James and Sirius could hear the girls shouting, and they looked at each other in shock.
"Alyssa...has...feelings?" Sirius said, struggling to understand the concept.
"Wow. Wow. Dude, that's why she broke up with me! This is so great!"
"What do you mean Prongs? You're still broken up. I don't get how this can benefit you, exactly."
"Now I know why she acts the way she does, so if I can change the way she thinks about me, about us, this could work out," James said, looking over at Sirius.
"Right."
"Hey, have you guys seen-" started Lauren, coming around the corner.
"Hey, Lauren, actually, I'm...leaving...to go...start a fire... with Pam...in the ...library...bye," James stuttered and walked away, trying to leave Lauren and Sirius alone.
"What is this, a game of clue?" Lauren asked, completely unfazed. "Oh, well, have you seen Alyssa, Lindsay, Pam, or Corinneyness?"
"Alyssa went into brunette rant stage, Lindsay nearly had a panic attack, Corinne is looking for food, and Pam is burning things in the library," answered Sirius, counting on his fingers.
"Oh, ok, nothing new. I'll leave you alone to start trouble, and get caught."
"Damn," Sirius thought. "I suck."
The next day...
"Ok, class, we will now progress to changing mice into cats. Please face your mouse, "McGonagall said, pacing on front of the room.
"I'm not touching it," Lauren whispered to Lindsay. "It's dirty." She gave her mouse a dirty look as it cleaned its face on her desk.
"Oh, God, Lola, it's not dirty, it's just an animal," Lindsay said, smacking her friend, who smacked her back, which then turned into a full-on smack-fest.
McGonagall decided that the best method was to ignore them. "Let's practice the wand movement first."
Alyssa raised her hand. "But what about the friction?"
"What?" McGonagall asked crossly, now getting aggravated.
"Yeah," Corinne agreed. "The wand is moving through the air, air is made of matter, and the matter will cause friction, which should affect the magic. WHAT ABOUT THE FRICTION?"
"We're going to ignore the friction for now, ladies, now follow me."
"No!" Alyssa yelled. "What if the spell goes wrong? The friction could ruin everything!"
"Miss Henry! Please!"
"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FRCITION?" they both yelled at the same time.
"Both of you get out of my class!" McGonagall yelled, with fire in her eyes. Both girls just stood there, shocked. They had gotten in trouble before, but they had never been kicked out of class, at least not her class, anyway.
"Wait, what?" Corinne asked, confundled.
"We were just worried about the-"
"Don't say it, Miss Henry! I mean business this year, ladies, and let this be a lesson to you all: I will not tolerate disrespect in my classroom. Now go!"
"But-"
"GO!"
The two girls walked out of the classroom, for the first time ever, feeling completely wrong.
"Why do I feel so bad?"
"Probably because after 5 years of ruling this school, we finally got dethroned by McGonagall," Alyssa sighed.
That night...
"I can't believe I have to serve detention with you, Black." Lauren shouted at Sirius as she watched him scrub the Potions room.
"Lauren, please, just stop."
"Stop, huh? Don't you dare raise you're voice to ME, Black!"
Sirius suddenly stopped scrubbing, got up, and turned to face her.
"I am so sick of you! You walk around here like you're Queen Bitch, or something, like you own everyone here! Well, guess what, you don't! So stop with the attitude! I don't even know why I bother with you!"
She had never seen him this angry. "Sirius, I don't..."
"I can't stand being with you in this room anymore, I can't. I'm going to find Dumbledore. I'll do my detention somewhere else."
He left the room and slammed the door behind him.
"But," Lauren began, tears forming in her eyes, "Who's going to help me clean?"
On the Quidditch pitch, Alyssa and James worked trying to make it look perfect.
"So, have you given anymore thought about us, Alyssa?"
"There is no, 'us', James."
"It's just that I've been thinking-"
"That's never a good sign."
James chose to ignore her comment and continue, "And I think that if we tried harder, we could make it work."
"Listen, it's nothing against you, I just need my space."
