Apologies for not having this out sooner…
After the Sorting of '67, I was in real need of that yearlong break, and not just to make up a new song. There had been quite a few memorable faces. James Potter for instance. The Potters had been Gryffindors for as long as anyone could remember. In my case that was quite a long time. James' father had married into the Rayburn family, which was notorious for throwing out Ravenclaws. It was a rather large feud between the families, and quite a bit of money had been bet on it. Quite stressful on me too. Both families tried to pay me off. I didn't accept either offers though because I had no need for material objects. (I was a material object.) When I was placed on James' head, I followed my heart and my head, (technically, his head,) and placed him in Gryffindor. A few years down the road I heard that the Ravenclaw in him came through, and he made the top of his classes, and was made Head Boy.
The Black family threw out a Gryffindor that year. Easier decision to make then I had first thought. His family had every house mixed in. He made it a lot less stressful too. Nobody cared what house he ended up in, and he had some amusing thoughts.
The classic Slytherins such as Snape, Crabbe, and Avory showed up that year. No tough decision there. They didn't even really need to come up and be sorted, but old habits die hard.
There was quite the slew of Muggle-borns that year. One of them took me forever to decide on. A rather short, fat boy. To dumb, scared, and backstabbing for Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff, he would have fit perfectly in Slytherin, but he would he been eaten alive by the natives. I finally opted for a quick game of eeny-meeny-miney-moe. Gryffindor lost. I was later informed that he had been killed by one of his best friends after graduation, and all they ever found of him was his finger.
Turns out there was even a werewolf that year. The first ever too, not the last though. He thought he would end up in Slytherin because he was a dark creature, but I had no choice but put him in Gryffindor. If he was brave enough to come to Hogwarts, a place that feared, hated, and avoided him like the plague, (actually, in an ancient wizarding community, there was a plague of werewolves, but that has nothing to do with this,) then he was brave enough to be placed in the house of the daring Gryffindor.
As it always seems, there was a Weasley to sort. Bilius Weasley. Supposedly, he died soon after graduation less then twenty-four hours after he saw the Grim, but the whole matter was a little too suspicious for believability.
When I look back at that year, there was nothing memorable in particular, but yet, unforgettable. But here I sit day after day, year after year, watching the lives of many, many students progress, some even come back to roam the halls as teachers or ghosts. I swear, I can still hear the laughter of the infamous Marauders coming through the halls. But then again, what do I know? I'm just a hat.
*~*
(A/N Okay, I kinda wimped out on the Sorting and the Feast and such, but everybody's read that nine thousand times, right? Anyway, we are no longer in the view of the Sorting Hat.)
James Potter and Sirius Black were running through the halls a week after the Sorting took place.
"I told you Potions isn't in the Owlery," said Sirius, "Now we're going to be late all because of you!"
"What are you talking about?" retorted James, "I'm the one that told you that we can't get to Potions by going there."
"Nuh uh," said Sirius. "I said, 'Maybe it's in the tower,' and you said, 'Potions are in the dungeons, dimwit,' then I said, "Then let's go!'"
"Then why did we end up in the owlery?" asked James; not sure he wanted to know the answer.
"How am I supposed to know?" asked Sirius, not caring. "Maybe we are child geniuses and apparated there."
"That's not possible," grinned Remus, as he ran up beside them. "First you have to be a genius before you can be a child genius."
"Funny," said Sirius sarcastically, as he slowed to a slow walk. "You don't happen to know where Potions is do you? We've been running all over the school trying to find it."
"If I knew," said Remus, "I would be on the opposite side of the school from them by now."
"Doesn't matter anymore," said James, leaning against a suit of armor, "It's more then half ov-" he never finished his sentence. While leaning against the suit of armor, he had accidentally pressed the arm down, causing the suit to move, revealing a hole, which James promptly fell into.
"Uh, Jamie?" called Sirius, "Are you dead?"
"Ow," was the only reply.
"Does that mean yes or no?" Sirius asked Remus.
"It means no,"
"Oh."
"Is there anyway to get out?" yelled Remus down the tunnel.
"I think so," James yelled back, "Go ahead and jump down."
"I'm not falling for that one again," said Sirius, "Last time I did that I got stu-" He didn't finish either. Remus pushed him down the tunnel.
"Here goes everything," said Remus, taking a deep breath, and following his comrade down the hole. Cold air rushed up past him as he fell into the dark. He had just started having fun when he landed, on James.
"I said jump down," whined James, "Not jump down on me."
"Sorry," said Remus, rather sheepishly. "I was aiming for Sirius."
"Now where's my wand?" asked James, "I can't see anything in this dark."
"Here it is!" cried out Sirius joyfully. "Never mind, that's my wand…"
"Oh, here it is!" he cried joyfully, "It was in my hand. Now does anybody remember the spell to get light come from your wand?"
The dead silence answered the question.
