CHAPTER 4

The Results

After carefully counting the votes, only one of our favorite Marauders won. But who is it? And, moreover, will the other one accept it?

A/N: I know I usually avoid author's notes on this fic as, well, Sirius should be writing them, not me, Hallie. However, I would like to apologise to all the amazing people who voted and who do not appear in this chapter. I have only put in those whose review stirred more comments from my beloved Sirius and James. Had it been up to me, I would definitely have mentioned each and every one of you, but my Hogwarts' Number One Hottie Competition has drawn a lot more responses than I had anticipated, and I cannot obviously quote each of the wonderful 95 people who voted. So, many many thanks to everyone who voted… and enjoy!

Now, I know I should have updated ages ago, but James insisted on waiting some more, because obviously not everyone had read this chapter and it would have been cruel to go on without them being able to directly participate in our poll (read: "Why is everyone voting Sirius? I'm sure there is someone else on this planet – apart from myself, obviously – that would vote for me! There is… isn't there? Isn't there!")

But the time is up now. And…ah… Victory… There is absolutely nothing like winning a competition to lift my spirits. Oh, no, wait, there is something better… For instance, winning a competition and beating my lame best friend who thinks he can compete with me but is obviously very very inferior to me.

"Sure, sure," says James, "c'mon, have another gloat. It's no wonder you won, really."

Oh? "Prongs, mate, are you saying you're finally admitting defeat? You've lastly figured out that I am, indeed, far better than you in just about everything?" I ask.

"Of course not," he answers briskly. "You didn't really expect me to, did you?"

"No," I answer, shrugging. "Actually, for a moment back there, I was afraid you were a Death Eater who took your place to lure me in some sort of trap. But now I know it's just you. You, Prongs. My inferior best friend."

"If you say the word 'inferior' one more time, I swear on all my Quidditch paraphernalia that I will throttle you with that stupid crown you're wearing," he threatens.

I raise one of my good-looking eyebrows. "How are you supposed to throttle me with a crown made of metal?" I ask, taking off my crown and gazing fondly at it. It used to be a fork, but I think it's far more useful this way: I usually eat with my hands anyway, and it's a lot more fun to gloat James with an actual sign of my power.

James waves his hand. "I'll transfigure it in a rope, first."

"Why not use my tie directly, then? It would be easier," I supply.

"Yes," he concedes, "but not nearly as satisfying for me." He pauses. "Anyway, we have to keep in mind the obviously unfair circumstances under which the voting occurred."

I raise my other eyebrow. This guy would be ready to have the Cruciatus Curse permanently on him rather than admit that I beat him fair and square! "Please do share, Prongs. I'm dying of curiosity now," I reply, my voice as sarcastic as I could muster.

"Well, the people who voted were obviously fan of yours, weren't they? I mean, they were reading this stupid book – probably touched in the head, I'm sure. Actually," he says, smirking, "I wouldn't be surprised if it was you voting under different names just to make sure you won. But, you see, I am above such silly squabbles. I don't care," he finishes firmly.

"Excuse me? You don't care? You were the one who started this stupid competition, anyway, and now you just can't admit that I won and you lost!" I say heatedly.

He pauses for a moment. "Hey," he says suddenly, "can I look through those reviews? I just want to know who voted for me…" He grins. "And whom you're going to have to go out with since that's what you promised to all these girls who were going to vote for you. Ha! We'll see who's laughing when someone like Kerry Abbott tries to kiss you!"

In case you don't know, Kerry Abbott is this, um, girl… Hufflepuff… She used to have a crush on me (but then, who doesn't?), but she, uh, wasn't exactly my type.

"Oh, c'mon, Padfoot, I'm sure Abbott has a great personality!" says James, who is still laughing his head off at the idea.

"I don't doubt that, but personality is not exactly the very first thing I look for in a girl," I answer delicately.

"Just because she's a bit chubby—"

"Chubby? She's a whale!"

"—and I'm sure she started washing her hair now—"

"Yeah right! She was the only person with hair greasier than Snivellus's!"

"—and," he finishes, as if he really thinks he can convince me, "last time I heard, she had her wooden leg removed."

"Yeah, but that still leaves the eye made of glass… and you know how creepy that was…" I answer, shuddering.

"And," he says, his smile the most triumphant one yet, "I can't wait to see how Helen is going to react when she finds out you have to go out on a date with fifty different girls!"

He's hit home. Helen. I hadn't thought about her. She is so going to kill me if she finds out. Great. Just great.

"Now, Padfoot, can I have a look at these reviews?" he asks, jerking me back to reality.

"Sure," I answer. "Here."

James sits at the computer and starts scrolling down the very very long list, occasionally stopping to read a comment or two.