"Merlin, are you the guy?"
"WHAT?"
"I need my space, I can't commit.... you are SO the guy!"
"I am so NOT the guy," Alyssa yelled back at him, "My hair is WAY prettier!" she flipped it dramatically to prove her point.
James was about to retort with another insult, when his brain formed a rare moment of maturity for a 16 year old boy.
"Ok. I don't want to fight with you. If you don't want to be with me anymore, then can we at least try to have some sort of civilized friendship?"
"Nope!" the Egyptian cow yelled, coming across the field, "tried that too- doesn't-"
"You know what? I'm getting a little tired of all these INTERRUPTIONS!" And with that, James walked toward the infamous Egyptian cow and punched him in the nose.
After a minute of silence and staring at the ground, James said to Alyssa, "You know, I don't think McGonagall will appreciate this."
"Definitely not."
Lindsay and Remus were sitting in the Trophy room looking at the several dozen trophies on the shelves.
"Wow," said Remus.
"Yeah," Lindsay agreed.
"Hold on, did we even do anything wrong? Why are we doing this?" Remus asked.
"Well, you didn't, I did...karma's a bitch, huh?" Lindsay answered, grinning.
They sat in silence for a while, until finally Remus said, "So, that Transfiguration test...whoa, huh?"
Lindsay stared at him with a shocked look on her face, "I have never seen you quite so pathetic than at this moment, Lupin."
He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out, and he paused for a moment before sticking his tongue out.
She just laughed, and continued polishing.
Meanwhile, Lucius and Corinne sat scrubbing the floors of the dungeons, just feet away from the Potions room.
"Isn't it strange that we were paired up to serve detention together?" Corinne asked. "I just love life's little oddities."
"Well, as much as I don't like to admit it, Dumbledore knows a lot more than people realize. Just look at how all your...." Lucius almost cringed, "friends got paired up with their 'significant others'".
"Oh, come on, Lucius, they're not that bad, are they? When are you going to accept the fact that they're my friends?"
"I don't know, Corinne," he said, his voice suddenly becoming angry, "Maybe when they accept the fact that I'm your boyfriend."
Corinne just stared at him, shocked.
"Lucius I-"
"I am your boyfriend, right?"
"Yes, of course you are-"
"Because, you know, it doesn't really feel like it!"
"You know why-"
"I'm sick of all this secrecy! I told my father about us, Corinne! That man has more power over my life than you can even imagine! But I told him!"
"Your father? Lucius-"
"And you don't even have the balls to tell you're friends! They're not the ones who can kick you out of your house because of who they are! They're not the ones who are pressuring you to jo-"
He stopped suddenly, and took a breath. "I mean, to, um, just, be like...him."
"Lucius?" Corinne said tentatively, hoping he had calmed down. "I didn't know you felt this way. I thought you were okay with the fact that we weren't telling anyone."
"Okay with it? Okay with the fact that we have to resort to secret codes and looks to talk to each other? Okay with the fact that I can't be seen around you not wearing an Invisibility Cloak or a dirty look? I'm tired of it!"
"Well what do you expect me to do? They won't accept you, Lucius."
"Then you need to evaluate your friendships. I'm not the one wrong here. It's you and your friends. You think I'm wrong for judging people according to blood and school houses? You do the same thing. They judge me by my family, my connections, my blood. You're wrong, and until you realize that, I can't do this anymore."
He got up and left Corinne alone of the floor. As he walked through the corridor, his robes flopping behind him, he bumped right into Sirius Black.
"Black? What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing, Malfoy."
"Corinne...I couldn't... stay in the same room as her for that long, ok? What's you're excuse?"
"Lauren...the same. Not to be rude or anything," he smirked, (since when did he care about being rude?) "but you and Corinne, there's something there, isn't there?"
Malfoy shrugged. "If there was, would I really tell you?"
Sirius nodded. "Point taken. How about you go with Lauren, and I'll go with Corinne."
"Fine. I can handle Lauren's attitude for a couple of hours," Malfoy smirked.
