Marauder Hogwarts Theatre 3000
Episode Seven

The fireplace in the living room burst into a glorious display of flames, but no one was there to see it. Frowning slight, Severus tried the kitchen, but that, too, was abandoned. His mouth pressed into a fine grim line, he tried the first bedroom.

The view from the fireplace was not at all what he expected. Instead of a bedroom, it was a grand dining room with a great window running the length of one of the walls. The summer green field outside was washed with millions of colours from the setting sun. Severus had to avert his eyes to keep from being blinded.

“Lily,” he guessed correctly. It had to be the Charm Queen’s room. So detailed was the illusion, that he the house elf that was cleaning up the remainders of the evening meal squeaked and ran away when he saw that Severus had noticed him.

He tried the next bedroom. The illusion was not nearly so elaborate; indeed, it seemed more as if a foggy screen had been placed between the fireplace and the room. Unimpressed, Severus said, “Pettigrew’s work, I assume.”

Seeing some indistinct shapes moving in the background, he leaned forward, squinting, to make them out -

- only to be socked in the face. The haze cleared, but it was not the bedroom he remembered from his scouting visit. A balloon-like clown appeared in front of him, rocking back and forth, cackling, “Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha.”

In disgust - and with a little trepidation - Severus left that fireplace and tried the last bedroom, taking care to stay a good distance away, just in case. He could see nothing except blackness.

They couldn’t all be hiding in the bathroom, and there was no way that they had escaped, so as a last ditched attempt, Severus tried the theatre.

Pettigrew looked down at his watch. “Who had 11:36?” he asked.

“I did,” Potter said, grinning broadly. “Pay up, everyone.” He held his hand out expectantly.

“What are you doing?” Severus snarled, trying to keep himself from wincing and drawing attention to his eye, which he was sure was starting to show a mark. He was not going to give them the satisfaction of knowing their trap had fooled him.

“We had a pool to see when you’d arrive,” Evans explained, smirking, “and James won.”

“Why were you doing that?”

The redhead shrugged. “We were bored.

Black leaned in closely, squinting. “What’s that on your eye?”

“Nothing,” he snapped, turning off the connection and leaving them to their bad fic.

LILY: Couldn’t make her mind so she just grabbed all of the eligible bachelors, I see.

PETER: Ahem.

LILY: Sorry.

PETER: Does that mean I’m not going to be in this story?

REMUS: Lucky you.

PETER: I don’t know . . . I’m never in these stories. Or if I am, I’m sick, or in detention, or away at my grandmothers, or eating, or something. Why can’t I ever be in the stories too?

REMUS: Trust us, you don’t want to be in the stories. Don’t look a gift hippogriff in the mouth.

SIRIUS: Because you never know when it might bite you.

JAMES: Trust us, Pete, you’re the lucky one here.

REMUS: I have a feeling that we won’t.

JAMES: This coming from the boy who thinks Divinations is a load of crap.

REMUS: I’m wondering, is there any particular reason we aren’t capitalizing?

JAMES: Is that the royal we?

REMUS: No.

SIRIUS: Starting to empathize with the writers, maybe? Putting yourself in their shoes?

REMUS (horrified): No. Never.

JAMES: Getting a little confused, then, maybe. The lines between who’s writing and who’s reading are starting to blur.

REMUS (to Lily and Peter): They don’t let you get away with anything, do they.

LILY: Never.

PETER: You make one little mistake and you pay, and you pay, and you pay.

JAMES: We resent that.

SIRIUS: And we’d resent it even more, except that it’s true.

SIRIUS: And we, being little first years and having never seen McGonagall before, would know that she always looks sharp and strict.

PETER: Well, she does rather give that impression, doesn’t she?

LILY: That’s an odd mental picure: McGonagall with a scrunchie.

REMUS: At least it’s black and not something outlandish, such as bright pink with orange polka dots. I wouldn’t put that past these bad fic authors.

SIRIUS: Does that hurt, chewing on your thumb?

LILY: You’re making up for not saying anything last time, aren’t you.

SIRIUS: Maybe. Maybe not.

