Television- A Minion of Evil

Peter and Remus were eating breakfast and looking through their schedules the following morning when James and Sirius stumbled into the Great Hall.

James, still bright red and occasionally scratching at his skin, muttered to Sirius, "That was a bloody brilliant idea, Black. Alihotsy, eh? Didn't exactly work out too well for you either."

"So I had wings for a little while. It was a bit awkward, but I got on."

Remus and Peter both groaned.

"You two never learn, do you?"

"Jamesy boy says you two stuck it out and finished after Peter and I left," Sirius said, reaching for the marmalade.

"After we left?" Peter asked, chuckling. "You mean after I levitated you to the Hospital Wing."

"Minor oversight," the boy said through a mouthful of bread, grabbing at his schedule. "Nice, Muggle Studies first thing, ready Pete?"

"To study Muggles? Yeah, I think I can handle that," the Muggleborn wizard grinned at his friend.

Remus handed James his schedule, "We've got Arithmancy first."

"Well that'll be jolly good fun first thing in the morning," he grumbled as he scratched a particularly agitated spot of skin on his neck. He looked to Remus, "Did I sing Fifty Nifty Nifflers last night?"

"Nah." Remus bit back a chuckle as his friend's face relaxed into a relieved look. "You only got into the low forties before Pomfrey cut you off."

James groaned and glared at Sirius.

Sirius just grinned back at him. "Just think of that first Slytherin practice, if you looked insane, imagine what seven Slytherins will be doing."

James tried to look angry but wound up biting back a chuckle.
~~*~~

Sirius and Peter walked out of the Great Hall with James and Remus. After yelling their goodbyes, the latter headed off towards the East Tower.

"Shall we?" Sirius asked, with a grand bow in the direction of their classroom.

Peter rolled his eyes at his friend and started walking away.

"Well, at least we know there'll probably be no Slytherins in here," Sirius replied happily, darting behind a tapestry to take a shortcut with Peter on his heels.

"I hadn't thought of that. What's the professor's name again?" Peter asked as they climbed up the narrow, rickety stairs and slid out from behind a portrait.

"No clue. Come on, I think it's over here." Sirius tugged on Peter's robe and walked off in that direction.

Peter walked into the classroom behind Sirius and looked around, breathing a small sigh of relief. Sirius had been right, there were no Slytherins. Sirius walked over and dropped his satchel at the last desk in the corner, right behind Rebecca Longbottom.

"I didn't know you were taking this class," he leaned forward to talk to her.

"Lily's idea, she wanted us all to take a class together." Rebecca tilted her head back to reply.

"Where's Melissa then?" Peter asked as he settled in next to Sirius and behind Cortessa.

"The nutter actually wants to learn," Tessa grumbled. "She's taking Arithmancy and Ancient Runes.

"We will learn." Lily's red hair whipped out as she turned to face the other two.

So she finally gave up on those dopey pigtails, Peter thought amusedly. He noticed she was already holding the textbook open as though she'd been reading through it. "Where are your glasses, Lily?"

"Contacts, until I figure out how to fix my vision with magic, they'll do. Isn't this going to be fascinating, don't you think? To learn about the world we came from in this new perspective? We'll learn so-"

"Lily, shut it. You know we only agreed to take this class because it's an easy A." Cortessa cut her off and then smiled sweetly. "Not that we love you any less for picking this one. If you'd suggested group Arithmancy I would've been out the door quicker than you can say 'bat-bogey hex'.

The group was cut off by the opening and closing of a door as a tall man with sandy blonde hair walked up to the front of the class.

"My apologies to all of you who think this will be an easy A, perhaps Arithmancy would be better suited for you then," he began glancing over at the Gryffindor corner. "Textbooks out. We'll start easy, now who can explain to me electricity?"

Lily's hand shot into the air, at the same time as Ryan Ithaca's from Ravenclaw.

"Mr. Ithaca?"

Lily slumped in her seat.

