Title: Book of Janus
Part 10: An Important Lesson
"Did you give him the stone?" James' leg had healed at last, but he missed the cool scar so he had fetched a purple felt pen to draw with on his leg from memory.
"I did. How in the world did Ruby Tuesday help you figure out he had it and how to get it?" Sirius shaded the scar drawing with a blue felt pen.
"It was the bits the radio in his dream was playing. 'Yesterday don't matter if it's gone' and 'When you change with every new day'. I thought; maybe whatever he is keeping hidden, what if it changes location? 'There's no time to lose, I heard her say'. What if the location changes are somehow connected to what time it is? 'Catch your dreams before the slip away'. His clock looks like a dream catcher, with feathers for hands. It was 10:30 when I went to his office. I picked out the book 10 in his Encyclopedia Oneirologica collection and opened up page 30. The 'd's were missing. What could it mean? And then it struck me! Then I saw the piano! I had been so blind! The whole time I was thinking: are there no keys anywhere? The key of D! I pressed it and the correct drawer opened! And there was a moonstone. If he's going through all this trouble to hide it, then I should at the very least take it to spite him"
"Hm" Sirius had been shading the same suction cup for the last 10 minutes now.
"Why don't we go to Liberty Cap Island once we've gotten professor Nostaw sacked and the book back?"
"Why?"
"What do you mean 'why'? Because you're acting like a lovesick puppy, that's why. And taking notes sucks!"
"I said from the beginning that it's not going to work. I never wanted to encourage this and I still don't"
Maybe it was the whole ordeal with the dream association that made James better at putting 2 and 2 together.
"It's just possible that you did it wrong"
"Yeah. Of all the billions of ways you can do it wrong, I did it wrong one way. Now there's one billion ways minus 1 less ways of doing it wrong"
"Maybe reversing the steps isn't at all the way to go. There are other ways to break curses"
"Like what?"
James smirked, only able to come up with one. "True loves' first kiss?"
"If you know where to find an anthropomorphic Encyclopedia Britannica, I'd like to hear it"
The radio was playing in the background.
And that was Leo Sayer with Long Tall Glasses. Now let's see just what song is number 3 on this weeks' Top of Hogsmeade Chart!
The intro to Puppy Love began to play. James tried to suffocate a giggle. A green flashing light hit the radio before the singing even started, breaking it to pieces.
Then Sirius got off the bed.
"Where are you going?" James asked.
"To see Freddie. What was it I had to do? Draw a circle with a piece of chalk and shake hands?" Sirius snagged a book entitled Dealbreaking Rituals from a small table.
The door slammed shut. James left the dorm, catching up with Sirius as he exited the common room.
"Ok, you seem a little tired. Maybe you should take a nap or something" he suggested.
"I've already taken a nap today. Maybe there is one thing in my life that I can set right"
"Now, hang on! How is doing that switcheroo going to make anything better?"
"It will for him, won't it? And the world will get a much nicer 'me'"
"Nice is by far the kindest word for 'boring', is it not?"
"It is. If you would take some French lessons, I would greatly appreciate it. It would make rescuing me from a Parisian cathedral much easier"
James kept arguing all the way down to the sewers.
"Can't you wait, at least? I was really counting on you helping with getting that book back"
"Nice people are also quite helpful, as a rule"
He gave the book to James, got down on the ground and started drawing that circle, calling after Freddie simultaneously.
"If this is about you feeling bad because you failed that thing, don't! Things like that are notoriously difficult! There's a reason it hasn't been done before you! It's not like… he'd be mad or disappointed if he knew"
"How would you know?"
"He's forgiven you for a lot worse"
"Yeah. Now he won't have to forgive me for anything ever again. Freddie!"
"Don't be a drama queen! You've never needed my forgiveness! Don't I count for anything?"
"Of course you do. Say after me: La singe est sur la branche. It's not like it will kill me!"
"No, but…" You won't be as pretty. So, so pretty.
"Hello" said Freddie.
"Step into this circle, will you" said Sirius, averting his eyes because Freddie was just so very hideous.
"What's this?" Freddie asked, abiding.
Wanting to be done with it quickly, Sirius took Freddies' fat and purulent hand. A thick white mist surrounded them like a cocoon, and it shone so brightly that James had to look away.
The results were quite shocking. He looked down at the book, scanning for answers.
"I'm sexy!" said Freddie, looking down at his new body and rubbing his hands all over it. He was perhaps dressed in a sack, but now he kind of made it work.
"So am I! Did he lie to me?" Sirius looked at his normal hands, disappointed. "And I was so prepared to make this noble sacrifice! This sucks!"
"It says right here" said James, book in hand. "That 'he who is intent on taking on the abominable shall receive the reward of great outer beauty, presuming he has learned an important lesson about how beauty is in fact on the inside and in the eyes of the beholder-' Bla, bla, bla. You learned your lesson, yes?"
"Inner beauty means outer beauty, I already knew that"
"See, if you had known this you would have become ugly because you wouldn't have been intent of nobly sacrificing your hotness"
They watched in silence Freddie blissfully run his hands over his new body.
"I feel strangely violated" said Sirius. "And a little turned on, at the same time"
"Sorry" Freddie stopped.
"What are you gonna do now?" James asked. "Start at Hogwarts?"
"I would have to start at year 4, that would be embarrassing" Freddie flicked some hair from his face. Then he started feeling it. "Wow!"
"Year 4?"
"No, I have a better idea! Hang on!" Freddie disappeared for a moment and then came back with a book, opening the back cover. "It's a map over a tropical island that somebody has doodled. Complete with doodles of treasure chests and indigenous women. I want… I want adventure! I want action! I want to live!"
"How did you get that book?" Sirius asked.
Freddie averted his eyes, in slight shame.
"It's not like anybody brings me any food!"
"Are you… are you saying…"
They heard the sound of moaning and followed it to the prison hole. There lied Professor Nostaw, hands and feet having been chewed off and wincing in agony.
"It did eat people!" James gasped.
"It was that or rats, ok!" said Freddie. "He came down here to drop the book off temporarily. I was hungry"
"Please help" said Professor Nostaw pitifully. "I will resign, retract all charges and the boy can come back-"
"Slashy, slashy" Sirius looked down at Professor Nostaws' chewed off hands, waving with his wand. "Hm, must be something left to cut off… People like you shouldn't be allowed to have children…"
He grinned coldly. A look off terror spread across Nostaws' face.
"You're a bloody psychopath!" he stuttered.
"High functioning narcissist. Do your research"