Chapter Fourteen

Fact: The Gossip Mill of Hogwarts is extremely dysfunctional.

What began as a casual whisper about Lily Evans' sexual harassment initiated by Matthew Brenden, a sixth year Ravenclaw, which she had fended off most viciously with a few choice flicks of her wand, soon mushroomed into an epic battle between the said Lily Evans in a tight, spandex bodysuit with the Dark Lord and his minions, including Brenden and an entire crowd of spiders, enchanted to perform the Swan Lake ballet as a distraction. The real Lily Evans, trapped in the body of James Potter, after hearing of the news from other unreliable sources, could only stare and raise her eyebrows when the tale was retold continuously, somehow getting more distorted and perverted each time.

"Then, apparently, Evans tried to seduce Voldemort with her bright red hair and perfectly shaped thighs and started giving him a lap dance, using it as a distraction. So while he was gazing at her and probably enjoying the sight too, the sod, she started shooting spells over his slimy head at his little puppets, especially at the spider who was playing the main princess in Swan Lake–"

"A lap dance?" Lily repeated, rather delayed in her reaction. She hadn't caught much after that. "Are you sure this is how it went? It sounds bloody ridiculous!" Either this girl was completely making up a story from her perverted mind or James Potter had gone out in her body and committed ridiculous and degrading acts mentioned above.

"I don't know for sure," began Bexley with a side glance, tugging on her ponytail, "but I heard this from Yeomen, you know the Hufflepuff seeker, and she doesn't lie. Most of the time. You know."

"Right," breathed Lily, leaning back awkwardly in her armchair while crossing her arms. "Because Yeomen clearly witnessed Evans giving Voldemort a lap dance in the middle of the Hogwarts corridor. I'm sure that's how it went."

Sirius protested, "Well, it could've–"

"That's a load of rubbish," Lily cut in swiftly without another thought. She balanced a quill on her upper lip distractedly, marking the conversation as a waste of her time. "How could spiders perform Swan Lake anyway? They couldn't be en pointe, having no toes and all."

"Did you just say Ann pointy?"

"En pointe," insisted Lily, punctuating the pointe part of the phrase. She fancied herself knowing loads about ballet since, as a child of three, she had participated in ballet. But of course, only to have quit a year later. "It's when the ballerinas balance on the tips of their toes. Really hard."

"The Martin Anthems do that sometimes, Sirius," Bexley added with a nod. "You remember when you went to their concert and you told me they were doing twirls standing on their toes?" Sirius nodded eagerly, obviously recollecting the memory happily.

"How could spiders do that? Like I said, they don't even have toes."

"Don't discriminate against spiders," Sirius argued with a disagreeable frown. He crossed his arms and stuck out his chin, his usual battle stance when debating about a ridiculous subject. "They're our mates, you know, not food."

"Why the hell would they be food? That's disgusting."

"I just assumed you thought them as food," responded Sirius with a shrug, exhaling loudly as if Lily was simply being a stupid child, "since you're a bloke who regularly eats his own bogeys. Exotic taste, I thought."

"And you would know," Lily shot back quickly in a dead voice, staring up at the ceiling and acting as if such a conversation was not worth her valuable time, which it probably wasn't. Sirius spluttered out loads of other words, but she was much too distracted at staring at the deep scar in the ceiling and wondering of its origins.

"So are you going to finish the story, Bexley?" Sirius eventually demanded after he tired of throwing crumpled parchment balls at Lily's head to catch her attention and heap more abuse on her. The two began to chatter away, Bexley with furious gesticulations and expressive features while Sirius gaped on in awe, watching her eyebrows arch dramatically at the required moments.

"Remus," Lily began, nudging the subdued boy sitting beside her while gazing at the two in disgust. "Is Sirius honestly that gullible or does he just like ridiculous lies?"

"Not really sure," Remus murmured back, his nose firmly stuck in a book which didn't seem too interesting to Lily. "But if I had to bet, I'd say he just likes pretending outrageous stories are real so he can tease people, cruelly using the stories as twisted evidence."

"That sounds just like what he would do."

"I know."

"He's such a git."

"I know."

"Will you two stop talking as if I'm not sitting right in front of you, having two wonderful ears to hear what you're muttering to each other?" Sirius interrupted in irritation, looking back at Remus and Lily in their respectable armchairs. The two exchanged knowing glances and looked back at Sirius.

"No," they answered in synchronization with a snicker from Remus.

