"Damn it," Sirius began complaining as he walked in the direction of Hogsmeade the day was sunny and there wasn't a cloud in sight. Beside him were James and the marauders.
A large crowd of third year students were walking in a group towards Hogsmeade village. Professor McGonagall and Professor Slughorn were leading the way.
"What's wrong?" asked Lupin who was by now used to his friend's out-of-nowhere complaints.
"What's wrong?" repeated Sirius annoyed at his friend's question, "We've scouted the forest for over a month, and we still haven't found the bloody entrance to the vault," he added with a frown.
"We're already out of potions," James commented walking while reading a small book.
"The forest is big. There are fewer places left and we crossed out a lot of little brooks that lead nowhere," said Lupin not wanting to lose his optimism.
"It's true that we've already ruled out a lot of brooklets, but there must be twice as many or more left to explore" Toby commented. Luckily, they had a location: west within the Hogwarts grounds, but it was still a lot of ground to explore.
"James must do the potions with Snape... I don't want to go to that forest without antidotes..." said Peter in a nervous tone. Thanks to the antidotes he was saved many times from near-fatal poisons.
On one of the many excursions into the forest Peter sat on a normal log what he did not see was a trail of brown toxic poison camouflaged by the log.
It was Streeler venom. The Streeler is a larger than normal snail that changes color every hour and leaves behind a poisonous trail. Luckily, they had the antidote ready, and James cured Peter, as the poison was corrosive and had left a bloody wound. This was one of the unfortunate cases.
Peter was not the only one who suffered misfortunes. Although they had studied insects, plants and poisonous fungi, they could not see the future and explored at night. There was always a small accident that resulted in being poisoned.
"This weekend we'll make a new batch," said James without looking up from his book.
"On Halloween?" asked Sirius and James nodded slightly.
"Didn't you say you'd rest on Hogsmeade visits?" asked a voice that James and the others recognized instantly.
James took his eyes off the book and turned his head. A cute face was just inches away from his own. It was Gwen.
"Yes. I said that..." said James closing the small book and stuffing it into one of his inner pockets of his robes.
"Good! I've got lots of places to show you in Hogsmeade!" said Gwen with enthusiasm and a cute smile.
'Only she gets him to stop studying...' thought the marauders with rolling eyes.
"It's weird seeing you with such a cute smile, Gwen," said a girl with a giggle approaching James and the others.
"What's weird?" asked Gwen returning to her bad temper. However, the new girl didn't care and continued with an amused smile on her face.
"You usually make the face now and don't have much patience, but it's different with James," the girl said covering her laughter with her delicate hand.
Gwen's cheeks flushed and she looked at the girl with a frown, "It's not like that!" she exclaimed, but this only made the girl's smile grow wider.
"Yes it is," the girl said in amusement.
"No!"
"Yes,"
"Stop teasing her, Diana," James said looking towards the girl named Diana.
Her full name was Diana Greengrass. She was in the same year as Gwen, in Slytherin house. She was his new friend since she stopped hanging out with Anastasia and other supremacist girls.
Although Diana was a Greengrass supremacist, her degree of hatred for Muggles and others was non-existent. At most a mild contempt that James noticed a few times, but the girl was very kind and funny. She liked to piss everyone off and since she was Miss Greengrass she always got her way.
The Greengrass's are a family of pureblood wizards, wealthy and respected; one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Unlike the other supremacists like the Nott's, Lestrange's, Shafiq's, etc. The Greengrasses remain neutral in the many conflicts that plagued the magical world such as Grindelwald's revolution.
They prefer to focus on business and expanding their magical wealth while remaining neutral in the magical world. This is good news for James. It would be bad for such a wealthy and ancient family to support Voldemort. It would be good to bring them to his side, but it will be difficult if they have always remained neutral. Why would they make the exception now?
Diana like Gwen had blonde hair, but very long and in curlers. Her color was brighter and her eyes were a green color that looked like two small emeralds. Her figure was smaller than the girls in her year and her skin was pale. Most of the boys in her year, senior and junior saw her as a beauty and many asked her out, but to no avail.
Unlike Gwen and her aggressive and short-tempered personality, Diana was popular because of her kind and playful personality. When she annoyed someone she had her limit and usually made it fun for both of them, so she had no enemies. She was not a bully like Tianne, Emma and the others. Add to that her beautiful looks and family history and it was a perfect combo.
"Fine... I'll leave you alone just because your boyfriend is scary," Diana said with a slight smile stopping to annoy Gwen who upon hearing the word boyfriend blushed more than before.
"I'm scary?" muttered James twitching his eyebrows. It wasn't the first time he'd been told that. He even noticed it in some people the first time he met them.
