Thank you Amandinka for your lovely review... so, readers - I am hoping we
have more than three - how about continuing a trend and REVIEWING???
Pleeeaaaaasssssseeee... it would make Eihwaz and I very happy... :D
Disclaimer: Nope, I haven't disposed of J.K Rowling and inherited the world
of Harry Potter yet... shame... so nothing that you recognise is my own.
Lourdaise
ps - in case you didnt get this, I WANT YOU TO REVIEW!!!!
Chapter 4
Our night time explorings had made us more confident in our mischief making. Sirius and I became determined again to disrupt a potions lesson with the trick we had planned. To our delight, Remus disappeared on the day we had chosen, so he was not around to put us off. "So are you going to throw it, or am I?" I asked Sirius, as we took the firework out of its box on that morning. "I did the bucking broom powder, don't forget."
"Well, I guess I'd better, then," he said. "Can't have ickle Jamesie getting in trouble, can we?"
I cuffed him over the head. "Shut up! You just want me to do it cos you're scared."
He raised one eyebrow superciliously. "Fine," he said, pocketing the firework. "Watch me."
Our state of excitement in Transfiguration, the lesson before Potions, did not escape Professor McGonagall's notice. "Potter, Black, if you don't stop talking now it'll be five points from Gryffindor... Potter, I know you can do better than that, concentrate... Black, that was completely unnecessary... Potter and Black will you just settle down!"
Our classmates, too, didn't fail to realise something was up. Peter Pettigrew was regarding us with something like awe - others were begging to know what was going on. Sirius and I just lapped up the attention and said nothing.
Professor Sherwin was in a bad mood already - we could sense it even as we waited outside the dungeon. I grinned wickedly to myself. He would never know who it was that had thrown the firework, if all went to plan. And if it didn't... well, another detention wouldn't kill us.
"Ready?" I murmured to Sirius halfway through the lesson. We were waiting until neither Snape and his cronies nor Sherwin were looking at us.
"Yes."
"Okay... now!"
The firework flew high over everyone's heads and nobody noticed a thing until it splashed directly into Snape's cauldron - and exploded.
"Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!"
Sherwin spun round from where he was helping Evans and his lip curled as he hurtled across the room, whipping a bottle of counter-potion from his robe. Sirius and I watched, doubled up in silent laughter, as Snape's chin swelled outwards to cover his neck, and Marcius Malfoy's thumb grew longer by the second. Dripping counter-potion onto the affected places of his pupils, Sherwin glared round at Sirius and I.
"You think it's funny, do you, Mr Black? And you Mr Potter? Tell me - do you always laugh at others' misfortunes... or is this a different, private joke?"
I felt reckless after the sight of Snape. "We're laughing at Snape's obvious despair of ever getting a name in this school without making, ahem, a bang at his own expense."
Sherwin's eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid I don't appreciate flip comments, Mr Potter, but... own expense, Mr Potter? You mean, Mr Snape did this deliberately? He put a firework in his own cauldron?"
How did he find the firework? It was meant to evaporate after explosion!
"Firework, sir? That was a firework?" Sirius bluffed.
"Yes, Mr Black. I believe it was. A possibly out-of-date one - perhaps you picked it up in Diagon Alley in the summer? Maybe you did not realise that out-of-date fireworks lose their ability to disappear after use?"
I swore silently as Sirius' face gave us away.
"Maybe a few detentions would drum the lesson into you. See me tonight at 6 o' clock."
Detention with Sherwin was not as bad as we had expected. Apparently he could think of nothing vile enough for us, so handed us over to Pringle who merely got us cleaning the trophy room using muggle soap and water. Apparently he did not realise that my mother had trained me in super-speedy muggle cleaning from a young age. Sirius stood and talked to me while I zoomed round the room. We were done in an hour. "You can do every window in the castle tomorrow," Pringle spat as we waved him merrily goodbye.
Remus was waiting for us in the common room. "I told you it was a bad idea," he reprimanded.
"Oh, shove off Rem," Sirius said. "It was worth it - you should have seen Snape. Anyway, where have you been?"
A shadow crossed Remus' face. "Sick," he said. "But I'm fine now."
"Good," I said. I was too restless to think anything else of his awkwardness. "Listen, where shall we go tonight? I'm far too full of energy after all that cleaning to sleep."
Remus groaned. "Count me out," he said. "I'm exhausted."
