In July of 1981, Marlene and her entire family were murdered by death eaters. It is also possible that one of those death eaters could’ve been Peter, but we don’t know for sure. The death of the Mickinnons affected everyone involved with the war effort, but most of all it affected Mary. Mary was already very affected by the fact that Voldemort and his death eaters were hunting down and killing muggleborns, and so the death of one of her best friends on top of that was almost a breaking point for her. This wasn’t the end of the war though. There was one more thing that happened that would change the lives of not only the Marauders but everyone in the wizarding world forever.

WARNING: This next part gets really sad and also quite frustrating, so prepare yourself before reading it!

October 31, 1981 started out as a normal day for the wizarding world; well, as normal as normal could be during a war. Dumbledore had asked to borrow James’ invisibility cloak to study it after they went into hiding (Dumbledore was obsessed with the Deathly Hallows and the invisibility cloak had been an heirloom in James’ family for generations). However, Dumbledore picked the worst possible time to borrow James’ cloak. Halloween night 1981 started out as quiet family time. James and Lily obviously couldn’t take Harry trick-or-treating and Harry, being only a year old, was probably too young for it anyway. So, James and Lily stayed home with their son and made the most of their night with him. James was entertaining Harry by making different colored lights glow from his wand when he and Lily heard noise outside. James rushed to the window to see who was there leaving his wand on the couch. James yelled to Lily to take Harry and hide; it was Voldemort. Lily grabbed Harry and ran up to his bedroom. She pushed furniture up against the door, attempting to block Voldemort from being able to get in. Downstairs, Voldemort had broken in and was now facing a wandless but extremely courageous James trying to stop him from getting to Lily and Harry. Nothing stopped Voldemort though, and he killed James in an instant(*insert a moment of silence for James Fleamont Potter: March, 27 1960-October 31, 1981*). Upstairs, Lily already knew that James was dead, and already knew that Voldemort was coming to kill her and try to kill Harry. BUT DID THIS STOP HER FROM STANDING IN THE WAY OF VOLDEMORT (who was the most powerful wizard other than Dumbledore at the time)? NO IT MOST CERTAINLY DID NOT. When Voldemort broke into the room where Lily was with Harry, Lily tried to persuade Voldemort to kill her instead of Harry even when Voldemort told her to stand aside. Voldemort even gave her a few chances to stand aside, but Lily didn’t budge. After about a minute of Lily’s protesting, Voldemort killed her (*insert another moment of silence for Lily J. (Evans) Potter*). Then, Voldemort tried to kill Harry, but because of a protective charm that Lily put on Harry because of her love for him, he wasn’t able to kill him. If you thought that this story can’t get any worse, I hate to tell you but, it gets much worse. Remember a little while ago when I mentioned that it might’ve been Peter who killed Marlene? Well that’s because he was a Death Eater. Voldemort was able to find James, Lily and Harry because Peter told him where they were. When Sirius found out what Peter had done, he went looking for him. Peter was already prepared for this though. Peter led the auror’s (dark wizard catchers) to Sirius, framing him for killing James and Lily. Sirius was so mad that he got into a fight with Peter. Peter fired a spell at Sirius, causing an explosion that killed 13 muggles. Because of all the dust and confusion from the explosion, Peter was able to transform into his rat form and run away before anyone could see him. He lost one of his fingers during the explosion, making it look like Sirius had killed him and only a finger was left of him. One of the most aggravating things about this is that Sirius was sent to Azkaban without a trial, and Dumbledore, who knew he was innocent, didn’t do anything about this.