"Boyfriend..." muttered Gwen blushing looking sideways at James.
"Only you can leave them both like that," Lupin commented with a strange smile.
"It's a technique inherited in my family that allows me to be very annoying," Diana said with a smile looking at Lupin who laughed and shook his head.
The group continued walking and chatting amicably in the direction of Hogsmeade. In fifteen minutes of walking they arrived at the quaint magical village.
Professor Slughorn quickly told the history of the village so that the enthusiastic third-year students could explore Hogsmeade freely.
Hogsmeade is the only fully magical village in Britain. It was founded by Hengist Woodcroft between the 10th or 11th century, about the same time as Hogwarts.
Finished with the quick explanation of History, James was taken by Gwen to visit many stores in Hogsmeade. Then when she released him, he visited with the marauders joke stores among other curious stores.
James did not realize that he was being watched by two hooded people in one of Hogsmeade's dark corridors.
"That's the boy," muttered a hooded wizard in tattered black robes. His eyes followed James and gave off a great hatred. It was Eustace Burke. Ex-professor of DADA and the wizard who was defeated by James. Seeing James after so long he felt a tingle on the stump where his hand used to be.
"He looks like a normal brat," said another hooded man observing James who was laughing and chatting enthusiastically with his friends like any normal thirteen year old.
"He hides that dark part of his personality..." said Eustace with narrowed eyes looking at James.
James only erased Eustace's memories about the interrogation and the part where he cuts off his hand with his wandless magic. However, there were parts he didn't erase at all.
Eustace had realized that his memories were modified, as he is a DADA expert and knew that there was a hole in part of his memory, as James did not have time to add new and false memories to it.
'He knows how to erase memories and for some reason he erased part of our quick confrontation,' Eustace thought feeling a slight fear for such a monstrous force for a thirteen year old boy and especially for planning to erase memories and hide his strength.
Eustace is sure that if James had the time, he would have implanted false memories. If that had happened, he wouldn't even know that his memories were erased.
"Let's go back to the house," the other hooded man commented turning around and starting to walk down the alley. Eustace nodded and followed his companion by the name of Victor.
In a few minutes of walking, they reached their destination. They turned away from the main street of Hogsmeade arriving at a lone house in a secluded corner of town.
The house had a scruffy and gloomy appearance out of keeping with the bustle of the nearby town. Built of weather-worn stones, its rough walls support a battered thatched roof, which seems to defy gravity with its uneven pitch.
The surrounding landscape is dotted with sparse, dry trees, adding a desolate air to the surroundings. The windows, small and dark, look like watchful eyes peering unnoticed, while a rickety chimney looms high above.
Overgrown and neglected vegetation borders a path of stone steps, leading to a solid wooden door. Eustace and Victor followed this path until they reached the wooden door.
Victor knocked on the door several times in different rhythms. After about sixteen knocks he waited seven seconds and knocked again. The door was opened a few seconds later by another short, hooded person who let them in without saying a word.
The three hooded men walked silently into the dining room of the house, which was in the same condition as the outside: disused, dusty and cobwebby.
At the dusty and dirty table was a person sitting in a chair that was barely supporting his weight.
"News?" asked the hooded man named Ivan.
"We saw the Potter brat. They finally got out of that damned castle. Now it's all up to the death eater sent by the Dark Lord," said Victor sitting impatiently in a dusty, cobwebbed armchair.
Ivan nodded and went back to reading the book he propped on the dirty old table. A book of dark magic as was to be expected for a person of his caliber.
"I hope you get information fast. I don't want to be in this horrible house anymore," said the shortest wizard of them all in not very good English. His name was Volker and he was from Germany. For that reason his English was not very good.
The small group of four wizards were old friends who always searched for ancient magical objects and archaic potions. Finding out about the vaults was very difficult for them and more difficult for them to accept Eustace at Hogwarts as a professor. However, their plans were ruined by thirteen-year-old students. Now they had to hand over the magical treasures to him with Voldemort.
Adding this to having to spend more than a month in this old house none of the four were in a very good mood when their mission was to obtain treasures to take to someone else.
Since the Hogwarts school year began, they had been staying in Hogsmeade undercover in this old, ramshackle house. They had to somehow get information about the vaults and their only lead was James Potter.
That boy was the cause of stealing the treasures from the ice vault and then trapping Eustace through a very well executed and thought out plan. Eustace knew that James stole the scrolls that led to the next vault, so they had to target him to get the Japanese wizard's treasures and take them to Voldemort.
Their only hope was that the death eater of unknown identity sent by the Dark Lord would get information from inside the castle through Slytherin students and that those students would spy on James under his orders.
They had to wait until the students' first outing to Hogsmeade so that the death eater could meet with potential young would-be Death Eaters.