"Okay, forget that, I think there's a tunnel this way," said James. After blindly following the narrow tunnel for a while, it started to widen out. It then split into two. One had a bit of light coming from it, so they followed that one and left the other one for another day.
(A/N I know they are supposed to be at the top of their classes and everything, but they are in their first week, and they are still turning beetles into buttons, so they probably don't know how to say Lumos…)
They followed it along till they came to a brass door that had been turned rust colored with age.
"I think it's been rusted shut," said James, frowning as he pulled on the handle.
"Maybe if we pull hard enough it will open," suggested Sirius.
"Okay," said James, grabbing onto the handle. Sirius grabbed James, and they pulled with all of their strength.
"I think we should keep going until we find another way out," said Sirius, giving up and slumping against the damp walls. James nodded his head in agreement, and had opened his mouth to say something, when the door swung open and light shone in.
"How'd you do that?" asked Sirius, his mouth falling open with amazement.
"I pushed," shrugged Remus, walking out into the light.
"This is kinda like dying," remarked Sirius, "We're walking towards the light."
"You're right, Sirius," grinned James, "It was just like this last time I died."
"This looks sorta familiar," said Remus, heading towards a door, "I think we're in the-," he continued opening a door and walking in, followed by James and Sirius. Turns out they walked into the last five minutes of the Potions class they were supposed to be in. "The dungeons," finished Remus, ten seconds too late to help anybody.
"Well, well, well," said Professor Jorkins, "Look who finally decided to show up."
*~*
Three detentions, one angry kitten, (Mrs. Norris,) and several dungbombs later, James, Sirius, and Remus piled into the Gryffindor Common Room. James lost his balance and knocked Remus over who knocked over, and decapitated, a clay statue of Horacio the Huge and Hairy. Sirius tripped on the decapitated head of Horacio, and then onto an innocent bystander. That's where this little escapade lost all potential for a happy ending. Turns out, the innocent bystander had quite the temper.
"What do you think you're doing?" yelled Tess Ryder from the place she was sprawled.
"Homework?" suggested Sirius.
"That I would not believe," said Tess as she examined her ripped bag, "If you can't even make it to class on time, then I would highly doubt that you would even think of starting your homework."
"Okay, would you believe I was er… playing Quidditch?"
"No."
"Helping an innocent first year find their was around?"
"You're a first year."
"So?"
"You don't know your way around."
"Neither do you," he retorted as he stuffed all of her fallen books back into her ripped bag. Naturally, all the books fell out again.
"What does that have to do with anything?" she asked.
"You're the one that brought it up."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Not."
"Too."
"No-" Tess was cut off by James and Remus' efforts to repair the broken statue. All they had succeeded in doing was turning in a lovely shade of orange, setting it on fire, and giving the face a strange grimacing look. The only reason this stopped Tess was for the fact that the fire had now caught the couch nearest her on fire. Remus, taking the initiative, tried to put the fire out. Bright blue bubbles started erupting from the fire instead.
"So, that's the spell that does that," Sirius said, "I wondered."
"Great," Tess muttered, "Next you'll have pink bunnies shooting flowers at the fire."
"Good idea," James put in, "Think that would work?"
"What's going on in here?"
"Oh, hi professor!"
*~*
(A/N He He, I'm so evil. Stopping the story at this part. A minor cliffhanger I'll admit, but still a cliffie… I know, I know, leaving you guys for 4 months, and a short chapter. Maybe I'll continue. I think I will.)
"You three!" a young Professor McGonagall yelled as she extinguished the flames with a flick of her wand, and returned the statue to its normal color. (It was starting to look like it was decorated for Halloween with the orange spell on it and the black burn marks,) "And you!" she said, turning to Tess, "I expected better of you!"
"But I-"
"I don't want to hear it!" McGonagall said, "All four of you will serve detention, and ten points off of Gryffindor."
"I didn't-" Tess tried again, unsuccessful.
"I don't want to hear another word about it!" she said as she restored the statue to a repaired upright spot coming closer to its original form. She didn't know the grimace on the statue was James' misguided magic. The next year too many first year Gryffindors were scared by the statue, and Horacio, the Huge and Hairy, was moved to the East Tower where he now happily resides.
"Come down to the Main hall tomorrow evening at six-o-clock sharp, and don't be late," she said, turning sharply and climbing out the portrait hole.
Tess was too mad to even speak to the boys. She turned on heel and walked up to the girl's dormitories. She didn't come down again, but an owl dropped a letter on the floor of the boy's dormitory while Remus was climbing into his pajamas before he went to bed.
"Oy, Sirius, James!" he called, "You might want to take a look at this."
James bounded up the stairs from the Common Room where he had been testing his Dungbomb Attached to Filibuster Firework experiment, (third time that day,) and Sirius came from the bathroom where he had just finished changing.
"What?" Sirius asked.
"Read this," he said, handing over the letter to James, which had Tess' neat handwriting on it.