"Well you see Professor, the Muggles use electricity to power most of their appliances, the things they use to do the stuff that we use magic for. It comes from a source and then follows the source to the transformer, from the transformer it travels into a person's home and from there it's distributed around the house. Muggles use plugs to tap into the electricity."

"Very good, five points to Ravenclaw. Mr. Pettigrew, if you could please list a few common Muggle household appliances?"

"Er…" Peter tensed and quickly began to skim through the first few pages in his book before he felt Sirius elbow him.

"You're Muggleborn, you prat," Sirius hissed at his friend.

The boy grinned stupidly. "Oh yeah," he whispered back.

"Mr. Pettigrew?"

"Lamps and televisions. Telephones and washing machines. Refrigerators."

"Very good, five points to Gryffindor."

Lily swiveled around in her seat and beamed at him.

"Now who can tell me a bit more about one of those machines?"

Lily and Sirius both shot their hands up into the air.

The professor raised an eyebrow but called on Sirius.

"Well the television is considered a minion of evil by many Muggles. They use it send their brainwashing ideas across the airwaves and into the homes of millions of unsuspecting people." Most of the class, especially the Muggle raised, began to chuckle. "Some of the stupider Muggles use it to baby-sit their children and lots of Muggles like to protest all of the violence on it, but when I spent some time at Pete's this summer," he jerked his finger towards Peter, "I actually thought some of the violent stuff was pretty cool and if you ask me, I think its that Partridge Family that gives TV a bad name-"

The professor cut him off then, "Thank you very much, Mr. Black… I see that perhaps all those warnings from your usual professors weren't entirely off base."

Sirius grinned back innocently at him and then leaned over towards Peter, "This could be a very fun three years."
~~*~~

"Bloody hell, bloody hell, bloody hell," Remus intoned under his breath, looking around. He had absolutely no idea where he was. Arithmancy had been held in a classroom he'd never been to before and he and James had gotten rather lost attempting to find it. During class, James and Gallus Malfoy had gotten into a small fight and Professor Vector held them back.

And now I'm lost in Hogwarts. Sweet Merlin, a person could get so lost they could starve to death before they were found in this place. Suddenly the torches flickered out. Brilliant. Remus put one hand against the wall and pulled in back quickly. Am I in the dungeons? How the bloody hell did I get from a tower to the dungeons without noticing? Remus shook his head. So much for getting to Charms on time. Where's Peter when you need him? He'd never have gotten lost.

Remus was jarred from his thoughts as a solid object bumped into him.

The voice, not knowing who he'd bumped into the dark, quietly said, "Excuse me."

"Snape?" Remus sputtered. Oh bloody hell.

"Lupin?" The voice had changed from polite to agitated immediately. "Where is the rest of your pack?"

Pack? PACK? What does he know? "Pack?"

"Potter, Pettigrew and Black."

Remus was surprised to hear that the boy sounded more weary than anything else. Whenever Malfoy, Crabbe or Goyle spoke to them, all of the boys could hear the underlying threats in the voices, the urge to fight. Snape seemed the opposite, as though he just wished to be left alone.

"Classes, I'd assume. Your friend Malfoy used a Swelling curse on James's hands during Arithmancy, but you know that," he tried to keep his voice calm and level. Being stuck in a dark corridor alone with Severus Snape ranked very high on the lists of things he never wanted to do, perhaps right under screaming 'I'm a werewolf' aloud at breakfast in the Great Hall.

"References to Malfoy as my friend are not entirely accurate, Lupin, and I'd ask you not to forget that."

Remus shook his head in the dark. I'm having a civil conversation, or what passes as civil with him, with Severus Snape, in the dark, while completely lost. "Fine. Alright. Do you know where we are?"

"Not entirely, no," Snape replied, the underlying sarcasm creeping back into his voice. "But I do suspect I can remedy the light situation. Lumos."

Lumos. LUMOS, you idiot. Way to go, Remus. "Thanks," he muttered to the dark haired boy.

