DECEMBER 14 THURSDAY
Duvets flew like ghosts in ghost-panic when the alarm clock went off. The chaps ran to the window, and looked in the trainers they had put there the night before.
When James saw his rotten potato, he threw up his arms in disappointment.
"Unbelievable!"
Sirius, too, threw up his arms in disappointment.
"What did I ever do!"
Meanwhile Remus untied a brown parcel and found a red nutcracker doll. It had clearly been manufactured in Russia because it contained an infinite number of smaller nutcrackers.
Peter had received an aniseed caramel.
"How come you got a present?" James asked Remus. "I mean, it was you who pointed out that Christmas cakes don't smell like soil. You also pointed out that dead flies look a bit like raisins and knew where we could find some: in lamps everywhere!"
"I don't know," said Remus. "Maybe it's cursed somehow!"
"Maybe the Yule Lads decided it was an act of selflessness," Sirius thought.
"I was being selfless, too!" James insisted. "I said: where do we put Snape's soil cake? And Moony said: can't it be Slug's soil cake? And he was pretty persistent about it! He really wanted to humiliate poor old Slug, who's never hurt anybody!"
"The way to be selfless is to think you are undeserving of good things. I know I am not remotely selfless. I completely deserve this rotten potato."
"Me too. A rotten potato is more than I deserve."
"I deserve nothing!"
Baaaaa!
"That was an uncanny impression of a sheep, Wormtail!"
"It wasn't me," said Peter.
They looked away from the window sill, towards the middle of the dorm. A sheep stared back at them sheepishly.
"Where did the sheep come from?" James asked.
"I guess it didn't fit in Moony's trainer!" said Sirius. "That's his ball outfit sorted!"
"But I was going to wear you," said Remus dryly.
"Your breakfast's been served! Bon appetit!"
"Thanks you look delicious."
"Look Moo, while it's true I swing both ways-"
"I meant for a piece of meat!"
"Oh, I know you meant my body!"
Fed up with this, Remus walked past the sheep, to his corner of the dorm, and began to run a brush through his hair.
"Wasn't there a Yule Lad that harassed sheep?" Peter remembered. "Hey! Wait a minute! Maybe that elf harassed this sheep! And then brought it here!"
What in the world were they going to do with the sheep? It just stood there, staring at them and it was creepy! James wondered if it could get aggressive.
"I'm sure it's fine I mean it didn't bite Moony did it?" he said.
"Well of course it didn't!" said Sirius. "The sheep knows who bites who!"
A roll of socks hit Sirius on the nose.
Unable to recall stories of sheep aggression in the papers, James and Sirius decided it was probably safe to go walk past it. They went to their beds and began to get dressed.
"What we need is a collie!" said James knowingly, pulling woolly socks over his feet. "A border collie, ideally! Or a corgy! They are also good herders. Just about any dog, except for poodles. Poodles are only good at looking posh. Poodles are wildly reputed for their vanity and lack of intelligence."
Sirius squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
"My cousin Bella has two poodles. One time a squib was willfully trespassing on her lawn, despite the Please Trespass-sign. Marquis De Sade and Louis XIV tore him apart."
"You know what would have made that story more interesting? If it had been a sheep, and they had herded it."
"They did hear him."
Dressed, brushed, washed, the lot, the chaps set off to have breakfast. At transfiguration class they were turning eggs into eggnog.
"And if you think your mum's had enough," said McGonagall and demonstrated the reverse. "Enougheggnog!"
And lo, the eggnog became an egg. Sirius put up his hand.
"Does it work on Moët & Chandon?"
McGonagall put a large bottle of Moët & Chandon on her desk.
"For Moët & Chandon I recommend the following. Gunpowder! Gelatine!"
And lo, the Moët & Chandon became some gunpowder and some sheets of gelatine. Perfect for a gunpowder mousse.
When break came, the chaps went to the west hall and whipped out their baby.
They attached a string to the blank sheet of paper as well as a sticky note: I am full of secrets. Can you reveal them?
They put it on the floor and went to hid behind some very long curtains, taking the other end of the string with them.
The first person to walk by was Professor Slughorn. He saw the blank scroll and picked it up.
" 'I am full of secrets. Can you reveal them?' "
He whipped out his wand and commanded: "Reveal yourself!"
A shade of ripe strawberry spread across his face.
"WHAT?! How dare you call my mother that?! The milkman was just a close friend! What sort of dark magic is this?! I am beautiful for a sea cow? That is hurtful!"
He pulled at he string, and the chaps pulled back. In the end Professor Slughorn was simply too insulted to bother with it any further. Behind those curtains, the chaps had tears in their eyes.
Fletcher walked past next.
" 'I am full of secrets. Can you reveal them?' "
He beamed with excitement. He flipped it, turned it, smelled it and tasted it.
"Well what sort of secrets?"
He began to scribble on it with his magpie quill.
"WHAT! How dare you? I do NOT smell! Well if I don't take baths it's because there are entire nations without sufficient plumbing systems! The rudeness of this! What is this sorcery? This is nothing more than a cheap copy of that toy, the Insultomax 2000! There, I just revealed your secret! Yes I did! Yes I did! Yes I did! Personally I like greenhouse gases so I don't really see the problem. If the atmosphere really is like an entire greenhouse, how come we can't grow pineapples everywhere? 'Because your gases are causing their mass extinction.' Really nice!"
He stopped bickering with the map and just stared at it intently. He was clearly thinking very hard and he was wasting his time. The password couldn't be guessed, there was no puzzle that could allow for it to be figured out.
Then Fletcher spoke.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no-"
Zap and thud. Fletcher was hit in the chest by two magic knockout beams and toppled backwards. The chaps came out of their hiding place and grabbed their map.
"He can't have just guessed it there's no way anyone could!" said Sirius.
"Fletcher is a very good finder," said Remus.
"But...to just guess it."
"He's just that good."
James looked at his wrist watch. "Well that was fun!"
Then he gave the stunned Fletcher a long look.
"Knocking someone out isn't very nice, is it?"
"Not really, no."
"Well from now on I'm going to be on my best behaviour and that is the truth!"
Remus looked relieved. "That would be a good idea. Those elves are vicious! There is one that licks spoons! Then there is one that is abnormally short! One even has a big nose!"
For the rest of the day, James and Sirius made a genuine effort to be on better behaviour. Not because they were afraid of no Yule Lad, but because they wanted to see what presents they could get out of it.
But it was that time of year when mistletraps started popping up everywhere, a kind of mistletoe that trapped people in a magic forcefield that they could only escape via kissing.
And then there was the sheep in the dorm. A relapse was unavoidable.
That evening they brought the sheep and a mistletrap to the potions dungeons. They put the mistletrap over the door to laboratory A. Then they put some lipstick on the sheep. Then they knocked and ran behind a cupboard with a camera.
Catching Snape snog a sheep was worth dying for. Tomorrow the photograph was going to be on the school paper front page!
"But from now on," said James, as he got into bed, "I'm going to be good. Promise."