Chapter 14: Left Or Right (Part 1)

"You know Padfoot, I'd rather like it if we went out for New Years," James said as he slowly, and cautiously walked across a log. They were walking threw a wood just behind the Potter's house. They often did this when they were bored, or planning things. James' parents were at work, so they weren't there to tell him off for going into the wood. Where they insisted and ordered him countless times not to go in. But he was sixteen going on seventeen in a few months time. He had every right to do what he liked when he liked, without being told off by his parents.

Now that Sirius lived with James, (since he ran from his parents' house) James was rarely ever bored. But there were times, like now, when they had nothing to do but wonder about in the wood on the snowy winter day, after Christmas. That evening would be New Years Eve. The two were discussing what they should do. James made his option obvious.

"Yeah sure, we'll send letters to Moony and Wormtail to tell them what we're doing. Where do you want to go? Your parents will be going out tonight as well. They also know practically everyone in the wizarding community in London. So we have to be careful of where we head for the night." Sirius said very fast. James looked at Sirius astounded at how quick whitted he was being today, but by tomorrow morning, Sirius would be hung over from New Years.

"Hmm," James said thoughtfully. Where could they go, without his parents finding out about their night. Sirius had a point, someone would see them drinking and partying, and they would walk into his parents at the Ministry, and laugh like it's no big deal about how him and Sirius were drinking till they passed out. Since James' parents were at a very high rank of the Auror's they had a very narrow mind when it came to the law. James would be in a great amount of trouble if his parents found out.

"Take your time to think," Sirius said, shrugging.

"No, I got it," James finally said after a while of thinking. He and Sirius had stopped, and were sitting on the log thinking of how to avoid the wizarding community of London. His parents knew everyone practically, by acquaintance or a close friend. Either way, if his parents didn't know the person who would see James and Sirius, word would travel fast to his parent's ears. With their luck, they would find out just before they'd leave back to Hogwarts. Their plan on going out for the night was a doomed plan. It would never be pulled off sucessfully. Also, they were under-age, their parents wouldn't like that thought either.

"Let's hear it then. Otherwise we won't be going nowhere tonight," Sirius said, standing up from the log and kicking a stone away from him. He picked up a long stick and threw it at a tree.

"We can go to a muggle place," James finally said.

Sirius snapped his head in James' direction and let out a mischievous grin. James shrugged thoughtless, as if thinking it was a stupid idea, he picked up a stick and broke it.

A dusting of snow arrived the night before. Not much snow would show up, unlike Hogwarts, where you would get feet of snow, endless. It was sort of disappointing to look at the snow here, compared to Hogwarts.

"Are you kidding, that's brilliant, Prongs!" Sirius exclaimed, convincing James of his previous thought. "Your parents don't know any muggles! – Do they?" Sirius askedslowly to see if Mr. and Mrs. Potter knew all the muggles in London as well.

James shook his head smirking. "Not many," James said. "So we're off to get drunk with muggle girls!"

"Just what I like," Sirius said happily.

"What are you two boys planning to do tonight?" Mrs. Potter asked James and Sirius. She was all dressed up to go out with Mr. Potter at any time for a New Years party.

Sirius shrugged. "Nothing, just going to relax, do homework," Sirius said as if it was nothing. Sirius was so good at lying sometimes. But, James knew that Sirius never liked lying to the Potters. They took him in and had been nice to him in everyway. James was better with excuses, while Sirius could lie his way out of trouble.

"Do homework?" Mrs. Potter asked skeptically.

"Well, yeah, we go back to school the day after tomorrow, and we haven't started at all," Sirius said simply.

"I'm surprised you two haven't even attempted to ask your father and I if you could go out this evening," Mrs. Potter said to James. James stared at his mother innocently. He put down his Quidditch magazine, and James sat up properly.

"Yeah, Sirius and I both agreed that we were tired. It was a very busy Christmas holiday," James said.

Mrs. Potter nodded in understanding. She was too easy to convince. She loved Sirius and James too much to think they would do anything wrong. She trusted the two of them, more than anything. James just had to make sure he wouldn't be interrogated by his father. Because, his father would know what they were up tojust by looking at James.

