Catch Me If You Can
Chapter Twenty Nine ll Treacle Tart War
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James took a sip of hot chocolate, while quivering under a thick blanket. He glanced warily at Sirius, sitting beside him, who was staring into space. His face was pale.
"Feeling any better?" Professor Dumbledore's voice rested on both of them gently.
James made no sound, just nodded as if he was possessed.
He looked around Dumbledore's office. He had been in here on a few occasions, mostly do with Wiccan areas, but the office at those times never failed to fascinate him.
It was just this moment, when the horrific memory of Remus turning into a werewolf bore into his mind and he had no space to reminiscence about the paintings and Fawkes the phoenix in the office.
Dumbledore drummed his fingers on his table rhythmically, while Sirius shifted uncomfortably. One of the portraits yawned and made a shuffling sound as if the occupant had stirred.
"You are here for an explanation, I presume?" Dumbledore asked lightly, after a few moments of silence.
"No," James said quickly -- he had no desire to find out why Remus turned into a werewolf, even though it had been his curiosity that almost got him and Sirius killed.
"Yeah, actually," Sirius spoke up, glancing warily at James, "What's wrong with Remus, firstly?"
Dumbledore said nothing for a few seconds. The two boys looked nervously up at the grandfather clock. It was almost dawn.
"He is a werewolf, but no more less than human."
More silence.
Dumbledore sighed, and got up from his chair. He walked to the window and looked out of it, with his hands entwined behind his back.
"Remus was bitten by a werewolf at the age of four. There was no antidote or cure for it, but luckily, he survived. Unfortunately, however, it left a scar in his life, a scar that would never fade away..."
"Every full moon, once a month in other words, he transforms into a werewolf. The process is painful and slow, but it cannot be helped. Many schools would not accept him, for he would be a danger to all the children."
"I accepted Remus, knowing full well of his problem. He could not remain in the castle, though, when his time came. But there was an alternative, and that would be--"
"The Shrieking Shack," Sirius finished hoarsely.
"Precisely," Dumbledore turned back to face the boys and sat back down in his chair.
James stayed silent and Sirius looked thoughtful. More silence reigned, when finally Dumbledore stood up and told the boys they had better go off to bed.
"At best interests at heart, I would advise that neither of you tell another student about this," Dumbledore advised wisely.
Sirius and James nodded, and together they dawdled back up to the Gryffindor tower. Neither of them breathed a word to each other, but seemed content to let their thoughts stay bottled up in their mind.
The sun was slowly rising, and the sky was a clear shade of pink and orange. Stifling a yawn, James murmured a brief good morning to Sirius before sagging into his bed, his clothes still on.
---
"Holy crapping hell," someone was murmuring.
James dragged open his heavy eyelids and saw Sirius knocking over his alarm clock, before springing out of his four-poster.
"James. James. JAMES! Wake up! It's almost noon -- what the hell -- I can't believe it..."
James shot right up and checked his own clock, which was hopping from one leg to the other singing, "You are late, you are late, you are you are, you are late" in the tune of "Heel and Toe".
11:47am.
"For crying out loud!" James cursed, pulling his robes over his pyjamas franctically, "We've missed all our morning classes, and the rest of the school are about to have lunch in ten minutes time..."
"I'm so damn hungry," Sirius found it necessary to say. They yanked into their uniforms, wondering why in the world Peter had not bothered to wake them up.
By the time they looked in a respectable condition, the bell had rung for lunch and students from all over the castle had trooped down to the Great Hall.
"Look who it is," Anna said flatly, watching two of the Marauders straggle to the Gryffindor table.
"Hi everyone, what's up?" Sirius said distractedly, before grabbing a bread roll.
"Where were you?" Lily asked disgustedly, "You missed Potions and History of Magic."
James swallowed, "And that's supposed to make us feel bad, how?"
Lily ignored his remark.
"You weren't at breakfast either. Or dinner last night, for that matter."
"Can you quit sticking your nose in other people's business?" James asked irritably, slamming down his fork, "We do want to keep some of our privacy."
Lily shot him a dirty look but said no more.
"Okay then, where's Remus?" Anna asked politely, but firmly.
Both James and Sirius stopped stuffing their faces with food.
"Haven't you seen him?"
"We haven't seen him since our last class yesterday," Paige filled in matter-of-factly.
"What are you guys up to?" Lily asked suspiciously. Paige and Anna stopped eating and looked intently at the boys.
