Chapter 5
Peter's pov:
I was rooting through my bag looking for a new quill, I'd just broken my old one when Sirius walked into the class room, his shoulders were hunched slightly as if trying to ward of all of the stares that he was receiving.
"So kind of you to grace us with your presence, Mr. Black." McGonagall said coldly, looking up from where she was helping a cute Ravenclaw with her half-transfigured hedge-hog.
"Sorry for being late Professor, I was talking to Professor Dumbledore." Sirius mumbled, looking down at his feet.
I knew immediately that his time with Dumbledore hadn't fixed anything. Sirius's gaze roved around the room until he spotted James and headed towards him, when he realized that James was sitting with Remus. A slightly hurt expression flitted across his expression, before he turned and sat next to me. James handed him his bag, which we'd salvaged from the mess in the Charms classroom.
"Thanks" he muttered with a weak grin, before turning back to face the front of the room.
"We're turning hedge-hogs into chess sets today." I whispered and pushed my notes towards him "Having to make the separate chess pieces is really hard."
"Thanks" he whispered hoarsely and began to copy my notes onto a separate piece of parchment that he'd pulled from his bag.
I continued my attempts to turn my dratted hedgehog into a chess set.
"Dominus hedech!" I said with a swirl and jab with my wand. All I accomplished was poking my hedgehog in the eye.
I turned around and saw Remus and James playing chess with Remus's board. James's hedgehog had the chequered pattern of a chess set and five or six of its spines were shaped like chess pieces.
"Remus, move your queen or James is going to take it with his rook." I said after analyzing their game for a few seconds.
"What? Oh, thanks Petie!" Remus said moving his queen to safety.
"Peeeeteeeer!" James groaned "Why'd you have to go and point that out to him?
"Cuz, I need help with my hedgehog." I replied simply.
"I see…" they said in unison, glancing behind me at the vile, troublesome, spiky beast on my desk.
"Of course I'll help you Wormy!" Remus replied, sliding out from behind his desk and coming over to mine. "How're you doing Padfoot?"
"Fine" Sirius replied, glancing at us and then returning to scribbling down the notes.
Returning his attention to me Remus asked "O.k. show me how you've been doing it."
"Like this, Dominus hedech!" I replied with the same swirl and jab, this time I avoided poking my hedgehog in the eye.
"Well you've got the wording correct; you might want to put a bit more emphasis on the omin part of Dominus. Don't put as much ferocity into the jab, your not trying to skewer the thing and your swirl needs to make a full circle before you do the jab." Remus explained, demonstrating the movements with his wand. "Now you try."
"Dominus hedech!" I repeated, making my wand complete the full circle and then trying to soften the jab.
My hedgehog flattened out and developed the chequered pattern, but instead of chess pieces it had spines sticking up in their places. The chess set also retained its legs. I watched with a raised eyebrow as its legs scrabbled furiously in the air.
"Close, very close!" Remus congratulated me enthusiastically "This time make the jab a tiny bit more pronounced."
I tried again "Dominus hedech!" I preformed the necessary wand movements in perfect succession and the chess set with legs and spines morphed into a perfect wooden chess set.
"And there you go! You did wonderfully! Now if you'll excuse me I think James needs a bit of gentle prodding." Remus said with a wide grin, glancing back at the messy, black haired boy staring at Lily Evans.
"Thanks Moony!" I said turning back to my chess set.
I think I'll turn some inanimate object into a chess board and give it to my mom for Christmas… She'll be so surprised that I made it myself!
"So Sirius… How's your chess board coming along?" I asked.
Sirius gestured at his perfect chess board "This stuff is easy! I could do it in my sleep."
"I see… Do you know how people make the chess pieces move and stuff?" I asked curiously.
"Nope, the companies that manufacture chess sets don't let it become common knowledge. Otherwise their business would be ruined, honestly who's going to spend good money on a chess set when they can just transfigure something into a temporary one?" Sirius replied poking at one of his chess pieces.
"What do you mean temporary one?"
"Transfigured stuff isn't as good as the real thing. I mean honestly, the economy of the wizarding world would crumble if people just transfigured rocks and such into whatever they wanted. The 'strength' a wizard has in the transfiguration field affects how well he transfigures things right? Take that Ravenclaw, what's-his-name… Gordy something-er-ather… He sucks in transfig, so anything that he transfigures will only stay transfigured for a short period of time. All transfigured items after a certain period of time, depending on how 'strong' a wizard who transfigured it, will eventually revert back into its original state." Sirius explained gesturing wildly as he did so.
"Good job Mr. Black, 5 points to Gryffindor for knowing part of the theory behind transfiguration." Professor McGonagall said from behind Sirius.
Sirius spun around in surprise "uh… thank you professor."
"You're welcome Mr. Black" she replied over her shoulder, sweeping over to Lily Evans who was having trouble with her hedge-set, which had managed to sink its teeth into her robe and wasn't letting go…
"Oh… so that's what happened to all those beetles I transfigured into buttons… I thought that you guys had stolen them and put beetles in my bed as a prank." I asked said slowly.
"Nope… although that's a good idea, if we could sneak into the girls dorms, with tons of transfigured buttons and place them all over the room, then after a couple of hours all of the buttons will revert back into beetles and the girls will go crazy…" Sirius said with an evil grin.
"Won't they wonder why there are a bunch of buttons around their dorm?" I replied.
"Well I suppose… but buttons don't look evil or threatening so the girls will either just leave the buttons there or they'll pick them up and put them in a pile and then all of a sudden the buttons will turn back into beetles and the girls will freak!" Sirius finished triumphantly "I need to go tell James! This is a great idea, thanks Wormy!"
Sirius turned away from and began gesturing wildly to James and Remus as he explained his plan.
I sighed, well I guess that cancelled out my idea of sending my mom a home made chess set.
"Your homework for tonight is to read pages 257 to 264. We've almost finished this chapter so start studying for the chapter test." McGonagall said from the front of the class room. "You may go for lunch."
End of Peter's pov
"Do you know where Sirius is?" Peter asked, while lying on James bed admiring James's broom.
"He told me he was heading to the library to study for transfig or something…" Remus replied lazily flipping through a book on dark creatures.
"Sirius study? In the library? Sirius never studies, let alone go to the library, unless he's working on a prank." Peter replied confused. "And plus its past curfew, the library is closed now."
James walked in at that point humming the tune of the song he'd made up about Lily, it went something like "Lily, Lily, Lily-Lily, Lily Evans Lily Evans. Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily Evans, LilyEvans , Lily, Lily-Lily-Lily…"
He was sporting a black eye, so he must have asked her out again, but he looked happy enough. "Why don't you just check the map?" he said quickly before continuing to hum.
"I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good" Remus said tapping the map, immediately it sprang to life "
James and Peter leaned in and the three Marauders sat in silence watching Sirius pause, turn and run as a dot labeled Argus Filch came out of a passageway up ahead of him. Luckily Filch didn't see him and Sirius got off scott free. But now he was approaching a group of dots labeled Lucius Malfoy, Augustus Rookwood, Gerard Knott and Rabastan Lestrange.
"Uh oh!" muttered Peter "He doesn't know their there!"
The dot labeled Sirius rounded the corner and came to a dead stop, Malfoy and Lestrange headed in Sirius's direction and the other Slytherins followed.
"Fuck! Come on guys, we need to go to save Sirius!" James cried grabbing the cloak and his wand and was out the door with Remus and Peter hot on his tail.