Snape was peering around. "I believe this area is below the dungeons. If there are stairs nearby, as I suspect there are, they should lead to an area of the dungeons near the Slytherin common room. From there, it should be easy to get to the entrance foyer and from there to wherever you need to go."

Remus kept on glancing back and forth between Snape's hand and wand, waiting for him to draw it and attempt to hex him into oblivion. Apparently Snape had noticed.

"You can loosen your grip on that flimsy stick of wood you call a wand, Lupin. My only intent is to arrive at Charms on time. It is merely an unfortunate fact that you and I are both in the same predicament. Unlike several others in my House, I find it a waste of time to go around pointlessly hexing and curing people." Snape glared at Remus. "I believe there are a set of stairs down at this end of the corridor." With that, he started off, leaving Remus to decide whether or not he wished to accompany him.

Remus quickly decided to follow the boy. After all, if we are near the Slytherin dungeons, he'll know where to go much better than I would… Remus walked quickly to catch up to him, noticing that Snape didn't even acknowledge him when Remus began to match his stride. After many twists and turns, they walked through a very damp area full of stagnant puddles and then up a narrow, rickety, spiral staircase and found themselves in the main dungeons. Slightly up the hall on the right was the Potions classroom.

Snape continued on at a brisk pace but Remus hesitated for a second.

"Thanks, Snape."

The boy stopped walked, his back still to Remus, and then shrugged as though it were a matter of no consequence to him. Severus Snape then commenced walking and was soon out of Remus's line of sight. A moment later, Remus followed the same path that Snape had taken moments before and slid into his Charms seat several minutes late, losing five points for Gryffindor in the process, and then collected a pumpkin to attempt to deseed and carve with a tricky little charm.
~~*~~

"So in essence, it's an angry shadow?" Robert Cage attempted to clarify.

"Exactly," Professor Belua smiled at the boy. The rest of the class shivered.

Sirius shook his head slightly, Professor Shacklebolt was a bloody brilliant Defense professor, Emerson wasn't half bad but this one… for Merlin's bloody sake his name is Delirius Belua… bloody Crazy Monster. He's going to get on really well with Hagrid.

Alice raised her hand into the air. "So then, our shadows could try to kill us."

The professor pounded his hand on his desk, sending the entire class jumping. "EXACTLY! Unfortunately there's no known way to dispose of the creatures."

"Of the creatures?" Remus leaned over and whispered to Sirius. "Bloody hell, they're our shadows… where does Dumbledore find some of these nutters?"

"You need to keep in mind though that cats and dogs are very sensitive to the doppelganger, they can-" he paused and looked around, banging his hand on his desk again. "What aren't you taking notes? This could one day save your life!"

"Does he really think that if our own shadows attack us, we've got much of a chance?" Peter muttered foully under his breath to no one in particular.

"Often, one becomes aware that their shadow has been infected by a doppelganger by the voices," the professor jumped up from his desk and stalked over to Cortessa Maris. "Do you hear voices, Miss Maris?"

"Er…" Cortessa blushed a bit and looked confused. "Well, I can hear you now, Professor."

He pounded his hand on her desk. "No! I meant do you hear the voices in your head?"

"In my head?" she asked back, visibly startled, and then she shook said area repeatedly. "No sir, I don't hear voices in my head."

He pounded her desk again and offered her a small smile that quickly turned into a grave look. "Stay alert, you never know when it'll begin. You'll just think it's your subconscious and the next thing you know-" he clapped his hands together loudly startling the entire class, "-you're confined to St. Mungo's for evaluation. Very difficult to tell the difference between a doppelganger and paranoid schizophrenia, a Muggle ailment."

He spun around quickly, "Potter! Voices?"

"Oh, of course sir, but I only listen to them about half the time," James grinned.

Professor Belua quickly took a step away from James, his face registering a look of horror and sadness, "And what do the voices say, my boy?"

"Oh you know, same old, same old," James shrugged casually. "Maim, lie, cheat. Kill."