His abrupt stop and strangled cry finally draw my attention. I had not read these reviews myself: I was merely interested in the number of votes we'd gotten. "What is it?" I ask curiously.

"Look," he says, pointing to the screen. "And she's not the first one, either."

I squint to see what he's referring to when my jaw drops. "Moony? Somebody actually voted for Moony? What kind of madwoman would vote for Moony? He's a lot less handsome than me!" I pause. "Actually, Prongs, I think he's even less handsome than you are."

"Exactly! And he wasn't even competing!"

"Goodness, Prongs… what these people would do not to vote for you…" I sigh loudly.

"Well," he answers forcefully, "maybe I'm not the only one who needs glasses 'round here."

"Definitely."

He keeps on scrolling down. By now, this little electronic device which I still have to fully comprehend has my total attention.

"Wait a moment!" I say, stopping James in mid-click. "Look over there…"

He reads, "Lady Ridicule says: I vote Draco Malfoy." He looks at me, frowning. "Who the heck is this Draco Malfoy! And what kind of a name is that, anyway?"

"No idea. Hope he's not related to Lucius, though Malfoy isn't exactly a very common name, is it?" I ask.

"You tell me. I've never even met this guy."

"Lucky you," I answer, nodding. "Actually, the Malfoys are a very rich pureblood family. And, unless I'm much mistaken, I heard my aunt Polly saying she wanted him to marry one of her daughters."

"Really?" he asks. I think he's still surprised to hear that most marriages in pureblood families are never love matches.

"Yeah. I never could stand him much, personally. I really hope for Andy she's not the chosen one, and I hope for Lucius that Bella isn't either," I say thoughtfully. Yes, as much as I hate the bloke, Bellatrix really scares me. I'm sympathetic. "But I really don't remember any Draco's in the family." I snigger.

"What's so funny, Padfoot?" he asks, slightly annoyed.

"Nothing, I was just thinking… This guy almost received more votes than you did, Prongsie, and he doesn't even exist. You are so… so… despicable."

"And you are so stupid. Do you even know what this word means?" he asks.

"Nope," I answer, shrugging. "Helen had my word-a-day calendar confiscated before I could reach its definition."

Some more scrolling, then I stop him yet again. "Aha! Listen to this! ' Katie says: I vote for sirius because i absolutely despise James!'. Do you even know her?"

"Absolutely not. Never heard of her."
"I wonder who she is? Who'd have the courage to write something like that?" I ask.
"What, you're jumping to my defense, Padfoot?" questions Prongs, looking surprised.

I snort. "No, I merely wanted to send her flowers."

"And for a moment there I thought you were showing compassion."

"Are you kidding me? This is me we're talking about. I'm probably the only person on the planet who is more of a narcissist than you are."

He nods. "She's probably a drag queen."

"She is NOT! Just because she doesn't like you, doesn't mean there's something wrong with her," I explain.

"Yes it does! Padfoot, this is me we're talking about! No one can NOT like me and be normal."

I raise my eyebrow. "Actually, Prongs, it's the other way around. I've always known there was something creepy about Lily."

"Better not let her hear you say that," he says coolly.

I smile. "Need I remind you that she, too, has voted for me?"

He glares at me, and begins clicking away on the computer, clearly trying to avoid having to answer my question.

I cough slightly to cover another chuckle. "We should do this more often, though. All this chipping away at your self esteem while being worshipped by my fans is really rather pleasant."

"Oh, shut up."

I stop him again. "Hey, have a look at this! Did you read what the lovely fishwithwand said?
'I vote for Sirius! so funny. can't wait for more! although i find the whole James interupting distracting.' You're distracting, Prongs. Go on distract someone else."

"Please, your book wouldn't sell nearly as good if I wasn't here entertaining the intelligent half of your readers," he answers haughtily.

"Intelligent half? And who would that be?" he asks.

"Well, people like this nymphmagic. She has good taste."

I throw him a look. "Oh, admit it. You paid her to say that."

"I did not! Plus, look! She's not the only one! There's also Phoebe, and Madam Dasha, and lj4eva…"

"Yeah, and on the other hand there are instead fifty-two people who voted for me. And three people asked to become members of my fan club. What do you say to that?" I ask.

"That these are all biased madmen."

"So? I still won and you still lost." I smirk. HA!

"Listen, do we have to go on forever with this stupid competition unfairly won by you?" he asks.

"Yes. I won't stop until you're on your knees worshipping the one and only Hogwarts' Number One Hottie."

"Then you can keep dreaming."

My gaze falls back on the screen, and I read another review. "Look, someone else who voted for me," I murmur.

"Big deal," says James.

