James grinned as he slipped into his seat in the Defense Against the Dark Arts, or DADA, next to his partner and best friend Sirius Black. "Hey Sirius," James said loudly. "What's that smell? It almost smells like the blocked up toilet in the guys bathrooms."
Sirius grinned and leaned back in his chair. "Close- its Snivellious." Laughter rang out through the room from the Gryffindor half, as Severus Snape sat down in his chair and dropped his books with a little more force than necessary. James grinned and opened his mouth to shoot out another harsh remark when Professor Sofieke walked into the room.
"Settle down, class." She said with a thick Dutch accent. "Today we will be starting a unit on boggarts. Does anyone here know what a boggart is?" A hand shot up in the air. James grinned when he saw another of his good friends, Remus Lupin, waving his hand excitedly, almost falling out of his chair. "Yes, Mr. Lupin?" Professor Sofieke asked.
"A boggart is a shape-shifter that takes the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most." Remus said.
"Nicely stated, Mr. Lupin. 10 points to Gryffindor. Now recently Mr. Filch found us a nice boggart hiding in a cabinet in an old classroom. Does anyone know why a boggart would choose to hide in there?" Professor Sofieke scanned the room. "Anyone except Mr. Lupin?" she asked. Remus put his hand down dejectedly. "Or Miss. Evans," Professor Sofieke smiled. James sighed. Lily Evans, his fellow Gryffindor third year was perfection to him- pure perfection. Yet she absolutely refused to go out on a date with him. James returned his focus to the lesson at hand sadly.
"No one wants to tell us? Then Mr.-"Professor Sofieke cut off as she saw Sirius' hand shot into the air. "Yes, Mr. Black?" she asked, surprised.
"Boggarts like damp, dark places." Sirius stated, grinning at the shocked look on people's faces. "Like under my brother's bed." He finished. Laughter rang out, and it took a couple of tries for Professor Sofieke to calm the class down.
Um, yes, yes, that is true." Professor Sofieke admitted. "10 points to Gryffindor. Now, we will be dealing with a real boggart today. First, I would like all of you to close your eyes and picture your worst fear."
James closed his eyes. 'What is my worst fear?' he thought, over and over again. He ran small fears through his head. Nothing seemed to really make him terrified. He still had no idea when Professor Sofieke told everyone to start thinking of how to make their fear seem funny. James looked around, confused, as did others. Why did they need to make their fears funny?
Professor Sofieke noticed this. "Oh dear, did I forget to tell you how to get rid of a boggart? Miss. Evans, would you like to enlighten us?"
Lily smiled sweetly. (I don't remember exactly what Remus said for this in book three so I made it up myself but it says the same thing. Ash) "Boggarts can be vanquished only by laughter. The boggart will take the shape of your worst fear and try to scare you. The best thing to do is to visualize how to make your fear funny to induce laughter before facing the boggart. When facing the boggart, one must focus on the funny image you created earlier. You then use the spell "Riddiculus" to turn the boggart into that funny image." Lily finished.
"Very good!" Professor Sofieke praised. "10 points for the correct answer and 10 more for including the spell."
Sirius snickered. "Does Lily ever breathe?" he whispered into James' ear.
James shot Sirius a look. "Oh, right, sorry, no insulting the future Mrs. Potter." Sirius laughed softly into James' ear.
Meanwhile, Professor Sofieke said "Alright, if you have your funny image in your head, please line up in a single file line and wait until everyone is finished and I have opened the door."
James watched as people walked up to the front of the room. He was one of the last to go up, still trying to figure out what his greatest fear was. He knew he had one, but it was buried deep inside and he could not find it for the life of him.
The class walked slowly and quietly down the hallways after Professor Sofieke. They walked into a large, empty room. The only furniture in the room was a rattling cabinet in a back corner. Some of the weaker girls screamed, and even a couple of boys seemed a little freaked out.
Sirius grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Let's see what Snivellious is scared of, shall we?" He asked to James.
James grinned back, his worst fear forgotten. "We shall." They walked over and stood on the edges of the class.
"Alright, form a line in front of the cabinet, please." Professor Sofieke called out. There was a scrambling as people tried to push to the back of the line. When the dust cleared, James found himself somewhere in the middle.
"Maria, you go first." Professor Sofieke gestured to the Gryffindor girl in the front of the line.
Maria took a trembling step forward as Professor Sofieke flung the doors of the cabinet wide open. At first, their appeared to be nothing inside the mahogany cabinet. All of a sudden, a small noise came from the darkness, and the largest mouse stepped from the cabinet. Maria screamed, and then regained her composure. "R-r-riddiculus!" Maria stuttered, and suddenly with a loud crack the mouse was caught in a large mousetrap.
"Next!" Professor Sofieke called. The next person stepped up. Crack! A zombie appeared in front of the class. With another loud crack, the zombie fell down and crumbled into dust. And so it went on. After a bout with a large riddiculus clown, James stepped up to face his worst fear. The remains of a clown mask were replaced by three figures, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, standing in front of him.
"Why, hello, James." Boggart-Sirius spoke first.
"James, we will give you the truth," Boggart-Remus spoke next. "We hate you. You and your pompous ways, always trying to be the best and the leader. Well, we are sick of it. You are no longer a marauder, James."
James' eyes flickered from the real Remus to the boggart-Remus. He struggled to raise his wand, but before he could speak, boggart-Peter got his two cents in.
"You were never nice enough to me. I will betray you to get back at you, you will always wish you were better to me." The boggart-Peter had more courage than the real Peter, causing James to remember his friends as they really were.
Fixing an image of the three people doing the cancan in front of him, he yelled "Riddiculus!" with a crack, three dancing marauders appeared again, dancing ridiculously. The class burst into laughter. With the loudest crack yet, the boggart disappeared.
"Well done, class! 5 points to everyone who tackled the boggart before Mr. Potter here disposed of it." Professor Sofieke praised. "Class dismissed."
The class piled quickly out of the door. James took one look at his friends and assured himself that his fear would never come true. How wrong he was.
Yay! This was written for the Boggart Challenge in Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum, by the way.