Chapter Two
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me, nor the idea. All this is copyrighted to JK Rowling, and her publishers. I'm just a loyal fan. Do I have to do one of these for every chapter? *sigh* The place Achiltiebuie doesn't belong to me either, as it DOES exist. It's a very tiny place on the west coast of Scotland.
Notes: I changed my names, apparently there was already a Canis. Damn, I thought I was being original too ;) :D
"Baaaaaaaa."
Now it was Sirius's turn to grind his teeth. It was cold, and his joints felt like they'd been injected with cement.
Or maybe, he contemplated sleepily, it was orange juice. Orange juice would kinda slush a bit more though. Maybe-
He groaned and rolled over, trying to ease the stiffness and block out the infernal bleating.
"Baaaaaaa."
Sheep. Oh, how he hated sheep.
"Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa."
It was right outside his tent. He was briefly comforted as he imagined himself wearing as sheepskin coat, gloating over the sheep, which was shivering out on a moonlit street. He could hear the violin music playing. He grinned happily. As if the sheep were aware of his minds workings, a chorus began.
"Baaaa."
"Baaa?"
"Baaaa."
He wriggled away from the side of the tent, where the sheep, he assumed, was standing outside.
"Baaa."
"SHUT UP!"
Peter sat bolt upright, Remus nearly jumped a foot in the air, while James snored, grunted, then rolled over.
"Sirius!" Remus hissed. "What are you doing? It's-"
"Four o'clock in the morning Lupin, I'm perfectly aware of that. In fact, I've been aware of the time for over an hour. I've been awake for over an hour."
"What's wrong? I like to hear the birds wake me up with their merry music in the morning."
"Yes, but bloody birds is different. Some sheep is bleating in my ear. Not to mention the sheep chorus. They're out to get me Rem, I know it."
"Baaaaaaaa."
"I suddenly feel like a nice lamb chop."
"Sirius!"
"OK, OK. Though I'm definitely in favour of slaughter houses."
"Sirius!"
"Alright, alright."
"But foot and mouth was kinda good."
"SIRIUS!"
James yawned, and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Why's the tent pink?"
Remus would've answered this very sharply indeed, but a slight distraction was caused when the tent lurched forwards suddenly.
"Baaaa."
"You know," Remus said slowly, "That sheep is awfully close."
"Yeah. If we had a gun…"
"Not you as well James!"
"Not a gun, James, a sword. We could-"
Lupin silenced him with a look.
"Shh!" Peter whispered. They all fell silent. A soft munching noise could be heard outside, and the tent jerked forward again. Wide eyed, they shot frantic eyebrow signals across the tent.
'Slytherins!' This was James's instant suggestion, portrayed by arching his eyesbrows into an evil glare.
'Sheep!' This was Sirius's contribution. Portrayed by crossing his eyes and chewing the cud.
'How could a sheep be dragging our tent forwards and eating?!' Lupin signalled. Or, thought he signalled. The others thought he was suggesting they go for a swim with a beaver wearing cheese, so after a moment of staring pointedly ignored him. The tent shuffled forward a little.
Shuffled?
Slowly, James pulled the tent flap's zip down. They all sighed. No Slytherins, or sheep, could be seen.
"We must just be paranoid."
"Baaaaa."
It suddenly dawned on them.
"We were never very good at animal transformations."
"We're…th-this…is…" Peter gasped.
"Yes, Peter. We're in a sheep. Well, half sheep. It's kinda gone wrong…James, take that knife away from Sirius. He's going to pierce the side of our living tent."
Sirius scowled, handing the knife over reluctantly.
Peter began to scramble out, the others thought this was a pretty good idea and also proceeded towards the opening, crawling on hands and knees. Peter scrambled out and stared at their tent, which was not only woolly and glowing, but one corner had some sort of mouth, which was eating the grass around it.
"Weird…" Peter said with a confused expression, sat and stared until he was shoved out of the way by Remus.
