THE HEXAS CHAISE LONGUE MASSACRE
PART 1
It was October 31. Professor Slughorn had promised to cook up something scaaary for the occasion. Her turned up the heat on his portable stove.
"First take the cackle of a dying martyr," he said, uncapping a jar.
Hysterical laughter rang through the lab.
"Then a cup of mummy powder-"
"Shut up, Padfoot," said James to Sirius in the back.
"I have here the ground up pharaoh remains of Tutankhamun," Slug went on.
He added that, as well as some corpse wax and a few other spooky things, and let it cook for a couple of minutes. And that was it.
"Ok who wants to try it?"
Sirius, not the only person smoking in the lab, blew smoke in Peter's face. He began to cough violently.
"A volunteer!" said Slug and made Peter come up and stand in front of everybody, something he feared with great intensity. He trembled like a washing machine that had swallowed a poltergeist and his face was red as a Bloody Gary.
Slughorn spooned some of the potion into a cup.
"Just drink this."
Peter spilled potion on his robes because he was so nervous. He choked on most of it, but managed to get some of it down.
The shaking stopped first. He became very still, rigid even. He stopped blinking and his eyes turned pale and vacant. His skin became so riddled with bruises his entire body ended up a bluish grey.
His mouth fell open, looking unhinged and dropping a string of drool.
"Uurrr..," he uttered.
"Well there you have it!" said Slughorn. "The Un-Dead Potion! Renders the drinker Un-Dead for 24 hours. Guaranteed to break the ice at parties! Now don't go giving this to your enemy because that is against the rules. Ok so now I want you all to make the Un-Dead Potion!"
With a little nudge in the back from Slughorn, Peter managed to somehow find his way back to his table.
"I've got to say," said James. "You seem a lot more relaxed now!"
"Urrrrr..."
"That's probably the most intelligent thing I have ever heard you say," said Sirius.
"Urrrrr..."
The chaps set to work on the potion. They were allowed to collaborate freely this time.
"So," said James, his mind on more important matters. "What should we do tonight? I sure don't want to go to the Slugoweenie!"
"I know of another party we could go to," said Sirius. "A cool one. With cool people. But I'm sure they will make an exception for you guys."
"I guess we could do that. But it's Halloween! I want to be properly scared! I want to know what fear is!"
"There's always that Stuart palace where the ghost of Charles II lives. I hear he throws great parties."
"The ghosts of former kings don't scare me!"
"Well then I just don't know for I, too, know not the meaning of fear."
"Curse this our curse!"
"Hssszzzzssssrrrrsszzzz," said someone behind James.
He jumped and turned around when he feeled a tickle in his neck and came face to face with a black adder.
He screamed and whacked the escaped snake with a book.
"You were saying?" said Sirius.
"I bet you thought that was fear."
"It's like we're linked psychically!"
"But it wasn't. Blegh."
He scraped off his book on Peter's robes.
"Yes it was!" Sirius insisted.
"No it wasn't. It was panic. There's a differense."
"It was fear, mate."
"That was an instinctive reaction. We're all programmed to freak out a little when there's a wasp in our ears or a spider in the bath."
"Or a snake on your back."
James began to dance around, trying to reach behind him.
"What are you doing?" Sirius asked.
"Is there a snake on my back?"
"No."
James sighed, relieved.
"It's on your chest now."
James ripped the snake from his robes, threw it on the floor and stomped on it. Then he poured all the snakes from the pickle jar onto the floor and stomped them dead as well, creating a rather gross snake puré.
"We all have one, right? It's ok!" said Sirius.
"That wasn't fear," James insisted, stubborn, and scraped off his shoes against the table leg.
"Oh come on it's nothing to be a shamed of. Why, even Godrid Gryffindor himself is said to have been deathly afraid of trouts. It's why he would put on ladies' tights every Tuesday and go down to the local pub as Godrica. He thought they came out of the water every Tuesday to look for him."
"What? That is the greatest load of tosh I have ever heard! Where did you even hear that?"
"It's not tosh! Are you calling my late, dear granddad a liar?"
Never mind his late, dear granddad.
"Not a liar, just a transphobic..."
"What's so transphobic about a man wearing ladie's stockings?"
"Nothing. Let's just drop that whole debate."
"He was kind transphobic, 'though"
"It wasn't fear anyhow. Fear is when you're afraid of something."
"Oh! That must be why you were made Captain Obvious!"
"If I was really afraid, I would have just ran out of the lab, ok?"
"Fine. Whatever."
Meanwhile, behind them.
"Urrr."
"Do you like Selma?" Remus asked Peter, browsing some kind of catalog while their potion was simmering away on medium heat. "Check out the legs on that one!"
"Urrr."
"What about Gertrud? There's a curvy number! But between you-sees and me-sees, a bit too much padding. And those are obviously fake!"
Sirius was shocked! Shocked!
"What is this filth you're looking at?" he asked, snatching the catalog.
But browsing through it he didn't find any filth at all. Just pictures of furniure. Selma was a desk with legs that brought wooden pepper mills to mind. Gertrude was a velvet armchair with fake gold buttons and snakes for legs.
"Are you refurnishing the dorm again? You know how McGonagall gets."
"Have you heard that they've opened up a WIKEA in Hexas, Diagon Alley?"
"Why?"
"KEA."
"Is that the place that sells broken sofas?"
"If you mean that the sofas have to be put together then yes, that's the place."
"Have you been there?"
"No. But I hear it's big."
"I've been there," said James, losing energy just recalling it. "It's the most..."
He hesitated. This made Sirius curious.
"The most what? What did you think of it?"
"It's the most amazing place I have ever been to!"
"Really?"
"It's awesome! So much fun! Not a dull minute!"
"You surprise me. It doesn't seem remotely fun at all."
"It's hard to explain. You kind of have to be there. Hey I know! Let's all go there after school!"
Sirius wasn't exactly over the moon.
"Is that how you want to spend Halloween?"
"Not all of it. We'll only pop in for a minute!"
"Hm. Ok then, if it's only for a minute."
In his head James went: Mwahahahahahaha!