Disclaimer: Harry Potter 'tis not mine!
Hem Hem This, Hem Hem That
Chapter Thirteen ll Sewing Up The Loose Ends
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"PRONSGIE-WONGSIE! What the heck were you doing up there?" gasped Sirius, looking as if he might die of a heart attack.
"Careful, now, I don't wanna dial 911..." James said, attempting to be funny as he sheepishly brushed invisible lint off his robes.
"You lucky SOD!" Sirius continued to gasp, "You got to go into their dormitory! TELL ALL!"
"Padfoot!" James exclaimed with dignity, "How dare you think that I would be that much of a pervert! I am ashamed of you! I did not see a single thing and am quite glad of it too!"
"Right..." Sirius rolled his eyes, "So... how did Lily react?"
"Oh, yes I remember now," James said sarcastically, "WHY DID YOU TRANSFIGURE ME? I'M GONNA BE A DEAD MAN!"
"A dead man," Sirius repeated knowledgably, "Look, if it'll make you feel any better, I'll take all the blame--"
"So you should! It was all your fault anyway!"
"Yes, we shall stick to that story."
"STORY? IT'S A FACT!"
"Okay James, no need to yell now," Sirius said reasonably.
"YELL?!"
"Yes, yell. 'Tis when you talk in capital letters."
"In-- in what?" Poor James was rather confuzzled.
"POTTER!"
"Oh, crap!" said an alarmed James, looking for a place to hide.
"You know, oddly enough, that doesn't sound like Lily," stated Sirius vaguely, looking up the slide.
"Yeah-- you're right."
"Oh!" Sirius suddenly beamed, "Hi Penny!"
A furious Penny jumped to her feet as soon as she slid neatly onto the floor.
"Shove it, Sirius!" she yelled angrily, balling her fists and glaring up at James, "You've really done it this time, POTTER."
She spat his name out as if it tasted like asparagus.
James and even Sirius winced and slowly shrank back as this raging girl towered over them.
Honestly, the things Lily teaches her very best friends.
"Lily's about to die because of the thought that she let you into our dormitory!" she screamed.
"I swear to Merlin, I didn't see anything--" James started helplessly.
"--NOT TO MENTION IN HER BED!"
"James you dirty boy!" Sirius exclaimed, looking shocked.
James glared at him.
"So... umm..." he pondered over his words as Penny took deep breaths, "You... you've figured out now that I was Prickie-- the echidna?"
Still breathing dangerously heavily, Penny managed to growl, "Yes."
"And...?" Sirius said, clearly enjoying this.
"Sirius!"
"Fine," he sighed heavily, "Okay Penny, hear me out, and don't kill me until you've given me a ten second headstart," Sirius took a deep breath, "It was out of my best interests at heart to test my transfiguring skills--"
"What?"
"Hold on, dear, not quite finished yet. So as I was saying, I was testing my transfiguring skills on Jamesie here... and fancy this, he turned into an echidna!"
Sirius was attempting to sound cheerful but the wobble in his voice gave away that he was scared of Penny.
"Go on," the girl said dangerously calmly.
"Well... I couldn't transfigure him back, because my transfiguring skills aren't that developed. In fact, it was a shock when Prongsie did turn into an echidna. I had no idea I could do such a thing. Honest to Merlin."
Penny looking livid with rage, "Get to the point if you still want your seven second head start."
"Seven seconds? It was ten!"
"Each time you irritate me with your stupidity or ground-breaking news, a second gets taken off," Penny said complacently, breathing heavily down her nose, "Now it's six seconds. I suggest you don't aggravate me anymore or it will get to minus ten seconds."
Gulping, Sirius gabbled, "Okay, okay, so I couldn't transfigure him back! But I knew the spell would wear off in twelve hours!"
The look on Penny's face made James almost sorry for his best friend.
"FIVE SECONDS!" she yelled, "Why didn't you just tell us what had happened to him?!"
"Well, after Lily began saying how cute he was... I just didn't have the heart to tell!" Sirius exclaimed honestly.
"Four," Penny said furiously, "Thank you for that wonderful explanation. One. Two--"
"Sh--" Sirius whirled around and sprinted out of the common-room. He smashed his leg against the portrait of the Fat Lady as he flew off.
Penny tore after him without so much as a glance at James. No fair! She only gave Snuffles a two second headstart!
Slack people...
Sighing, James looked up and managed just in time to stop himself from rumpling up his hair. He continued to glance up the girls' dormitory stairs (they had changed back) and looked like he was expecting something to happen to sort out this messy situation.
I suppose I had better talk to Lily... no, scratch that. That's mission impossible. I'll... write a letter. Merlin, who'd see the day when I'd be writing an apology letter?
So James Potter betook himself back to his dorm, hoping that his dear friend Remmy or even Peter would be in there. But their beds were empty; Remus' one neatly made, and Peter's in a tangled mess of blankets and candy wrappers.
He pored through his drawers until he found a decent-looking scroll of parchment. True, it's edges had been gnawed off a little (probably Peter chewing on it when he got a little hungry), but it looked like a nice patten. Sort of.