James shrugged, re-picking up his fork, "Nothing much. Now can I ask something?"
The redhead shrugged as well, "Fire away."
"Where's Peter?"
"He at least was in class," Anna said, rolling her eyes.
"Oh, give it a rest," Sirius said, annoyed, "So what if we weren't in class, huh? We might have a perfectly good reason."
"Which is?" Paige asked sweetly, her voice dripping in sarcasm.
"Oh, sod off!" James and Sirius said loudly.
"Didn't you three ever learn to mind your own business?" James added disgustedly.
Everyone stopped talking and furiously began to eat their lunch again. Everyone was annoyed with the other.
"Hi everyone."
James knocked over his goblet of pumpkin juice and Sirius choked as Remus walked over.
"Where the--"
"--hell were--"
"--you?!"
The girls were all yelling at once.
"We seriously--"
"--need to talk!"
James and Sirius said loudly enough. Remus looked nervous, but nodded.
"Okay, I wanted to talk to you guys too."
The got up and began walking away.
"Oh for crying out loud!" Lily yelled irritably, throwing down her fork again, "What is so damn secretive?!"
Paige sighed, resting her hand on Lily's arm in hopes to calm her down.
"Don't fret about it, Lil. It might be a boys thing, that we girls will never understand."
"Or, it could just be a Marauder thing and knowing that, it's most likely illegal and dangerous!" Lily muttered angrily.
"Oh I wouldn't count on that," Anna said loftily, "They're a little rowdy, but I'm sure they'd never do something that would risk their lives or expulsion."
Lily grudgingly agreed.
Meanwhile, the boys were having a nice chat.
"We know everything, no need to explain," Sirius said as soon as they had reached out of earshot of everyone else.
"Okay..." Remus fidgeted, looking uncomfortable, "Well, I just wanted to apologise--"
"Apologise?!" James interrupted, looking shocked.
"Yeah, after all, it wasn't your fault that we almost got killed. Blame James' curiosity to kill a hundred cats for that," Sirius smiled.
"Oh shut up!" James nudged Sirius, though he too was smiling.
Remus chuckled weakly, "Well then -- I guess this is goodbye."
"Goodbye?" James looked confused, "Where are you going?"
"There's no need to hide it James," Remus said seriously, "Don't worry, I understand that you don't want to be friends with a werewolf--"
"You actually think we'd just leave you?" Sirius said, astounded.
"Hey, it doesn't matter, I understand--"
"What kind of a friend would do that?" James wondered out loud. Remus fell silent.
"So what are you saying?" he finally asked.
"That we're not abandoning you over just this one little thing," Sirius said stubbornly.
"You know, maybe we can do something to help," James said thoughtfully.
"Yeah..."
Remus looked stunned.
"You'd actually... stay with me?"
"Of course we will!"
Remus' voice sounded hoarse.
"You guys are the best..."
"Tell me about it," Sirius said with a satisfied grin.
The boys began to laugh.
--After Classes--
No one did any apologising, but no one did any arguing either. The group, despite being a little too polite to one another, had returned back to normal.
"What's this?" Lily asked, walking up to one of the stone walls. A poster.
She ripped it off and read it out loud.
Student Exchange Program!
Have you ever wanted to know what it's like at another wizard school? Ever wanted to meet new friends, learn different ways and explore other places?
Here's your chance!
You can go to a different school for a fortnight and experiment it out! WES (Wizard Exchange Society) are offering you the chance to go with a group of your friends (more than five, limit of ten) to your choice of Beauxbatons or Durmstrang.
This is aimed for all twelve-year-olds, so if you're interested, sign up with Professor Dumbledore right away!
There will be two groups of a limit of ten people; one group will be staying at Beauxbatons, the other at Durmstrang. It's an experience you will never forget!
Completely charge free!
Sandra Malzwell, WES Head Representative.
"I want to go," Paige said at once.
"Yeah, me too!" Anna exclaimed, "Do you want to go to Dumbledore now?"
"Hold on, I want to go too. But we need a minimum of five people," Lily said.
"Well, count me in," James chimed in, "But if I'm going, it'll have to be to Beauxbatons. Durmstrang, I've heard, is dodgy."
"Yeah, count me in as well, but ditto to what James said," Sirius added distractedly.
"All right... that's five people. Who else wants to go?" Lily asked enthusiastically.
"It'll be cool," Remus said thoughtfully, "Okay, add me in!"
"Pete?" everyone turned to look at Peter.
He looked doubtful.
