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Chapter 7: Oh yay, Potions class!
James was not looking forward to the potions class for many reasons. The main reason was that he was afraid; afraid that he might just kill Malfoy or Snape within the first few minutes of class. He honestly didn't know why there were classes with other houses. He didn't mind the other houses of course; it was just the Slytherins that annoyed him the most. The four of them quickened their pace to the potions class, realising how late they were. Let's just say the potions professor was a right stuck up bi—
"Potter, Black," Professor Mansell greeted them angrily. Sirius winked at her which didn't lighten her mood. "Pettigrew, and Evans? I'm disappointed in you, Miss Evans, you are never normally late." Remus and Anna were sitting together, shooting them curious looks.
"Sorry Professor, Potter had toilet problems."
The class erupted into sniggers. James glared furiously at Lily for saying such a thing. Remus and Anna laughed; their suspicions of James needing to pee were correct.
"Sit down. You have already disturbed the beginning of my lesson."
Professor Mansell is in such a chirpy mood today, Sirius thought dryly.
Sirius and Peter chose a desk next to Remus and Anna. As Sirius was about to sit down, he noticed Remus and Anna were sitting next to each other and gave him the thumbs up. Remus –in annoyance— moved the stool with his wand as Sirius was about to sit down, resulting in Sirius landing painfully on his arse.
"Moony! You''ll pay for that!" Sirius rubbed his backside –a few girls admiring that particular backside— as he checked to see if it was still in tact. "Must say though, good prank," he muttered. Remus smiled happily. Sirius noticed the girls who were perving on him and he winked at them as they embarrassingly looked away. "Don't worry ladies, it's still all there!" He smacked his butt loudly whilst the girls giggled back.
"Mr. Black, will you please sit down!"
Sirius bowed and sat on his stool.
Meanwhile, James and Lily had grudgingly taken a desk in front of their friends. They hadn't realised until now that they would have to sit together in every lesson until they were separated. Professor Mansell watched them evilly; it seemed as if she had still had a lot of shouting to get out of her, James and Lily being her main targets.
"Potter and Evans, I do not like seeing public display of affection in my classroom." The Slytherins snorted with disgust.
The old cow probably has never experienced affection or been in a relationship, James thought bitterly.
"Professor," Lily gritted through her teeth. "We aren't doing this on purpose. Didn't Professor Dumbledore—" However, she was rudely interrupted.
"Professor Dumbledore has informed me of your...predicament." She cast a sickened look at the two. "And I must say you are both irresponsible and foolish. I'm taking ten Gryffindor house points off the both of you." The class groaned in annoyance. Lily sighed in anger, however, we all know James; he wasn't going to be quiet after what had just happened.
"WHAT?" James exploded to his feet, while Lily tried to yank him back down again.
Oh no: here we go, Remus thought. James please, just keep your mouth shut...
"You're taking house points off because of something that happened to us outside of class, that wasn't even our fault!" Sirius began whistling a tune and everyone turned to look at him oddly. James was so angry he hadn't noticed and carried on shouting. "That's bloody ridiculous!"
"Mr. Potter! How dare you speak to me like that! And mind your language in my classroom! I am also taking house points off you for disrupting my class and being a nuisance!" Professor Mansell said in a rage. "Detention for you, Potter, tonight at 7 o'clock."
"That is so unfair!" James argued. Lily tugged at his arm again, looking at him with aggravation. If he had detention, Lily would obviously have to suffer detention with him too. Bloody perfect, she thought.
"Potter, sit down. Now," Lily whispered furiously. He took his gaze of the professor and looked at Lily.
Alright, James thought. I'll sit down for you Evans. Two seconds later, he wondered why he had thought that and was thoroughly disturbed with himself.
He slowly sat down and sulked. Lily looked at him curiously, amazed at how he'd actually taken her advice. Maybe he's finally growing up...Lily thought….Nah.
The class looked like it was finally going to start, until Malfoy decided to make a comment, just to lighten the cheerful mood in the room.