"You two are gits," Sirius grumbled, turning to Bexley and muttering, "Aren't they gits?" as if she was expected to give a truthful answer. The girl merely shrugged and giggled when Lily made a face while Sirius wasn't looking.

"You are a git," Sirius insisted again when he found the source of Bexley and Remus' amusement, whirling around to face Lily threateningly. "I'm going to kill you in your sleep."

"Oh, I'd like to see you try, Black," laughed Lily, tossing a parchment ball at Sirius' head in return for his previous courtesy when he wasn't looking.

"I am going to shove your bloody head in a–"

"Oh, my mates are here," Bexley exclaimed, flopping up from her seat and grabbing her bag. She waved at the group of girls who had just entered the portrait hole. "I'll talk to you lot later. My regards to James' poor head."

"Thanks Bexley," Lily huffed, pushing Sirius off her while Sirius bellowed, "I thought you were on my side!" Remus merely waved with a slight smile and closed his book, leaning forward to break the two rowdy boys apart and to stop them from causing further damage on each other.

"What's the damage report here?" he inquired with an exasperated sigh. "A paper cut?"

"And a stretched sock!" complained Sirius, pulling his feet to Remus' face so he could see the damage. "These were my favorite ones with the red Beaters stitched on the side with the clouds and that monster–" He wildly gesticulated towards Lily. " –ruined it!"

"It's a bloody sock! Get over it, you wanker!"

"It is a sock, Sirius," Remus said, giving Sirius a reassuring pat on the back as if that would help his poor stretched his sock. "It was time to let it go for laundry day anyway."

After settling down Sirius' heightened emotions due to his attachment on socks with Quidditch parts stitched on them, Lily and Remus in crimson armchairs while Sirius sat on the arms of the chairs between them, they quietly watched the fire, dancing from sudden breezes.

"Where's Peter?" Sirius inquired, breaking the comfortable silence. Lily remained staring into the fire.

"Probably with Amy," dismissed Remus as he came up to the surface, then sinking back into his book. "Out in the grounds maybe."

"Why?" Lily gasped, watching the leaf-riddled branches tap the Gryffindor Tower's window. "It's freezing out!"

"Oh, you know Peter's for all the generic things." Sirius rolled his eyes. "Can't go for a quick snog in a broom closet, oh no, he has to have a whole date thing planned out. He probably took her to a walk out into the grounds and is probably doing interesting things under an oak tree right now."

"Thank you for the imagery," inputed Remus in a distracted voice.

"You are," Sirius remarked, "very welcome." He exchanged a grin with Lily and they gave each other a high five discreetly. Remus informed them he had eyes and could see them giving each other high fives.

"So," Sirius began, rubbing his two hands together with a devious expression, "what do you want to do today? It's a low-key night for homework, after all." He was peering at a group of forth-year girls who were uncommonly pretty, chattering among themselves and giggling, attempting to complete their assignment, having no idea that a dark-haired boy was staring at them.

"Then shouldn't we be studying...?" Lily inquired slowly with a raise of her eyebrows. She had even leaned down to retrieve her bag and the bunches of textbooks lying in a heap beside her armchair. Sirius broke his happy gaze from the girls and shot Lily such a shocked look she dropped the Potions textbook back onto the pile.

"James! What happened to your Marauder spirit?" Sirius seemed genuinely shocked and distressed.

"Er, turned sensible?"

"Not in the vocabulary of a Marauder, mate," insisted Sirius, reaching over and turning Lily's head towards the group of girls. "Now look at those girls. What is your Marauder spirit driving you to do now?"

"It's driving you to say that you should stop undressing the poor girls with their perverted eyes," Lily answered dryly, tugging her head out of Sirius' grip. "You are so obvious."

"And you're not?" Sirius looked amused and leaped to his feet. "'Oh, Lily, Lily, please go on a date with me.' 'Oh, Evans, you're so pretty.' 'Oh Lily, please may I lick your shoes and wipe your mouth for you?'" Sirius' impressions were quite amusing and Lily strained herself so much in trying to suppress her laughter, she turned bright red which Sirius took as blushing.

"James, you're bright red," teased Sirius. "What's the matter?"

"Oh, shut up," Lily mumble, ruffling her hair instinctively. Sirius snickered.

"So what do you want to do?" Sirius questioned again when the novelty of teasing Lily, the supposed James, about herself wore off. "Exploding Snap? Chess? Quidditch?"

Remus leaned back to glance out the window. "It's already dark outside and besides, much too cold for Quidditch."

