It took a while to get to the control room because of having to dodge the trees, bushes, and other plants that seemed to grow everywhere in the wood-like area on the outer edge of the campus. It was obviously off-limits to students, considering how many basketballs and piles of miscellaneous objects littered the ground. It was full of trash and spider webs and there was the occasional cat, but other than that it was completely deserted. James and Sirius had to duck behind the vicious looking bushes when somebody came outside, which was a frequent event; they ended up at their destination in tense silence with many reminders of the branches and trees swinging in the wind and colliding with them.
"Is there anybody in there?" James asked as Sirius peered into the window, hoping against all odds that nobody could see him. He shrugged and James simply opened the door to find that there was, indeed, nobody awaiting their appearance. He looked faintly disappointed then began examining the seemingly endless number of buttons, knobs, and security screens. "There's Umbridge's room, but I don't think we can really isolate it without going inside the building; we'll just have to terrorize everybody, I guess."
"I don't think they're going to mind if you can get them out of here by lunchtime," Sirius replied, closing the door in case anybody was outside and bolting it shut. James turned and looked at him like he was crazy.
"All we have to do is turn on the alarms and sprinkler system long enough the drench Umbridge and her cronies, then we can pretend we were late or something," he said, glancing back at the camera.
"Yeah, but why take it lightly when you can take it all the way?" Sirius asked, picking the lock on an electrical box and beginning to mess with the wiring. "I need a piece of rubber and something metal, preferably not a piece of anything from the machinery." James looked frantically through the tool boxes, knowing what he would have to do if he didn't find anything; if he used his glasses for the plan and took them with him, which he would have to do, it would pin them directly to the problem.
"How big?" he asked, practically tearing the metal boxes apart to avoid what he knew would happen. Sirius picked up a sharp rock from the floor and started sawing off the bottom of one of his shoes for the scrap of rubber needed to keep himself from bring electrocuted, looking strangely pleased to be stabbing at the old, dirty shoe he had had for about two years now.
"Maybe about the size of a pencil. If it's too small it'll just get fried and if it's too big, it'll destroy the machine. Why do you ask?" he answered, ripping the last half inch of rubber off of the rather pitiful looking "shoe", which was now only a piece of cheap dilapidated leather with laces on the last thread. James nodded slightly and took off his glasses, then put one side against the nearest rickety old table and snapped off most of the side in a creepily expert manner. Sirius stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing at the terrified but determined look on James' face.
"What? Mum's going to kill me, then put me jars to give to the neighbors at Christmas," he muttered, examining the remains of the glasses he had just gotten the day before and considering putting the piece back on. "She'd know, anyway."
"Yeah, she'd know what you did unless you do something to make it look like something else happened other than you purposefully did that," Sirius added, holding out his hand. James handed them over and watched as he used the rock to file a rough edge to the broken side, then put a small hole in the glass, and finished with snapping them down the middle. "There, that should work."
"I HAVE TO WEAR THESE!!!" he yelled furiously, not believing what had just happened. Sirius flinched, then started rummaging in the nearest drawer for something.
"Vicious now aren't we? I kind of imagined you would, which is why I didn't do anything worse to them. Use some tape and do the middle with a few layers. It's a pretty successful act with nearly anything that you do as long as you can break it further; all you have to do now is come up with a story that matches the damage and you're home free, or you should be. It works with Regulus, anyway, because he just blames it on me, so it should work for you," he explained, throwing James a roll of tape used for holes in the watering system. He looked back at him like it was just a huge joke.
"I'm not wearing those things," James said simply, leaving the glasses on the table and getting up, trying to get to the monitors and going the wrong way, bumping into everything possible. Sirius tried not to laugh, but it was kind of a losing battle because James really was as blind as a bat.
"I really don't think that's a good idea," he said, picking up the destroyed frames and having it taped in less than thirty seconds.
"Maybe you don't THINK end of story! Why the bloody hell did you do that?!?" James screamed, trying to get at him and successfully missing him by five feet and running into a wall. He groaned and settled for sitting on the table, staring off into what he hoped was space. Sirius watched him for a moment, then put the somewhat repaired glasses next to James, who glared in the wrong direction.
"I suggest you put those on before you hurt someone," he said, grabbing the loose piece of frame and beginning to maneuver it into the electrical box using the rubber. James snorted and started feeling around for the scrap metal he would be in serious trouble for.
"I suggest you get your nose out of my business before I hurt YOU!" he pouted, holding it up to his face and examining the cracked glass. Sirius snickered and threw a stick at him, followed by the roll of tape.
"You might be able to use that to keep those on, since the real one will probably get melted, which is the whole idea."
"What are you trying to do, anyway?" James asked in a troubled voice, stripping the bark off of the stick with the side of the table and taping it to the remains of his glasses.
"Setting off the fire system, then giving it a reason to go off. This little contraption I'm working with controls all of the electricity in the building and if I can get it to spark right after the system goes off, they can't even BEGIN to blame anybody, let alone two kindergartners, for everything going off; it's the equivalent of an atomic bomb in the electric lines and it'll make everything that runs on it explode, which will, in turn, set the building on fire, as well as this room. In other words, not only will we torment everybody on the campus and about a mile all around, we'll destroy all evidence we were ever connected," Sirius explained, burning his hand on what appeared to be a huge burnt out light bulb.
"Then you say I'M evil," James answered humorously, wondering what Umbridge was going to do. "How are we going to keep from being caught?"
"When I get this to work, we'll have about a minute before the fire system goes off and about fifteen seconds before the generator explodes to get as far away from here as possible. All we have to do then is hide until we find Umbridge and tell her some ridiculous story that'll cover up what happened today. Do you think you can do that?" he asked as the rubber began to melt from the electricity.
"Yeah, I think so," James responded, jumping when the rubber exploded from a violent spark in the generator. Sirius pointed toward the door as he locked the metal cover for the device and unlocked the door out of the control room. They both started running through the thick vegetation toward the far end of the campus where Umbridge's class would come out from. When the anticipated fire system went off right on cue, kids started pouring from the building, which caught fire only seconds later. The whole scenario sent both James and Sirius into silent hysterical laughter for several minutes as many of the kids began sobbing and screaming in fear as black smoke billowed out of the building. James looked and saw Umbridge trudging down the same path in the same spot she had taken on the way in (he was surprised there wasn't a ten foot rut in the tar from her doing this) and pointed when Sirius looked at him like he belonged in bedlam.
"So the fun begins," James said, getting to his feet and preparing the story he would tell the evil old teacher.
