A/n: Allo. I'm a roll for updates. My muses have been exceedingly kind in the past few days, so I'm getting lots down in notebooks. The next step is typing it up and submitting it. I'm hoping the next round of updates will be coming fairly fast. To my regulars: Keeper's Heart chapter 11 just got put up yesterday and after this I'm working on a new chapter of Saradon's Revenge.
Anyways, in reference to this chapter: its a little bit of a shorter one, but just WAIT 'til the next one - action gallore. Lol. So, I hope you like this, b/c I had fun writing most of it.
Chapter 9
The next day and for the days to follow, Sirius and James visited Remus and Peter in the hospital wing regularly. Most of the teachers had been informed of the situation, so they allowed Sirius and James to miss a few classes to be with their injured friends. The general knowledge about Remus and Peter's conditions, however, was that they had been involved in a freak wand and spell accident and were now healing from it.
To lighten the mood amongst the students and to take their minds as far away as possible from the scary and unsettling things Peter had said the night Remus had been injured, James and Sirius "switched places". They wore the other's robes, carried and wrote in the other's books, styled their hair like the other, and made a point of saying their own name when addressing the other in as many sentences as possible.
"Ready for Transfiguration, Sirius?" Sirius said, gathering up James' books as his own.
"I am indeed, James." James said loudly. The other students in the Common Room sniggered and chuckled.
"Well, let's be off then, Sirius." Sirius gestured grandly to the portrait hole.
James beamed from ear to ear. "Let's, James."
The others giggled and hooted as Sirius and James exited through the portrait hole.
This prank brought endless rounds of laughter and amusement from other students, though it greatly aggravated most of the teachers. James and Sirius had tried it out on nearly every, most giving them detention when they refused to give up the prank. McGonagall had been quite tolerant so far, though the boys didn't think her patience for their prank would last much longer.
"Sirius Black?" Professor McGonagall called on him for an answer to the question she'd just posed, later during Transfiguration. Neither James or Sirius were paying attention enough to be able to answer the question, but they had been waiting for the opportunity to continue their charade.
"Yes?" James perked up, grinning widely.
The other students chortled and giggled behind their hands.
McGonagall sighed irritatedly. "Potter, this joke has gone on for five days straight. Don't you think its getting old? Don't you feel its about time you two gave it up?"
"No ma'am." Sirius answered with as straight a face as he could manage. Again the others students snorted and chuckled quietly.
"Black, you're supposed to be answering the Transfiguration question I just asked." She said sternly, staring at Sirius.
"Of course." James said, still grinning foolishly. "But what was the question?"
Most of the students laughed loud and outright this time.
McGonagall's lips pressed into a thin line. "Although your classmates seemed quite amused by this, I am not. So, Mr. Potter," she looked sharply at James. "Since you seem to be the one who wants to, please answer the question." The look in her eyes was plain: behave as yourselves or detention.
Sirius glanced at James, who glanced back. Sirius suppressed a smile. The look in James' eyes was just as plain: let's go for a record amount of detentions in one week.
"Right away, Professor." Sirius answered instead of James, and more students burst out laughing. "The answer is…"
"That's enough!" McGonagall interrupted angrily. "Potter – "
"Yes?" said Sirius.
"BLACK – "
"Yes?" said James.
"Detention for both of you. Tonight, after supper you will dusting books in the library – "
The two boys began to groan.
" – the Muggle way – "
They groaned louder.
" – under the supervision of Madame Pince!"
Their groaning reached a peak.
"Oh, have a sense of humor, Professor!" Sirius whined.
"Enough." McGonagall snapped and shot them a look that even they dare not cross. "Now, can someone please answer the question?"
Someone near the back raised their hand and called out, "A black hippogriff."
McGonagall sighed a little, happy to be back in control of her class. "Correct. Now can someone please tell me…"
Sirius lightly elbowed James in the ribs. "What d'you think?"
James shrugged. "Better than what we got from Slughorn."
The two snickered and chuckled to themselves.
"And?" Sirius' grin spread across his face again.
James matched the grin with ease. "Oh YES. Definitely worth it."