"Gobstones?" Sirius offered, kicking the arms of the armchair with his feet and jostling Lily. She glared at him, a look he dismissed easily with a wave of his hand. "You know, we haven't played that in a while–"

"Because your gobstones spit stuff up my nostrils," Remus interjected darkly.

"Oh, I remember that! That was, um, unfortunate," Sirius sniggered, but murmured, "Might have jinxed them to aim there, but could be an accident..."

"What could be an accident?"

"Peter! Well met, mate! Well met!" Sirius cried enthusiastically, leaping from his make-shift chair and patting the pudgier boy on the back. Peter's cheeks were shaded a rosy red and the skin on his hands were blistered by a brutal wind. His hair was tossed around wildly and stuck up in odd directions as if someone had been running her hands through them. He had an arm's load of navy-colored boxes and an irritated look.

"I told you to stop punching me in the back," he snapped at Sirius, dropping the boxes in Lily's lap. "It bloody hurts, you know!"

"Ah, sorry, sorry," Sirius apologized like he did every time Peter had complained and grinned deviously. "And don't you look rather sexed up today. Was it the wind, Peter, that did that to your hair?"

"Shove off, you git," scowled Peter, unwrapping a scarf and dropping it next to his coat on the ground. He pulled an armchair that had a fourth year sitting in it closer to his mates and bribed away the boy with a Sickle.

"Where'd you get all the Bertie Bott's, Peter?" Lily inquired in surprise, staring at her lap which was heaped with boxes of uniform size.

"Nicked it," grinned Peter with some pride. "There was a group of brown-nosing Slytherins hanging around the dungeons and they left these at Slughorn's desk."

"Stolen from a professor's desk?" Sirius wiggled his eyebrows, slowly picking up a box from Lily's lap and examining it. His mouth stretched into a wide smirk. "You're getting trickier everyday, Petey boy."

"And I have this too," Peter mumbled, leaning over and pulling a small package from his bag, loosely wrapped. "Here, catch."

Sirius caught it deftly, staring at the cellophane wrapper curiously. "What is it?"

"A pinch of Slughorn's favorite crystallized pineapples," Peter announced, rubbing his hands together whether from deviousness or the chill. Sirius quickly unwrapped one and popped it in his mouth, passing it on to Remus. "Just a little cherry on top. How is it?"

"Not bad," Sirius said slowly, licking his fingers thoughtfully.

"Pure, disgusting yet delicious, sugar," remarked Lily, throwing in her two cents as she bit into a piece carefully.

"They taste sort of peculiar," Remus murmured, setting aside his book and wrinkling his nose. "Are you sure Slughorn didn't opened this before? Because it tastes too much like him."

"And you know what Slughorn tastes like because...?" Sirius said slowly, leaving the question open-ended, waiting for Remus to fill in the answer. Remus merely scowled. "Are we really going down into the dungeons to ask Professor Slughorn about the Potions essay Remus, or are we doing naughty things in a cauldron with a certain professor?"

Peter and Lily gagged while Remus, with a look of exasperated disgust, threw a crystallized pineapple at Sirius' head, watching it stick to his hair. "Are we really scrubbing the trophy room during detention Sirius, or are we doing naughty things with Filch and Mrs. Norris in his office?"

"Remus Lupin!" Sirius gasped while Peter and Lily exchange sick looks. Remus looked proudly smug.

"Well, it's not like it's a secret, Sirius..."

"Well, it's not like McGonagall is giving you O's because you're smart, Remus, just that you're good at giving sexual favors..."

"Sirius Black, I will–"

"Share jelly beans with you!" Peter cut in quickly, shoving a handful in Remus' hands while Lily did the same to Sirius hurriedly. "I can't remember the last time we had a Bertie Bott's night!"

"That's because I woke up with a gray one shoved up my nose and had to get it removed by Madame Pomfrey," Remus remarked sourly. "Do you know how embarrassing that was? She was clucking at me and asking me how that happened the entire time!"

"Oh, but that's the fun of it–"

"And you lot almost died and had to spend two days in the Hospital Wing," Remus finished with a firm nod. Sirius glanced down at the handful of brightly colored beans then looked back up at his best mates.

"Well, did we miss classes?" Sirius questioned.

"Yes."

"Then it's really not that bad, is it?" Sirius remarked with a smirk. He pulled up a green jelly bean with flecks of gray. "What do you think this one is?"

"I don't know," answered Lily who had been looking through the jelly bean box quietly, "why don't you try it?"

