The Marauders sit around a low table with Lily Evans and a friend of hers. They're all poring over a piece of parchment labeled Egg & Sperm. I hover on tenterhooks, waiting for a verdict on my first randomonious-ish story. Every so often, Sirius and James laugh.
"I have some good one-liners in this," Sirius remarks. I feel myself glowing.
"Yeah, me too. You said this was based on a true story..." Lily says. I nod.
"It is, a Science lesson we had once. I'm actually you, Lily, but some of the things Sirius says were actually me, and some of James' responses were made by author chocolate fish, who was in the room at the time..."
"I sound like such a goody two-shoes in this," Remus complains.
"You are a goody two-shoes," shoots back Sirius. Peter sniffs.
"I'm not in it at all," he says sadly.
"That's because it's the 7th year Astronomers," I reply patiently. "You failed your Astronomy O.W.L., remember?"
"Are you going to put a disclaimer on this?" Lily asks.
"Nah – they all know I don't own you guys, as much as I want to," I reply truthfully.
"Well," says Sirius briskly, standing up and handing me the story. "Not bad, for a first attempt at a completely pointless, plotless but funny Marauder ramble," he says, and kisses me lightly on the lips before walking away.
And that bit's very important.
The classroom was badly lit; although windows covered one wall, the light didn't filter through the sinks on the benches to the high desks. The mood in the dingy room reflected Sirius' own mood, full of the shadows of guilt. It was his fault that the whole class was in here. Muggles. They seemed to live in darkness without magic.
The desks sat in rows across the dark room. Sirius, James and Remus sat down at one end, a pretty girl sitting next to Remus. Lily Evans sat down on the girl's other side, making James squirm next to Sirius on the high chairs. Their Astronomy class was more than enough to fill the seats in the dingy room, so a few of them stood at the back, like guardian angels, watching.
Their teacher was a Muggle, as Professor McGonagall had warned; thin, wiry and harassed-looking, wearing a long white coat over a bright shirt that appeared to be covered with tomatoes. He almost looked like a wizard badly camouflaged in a train station amongst all the students in their impeccable Muggle dress. He wore wire-framed glasses that failed to make his mole-ridden face look intelligent. He had a similar air about him to what Sirius imagined Remus would grow to look like: a younger man to whom life had been so cruel that he looked much older. Sirius wondered what Muggle classes were like, before realising that, most likely, this man had simply suffered many students with behavior like his own. He smirked, resolving to put the teacher to the test.
James had obviously drawn the same conclusions as Sirius; he turned to him and whispered, "This guy should be easy to crack." Sirius grinned as the man stood up at the front of the classroom, in front of something that resembled a blackboard, only it was white.
"All right," the man said loudly, and the gentle hum of chatter quieted. "I'm going to show you a video today," he held up a small rectangular box while most of the class looked nonplussed. Sirius, for one, had no idea what a 'video' was. The man continued to speak, seemingly unaware that he had lost his audience at the first mention of a word they didn't understand. "So if you could shut the curtains, plea, Mr...." he looked at Remus inquiringly.
"Lupin," he finished, standing up obediently. James gave his wand a lazy flick under the desk and the curtains slammed shut. The man looked around, blinking frightenedly.
"How'd you do that?" he asked, bewildered. Remus smiled.
"I'm a fast runner," he replied calmly, as if trying to reassure the teacher that he wasn't abnormal, which, as Sirius knew very well, was a complete lie. "Famous for it." He sat down.
"Only at full moon," Sirius muttered. Remus hissed at him to shut up.
"Oh," said the teacher vaguely. "Right... well - well, I'd better put the... yes..." he seemed more than a little distracted as he pulled open a cupboard that appeared to be attached to the ceiling. out swung a large box, almost identical to the one Remus' family had in their living room. The teacher fed a small black thing into the machine and to Sirius' shock, the thing swallowed it with a very strange noise. On the black face of the machine appeared large pink words:
JOURNEY OF THE UNBORN
"Oh, no," said the girl on Remus' other side. "It's one of these videos." Sirius and James looked at her in surprise.
"I'm Muggle-born," she explained softly, while the teacher was fiddling with buttons on the machine. "What did we do to get put in here?"
Sirius opened his mouth to reply, but Remus was quicker. "Those two," he said wryly, jerking his head at Sirius and James, "Started a class discussion on where babies come from."
"Ah," said the girl awkwardly. "I remember now. Well, they're about to find out."
"I already know where babies come from," Sirius said sullenly. He leaned across the tables and wiggled his eyebrows at the girl. "Want me to show you?"