That evening, not long after supper had ended, Sirius and James announced to the people in the Common Room at the top of their voices that they were off to serve their detention in the library. The students who'd been in McGonagall's class that day hooted and clapped before excitedly telling those who hadn't been in that class what had happened.
"Have fun, James!" someone bellowed.
"Oh, I will!" Sirius shouted back. The Common Room roared with laughter.
The pair exited Gryffindor Tower as James said, "We've started something, haven't we?"
"I think we have. Everyone gets as much a kick out of it as we do." Sirius beamed. "And it doesn't get old, does it?"
James laughed. "It really doesn't. And it's so hard not to smile the entire time. You're much better at keeping a straight face."
"To the Professor's faces, I suppose." He pointed to his face. "But the rest of the time I just can't stop smiling. It's so bloody funny."
The boys laughed again and continued to reenact various moments from the day as they made their way through the dimly lit halls of Hogwarts towards the library. Outside, the sky was dark, speckled with pinpricks of stars, the moon covered with clouds.
"The best, though - the most classic moment," Sirius said. "Was when I went to Muggle Studies for you and you went to Ancient Runes for me."
They doubled over in new fits of laughter at the memory.
Sirius puffed his chest out and made his voice sound shaky and high pitched, in a flawless imitation of the ancient Muggle Studies teacher, Professor Ogland. "Mr. Black, what is going on? And then I said – you know, in this super innocent voice," Sirius went back to being himself and adopted a wide-eyed and uncharacteristically innocent look. "Why, I take this class, Professor!"
James wiped his eyes and gasped for breath between new fits of laughter at Sirius' perfect Ogland imitations.
"So she goes," Sirius continued. "But you've never been here before!" Sirius snorted. "And then – then I say, But of course, I have been, Professor! I'm James Potter!"
The two had to stop walking a moment to catch their breath before Sirius could finish his story.
"T-then – the best part, I swear – is when she t-takes off her glasses," Sirius took a few breaths to hold in his laughter until he was finished. "She rubs them on her robe, p-put them back on, and goes… and goes, Oh, I see. Be seated then, Potter."
They fell about laughing, clutching their stomachs and wiping their eyes.
When James had some breath to spare, he said, "Its always so much funnier retelling it."
After that, Sirius went on to describe hilariously how the rest of the class had gone, James laughing hard right with him at all the right parts. But less than ten or so seconds after James had spoken, he suddenly felt a hand as frozen as ice grip his neck tightly. It was so unexpected and hard enough that James was unable to make a sound. He stopped walking the same instant the hand had seized him and saw Sirius moved ahead a step or two.
The hand squeezed and there was no air flow whatsoever in James' throat. He couldn't breath. He started to claw at the hand and pry the fingers off, except that there was nothing to claw at or pry. His owns hands could feel his own neck, exactly where there was supposed to be a hand squeezing the life out of him. He couldn't pry it off because somehow it wasn't there.
Sirius was barely three steps ahead when spots started to pop up in James' vision and he couldn't think about anything else other than breathing! James was lifted from the floor, and he began to wave his limbs wildly… he was going to pass out… he was going to die…
Suddenly the hand threw him extremely forcefully in through the nearest doorway leading into a classroom. James crashed painfully into numerous desks and chairs, finally coming to a sickening stop at the opposite wall. He landed on the floor, knocked out.
At the abrupt thunderous noise behind him, Sirius whipped around, heart pounding. "James?" he shouted, his voice full of panic. He didn't see his friend anywhere. "James?"
Whatever it was Peter had warned against had found them. He just knew it. His blood ran colder than cold at the thought of finding James dead. "JAMES!" he yelled desperately.
The torches blew out all around and this made everything ten times scarier. Sirius squinted into the darkness and caught a glimpse of a shadow flicker into one of the classrooms.
Wand out, Sirius steeled himself for the worst, and followed.
A/n: Well? What of it? Let me know what ya thought - even if you hated it. Just don't be too harsh, lol. Review me and I'll reply!
Two things: Check my bio page frequently to see what's been updated, what's going on with me, etc. Lastly, I'm thinking of writing a one-shot that would further describe what happened in other classes that Sirius and James took while they were switched. Let me know if anyone's interested.