i was listening to trouble by valerie broussard on loop - just a reccomdation

April 10, 1977
9:21 am
Gryffindor Girl's Dorms

After Anneliese went to Madam Pomfrey and got her hand mostly healed and bandaged, she went straight up to her dorm with a direct path from the portrait hole.

If James, Remus, or Sirius were sitting on one of the couches, she wouldn't have noticed from keeping her chin high and gaze so forward.

By the time that Lily, Dorcas, Marlene, and Alice made it up to go to sleep as well, their friend was passed out asleep on her bed with one arm dangling off the edge and blonde hair cascading down her back.

All five of the girls had made it to bed very late, which was probably why they were all still fast asleep when their first class of the day started in exactly nine minutes.

Being right by the window, Anneliese was the first out of all of them to wake up. A ray of feeble sunlight slowly crept onto her freckles, the sun taking difficulty even with that small action because of how thick the grey clouds were that day.

Slowly, her dark blue eyes fluttered open once the heat gathered on her eyelids started to prick too much.

At first, they roamed around all the beds she could see, which told Callaway that Lily was surprisingly still dead asleep, and Dorcas was snoring very loudly in turn.

Anneliese rubbed her eyes once, trying to get some of the rawness out of them from the previous night. Her eyes didn't agree with that motion, however, and they blurred black like a smear of ink on parchment.

She ran two fingers along the band of her underwear out of habit as her eyes readjusted, making sure everything was in place. Anneliese didn't even realize that she was doing it, it was just a habit she was told to do from such a young age that she didn't notice anymore.

The events of the past night were so overwhelming that she didn't even know where to start with her thought process. All that she knew was that she needed a break, so very badly.

But are breaks selfish? Anneliese asked herself with a deep sigh. I don't want to-

"WHAT THE FUCK IS IN HERE, A?!"

Alice let out a small yelp as she woke up very suddenly from her sleep, sitting up incredibly fast and banging her head violently against the bedframe in the process.

At the exact same time, Dorcas literally fell off the edge of her bed onto the floor with a loud thump, and somehow didn't wake up at all and stayed asleep on the stone and carpet as if nothing had happened.

Lily swung her legs out of bed at a remarkable speed, immediately going into her worried mother mode at Marlene's panicked shout.

"What, what happened?" Lily asked, quickly rushing over to Mckinnon, who had tears pouring from her eyes with dramatic sobs. "Why are you crying?"

Anneliese rolled over as well as she ran her fingers along the edges of her bra in turn, and then let them go as she felt that nothing was off or askew.

"I just got fucking poisoned," Marlene declared, wiping at her watering eyes. "I thought you said that there was just water in this damn thing, A-"

Callway's gaze moved to where her friend's hand was gripped around the flask on her bedside table and let out an involuntary snort of amusement.

The brown leather had a layer of dust on it that was reflecting against the lamplight illuminating the back half of the room, only marred with clean, shining patches by Marlene's fingerprints where she had picked up the flask.

Anneliese hadn't used that thing in ages, since her birthday or a few days later in fact, she had forgotten about it until now. It felt odd for her to not use such an important object for such a long time, like she was missing out on a part of something or forgetting it.

You and Leo got those together, Anneliese reminded herself. Don't forget that.

"Relax, it's not poison," Callaway teased, pushing that sadness from her mind. "I just haven't used it in months, which means that you probably just drank some very moldy water-"

Marlene shrieked and threw the flask across the room as she frantically wiped off her tongue, and none of them saw where it landed until they heard a very angry shout from Dorcas.

"WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME SHE WAS ON THE FLOOR?" Mckinnon asked as she pulled Anneliese out of bed and used her as a shield. "HIDE ME!"

Then, Marlene suddenly seemed to change her tactic as she moved Anneliese to the side. Callaway was a rather ineffective shield anyway, only Alice was shorter than her and Mckinnon had at least a few inches more of height than Anneliese.