Sirius seemed enthusiastic, though. "Yeah, let's do something. How about we go and investigate those kitchens tonight?"
We had followed a house elf the previous week and found the entrance to the kitchens. All we needed was how to get in - apparently, only house elves could run straight through the painting. Wizards needed something else.
"Okay," I agreed. "Set your alarm for midnight and we'll take the cloak out. Sure you don't want to come, Rem?"
"Next time," he promised.
We found the painting of the bowl of fruit with ease and stood before it. "What do you think?" Sirius muttered. "A password?"
We had quickly found how sensible most passwords were to these secret passages - the three we had found so far all had variations on 'Open' in different languages. However, once we had run through every word or phrase we could think of, I began to ponder. "Maybe this one's more interactive," I suggested.
"Interactive?"
"Yeah. Well, I dunno."
"Oh, right," Sirius mocked. "Let's just tickle the pear and - bloody hell!" The painting swung open.
"Well," I said, once we had both recovered from the shock, "there has to be variation, doesn't there?"
It caused quite a stir amongst the house elves when two wizards stepped through their kitchen door.
"Good evening, sirs!" said one eventually. "Can we help you at all?"
"Well," Sirius said, "I don't know. We were just, you know, a bit hungry, so we thought we'd... you know, try to find the kitchen, and, well, find something to eat."
He had barely finished his sentence when the elf beamed and bowed to both of us. "Blinky, Cherry, go and get sirs some food!" he ordered. "What would you like?"
"Erm, well, anything's fine," I said in awe as the elves reappeared with friends, all dragging trays full of food. "Maybe the cakes and the pumpkin juice," I pointed at what I was talking about.
"And the chips," Sirius added. "Please."
The elves beamed and loaded what we wanted onto one tray. "There you go, sirs!" they squeaked simultaneously.
"Hey, thanks!" Sirius and I grinned at each other. "Can we come again, another night?"
"Of course," said the nearest elf. "Any time, sirs! We like to please!"
It took a while to wake Remus for the feast, but when he finally did come down to the common room with us he was amazed. "The house elves gave you all this?"
"Yeah!"
Sirius nodded with me. "I was quite surprised, actually," he said. "Our house elf, Kreacher, is awful. He hates me more than my mother does."
"Your mother doesn't hate you," I exclaimed.
"You haven't met her," he said flatly. I didn't - couldn't, in fact - respond.
"Well," Remus said awkwardly, "now the food's here, you know, we might as well tuck in."
So we did.
The months passed quickly - Easter came and went with eggs from home and more staying at school, and then, halfway through the summer term, exams.
"I don't know how they crept up on us," Sirius said lazily as we lay in the courtyard, watching Remus revising frantically.
"And I don't know how you two can cope without revising anything!" he snapped.
"No," Sirius agreed cheerfully. "But it's a handy skill, not having to work. After all, learning to fly is taking up all of my time!"
I had started trying to teach Sirius before Easter, when we started playing Quidditch almost normally in lessons. Now, he was passable - he would never make a team, he was too cautious in the air, which was unlike him - but that he could fly long distance and travel on broomstick now, I was confident. On the other hand, I had taken to Quidditch like a fish to water. Keeper, Chaser, Beater or Seeker - I could play all the positions skilfully and happily. My diving and dodging skills were, according to Madame Hooch, exceptional - on a decent broom, she said, I could already make the Gryffindor team.
"You must try out next year," she told me. "It would be a crime not to." I triumphed at the sickened look on Snape's face.
At the end of June, once the exams were over and we were in the lull between work and holiday, receiving results and relaxing, she approached me at the end of the lesson with a form.
"How would you feel about attending a Quidditch summer school?" she asked.
I shrugged.
"I sent a letter of support and an application form to the organisers," she continued. "It's a camp run by some of the England Quidditch team and managers, and they're very keen for you to attend. I think it would be an excellent experience for you - Professor Dumbledore agrees. Of course, it's entirely up to you and your parents whether you want to go, but... one of the opportunities offered is a chance to be in the England under sixteen Quidditch team. I think you'd be in with a chance of that."
Sirius, beside me, whooped. "You have to go, James! Imagine that!"
Excitement bubbled inside me, too, at the thought. "Well," I said. "I - I'll talk to my parents. Thank you."
