Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his various relations, friends and enemies do not belong to us. We do however own several crackpot theories about said characters (and how exactly a giant can concieve), which you are welcome to steal, assuming you do it using correct grammer.
Authors Note: OK, we had to take down the original for editing purposes after posting the first two chapters. Also, we noticed an astoundingly sad ratio of Hit to Reviews and had to destroy it to hide the smell of our failure. Screw you audience! (a nice comment from Aimee who is still sore over it, so I suggest you avoid her for at least the first three chapters. Address them to Anna, she'll pass on the message.).
(Anna, stop being diplomatic. YOU SMELL OF FAILURE TOO)
(Mary here. Yeah, we're all insane. We need a psychiatrist.)
(The rest of this will be typed by Anna, the "diplomatic" one.)
We must make something clear. This story is not only for fun purposes and feeding our ever increasing insanity. It is to help develop our writing skills and imaginative techniques. So, we would like to see helpful comments and constructive criticism come our way as it helps us on so many levels. Even if you just have a word of support or a comment or two, please leave them and we'll most definitely reply. Flames will be fed to Aimee's hyperactive dog, Loki.
Thank you and enjoy.
Chapter One
"Welcome to fourth year potions!"Slughorn boomed across the room with so much force it was almost a physical blow. The little golden tuft on the professor's head bounced along enthusiastically; just barely staying perched on his massive, shiny dome as he shook his head with aristocratic vowels. The words reverberated around the room, jerking James Potter awake from his stupor.
Oh God. Slughorn is a better alarm clock than Sirius, he thought, a reasonable enough conclusion; taking into account the increasing force of his kicks, and the agony spreading through James's knee, Sirius had been attempting to wake him for twelve minutes.Slughorn must have been late.
"You know, you can stop that now."
Sirius gave a satisfied shrug and turned his attention back momentarily to the professor. After a few seconds of silent concentration he commented to James. "I swear it's moved three inches in one sentence!"
James looked at his best friend in bemusement "What? With all the kicking I thought you had noticed; I've been asleep. Which is totally your fault by the way."
"Shut up. Look. The thing on his head," Sirius insisted pointedly. James stared intently at the top of the potion master's head and then shrugged.
"D'you think it's real?" he drawled, uninterested in the answer. Perhaps on more than two hours sleep the situation would have been funny, but really… Sirius kicked him for twelve minutes to make fun of the professor's head?
"James, of course it's not. God, you actually WERE asleep. Thought you were just doing that to get Pettigrew to stop staring at you for five bloody seconds." After a second's pause he added. "Which, by the way, he failed to do; I swear if I didn't see him ogling Evans over there I'd think he was queer with you."
"Right. So? Sirius, it's his head. If he wants to keep it warm, what's your problem with it?"
Sirius looked almost wounded. "Have you lost all your marauding spirit? That 'thing' on his head is…"
He paused for dramatic effect just a second too long (ten seconds would have been acceptable, but eleven is a bit much).
"Your child? Your lover? Your pet? For Christ's sake Sirius, what?" James burst out, tired of the conversation.
8 hours later, Detention.
Sirius crouched on the ground, scrubbing at the dungeons' mildewed floor."That 'thing' on his head is my trophy." Sirius finished with a satisfied smirk.
"… You know, I think that was the longest dramatic pause in recorded history," James commented wryly.
"Awake now?"
James just smiled back.
- - - - -
Severus gouged his quill into the wooden desk, trying to resist the urge to turn around and curse Black. That fucking blood traitor and his fucking foot thumping my fucking chair…
The quill broke off at its head, a cracking sound attracting the momentary attention of everyone but the professor (who was yet to stop introducing himself to them despite the fact that they had known him for the previous three years at Hogwarts). Severus buried himself deeper into his chair, slumping until his head was on a par to its back and composing himself as coldly as possible while his face burned. They turned away slightly quicker than they might have from boredom.
Severus swore profusely under his breath. The attention of a single person, let alone the whole attention of the class, was not something he garnered often. Should he have it his own way, it would never happen. He made it a personal mission to be invisible. It was only the rare moments in which his temper required control (the moments came rarer when not in the vicinity of the morons) that his mission came under threat, but the moments passed quickly enough. After all, nobody really wanted to look at him.
But the rare moments seemed to be becoming more common, as morons descended upon his classes, virulent in their clouds of arrogance and laughter.
The Marauders they dubbed themselves.
Idiots One through Four he thought was more appropriate.
Idiots One and Two, James Potter and Sirius Black, joint jester kings of Hogwarts and resident royalty of the Gryffindor house, were the problem. Idiot Three was generally buried in something or other, and Idiot Four was a simpleton, neither of them a problem. But One and Two had taken their usual seats in the classroom, right hand side, two from the back, directly behind Severus's desk. Potter had slumped himself over the desk, his messy hair sprawled across his books, asleep or making a concerted effort to be coolly nonchalant. Being an idiot, the latter was more likely, but as Idiot Two continued to kick him with increasing force, it became possible that One was in a coma (surely even the deepest sleeper would have moved by now?). Perhaps there was a God, and the idiot was dead…
No, no God. With less than a minute of his friend's unconventional wake-up methods, Potter was jerked awake and then proceeded to drift off into the abyss that was his imagination, peering absentmindedly at the dungeon walls as if there were a window there. Black, however, resumed the kicking of Severus' chair.
Fuck. Just as the fourth year Slytherin turned to give Idiot Number Two a piece of his mind, the kicking stopped and a loudly whispered conversation with Number One was started. Severus personally didn't want to know anything about what the two were conversing about underneath their breaths. However, his attention to them was recaptured rather violently with an outburst from Idiot Number One;
"Your child? Your lover? Your pet? For Christ's sake Sirius, what?"
"EXCUSE ME! Mr. Potter! Mr. Black!" Heads whipped around to the front facing their potions professor, who looked furious that his little anecdote had not only gone completely unnoticed, but that he was nowhere near the centre of the classes' attention.
Calming down somewhat, although ears still a magnificent shade of red, he started more composedly. "I must admit I've come to expect something of this sort from you two, but in the first ten minutes of the first lesson! Have you no respect for this institution at all?"
Severus slammed his head down against his desk to crush the laughter bubbling up inside of him. It had taken Slughorn four years to figure that out? Hell, he hadn't even registered the fact yet, he was asking them, as if that would lead to some sort of resolution, instead of feeding their already inflated egos.
"Just trying to break the previous record professor, which I believe was eleven minutes." Black said in his normal calm, but confident and arrogant manner. "Weren't you the one who told us we should always try to improve, to 'strive for glory'?" Fury seeped back into Slughorn's reddening face.
"I cannot let this go on as it has in previous years boys.. you're older now... must take responsibility", he mumbled somewhat incoherently, trying to contain his temper as it threatened to explode before the crowded room, "... I must make you understand…"
Severus snorted into the desk's wood. In the past years enough attempts had been made, points taken, detentions threatened. It was therefore proven long ago that nothing would ever get through to the idiots whose egos where larger than their brains.
"…I therefore have no choice. Detention. Both of you. All week."
Idiot Number One looked indignant. "But, Professor, you can't be serious… James was the one that shouted..."
"…at something which you undoubtedly did to provoke him." Slughorn said firmly, allowing no room for argument. Severus allowed himself a small shadow of a frown on his otherwise expressionless face. So the melodrama had begun already.