See, that wasn't such a long wait, now was it? At least, not as long as the last one. The next chapter will probably takea bit more time, i'd say the forecast is for about three weeks. Peachy? Peachy. Thanx to Leah for the idea behind this chapter.

Disclaimer-Yeah, still don't own it. We wish we did. But we don't. Except for Heather. And Bridget. And a certain new character to come up next chapter...Muahahaa!

Chapter 33

Expellamajubus

"Please explain to me why Remus is unconscious in the hospital wing," Sirius demanded. It was Monday, and Sirius, surprisingly enough, had been up before Heather and decided to wander through the castle.

"Mr. Lupin has apparently gotten himself into a bit of a scuffle with a few Death Eaters. Now, if you do not mind, Mr. Black, I must tend to my patient."

"SIRIUS!" A lime-green blur shot forward, toppling him to the ground. Sirius looked around in confusion, then spotted the person sitting on the floor a few feet from him, laughing rather hysterically. Shaking his head, he got to his feet and looked down in amusement at the woman on the ground, platinum blonde hair shaking as she giggled insanely, bright blue eyes staring back up at Sirius.

"What is so funny?" he asked as he pulled the still-chuckling Bridget to her feet.

"I've got no idea!" she gasped between laughs, brushing off her Healer robes. "I just started laughing!" Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears and her body was racked with sobs. She fell forward into Sirius' arms, and he, unsure of what to do, started rubbing her back, hoping for all the world that Remus wouldn't wake up and see them like this.

"Bridget?" he asked uncertainly.

"He-he…"

"Are you alright?"

"No, I'm not alright! Remus, they…they tortured him! Five of them…put him under the Cruciatus curse at once, and…Madam Pomfrey says he has about a 90 chance of waking up!"

"Well, 90 percent is pretty good! He'll be fine, don't worry."

"You didn't let me finish! He has a 90 chance of waking up. He has a 20 chance of waking up sane!" Cancel that wish about Remus not waking up.

"Is that why you're here?" Bridget stopped sniffling and wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve.

"No, why I'm here is actually good news. Madam Pomfrey is going to retire soon, and I'm taking her place. But now I'm not so sure I want to."

"Oh, come on," Sirius comforted, "Remus will be fine, I promise. Shh, it'll be okay."

"No it…it won't…"

"Yes, it will. You've done everything you can…"

"But what if that's not enough? Poppy says that if Dumbledore and the others hadn't gotten there when they did, Remus would be dead! And the only thing we could use to help him at all contains silver, it would just make things worse…"

"SIRIUS ORION BLACK! WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Heather shrieked as she strode into the hospital wing, finding her fiancé and best friend holding onto each other as if their lives depended on it.

"Heather, stop it. Sirius was…he was…"

"I don't want to hear it, okay!"

"Heath-" Sirius started.

"You shut up! I thought you actually cared about me! I can see now how wrong I was!" Madam Pomfrey chose that moment to walk towards them, chastising the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor the entire time.

"Miss Windling, this is a hospital wing. I understand if you're here to see him, but please, keep your voice down! Shouting will not help him at all! I never!" With that she returned to her office, muttering about out of control teachers.

"Who-who was she talking about?" Heather muttered quietly.

"Remus," Sirius replied. "He's lying in that bed over there, unconscious and with a 20 chance of waking up, knowing who everyone is and being able to communicate."

"What…?"

"Death Eaters. Five of them. Put him under the Cruciatus curse. He's-the only thing we can give him has silver in it. I'm scared, Heather," Bridget admitted.

"I-I'm sorry. I saw you two there, and I thought that you-oh my gosh, I'm so stupid!"

"I believe this would be one of those 'group hug times'," Sirius commented; he immediately found himself in a tight embrace by both Heather and Bridget, crying their eyes out. A few minutes later, they were still hugging in the middle of the hospital wing. "Um, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Heather and I do have a class in five minutes. And I really don't think it's a good idea to leave a bunch of first years by themselves for too long."

"He's right, Heather. Go on, get to your class."

"I promise I'll come by later."

"Thanks," Bridget whispered. "Both of you." Sirius ruffled her hair in an older brother sort of way as he and Heather strolled down to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

"Sirius, I'm…"

"Don't even start. It's all right, I understand. I would have done something a bit more drastic if you'd been there with Remus."

"Knowing you, it would involve a large amount of magic and words we would not want the student body to hear."

"Have I really gotten that predictable?" Heather smacked him upside the head as they walked through the door, finding the class already full of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor first years. A very familiar pair was in the front of class, chatting away about something.