The professor gasped and then pounded his hand onto the nearest desk, "You must fight the voices, Mr. Potter. Nothing is as imperative as you fighting the voices. If it gets worse you'll need to go to Madam Pomfrey immediately."

James put on a sad, serious face, "Oh yes sir, I'll try to fight the voices."

Professor Belua nodded sadly at the boy and spun around to Cynthia Kaite.

Before he could even ask, she held up her hands in surrender, "No voices here, Professor."

"Good, good," he nodded his head reassuringly and then glances cautiously back as James who had taken to talking quietly to himself and shaking his head as though he were fighting with himself. "I think we'll dismiss class early today. I'd like you all to read up on gytrash and lindwurms. Class dismissed."

The Marauders quickly gathered up their belongings and hurried from class.

"Right nutter, that one, isn't he?" Peter commented as soon as they were out of earshot of the door.

"When were you doing to tell us about those voices, mate?" Remus grinned at James. James held up a finger, gesturing they wait a moment.

"Sorry, my doppelganger and I were finishing our conversation over how paranoid we can make Belua this term," James smirked.

Sirius dug into his satchel and pulled out his schedule, "And next up is… blessed free time. Thank Merlin."

"Blessed free time?" Remus asked, pulling his own out. "Maybe for you, you lucky git, we've got Ancient Runes."

"I'll never know what possessed you three to take that class…" Sirius shrugged. "Nor do I really care. See you lot at dinner." Sirius started off down the hall yelling, "Tessa? You're not in Ancient Runes, are you?"
~~*~~

The following day James, Peter, Sirius and Remus were walking from Defense Against the Dark Arts out to the greenhouses for Herbology.

"An entire year with that man… where does Dumbledore find them?" Peter moaned, rubbing his knuckles. Professor Belua had gotten particularly excited when discussing the basic characteristics of the lindwurms and unfortunately Peter had had his hand spread out on his desk during one of the educator's aggressive pounds, attempting to drive the point home.

"St. Mungo's, I suspect," Remus muttered, his head buried in his Defense text as they walked.

"Restricted ward," Sirius added with a grin. "Actually, I rather like the chap."

"Birds of a feather," James began smirking back at his friend and a moment later the two boys were running towards the greenhouse, James attempting to stay out of Sirius's reach.

Peter shook his head and turned to Remus. "Do you know why we were supposed to bring our cloaks and scarves?"

Remus closed his book and shoved it into his satchel. "Don't know anymore than you do, mate." He grinned at Peter and shot a quick look ahead to the greenhouse. "Race you!" Without waiting for Peter's agreement, Remus was off like a shot and halfway to the greenhouse before Peter even realized he should be running.

He sighed and continued to trudge along at the speed he'd been going. I'll never be as fast as Remus, he thought as he glanced ahead to see his friend waiting at the greenhouse door, not even appearing winded. I'll always just be chubby, little Peter Pettigrew, the kid most of the students think the other Marauder's put up with out of pity… Completely useless… He shook his head sadly. Don't dwell on that, Peter. Self pity is forbidden, didn't Sirius say that to Remus once… maybe he was wrong. Maybe a little self pity sometimes isn't so bad…

He looked up again, surprised to see that he was at the greenhouse door. Peter and Remus walked quietly through the door together and then sat down next to one another. Right before Professor Sprout began her lecture, Remus leaned over to whisper to Peter.

"By the way mate, saw that drawing you did of the dungeons. Bloody brilliant, no one at Hogwarts could've come up with anything like that."

Peter smiled. Well… maybe not completely useless…
~~*~~

"I can't believe you guys tried to coax that Polar Pligwith to eat Snape," Remus groaned, recalling the incident that had occurred just moments before in the greenhouse.

"Excuse me?" Sirius exclaimed, sounding annoyed. "We did not try, we succeeded. That plant would've gobbled down Snape, greasy hair and all, if that bloody Evans didn't feel the urge to go Gryffindor on us and save him."

"You'd think he'd have slid down easily with hair like that," James mused aloud. Peter laughed.

