Chapter 106

Braggart

James woke with a start his elbow throbbing. He looked around the room bleary eyed, blinking far too much.

A lesser man would have been terrified at the situation he found himself. He simply yawned.

"Fairy wings." He said before resting his head on his upright fist. Sirius let out a poorly concealed snort.

McGonagall looked like a vain her forehead would pop. It was enough confirmation of his answer for him.

"Detention, Potter," was all she could say.

"Did I get it right?" James gave her an innocent look. She turned on him her eyes narrow and the corners of her lips turned down.

"Boost your ego on your own time, Potter." She returned to the chalkboard and began to write.

"I did then." He couldn't resist, not with everyone looking at him. A few laughed others looked at him in awe.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor. Keep it up, Potter, and it'll be thirty more." McGonagall didn't even look back.

There was a cry of outrage, James wasn't part of the cry, but he felt it. Twenty points? For disrupting a class? If you could even call it that.

"You heard me." She finally turned to the class that quickly went quiet. "We're here to learn transfiguration, not to admire your magical abilities. This is your only warning."

James looked at Sirius who rolled his eyes and shrugged, his eyes still on the chalkboard and his quill writing notes on it's own. Sirius was determined to keep his grade in transfig from going any lower. He'd worked hard for a passing grade, and the failed test last term had dropped it dangerously low.

James sighed his eyelids drooping again. He peeked at the textbook on his desk. On the outside it was no different than everyone else's, but it wasn't transfiguration charts and spells he was looking at. For the last three classes he'd transfigured an animegi textbook's cover to look like the appropriate textbook for the class. Sirius had somehow arranged their seats so that James was on one end and Remus on the other without looking suspicious to even James who knew he was doing it.

The truth was they were stuck.

One day back and they had already hit a wall. Sirius had found it that morning as the rest of them were still sleeping. They needed back into the room of requirement but it was impossible at the moment. Not without getting caught, the moon was full enough that Moony was sleeping too lightly to sneak out but not full enough for him to be too tired to care.

They considered having Wormtail run up on one of his many breaks, but took one look at Peter and knew that would be an exercise of fruitlessness. Peter couldn't have understood the problem, let alone the solution.

James was trying to reread the official Animagus transformation textbook to see if they'd missed something, though they were positive they hadn't. They'd probably be dead by now if they'd skipped a step, but that was the only explanation for the text in the next chapter. It references a month long process that they'd never seen in any of the books, not a one.

Peter thought it might be be a well guarded secret, a training session in the ministry that they swore all trainees to secrecy about in an attempt to prevent others from going outside the law. The others found this hard to believe, wizards were not good at keeping secrets. No real wizard could resist having the juiciest gossip around.

Sirius had written his uncle about it, in a code that befuddled even James just in case the letter was read. Alfred Black was an odd fellow. According to Sirius Alphard hated him for being a blood traitor but loved him for infuriating his mother on a regular basis.

It wasn't exactly the foundation for a healthy relationship, but Sirius assured he could be trusted. He had attempted to illegally become an animagus himself after all. It didn't hurt of course that Sirius was the only one who knew this even if Sirius didn't outright threaten anything the implications were there.

James peeked over at Sirius, who was trying very hard to not fall asleep. His quill's writing was becoming sloppy.

James picked up the quill and looked over the notes rewriting the parts that were unreadable.

"Show off." Sirius muttered at him, he just chuckled in response. "Any luck."

James gave him a sarcastic look. "Oh yeah, I've learned loads. That's why I'm fixing your notes in an attempt to keep from falling asleep." He whispered.

"I wonder if McGonagall has any notes laying around." Sirius didn't sound hopeful.

"She'd know if someone took something. Even some scraps of paper." James finished with Sirius' paper and handed it back now that he was awake enough to take his own.

Instantaneously he was bored again.

"Probably." Sirius yawned tapping his quill with his wand so it continued taking notes better than he ever could have.

James sighed unconsciously doodling on his text book, the girl in front of him had long, curly ginger hair. A Weasley, going by the embarrassing state of her robes (Remus' looked better.) The hair in question was a very enticing target for a spell. A fire spell would be fun. But McGonagall's threat was still in his head. He wasn't losing fifty points in one class. No matter how quickly he could earn it back. He'd been in Hogwarts for three full years now, and despite his obvious skill they'd yet to win either the quidditch cup or the house cup.

He refused to listen to the team's claims that it was because he missed a good third of practice and games while in detention. It wasn't his fault if they were helpless without him.

Though the thought made him smile. He practically carried that team on his back. Even Sirius wasn't nearly as good as he was.

He'd noticed that girls seemed to like it when he messed his hair up even more than it already was, one heaven told him it made him look like he'd just got off his broom.

He was desperate to try it on Evans.

The bell went off and McGonagall gave them a ridiculous amount of homework ("Your OWLS will be here before you know it") and they finally piled out of the classroom.

"What class is next?" James asked, he knew the answer but couldn't be bothered to think about it.

"History." Remus answered, his books held tightly to his chest like the nerd he pretended to be. Remus was a funny character when James really thought about it. He had all the qualities of a nerd but could be just as mischievous as Sirius sometimes. Most of their best pranks were Remus' idea: adding dye to the prefects bathtub, turning all the feathers in the charms classroom into frogs, hiding Professor Aaron's wig in Rosier's bookbag...

The Marauders never got caught when attempting one of Remus' pranks.

James groaned. "Whoever thought it was a good idea to put History of Magic right after Transfiguration needs to be petrified."

"Better then the other way around." Sirius shrugged.

"That's it." James exclaimed as though he'd just had a revelation. "I'm skiving off. I'll read the chapter in the textbook or something."

"James." Remus gave him a look, it was the closest thing Remus came to telling them off. It just looked wrong on his scarred face.

"What? If I go I'll just fall asleep, at least this way I can be a little productive." James shrugged, his disguised textbook in his hand, and turned away heading up the stairs leading to the common room until they were out of sight before turning in the direction of the room of requirement. At least the stupid roadblock in their training gave him a reason to skip History of Magic.

James just hoped it didn't end up killing them all.

A/N) James' ego is finally showing up, because I'm tired of writing an ooc James. I'm trying to get them all back in character, especially James and Remus, and actually letting Peter be a character now rather than just a cameo here and there. In that effort I'm playing around with third person, multiple for the POV, rather than the sometimes omnipresent sometimes POV I've been doing before. It started with Peter's third person (chapter 103) than Remus' now James, next Sirius. I'm going to attempt to keep that as a pattern so it's not so focused on Sirius all the time. Let me know if it's working alright. I get a ton of reviews saying something like this story's awesome, or I love your writing, which I appreciate more than you know, but it doesn't help me improve my writing any, which honestly is the reason I write fanfiction in general sometimes. So let me know if you see me mess up somewhere, I'm awful at punctuation, or if I did particularly good on a chapter.

If half the stuff I just said didn't make any sense to you or you don't think your opinion is worth as much as I do (which is a lot btw) just let me know what your favorite part of the chapter was, or if there was something you hated. I'd love to hear what I should include more of and it would be awesome to know what to avoid entirely.

You're the ones who read this (sometimes in one sitting so I've heard, and to that I have to say... wow, just wow. You guys are impressive and you have my deepest respects and humblest thanks) and I want to make it as good as I possibly can to deserve all y'all's time.

Thank you all for supporting me through over a hundred chapters! I couldn't have done it without you. ^_^