I, however, keep on reading. "But what is this? This lady is actually implying that I'm not doing my job very siriusly, since she's pointed out that the third chapter was supposed to talk about my Hogwarts Career. Dear tonksrocksmysocks, you will clearly understand that finally making my dear friend Prongs see that I am better than him is far more important than anything else I could have written. He will now have to admit that I am Hogwarts' Number One Hottie, not him. And that is saying something."

"Humph!"

"Yup. Anyway, I can write about Hogwarts right now, can't I?"

"When you've already wasted over half of the chapter simply boasting about your stupid achievement?" he asks, raising his eyebrow.

"Hm, you're right, Prongs. I guess my Hogwarts career will have to be postponed to chapter five," I say thoughtfully.

"And you're just going to leave this chapter like this?" he demands sceptically.

"Sure, why not?"

"Padfoot, this is the stupidest chapter I've ever seen. I mean, nothing happens!"

I stare. "Are you kidding me? Number one, this is not stupid, seeing as I wrote it, and nothing I write is stupid. And something does happen: I officially become Hogwarts' Number One Hottie!"

"I can finally see why Moony always found us so annoying when we argued about it," he says thoughtfully.

I stare at him, actually quite worried. "You know, this loss has been really really bad for you. You're siriusly starting to sound like him."

"There you go again, with one of your stupid puns! It's NOT funny, Padfoot! How can I make this simple concept penetrate that thick skull of yours?" he half-yells.

"Oh," I say, smiling, "now, this is more like you. Moony never yells."

James nods. "Yeah, apart from that time in fourth year when you were drunk and barfed on his new robes when he had to carry you back to the castle."

I scratch my head. "I don't remember that."

"Like I said, you were drunk. But he was pretty pissed off, especially since he met his precious Lexy when he had to go back for me." He grins. "I'll tell you, she wasn't that impressed with him."

"I can tell. I mean, Moony has absolutely no sense of taste. He's always acting so smart but he couldn't even think of doing a quick 'Evanesco' on his robes."

"Padfoot, you had sat on his wand, and Peter had had to remove ours from us because we were threatening to do the anti-gravitation spell on the Three Broomsticks," he says.

"Oh! Now I remember! Yeah, Moony was yelling pretty loud when he found out I had just crunched his new wand!" I say, smiling fondly at the memory.

"Of course he was. You'd just broken his old one when you had accidentally set fire to it."

"Are you sure I was the one who did that? I clearly remember destroying one of Remus's wands because I used it as a dart to see if I could hit Snivellus's head from five meters away out by the lake in third year. The Whomping Willow wasn't very happy when it got stuck in one of its branches."

James shakes his head. "No, the one broken by the Whomping Willow had been Wormtail's wand. I'm telling you, you'd set fire to Remus's."

I shrug. "If you say so." I grin. "But it was you who accidentally destroyed Lily's wand thinking it was Snape's, wasn't it?"

James shivers involuntarily. "Yeah… She's still yelling me for it, now. But how was I supposed to know she'd left it on Snape's desk?"

"They were working together! And it was on her side of the table, too!"

"Oh, well." He gets up, and turns off the computer. I had no idea he'd studied this much in Muggle Studies: when Lily first set up this computer in my room, it took me three whole days to figure out how to turn it on.

"I'm hungry," I say.

"So am I. I'll go see if dinner's ready," answers James, walking to the door. "If you've finished all the food again, Padfoot, Lily is so going to kill you."

With my wand behind my back, I immediately make all the evidence of my previous beef-based snack disappear. "Don't know why you'd get the idea, Prongs."

At that moment, an ear-splitting cry from downstairs echoes in my room. "Sirius!"

I look at James. "You think she opened the fridge?"

"Hope so. Or maybe she's found another pair of your boxers in the living room."

"I was so sure I'd removed them. Hanging me upside down by my heels for a whole weekend is probably the best punishment your evil girlfriend has ever come up with. Now I always double-check for any unwanted item of clothing," I answer.

"Then yeah, I guess she opened the fridge."

"You reckon I can make it to the Italian Restaurant on the other side of the street before she kills me?" I ask casually.

"Maybe if you leave now and go by broomstick out of the window," he answers thoughtfully.

It would be better to just Apparate, but ever since last year we've put all sorts of anti-Death Eater protections (like they'll ever work if Voldy decides to come for us…) and so now I can't even Apparate into my own room any more. I even have to use the stairs if I want to watch some tv. How awful is that?

"I'll go see what's wrong with her. You go, I'll cover for you."

"Thanks, mate," I answer gratefully. I jump on my broomstick and am out of the house in four seconds. I can, however, still hear Miss Lily yelling at the top of her voice.

Maybe I have forgotten my underwear around again.