And so it was that I arrived at King's Cross station, platform 9 and 3/4, with top marks in most exams and a summer of Quidditch to look forward to. The shouts of 'bye, James! I'll owl you! See you in September!' from Sirius and Remus furthered my sense of euphoria. I was undoubtedly set for an interesting summer.
Chapter 4
Our night time explorings had made us more confident in our mischief making. Sirius and I became determined again to disrupt a potions lesson with the trick we had planned. To our delight, Remus disappeared on the day we had chosen, so he was not around to put us off. "So are you going to throw it, or am I?" I asked Sirius, as we took the firework out of its box on that morning. "I did the bucking broom powder, don't forget."
"Well, I guess I'd better, then," he said. "Can't have ickle Jamesie getting in trouble, can we?"
I cuffed him over the head. "Shut up! You just want me to do it cos you're scared."
He raised one eyebrow superciliously. "Fine," he said, pocketing the firework. "Watch me."
Our state of excitement in Transfiguration, the lesson before Potions, did not escape Professor McGonagall's notice. "Potter, Black, if you don't stop talking now it'll be five points from Gryffindor... Potter, I know you can do better than that, concentrate... Black, that was completely unnecessary... Potter and Black will you just settle down!"
Our classmates, too, didn't fail to realise something was up. Peter Pettigrew was regarding us with something like awe - others were begging to know what was going on. Sirius and I just lapped up the attention and said nothing.
Professor Sherwin was in a bad mood already - we could sense it even as we waited outside the dungeon. I grinned wickedly to myself. He would never know who it was that had thrown the firework, if all went to plan. And if it didn't... well, another detention wouldn't kill us.
"Ready?" I murmured to Sirius halfway through the lesson. We were waiting until neither Snape and his cronies nor Sherwin were looking at us.
"Yes."
"Okay... now!"
The firework flew high over everyone's heads and nobody noticed a thing until it splashed directly into Snape's cauldron - and exploded.
"Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!"
Sherwin spun round from where he was helping Evans and his lip curled as he hurtled across the room, whipping a bottle of counter-potion from his robe. Sirius and I watched, doubled up in silent laughter, as Snape's chin swelled outwards to cover his neck, and Marcius Malfoy's thumb grew longer by the second. Dripping counter-potion onto the affected places of his pupils, Sherwin glared round at Sirius and I.
"You think it's funny, do you, Mr Black? And you Mr Potter? Tell me - do you always laugh at others' misfortunes... or is this a different, private joke?"
I felt reckless after the sight of Snape. "We're laughing at Snape's obvious despair of ever getting a name in this school without making, ahem, a bang at his own expense."
Sherwin's eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid I don't appreciate flip comments, Mr Potter, but... own expense, Mr Potter? You mean, Mr Snape did this deliberately? He put a firework in his own cauldron?"
How did he find the firework? It was meant to evaporate after explosion!
"Firework, sir? That was a firework?" Sirius bluffed.
"Yes, Mr Black. I believe it was. A possibly out-of-date one - perhaps you picked it up in Diagon Alley in the summer? Maybe you did not realise that out-of-date fireworks lose their ability to disappear after use?"
I swore silently as Sirius' face gave us away.
"Maybe a few detentions would drum the lesson into you. See me tonight at 6 o' clock."
Detention with Sherwin was not as bad as we had expected. Apparently he could think of nothing vile enough for us, so handed us over to Pringle who merely got us cleaning the trophy room using muggle soap and water. Apparently he did not realise that my mother had trained me in super-speedy muggle cleaning from a young age. Sirius stood and talked to me while I zoomed round the room. We were done in an hour. "You can do every window in the castle tomorrow," Pringle spat as we waved him merrily goodbye.
Remus was waiting for us in the common room. "I told you it was a bad idea," he reprimanded.
"Oh, shove off Rem," Sirius said. "It was worth it - you should have seen Snape. Anyway, where have you been?"
A shadow crossed Remus' face. "Sick," he said. "But I'm fine now."
"Good," I said. I was too restless to think anything else of his awkwardness. "Listen, where shall we go tonight? I'm far too full of energy after all that cleaning to sleep."
Remus groaned. "Count me out," he said. "I'm exhausted."
Sirius seemed enthusiastic, though. "Yeah, let's do something. How about we go and investigate those kitchens tonight?"
We had followed a house elf the previous week and found the entrance to the kitchens. All we needed was how to get in - apparently, only house elves could run straight through the painting. Wizards needed something else.