James made a retching nose as the girl giggled. "That's considerate of you," she said, laughing. "But maybe later."
"Later, eh?" he said, giving James a look. "Are you in Gryfindor?"
She shook her head, smiling. "I'm a Ravenclaw."
"That's too bad,' he said, returning her grin.
"All right! Be quiet, guys! The video's starting!"
There was a scream, a baby's cry from the machine and a picture flickered onto its face: a baby's damp head, its hair slicked with some sort of fluid - Sirius didn't want to know what - more spurting from somewhere that the machine didn't show. He noticed that all the girls in the room had turned away, looking nauseated. He realised that he was looking at a baby being born.
"Eurgh," said James. "That's almost put me off everything to do with babies."
"Almost, but not quite? Yeah, me too," Sirius replied. Remus rolled his eyes.
The picture on the face changed, now showing a woman's head lying on a bed, her body covered by a white blanket. Sirius sat up straight. A voice began in the background. "This teenage girl is going through puberty. As she sleeps, her body is changing, its growth accelerating..." Sirius stopped listening properly as the picture changed to show some kind of circular thing floating down some kind of dark pathway. Dreamy, genesis-type music began playing. The Muggle-born girl sighed boredly.
"Why do they always have this sort of music when the egg is going down the fallopian tube?"
Sirius looked at the girl in surprise. "There's more than one... video like this?"
"Oh, yeah," said the girl enthusiastically. "There's loads of them. And they all have this church-type music playing at this stage in the menstrual cycle."
The teacher pressed a button that stopped the image on the face. "Can you guys shut up and listen? you," he pointed at Sirius accusingly. "Mr...?"
"Padfoot," said Sirius smoothly. "Actually, I have a question, Mr....?"
"Geary."
"Geary! What kind of a name is Geary?" James burst out. The teacher turned his dull blue eyes on him. "Prongs," James said without prompt. The teacher blinked at him for a second as though deciding whether to answer his question, before sighing and turning back to Sirius.
"You had a question, Mr. Padfoot?" Sirius grinned at the unfamiliar sensation of having a teacher use his nickname.
"Yeah. What's a Fallopian tube?" The girls in the class giggled. Mr. Geary looked faintly annoyed.
"Have you been listening to the video at all, Mr. Padfoot?"
"A little," Sirius replied reasonably, to more giggles from the girls. Mr. Geary sighed again.
"Just shut up and watch the video," he said, turning back to the machine.
"But you haven't answered my question! It could be important!" Sirius shouted, incensed. Mr. Geary ignored him.
"Don't worry," whispered the girl as he started the video again. "It isn't."
The picture flickered back onto the screen, but Sirius wasn't watching it; James had just reached across the table, across Remus and the Muggle-born girl, to take Lily's hand. She gave him a 'not-now-James' look and pulled away. The two boys turned their eyes back to the screen, Sirius with a wry smile across his face.
The girl was back on the screen, her face looking a little bit older, her hair shorter. The deep, factual voice rang through the classroom again.
"Now she is a woman, and…"
"And you'd think she'd have learned by now not to sleep naked," James muttered under his breath, "because creeps with cameras seem to like visiting her room." Sirius laughed. James stopped talking abruptly. The woman was sitting up, and softly, the blanket fell off her bare body. Sirius' mouth fell open. He shut it quickly as the blanket fell off the woman's body completely and she hugged her legs to her. He reached across and pushed James' mouth closed, too. Remus laughed loudly. Mr. Geary gave an angry sigh and stopped the video.
"Don't stop it, Geary!" Sirius cried. "That was quality viewing!" Mr. Geary gave Sirius a very dirty look. He smiled and stole a sideways glance at Lily; she was scowling as James shook his head, as if to clear from it the vision of the woman's bare chest.
Remus looked from Lily to James, a smile crossing his wolfish face. "You're actually jealous, aren't you?" She pretended to ignore him. He laughed. "This is quite momentous," he said, ignoring James' triumphant noises.
The triumphant noises stopped. "What about a praying mantis?" James asked. Sirius snorted. "What? What did you say about a praying mantis?"
"Nobody said anything about a praying mantis," Sirius told him loftily. "That chick on the screen made your head ring."
"Praying mantis!" The Muggle-born girl said suddenly, bringing her arms up under her chin like claws and moving them mechanically. Sirius laughed; she looked hilarious, like the clown-robot in the horror film the four had watched at Remus' that summer. ("Just jinx the bastard!" "Padfoot, they're Muggles, they don't have wands...")
Lily laughed too; so hard that she drew Mr. Geary's attention back on them.