 Another thing about this that makes me really sad is that Dumbledore left Remus alone with nobody for 12 whole years. Remus thought that Sirius had killed James, Lily and Peter just like the rest of the wizarding world did. The only person who Remus had left was Mary, who was tired of the wizarding world because of all the bad things that had happened to her in the past. So, Mary had begun living a normal muggle life away from the wizarding world. She still called Remus sometimes, and they met up for lunch a few times but it just wasn’t the same without everyone else. So Remus was left alone, meeting up with Mary once in a while, but pretty much alone until 12 years later when Dumbledore sent him a short letter. This letter told him that Dumbledore wanted to offer Remus a job and Hogwarts. It also said that Dumbledore was on his way over to Remus’ apartment to talk about the job (Remus hadn’t even invited him over, so Dumbledore just showed up uninvited). The job Dumbledore offered Remus was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Remus didn’t really know what to say, so he accepted the offer. So on September 1, 1993, Remus boarded the Hogwarts Express with all the other students just like he had with his friends exactly 15 years previously for their last year at Hogwarts. Remus sat in the compartment that he and all his friends always sat in and just fell asleep. However, he was soon awoken by 3 voices nervously talking about something. Remus then heard a very nervous voice say, “So let me get this straight. Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban to come after you?”. Another more practical girl’s voice said, “But they’ll catch Black won’t they? I mean everyone’s looking for him.”. The nervous boy then said, “Except no one’s ever broken out of Azkaban before and, he’s a murderous raving lunatic.” “Thanks, Ron.” Another boy said sarcastically. It was Harry. Then all of a sudden, the train abruptly stopped. The practical voice of Hermione Granger came again, slightly scared now. “Why are we stopping? We can’t be there yet.” “Dunno, maybe we’ve broken down.” Harry said. The lights kept flickering on and off, and everything went cold. The train started forward and then stopped short again. Ron Weasley’s scared voice then exclaimed, “Bloody hell! What’s happening?!” “I think someone’s coming aboard.” He squeaked, terrified. Hermione’s cat hissed and Ron’s rat squealed as a big, cloaked figure came into their compartment; it was one of Azkaban’s dementors looking for Sirius. Remus then stood up and took action, casting a patronus and driving the dementor out of the train compartment. 