"No, don't you dare!" Dorcas shrieked in a high pitched tone as Marlene started chasing her around the room. "Don't you dare kiss me with your moldy water tongue-"

Anneliese pulled on a loose tshirt as she walked over to retrieve the flask tossed on the floor. She reached down, deftly unscrewed the metal top, and grabbed her wand off Lily's beside table where she had tossed it the previous night.

"Lumos," she muttered, holding the tip of the wand so she could see the inside of the flask. "Oh my god, how are you not dead with all this shit in here?"

Marlene froze in the middle of tackling a very passionately laughing Dorcas as she saw Anneliese with a disgusted look on her freckled features.

"This is your fault for not cleaning out the damn flask," Mckinnon said in a jokingly accusatory tone, letting go of Dorcas and moving towards Anneliese. "Maybe I should kiss you instead- only for revenge, Dor, love you to pieces-"

Meanwhile, the Marauders were in their dorms just across from the girl's, except they had already done everything they were supposed to do due to Remus aggressively waking them all up at seven on the dot.

Sirius had been curious as to why Anneliese wasn't at breakfast, and it had taken Frank pointing it out to him that not only Callaway was missing, all the in their year and house girls were.

They were all packing their bags for Charms class, trying to carry on a conversation without getting repeatedly interrupted by the seemingly endless stream of bangs and shrieks coming from the dorms right by them.

Sirius was completely silent as he tucked a pack of cigarettes into the black leather and listened to Remus and James debate what would happen if a kangaroo jumped on a trampoline, wondering how things with Anneliese were going to go today after the events of last night.

"DON'T KISS ME, YOU SOCIOPATH-"

All four boys looked up in surprise at the sound of Anneliese's voice, which was then followed by a very loud crash that sounded like furniture being knocked over or someone falling into a wardrobe.

"Uhm," Peter muttered in a feeble tone. "Should we figure out a way to go check on that-"

Remus and James both exchanged a loaded glance with one another before turning to Sirius to see his expression. The two boys hadn't spoken much to Black ever since the previous night, and they were slightly wary of his reactions to things.

Especially ones involving Anneliese.

"We'll just ask them in class," Sirius said shortly after a few seconds, swinging his bag over his shoulder.

They all waited for him to say something else, but Black didn't. His responses had become much shorter that morning, most likely because he was too much in his own head to try and worry about getting lectured by Remus and James.

But across the small area separating the boys and girls dorms, a decision was being made to contradict that.

"I don't feel like going to Charms right now," Dorcas declared as she pulled on a pair of sweatpants, not at all her uniform. "Can we just not?"

"You mean like- you mean like skip class?" Alice asked in a bit more of a high pitched voice than normal. "But we've been attending every day this year, we can't just-"

"Now, that, my little Fortescue, is the precise reason why we should skip," Marlene said, placing both hands on either one of her shoulders. "Don't we deserve a break after literally dozens of Flitwick lectures?"

"I will," Anneliese declared, pulling on sweatpants as well. "We all know that I hate that damn professor. Lily, Alice, you don't have to come-"

"I am," Lily declared, much to all of their surprise. "I just feel like my life is so boring. Not boring, scratch that, never boring with the Marauders, but just repetitive. Everyday-"

"James asks you out, you say no, you get incredibly good marks, blah, blah, blah," Anneliese teased. "So you are spicing it up, then?"

Lily just winked as she brushed her red hair in response. Alice kept nervously glancing at the brass clock resting on their mantle, apparently very indecisive.

"What would we even do?" she prompted, but was also not putting on her uniform skirt and whie button down shirt. "Go to Hogsmeade?"

"Decide as we go along," Marlene said with a casual shrug, and Alice paled. "First, we need to figure out a way to get out of his damn castle. Unless you all know any passageways-"

"We don't need a secret passageway," Anneliese said simply as she tucked her wand into her waistband. "And we don't need to be worried about what entrances teachers are at, or about anyone else. All we need is one thing, and we can stroll out of this castle as we damn please."

All four girls, completely ready to go, were now giving their undivided attention to Anneliese, who had a small smirk on her face.

Even just not being in the same room as Sirius for five minutes made some of Callaway's act go away, and she was letting herself give into that now around the girls.