"You five! Be quiet or I'll have to ask you to leave the room!" This, for some reason, only made Lily laugh harder, and Mr. Geary drew closer, failing miserably to look intimidating.
"Miss -"
"Petal," James told him quickly. It was his nickname for her. Sirius found it sickening, the ease with which James made a fool of himself around Lily. He almost felt like the warlock from the fairytale, The Warlock's Hairy Heart. Mr. Geary turned an incredulous blue eye on James.
"Her last name is Petal, Mr. Prongs? Do you really expect me to believe that? No-one's last name is Petal." Lily's head finally hit the desk from the force of her laughter.
"That's really insulting, Geary! What if you had an unfortunate last name and I said that about you?"
"You already did," said Mr. Geary frostily, "And I think she can speak for herself."
"At the moment, no, I don't think she can," Sirius told him, looking at her worriedly. She raised her head off the desk and wiped her streaming eyes.
"I'm crying," she said dazedly; in an instant, James had thrown back his chair and run to her side. "No, I'm okay," she said, smiling at James as he watched her concernedly. He kissed the top of her head.
"Anyway, Mr. Prongs," Mr. Geary continued. "You're not a very good liar."
"Are you insulting my boyfriend, Mr. Geary?" Lily asked, her brilliant green eyes blazing. James made an exclamation and made to pull her up, but she waved him away, still looking at Mr. Geary. Sirius and Remus exchanged glances.
"Is your last name Petal?" he asked, not answering her first question.
"Yes," she said firmly.
"And what's your first name?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.
"Lily," she said.
"So your name is Lily Petal?"
"Yes," she said defiantly. He didn't say anything; instead, he walked away.
"You just admitted to a stranger that I'm your boyfriend!" James exclaimed to Lily as Mr. Geary's white-clad back retreated.
"Well, you are," she replied, but he snatched her up and kissed her enthusiastically. Sirius averted his eyes, Mr. Geary (wisely, in Sirius' opinion) ignored them.
Out of the corner of Sirius' eye, he saw Severus Snape watching James and Lily with a sour look on his sallow face.
James sat back down. "Look at Snivellus," Sirius muttered to him. Snape saw them looking at him and looked away hurriedly.
"Bet he's just jealous," James shrugged. He pulled a piece of parchment out of his bag and used a pen lying on the desk to scribble What''re you looking at, Snivelly? On it, screwed it into a ball and threw it at Snape. It hit him on the head and bounced off.
"Oh, yuck," Sirius whispered distastefully. "He'll never be able to read it now, for all the grease." Snape did appear to be having trouble reading the note; he glanced around him furtively then, under the table, he lit his wand.
Mr. Geary noticed. "You have illuminated your crotch," he told Snape calmly. "What are you doing?" The whole class turned to look at him. Sirius turned to Remus.
"Muggles think a 'wand' is something dirty, right?" he asked him. Remus nodded.
"Probably."
Sirius stood up. "What're you using to illuminate your crotch, Snivelly?"
"My wand," the gawky boy replied innocently. A few of the others sniggered. Mr. Geary looked as if he didn't know what to say.
"Well, I don't know what your usual teacher lets you do in her classes, but I'd prefer it if your 'wand', as you call it, did not come out in class."
The whole class laughed this time. Snape flushed an angry red. "Oh, I get it," said James loudly. "His wand... because he's a Muggle... ha..." There were titters from the class. Mr. Geary frowned, as if the class conversation was getting on to a subject he wasn't sure he liked.
"Anyway," he said loudly, and they slowly quieted. "The video's finished now -"
"Oh, did I miss the naked guy?" the Muggle-born girl said, louder even that Mr. Geary. "Damn!"
A guy from the row in front of them turned around. "There was no naked guy, Jess," he saud, smirking.
"What? But there was a naked girl! That's sexist, Mister!" The other girls in the class made noises of assent. Mr. Geary sighed.
"Can anyone tell me," he said, ignoring Jess, "How much semen the video said was in each ejaculate?"
A boy in the front row answered. "Half a tablespoonful, sir."
"Right – so that's not very much," said Mr. Geary, talking over the giggles that had suddenly overcome most of the girls in the class. "So if any of you were worrying that you aren't producing enough semen, don't."
"No, I've never really had that problem," Lily said quietly. Jess, James, Remus and Sirius laughed, but no-one else seemed to hear.
"And how much sperm did the video say each ejaculate contained?"
"Millions, sir," said the boy.