Dear Lily, he started.
No, that's too... odd, he thought, and rubbed it out.
To Lily,
No... that won't do either. 'To Lily' sounds too formal, he thought, so he rubbed that out too.
Finally, James decided on Dear Lily.
Dear Lily,
I would tell you this in person, but I may end up with extra or less body parts, so I think it would be safer to tell you in written form. Firstly, I DID NOT SEE ANYTHING. Honest to Merlin. I solemnly swear. I closed my eyes whenever one of you girls were getting dressed or undressed. See, I'm a nice sort of guy. If it had been Sirius in my place... well, never mind.
Speaking of which, this entire thing was Sirius' fault. Yes, Sirius Black. He wanted to test out his 'transfiguring skills' and the result was I turned into an echidna. Of all things, an echidna. What. The. Hell. Never knew the 'Enstrata' spell tranfigured people into echidnas.
I am so glad I am writing this, for I fear that I may be a little Dungbeetle by now if I was telling you this in person. The point is, Sirius was the one who transfigured me and Sirius is the one who didn't know the spell to turn me back. The sodding idiot. But he knew it wore off in 12 hours, and that is what happened. Unfortunately.
So anyway, I was left to crawl around the entire of Hogwarts! Do you know how difficult it is to do that?! Finally, I made it to the Great Hall. Sirius, that git, had evidently not told any of you of what had happened to me. So, you started saying I was cute and well... I couldn't tell you that I was me!
Well, that's about it. I hope you won't kill me; all curses and hexes should be directed to Sirius. Although Penny has already given him a run for his life...
--James.
Lily ripped the letter in half. Then into quarters. Then eighths. She probably would have ripped them into sixteenths, but it was getting rather difficult to tear them up any further.
"Who was that from?" Meddy asked, sounding almost hysterical. She was still anxious and paranoid by the fact that a boy had been in their dorm all night without them knowing.
Penny was still missing. She had burst out of the room in the morning, murmuring something about an idiot named Potter. Meddy and Emily had woken up to Lily's ultra-piercing scream.
"Potter, that insufferable git," Lily seethed, though she wasn't as angry. In fact, she was amused by James' choice of words in his letter.
"Oh, and don't worry," she added, crumpling the eighths of James' letter in her right hand. She tapped them with her hand and a flame sparked. Watching in a satisfied way as the parchment began to burn, she said, "He didn't see anything."
Meddy and Penny began to relax. Meddy turned to make her bed neatly while Emily pressed Lily on for more answers.
"So, how did he explain the entire echidna thing?" she asked lazily, swinging her legs back and forth while perched on her bed.
Lily frowned as she fluffed up her pillow, "Oooh... it's Sirius' fault."
"Sirius' fault again, hey? Bet Penny loved that," Emily grinned, "So what did he do?"
Thus, Lily launched into a long and tiring explanation, during in which Penny came back, looking rather satisfied. Her hair was flying out of her usual neat plait and her cheeks were very flushed. Traces of sweat were dotted on her forehead.
"So whatcha been up to, Pen?" Meddy asked when Lily finished her little story.
"Oh... chased Sirius," Penny instantly became interested in the great ball of clothes spilling out of her wardrobe, "Kicked Sirius, hit Sirius, slapped Sirius..." She trailed off.
"Kissed Sirius," Emily pointed out slyly.
Penny's head shot up at once, "Huh?"
Meddy and Lily immediately grinned as well, both looking like Chesire cats. The three girls abandoned what they were doing to corner Penny into an explanation with ALL the details.
"You can always when someone's been kissed!" Lily started in a singy voice.
"Yup, their lips get all red and swollen!" chimed in Meddy, "And they look like they're in lurrrve."
Penny was blushing a bright red that went up to the roots of her hair.
"So how was it, dear sister?" Emily asked, trying to hide the laughter in voice. Then she squealed and hugged Penny, "You gots your first kiss, you gots your first kiss!"
"Ugh, get off!" Penny exclaimed hotly, though she was smiling.
"So, how was it?"
"It was... good, I suppose. Not that I had anything to compare it against!" Penny went even more red.
"As if. You've dated..." Lily trailed off.
"Zero guys," Penny said in an "exactly" voice.
"What about Sonny?" Emily asked, frowning, "You know, in third-year?"
"He was so not a date!"
"Yeah, sure," Meddy said with a grin.
"Well, I'm glad it's all peachy dandy between you and Sirius," Lily said complacently, with the air of someone trying to bring the conversation back to the original topic, "But right now, I'm going to go and murder him."
"You do that," Emily said cutely, nodding her head, "But you might wanna get dressed first. Today is SATURDAY."
"Yes... Saturday is a pretty day," Meddy said, rolling her eyes.
"TODAY IS HOGSMEADE DAY!" shrieked Penny in delight, still a little pink.
"Ohmygosh, I havadatewithAmos!" squealed Lily so hysterically that it was an achievement the others understood what she said. A second later, she was obscured from vision by her wardrobe, in search for the "perfect outfit".