– – – – –

Day 7 of Switching Bodies–

"Oh, everyone watch out! She's coming! Lily Evans is coming! She's going to kill your Swan Lake spiders if you don't move!"

"Sod off, McDonald," growled James, shoving his wand back into his bag while he watched a group of boys squeak and dash away to the opposite direction away from James. He couldn't say he was enjoying all this attention.

"What? Just warning them."

"Stop feeding the rumors," he insisted fiercely. "Do you know a second year ran away from me last night?"

"Well, he had a good reason to," joked Mary, winking cheekily at James, disregarding his irritated expression altogether. "You might have given him a lap dance, the poor kid."

"How do people even come up with these things?" James grumbled as they entered the Great Hall and seated themselves on the long bench. Emmeline took his left while Mary his right.

"Because they're sick, perverted, and twisted," Mary announced cheerfully, helping herself to a bit of toast. "And speak of the devil..."

"McDonald, might want to scrape that mold off your face," came the perfectly amiable call from Sirius Black's mouth accompanied by a cheeky wink, "or it'll bloom into a big mushroom!"

"Oh, shut the hell up, Black," Mary shot back in a soft, lilting tone one usually uses on a crush. Sirius slid into the seat beside her with a wide grin, happy as if she had pronounced her undying love for him instead of telling him off.

"Emmeline, can you pass me the marmalade?" Remus remarked with a yawn, sitting across from Sirius while Peter beside him, Lily on the end across from Emmeline.

"Sure," agreed Emmeline, sliding the bright orange jellied mass towards the boy politely. She beamed at Lily and inquired, "Did you hear about the Holyhead Harpies?"

"Oh, that captain had a pretty arse," Sirius announced obnoxiously, spewing crumbs across the table and smearing jam on Mary's cheek. Remus threw a roll at his head with a scowl.

"Don't talk about vulgar things with your vulgar mouth full of vulgar things, Sirius," he admonished with a look of utter disgust. "And it's called chewing. Maybe you've heard of it?"

Sirius pinched his nose shut and said in a comically nose-clogged voice, "And there's also this thing called toothpaste, Remus, maybe you've heard of it?" Mary chuckled.

"Oh, Emmeline, did you finish that Charms essay?" Peter inquired despairingly. "Please tell me you have."

"Of course." Emmeline popped a crumb in her mouth. "Why?"

"I've forgotten about it completely and you owe me a favor for that Transfiguration assignment–"

"Here, it's in my bag, but you better copy it quick–"

"Read it out for me, will you?"

"Sirius, you have a leaf in your hair." Mary interrupted Sirius and Remus' bickering, leaning over and picking a stray leaf out of the boy's hair. "Why do you have a leaf in your hair?"

"Morning tumble?" suggested Sirius with a cheeky grin. "You know what they say, the early bird gets the worm–"

"So are we going for bestiality so soon?" Mary questioned with an equally cheeky expression, shining a wide smile at the shocked boy. "I thought you would've held out longer or perhaps gone for an animal with a vagina. Worms? I don't think they have one–"

"Hey James, throw me a bit of that toast–"

"I can't believe you said bloody bestiality during breakfast, McDonald–"

"To complete this charm, you must first–"

"Mail's here!"

"How do you know worms don't have vaginas! Don't discriminate!"

"Lily."

Lily paused and glanced up from staring at the parchment the owl had smoothly dropped onto her lap, meeting James' eye swiftly. She nodded at the parchment, acknowledging she had received the same.

"Ready?" she inquired, smoothing the letter out with her palms. He nodded firmly with a ridiculously excited smile.

"Of course. Let's go."

Stealthily, the two rose from the table, stepping over the seats, and gave a tentative peek behind their shoulders, watching their mates bicker and debate and overall, get along with each other perfectly. Snickering, they slipped out of the Great Hall, leaving their clueless mates who hadn't noticed their disappearance at all.

"You would know if worms have vaginas or not, you're the one who's had sex with them!"

"Merlin, that's bloody disgusting! What's wrong with your mind, McDonald?"

"What's wrong with humans, Black?"

"Remus, she's being mean to me!"

"Oh, shut up, you lot! You're loud!"

"Your worm vagina's loud!"

If you squint, you might be able to realize there is a certain line from Finding Nemo. But only if you squint. And it's not mine, just in case you were wondering.

Was this crack? Maybe. Was it funny? Probably. Was it fast? Yes.

This was longer than usual; what a surprise. Hope it was a nice one for you.