Chapter Nine – To Have Paradise Taken Away

"I… I… I don't know what to say… Am I seeing things, or is this room really full of crates that are bursting at the rim with dungbombs?"

"You aren't seeing things James. At least not things that I'm not seeing too! And not just dungbombs look, frogspawn soap, nose biting teacups, and hiccup sweets too! So this is what heaven is like."

"You never thought you'd see heaven did you?"

"Nope. You can imagine what a surprise it is for me to have actually made it. But wait, did we die, I don't remember the pain."

"Me neither, but it must have happened. Maybe right now, there's some guy in China digging our graves..."

"With our legs… I don't think so."

"Okay, so maybe that could never happen and we aren't dead, but this place has everything! I could live here! Do you know how long this stuff is going to keep us busy?" James said more to himself than to Sirius.

"About a week," Sirius said looking at the dozens of boxes scattered and stacked about the room. "Maybe two."

"Funny, Sirius, really. You have that humor thing down to a point. But can't you ever be serious?"

"Of course I can. I am every day. I was Sirius the day I was born."

"Alright, enough with this Sirius/serious scenario. It's really starting to bug me. And if you don't stop, I'm going to have to kill you and ship your remnants to China."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll make a deal. You stop with the China and leg digging stuff, and I'll quit it with the serious stuff. I'll never be serious again. Deal?"

"Okay. But I'm really going to miss my Chinaman."

Both James and Sirius began to walk around the room inspecting the boxes. Seeing all their treasures for the first time. After they had both gone around the room several times, Sirius noticed something pinned to the wall.

"Look at this James! It's a map of Hogwarts, without all the secret passages. This is sure going to make mapping Hogwarts easier. Now all we have to do is find all the tunnels and stuff. That can't take us more than what, a month?"

James snatched the crinkled and ripped parchment from Sirius' grasp and studied it intensely. "This is great. It has a lot of detail. We'll need to copy it onto another parchment though. This one is going to fall apart soon, and plus there isn't any room for the grounds around Hogwarts. We're going to want to map them too."

"Whatever you say, but for now, let's just use this one. Here, I'll copy down all the stuff we already have," Sirius said snatching the map back. He hurriedly copied the information and 13 passages they already knew about on the parchment in his untidy scrawl. Just as he was about to add the chamber that they were in to the map, James stopped him.

"Let's leave this one out, just in case this map falls into the wrong hands."

"Like Snape, oh he who is perfect," Sirius said automatically.

"To torture," James said thinking of Aeris, who wasn't quiet right in the head, or so it seemed to him at least.

"Like Filch," continued Sirius.

"Like McGonagall," James said his eyes darkening.

"Or like Lily"

"Who would turn it into McGonagall," finished James with a lopsided grin.

Just as Sirius had rolled up the map and stuffed it into his robe, the heavy oak door creaked and began to open. James had just enough time to throw the invisibility cloak over Sirius and himself before the door was opened the rest of the way and a scrawny gray cat with white feet and tail tip stalked into the room followed closely behind by a talk lanky man with gray eyes, brown streaked with gray hair, and a nasty grin. The cat stopped abruptly causing the man to step on her tail. She yowled and raked her claws at his leg. To James' surprise the man didn't get mad at the cat, instead he apologized. "I'm sorry, my sweet, just a little clumsy tonight." The feline meowed softly and began to lick its foreleg. The man took this as forgiveness and turned his attention back to the room. He looked right through where James and Sirius were standing and gazed at the candle they had left on a crate.

"They were here, my sweet. Not so long ago. The candle is still burning. Could have been Diggle, but he wouldn't have gone out like this on the first day. Must have been a first year. From the look of the Sorting, I'm guessing Black and Potter. Can you smell them? If I could catch them, that Professor Motch could never say I was useless again."

As Filched circled the room, the two-cloaked imps slowly made their way to the door. Just as they were about to reach it, Filch began to speak to Mrs. Norris again.

"It's a good thing that Headmaster is getting this place cleaned out tomorrow. I'd hate to think of what could be done if Diggle got his hands on these boxes."

James and Sirius both thought the same thing at once. If they were clearing it out tomorrow, they better get their hands on what they could today. So they made their way back to the nearest crate and set in motion the doing of cramming their pockets with everything that they could. To their relief, Filch didn't seem to hear or even notice them.