"Well, we all know who wears the trousers in your relationship, Potter! Mudblood's got you on a leash!" Malfoy signaled to his 'friends' sitting next to him –basic overgrown idiots who couldn't think for themselves in other words— to laugh along, by elbowing them in the ribs. He looked at them sternly and pointed his wand underneath their desks to their crotch areas whilst showing his finger and thumb an inch apart. The boys looked at each other with worry before laughing out hysterically. They didn't understand what Malfoy had been signaling under the desk but if he wanted them to laugh, they'd bloody do it or he'd probably whip them as punishment later.
After a few minutes of manic laughing, Malfoy thought it was a bit too much and signalled with a hand moving across his neck to shut up. The laughing instantly stopped.
"Go the hell Malfoy," James snapped.
"Be quiet Potter! Or I will have to take more house points off you!" Professor Mansell warned.
James sighed with anger and shut his mouth from another snide comment.
The class finally settled and Professor Mansell explained that in the lesson they would be making the 'The potion of Erised'. Because of James and Lily's attached hands, they would have to work together to make the potion. Professor Mansell explained that after making the potion, the students would drink it and hopefully if they'd made the potion right, visions would flash before their eyes, images of their greatest desire.
"Crap!" Lily swore as she cut her finger for the fifth time in five minutes as she was cutting the ingredients.
"Evans, come on, just let me do i—-"
"No Potter, I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself!" Lily continued to struggle cutting with her left hand. James secretly fixed the cut using a healing spell. Lily hadn't noticed, concentrating too much.
James wondered why he'd healed her. An image of Sirius had suddenly popped in his head dancing and singing the annoying rhyme 'Because you love her! You want to kiss her! You want to fuc-' James shook his head physically and mentally before that rhyme had continued any further.
He sighed as he carried on moving his wand which was stirring the potion. He'd lost count how many times he'd stirred already. He thought he'd probably pay for that later considering you had to get the exact amount of times for stirring. He'd lost count because he kept staring at Evans he thought for some odd reason.
She's so stubborn, James thought, watching her as she refused his help again.
Lily stressfully tucked her red hair behind her ears.
She does that a lot.
Lily looked up from cutting and spotted James staring at her.
"How many times have you stirred it already?" she interrogated.
"I—uh—um, 45 times," he answered hesitantly. She eyed him with suspicion before returning to cutting.
Eventually everyone in their pairs had finished making the potions and was sitting on their stools, ready to taste them. James eyed his and Lily's potion; luckily it looked the right colour and how it was supposed to be. He sighed with relief. Lily, again, looked at him suspiciously.
"Okay class, each of you take a goblet of your potions, then write down the results of the images of what you see in your mind as your greatest desires," Professor Mansell told them.
Sirius looked at Peter's and his potion with disgust. Unfortunately, their potion of desire looked, well, undesirable. Their potion was supposed to be red, not an ugly brown and the colour of faeces.
"Professor?" Sirius called. She turned and looked crossly at him. Sirius had scooped a spoon into his potion and watched the brown, gloopy liquid drip off it, extremely slowly. He dropped the spoon into the potion with distaste. "Professor, I think Peter messed up ours," he blamed. Peter did not argue.
"Black, you must drink the potion, and then you will know whether or not you have done it right."
She bloody knows we messed it up! She wants to torture us and make us the drink the cup of muck, Sirius thought bitterly.
"Okay, Professor!" He acted cheerful, giving her a secret middle finger under his desk. He turned back to the potion and had found that the spoon he had dropped in it was missing. It had obviously melted or dissolved into the sludge.
"Mmm, yummy." He turned to Peter who looked nervous and worried. "Alright, Wormtail, ladies first!"
Peter looked at him with confused eyes.
"What—" Peter began. However, Sirius had already grabbed a goblet of their slime they had created, scooped it into it and shoved the potion down Peter's throat.