Meddy rolled her eyes, Penny crossed her arms and mouthed, "JAMES IS THE ONE FOR HER!", and Emily pouted.
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Sirius stared long and hard at his hard-boiled egg which was sitting in his egg cup. In front of him was what the average person would consider as the world's largest breakfast. Cereal, three pieces of toasts, bacon, scrambled eggs, a boiled egg, a crossiant, half a sausage (the other half gulped down by him) and a hashbrown.
"So you wrote a letter to her," he repeated for the fortieth time, staring straight at James as though he could not believe it.
"Yes."
"Well..." Sirius blinked and gradually (and finally), the message sank in, "...that's... extremely odd."
And he picked up his fork and, still staring into space, poked at his boiled egg.
Remus looked at him and concluded he needed mental help. No, seriously. He wasn't just thinking that because Sirius was being weird. He really need that help. And quickly.
Peter, who had been immensely absorbed in adoring his waffle, choked.
Sirius stopped poking his egg mechanically and thumped his friend on the back, also passing a glass of water over.
"Here you go, Wormtail."
"OHMEMERLIN, HIDE!" James shouted panickedly, diving into invisibility under the table.
Sirius looked up, cursed, and in a scramble where his chair and glass of orange juice got knocked over, disappeared.
Remus frowned and poked his head under the tablecloth, "What the hell are you guys on? Cocaine?"
James pulled a face and hissed strainedly, "It's the demon girls!"
Remus looked blank and confused while Peter hiccoughed into his napkin.
"The demon girls?" Remus repeated dazedly. Then he saw who was coming.
"Oh, you mean Lily and them."
There was a slight rukus under the table and Remus distinctly heard James murmur, "Lily and them are the demon girls!"
"Good morning, Remus, Peter," came from the four girls briskly, even Emily who liked greeting people with, "GOOOOOD MORNING!"s and " 'SUP MAH HOMIES?!"
"Morning," Remus said pleasantly, feeling quite superior as he reached over for his glass of juice. Peter had finally stopped coughing his lungs out and smiled weakly at the girls, shifting over a bit so Meddy could sit down.
"Say, you haven't seen James or Sirius, have you?" asked Penny in a calm voice. For some reason, that voice pricked the hairs on the back of Remus' neck, and Peter shivered slightly.
At the same time, Remus felt his ankle being grabbed onto tightly. Trying to pull a normal face, he wriggled his leg violently.
"Yes, I have," he said innocently.
"Really?" inquired Lily politely, "Where may they be?"
"Oh," Remus said in an agonisingly slow voice, "They are--" he felt a sharp intake in his right ankle and thought better on how to finish the sentence, "--un-somewhere."
"Un-somewhere?" Lily repeated, raising her eyebrows.
"No, just somewhere."
Looking slightly disappointed, Penny asked bittersweetly, "And where may that somewhere be?"
For a moment, he thought that maybe his ankle was twisted. The pain was so much that Remus instantly yanked his foot away and yelled, "Merlin, you two! Stop it! That really friggin' hurt!"
There was a smack as Remus yanked his leg and a moaning, "OW!" under the table.
"Why'd you kick me, Moony?" came Sirius' mournful voice, as James sheepishly crawled out from under the table.
"It was an accident."
Sirius also emerged. The two boys that looked like they had been told off for spoiling the girls' skipping in the school yard looked up at Penny and Lily sheepishly.
"Hello Penny... Em... Meddy... and... Lily," Sirius said in a teeny-tiny voice, nodding to all of them.
"Hi," Penny said a little formally, but she went a bit pink.
"Hey, man," Emily said in her usual voice, poring through the plate of pancakes as she looked for choc-chip ones.
"Morning," Meddy replied.
"Sirius," Lily nodded her head over at him, her jaw clenching slightly.
Looking positively relieved, Sirius slumped into his chair and put a hand on his heart.
Then it was James' turn.
"Good morning Penny, Emily, Meddy, Lily."
"Good morning to you, James," came Penny.
" 'Sup?" came Emily.
"Hello-ha," came Meddy.
Silence...
"Lily?" James said in a tiny voice, sounding desperately hopeful.
Silence...
"Lily?" he tried again, looking as if he was about to shed a tear or two.
Silence...
"James," Lily said cordially, not looking at him.
He could've jumped for joy.
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A/N: I GOT MY NEEDLE TODAY! It was PAINFUL! But at least I have a much less chance of getting Meningicocal or however you spell it... I hope you liked that chappie! I'm also extremely sorry for the long time it took me to update. I write slowly, and since I want all my chapters to be good and not rushed, it makes me even slower.
An important notice for those who are reading my Wedding Invitations stories-- I am hoping to post the sequel to Wedding Invitations: The Wrong Names! later this afternoon. I'm going to have my hands full, for I've only written enough for one chapter's worth. Updates may take awhile!
Also, You're The Flower For Me is available in French! Translated by MissLily-33
Bye!! Thank you if you have added me to your favourite author's list! I feel so.... loved! XD --MSQ.