PETER: She should think about learning to spell, then. Teachers, I’ve noticed, tend not to give passing grades to students who misspell simple words.

SIRIUS: Insert random James-is-a-deer joke here.

PETER: Since when was James the tallest?

LILY: Especially at age eleven.

SIRIUS: And thus starts the misspelling of names.

LILY: She was doing so well, too.

REMUS: Actually, she already spelled both mine and Sirius’ name wrong.

LILY: But she hasn’t misspelled ‘Lily’ yet, and that’s what really counts.

SIRIUS: Thank you.

JAMES: She was referring to me.

SIRIUS: Of course she wasn’t. Who considers you cute?

LILY: I do.

SIRIUS: You’re opinion doesn’t count; you’re his girlfriend.

LILY: What if I said I thought you were cute, would my opinion count then?

SIRIUS: Of course. Do you really have to ask?

JAMES (as first-year Remus): Hi, I’m Remus. I’m new here. I’m a werewolf. How about you?

SIRIUS (in falsetto voice): I’m Lily. I’m new here, too, but I’m not a werewolf. At least I don’t think I am. What’s a werewolf? You see, I didn’t know about magic until I got my Hogwarts letter. This is all strange and scary to me.

JAMES: Oh! You’re a Muggle.

SIRIUS: Muggle? What’s that? Is that the same as a werewolf?

JAMES: No, Muggles are non-magical people. If you don’t know what a werewolf is, then you must be a Muggle.

SIRIUS: Is Muggle a bad thing? What is a werewolf?

JAMES: No, Muggles aren’t bad, but werewolves are. We’re - [He sighs dramatically and drops to a whisper] - monsters. At least that’s what I keep telling everyone when I’m not too busy mooning about to act incredibly self-loathing.

[Neither Lily nor Remus look amused, although Peter’s hiding his head in an attempt not to let the others see him laughing.]

LILY (icily): Shall we continue reading.

LILY: I believe that this is the first time I have agreed with my fictional counterpart on anything.

PETER: Pretty pathetic year if we don’t have anyone before ‘S’.

REMUS: Either that or the author doesn’t know her alphabet.

LILY: My bets are on the latter.

LILY: After like a while. What literary genius!

JAMES: Everyone except for the Slytherins.

SIRIUS: The Ravenclaws, maybe, too. I think they were mad at us that year.

JAMES: Wasn’t that because of a prank we pulled halfway through November?

SIRIUS: You’re right. [He chuckles.] That was a pretty good one, considering we were first years and had no practice at pranking yet.

LILY: Just like that. I thought I thought they were stupid.

SIRIUS: You obviously just wanted a friend.

REMUS: That’s quite the number.

PETER: How is she supposed to receive point-something reviews?

PETER: Not really.

LILY: That’s it? It’s over? That was short!

REMUS: Halleluiah, we’ve been granted a reprieve.

[Snape appears on screen, his face miraculously - or magically - healed. Everyone suppresses a groan - well, everyone except for Sirius and James who can’t be bothered. They groan loudly enough to make up for the others.]

SNAPE: As if I would do that to you. Today, you get a double dose.

[This time Lily, Remus and Peter don’t even try to suppress the groan.]

REMUS: Why?

SNAPE: As Evans said, it was short. Too short to stand on its own.

LILY: How do you even get all of these bad fic?

SNAPE: The authors send them to me.

JAMES: Just like that?

SNAPE: I had to actively seek out the first one, but after Trinity’s, yes, the owls just started flying in.

REMUS: Does that mean there’s no chance of you running out of bad fic soon?

SNAPE: I’ve enough to last me a long time.

LILY: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[Snape disappears off screen and is replaced by the second story.]

REMUS: Notice how every author has the same threat, but our lack of reviews doesn’t seem to deter them ever.

PETER: I’m beginning to think they’re liars.

LILY: And this is unusual how?

JAMES: Actually, I like Transfigurations, and I’m more likely to be paying attention in that class than in any other.