They tiptoed their way out of the room and back up through the stair without a single creak. Needless to say, they were both very pleased with themselves. And very happy about the night's events, even if the room would be cleared out by tomorrow, at least they had gotten their mischievous little hands on some of the merchandise.

On their way back to their common room (they found that they weren't even close, it probably would have taken them a good three or more hours to find) they worked out their plan. They would get shaving cream from the bathroom and bowls of warm water. Toilet paper, markers, honey and string would also be useful, but they only knew where to find the toilet paper and the string. They could tell already that the bathroom was going to be their main source of resources, unless they could get into the kitchen.

* * *

Peter had just managed to get to sleep again after his third nightmare, when the fourth one struck. He had never had a bout of homesickness this bad before. At least not since he had be forced to go to that muggle military summer camp when he was eight. He had been dreaming his favorite dream. No one knew who Jon was. So he wasn't known as Jon's little brother, and no one expected him to be great. But he was. He was just like Jon in his dream, and that was the good part about it.

His dream had started out good. It was one of his favorites. He had been in the hospital recovering from the measles in his dream, just like Jon had been this summer. His mother had come in and had been comforting him, just like she did Jon. She fed him and pressed a cool wet cloth on his forehead, just like she had done for Jon. She gathered his large pillow in her arms and began to fluff it. But then, she got this evil glint in her warm blue eyes. It was quite horrifying. But that wasn't even the worst part yet. She eyed the white pillow in her arms and in a quick fluent movement, jammed it over his face and tried to suffocate him.

"AHH!" Peter promptly sat straight up in bed. He looked around the room. He couldn't see anything and not because it was night, because he knew it had to be after 4:30 since that was what time it was the last time he had woken up from his sickening nightmare. His hand slowly went to his face, and he was surprised to feel that it was covered with shaving cream and toilet paper. That explained why he couldn't see and probably the new part in the dream. Suffocating. Gulp.

Peter wiped all the shaving cream from his face that he could and rubbed it into his sheets. He threw his covers off him and stepped out of bed planning to find out what was going on. Peter squinted around the room but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. But the drapes were drawn so it was hard to see. Peter had only moved his left foot forward a little in the direction of the window. But it was enough, enough for him to trip on the string that had been strung around his bed. Thud. He tried to get up off the floor but only got even more hopelessly tangled in the mess of knots and cord.

Shouts of, "Eww! Disgusting!" and "Whoever did this is going to pay" as well as several fearful shouts like the one Peter had given seemed to echo throughout the room. Apparently someone had gone insane as well because there was out of control laugher added to the shouts of anger. Just as Peter had managed to stand up, someone screamed very high and very long, nearly causing him to fall back down again. There wasn't a girl in here was there?

Peter opened the drapes to light up the room so he wouldn't trip on any of the string and cord strewn about the room and made his way to the closest bed to check it's inhabitant. He opened the bed curtain to reveal Ferric who was in much the same situation as Peter was in, minus tripping on the string. Instead, he had been nearly mummified with toilet paper, towels and string. Peter helped him unravel himself and then they moved on to the next bed where moaning could be heard from within.

In the next bed was a sulking Zell who was embarrassed to tell them had that he had peed the bed. But it wasn't his fault, he claimed; someone one had placed both his hands in warm water. They left Zell to sulk, trying to keep straight faces.

As the continued their round about the room, they discovered that Chez was the one who had been laughing so hard. He was obviously not mad in the least about the prank. He instead seemed fairly happy. Like it was all a big joke, which it of course was. His cheerful mood was very uplifting to Peter. After all, it wasn't that big of a deal, was it? Turns out nothing all that bad had been done to him anyway. He had marker or something all over his face. It was actually quite amusing. It had crude drawings of people, animals, mountains and stars. The culprits were obvious not very artistic. On his forehead, they had played a game of tic-tac-toe. The O's had won. Chez also had a minor case of shaving cream hair, but he didn't make a big deal about it. He kept looking into the mirror and laughing though.

When they first saw Seifer, they couldn't even tell what was wrong, but they knew something must be because he was furious. All that looked strange to Peter, was the Seifer's hair was no longer spiked up. Instead, his dreads (A/N: dreadlocks for the unknowing among you) where limp "There is gum in my hair! I'm going to kill you guys!" the enraged Seifer exclaimed, his hands in fists.

