CHAPTER 4: DETENTION...AGAIN
"Ah, there you are Potter. I sense you have another detention." The professor nagged at James while re-adjusting his frilly turban. The boy closed the trap and sat down beside his friend Sirius black, but said nothing in return. Either he had heard the conversatin below between the teacher and him, or he had just guessed. There was nothing divinatory about it. Nothing.
"I've got detention after school." James told his friend later on as they were unveiling the secrets to their future lives 'for fun'. "Yeah, I know." James looked up from behind his fogged glasses (they were observing the froth from coffee bubbling inside oddly shaped mugs) a question mark practically pasted to his forehead. "I saw it in the froth!" James choked, nearly falling from his seat. "The froth told me! I swear it!" James mocked, wiping his tears. He snorted again, unable to contain his laughter any longer. "Honestly, Padfoot. I think you had a tad too much coffee this morning." He stared down into the ceramic jug where the liquid was still swirling slowy. "I hope you didn't drink some of that stuff." He motioned. Sirius laughed and picked up his coffee, bringing it ever so slowly to his lips.
"Go ahead, Black. I'm sure you'd like the rather bitter taste of the future." He looked around. Darn. The table set beside theirs was occupied by slytherins. "Mind your own futures, scumbags." James retorted, throwing them a dirty look. "Scumbags?" A blonde woman gasped, placing a very freshly manicured hand over her lips. "Repugnant skunks." "Better to be alive and smelly than killed, chewed, digested, excreted AND foul smelling."Sirius sneered, pinching his nose. "Better to know what you'll become than risk ending up as roadkill." The teacher cut in. "Enough blabbering. Go." He pointed to the open trap where a few students were waiting to get down and leave this intoxicating atmosphere.
True enough, you'd easily get headaches from standing in the room a mere minute longer than you had to. The professor, reassured by the many scents of his candles, felt it was much easier to concentrate on future telling, although that was far from what the students felt. Holding his head, James walked down the dungeon halls, Sirius by his side (they had taken a passageway to get to the Great Hall faster). Being the first to sit down, they quickly stuffed their plates with food and began to guttle all they could before the place filled up with hungry students.
The rest of the afternoon was spent day-dreaming, and before he knew it, James found himself inside Filchs' office, listening to the sadistic old man talk about "utter pain and torture in the good days" while stroking the fur on his cats' back. The felines' piercing eyes were watching James' every move, hardly blinking.
"Er- I don't mean to insult you, and I don't think torture is a boring subject... actually quite the contrary..." He muttered, shifting uneasily. "Get to the point, lad." Filch spat, eyeing the young man in the same manner as his cat. "Well, I'd like to get this detention thing overwith, so..." "Ah, yes. Well, I could get you to clean every floor and painting with your bare hands," he smiled, revealing excessively croked teeth "but I'm too tired to enjoy it at the moment..." He thought. There wasn't really anything to do, and letting him go was way out of question.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up." James repeated, walking down the halls, the rest of the Marauders laughing hysterically beside him. The night before, when Filch had given him a certain job to do, well...let's just say James hadn't expected to clean the tank where the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher kept his little experiments...
Covered in nasty purple lumps, the seventh year Gryffindor had come to the Hospital Wing, only to be the center of a great laughing circle in which Madam Pomfrey enthousiastically took part. She had, between two coughs, ordered him to go back to sleep. "You'll be fine, Potter." Pomfrey had said, "There's nothing I can do." Rolling his eyes, James turned his back to the nurse, and walked away.
He had passed one of the most terrible nights of his life, constantly turning and tossing, the lumps digging into his back, sides, arms, legs, you name it, and now, he was facing the consequences of his previous actions (during divination). "So have you learned your lesson yet, James?" Lily laughed at him as she came up from behind the group and walked beside them. "And what lesson would that be, Lily?" "The 'let's never get into detention again' lesson, perhaps?" she shook her head. 'Hopeless...' she thought. "Ah. Yes. No more of these. I don't deserve them. Why do they always pick on me!? What did I do to them?" "You charmed them with your physical beauty, Prongs." Sirius laughed, pulling himself away from the 'monster' as to not get 'contaminated'.
"Dumbledore..." Remus whispered suddenly, stopping his feet. "What?" Peter, James, Sirius and Lily turned around. "We were supposed to meet hiim last night." "You didn't?!" James exclaimed, whacking Sirius on the head. "Well, we forgot." The other answered, holding his bruised head. He'd gotten hit in the head so often lately...