Chapter 67

Dealing With the Poltergeist

Everyone knew about the tea leaves, the entire school came to Lilly to ask about the sign, none of them were going to ask Sirius except for those that already knew him personally, and even some of them didn't ask him about it.

No one knew what it meant.

The teacher had been unable to give Lilly an answer. Every once in a while you would get a dud cup, one that didn't really mean anything, but never would you get a dud cup with such a clear picture on it. She looked though their textbook, she looked though all the books she had in the room, there was no hint this picture even existed in the world of tea leaves. It scared him. Whatever it was it could not be good. He looked at it and a sense of dread filled him. What if it was some kind of rare death omen or something. Even James couldn't shrug it off. James has never believed in fortune telling, but when he saw the cup after Sirius showed it to him he felt his hair stand on end, though he had no idea what it meant either.

He tried to tell Sirius it was no big deal though, to make his friend feel better.

Their plans for a Halloween prank kind of went down with Sirius' mood. They didn't do it, it really wasn't worth the risk at the moment. With Peeves pressing down on them chances are they would get expelled or something. James was a little worried they would think they finally knocked down the Marauders.

The biggest thing that kept Sirius going was the animegi studies each full moon night. They went down to the room of requirement to study, it had a few books of it's own to share some information on the subject.

"Okay so we know what we need to get started, now how do we get started?" James asked as they sat in the bean bag chairs that littered the room to make it a more comfortable study place.

"Well we have to figure out what our animal forms will be before we can start becoming them."

"How do we do that?"

"I'm not sure, the book has a potion but it's really complicated and it has to be outside and we really can't risk that unless we take it to the forbidden forest and that isn't a good idea. Any animal could come along and ruin it, and with Peeves running around we'll get caught."

"Isn't there any other way to find out?"

"Maybe it's our favorite animals?" Peter suggested.

"No, it has more to do with our personalities than our favorites." Sirius answered reading though another book.

"Bet you half my bank account Sirius will be a dog."

"Shut up, James!" Sirius dropped his head into the book.

James laughed.

"What about patronus?" Peter tried again

"What?"

"Well we learned about them in DADA the other day. The things that ward off dementors, don't they take shape from our personalities also?"

Sirius didn't answer right away.

"I think Peter might be on to something, Si."

"It might work."

"Can't hurt to try." James suggested.

"Never say that while trying to become an animegi, James, because chances are it can and will hurt."

"Okay, so what are the objections to trying a patronus?"

"Well I'm not sure, this book says that other methods can be used, so it is possible it could work. The biggest problem is that no matter how good of a patronus you make you will never know everything about that animal because you'll never see the color of it. Patronus are always silver no matter what."

"Do we have any other options?"

"Not really."

"Let's try it then." James stood and began to pace. "We need to learn how to make a patronus." He said suddenly a new bookshelf appeared and James went over it. He pulled out one called FindingYourPatronusMemories "Well are we ready?"

"I hope so."

RLRLRLRLRLRL

Remus woke that morning looking at three very tired looking friends.

"What did you do all night?" He asked wincing at the weakness in his voice.

"Nothing important Rem." Sirius said sitting at his feet, James stifled a chuckle.

"Okay."

"We brought you some chocolate." James handed Sirius a bag.

"Thanks."

Remus watched them that day, trying to figure out what was more important than their sleep. They didn't give any clues so he assumed it was one of Sirius' nightmares again. Then he started trying to figure out why they all the sudden came back.

"We need to do something about Peeves." James said standing and pacing the common room distracting Remus from his thoughts.

"Like what? It's not like we can banish him or anything." Sirius said. He was sitting sideways in one of the chairs watching James pace back and forth.

"Maybe we can recruit him. Turn him into Marauder material."

"How do you plan on doing that?" Remus said looking around him to make sure no one could hear them.

"Convince him to prank someone. Isn't it natural for poltergeist to you know stir up trouble?"

"He is stirring up trouble. Trouble with me."

"Let's see if we can redirect that trouble."

"I can't imagine it happening, James."

"Can't hurt to try."

"You really need to stop saying that."

"Whatever. Are you guys willing to try? What else are we going to do all year? Homework?"

"Oh no not homework." Remus said sarcastically.

"Exactly" James said ignoring the sarcasm.

"I guess there really is no reason to not try. I'm up for it."

"This isn't going to work, but I'll go for it."

"Me too." Peter said worried about being left out.

They went to find Peeves, which was harder then they expected.

He ended up being in the great hall telling off a few first years for laughing to loud while others were trying to study.

"Peeves, come here." James said with an authority that rivaled McGonagall.

Peeves did as he was told and followed them out of the great hall.

"You're doing this all wrong man." James told the poltergeist shaking his head and looking disappointed.

"What?" Peeves looked curious.

"There's only one way to teach first years to be quiet."

"How's that?"

"Drop water balloons on their head!" Sirius said excitedly, answering before James could.

"What?" Peeves looked confused now. "That's not allowed."

"What's worse, them making all kinds of noise and distracting the students from something so important as studying, or letting a couple kids get wet."

"Well..."

"Come on, man. You're the only one that can do it. We'll all get in trouble."

"Peeves looked unsure."

"Look mate, we've learned that what we were doing was wrong." Sirius said lying though his teeth. "We want to help them, but we aren't aloud, we don't want to do what we aren't aloud to. You taught us that, go do the same for them."

Peeves finally nodded and headed though the ceiling.

"You think he's going to get water balloons or Filtch."

"The water balloons."

When Peeves got back they watched him drop the balloons on the first year's heads. They laughed so hard. Peeves came back to them while they were still laughing.

"That was great man. You're a natural."

"Natural at what?"

"Making people laugh. You'd be a great prankster."

"Pranks aren't aloud."

"I know, it's horrible, it's like no one is aloud to laugh."

"Laugh?"

"Ya, that's the purpose of practical jokes, to make people laugh."

"Really?"

"Ya, it's a completely innocent pass time, and I can tell by your face you enjoyed it."

"It was fun."

"See, and it made everyone laugh. What is wrong with that?"

"I don't know."

"That's what you should do, you should spend your time making people laugh, not make them cry because they have so many detentions."

"I don't like crying."

"Neither do I mate."

"Make people laugh. Okay that's more fun."

"Ya." Peeves zoomed off, hopefully to resign from doing Filtch's dirty work.

"You two are extremely manipulative." Remus shook his head at them with an amused smile.

James smirked. "Just doing our school a favor." He looked at Sirius, but Sirius wasn't paying attention.

Sirius had his voice running though his head.

"You are rather manipulative for a Gryffindor.".

"That skill could be quite useful to me."

He'd been hearing Voldemort's voice in his head a lot since that day in Knockturn Ally. Heard it even more often in his dreams, though it was usually saying something else in his dreams. Telling him what to do telling them why he should join him. Reminding him of the protection his friends would gain. Sirius tried to push it from his mind but he couldn't do it. He knew his friends were in danger, he knew that Remus would be completely hopeless after graduation without James' help. He could think of no way to help. No way but this. This was such a strong push though. Was he willing to become a murderer for Remus. For James?

He knew he'd kill anyone who tried to kill them, was this really all that different?

Of course it was Voldemort's people killed innocents, he could never do that.

Could he?