Catch Me If You Can
Chapter Twenty Two ll The Headmaster's Words
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"Remus... what are you doing?" James asked casually. He was leaning against the doorjamb of his dormitory, watching Remus stuff a pair of shoes and an oversized sweater into his backpack.
Remus whirled around and caught his breath when he saw James, "Oh James," he said hastily, "Um, I have to go quickly to see my mum... she's sick."
He attempted to zip up his backpack, gave up, then fled out of the dorm, waving to James on his way.
"Wait!" James yelled after him, "When will you be back?"
"I don't know!"
James' supposed good mood was ruined, and he flopped onto his bed moodily.
"First it's Di, now it's Remus," he murmured to himself angrily.
Sirius walked in a few minutes later, stopped short and looked around, "What's up? Hey, where's Remus?"
"Gone."
Sirius sighed, "D'you notice he always leaves every month? About this time, too."
"Yeah," James responded dully, "What are his excuses again?"
"Mum sick, aunt sick, grandma sick..."
"I reckon it's time we found out what he's really doing," James said absently.
"Yeah, that's what I was just thinking," Sirius said, looking as if inspiration had hit him in the face.
"Thinking what?" Peter asked just as he walked in, looking for his chocolate bar that he knew he had stashed somewhere.
"About following Remus every time he leaves each month," James replied.
"Yeah, next time he leaves, follow."
"You sound soo heroic, Sirius," Paige said sarcastically, as she walked into their dormitory, followed by Lily and Anna.
"What are you three doing here?" James asked, looking astonished.
Anna shrugged as she sat on Remus' bed, "We're bored."
"Uh huh, and that gives you full access to our dorm?"
The girls glanced at each other.
"Yup," Lily said loftily, examining the book on James' bedside table.
"Hey, where's Di?" Sirius wanted to know.
"She's... with a guy," Paige said vaguely.
"Oooh..." Sirius quirked an eyebrow.
"Oh yeah, where's Remus?" Anna asked, "Is he with a guy?"
They all chuckled, just as a scroll of parchment materialized in thin air and dropped on Lily's head.
"AHHHHH!" she yelped, truly under the impression she was being attacked.
"Evans, shut it," James murmured, reaching for the parchment.
Lily glared at him and started to attack him. Muahahahaha.
"Hey! Cut -- it -- out!" James exclaimed heatedly.
"Oh, come on already," Sirius said loftily, "Just drop on your knees and admit your love for each other."
What magical words. In an instant, Lily and James both stopped and looked quite murderously at him.
"Run, Sirius," Paige murmured from the corner of her mouth.
Sirius nodded, and slowly edged to the doorway. Then he broke into a sprint, with the redhead and black haired boy tearing after him, yelling all sorts of threats.
He ran down the common-room, jumped over the railing and waited for the two to run past. Then quickly, he jumped back onto the stairs and ran back up.
Lily and James found themselves in the common-room, looking right and left for Sirius.
"Di!" Lily exclaimed at the owner of the name, who was sitting on a sofa and talking to a third-year boy with a faint pink stained on her cheeks.
"Oh, hi Lily, James," Di said, looking surprised, "Where are the others?"
"They're in Potter's dorm ," Lily answered promptly, "Have you seen Sirius, by any chance?"
Di shook her head, "Not recently."
"Okay, well we better get back up to the dormitory," Lily sighed, "See ya later, Di."
"Bye."
James and Lily trekked back up to the beloved dormitory, and to their surprise, found Sirius Black sitting on his four-poster, swinging his legs back and forth. "Hey guys," Sirius greeted enthusiastically, stretching the word 'hey' into five syllables.
"And how did you get here?" Lily wanted to know.
"Aha, master strategy plans, of course."
"I'm sure," James scoffed.
Anna, laughing, tossed him the scroll of parchment, "Here, this was sent from Dumbledore. He wants to see you and Lily."
James took it and read it out loud, "Mr. Potter, please come by my office as soon as possible. Bring Miss. Evans as well. Professor Dumbledore."
Lily looked a bit anxious, "I wonder what he wants."
"Probably to discuss last night's incident," Anna said indifferently, "You better go now."
So they did.
The two argued on their way to Dumbledore's office, but finally made an agreement about how broomsticks could both be used to fly, and to sweep up floors.
"Not that I would use my Nimbus 1000 to sweep floors, though," James muttered. Lily sighed and shook her head.
The gargoyle guarding the office door refused to budge at James' "Lemon sherbet".
"Okay, so we can't even get in. Well, this is bright," Lily said sarcastically, immediately sinking onto the floor to sit.
"So what do we do now?" James asked.
"We wait for a saviour."
James also sat down.
"So..." he said slowly, "How's your family?"
Lily gave him a funny look. She was ready to snap at him, then realised he was just being friendly.
"I don't really know... I haven't seen them for like, two months."
"Oh. Right."
"But, judging by my mother's letters, I think they're pretty good," Lily said, trying to keep a smooth conversation going. James simply nodded. He was looking at Lily in a new light, discovering that she was quite pretty. It wasn't plain daylight obvious, but you just seemed to notice after awhile.