"Well, mum, we're going upstairs, I think we'll get some sleep," James said, standing up. Sirius stood up beside James and smiled at Mrs. Potter.

"James, Sirius, it's only nine o'clock," Mrs. Potter said, looking at the two boys suspiciously.

"Mrs. Potter," Sirius said softly. "We're growing sixteen year old boys, we need sleep," Sirius said it that made Mrs. Potter nod and heading out of the living room.

"Be good! We'll be back later," said Mrs. Potter as she exited the living room. Mr. Potter entered the living room, just as Mrs. Potter left.

"James, Sirius, I'll know if you're doing something tonight. That means no party here, no going out to party. Don't donothing!" Mr. Potter said strictly. "We'll be back," he said, he turned in the direction out of the living room.

"Bye!" they heard Mrs. Potter call out before they heard two pop's to indicate they had left.

Sirius and James smiled and got up from the couch. They went up to James' room and opened the door to see Remus sitting at James' desk throwing a quaffle up in the air and catching it. Peter was sitting on James' bed reading a Quidditch magazine.

"Finally!" Peter said exasperatedly.

"We've been up here for forty minutes," Remus said giving his watch a look, before placing the quaffle on the desk and standing up.

"Sorry," James said. "Let's go then."

"Where are we exactly going in muggle London?" Peter asked as he stood up and put his jacket on.

"What do you mean?" James asked frowning. He had his jacket on and headed out his bedroom door, with Sirius on tow, and Remus behind them.

"Well," Peter said closing the door behind him. "We're going to London, which we have NO clue where everything is. Where will we go for a party?"

"Anywhere," Sirius said as they headed down the stairs.

"It's New Years, Wormtail. Everyplace in London will have there own party." James shouted so Peter could hear him from behind.

"How are we getting there?" Peter said as they all stood in front of the fireplace in the study, staring at it's emptiness.

"Floo powder! How else?" James asked.

Remus shook his head.

"Yeah, all we have to do is floo to the Leaky Cauldron and head out to London. Easy!" Sirius said to Peter.

Peter nodded slowly as he tried to understand. James and Sirius stood still, looking at the fireplace. They stood there for a while, silent.

"What are we waiting for, then?" Peter asked them.

"My dad knows Tom at the Leaky Cauldron, he'll see us," James said timidly.

"Then he'll tell your dad," Sirius said sighing heavily. "How will we get their Moony?" Sirius asked.

"Why do I have to figure this out?" Remus asked alarmed.

"Because, Padfoot and I just spent the entire day figuring out how we would pull this off," James said the obvious.

"Like hell you spent the whole day thinking about something that's so easy," Remus muttered. He seemed to be thinking as he sat down in a chair in the study. "We'll send Peter in, do you have dungbombs?" Remus asked.

Sirius grinned and headed up stairs to his room. He came down soon with a bag of dungbombs.

"Ok, Peter you take these, cause a distraction, then we'll all come in and we'll sneak out," Remus said frowning a bit.

"Great, go Peter," James said.

"Why me?" Peter asked apprehensively.

"Because, James' dad only has people looking out for us, not you, so you go." Sirius said as he pushed Peter towards the fireplace.

Peter sighed deeply and headed to the fireplace, he grabbed some floo powder and threw it into the fireplace yelling, "THE LEAKY CAULDRON!" Peter immediately felt his whole body feelingsucked inas he turned around very quickly when he hit solid ground.

"Urgh," Peter groaned as he slowly pushed himself up to stand up.

He looked around the Leaky Cauldron, and saw that there wasn't a lot of people. Probably everyone was going to a real New Years party. The only people were a few lonely looking wizards and one witch. All in all, Peter counted all the people, there were twelve of them and they were all drunk. None of them would even care about the dungbombs or firecrackers that Peter had.

Peter knew he'd better hurry before the other three come, so he quickly headed to the other end of the Leaky Cauldron and dropped the dungbombs. Immediately Peter pulled his shirt over his nose to block the smell. The drunks had all lifted their heads to see any sign of the smell in the room. He then put the firecrackers down he pulled out his wand and set the firecrackers off, they immediately started flying everywhere around the Leaky Cauldron. Peter set off all the firecrackers off. It was now to dangerous to move without being hit by one.

