Lumos,” he practically begged his wand, and the glow filled the little tunnel. It instantly seemed less scary. He saw only inches above where his fingers had been scratching before there were three little notches in the wall, like steps on a ladder, that led up to the dome of the witch’s hump and there, at the very top, was a little lever that must open the door. He calmed immediately, seeing he wasn’t stuck in the tunnel.

Knowing there was a way out, he looked about, suddenly more interested in the tunnel itself than in escaping it. Oh how jealous James and Sirius would be if they only knew where he was at this moment! He thought to himself, grinning, and he inched down the little tunnel a ways, holding aloft his lighted wand. He wanted something to tell them about the tunnel, something that would make them really wish they hadn’t ditched him. So he walked slowly, fearfully, along, looking this way and that as he moved, careful to watch his every step, to be sure there was ground there for his next one.

The tunnel was slightly sloped and led to a staircase that seemed to go down, down, down forever and ever until he was sure he had to be somewhere in the dungeons of the castle. It leveled out and became a long, twisting hallway - the walls bare except for a few exposed roots here or there, and the occasional spider’s web. Peter ducked away from those - he didn’t much care for spiders. It did seem as though it was never ending, though, even longer than the tunnel Remus had shown them that went to the Shrieking Shack, it seemed. He was starting to think perhaps the tunnel didn’t go anywhere at all when he found himself at another set of stairs, these ones leading up a short way and he could just see the outline of a trap door at the very top.

Anything could be beyond that door, he thought nervously, and he stood at the foot of the stairs, afraid of that door for a moment. What if it was a second entrance to the Shrieking Shack and he pushed it open to find the fierce face of the werewolf, as Sirius had? Sure, Sirius had gotten out of the experience, but he was much faster-thinking than Peter was, and Peter knew the odds of his getting out with just a scratch was far less than Sirius’s was.

Peter glanced back the way he’d come.

It did seem a shame to have come all this way just to turn back now, without knowing where it led. Besides, the Shrieking Shack had been so gloomy and dark and the light around the edge of this trap door was bright. It couldn’t possibly be the same place.

Perhaps if he just peeked...

So Peter talked himself into climbing the steps and he reached for the door with quavering hands and stood, hesitating, trying to pep-talk himself into making the push he needed to open up the door. And then he did it. Before he could talk himself out of it.

He found himself in some sort of storeroom, he thought, by the look of it. Great crates and barrels surrounded the door that his torso now protruded from. He was in some sort of basement room - this he figured because of narrow, high windows at the top of the room, where the sunlight was streaming in. Outside, he could see snow framing the edge of the low windows and people’s legs as they went by. A staircase led up along one wall to a dark purple door at the top.

Peter pulled himself up out of the trap door, leaving it open incase he needed to make a quick escape, and moved slowly through the piles of boxes. There was an open one on top of a stack and he inched over, pulling the flap low so he could see inside, and his eyes widened.

Chocolate frogs.

Loads of chocolate frogs.

Greedily, he reached in and grabbed several handfuls of the frogs, excitement filling him. He stuffed his pockets with them eagerly.

When he’d emptied the box into his pockets, he turned and spotted another opened box and he lunged for it, eager to get even more chocolate frogs. But in that box was licorice wands and he greedily snapped up a bunch of those before running a little ways and opening yet another box and another and another, finding Sugar Mice and Jelly Slugs and Cockroach Clusters and Drooble’s Best Blowing Gumballs and Fantastic Beast Biscuits and all kinds of delicious things to eat in every box.

Surely this was heaven.

Somewhere along the way, Peter had died and this was the afterlife, he was sure of it.

He stuffed his cheeks full of Glacial Snow Flakes and grabbed fistfulls of Hocus Pocus Pops and hoisted a bag of Fizzing Whizbees over his shoulder.

When he was absolutely certain there was no way that he could possibly carry anymore of it in his pockets or in his hands, he lumbered back to the hole in the floor and dropped himself through, pulling the door closed behind him, whispering a promise to come back to this magical world of sugar and sweets. “I won’t forget you, ever,” he swore.

It was quite a lot harder making his way back through the tunnel than it had been before, weighted down as he was by all the lollies and treats, but he managed. There was a gentle slope to the passageway, slowly he moved upward and upward, which he hadn’t noticed going down but he certainly noticed it now. He was quite winded by the time he reached those stairs and he stood at the base of them, staring up at their height, remembering how long he’d climbed down and did not relish the thought of going up.

Peter sat at the bottom of the stairs and took a break in his journey, sucking on a Hocus Pocus Pop in the dim light as he caught his breath and thought about what he would tell James and Sirius about his discovery. A selfish part of him wanted to hide all the candy and not tell them about it at all, to dissuade them from ever figuring out about the spell they needed to cast on the witch to get back there. Who knew how long the sweets would last in the storeroom there if he brought along three other hungry teenage boys? And what if Remus got the brilliant idea to show Lily Evans this passageway too? Knowing Lily, she’d want to bring back sweets for all the Gryffindors! Soon this lovely heaven he’d found would be emptied and there’d be no more sweets for him, Peter, to enjoy. And after all, he’d found them first. He had a right to them!

He started the trek up the long stairs, telling himself that this passageway and the storehouse it led to would be his secret - his own private place to go when James and Sirius and Remus deserted him and made him feel left out. Now they could be left out, too.

But then again, he thought, if he did tell them, they’d think him very brave for having gone down the tunnel alone. Not only that, but they might think him cool for having done it, and maybe they’d appreciate him for finding all the sweets - like they did when he came back from the kitchens getting the butterbeer from the House Elves.

He rather liked the idea of them thinking him brave.

Peter finally reached the top of the stairs and struggled to fit up the chute to the lever in the top of the witch’s hump, pulled on it, and stuck his head out, looking about the deserted hallway. He was afraid he might’ve squashed some of the chocolate frogs by the time he’d got himself squeezed out of the witch’s hump - but he managed to get himself down to the carpet and watched as the hump slid closed behind him.

Quickly, he turned and ran for Gryffindor Tower. “They better be back by now,” he muttered as he ran. He had no idea what time it was, but he was certain he’d been gone for hours and hours on his journey… He looked up as he ran at a high window and saw the dark and the moon and his heart leaped into his throat. Could he truly have been gone that long that it was night time? He hoped he wouldn’t run into anyone! How would he explain being on the Third Floor at a late hour? And even as he had the thought of it, he suddenly he came around a corner and found himself face-to-face with Argus Filch.

“Naughty, naughty, naughty… A student out of bed,” muttered Filch, grabbing hold on Peter’s wrist before he could run off. “Come with me, you little sneak.”