Authors Note: So . . . this chapter ISN'T longer. I, in fact, stared in horror at the number of words it told me I had written. I thought it would have been so much longer! However, I find myself disinclined to make it any meatier. I know it would only bore you. I was just finding it so tedious that I needed to get the dang thing up and outta my way. So, the plot develops a little more . . . and NEXT chapter should be a bit more involved. And I'm also thinking there will be a time jump soon. I think this started at like the beginning of sixth year, and I wanna hurry the hell up to christmas break, and then summer! So. Yeah. We'll see how that goes. Don't hate me for the length! Point out mistakes, too. I'm begging you.
"Where the bloody hell is Peter?" I grumbled in annoyance. We were gonna be late for our detention if he didn't get his arse into the room. It was the last night of self-imposed purgatory, too.
I began pacing impatiently in front of the blazing fire. It wouldn't be right to leave without him . . . but the git was taking forever.
After another ten minutes of mindlessly ambling around the room, I threw my hands into the air and declared it pointless to wait. I don't know where that kid had been going off to lately, but his absence's had been increasing dramatically. Maybe he had a bird, or, even more unlikely, other friends. I snickered to myself, he'd probably just joined some poncy club, like the Gardener's Team. Whatever.
"I'll be back later tonight," I told Sirius and Remus, who were in the middle of a game of wizard's chess, which hadn't been going so well because Sirius kept getting up and ambling away on little errands. They were into it now, both of them leaning intently over the board, and thus simply waved me away absently, with Sirius making me promise to give 'Ol' McG' a kiss for him. I laughed. If only that woman knew our pet names.
I walked miserably down the hallways towards McGonagall's office. I was bloody tired of these detentions. McGonagall decided to make up for the insufficient length of time (in her mind) by giving us a ridiculous workload. I wish Peter would have been there to join me on our final delinquents walk (and by final, I mean the last one for this discrepancy), but instead I had only the sound of my miserable footsteps clicking on the stone floor to accompany me.
My thoughts naturally turned to speculation over tonights punishment, and I shuddered in horror when I remembered what it was. Peter and I had to Muggle wash all the windows in the school tonight. I hate washing windows. It makes your arms tired, and it squeaks in the most annoying way . . .
I let out a forlorn sigh when I rounded the last corner before her office, reasoning that at least with Peter there I could find some entertainment. I walked into her prim office to find said rat already seated in a plush chair, and the object of our discomfort absent.
I scowled before plopping into a chair next to him. "I waited 20 bloody minutes for your arse to show up, Wormtail. Where were you?"
He fidgeted nervously. "Sorry, James, I didn't realize you'd wait for me. I just figured you'd come straight here . . ." He looked immensely uncomfortable. So, I decided to actually apply my sense of tact, because, yes, I do have it, and let the subject drop. I planned to pick it up later, of course, because I knew the wanker was lying. He'd been up to something . . .
I chose instead to begin levitating things off McGonagall's desk, and see how many I could keep airborne at a time. I made it to thirteen when a sharp "Mr. Potter!" caused me to lose my concentration and drop them.
I cursed under my breath. Peter snickered in response.
"I would kindly like to remind you that you were interfering with my property, and that could warrant another detention. No student has the right to go poking around a Professor's desk." She frowned at me, and then Peter, making him wince.
"However," she said wearily, "I am quite as ready to be done with you as you are of me. So, shall we begin your punishment?"
I rolled my eyes and tipped my chair back down onto all four legs while Peter grabbed the glass cleaner and rags.
"Just this floor, right Professor?" I asked with my most charming grin, knowing what the answer was before she stated it. I figured it was worth a shot. I'd always thought she secretly liked my snarky attitude.
She scowled. "No, as many as you can until eleven o'clock."
"Eleven!" I repeated, outraged.
"It's a Friday night, Potter. You don't have to get up early." She promptly turned back to her papers, demanding no more protestations.
James and I were methodically scrubbing the windows in silence. It was fun, at first, because James was doing all kinds of inappropriate things to said windows (like putting his butt print up against them), but after awhile that got pretty old, and just added to the work.
I groaned and rubbed my arms. Washing windows bloody hurt!
"James, what time is it?" I muttered.
"Uh, quarter to eleven!" He did a little dance when he realized we were almost done.
He began scrubbing with new enthusiasm, before abruptly stopping with an exclamation of surprise.
"Peter," he said slowly, before turning towards me with a highly suspicious grin, "do you think that's Ravenclaw's tower, over there?" He pointed off to the right and I followed his finger.