The devils who are residing in the Boy's Dormitory; Hi
It's your fault. If Sirius wouldn't have tripped me, and you other two morons knew what you were doing, I would still have a free Sunday night. You suck.
Tess
Tess' owl arrived back in her dormitory six and a half minutes later, carrying a letter, which read;
Tess, who resides in Tess' dormitory; Salutations
I'm sorry for getting you in trouble. Didn't mean too. Look on the bright side. You aren't Horacio the Huge and Hairy.
Remus
P.S. I'm not a moron, James is.
You're just jealous that we thought of it first. But don't worry, we won't do it again. Look on the bright side. Now you have an excuse for why you didn't get your homework done for class on Monday.
James
P.S. Remus? I can read what you wrote.
You suck too. And it's not my fault you tripped. You're clumsy. Just suck it up and take your detention like a man. Or a woman. Or something to that effect.
Sirius Black
P.S. Look at your owl. Courtesy of me.
Tess looked up at her owl. Nothing was wrong with him. Stupid Sirius, she thought, can't even do a charm. Her owl chose to hoot at that moment. He was spouting blue bubbles.
(A/N Does anybody know how to retain formatting when you upload documents? I tried to have different handwriting for each of the people above, it would work when I converted it to HTML documents but it wouldn't when I would finally put it onto FanFic.net. Any suggestions?)
~*~
Tess had just reached the end of the worst week of her life. It all started out with the detention she had on the past Sunday. She had spent three hours trying to coax a Mackled Malaclaw to climb back into its cage. Unfortunately, she ended up getting to close and got bitten. Everything went down from there.
On Monday, her bag ripped, and spilt ink all over her Transfiguration essay that she had worked so hard on, she spilt hot soup on her at lunch, then tripped over her self and landed on her most favorite person in the world, Sirius. To make it short. It wasn't a pleasant experience.
On Tuesday, she went hazard free until after dinner. She had gotten back late from Professor McGonagal's office where she had tried to explain why she didn't have her essay the day before. She then forgot the password to the Gryffindor Common Room, and was stuck outside until Filch wandered by. He didn't believe her story and gave her another detention for the next Sunday night too.
Wednesday she tripped and fell down a flight of stairs, making her bag rip, again. This time she had a potion for Potions due later that day in her bag. The vial broke open and spilt on the stairs. The stairs, being magical, soaked the potion right up. One step in particular got a lot and has never been quite right since. (It seems whenever one would step upon it, one's leg would fall through and be stuck.)
Thursday the bite she had received from the Mackled Malaclaw started to turn red and get swollen so she went to the Hospital Wing. She wasn't treated by the nurse, Madame Ichor, but by the intern, Madam Pomfry. Madam Pomfry explained to her that the bite of a Mackled Malaclaw would cause bad luck to the recipient of the bite. The bad luck could last up to a week.
"Didn't you ever read Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?" Madam Pomfry asked as she left the Hospital Wing.
(A/N If you were to pick up a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, that I'm sure all of you have lying about your house, then you would find the Mackled Malaclaw on page 28.)
Madam Pomfry had given her an antidote for the bite that would restore her leg to its normal shape and color, and restore her luck to its normal level. Unfortunately, her bad luck had a say in that too. Madam Pomfry gave her the wrong vial, and she ended up spouting red boils all over her face. She ended up spending the remainder of the week in the hospital.
On Sunday, she was released, just in time for her detention.
(A/N I know, I know, I do a lot of Author's Notes… Anyway we kinda got off the track of the boys' point of view, but I just wanted to put that tidbit in there. We're now back in the boys' lives, and you will see how the fragment above fits into the plot of this chapter.)
Sirius moaned as he trudged down to the Charms' Corridor. He was preparing himself for a long night of detention. He wasn't very sure about the reason he had detention, all he knew was Professor McGonagall screaming at him something about knocking over several trophy cases in the trophy room. He hadn't done it, and he suspected James was behind it, but Jamsie had already had detention three times that week, and her decided to take the heat off of him for a nice little break. Now James was happily plotting ways to infiltrate the kitchen while he was stuck in detention. The good thing was Remus was going to be accompanied him. At least he wouldn't be too bored.
"So, Sirius," Remus said, as he plopped down in the chair next to Sirius, "Did you see the lovely lady that will be accompanying us in our detention tonight?"
"Huh?" Sirius asked, he hadn't noticed anybody when he came into the room. (Perhaps because he was trying to get his pet salamander to voluntarily turn himself purple.) He looked over and saw Tess sitting in a desk, digging through her bag for a Sugar Quill.
"Oh, yea." He muttered. This was going to be the worse detention of his life.
(A/N Okay people. This is the real end this time. I'm real sorry about having this out so late. I will really try and update more often. Rather strange. Now that school has started, I have more time… Anyway, thanks for all the reviews!!!! I love you all!!! Not in a creepy stalker dude way though. Don't worry. Oh and I'll get Peter more into this story soon too.)