"I think it's time we pull a little heist and show those boys they aren't the only people in this school capable of being mischievous, ladies."

"I'm completely and utterly in love with you, A-"

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April 10, 1977
9:31 am
Hogwarts Corridors

Despite the fact that the majority of the school's first block started a minute ago, the corridors were still packed full of students rushing to get to their proper classrooms.

This provided the perfect scenario for the five girls to get past the Marauders unnoticed before it was too late for them to even know what hit them.

"Alright, they're right there," Dorcas whispered from where she had her back pressed against the wall in the opposite direction of the ongoing traffic.

"Look at their arrogant little struts," Lily said with narrowed eyes, although her eyes were focused on James. "Acting like he owns the castle. It's about time someone showed him."

The other four girls exchanged an amused glance at the ginger's hostility before huddling together.

"Lily, can you make it to the back corridor in time?"

"I'm fast."

"Anneliese, you got Peeves?"

The blonde nodded.

The little man gave Callaway a salute before diving into the crowd, flying through as many students as possible in the process. Alice winced slightly, knowing how odd and unnatural it felt to have a ghost fly through your insides.

"Then let's go, my darlings."

Along with the usual laughs and shouts of exclamation mingled with little fizzes and pops of spells, a few shrieks sounded amongst the students as their stomachs went cold and dry as Peeves cut his way through the crowd.

As the poltergeist went forward and grew closer to the Marauders, Anneliese and Alice departed from Marlene, Dorcas, and Lily to follow right behind Peeves.

"Oh, fuck off!" Remus called up at the ghost as he was nearly swept off balance by him. "I swear- Prongs!"

Someone with blonde hair in an incredibly tight bun at the nape of their neck had just shoved their shoulder very harshly into James on their way past Potter.

"Hey, watch where you're going!" James spat at the person, glaring fiercely at their retreating back. "Merlin, these girls-"

"James, I think that was Anneliese-" Sirius started, but he wasn't quite certain himself.

"Stop looking at her ass, Prongs-"

Sirius was too busy turning the shove over in his head to hear Remus's comment to James.

He had never once seen Callaway done with her hair like that, and the girl had moved so quickly that he hadn't gotten a look at her. Besides, Anneliese didn't walk like that with her shoulders slumped.

She walked with her chin high and left arm swinging a bit more than her right, and Sirius would recognize that pace anywhere.

"Sorry!" the girl called back in a British accent, not turning to face them.

"Okay, definitely not her," Black corrected himself with a bit of an uneasy frown. "Okay, so are you guys just not talking to me now- I SWEAR TO MERLIN, WHO DID THAT?"

Sirius had just felt a sudden pinch on the back of his neck, and spun around furiously to see which one of his friends had thought this would be amusing. However, all of them looked just as confused as he did, the wary expressions once again on their faces.

Alice shoved the Map up her sleeve with a smirk.

Dorcas, Anneliese, and Lily had known that the boy's arrogance would be the downfall of them.

Because who would dare lift the Marauder's most prized possessions from them? No one had the nerve to do such a thing from the most legendary prankster ever to pass through Hogwarts.

Lily peered down the hallway to see Anneliese and Alice coming down, both with very satisfied expressions.

Evans quickly muttered a countercharm that took away the charm Dorcas and Marlene had cast on the Marauders from behind them, making the four boys all more sensitive to touch very briefly for maximum distraction.

In a span of thirty seconds and then another thirty to execute it, the five girls had come up with a plan that rivalled anything those boys had ever done.

First, they would all gather on one end of a very busy corridor that they knew the Marauders would have to go down to get to Charms class. From there, Anneliese used her alliance with Peeves to get him to fly down that corridor and cause a bit more chaos than normal.

While he was flying down but before he reached the Marauders, Dorcas and Marlene each expertly spelled two of the four boys with a Sensitivity Charm, one that they had used on the other many times for more fun reasons.

Once Remus was startled, that would then make all the boys alarmed, if only for a split second.

A split second was all Callaway needed.

