Chapter 12: Good Little Children
"What punishment have you given your brother?" Malfoy
stopped to ask the Head Boy in the Charms corridor. David glowered at him. He
didn't particularly like Slytherins, although he tried to act fairly.
"Why should I have
punished him?"
"You don't know?" Malfoy
crowed.
"Know what?" David was really annoyed now.
"About what your baby
brother and his friendies did yesterday?"
"I would have thought it
was quite obvious that I don't. Now either tell me or be on your way."
Lucius pretended to cower
under David's glare. "Oh, well, they beat us up. For no apparent reason. I
think that should get them expelled, don't you?" Having done what he intended
to do, Malfoy walked off. David stared after him, then hurried to the Gryffindor
common room.
Through sheer luck, he had no idea what most of the
school was buzzing about. He, Esmerelda, Luke, Orion and many of their friends
had been out of the room during Sirius' dramatic entrance two days before, and
no one had seen any of the friends since breakfast the day before, as they had
spent the night hidden in their secret room.
As he hurried
towards the Gryffindor common room, he felt the hereditary Potter rage, which
was rare but terrible, building up. How could James do something so stupid?
Malfoy was right, they should have been expelled. He didn't stop to consider
that Malfoy might not have not have told the whole story.
He crashed into the common room, spotted his brother
with his group of friends and walked straight towards them. Instead of shouting
he spoke quietly.
"How could you, James? How could you do something so
awful?" They looked up, startled, then realized with a rush that David must
know of the fight.
"Listen, Dave-" James
began.
"No! I wont listen. You
listen to me. All of you went far beyond the bounds of the acceptable. An
unprovoked attack on the Slytherins! I mean, anybody else would be bad enough,
but the Slytherins? They're going to come down on you doubly as hard for that!"
he paused to draw breath and James tried again.
"That's not-"
"I will NOT listen!" David
exploded.
Suddenly, Lily was on her
feet. "Yes you will!" she shrieked. "You can't make judgements 'til you've
heard the whole story!" David was so shocked that by the idea of a first year
daring to shout at him, the Head Boy, that he actually shut up.
"We were not
unprovoked. They attacked Sirius. Just Sirius, six on one. So obviously we were
angry." Lily continued. "And we figured that Headley wouldn't punish them so we
did it ourselves. And we were right," she finished bitterly.
"What punishment did you
get?" Luke Potter asked sympathetically.
"Four detention," James
answered angrily. "Two hard ones, cleaning the whole hall and preparing a meal
in the kitchens, one easy one, cleaning Dumbledore's suite, and one horrible
one that Headley picked. Even Dumbledore said it was unfair, and Dunworthy's
not speaking to her, but they couldn't back out of the deal."
"What?" Luke said
expectantly.
"Helping the Slytherin
team practice Quidditch. On the school brooms." There was an empathetic
silence. It really was a horrible detention: the Slytherin – Gryffindor
Championship decider was played in a fortnight, and they would be helping their
enemies win. Not only that; the Slytherins would doubtlessly use them as Beater
practice and the school brooms were notoriously slow. No one doubted they would
come back badly bruised, if not worse.
"And what did the
Slytherins get?" Orion Black asked tightly.
"Three detentions each,
picked by Headley, and they lost 10 points each. We lost 20 each."
"How'd they manage that!"
Esmerelda exploded. "They attacked Siri!"
"Dumbledore had to a deal
not to get us expelled, 'cos Headley said we should have gone straight to a
teacher, and she wouldn't back down," Remus explained dully.
"At least this way we got
them back. Anyone seen Malfoy's face?" James said, but he couldn't make himself
or his friends feel better. The whole of Gryffindor House was upset, even those
that didn't like the first year gang, and it was because of one reason: It
Wasn't Fair!
*********************************
What they hadn't told the other Gryffindors was they
last condition: they were on parole until the end of term, two months away. One
major step out of line and it was the end of their wizarding careers. Their only option was to become Good Little
Children; to act as innocent and law-abiding as the rest of the still over-awed
first years. As they had never naturally been like this they found it quite
hard. The teachers noticed no major changes: homework was still never in on
time, but at most it was a couple of days late; tricks were still played, but
they were muted, easily reversible things, not like the ingenious ones they had
thought up before; and they seemed to go out of their way to avoid fights with
the Slytherins, who provoked them incessantly now they new it was safe.