"What were you doing by the Pligwith anyway? We were supposed to be thawing the Freezing Hoydedish." Remus grabbed the scarf that was falling out of Sirius's satchel and handed it to his friend.

"The Hoydedish got old," Sirius shrugged.

"We thawed them," James replied in their defense. "Then we moved on to bigger and better pursuits."

"It looked hungry," the other boy added, cramming his scarf unceremoniously into his satchel.

"Ah, so of course the answer was to feed it Snape?" Remus rolled his eyes.

"Of course," the two boys chorused together.

"And you know, Remus," Peter added, "there's no real proof that they were the ones who excited that plant… even Professor Sprout couldn't come up with enough evidence to give them detention."

"Oh sweet, sweet victory." Sirius smiled daftly.

"We'll get it to eat the git next week," James confirmed.

"You know what I love most about all this though, James?"

James turned to Sirius, an inquiring look upon his face. "What, Sirius?"

"That the man who enchanted Snape's quill to turn his entire hand bright green is lecturing us about trying to feed him to a plant."

"Imagine that." James replied, turning to glance at Remus, who had reddened slightly.

"I turned his hand green, I didn't try to feed him to a plant, you bloody lunatics." He glared at them. Sirius and James both laughed and dropped the line of conversation.

Suddenly the serene look left Sirius's face and a rare solemn look flitted across it. "When are Quidditch try-outs, James?"

Cocking his head to the side and looking thoughtful, James replied, "I don't actually know. I haven't talked with Beamish since school started. I suppose I just assumed he'd tell me about it."

"Going out again?" Remus asked.

"I want to try, I mean… Wood graduated, so there's at least an open reserve spot and Em and Marlene are graduating this year, so there'll be two open spots next year."

James nodded his approval. "I'll find out then."

"Did you hear about Henry and Margaret?" Peter asked the other boys. They shook their heads. "They're an item, officially as of some point over the summer."

"How do you know that?" James asked.

"Lily. She heard it from Becca. Apparently Becca and Margaret wrote occasionally over the summer."

"That's strange. Emmaline and Marlene were giggling or something over that at the end of year Quidditch meeting last term," James mused and then shrugged.

At once, Sirius jumped and began to speak animatedly, "Did I tell you guys Dora took her first steps last week? And it's early, most babies aren't really walking yet. She's amazing."

"You'd think he was the father." James whispered loudly to Peter, who jabbed James in the ribs and smiled at Sirius.

"That's great, Seer."

"Thank you, Peter," he smiled at one friend and glared at the other. James rolled his eyes.

"Are we ever going to get to meet the amazing Nymphadora?"

"Maybe over the holidays next summer. Andie would probably let you lot into the apartment for a day or two."

"Sirius!"

The boys stopped walking and turned around to see Tessa running ahead of her friends, holding something. A few seconds later, she was standing next to the boy.

"Your scarf, you great oaf," she handed it to him, smiling to take the sting from the insult.

"Oh," he looked surprised. "Thanks, Tessa."

She shrugged and grinned once more before turning back to head over to the girls. When she got there, Peter noticed all of them giggling.

"Why're they giggling?"

"Who knows?" Sirius muttered, cramming the cloth back into his satchel for the second time. "It's usually not good though, I'll tell you that."

"Hopefully it doesn't involve roosters or honey." Remus commented darkly, looking over to the Gryffindor five.
Author's Note: Sorry for the really long wait in between chapters. The semester is winding up for me here and it's getting insane. We just finished a production of The Threepenny Opera and now I'm starting work on the dance production here (I'm Assistant Stage Manager, Master Electrician and one of the Lighting Designers... I'm totally swamped). Not to even mention that I've got finals to work on and papers to write. I have about forty more pages of the story already written, I'll try to get them up eventually, but my break start on the 18th of December, so hopefully around then I'll have time to actually write. Please forgive me if the next few chapters are lame, I wrote them weeks apart and could barely remember what preceeded them. Thanks for reading, though, you guys are awesome!