I shrugged and told him it looked like it. The other boy laughed delightedly.
"Do you notice anything about that tower, Wormtail?"
"Um . . ." I squinted into the distance to get a better look at the stone monstrosity, before shrugging. Nothing looked out of the ordinary to me.
"The windows are all open, Pete!" he declared with a laugh.
I really didn't see what was so great about that, and I told him so.
"Peter, we're bloody wizards! We can fly!" He raised his eyebrows at me to emphasize his point.
I laughed nervously when comprehension dawned.
"So, we're gonna pull a prank, huh?" He gave me a pat on the head as a reward for my understanding. I flipped him the bird.
Sirius and I were sitting up to wait for James and Peter. The occupants of the common room were slowly dwindling away, and I knew that soon it would be just Sirius and myself.
He was sprawled out across the couch, and I was reclining on the floor in front of him, amiably discussing the stupidity of the Slytherin's Quidditch tactics.
We were just getting into how the Slytherin Keeper always came out too far from the goals, when Sirius abruptly stopped the conversation to walk over to the last remaining group of students. He'd been doing that all night, as if he couldn't bear to keep his attention focused only on me.
I rolled my eyes when he haughtily told them that, no, McGonagall was not married, and, if anything, she was getting it on with Dumbledore. They laughed in response, uncertain of what they should say, before Sirius grew bored and trudged back over to me, where he began promptly tapping his feet on the wood of the couch leg.
I watched him shift subtly away from me, while keeping up the steady beating of his toes, before I finally got fed up and asked him to stop.
"Stop what?" he asked, genuinely perplexed, as his eyes shifted around the room to watch that last lonely group of students take to the stairs.
"Your incessant tapping," I snapped back, annoyed by his inattention.
"What?" he muttered, clearly not registering what I was saying to him. Now he was too busy looking at his fingernails.
I felt my eye twitch in irritation. That boy could really get to me, and I knew that if he didn't stop his tapping I was gonna explode. Naturally, the steady tempo persisted, and I finally hollered at him to shut the bloody hell up.
"What? Am I annoying the poor Moony?" he inquired mockingly, finally fixing his gaze on me and me alone. For some reason that made me uncomfortable, even though the lack of it had been frustrating me all night.
Not taking his eyes off me, he began slowly and deliberately wacking his foot against its previous target.
"Stop it, Sirius," I requested, as sternly as possible, steadfastly staring up at the ceiling as I did so. The tapping continued.
"Padfoot, come on, stop. I'm too tired to put up with this bollocks." I began grinding my teeth when the noise continued.
"Sirius, just quit," I ground out in a final whiff of exasperation.
He didn't, and for some reason that I cannot explain, that really bloody got to me. Why couldn't he just stop? The anger and annoyance I'd been harboring towards him all night finally boiled to the surface and unceremoniously exploded into his face.
"You're the most bloody infuriating git I've ever met, Sirius! Why don't you go shag some girl and get the bloody hell away from me?" I snarled, launching myself to my feet and glaring murder.
He recoiled as if hexed, before standing up as well. I knew what he'd do now. The same thing he always did when he got me successfully riled up: charm his way out of it. My shock was immense when he bit back.
"Maybe I will, Remus. At least I've shagged girls, you bloody prat!" He crossed his arms in a way I knew was defensive, but I didn't care. He was ticking me off, and had been quite a lot lately.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked in outrage. "That I'm some sort of a prude for not acting like a bloody cunt? Thanks, but I'd rather not be compared to you in that area. You'd come up a bit too lacking." I couldn't believe the way I was talking to him. I was mildly disgusted with myself, but, in some perverse way, it felt good.
"Fuck you, Remus. I actually enjoy the birds. We're beginning to wonder about you, though. Maybe you'd like to revisit James' dream?" his voice dropped menacingly at that last statement, and his face flared embarrassingly red, as he realized how that statement could backfire.
And it would backfire, because I would use that bit of ammo against him, even though it was lower than I liked to sink.
"You're one to talk, Sirius. I believe you're the one that had another dream about it." I looked him directly in the eye and reveled in his unnerved reaction.
"What are you talking about?" he asked quietly. I knew I'd hit accurately when the red drained from his face and was replaced by a sickly white.
"You know what I'm talking about. 'Oh, Remus'," I moaned mockingly.
He looked at me in horror for a moment, before fleeing to the bedroom in a very evident panic. I fell onto the couch, still fuming, and also immensely satisfied. I'd finally been the one to get under his skin.
Too bad it took a matter of sixty seconds to make me feel like a royal prat.