Peter quickly stood up and stepped closely to the wall. Tom the inn keeper was frantically running around with his wand out trying to stop the firecrackers. By then, all the drunks had quickly wobbled they're way out of the Leaky Cauldron. The firecrackers were still going and they wouldn't stop any time soon. The employees that worked at the Leaky Cauldron were too busy worried about the firecrackers to notice Peter.

Just then bright green flames erupted from the fireplace and Remus fell out. He quickly stood up with the firecrackers everywhere and stood beside Peter.

"How many did you set off?" Remus asked Peter.

"All of them," Peter said as Remus quickly moved his foot to avoid a firecracker.

"You weren't supposed to set off all of them, only a few," Remus said.

Green flames, again, erupted from the fireplace and James came out as he fell onto the ground, and right after James hit the ground green flames erupted from the fireplace the fourth time and Sirius came falling right on top of James.

"Padfoot get off!" James shouted.

"You set off all of my firecrackers!" Sirius yelled in alarm.

"Padfoot!" James said as he pushed Sirius off, James quickly got up and stood beside Remus. Sirius stumbled to his feet and walked towards the door that led to the Muggle World. Tom the innkeeper was yelling and waving his wand crazily. Sirius opened the door and slipped through. James followed with Remus and Peter closely behind. Peter closed the door behind him.

"We're out!" Sirius shouted and raised his hands in the air. "Let's go!"

"Wait," James said. "Where do we go?"

"Left," Remus said pointing to the left.

"Why left?" Sirius said. He walked out onto the middle of the roadand looked down theleft waythat Remus pointed too. "Do you know what's down there?"

Remus shook his head and started to walk down the sidewalk. Sirius opened his mouth but James shot him a look to shut up. James followed Remus and Sirius caught up to James's side.

"I think we should go right," Peter said to them.

They stopped and turned around.

"Why?" Sirius asked.

"It looks familiar," Peter said. "I think my mum took me down this way before."

James sighed. "Which way? Left or right?" James stood and looked at Remus.

"Left," he said nodding his head down the direction they were just walking.

"Right," Peter said.

Sirius looked at James for an answer, but James just returned the same look.

"I don't know," James said.

"We should make a map of Muggle London," Sirius muttered slapping his hand to his forehead.

"Just decide, if you two want to go left or right," Peter said with an obvious tone. James just nodded and turned his head down so he and Sirius could talk privatley.

"I think we should go Moony's way, he has more sense of direction," Sirius whispered to James so the other two wouldn't hear. James nodded his head in agreement. He and Sirius pulled their heads up and looked at the two. James winked at Sirius.

"I've always liked left," James said in an exaggerated thoughtful voice.

Remus rolled his eyes.

"But, I've alwayshad a liking forright," Sirius said.

James widened his eyes at Sirius as if to tell him to say left. Sirius just grinned.

"Fine then, Padfoot goes with me, and Prongs goes with Moony," Peter said.

"No!" James and Sirius said at the same time.

"We go together," James said. "Let's just go Moony's way," James said turning around in Remus's direction.

"No!" Peter whined.

"Wormtail, don't be difficult," Sirius said.

"I'm sure it's right," Peter said crossing his arms over his chest.

"How can you be sure?" Remus asked. "You've never been to a muggle bar, so you don't know and you're not sure if right is the correct way, it doesn't matter, but I think left would be our best bet," Remus said quickly.

Peter stood with his mouth open slightly. James and Sirius started to leave with Remus. They walked down the street and turned a corner. Peter stood their motionless with his arms crossed over his chest. A loud crash erupted the quiet street that scared Peter. He ran after the other three.

A/N: Sorry i haven't updated in quite a while. I don't think i'll update soon again, I'm just finishing up school and it will be done in the next few weeks, so i probably won't have much time to write the next chapter. Sorry, I'll try to be quick.

Thanks for the reviews

R/R!