However, these were the only times when watchers got a fleeting view of the
real friends, betrayed by a slight flash in Lily's eyes, a drawn look on Remus'
face as he placed a hand on a tensed up James' arm, Sirius' fists clenched by
his side, and even a determined setting of Peter's mouth before they all turned
away, resisting the temptation. They had no intention of getting expelled now
for a seemingly minor offence. This hadn't
stopped them from vowing revenge next year.
The detentions were the most difficult of the many
they had had to do so far, and they had many. Cleaning the great hall was
easier than they had expected, as the teachers had taken pity on them and
cleaned it partially by magic before they let them start. The supposedly 'easy'
task, cleaning Dumbledore's suite, had been unbelievably long and difficult,
but it was interesting enough to make up for that.
When they had entered the first of Dumbledore's
rooms, a sitting room, they had been astounded at the mess. It looked like
Dumbledore had not cleaned for several years, but this was impossible, as he
had only moved in that year upon becoming Headmaster, so he had only been
living there for a few months. He had led them in, instructed them on a few
private things not to touch, then left them, open mouthed, to start. They had
cleaned for an entire Sunday, but they honestly didn't mind as Dumbledore had
so many interesting things in his room, and he had returned in the afternoon.
They were able to ask him what everything was, and a hundred other questions
besides. Later they had agreed that they had learned more, and more advanced,
magic in that one afternoon than the rest of the school year.
The kitchen detention was utterly hilarious. Before
the evening meal the Saturday after the fight, they had had to direct the House
Elves, who had been ordered to do nothing unless they were told, to in the
making of the meal, as they obviously could not prepare it all themselves. But
they had to set and clean away the tables and do the washing up all by
themselves, the 'Muggle Way' as James complained bitterly.
"I bet you never had to do
any washing up in your life, James," Lily had accused.
"Nope," James had grinned.
"Spoilt little rich kid!"
Lily sneered, starting off one of their infamous arguments, which ended up in a
soap fight. It was fun, even if they did have to clean it up afterwards.
Sirius had done all the detentions with them, as he
had said that if it had been one of them attacked he would have done exactly
the same thing. But they had to throw him out of this detention, as he kept
eating the food and scaring the House Elves. Even so, he snuck back in after
the meal and kept playing tricks on his diligently working friends.
When Sirius covered a pile full of James' newly
washed plates with slime, James finally snapped. "OUT!" he yelled, "OR I'LL
TELL HEADLEY YOU ATTACKED SNAPEY FIRST!" The House Elves cowered in the corners
as Sirius backed out of the kitchen, but not before he had turned James' robes
pink. But they still felt that the detentions so far had been worth it, because
they now knew where and how the kitchens were hidden, meaning they could have
food whenever they wanted it.
However, their last detention was as abominable as
they expected. Sirius joined them in this as well, despite their protests. The Slytherin's
did use them as Beater practice, taunting them the whole time. And as the
school brooms were so much slower than newer brooms, they all came back with
bruises, except James, who broke his leg as well as getting bruised.
He fell to the floor, crying out in pain, while the Slytherin
team laughed maliciously. His friends flew to his side, and Remus, taking one
look at the injury, flew of to the castle on his infuriatingly slow broom to
get Madame Pomfrey. While the others were waiting, Lily and Sirius had to keep
themselves focused on James to stop themselves from killing the still-laughing Slytherins,
and it seemed like hours before Madame Pomfrey arrived. She took all five
bruised and battered and slightly hysterical Gryffindors up to the Hospital
Wing, and even though she was new that year and only an assistant, mended James'
leg within seconds. She then took one look at the others and put them all off
to bed, in the Hospital Wing, at only seven o'clock. When she came back ten
minutes later with warm milk, they were all fast asleep, exhausted from the
strain of being so good.