"Saturday night I had the strangest dream," Emily was telling her friend. "I was wandering around the forbidden forest, and all of a sudden I saw this unicorn that came right up to me. So I start petting it, stroking its muzzle, and it gets down on the ground to let me ride it. So, I'm about to get on when it just suddenly screams, "SHUT UP!" and then it walks away! Is that weird or what?"

"That is pretty weird," Kelly replied, "but not as weird as my Saturday night. This one fifth year, I think her name is Ginny, starts shaking me awake about one in the morning, and tells me and the rest of my dorm to go searching through the common room for clues of someone who could have broken in. Well, Alice, Anne and I get down there, and the entire Gryffindor house is running around, screaming their heads off and overturning stuff. So we run down the staircase and join them. I've got no idea why, though. And I remember hearing someone screaming shut up, too. But then, awhile later another girl came out of the portrait hole and told us we could stop."

"Are you sure that wasn't a dream?"

"Positive. Cody Johnson dropped a pack of Exploding Snap cards on me and I still have the burn on my arm. See?"

"Ow, it looks painful."

"That's because it is pai-" Sirius had cut them off with a cough, eerily resembling that of Professor Umbridge.

"In case you haven't noticed yet, this is Defense Against the Dark Arts. Due to a lovely trick pulled by your headmaster, I will be co-teaching you the rest of this year. And Heather has decided to have me teach you alone today. She's crazy, for the record, but anyway…

"Today, I'll be showing you the Disarming Spell. You normally don't learn this until next year, but, given the circumstances, the staff believes that you should know it. To fire the spell, bring your wand back and over your head, almost like you're going to shoot a bow and arrow. Now, just hold your wand there and say the incantation, which is expelliarmus. The spell will cause your opponent's wand to fly out of their hand and into yours, a very useful spell in dueling. It can also be used on things that aren't wands, such as swords, pieces of paper, a person, etcetera. Now then, who wants to come up here and demonstrate?" Up in the front row, a couple of certain Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students were having a verbal battle of who would go up and duel the scary mass murderer.

"You go!" Kelly demanded, giving her friend a little shove in Sirius's direction.

"You're the brave one! Get up there!"

"Well, you're smart. You can avoid him."

"I can not! He's a mass murderer!"

"I can't dodge him either! He's like 50 years older than me!"

"So? Go!" Emily pushed Kelly out of her seat and onto the floor in front of the ex-convict's feet.

"Well then," he remarked, attempting to stifle a laugh, "try to disarm me."

"Uhh…" the girl stuttered, at a loss for words.

"Expelliarmus!" Emily hissed from the desk, enjoying this immensely.

"Ex-expellamajubus! Oops." At her feet lay a plate of lime jello- in other words, what she had done to Professor Black.

"I think he looks better that way," Heather remarked, hoping beyond all hope that Sirius could still hear her.

"I said expelliarmus, not expellamajubus!" Emily cried, waving her wand in exasperation and accidentally turning the young Gryffindor student into a pile of grape jello, covered in whipping cream. "Oops."

"Alright, that's enough! All of you," Heather turned to look at the remainder of the class, "stay here! I doubt we'll be back before you're next class, so, uh, work on homework or something." She grabbed both of the jellos, hurrying off to the hospital wing. Bridget immediately ran up to meet her.

"You came back sooner than I expected! Ooh, I want grape, thanks."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Why not? Is there some rule about eating jello in this school that I don't know about?"

"No, well, maybe, Filch has given it a few interesting rules. Anyway, it's a student!"

"Oh. Then, who's the other one?"

"Sirius."

"Now, I know Sirius and I were hugging, but did you really have to turn him into gelatin?"

I did not turn my fiancé into jello!"

"Whatever you say. Just put them on that bed next to…next to Remus," she finished tearfully, earning a look of pity from the remaining human Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The two of them began talking about unimportant things, not knowing that Remus was stirring twenty feet away.

He woke up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and wondering why the heck he was in so much pain when he looked over at the bed next to him, seeing a plate of jello.

"LIME!" he shouted ecstatically, grabbing the fork that had been left on his tray of food (where did that come from?) and stabbed the jello.

"NO!" two women screamed at him, and he quickly pulled the fork away.

"Why not?"

"Remus! Are you okay?" Bridget suddenly screamed.

"I think so. Why wouldn't I be?" The Healer immediately ran up to him, throwing her arms around the very confused werewolf. "I missed something, didn't I?"