Ever since that night on the train, Remus became a kind of mentor to Harry. On Halloween, Harry was left alone at Hogwarts; all his friends had gone to Hogsmeade. Remus invited Harry into his office for tea so that neither of them would have to be alone on the anniversary of James and Lily’s deaths. Harry wanted to know how to defend himself from the dementors, and Remus taught him. Remus was especially concerned for Harry when the news came out that Sirius was now hiding somewhere in Hogwarts. Somehow (even though Harry had the Marauders Map at the time), Remus got the map from Harry and saw that Peter was in Hogwarts as well, but not in human form. Peter had been in rat form for 12 years, first as Percy Weasley’s rat, and then when Ron started Hogwarts Peter became Ron’s rat. Sirius figured this out too, when he saw a picture of Ron’s family on their trip to Egypt in the Daily Prophet and saw Scabbers (Peter in rat form) on Ron’s shoulder. So when Scabbers almost got away from Ron one night, Sirius saw his chance to get him. Apparently though Sirius’ aim as a dog wasn’t that great, seeing that instead of grabbing Scabbers, he grabbed Ron by the leg and dragged him into the Shrieking Shack. Fast forward to when Remus, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Sirius were all in the Shrieking Shack. Harry had just failed at an attempt to kill Sirius because Harry thought that Sirius was the one who betrayed his parents when really it was Peter. Remus intervened at just the right time and explained to Harry that Sirius was innocent. Harry being Harry asked for the proof of this. So much to Ron’s dismay, Sirius grabbed Scabbers from him and fired an animagus reversal spell at him, turning him back to Peter Pettigrew after 12 years. It turns out the reason why Sirius escaped from Azkaban wasn’t to kill Harry, but to kill Peter as justice for James and Lily’s deaths. As much as Sirius and Remus wanted to kill Peter, Harry wouldn’t let them. Later, he told Sirius that he did this because he didn’t think James would’ve wanted his two best friends to become killers. Instead, Harry’s plan was to bring Pettigrew up to the castle for the Dementors to deal with. However, Harry’s plan didn’t work out too well. That night was a full moon, and Remus being a werewolf had no choice but to transform. Because of all the confusion and danger, Peter was able to transform into a rat again and escape, leading everyone back to where they started. So basically, all 12 years of Sirius in Azkaban planning his revenge on Peter went down the drain. You’re probably thinking it can’t get much worse than that, right? If you were, I’m so sorry but you’re wrong. Fast forward to the beginning of Harry’s fourth year at Hogwarts. Sirius was obviously in hiding, Peter had gone back to Voldemort, and Remus was living alone again. Here’s the most aggravating thing about this situation: Dumbledore knew that Sirius was in hiding and that he was innocent, but he chose to do nothing about it and let Sirius live in a tiny cave in the mountains for a whole year. It wasn’t until the end of Harry’s fourth year that Dumbledore actually did something about this. After the events of the final task of the Triwizard Tournament, Dumbledore let Sirius stay with Harry after Dumbledore told Sirius what happened. While Harry and Sirius were still in Dumbledore’s office with him, Dumbledore told Sirius to “lie low at Lupin’s”. The next morning before anyone was awake, Dumbledore sent Sirius to live with Remus in his small two bedroom apartment. Seems perfectly fine, right? Wrong. Remus didn’t even know that Sirius was on his way over until Dumbledore sent him a message saying that he was. So that means that Remus probably only had about an hour to get everything ready for Sirius not to mention mentally preparing himself. I mean, just think about it: the two of them hadn’t had a proper conversation in about 14 years, and even though they used to be best friends, Remus thought that Sirius had betrayed his friends for 12 years and that he was a murderer. And so, Dumbledore sent Sirius, (who hadn’t been fully himself for about 14 years because of Azkaban, living in a cave and because for 12 years one of his best friends thought he was a murderer) to live with Remus (who thought his one of his best friends was a murdering psychopath for 12 years). Oh and don’t worry, it gets better (and by better, I mean worse). Remember earlier when I mentioned the Order of the Phoenix? Well Dumbledore had the pretty good idea of getting the Order back together considering the fact that Voldemort had returned. So obviously, the Order needed a headquarters for meetings. Y’know where Dumbledore chose the headquarters to be? Number 12 Grimmauld Place (in other words, ‘The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black’). So basically, the house where Sirius was hated and abused by his own family for about 16 years. I mean technically, Sirius offered Dumbledore the house but Dumbledore could’ve refused and found somewhere else. So after almost a whole summer of Sirius finally reconnecting with his best friend, Dumbledore sent him to live in the house where all his worst memories were. This whole time, Sirius was being hunted by Dementors so that meant that he had to stay in Grimmauld Place at all times. Put it this way: Sirius was basically in quarantine except the Order would come over and have meetings and then leave, but Sirius couldn’t leave. The whole time he was in Grimmauld Place, Sirius only left 3 times and two of those times he was in dog form. The two times where he was in dog form, he was going with the Order to drop Harry off at the Hogwarts Express. The third time Sirius left the house was to go to the Ministry of Magic with the Order. Dumbledore somehow figured out that Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Luna were at the Ministry fighting death eaters. The saddest part was the reason they were there. Voldemort had invaded Harry’s mind with a fake vision of Sirius in the Ministry being tortured by Voldemort. Voldemort did this to lure Harry to the Ministry to kill him. So without hesitation, Harry and his friends went to the Ministry to save Sirius. The only thing was, when they got there Sirius was nowhere to be found. They’d fallen right in Voldemort’s trap. And so, the Order of the Phoenix came and saved everyone from the death eaters. Unfortunately, one of the death eaters wanted revenge on Sirius. It was Bellatrix Lestrange. Why she wanted revenge on her own cousin, I have no idea. Just after Harry disarmed Lucius Malfoy (and Sirius shouted “Nice one, James” at Harry) Bellatrix fired a curse at Sirius which pushed him into this weird veil in an archway where if you fall into the veil, you die. I think you know what happened to Sirius after he fell in that veil. 

*Insert a moment of silence for Sirius Orion Black* :’(

Now all the bad things that the Marauders had to undergo could’ve been stopped by Dumbledore. Dumbledore knew that Sirius lived in an abusive household, yet he didn’t do anything about it. He knew Remus was a werewolf but still gave him a silver prefect’s badge when he became a prefect. He knew that Voldemort was going after James, Lily and Harry but still took James’ invisibility cloak. He knew Sirius was innocent, but let him stay in Azkaban for 12 years. He left Remus all alone for 12 years, and then asked him to come back and teach at Hogwarts. He let Sirius live in a cave for a whole year. He invited Sirius to Remus’ house without even asking Remus first. He made Sirius stay in the house where he was abused for all of his childhood. He fell right into Voldemort’s trap and sent the Order to the Ministry where Sirius was killed by his own cousin. Pretty aggravating, huh? To sum up this article, I would just like to point out the obvious fact the Marauders deserved way better than what they got. Before I end this article, I just have one thing to say: Mischief Managed. 

Keira Hyatt, Co-Middle School Editor

26khyatt@montroseschool.org