"Move Peter!" James and Sirius tumbled out with grunts of pain as they forced their muscles to work. The head (or, rather, corner) of the sheep-tent looked up at them slowly. The four waited apprehensively.
"Baaaa?"
They gave a relieved sigh, especially Remus who was particularly glad he'd taken the knife from Sirius. The sheep continued to eat.
"This is completely bizarre."
"Sirius?" James asked tentively.
"What?"
"Don't look at your shoes-"
"My shoes! You bizarre woolly headed amphibian! It's eating my shoes!"
"It's not like you wear them anyway."
"Not the point!"
"And, it's a mammal, not an amphibian."
"Ah. I stand corrected."
************
The morning passed slowly. None of the marauders felt all too easy but returning into their tent now, that it was breathing, so they made a fire using magic to keep warm, and sat around it.
It was really very pretty, Peter mused as he looked up at the lightening sky. It was now a dark shade of blue, with a faint glow of orange from the east where the sun was rising.
He was interrupted by a cuff on the shoulder.
"What do you think Peter? I've run out of ideas."
"Er…"
"You weren't listening were you?" James accused.
Remus smiled at him, then rolled his eyes. "We're..well, we're trying to think up of alliteration to the names of characters from The Lord of the Rings."
"You've read the Lord of the Rings? I thought only muggle borns…"
"No, I've read it too Peter. So's Sirius. It's just James, El Thicko here…" He was forced to stop talking as his head was gripped in a tight lock by James. Sirius continued.
"Well, so far we've got Frodo Fork Fingers-"
"Gimli Grater Groin-" Remus interrupted, pushing James off.
"Aragoon Whisk Nose and Boaromeer Spatula Tongue!" James added excitedly. The others fell about laughing as he glared.
"What?"
"Well," Sirius began as he held up a collapsing Lupin, "For a start James that's not alliteration."
"So? Stupid muggle studies. You only took them to beat me."
"And-" Lupin gasped, "It's Ara-AraGORN, James." He lapsed into a fit of giggles muttering 'Aragoon' under his breath. He tried vainly to correct the pronunciation of Boromir's name, but couldn't really breathe.
"How about…" Peter thought, "Pippin… potato peeler…what's a body part beginning with 'P'?"
The others sniggered.
"What?"
"How about pinky, Peter?" Remus said kindly. He nodded enthusiastically.
The tent came up and bleated.
"What? You've got plenty to eat. Go away, shoo!"
"I think it's thirsty."
"Who gives a damn! We could have really fluffy sleeping bags, if you'd only-"
"You're not having the knife back Sirius."
"That's what you think."
Remus hoped he was bluffing, and checked his pocket for the knife. Still there. The sheep could live a while longer.
The tent/sheep had managed to wrench free of it's pegs to which it had been attached to the ground. It made a strange whining nose and nuzzled Sirius, who was having difficulty resisting attacking it. But then, he thought logically, how do you kill a tent?
"We're going to have to peg it down again you know," James said frowning. "We don't want a luminous sheep-tent roaming Scotland…I can see the muggle paper headlines now."
"Pink Sheep Roams Free."
"Wooly Horror Terrorizes Campsite."
"Luminous Beast Eats Shoes."
"Knife Found Imbedded in-"
"Sirius," Lupin warned. "You're not going to kill any sheep."
"I was going to say sheep sh-"
"That's enough."
After a few more of these suggestions they decided they'd better peg it down. This was harder than they'd imagined.
"Come here…nice tent…" Lupin smiled sweetly at the tent as he approached with a rope, that Peter had found along with half the other contents of the local B&Q. This was the third time, and his smile was getting rather strained. It actually looked a lot like a grimace.
"NOW!"
The tent bleated in fear as the four jumped on top of it, armed with pegs and rope. They struggled to fix the pegs to the ground – the tent was putting up a very good fight. The tent bucked but they held on tight.
"What are you doing?"