"You missed a lot of things," Heather confirmed.

"You never told me why I couldn't eat the jello!"

"Because, it's Sirius! A student turned him into jello instead of disarming him."

"How in the world did they do that?"

"Don't have a clue. Hey, do you know how to change them back?" asked Heather.

"Nope."

"Darn it." Harry, Ron, and Hermione chose that moment to wander into the room uncertainly.

"Uh, Professor?" Harry asked in confusion. "McGonagall told us to come here. Is something wrong? And what are Remus and Bridget doing here?"

"Ooh, jello!" Ron piped up, making a mad dash for the dessert.

"NOOO!" All three adults screamed.

"Why not? It's jello, I want to eat it!"

"Because it's Sirius!" Remus explained.

"It's not serious, it's jello!"

"No, the person Sirius!"

"Professor Lupin, may I ask a question?"

"Hermione, I've told you a million times, call me Remus. But yes, what is it?"

"Why did you turn Sirius into jello?"

"I didn't turn Sirius into jello, that was the other jello!"

"How does jello turn someone into jello?" Harry questioned.

"Jello can turn jello into jello when jello is not actually jello but it's been turned into jello," Heather responded.

"Um, yeah…what?" Ron stammered.

"Here's the story," Heather started. "Sirius was trying to teach the Disarming spell to a group of first years, and apparently expelliarmus sounds a lot like expellamajubus. I really don't think I need to say anything else, except, would you care to go to St. Mungo's with us? You'll get to skip your classes for the day."

"Skip our classes?" Hermione shrieked, terrified. "No thank you."

"Hermione, are you nuts?" Ron cried.

"Count the two of us in," Harry told her.

"Good. Bridget, Remus, are you two coming?"

"No, I'm not letting Remus go anywhere yet, and I'll be staying here to make sure he doesn't."

"Would someone mind telling me why?"

"You don't remember much, do you?" questioned Bridget.

"Nope."

"Anyway," Heather interrupted, "we ought to get them to the hospital."

"Right. Bring us back some dessert!" Bridget joked, earning a pillow in the face from Ron, Harry, and Heather. They quickly filed out of the hospital wing, debating how to get three people and two plates of jello to St. Mungo's. Deciding on a floo powder as the best method, the three of them raced into the Defense office. Making extra sure the jellos would survive the trip, Heather put shield charms around both of them, and they hurried over to the Welcome Witch.

"Um, the breakfast buffet is over there," she pointed over to her right, and returned to her copy of Witch Weekly.

"No, this isn't food, they've been turned into jello. They're actually people."

"I'm afraid that we don't have a ward for people magically turned into fruity desserts. Take them up to…Spell Damage." Harry, Ron, and Heather carried the people turned jello up to the fourth floor, where they were told that the Healers had no idea how to cure them. Dejectedly, the trio plus desserts returned to Hogwarts, the Hospital Wing, to be exact.

"We still don't know how to change them back!" Heather cried desperately, flinging herself onto one of the beds.

"Give me that!" Remus cried, snatching the jellos from Harry and Ron. "Finite incantatum!" Sirius and the first year were immediately restored to their normal selves, while Heather and Bridget looked on, dumbfounded.

"What the heck happened?" Sirius groaned. "And why is my hand bleeding green?" His partner in teaching took it, and was immediately engulfed in chuckles. Four circular holes could be found in his palm, courtesy of Remus's fork.

"That I can fix," Bridget assured them, and then waved her wand over it; the wound vanished. In the midst of it all, Kelly could be found almost hyperventilating in the darkest corner of the hospital.

"Harry, Ron, why don't you take her back to the common room," Heather suggested quietly. They nodded their approval, ushering the terrified first year out of the room.

"She's still not afraid of me, is she? She turned me into a dessert!"

"I know, Sirius. And that has got to be the funniest moment of my life." Sirius looked at her for a second with an indiscernible expression on his face, then shook his head.

"The one rule from now on is thus-I am never teaching by myself again." Bridget, Heather, and Remus were soon laughing hysterically, joined by Padfoot, while Madam Pomfrey went on muttering about disrespect for hospitals, overjoyed that someone would finally take her place and she could escape to Majorca.

Isn't Majorca a fun place? I wish it was ours. But, like Harry Potter, it's not. Anyway, we hope you had as much fun on that chapter as we did. Until chapter 34, this is Lickrishtix bidding you goodnight. Or good morning. Or good afternoon. How about just good. Ta!