Hehe, he's like a human guinea pig, Sirius thought gleefully. Remus looked at him with his eyebrows narrowed, then his expression changed quickly when he thought; better him then me, focusing back on his and Anna's potion.
Once Peter had swallowed the entire potion, his face bulged and turned the colours of a traffic light; frst the bold red, then the pale yellow, and then suddenly the hasty green.
Sirius squealed in fright and backed away; Peter was stumbling towards him with his hand covering his mouth, and Sirius could only assume what would happen next. He grabbed Anna by the waist, who had been standing behind him with her back turned, busy writing some notes. She let out a confused "Sirius! What are you doing?" as he abruptly pushed her in front of him, using her as a shield.
Lily was about to drink the goblet of potion along with James, but halted their goblets to their mouths, hearing a girl's scream behind them. Instinctively, Lily recognised it as Anna's. The two turned around to see a ghastly sight. The Gryffindors gasped whilst the Slytherins laughed merrily.
Standing before them was Peter, looking shocked and scared, also with trickles of sick dripping of his chin; Anna standing in front of him, her eyes closed and mouth gaping open in disgust as her face, hair, and shirt was completely covered in a revolting, foul and nasty green vomit; and that particular vomit stank for miles. Everyone immediately blocked their noses with their hands at the stench and muttered an "eeeew." Sirius was behind Anna, his hands still on her waist from when he grabbed her. To Anna's delight, they were covered in vomit too.
"Aw, man..." Sirius let out a groan of disgust. Lily looked at Anna with pity but was also fear; after Anna had recovered she would not be happy-
"SIRIUS BLACK!" Anna wiped the vomit off her with her robes. She cried out in revolution as she tried to smear Peter's vomit off her and had concluded in getting some in her mouth. She suddenly felt sick herself.
At the sound of his name, Sirius had jumped, ducked and hid under his desk. He didn't want a black eye like James owned.
Grumbling, Anna grabbed the goblet of potion that Sirius was supposed to drink and chucked it in Peter's face. Everyone gasped, though Lily wasn't surprised. She'd seen her friend angry before and there was definitely more to come.
Anna seized the cauldron of the remaining ugly, brown potion, grabbed Sirius forcefully from under the desk and –to only Sirius' surprise— poured it over his head.
"Nooooo, my hair!" Sirius cried, as the brown, lumpy potion dripped slowly off his face and on to the floor. "My damn sexy hair!"
James and Remus laughed hysterically at the sight. James was exceptionally pleased considering what Sirius had done to them earlier.
Five minutes later, the class had settled again. Peter had been sent to the Hospital Wing to recover, and Sirius and Anna had been cleaned up so no traces of Peter's vomit or the horrid potion were on them. They both felt damp with soggy hair and the vomit had been removed from their skin, the smell had not been.
After all the commotion, James and Lily –for the second time—were about to taste their potion. They each grabbed their goblets.
"Well...cheers," James said, knocking his goblet with Lily's.
"Cheers," she replied.
They both titled their heads back and down their drinks in one. Both their faces squirmed at the taste of the potion.
"Definitely not desirable," James muttered. Lily nodded along in agreement.
They both closed their eyes, waiting for the potion to work.
Suddenly, flashes of images entered James mind. The potion of Erised was definitely effective. At first, the incoherent images that flickered before him didn't make sense.
Finally, the images moulded together and James was met with the bold colour of red.
Red? Is that red hair? James thought confusedly. The image was blurry but as time passed, it became clearer. The image definitely showed red hair.
Belonging to who though...oh no, please not—His thoughts were confirmed. The red hair belonged to Lily Evans. He saw his face smiling at him in his mind.
Oh God! What does that mean? My greatest desire is Evans? He was unaware that the image was getting slowly worse, showing more to him; a hell of a lot more. The image was traveling down from Lily's face, further down... Oh my God! Evans naked! EVANS NAKED! MY GREATEST DESIRE IS TO SEE EVANS NAKED! AAARGH!