Their insides turned to ice. Rolling over onto their backs they stared straight into the face of Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape, surrounded by their cronies.
"Shove off Malfoy," Sirius snarled. The tent gave a pathetic kick. Snape raised his eyebrows into a sneer.
"Really, at seven a 'clock in the morning and you're already doing something suspicious. Though I'm not sure what…perhaps I'd better fetch the professor?" His eyes gleamed.
"We're…collapsing the tent." The others nodded fervently.
"Oh really? Why are you all twitching at the same time?" The Marauders all gave an involuntary jump as the tent lashed out again.
"Er… delayed reaction."
"To?"
"You arriving."
"Now go away, we don't have time for single celled idiots at the moment." James hissed. The Slytherins growled as the atmosphere tensed. There was a fumbling for wands.
"What's going on here?"
Professor McGonagall swept among them. Her eyes darted to the large group of Slytherins and the Gryffindors on the floor.
"Has there been a fight?" She asked icily.
"No, miss." Remus piped up. "These fellows were just leaving."
"Good. You know the consequences for any physical fighting, all of you? Good. Now hurry up and get ready. All of you!" She made to turn away.
"Baaaaaaaa!"
She turned back around, face white with anger. "What did you say Mr Lupin?"
"Er…Jaaaaaa. Practising German, miss," He gabbled. "Such a very interesting language, miss. It means-"
"I know what it means, Lupin. That will be quite enough!"
"BAAAAA!"
"I beg your pardon?!"
The Slytherins seemed to be having the time of their lives. They didn't know what was going on, but their worst enemies were digging a very deep hole, and that was good enough for them.
"Er…" Sirius stumbled. "I said Haaaaaaa. German, hilarious language. Aheh he he…ha ha…" He began to sweat slightly and dropped his gaze, as Professor McGonagall's nostrils quivered.
"BAAAAA!" This was accompanied by a very large buck from the sheep, which sent James flying straight on top of McGonagall. She toppled over with a shriek.
"Never, in ALL my time at Hogwarts, has ANY pupil ever dared-"
He was desperate now. He weighed his choices. On one hand, if he remained silent he figured he would be sent home, head held high but in very deep trouble. On the other, he could humiliate himself and get off with a severe punishment.
He chose the latter.
"I said Faaaaaaar, professor, please," He went down on one knee as she got up, "Don't go faaaaar away from me! I'm scared, professor, of the..er…"
'Kelpies!' Siruis mouthed frantically. 'Kelpies!'
James misread it, and blurted, "Chickens!"
Sirius slapped his forehead. Peter groaned. Remus raised his eyes to heaven.
"Chickens, Mr Potter?" He didn't dare look up, but could he detect a smile in the tone of her voice?
'Kelpies,' Sirius mimed. 'Kelpies!'
"Er…crap."
Sirius stared. The smile on McGonagall's face vanished.
"You dare to swear Potter? You're digging your own grave!"
"Crapped myself, that is, Miss, with fear…" The Slytherin's laughed. The other marauders tried desperately to suppress their own laughter.
"Stop that!"
"What?"
"Saying the word!"
"What? Crap?" It slipped out. Now he was in for it. The end of the world had come. Armageddon.
"You. Come. With. Me. Now. All of you. Get up!"
The marauders exchanged nervous glances. They couldn't get off the sheep...Lupin and Sirius sent eyebrow signals to James.
'Cause a distraction!' Sirius signalled. James nodded. He understood.
'Practise your fractions!' James stared blankly. What was that, a dying command?
"Now, all of you, get ready!" McGonagall barked.
Sirius decided to take a risk.
"For what, miss?"
She smiled evilly, eyes glinting.
"We're going fishing."
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¨ Yay! 2nd chapter up. I'm not sure about the overall style of this yet, I'm not sure if it should be a daft comedy, or a ground based comedy…let me know what you think. I'm SO pleased I got reviews! Please be critical!!!