Chapter 5

The next morning, James woke and for a moment he wondered whether it was all a dream. He sat up and parted the curtains hanging round him. He saw the slumbering forms of Sirius, Remus, Peter and Adam. James laughed.

            'Of course it wasn't a dream!' he thought to himself.

It was too vivid to be a dream.

He turned onto his side to see the clock on his bedside table. He saw with disgust that the luminous hands pointed to 6:30am. As he knew that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep he decided to go to the owlery and see Lily.

As he walked along the corridors following the map that Arthur had given him he thought about last night. He still couldn't believe that Lily was hear. He'd just managed to resist the temptation to run back to the Gryffindor tower to check that she was there when he arrived at the owlery. James reached out his hand to push the door open when he heard the voices of two people inside talking to each other. Curiosity got the better of him and he leaned forward to put his ear against the door to listen.

"Why did you act like that towards that Black guy yesterday?"

AN: Black as in the last name of Sirius not skin colour

            James pressed his ear harder to the wood. He was sure that that was Snapes voice.

            "Because if father had found out that I had made an enemy in Sirius Black then he would practically disown me. The Blacks are the oldest wizarding family in the country. But the other one, no, he's a mud-blood. I could see it in his eyes. He'd never heard of Wizards or Magic before. You could tell it was all new to him. If I can't get at Black for getting in my way then I'll just have to be happy with Potter. Revenge will be easy to get with him…" Just then Professor McGonagall walked up behind James and tapped James on the shoulder. He almost levitated in surprise. James put a finger to his lips and motioned for the Professor to put her ear against the door. Bemused, she did so. James followed suit and they heard Malfoy saying,

            "Take this owl for instance. It belongs to Potter, and all it would take would be to clip its wings so that it can't fly and then to throw it out of the window. I think that would be revenge enough on him don't you think? Now where's my wand?"

            Professor took one look at James' horrified face, threw the door open with a bang and marched in.

            "That was the most barbaric thing that I have ever heard!" She snatched Lily from Malfoy and handed her to James.         

            "Mr. Potter I suggest that you keep your owl in your dormitory for the time being. Mr. Malfoy, you will serve detention for one month, cleaning bedpans in the hospital wing. Mr. Snape, you will serve detention for two weeks cleaning the Owlery every other evening." Before they could even think about objecting she added,

            "And be grateful it isn't more. Your detentions starts tomorrow, go back to your houses and stay there until first lesson. You may go."

            As they left Malfoy shot a look at James that could have frozen the sea.

            "Just you wait Potter, you'll get what's coming to you soon enough."

            James watched them walk down the corridor and then turned to McGonagall.

            "Thank you Professor, I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come along then."

            She smiled.

            "Just keep that owl out of harms way."

            She left the Owlery and carried on the way she had been going. James hurried back to the tower.

                                                                   *

            "He said he was going to do what!"

            James had woken Sirius and they were sitting in front of the fire in the common room.

            James stroked the soft white feathers on Lily's back.

            "He said he would clip her wings so she'd be unable to fly and then throw her out of the window so she would die."

            Sirius clenched his fist to stop himself from hitting something that would hurt him or break something.

            "James we have to do something about him."

            He thought for a moment and then a grin spread slowly across his face.

            "How about we search the castle for the entrance to the kitchens and then put a charm on the slytherins pumpkin juice?"

            James looked at Sirius,

            "Are you kidding? We'd be in so much trouble if we were court!"

            "Then we'd better not get court."

            James grinned.

            "I'll ask Lily to help, she's really good at doing research for stuff. She'll be able to find a really good charm. But what are we waiting for. Lets go find that kitchen."

            James ran up the staircase and used the curtain rail around his bed as a perch to put Lily on, and then raced back down.

            They spent the next hour and a half searching.

            "I bet it'll be something like a picture that you have to stroke or something. My parents have got loads in the house. About twenty."

            They decided to start at the dungeons and work their way up. They walked down a flight a stairs and ended up in a broad, well-lit corridor. The two boys walked to the end, took a side each and began to work their way along. With an amazing stroke of luck the fist painting James came to had an old lady sitting at a writing desk. Seeing James she smiled.

            "Can I help you young man?"

            "Erm… well..yes. Do you know where the kitchens are by any chance?"

            "Why yes. It's the painting of a basket of fruit at the other end of the corridor. Just tickle the pear."

            James thanked the painting and walked to the other end of the corridor. He stopped when he got to the fruit basket and tickled the little pear. It giggled and then turned into a green door handle. James turned it and opened the painting out. He found that he was looking into a large room with lots of cooking apparatus. There were also lots of small creatures scurrying around preparing breakfast.

            "Sirius!"

            Sirius looked up from the painting that he was examining and grinned.

            "Good one Jamesie boy! New we'd find it."

            They climbed through the hole and into the kitchens. As soon as they were inside one of the creatures dashed up to them.

            "Is there anything we can do for you sir's?" it said in a high voice.

            Sirius grinned and stepped forwards.

            "I love houselves, they'll do anything for you." He whispered to James.

            "I'd like to ask you something. Do you like Slytherins?"

            "The houself suddenly looked scared.

            "It is not our place to say sir."

            "Surely you cant' like them!" Sirius said in disbelief. "But I heard that people who were Slytherins are the people who treat houselves the worst."

            There was a sharp intake of breath from all the houselves and they all turned to stare at the two boys.

            "The houself lowered its voice and said,

            "We had heard as much but we dared not believe it. None of us likes the Slytherins but it is not our place to say such things."

            Sirius grinned from ear to ear.

            "If you don't like them then you wouldn't do us a great favor but just happening to not notice if something happened to drop itself into their food or pumpkin juice?"

            The houself smiled and then looked around furtively as if it was scared that someone might have seen. It looked around at the other elves and they all vigorously nodded.

            James and Sirius beamed.

            "I'll take that as a yes then." James said.

            They thanked the elves and left the kitchens.

            As they walked back to the common room James looked at his watch, it was only 8 o'clock.

            "What are we gonna do now? We've got half an hour till breakfast and that lasts an hour, so we've got about an hour."

            "Sirius just shrugged.

            "Why don't we just go back to the tower and talk to your friend Lily. I'm sure there's lots you two want to talk about."

            James stopped dead; he'd completely forgotten that Lily was hear. He set off at a dead run back to the common room leaving Sirius trailing in his wake.

Well, that took a while. Please read and review even if it's just something short. I'd love to know how many people are actually reading this.(Probably about 1 if you go by the reviews for my last chapter.)

Thank you to:

Celtic Fairie : James' parents will tell him at Christmas why they didn't raise him as a wizard. Hopefully this chapter didn't sound as much like Harry Potter. I'm not meaning to but then it's the only thing I've got to go on. Please continue to judge my work, it helps a lot!!

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Oh, does anyone want to be a beta-reader? It would help sooooo much if someone could read through it before I post it to check for mistakes and make suggestions.

Please again say so in a review.

Once again, REDAD AND REVIEW!!!

Dari*