Always Purée

Part 6: The Curious Case With The Missing Tapes

Professor Cornball who taught classical magic loved to make his students do presentations and he was the sort of professor nobody had any respect for. Last week's Monday he had given classes G6 and R6 a presentation assignment that were due that Friday, but when Friday came and barely a quarter of the class had prepared anything, he had given them the weekend. Now it was once again Monday and after having spent 20 minutes explaining how she had failed to find a frog prince, a witch with large goggles finally thanked the class for listening and withdrew to her seat. Professor Cornball was the only one awake enough to applaud.

"Thank you Miss Goody. Now, who wants to go up next? Come on, I gave you the weekend, Miss Goody can't be the only one who did the assignment!"

Sirius lifted Remus' scribbling hand by the wrist. "I want to go next!" he squeaked.

"I do not, and I don't sound like that!" Remus hissed, freeing himself.

"Yes you do"

"Do not"

"Do too"

"Shut up"

"So did you do the assignment?" Professor Cornball asked.

"Uhm… No"

"And why not?"

"He didn't do it either!" Remus smacked Sirius, who smacked back.

Professor Cornball was the sort of professor that liked to sit on top of his desk as if he thought it would make him seem progressive.

"So, nobody wants to go up next?" He gazed over his pupils, all of which were pretending to take notes or read or simply looked down pretending they didn't exist.

"Alright" he said. "You get one more week. Just one! "

He excused himself and left the classroom to get some things.

"Anyway you did do the assignment so why didn't you go next?" Sirius asked.

"Because it wasn't very good" said Remus.

"Neither was Goody's" said James.

"It would have been a repeat of Goody's. I didn't want to put you through that again, I know how lethal boredom is to you"

"If you go up next I promise I won't yawn" said Sirius.

"Why don't you go up next?"

"Because I didn't prepare anything. I know, why don't you give yours to me and then I'll do it for you!"

"No, thank you"

"It's ok, I don't mind!" Sirius started searching among Remus' papers, so Remus collected them quickly to protect himself from humiliation.

"What did you write?" James asked, because he thought Remus seemed a little too desperate to keep the presentation from them.

"Nothing. Same as Goody. About how I didn't find any frog prince"

"Did you look?"

"Of course I looked, it was the assignment"

"But you didn't find one"

"No, I didn't find one and also I threw the presentation away anyway so don't bother" Remus shoved his papers in his bag with one hand and kept Sirius away from them with another.

"Here it is" said James, fishing the presentation from the disorderly bunch of notes.

"Lay off my notes!" Remus snatched the paper from him, crumpled it together and stuffed it inside his mouth.

"Why would you write something down that is that embarrassing?" Sirius asked, but Remus couldn't explain that right now, since he had paper in his mouth.

Professor Cornball returned with a large trolley with glass jars full of frogs and cages full of swans.

"You can divide yourself into groups. Boys take swans, girls take frogs. Yes, Miss McKinnon?"

Mac lowered her hand. "Why do the girls have to take frogs?"

"Because frogs turn into princes and swans turn into princesses"

"Why are princesses never turned into frogs, or princes turned into swans?"

"Yeah!" Cas supported her.

"Because beauty isn't as important to women as it is to men" Cornball explained. "Beauty is the most important component of a woman to a man, a man would never kiss a frog but a woman would"

"Thank you" said Mac, noting down the answer she had received for her query.

"Thank you"

There was a lot of hustle and bustle when students queued to get their transfigured royalty. Cas tapped her pencil against her desk restlessly. Then she snapped it in half.

"Oops!"

"What was that?" Mac asked.

"I need another pencil" Cas got off her chair and straightened her skirt.

"You could easily mend it"

"Excuse me for a moment" Cas squeezed past Mac and Lily and went to the seats on the other side of the classroom, nearly bumping into Peter who had been assigned the task of fetching a swan princess after a quick game of rock, scissors and paper.

"Hello gentlemen" she grinned. "My pencil just broke! Can I borrow one?"

"Can't you ask Cornball?" Sirius asked.

Cas grinned at him like a Cheshire cat, saying nothing.

"What?"
"Nothing" Cas' grin was so wide her mouth looked ready to fly off her face at any moment.

"Ok then" Sirius went back to sleep.

"Can I just say" Cas pulled his head back up by a handful of his hair, well aware of how sensitive his roots were.

"Ow for f-"

"That maybe you think you have to play this role of this unfeeling person, to protect yourself from hurt, but-"

James woke up too at this point, and Remus stopped taking notes.

"-but honestly! You don't have to pretend with me! If you're a good person on the inside, that's ok too!"

"Ok, well" Sirius rubbed his tender scalp. "Good to know" Then he went back to sleep.

Cas seemed to have more on her chest, 'though.

"What that was about?" James asked.

"Well, I heard that song"

"What song?"

Cas didn't need long to recall the chorus. She spun around, singing a much happier and showy rendition of the slow paced ballad: "You got spunk! The sass! You're the one, oh Cas!"

That line was enough to transform James and Remus into Cheshire cats.

"Lily found the tape" Cas explained.

"Did she steal them?"

"She insisted she just found them"

"For the record that song isn't about you" said Sirius.

"Oh yeah who is it about?"

Sirius thought for a bit. "Cassandra"

They all glanced at Cassandra who was crawling around on the floor trying to catch an escaped frog. Then they glanced back at Sirius in much disbelief.

"What? There are fetishists! Stop being so shallow!" said Sirius, burying his head in his arms yet again.

"Why can't you just admit it?" Cas asked.

"Why would Evans steal my tapes…?"

"She found them!"

"Where?"

"At her house"

"How would they have gotten there if she didn't steal them?"

"If she stole them and brought them home, why would she bring them back?"

Sirius took Remus' pencil. "You wanted a pencil? Take it and go"

"I didn't really come here for a pencil" said Cas. "I just wanted to come over and grin smugly at you because of that sweet, sweet song, in which you proclaimed your love-"

"I hope you don't really believe that, because then you'll only be disappointed"

Cas put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and said before leaving: "I know. Maybe one day you will dare to love me"

At fourteen and after having sipped on McGonagall's' whiskey, recording a couple of songs Sirius had written as an absurdly infatuated 12 year old had seemed like a really good idea. He had completely forgotten about them and had thought that he had recorded over them, but apparently that was not the case. Once class was over he was going to find that tape and throw it to the squid.

James made a pulling-down motion with his hands. "You got spunk! The sass! You're the one! OH CAS!"

"Would you like me to turn one of your cheesy ballads into a show tune right here?" Sirius offered.

James composed himself. "So Reggie stole your tapes, and then Lily finds them at her house. That is indeed curious"

"I know, I just can't figure out what he and Periwinkle-"

"It's Patrinia"

"-would want them for"

"To annoy you somehow?"

"Always so perspicacious"

"More perspicacious than you"

Then Peter returned with an unusually feathery Princess of Lichtenstein and to decide who had to snog the bird first they played rock, scissors and paper, a game Peter had yet to win.