"It'll be tons of fun!" James coaxed.
"Well, I guess they'll have nice food..." Peter said uncertainly, "All right then."
"Right. Di?"
Di sighed and shook her hair back from her face.
"...I suppose I'll go too."
"So that's the eight of us," Lily said happily, "Perfect. Let's go tell Dumbledore."
"Whoa, wait a second, Evans. We have Quidditch practice this arvo," James interrupted.
Lily clicked her tongue impatiently.
"Never mind, we'll go," Paige volunteered, "You three--" she whipped around and looked at Sirius, James and Lily, "--better go to the pitch or you'll be late."
"All right then, but remember to put our names down too!" Sirius called, before the three aforementioned ran down the corridor.
By the time it was dinner, five out of the eight were in good spirits. They talked happily of how fun the student exchange program was going to be, and what they were planning to do.
Finally, the three others came trudging to the Gryffindor table, covered in mud.
"That is the last time I'm playing Quidditch in the rain," Lily said in disgust.
"Ew, you should seriously consider taking a shower," Paige said, also looking disgusted.
Lily hit her playfully with a semi-mud-free hand.
"Yeah right Lily," Sirius said matter-of-factly, "Just because of weather conditions, they don't cancel games or practices."
"What, so we'd actually have to play in a hurricane?!"
"Pretty much."
"How retarded."
Then they went back up to their dormitories to clean themselves up.
Ten minutes later, Lily, James and Sirius returned back to the Great Hall.
"So did you sign us up?" Lily said conversationally, helping herself to mashed potato.
"Yeah, and we got first dibs! We're going to Beauxbatons, but Professor Dumbledore said that since there's eight of us and you can have up to ten going, we may have to include two more people in our group. But that's no biggie," Paige told her.
"Yeah, wow. I can't believe we're actually going," Lily said in awe, while eating her roast chicken, "I thought it was surprising that I was going to a witchcraft school, and now I'm going to another one!"
Anna laughed, "But apparently Beauxbatons students can be a little -- well -- up themselves. So we have to be careful and make a few allowances."
"Fat chance," James snorted. Remus grinned.
"I bet you guys have loads of pranks to pull over there?" Lily said dully, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.
The Marauders glanced at each other in between bites.
"Holy moly, I didn't think of that," James said blankly, wiping his mouth with a napkin, "And I'm almost out of fireworks and Dungbombs!"
"We need to go to Kalail's ASAP," Sirius said contentedly, helping himself to a slice of apple pie.
"Kalail's in Diagon Alley, not much chance of us ever getting there soon. We leave to Beauxbatons next week," Remus filled in.
"I'll owl my parents," James said carelessly, reaching over to get the last treacle tart. At that exact moment, Lily had stuck her fork in to get it.
Both glanced up at each other.
"Ladies get first dibs, Potter," Lily said sweetly, dragging her fork so that the treacle tart followed. But James dragged it towards him.
"You're a lady?" James said mockingly.
She whammed him on the side of the head with her free hand.
"Ow, ow, ow," James moaned, "Please Lily, I just want the sweet, tasty, treacle tart..."
Lily smiled sweetly, "Too bad."
She leant over to pluck the tart with her hands, at the same time James tried to push her back.
With a yell and a crash, a jug of pumpkin juice got knocked over, the treacle tart went flipping into the air and landed on an innocent, unsuspecting first year, James smashed his elbow into a steak-and-kidney pie and accidentally shoved Lily so that she fell off her unbalanced seat and onto the ground.
"OW!"
Lily yelped as her head hit the hard floor. James, who had been almost sitting on the table, fell over the edge and crashed just inches away from where Lily was.
To make matters worse, the almighty James Potter had dragged down the tablecloth with him. Plates, bowls, goblets and cutlery crashed and smashed onto the floor.
"Serious walking disaster," Lily murmured, trying to get up.
"If you had just let me eat the treacle tart, none of this would have happened," James muttered to her.
Lily glared at him, shaking bits of food from her hair. Sirius had gone into a laughing fit and Paige sat with her head in her hands.
"Hey, are you okay?" Anna asked them haughtily.
"Far out, Potter!" Lily said angrily, as the usual rage that James always managed to give her came over her again, "Why'd you go do that for?!"
James smiled at her.
"Hey, Lily?"
"What?!"
"Can I have a hug?"
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---->A/N: Hahaha, this was about to be a really boring chapter, until I realised that I needed to put some LJness into it. =] --MSQ.