Professor Grimgoider loved plants. He had given Professor Sprout a break from fifth year herbology at Hogwarts while she took a short vacation.
On his very first day teaching something went terribly wrong.
As he was explaining the merits of brushing the teeth of these lovely, carnivorous, man-eating, five foot tall plants, a student with glasses and disheveled black hair suddenly yelped,
"The ruddy thing bit me!" He swiftly pulled his hand away from the razor sharp teeth he was supposed to be cleaning.
"Yes, they are prone to the occasional nip. After all, their natural diet is human flesh." The professor said, nodding.
The class all backed quickly away from their specimens, horrified.
"Can I go see the nurse? It's bleeding." Said the boy. One of his friends, a lanky, black haired fellow, leaned across his neighbor, a shorter blond boy, to look at the bite mark.
"Woah, cool!" He exclaimed. Another boy, slighter than the others, looked disgusted.
"It's not cool, Sirius! He needs to see the nurse." He glanced at the teacher. "Mind if we take him, professor?"
Professor Grimgoider gave a curt nod. The four boys exited the greenhouse.
He continued his lecture, demonstrating how to water the plants without being eaten. After a minute, he noticed that a lot of the students were chuckling, some were even laughing.
"What's so funny?" He asked, miffed.
More laughing.
Then, a girl at the far end of the table screamed. She was sprouting bird feathers. They were on her arms, on her face, in her hair, everywhere. The professor saw a feather on his hand and gasped. Without warning, students started sprouting feathers. In a matter of seconds, the greenhouse was filled with feathers.
"Weren't you supposed to just pretend to get bitten?" Asked Peter, running to catch up with the other three boys.
"That was the plan." Sirius responded, laughing. "I'll bet the greenhouse looks more like a chicken coop now."
"Let's just hurry up and get to the Madam Pomfrey." Remus said worriedly. James's hand really was bleeding a lot.
When they entered the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey was treating someone's broken arm.
"Just a moment, dears." She said, her back turned.
"But Jamesie is bleeding." Sirius said, obviously not realizing that broken arms took priority over bleeding hands.
"I'll be with you in a second."
Sirius crossed his arms with an indignant pout. Madam Pomfrey finished what she was doing and turned around to see James looking rather pale and the others looking rather worried.
"Oh my, you'd better sit down." She had started cleaning up the blood when the entire herbology class burst through the door in a flurry of feathers.
"Madam Pomfrey!" Professor Grimgoider said, sounding panicked. He was the fluffiest of them all. "Look what one of these little demons has done to my class and I!"
Madam Pomfrey looked suspiciously at James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, who all looked as innocent as anyone could while giggling. Yes, giggling. Professor Grimgoider saw the look and jumped to a swift, but correct, conclusion.
"Don't worry, it's just a simple hex." Madam Pomfrey said as she examined one of the students. "It's odd though, the spell seems to have been spread through the air... I wonder how they did that." She glanced at Remus, who was trying not to look guilty. Again, Professor Grimgoider saw the look.
"It was them, wasn't it!" He said in an accusatory tone, pointing at the four boys.
"Unfortunately, you can't prove it." Madam Pomfrey responded, then performed the counter spell. The feathers disappeared.
Professor Grimgoider gave the boys a "I will get you back" glare, then left.
"That was hilarious!" James gasped as the four pranksters headed to their dorm.
"His face! Priceless!" Sirius agreed.
"Maybe we should have waited until later in the year; it is only his first day." Said Remus, but he was laughing too.
"Pfft! Then it wouldn't have been so funny." James said. They entered the room they shared with the other fifth year boys, and congregated on James's bed.
"Yeah," Peter said, but before he could finish, an owl flew through the open window and landed on James's head.
"Hey, get off get off get off!" He swatted wildly at the bird, which calmly placed an envelope in the boy's hair and flew away.
"What is it?" Asked Sirius excitedly. James opened the letter and read the parchment inside. Then, he burst out laughing.
"What what what whAT WHAT WHAT?!" Sirius finally snatched the parchment from James and read it through. He smiled.
"Well that's funny, but why are you laughing?" Sirius asked the still chuckling James.
"Can't you see? It's Professor Grimgoider trying to get us into trouble." James said, "Don't you recognize the handwriting from the instruction papers he gave us?" Remus took the note from Sirius and read it out loud.
"I, an anonymous sender, dare you to strut up and down on top of the Gryffindor table tonight at dinner." Remus raised his eyebrows, "He can't possibly think that will work."
James and Sirius smiled mischievously at each other.
"Oh no. You're going to do it, aren't you?" Remus sighed.
"You betcha!"
At the Gryffindor dining table, things were going normally. Everyone ate, talked, and laughed. James and Sirius had dragged Remus and Peter to the end of the table.
Sirius got up and stepped onto the table. Shouts of "Hey!" and "Get off!" rang through the hall as Sirius Black walked down the table. He walked like a fashion model, strutting like a rooster and looking very dramatic. When he reached the end of the table, he turned around with a flourish and began to strut back.
Professor Grimgoider was the only teacher present, as the others were in a staff meeting from which he had left early. His eyes were bugged out and his jaw was slack as he watched Sirius climb off the table James climb on.
James walked even more fabulously than Sirius had, if that was possible. He flounced his hips from side to side as he sauntered over people's meals.
"Work it! Oh yeah! Woo hoo baby! Rock on!" Sirius shouted from his seat, and Peter was snapping pictures from every angle with a pretend camera. As James began his oh so snazzy journey back over people's food, Remus hit himself on the forehead with the book he'd been reading and muttered,
"Why do I hang out with crazy people?"
Sirius took a break from his cheering to put his arm around Remus's shoulders.
"It's because you love us." He said with a smirk. Remus sighed.
"Yeah, sure, Sirius." Remus said, smiling.
"Aww, thanks Moony!" James said, climbing down from the table.
"You know," Sirius said thoughtfully, "That was actually quite fun. I'm gonna do it again." He hopped back onto the table. Remus grabbed his leg.
"You're going to get in trouble!" He said urgently, "I'll bet someone's already gone to get Mcgonagall."
Sirius waved him off.
"I'll be fine. C'mon James, let's do it together."
So James and Sirius strutted fabulously across the table, again. They pretended to shield themselves from the nonexistent screaming fans.
"POTTER! BLACK!" All the students turned to look at Professor Mcgonagall. All the students except James and Sirius, of course. They smiled charmingly and continued to swagger down the table.
Once Mcgonagall got them under control she gave them three weeks detention and took fifty points from Gryffindor.
"Harsh." Peter complained once they were back in their dormitory.
"You deserved it." Remus decided. Sirius poked him in the arm.
"Come on, didn't you think it was even a little bit funny?" He asked, making a face. Remus rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, it was a tiny little bit funny." He consented, cracking a smile. James and Sirius smiled triumphantly.
The next morning, at breakfast, Professor Grimgoider approached them.
"I suppose you got what you deserved, eh?" He didn't even try to contain his victorious smile. Like the mature, adult-minded person he was, James stuck his tongue out at the professor.