They both began to walk away, and as they turned, they both muttered under their breath, "Girls."
They turned back slightly to face each other, each with smiles (or traces of them) playing across their lips.
Who knows, maybe they weren't as different as they seemed...
Sirius walked into the dungeon, where Corinne was currently sitting on the floor, tears silently running down her cheeks. When she saw Sirius, she quickly turned around so he couldn't see her face, and squeaked out, "Hiii."
"Oh, no, don't cry..." Sirius said in a voice that sounded like he usually ran fast in the other direction when faced with an emotional girl.
"I'm fiiine," she said, as a fresh wave of waterworks streamed down her cheeks.
"Listen," Sirius said, as her slowly and carefully approached her. "I just saw him outside. I know that's what you're upset about."
"Y-you do? What did he saaaay?"
"Nothing that articulate. But I know that...um...he really likes you. And...for whatever reason... you like him too. Why were you so afraid to tell us?"
"Well, what do you think Sirius? You and James and Remus have been on his case since we got here? Do you really think you would have just left him alone if I asked you to?"
Sirius startled to stumble over an answer, so Corinne used that split second to say, "Huh! Huh! Told you so!"
Sirius breathed in deeply. "Corinne. Shut up. I'm being really nice right now. It's hard for me to be this nice. Now what you do is your business, but we all would have backed you up. We might not like him, but we like you."
"Wow. I like you when you're nice."
"But really, Corinne, why him?"
"Oh, Sirius, you were doing so good!"
"You could do better! I mean honestly-"
"Sirius, enough!"
"Alright, fine. It's not like you were good at keeping it from us anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"Alyssa somehow found out and told Lindsay, who told Pam, who told Lauren, who told Sirius, who told James, who told Remus."
"Of course. My plans foiled by Alyssa once again."
They both smiled, grabbed brushes, and got to work.
Lucius walked into the Potions room, found in empty, and finally sulked back to the Slytherin common room.
Pam aimlessly roamed the castle, looking for her detention. She had no idea who this kid was or where she was supposed to be. Of course Professor McGonagall had told her, but she didn't exactly pay attention. She felt like she had circled the castle at least twice. Giving up, she decided to head down to the dungeons and check on Corinne and Malfoy...
She heard Corinne's voice as she neared the room, "...foiled by Alyssa once again."
Oh no, Pam thought, what did Lys do now?
She walked in and saw, not Corinne and Malfoy, but Sirius.
"Hey guys, what's going on?"
"Oh, Pammie, me and Lucius had this huge fight..and...and..." she walked over to her amidst a new wave of tears.
"Not again with the crying!" Sirius cried out.
Then Lindsay, Remus, James, and Alyssa walked in; they had left their detentions because, no one else was doing theirs, so what they hell? They all saw Corinne collapsed on Pam and Alyssa and Lindsay ran over to help.
Alyssa being the helpful person that she is, said, "Oh, no, she's wheezing!" Lindsay sat beside her, "What happened?"
"Me-and-Lucius-have-been-seeing-each-other-behind-everyones-backs-for-a-while-and-it-turns-out-that-you-all-know-and-now-hes-mad-at-me-and-I-think-we-just-broke-up." Corinne said this all in one breath and now was extremely winded.
"It's ok, just breathe," consoled Pam.
"Someone get her some coffee!" yelled Lindsay, and Remus ran to fetch some.
"Corinne, listen, everything is going to be okay. No one is mad at you. You need to breathe," Alyssa was telling her.
Corinne looked up at her friends, and saw that they were being sincere and smiled a little.
"And besides," Alyssa said, "I guess I can understand. He does have really good hair."
During all this: Lauren was running through the halls, looking in every secret passage and every hiding place. She searched the library before she was kicked out for disturbing books, then she tried the Room of Requirement but no one was there. She even considered checking the kitchens but didn't feel like arguing with the house elves.
She stomped her foot on the stone floor and said to no one in particular, "Where the hell IS everyone?"