"Right," said Mr. Geary happily. "And they swim towards the egg by waving their flagella really fast. Of course," he added as an afterthought, "Some sperm are demented and and have no flagella, so they can't go anywhere, and some have two flagellum and they can only go round and round in circles..."
Sirius was suddenly reminded of when he used to watch Bellatrix pull one wing off a fly and the poor thing would try to fly away but get caught up in fast, frenzied circles. Lily laughed again.
"So, Geary," Sirius said, and the teacher turned wearily to look at him, "If you put a blob of sperm on a table, would you be able to watch it move?"
Even Mr. Geary laughed. "No," he said.
"Why not?" Mr. Geary looked at him for a few seconds before turning away. "This is stupid," Sirius muttered sulkily. "The one time you actually have a serious question he ignores you and doesn't answer it!"
"Yeah," said Lily thoughtfully. "I can think of so many better things we could be doing right now."
"This is the part where you go, 'yeah, like this,' and kiss her," Sirius whispered to James. He glanced at Lily hesitantly. She raised an eyebrow at him. "I'll give you a Galleon if you make the whole class watch," he prompted.
"How cheap do you think I am?" Lily almost yelled; the entire class turned to look at her and James chose this moment to jump over his desk, take her tenderly in his arms and press his lips to hers. Somebody wolf-whistled.
Sirius stood up. "And this is a practical demonstration of how babies are made," he said loudly into the silent room.
The boy who had wolf-whistled started to clap as James and Lily tilted their heads to either side, their mouths obviously open. Then he was joined by somebody else, and soon the whole class had burst into enthusiastic applause.
Mr. Geary slapped a ruler on a desk; a great bang cut right through the clapping and silenced them all.
"Get out!" he shouted wildly, his eyes wide; he looked quite demented. James and Lily broke apart and turned to face him, although James seemed quite reluctant to let her go. "All of you! OUT!" The class sat stunned for a long moment, the ringing silence broken only by Mr. Geary's heavy breathing. Then, slowly, they began to file out; chairs scraped across the floor and the hum of talk began again. Sirius stole a glance at Mr. Geary before joining the class in the rush out the door. He had sat down at a chair in front of the board with his face in his hands.
On the way out, Sirius found himself beside Lily. "You owe me a Galleon," she hissed at him.
"What?" he yelped. "Why?"
"I got the class to look, didn't I?"
"That was for James! I didn't say I'd pay you!
"Well, the class looked, so you owe someone money," she said smugly. James chose that moment to pop up beside them.
"Padfoot, you owe me a Galleon," he said, putting his arm around Lily's waist. She laughed.
"Actually, James, it's me he'll be paying," she said. "I did all the work on the attention front."
"Whatever you say, Petal," he said demurely. Sirius shook his head in disgust.
"Sorry, lovebirds, but I don't owe anyone money – it was me who made them look at you."
"Padfoot, are you cheating on your dares again?" Remus had come up behind them and had been listening in on the argument.
"No, I am not! I won, fair and square!" Sirius protested. "The dare was to make them watch. I did that, no contest."
"But if I hadn't yelled, no-one would have looked in the first place," said Lily. Jess popped up at Remus' elbow.
"What's going on?" she asked. Remus explained the problem. "Oh,"she said. Se grinned.
On a spur of the moment whim as he looked at her friendly face and short, spiked blond hair, Sirius asked her, "Do you want to go out with me?"
She looked at him for a few seconds. "All right, then," she said finally. He grinned at her, and she grinned back.
"Sirius," she asked him as they emerged into the almost blinding sunlight, "Can I have that Galleon?" Sirius glanced at James, who raised his eyebrows in a 'no-way' manner. He put on a simpering expression, camping it up to the extreme.
"Of course, Petal," he said, and handed her the prize. James made an outraged noise.
"Padfoot, no-one's that pathetic -" he began, but it was Remus who cut him off.
"You are," he said. James opened and closed his mouth like a confused goldfish, but he couldn't think of anything to say.
Suddenly Professor McGonagall appeared in front of them.
"What did you boys do?" she said disapprovingly. "You're not meant to be finished in there yet."
Sirius and James exchanged glances. "Okay, well, get this, Professor," Sirius began, "We were being good and everything, and then he just blew up and yelled at us and sent the whole class out!"
"Yeah, Professor, we didn't do anything, honest," James added.
"I highly doubt that," said Professor McGonagall, but Sirius saw her stern face twitch momentarily, as though she were trying not to smile.
So there it is – my first story that has no plot. Just a Marauder drabblefic. Review please! Oh – and Mr. Geary is in fact an unswervingly faithful representation of my own dear Science teacher.
-For you.