He tried to turn away, but he found himself being curious and kept looking. You pervert! Look away! Sirius has a bad influence on you, ya know! Just look away now! It's Evans!
Meanwhile, Lily was also facing the effects of the potion before her eyes. She waited as the bolts of blurry images gradually became more lucid. Eventually a picture cropped up, what could be recognized as herself.
What? My greatest desire is myself? Lily thought. I don't understand. Although, I have to say, my hair looks pretty nice there though…
But the image hadn't stopped showing her, it was still continuing. The image gradually moved left, showing Lily was smiling at someone whilst fluttering her eyelashes.
Fluttering my eyelashes? What's wrong with me there? My desire is to get some kind of eye deficiency?
The image moved further left, until it showed clear and boldly—POTTER! What's he doing there? He can't be my desire! He just can't!
To her utter horror, Lily saw herself leaning into James Potter, kissing him deeply on the lips as they both smiled coyly. AHH! NOOO! My greatest desire is to KISS POTTER!
Both images exited James and Lily's minds at once. They opened their eyes and shrieked in shock to see each other's faces merely inches away, both breathing heavily and in alarm. In unease, they sprung away from one another, as far possible.
James tried to stare at anything other than Lily, but found his thoughts back to the image of her unclothed and his face instantly became as red as the striking red potion they'd made. Lily also turned away from him; she had felt her eyes staring at James a lip, and that was definitely not good news to her.
Remus studied their shocked and disturbed faces. "Hey, James, are you alright? Your face looks like it's seen—"
"Seen what?" James yelled. "I didn't see anything! Nothing at all!"
Remus quickly backed off. "Okay..." He looked at him oddly. "So, Lily," he turned to the red head who jumped, appearing high strung, "What did you see as your greatest desires?"
Her eyes widened at such a question. "Er..I…uh...I'm sure our potion was messed up," she said quietly, not answering his question and glancing at James who was eying her with a nervous look.
"Yes! I agree!"
"Why? What did you see, Prongs?" Sirius smirked, as if he'd seen his desire for himself.
CRAP! James cursed in his head. What am I going to say? 'All I saw was Lily naked, no big deal!'
"Um...I saw...me as...um...playing qudditch...for England?" James told them making it up as he went along. "Yeah, I was captain," he fibbed.
Sirius nodded, impressed. "What about you, Lily?"
Oh! Me? All I saw was me kissing bloody Potter! Damn it! Stupid potion!
"I saw me...as...Mistress for Magic," Lily nodded with much vigour, "Yep, that's what I saw!"
Remus eyed them both. "So, if you both got those images, then the potion can't be messed up then. You both wanted them desires right?" he asked confusedly.
James and Lily came to realisation at what he said.
"Oh yeah, yeah, you're right! Haha! Yeah! The potion was fine!"
They quickly turned around to face the front of the class, both avoiding eye contact.
"What's up with them?" Anna asked. Sirius was about to answer when Anna said "I was talking to Remus." Sirius looked down guiltily; obviously Anna was still annoyed about the whole Peter-vomiting-on-her incident.
James and Lily were sat in silence, both thinking about what the potion had told them when Malfoy had interrupted their thoughts. He called James from across the class.
"Oy, Potter!" James turned his head swiftly to frown at Malfoy's smug face. "So, what's your greatest desire then? To shag mudblood Evans in the common room?" James' confusion from the images of the potion quickly evolved into anger at Malfoy's words. Lily looked away with embarrassment. "No, wait, I'm sorry, you've already done that haven't you?"
"My greatest desire, Malfoy," James spat, "Is to see your body chopped into little pieces and fed to a pack of wolves. That desire might actually happen now if you like, if you keep on opening that bloody mouth of yours."
Remus instinctively looked up at the mention of the word 'wolves', and thought to himself, nope, there's no way in I would eat him.
"Be quiet!" Professor Mansell ordered. Malfoy smirked as he turned his glare off James and back to the professor, and James did the same.