"Calm down man. It wasn't us. It must have been some older guys doing a prank," Ferric said.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. It isn't that bad. HEY! Look at the cool hieroglyphics on my face!" Chez said, still excited.

"You don't seem to understand! There is gum in my HAIR!" Seifer yelled.

"Cool down, a little peanut butter and that will come right out. It happened to my little sister once…. And I had nothing to do with it," grinned Ferric.

Peter eyed Seifer a little resentfully. What kind of person cares about his hair this much? "Let's go see how the other two faired." They went to Sirius' bed and found it empty.

"A little suspicious, neh?" Seifer sneered.

"Eh. A little. But we can't just assume that it was… SIRIUS!" Chez exclaimed. He had opened James' curtains and exposed two red faced black haired boys. They looked up and burst into wheezing laughter. They had obviously been trying to hold it in for some time now.

"That was the best!" gasped Sirius once their laughter had died down and he had begun catch his breathe.

"So you admit to doing this?" the fuming Seifer asked.

"Course not. The convicts struck us too. See," James said pointing to his hair that was its usual mess only with shaving cream and string added to the chaos as well.

"And me too," Sirius said pointing to his check. He had a sketch on it of what looked to be a poor drawing of a boat and either a whale or a submarine. Chez eyed the boat for a moment and then announced, "Mine are better."

"You wish," scoffed Sirius. "Yours are just stupid little aborigines worshipping some cows."

"So that's what they're doing," Chez said studying the drawings on his face in the mirror near him on the wall. "I was wondering what they heck was going on. But now that you point it out, I can kinda see it. At least I can if a squint and turn my head to the left a little."

Ferric squinted and gazed at Chez. "Oh! I so see it now!"

"Don't any of you care that there is gum in my hair? If you don't you should. I need peanut butter and I need it now." Seifer's face was red and he looked like he might faint.

"Peanut butter? Nah, you don't need peanut butter. I know a spell that will take that right out."

"And why would I trust you, Sirius? It was you that did this to me."

"Hey now! Be fair. It was me who put the gum in your hair, but it was his idea. But he was too chicken to do it. Oh, and it was Ferric's gum."

Ferric was going to say something but before he could Sirius turned on James. "Whatever! I wanted to do it too, but you just wanted all the credit for yourself. That is so like you. And now you're going on about me not even wanting to stick the gum in his hair. And I suppose that you are going to take credit for the pictures on Chez' face too!"

"Course not. They all suck anyway. 'Cept for the second cow, that beaut's mine. Oh by the way, I won in tic-tac-toe."

"Hey the second cow is better!" realized Chez.

James looked at where Chez was looking and rubbed his forehead. "No, that's the first cow."

"Oh. Then the first cow is better. Good job Sirius."

"Thanks… Wait you mean this? No that is the first cow. This right here is a cat."

"That's a cat?" questioned James.

"And that's a cow?" asked Chez. "Your cartoons suck."

"I know," grinned Sirius.

"So where did you guys get the marker anyway. It doesn't really look like ink," remarked Chez, still staring at his reflection in the mirror.

"Let me see, the black stuff is mascara, the red is lipstick, and the other colors are eye stuff, all complement of a raid of the girls bathroom," Sirius said in his smiley announcer guy voice.

"Hmm, alright. Kid with gum in his hair –still- standing right here. Waiting."

"Okay, okay. Hold your horses." Sirius rubbed his chin in thought. "What was that spell again? Oh yes, I remember." Sirius said something under his breath and poof; the gum was out of Seifer's hair.

"What did you do?" screamed Seifer looking in the mirror at the reflection of him with no hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes. He was about to punch Sirius –hard- but seeing the danger Sirius quickly said, "If you hit me I wont change it back to normal." Seifer's fist stopped millimeters from Sirius' face.

"Go ahead and hit him. This has gone far enough I'll change it back," James said flicking out his wand from his pocket. Sirius' face turned a deep red in an amazingly short time and he jumped across the room, out of Seifer's reach.

"No, no! I went too far! I'll change it back!" Another mutter under his breath, and poof it was back. Like magic. (