Chapter 4

   The next lesson was Care of Magical Creatures. The professor went round the class handing each person an egg.

"In a few minutes these eggs will hatch. It will then be your job to look after them. If you do it properly then by the end of the lesson you should have a small furry creature called a Ratamink sitting quite happily in front of you."

   They all sat in silence staring at the eggs until the silence was broken by a crack as Peter's egg hatched. Remus laughed as Peter squealed and fell off his chair. Remus laughed and laughed.

"Brilliant!" he whispered.

"QUIET!" Professor Finqued bellowed over the babble of noise that had broken out. Shortly after, all the eggs had hatched and the bell rang, signaling the end of the day, and therefore, their free time. James, Sirius and Remus grabbed their brooms and decided to go on a wild exploration of the school…by broom! This unexpected twist made it far more exciting. Peter said that he wanted to go to the library, and the others didn't stop him.

   However, halfway through their game of broomstick tag on the Hogwarts grounds, they stumbled across Peter running away from three Slytherins known by their surnames as Avery, Wilkes, Lestrange and Snape. The three Gryffindors made eye contact with each other and launched their Starfliers at the gang of Slytherins. They grabbed the Slytherins' robes and dragged them along the ground for about five minutes before dropping them on the roof and laughing as they swept back down to the ground to meet an astonished Peter who shook each of their hands in turn and muttered uncontrollably about how he owed them one! Sirius, James and Remus looked nervously at each other and Remus whispered a comment which made them burst out laughing.

   They headed to bed that night with light hearts and especially since all of the Slytherins had got detentions and they had all not even been found out. They fell asleep that night happy and Sirius, James, Peter and Remus all had dreams of Slytherins on the roof, each from their own point of view. 

 At breakfast next morning, they received some nasty glares from the Slytherin table. However, before a fight could break out, Dumbledore rose from his seat and made an announcement that stunned the students into silence.

Exams had been brought forward………….from June…………to April!!!!!!!!!

This was because there were also going to be seven extra exams due to the ministry of magic wanting to check that all children were getting satisfactory results!!! The students had only one thing to say to this.

"Rubbish! Complete and utter rubbish!" Sirius bellowed above the chatter of angry voices that filled the Great Hall.

Remus, James and Peter all inclined their heads in agreement. They walked to their lesson slowly, kicking at the floor as they went. No one, not even Sirius, was in any mood to talk at that particular time. Exams started in less than a month and to make matters worse, the first exam was Potions! This meant that as Potions was their first lesson, they would have more points taken off Gryffindor and would have to work harder than ever before.

 Halfway through the lesson, Snape left a pinch of silver dust on Remus' chair as if to test him. Sirius saw this and immediately sat on Remus' chair and brushed off the dust as he stood up again to take his own seat. Snape gave a glare and muttered a hex at Sirius and Remus under the table and both boys fell to the floor in agony, knocking over their cauldron as they fell which gave Snape the perfect excuse to use so that he didn't get caught.

 However, the potion would also cause some damage as it was a potion which knocked you out instantly as soon as it got into your blood stream…it got into both of the boys' mouths, making them choke and go limp. James leapt up and yelled as loud as he could. Adder sent for Madame Pomfrey and she arrived moments later and took the boys to the hospital wing with James and Peter following with all of theirs and Remus and Sirius' stuff shortly afterwards.

James and Peter sat by their friends' beds and when Remus and Sirius finally woke up, they could barely talk but couldn't help but laugh at each other. They were both dressed in the same robes they had been wearing in potions. They got up and as it was Saturday there were no classes they went for a walk round the grounds and lay by the lake in the morning sun. If only it could last forever………………