"Okay," I agreed. "Set your alarm for midnight and we'll take the cloak out. Sure you don't want to come, Rem?"
"Next time," he promised.
We found the painting of the bowl of fruit with ease and stood before it. "What do you think?" Sirius muttered. "A password?"
We had quickly found how sensible most passwords were to these secret passages - the three we had found so far all had variations on 'Open' in different languages. However, once we had run through every word or phrase we could think of, I began to ponder. "Maybe this one's more interactive," I suggested.
"Interactive?"
"Yeah. Well, I dunno."
"Oh, right," Sirius mocked. "Let's just tickle the pear and - bloody hell!" The painting swung open.
"Well," I said, once we had both recovered from the shock, "there has to be variation, doesn't there?"
It caused quite a stir amongst the house elves when two wizards stepped through their kitchen door.
"Good evening, sirs!" said one eventually. "Can we help you at all?"
"Well," Sirius said, "I don't know. We were just, you know, a bit hungry, so we thought we'd... you know, try to find the kitchen, and, well, find something to eat."
He had barely finished his sentence when the elf beamed and bowed to both of us. "Blinky, Cherry, go and get sirs some food!" he ordered. "What would you like?"
"Erm, well, anything's fine," I said in awe as the elves reappeared with friends, all dragging trays full of food. "Maybe the cakes and the pumpkin juice," I pointed at what I was talking about.
"And the chips," Sirius added. "Please."
The elves beamed and loaded what we wanted onto one tray. "There you go, sirs!" they squeaked simultaneously.
"Hey, thanks!" Sirius and I grinned at each other. "Can we come again, another night?"
"Of course," said the nearest elf. "Any time, sirs! We like to please!"
It took a while to wake Remus for the feast, but when he finally did come down to the common room with us he was amazed. "The house elves gave you all this?"
"Yeah!"
Sirius nodded with me. "I was quite surprised, actually," he said. "Our house elf, Kreacher, is awful. He hates me more than my mother does."
"Your mother doesn't hate you," I exclaimed.
"You haven't met her," he said flatly. I didn't - couldn't, in fact - respond.
"Well," Remus said awkwardly, "now the food's here, you know, we might as well tuck in."
So we did.
The months passed quickly - Easter came and went with eggs from home and more staying at school, and then, halfway through the summer term, exams.
"I don't know how they crept up on us," Sirius said lazily as we lay in the courtyard, watching Remus revising frantically.
"And I don't know how you two can cope without revising anything!" he snapped.
"No," Sirius agreed cheerfully. "But it's a handy skill, not having to work. After all, learning to fly is taking up all of my time!"
I had started trying to teach Sirius before Easter, when we started playing Quidditch almost normally in lessons. Now, he was passable - he would never make a team, he was too cautious in the air, which was unlike him - but that he could fly long distance and travel on broomstick now, I was confident. On the other hand, I had taken to Quidditch like a fish to water. Keeper, Chaser, Beater or Seeker - I could play all the positions skilfully and happily. My diving and dodging skills were, according to Madame Hooch, exceptional - on a decent broom, she said, I could already make the Gryffindor team.
"You must try out next year," she told me. "It would be a crime not to." I triumphed at the sickened look on Snape's face.
At the end of June, once the exams were over and we were in the lull between work and holiday, receiving results and relaxing, she approached me at the end of the lesson with a form.
"How would you feel about attending a Quidditch summer school?" she asked.
I shrugged.
"I sent a letter of support and an application form to the organisers," she continued. "It's a camp run by some of the England Quidditch team and managers, and they're very keen for you to attend. I think it would be an excellent experience for you - Professor Dumbledore agrees. Of course, it's entirely up to you and your parents whether you want to go, but... one of the opportunities offered is a chance to be in the England under sixteen Quidditch team. I think you'd be in with a chance of that."
Sirius, beside me, whooped. "You have to go, James! Imagine that!"
Excitement bubbled inside me, too, at the thought. "Well," I said. "I - I'll talk to my parents. Thank you."
And so it was that I arrived at King's Cross station, platform 9 and 3/4, with top marks in most exams and a summer of Quidditch to look forward to. The shouts of 'bye, James! I'll owl you! See you in September!' from Sirius and Remus furthered my sense of euphoria. I was undoubtedly set for an interesting summer.