REMUS: It would be a bit difficult to do so in class, whether she was in front of him or behind him. I’ve noticed that teachers tend to get upset when you spend the entire lesson turned around with your back to them.

SIRIUS (singsongs): Prongs has a crush. Prongs has a crush.

JAMES (singsongs): Padfoot is annoying. Padfoot is annoying.

SIRIUS (singsongs): Not as annoying as Prongs. Not as annoying as Prongs.

PETER: McGonagall must be getting tamer in her old age;

LILY: Yippee. More imaginary best friends for me.

SIRIUS: Ever notice how you always have imaginary friends, but we always have real ones.

LILY: And what exactly are you implying?

SIRIUS: Nothing. Nothing of course. Only, it’s strange that you have to resort to imaginary friends.

LILY: Sirius, [She points to the screen.] fictional, [points to self] real. [Points to screen] Fictional, [points to self] real. Get it?

[Sirius nods.]

SIRIUS: Yep. In real life, Lily doesn’t even have imaginary friends. Got it.

LILY: [to the others] I give up. You try reasoning with him.

JAMES: Reason? What is this reason you speak of? I’ve never heard that word used in conjunction with Sirius.

JAMES: Thank you.

PETER: Obviously this girl is delusional as well as imaginary.

LILY: I’m pathetic, aren’t I.

SIRIUS: Well, now that you mention it . . .

PETER: Oh! Look at that. What a surprise! I’m sick again.

REMUS: Now there’s a brilliant idea. Let’s take a transformed werewolf into a populated town and set him loose. And not even spell the town’s name correctly!

JAMES: I was wondering when you’d bring up the spelling and grammar again.

JAMES: I was hoping I’d have sense enough to veto this suggestion.

PETER: Obviously not. Now, if I weren’t sick again, I would have told you that it was a stupid, stupid idea.

LILY: Assuming, of course, you hadn’t fallen victim to the idiocy that James and Sirius are suffering in this story.

LILY: You see, “more planning” implies that they did some planning to begin with. Their plan of action is to bring a werewolf into Hogsmeade. That doesn’t imply planning to me.

REMUS: It always fills me with confidence when the author of the bad fic cannot think of a scenario to bring about their next scene.

SIRIUS: Really? It always fills me with dread.

PETER: She ‘winned’, did she?

LILY: Pete, we finally weaned Remus of that habit, please don’t start it up yourself.

PETER: Sorry.

REMUS: And with that one action, this fic has gone irreversibly down the drain. Couldn’t they at least thought of something if they wanted Lily out in the forest with James?

SIRIUS: They did; some inexplicable magical thing happened to both of them causing the two lovebirds to be dumped in the middle of the forest.

REMUS: I meant something that made sense.

JAMES: Ah, well now you’re putting too much pressure on the poor author. If they could write sensible scenes, than what they wrote would be called good fic instead of bad fic.

PETER: Smart girl. When something strange has happened to you and Sirius is nowhere in sight, blame James. On second thought, even if Sirius is on the other side of the country, it might be a good idea to blame him. You know, just in case.

PETER: Haven’t we already read this story? You know, werewolf-Remus attacks Lily, James as stag saves her.

REMUS: Different story, same plot.

JAMES: Hey, I haven’t turned into a stag yet.

LILY: Do you honestly think that you won’t?

JAMES: No, I’m just saying I haven’t yet.

SIRIUS: You know what would be a good twist? Have me save her. What’s better than being saved by a big, loveable dog?

LILY: Not being attacked in the first place?

LILY (dryly): Oh my hero.

“You say that as if it were a bad thing,” Lily said, stretching.

“Well, it doesn’t look like Snape’s showing up,” Remus remarked, standing up.

“Probably still nursing that black eye of his,” James said, eyes sparkling. “Let’s go see if he set off anymore booby traps, Padfoot.” The two boys raced off.

“They booby trapped their room?” Lily asked plaintively.

“And this surprises you?” Peter asked.

“Considering you have been dating James for a couple of years now, I’d think you’d know him better by now,” Remus added.

“You’re right,” Lily said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

End Episode Seven
Tuesday, April 23, 2002