Disclaimer: Anything you recognise from the huge world of Harry Potter is, unfortunately, not mine.
A huge thank you to the idea that came to me for James' Duel and also to my dense self, who took way too long to realise that I could use it for this.
A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed - I had the names written out, but I managed to delete them, twice, so one HUGE thank you will have to do.
Only a few more chapters after this one.......but James' Duel will still be running for a while!
Enjoy!
Siriusly Squiddish (Chapter 13)
James
I awoke from a strange dream about being a pirate, rolled over sleepily and felt myself drift off to sleep again. Less than a minute later, I felt somebody shaking me frantically. I pulled himself away from the shaker and tried to get back to sleep again.
"James!" Someone said, in an urgent whisper.
I replied with: "Piss off Sirius."
This did no good. "James? Have you forgotten the bet?"
I thought, I couldn't remember any bets and tried to yank to curtains shut to block out Sirius.
"Hey!" Sirius wasn't going to be got rid of that easily. He let out an obviously heavy sigh and took it upon himself to explain to me. "Does skinny dipping ring a bell?"
Uh-oh I thought. That was when I realised that I was still wearing all of my clothes and that I felt quite less than sober. That was when I remembered the bet of roughly ten minutes ago, when the girls' had bet me twenty Galleons that I wouldn't go skinny dipping in the lake, in the middle of winter, with the giant squid.
I am no fool. I thought that I might as well have the extra twenty Galleons that the girls' had offered, so I had agreed and shook on the bet.
I catapulted myself out of bed, strode down to the common room, through the corridors (taking a few secret passageways of course) and out to the lake. The girls where already there waiting and thinking, from the looks on their faces, that there was no way that I'd actually do it. Boy, was I going to prove them wrong.
I took off my coat, jumper, shoes and socks first, then my t-shirt and jeans, at which I received a series of impressed wolf whistles from the girls. Not being shy, I couldn't resist turning round and waving at them. I saw Lily slowly turning a bright crimson.
I took off my boxers to a chorus of loud wolf whistling and dived into the lake.
That was the bet done, so I swam the short length back to edge of the lake, got out, used a drying spell on myself and tugged my clothes back on.
Sirius
After waking James up (honestly, when he's drunk he falls asleep – he's like an old man) and reminding him of his bet, we went down to the lake. He stripped off (I averted my eyes, not being that way inclined) and dived into the lake.
That was when I remembered my desire to swim in the lake, how nobody would swim in the lake with me and, finally, how Remus had told me that it would probably be hot enough in the Easter holidays. Now was the Easter holidays.
James
Obviously, after pulling my clothes on, I hadn't counted on something hurtling into me at about 120mph. I fell back into the lake with a huge splosh and the 120mph object flew over me and landed about 10 metres away, further toward the middle of the lake. Cursing, I dragged myself back out, redid the drying spell on myself and turned to see what or who the 120mph thing was.
Sirius
Alas, the effects of the large quantities of alcohol – muggle stuff and magical stuff – had not quite (well, not at all to be honest) worn off. Without waiting for anyone else, I sprinted towards the lake, fully clothed, and jumped in. I tell you; at the time it felt like I must've beat the world long jump record. Later on, James told me that he reckoned I'd only jumped roughly 10 metres, but he would say that – he's probably just jealous.
Being drunk, I assumed that everyone else would want to join me for a very early morning dip in the lake. However, James – the idiot that got in the way of my spectacular long jump – clambered back out and dried himself off again. The girls' sorted out the twenty Galleons that they owed James, but then stayed at the lakeside. Remus was laughing heartily. At that moment I failed to see what was so hilarious. Angry at the laughter of Remus and Ari – who remained at the lakeside with the others turning a bright red in embarrassment at the behaviour of me, her drunken boyfriend, I trod water for a few minutes trying to clear my drunken head and come to my senses. I sincerely hoped that I had some senses to come to.
But I didn't. Especially when I happened to see the tentacle of a certain giant squid.
Ari
I was completely embarrassed. I mean, as much as I love him, Sirius can be a complete and utter prat when he gets drunk. It takes a lot to get him that drunk, thank god, but when it does happened he does really senseless things. Like this one time when...
On second thoughts maybe I won't go into that right now. Back to the main story here. Sirius was in the lake fully clothed, Remus was pissing himself laughing, James cracked up with laughter too, once Lily had handed him his glasses, and the other Gryffindors (except Peter – I'm not sure why he wasn't there) were looking amused, albeit slightly worried.
Though Sirius was rather drunk, he was treading water, he can swim and we assumed that he'd be okay. We wouldn't have been able to get him out of there anyway – he'd been banging on about swimming in the lake for ages.
When the squid put in an appearance, both James' and Remus' faces instantly changed. The laughter suddenly stopped and a sudden silence hung in the air around us as we watched what Sirius was doing.
Remus
We stopped laughing because Sirius and the Squid just do not mix. It's a long story, but here are the basics. We did shed loads of pranks back then (in our third year), when we didn't have as much homework and no NEWTs or OWLs to study for and Sirius got bored. I hate to admit it, but Sirius is clever – just not in the textbook kind of way.
As well as planning pranks as part of the Marauders he managed to concoct a huge pranking plan of his own. As you can guess, he planned to prank the giant squid – big time. It was around Easter time and we'd pranked nearly everyone in school by then – every teacher, every pupil, every suit of armour, every pet, every school owl – you name it, we'd pranked it.
So, thus came Sirius' hair-brained scheme to prank to poor giant squid. A stupid idea, which, as I told him, might turn the giant squid against humans altogether and make the lake unsafe for any pupil to swim in ever again. Peter said he'd help (being the sheep that he generally is), but James flatly refused. He wasn't one to shy away from danger, but he saw that pranking the squid was not a good idea.
Sirius' plan remained only a plan. It wasn't carried out and pupil's swimming in the lake did so in harmony.
Lily
After seeing James naked, it took a while for me to come back to my senses and realise that Sirius was in the lake, staring maliciously at the giant squid. He seemed to be firing spells at the poor thing.
A moment later, he was crushed in the squid's tentacles. The look on his face was a complete classic; I'll never forget that face. The squid wasn't hurting him – it was, can you believe, hugging him!
And that was exactly how Sirius ended up in the hospital wing. After having pretty much every bone in his body crushed by the giant squid (who hugged too tight), he had to spend a few days in the hospital wing. Everyone who came to see him couldn't help laughing and he was constantly teased about the incident for a few months after.