"Potter? Potter! Hellooooo? Earth to--"
James blinked and realised he had been spacing out for the past ten seconds, at least, "Huh? What? Where? I'm here... at least, I think I am."
Lily cocked her head to one side and blinked in a confused way.
"I think you need to take your pill, Potter," she finally diagnosed him.
James decided to play along. He pretended to look shocked, "How'd you know I take pills?"
"I'm psychic," Lily replied mockingly with a smile.
"Oh really?" James said indifferently, "Prove it."
"Okay..." Lily said, determined not to lose face in front of James, "I bet you Professor McGonagall is going to come here, in -- three, two... one... zero--"
"Potter, Evans. What are you doing here?" Professor McGonagall asked them, as she rounded the corner and saw both of them sitting outside of Dumbledore's office.
"Huh?" was all James could manage. He was looking at his Transfiguration teacher with bulging eyes. Meanwhile, Lily was trying not to laugh.
"Professor Dumbledore asked for us to see him here, but we don't know the password," Lily answered promptly.
Professor McGonagall nodded curtly, "I see. Canary creams."
The gargoyle slowly spun around, revealing the staircase up to the Headmaster's office.
"Okay, you two go hop along now," Prof. McGonagall said, with a small smile. James continued staring at her, in fact, even more so at her use of words, "hop along."
"Thank you, Professor," both children remembered to say before stepping onto the staircase.
"Are you really psychic?" James mumbled to Lily, taking off his glasses and wiping them with his robe.
Lily giggled, "Nope. It was a coincidence."
James let out a sigh of relief.
They reached the top of the staircase and stepped into Dumbledore's mysteriously cool office.
"Ah, Mr. Potter and Miss. Evans," Dumbledore greeted them softly. He was seated behind his desk, smiling at them, "Please be seated."
There was only one chair in front of his desk which Lily quickly sat down in. She stuck her tongue out at James, who glared at her.
Dumbledore chuckled, he waved his wand and another chair appeared beside Lily. James looked grateful as he sat down.
"I assume that such intelligent children as you two already know the reason why I have called you here?" Professor Dumbledore asked as if they were merely talking about the weather.
"Last night's incident?" Lily guessed.
Their Headmaster nodded, "Precisely. Now, this may come as a bit of a shock, Mr. Potter, but it is entirely your fault that Mr. Snape and Mr. Malfoy are now in the Hospital Wing."
James looked befuddled and nervous, but relaxed at Dumbledore's smile.
"I know you were not aware of yourself doing such a thing, nor was it on purpose. We all know accidents happen, and what happened last night, Mr. Poter, was an accident."
"How could something like sending two people into a wall be called an accident?" James said bluntly, clearly unable to believe such a fact.
Dumbledore smiled, "I know just as well as you do that you blame yourself for what happened, which is part of human nature. Recall all the anger you possessed last night, Mr. Potter. You mayn't have been aware of it, but that anger activated something in your mind, something like a power. A Wiccan power."
Lily let out a soft, "Oooh!" as she understood what he was getting at.
"So that was my power?" James said enthusiastically, beheld with wild visions of becoming a worldwide superhero.
"Yes, telekinesis, I presume. I do remember vaguely telling you two that your powers -- active powers -- will be chanelled through your emotion until you learn to control them. This does not apply to your premonitions, Miss. Evans, as they come at random."
Lily remembered her premonition a couple of days ago, "Professor... I receieved a premonition a few days ago. But I thought our powers had been bound bound."
"Too right they were. At the beginning of a new year, the potion will wear off and you will need to take a new dose. That reminds me-- your powers must be bound again. I will have the potions ready for you... tonight. Well, I am afraid that is all I have time to talk to you about. Please do not lay this too heavily on yourself, Mr. Potter. Even the best wizards cannot control their emotions. Are there any questions?" Professor Dumbledore asked with the air of finality.
They both shook their heads.
"Thank you and goodbye," Dumbledore said, walking them to the door of his office.
"Okay, that was really odd," James said as soon as they were outside.
"I'll say, but then again, aren't Dumbledore's talks to us always weird?" Lily pointed out.
"I suppose you're right."
Assuming it was dinner, they headed off in the direction to the Great Hall, but were stopped by Professor Laincoff midway.
"Where have you been?" she demanded, her eyes darting from Dumbledore's gargoyle to them.
"We just had a conversation with the Headmaster," James responded calmly.
Laincoff looked at him suspiciously; she looked ready to walk away when--
"Five points from Gryffindor for lying," she sneered. Then she smiled grimly at them and swept off.
"That's not fair!" James hissed furiously, his fists clenched and looking ready to kill.
Lily was looking at the giant hour-glass up in the Great Hall, where the Houses' points were kept. She watched as five rubies from the Gryffindor hour-glass rose and disappeared.
She sighed briefly, "Oh well. She's an evil one that we would all like to hit with a shovel. And anyway..."
Her green eyes had darted over to the Slytherin hour-glass, and she smiled as she watched ten emeralds rise then disappear.
"...it doesn't really matter because Slytherin just lost ten points."
James grin showed that he was perfectly satisfied.
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---->A/N: Rubies and emeralds are preeeeetty! =] --MSQ.