Lily looked at James apologetically. "Potter?" she whispered as Professor Mansell was talking. James turned his head to look at her and tried to keep his face of normal colour and forget the images of Lily's naked self. "Sorry for stopping you in the toilet when you were about to kick Malfoy's face in. Next time you see him, you can most definitely punch him."
James smiled a little. "Gladly."
Lily turned her attention back to Professor Mansell who was writing something on the blackboard, when her hand was speedily tugged upwards. Her eyes landed on James who was standing and cursed the words she said seconds ago. 'Next time you see him' obviously meant to James the second his eyes landed on Malfoy.
"NOT NOW, YOU IDIOT!"
The class turned to face them, everyone watching James, who was watching Malfoy with utter repulsion. James was ready to go over to him right there and then.
"Potter, sit down, right this instant, or I will have to deduct even more house points. And let me warn you, Gryffindor do not have many left thanks to you."
James didn't take his eyes off Malfoy. The blonde smirked arrogantly back at him, beckoning him, asking with his eyes if he was man enough to over and hit him right in front of the class and professor bitch-a-lot.
Look at him! That blonde haired git! It's as if he's daring me to...I so want to accept that dare.
Malfoy raised his eyebrows fiercely.
"James!"
He turned his head to see that more then one person had called him.
James looked around to see Sirius. His friend was nodding his head eagerly, telling him with his nods to go smack Malfoy's face off. He was also holding up his fists up in front of his face, shadow boxing, accompanied with rather embarassing sound effects. Everyone looked at him strangely, including James.
James then looked at Remus who was look directly at him, focused and shaking his head slowly. He was telling James with his eyes that hitting Malfoy was a bad idea and that he should sit down. At least kick Malfoy's arse outside of the classroom, preferably not in front of a teacher. Remus was always the sensible and intelligent one. James wasn't sure if he should follow what Remus told him this time though. He'd tolerated enough Malfoy's crap lately and held back a lot...too much, even...
James' eyes then landed on Lily. She was furious; her eyes were rolling at his stupidity. She couldn't believe or wonder why James was looking to see her opinion.
Nex,t he looked at Anna who was filing her nails with a pink nail file and had an extremely cross look on her face. James coughed lightly to get her attention but she continued filing. James swore he heard her mutter the words "Sirius Black...stupid...ignorant..."
His eyes dragged away from the girls as her anger was disturbing him.
James finally looked to Peter who had come back from the Hospital Wing looking an odd sickly colour. James beckoned with eyes for Peter's opinion on what to do. Peter merely shrugged his shoulders, totally confused. Fat load of bloody help he is, James thought.
"Mr. Potter, after you've finished your staring contest, I advise you to park yourself!"
James took one final glare at Malfoy before silently sitting down.
"Finally," Lily sighed.
"Mr. Malfoy, you will also have detention tonight at seven," the professor informed.
James smiled with delight but it instantly disappeared. He would have to spend detention with Malfoy. On this note, he became thoroughly annoyed again. Malfoy scowled in response to his detention and gave the professor a dirty look once she'd turned her back on him.
Sirius moaned in disappointment because of no fight.
"Hey, how come he chose your advice over mine?" Sirius asked Remus, quite bewildered. Remus sighed, "Because I'm the most intelligent of the marauders, Padfoot."
"Then what's Peter?" Sirius asked curiously.
"Um…." The cowardly one, Remus thought in his mind, but decided not to voice it. "The, er, loyal one!"
"And what's James?"
The too stubborn and too much pride for his own good-one, Remus thought.
"The brave one!"
"So what am I?" Sirius asked.
The stupid one, Remus joked in his mind. Okay, let me think of something that he won't hit me for not liking...
"The uh...flirty one?" Remus suggested, prepared for the smack off Sirius that he thought he was going to get for being called that.
To Remus' surprise, Sirius looked delighted at his title. "Thanks, man!" he said happily, patting Remus on the back.
"Um...your welcome?" Remus replied, a little confused.