Anneliese had purposely changed the way she walked and tied her hair back differently so that none of the boys, especially Sirius, would know it was her when she shoved past James and nicked the cloak from Black's bag.

Well, she didn't know if it would be the cloak or the Map at the time, because the girls had decided to take both objects once Anneliese told them about the enchanted parchment.

Just to spite them.

They had taken their usual walking formation into account as well. That's where Alice came in.

Once James was already annoyed and Sirius was most likely confused about whether or not that girl had been Anneliese, just as they had planned, Alice took advantage of the Sensitivity Charm and just barely reached up behind Sirius's neck to touch it.

Black had his hair in a bun that day with a few dark strands perfectly framing his chiseled features, so the direct contact made him furiously turn around to his friends, thinking one of them had done it.

In the process of doing so, James's Chaser reflexes that Anneliese knew about very well had kicked in, and he jumped back.

This gave Alice the perfect opportunity while Potter was off balance to slip the Map out and replace it with something else just as Anneliese had.

After Lily had been watching the whole time from the back route's doorway she sprinted down as fast as a doe to get to, she muttered the countercharm to return the boy's senses to normal.

She had been chosen for this because Dorcas and Marlene were best at long range charms, and her red hair would be too recognizable to the boys to steal from their bags like Anneliese and Alice had.

When the five of them met at the end of the corridor and watched the Marauders turn around the corner, none of the boys were any wiser that their beloved cloak and Map had just been snatched from them.

Right under their noses.

All five girls kept completely straight faces and perfect walks until they got to a corridor away from all of the bustling.

And then they collapsed into laughter.

"Oh my god," Lily wheezed, clutching her stomach as she leaned against Marlene for support. "Did you seem Remus's face-"

"Nevermind that, did you hear Anneliese's accent?" Alice cried in laughter, eyes watering from how hard she was giggling. "Thank Merlin you only had to say one word, A-"

"Well, they didn't recognize me, did they?" Callaway pointed out, pressing her forehead into Dorcas's shoulder. "Yall talk in the weirdest ways, I swear to the lord-"

"Or they know you would never apologize for running into a guy," Marlene pointed out in between breaths of air. "Imagine that."

Anneliese's smile briefly flickered. All of her troubles were easy to let melt away around the girls, like sticky ice cream under hot sun that ran down your fingers.

But what if this was really bad? What if Sirius was going to be furious with her? What if this was the last straw? Would he think this was revenge for last night in some odd way? What if he got worried something was wrong with her, that she was being selfish-?

"Anneliese, don't worry," Lily said soothingly, noticing her friend's expression. "They're not going to be mad, they're going to be impressed if anything."

"Well, hopefully a little mad," Callaways said, removing any evidence of her worries with a very realistic smile. "Now, shall we go to Honeydukes?"

Lily gave her friend a bit of an odd look before nodding.

Luckily for them, Alice knew how to unlock the Map. The girl was the quietest Gryffindor in their year, which meant that if she sat anywhere along enough, most people would forget that she was there and let all their secrets pour out to her ready ears.

And once again, the Marauder's egotistical arrogance struck them.

In a blur of laughter and kisses on cheeks while slandering the boys, Lily, Anneliese, Alice, Dorcas, and Marlene departed the castle for an afternoon of careless fun.

Meanwhile, the very four boys they had just stolen from all made their way into Charms class. Flitwick had changed his seat arrangements so that the students could not sit wherever they wanted, and all four boys sat in a row.

Yes, there might be a bit of division amongst them regarding Anneliese, but the Marauders still considered themselves a tad above all the other students not in their year and house.

And seeing that none of the girls had arrived to class yet and Frank was sitting by a Hufflepuff, they chose what they chose.

"Settle down, settle down," Flitwick said, holding up his hands to get the class to go quiet. "Role call before we begin our work on the strengthened Illuminating Charm, Gryffindors first. Sirius Black?"

Sirius gave a casual salute in response.

"Anneliese Callaway?" the professor asked with a slightly sour expression as he called the name of his least favorite student.

Black's eyes narrowed as he scanned the room to see that she was not present. A jolt of guilt went through him. Had the