Chapter 3- Writing on the... wall?
James opened the door to the dorm and gasped. "What happened?" he asked looking at his bald friend who had words written in bright red neon, flashing around his head for all to read 'I pity the fool...'.
"Same thing as you, mate," Sirius said, staring at James's head while it flushed color, becoming as white as his face.
James went to the mirror and screamed at the reflection. He angled his head to read 'Call me cue ball' in the same neon lettering he had seen on Sirius's head, only it started to change. James waited and watched until the letters thoroughly showed 'Gotcha'. There was another flash of a camera as James kicked the bedpost closest to him. "Who did this?!"
"Don't know, Prongs, maybe Snape?" Sirius suggested. He had somewhat gotten over what had happened, at least enough to let James be the one to freak out right now. "You know how good he is in potions, maybe it was in something we drank last night."
"Or the shampoo," James said remembering the first time the camera went off. "The bastard put something in our shampoo!" James went to touch his head, but still felt his hair there. Damn, he thought. If he had simply gone bald, he could have willed the hair to grow back, but whatever Snape did, they would have to really try to figure it out. "Did he even sign-up?"
"I don't think so," Sirius said. This was a serious matter if he had, this might take the Goofster away. "I borrowed some hats, but we have to hurry and see who's on that list."
"What about our plan?"
"I couldn't go down there like this!"
"Sirius! This is urgent, do you want to loose the Goofster?"
"No," he mumbled.
"It's okay, we can do that one at lunch. What's with Peter?"
"He's already tripped up Mundungus and the Ravenclaw boys have shed their feathers, and everything else is going as planned."
"Alright," James took a deep breath. "Let's go." The two boys put on the hats, the lettering showing through, but the lack of hair was at least hidden. They looked at the list and seeing that Snape wasn't on there, both took a deep breath. "He probably just thought he'd do this anyways."
"Probably didn't have the money," Sirius pointed out.
"We'll be getting him anyways," James said.
"What about this?" Sirius asked pointing to his head.
"We can't miss classes, or we can't pull all the pranks, so just keep the hats on," James said, just as the bell for the first class rang. They made their way to Transfiguration and sat down. As the late bell rang McGonagall came in, books in hand and sat down at her desk.
"Open your books to chapter-" she looked up and saw the ridiculous hats adorning James and Sirius's heads. She figured what this was quickly and wanted badly to see what had gotten the better of them, after all the awful things they had done to other people. "Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, I'd appreciate you follow the school rules and only wear those outside of class, please."
James and Sirius glanced at each other, but took off the caps. The class laughed, and, since the writing had changed, two flashes went off. Sirius's head now read 'Lice kills' while James's was a little more personal reading 'I'm an egotistical dumbass'.
McGonagall kept a straight face as she read both in turn, then replied. "Mr. Potter, if you could sensor you scalp, and everyone turn to chapter ten."
James put his head on the table and covered it the best he could with his hands as the red-faced Sirius tried to just act normally. Lily opened her book and wrote down in her notebook as the phrase on James's head changed to 'The bald eagle has landed...'. Flash
There had to be at least twenty pictures between the two boys before lunch, since a picture was taken every time the message changed, which was pretty often. When lunch came around, James and Sirius went to the kitchens to fulfill their plans. "Yes," James told one of the house elves, "Severus doesn't like to take this, so just put some in his pumpkin juice, it'll help him out."
"Okay," the house elf said, happy to have a task.
They went to lunch to watch what would happen. As they left the kitchens, though, someone was lurking behind them. "Accio hats," Lily whispered from a dark corner. Before the boys knew what was going on the hats had disappeared, but they didn't know where to.
"Damn it!" James shouted.
Sirius looked around, but saw nothing. "Come on, let's get a couple more hats, I have some more in the room."
They ran back to the dormitory, but when they went looking for more caps, they were all missing. There was nothing, unless they wanted to wrap scarves around their head and call them turbans. So they stayed in the dorm room, playing exploding snap, trying to get rid of the flashing red signs, and having lots of pictures taken as their heads changed between phrases like 'lost: one brain', 'the snitch is up my ass', and 'need better grades? Don't talk to me, mine are worse than yours'.
James had just seen the message change to 'Need help to fit through the door' when Peter came in to see the flash.
"Where have you guys been?" he asked in a squeaky voice. "You missed Snape's nose bleed. He ended up fainting in Narcissa's lap then Malfoy punched him, and he's so messed up right now."
"Good!" James said as a camera took a picture of Sirius's head, which now said 'Dunce'. "He deserves it!"
"We have to get to charms," Sirius said, looking at his watch.
"Fine!" James said storming out of the room.
A/N: Next chapter is the award ceremony, so stay tuned!
Thank you:
Mell Minamoto: You picked up on the cue ball statement! She sort of made him bald, but you know how when Harry's hair is cut short, he can make it come back, well she just made it all invisible, plus the writing on the head thing =)
JamieBell: I like adding in characters that we know in little ways, like I did with Arthur. You are my faithful reader... :::Wipes tear::: Hope you like this chapter. Good poker face, yes.
Your faithful writer =)
KatKit: I'm glad you like it. Now you know what Lily did! I think the best part in the last chapter is that James says that her 'idea' was lame for someone so clever, and she writes in her notebook.