Chapter Fifteen

Clones and Carnivals

Author's Notes: Last chapter was terribly short and we apologize. It would have been longer but Hannah got sidetracked and started talking about clones because she was more sleep-deprived than usual and then it all went to pot.

Disclaimer: As always, we do not own anyone/thing from the Harry Potter verse.

Dedications: This chapter is dedicated to clones.

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"So, Remus, what do you think about clones?"

Remus opened his eyes and turned his head to look at Sirius. The top on Sirius' head was visible beyond one of Remus' pillows. It looked curious. Although tops-of-heads cannot look curious (not on their own at least) so perhaps that was the sleep-deprivation talking.

"Sirius, it's in the middle of the night. I don't care about clones. Go on your own bed, and let me sleep. Please."

Out of nowhere, Sirius' arm flopped dangerously close to Remus' face. "I'd rather not, actually."

"Well, I'd rather you did. Because, I don't know if you know this, but this is my bed, Sirius. Mine. You have your own perfectly good one across the room and I'm sure it would appreciate your talk of clones much more than I."

"No, I mean, think about it. How would you know if one of your friends had been cloned?"

Remus groaned. "Sirius, stop talking about clones. Three o' clock in the morning is not the time. Anytime that you are around me is not the time."

Sirius sat up, his hair sticking straight out to the side. "No, no, really, hear me out on this. If I was cloned, how would you ever know it was me?"

"Well, I can only assume that your clone would not wake me up at three in the morning to talk about clones. That might be a good tip off."

Sirius grabbed Remus by the arm in a vice like grip. "Remus, we must have a code word."

"Go away."

"'Go away'. All right. That will be our code. Excellent. Now that we've settled that, we need to talk about peacocks. Why does Hogwarts not have peacocks? They could patrol the grounds. And then we could get some peahens, and they could mate and have little baby peacocks. What do you think those look like? Do they have colourful feathers?"

Remus groaned, rolled over and put his pillow over his head. This was going to be a very long night.

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After a long night of listening to Sirius talk about clones, and peacocks, and other such oddities, Remus was positively exhausted. He was sitting at the Gryffindor table, when Sirius bounced over to him.

"Hullo, Moony. I was thinking, we should talk to Dumbledore about those peacocks. I bet he would invest in some, since it's for the good of the school."

"Sirius, you kept me up all night to talk about peacocks, and peahens, and peaBABIES, but you are not about to ruin my breakfast. I need you to go and bug someone else. Why don't you take this opportunity to profess your love for Bria?"

"Well, she is not at breakfast. Besides, I can't very well go up to a girl who hates me, and profess my undying love for her. I think I should try to make her jealous, so that she realizes that she must like me."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Because Bria thinking you were sleeping around has worked so terribly well so far."

"No, really, it will work now. I will plan it this time, instead of letting Rose start a rumor."

Remus turned so he could look at his friend better. "Sirius, if I was a girl…"

Just then, James sat down right between them. "What's this? You were a girl, Remus?"

Remus gave up and returned to his eggs.

"Because you should probably, you know, discuss this with the whole group. Rather a life-changing decision, isn't it?"

"James," Remus said weakly around his eggs, "bugger off."

"Well, aren't we a bit touchy about decision we make? Do we, perhaps, regret our decision?"

"James, there never was a decision. I was never a girl, nor will I ever be a girl I am definitely a guy, and this is how it shall stay."

Peter, who had just arrived at the table, was very confused about why Remus needed to remind them of his gender. "Um, that's good, Remus."

"Ugh! Now see what's happening? I am beginning to sound like a git! And all because you wouldn't stop talking about my nonexistent sex-change."

"So you've decided not to get that done, then?" Emma asked, sitting down on Remus' other side.

All of the Marauders started laughing, save for Remus, who was very tempted to just start banging his head against the table. "Emma, why do you have to encourage them?"

"Oh, they're just so much fun to encourage. Besides, I am sure you'd make a lovely girl."

"Coming from you, I am not sure whether or not that is a compliment." Remus said, shaking his head, and excusing himself from the table. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go seek out some saner company."

"Moony!" Sirius cried, still laughing, as Remus left the hall. "Don't leave!"

"No, Sirius," Remus called back, "It's mornings like these I wish I went to a day school."

"I'll eat the rest of your eggs!" James yelled but Remus was gone. "Damn. I was really having a marvelous time teasing him about his strange desire to change genders."

Just then, Lily came over and flung herself into the midst of laughing persons. "I have no idea what has caused this much laughter, and I have no desire to know. James, we have two weeks until the carnival. We need to gather volunteers for decorations, and we need to plan activities, and we need to figure out magical rides, and we should have a petting zoo! With nifflers! We need to get planning!"

James looked at the incredibly frazzled girl sitting before him. "All right, then. Let's get planning. But no nifflers. There will be a lot of shiny things at a carnival."

Lily considered this for a moment before nodding. "You're right. No nifflers. But there is still so much to plan!"

"There's going to be a carnival? What fun! I must get ready!" Sirius exclaimed, with much joy in his voice.

"All right, Lily, we will start planning. Just, calm down. Eat some breakfast, and then we can begin planning."

"No! No time to eat! Halloween is two weeks away! Whatever shall we do?"

"Lily! Breathe! That's right. Halloween is two weeks away. That is plenty of time for eating AND planning." James said, taking a hold of Lily's upper arm, before she fainted from lack of air.

Lily took a deep breath. "Yes, of course, you're right. Perhaps I can even find some time to sleep before Halloween, too."

Lily got some breakfast, and once she had finished, she just glared at James until he put away his bacon, and got up, and followed her out of the Great Hall. They walked out of the castle, and toward the lake, where they began a leisurely stroll, and started to plan the basic outline for the carnival.

"Okay," James began. "What do we need to plan?"

"Well," Lily said, conjuring up a piece of parchment, and a quill. "Firstly, there's the location. Where do we have enough space for an entire carnival?"

"Um, well, there's the forest." James suggested.

"Um, James, why? Why would you even suggest that?"

"I don't know. It seemed rather sensible before I suggested it."

"Well, no. We are not holding a carnival in THE FORBIDDEN FOREST! How about the Quidditch field?"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Not the Quidditch field! How could you even suggest such a thing?"

"All right," Lily said, scratching that Quidditch field off of her list of ideas. "Quidditch field is out."

"All right. How about the empty field behind the greenhouses?" James asked, trying to think of anywhere that they would hold their carnival that wasn't his precious Quidditch field.

"Yes. I think that that should work quite nicely." Lily said, writing it down a fresh piece of parchment, which was entitled, 'Concreted Plans For The Carnival'. "Now, what sort rides should we have?"

James looked at her blankly. "Rides? What are those?"

"James? Rides. You can't have a carnival without rides!"

"What? Yes you can! I've been to carnivals without rides."

"Well, you've never been to a carnival at all, have you."

"Well, no. But that is hardly important." James said, blushing slightly.

"Actually it is. You don't have any proper experience. And I do and I say we must have rides."

"All right, but what ARE rides?"

"They are…fun. You…ride them. Some of them go around in circles, some of them go up and down. Some of them have loop-the-loops. We must have them if our carnival is to be a success. Is that understood?"

"Er, yes. Well, not really. But that is only because I am still confused as to what a ride is. But we can have them, if they truly mean that much to you. I suppose. As long as they aren't going to hex me."

"James, rides are a muggle invention. They can't hex you." Lily said, trying desperately not to laugh at James.

"Oh, all right then. We can have rides." James said, feeling slightly embarrassed at not knowing that rides couldn't hex him. "But you'll have to decide what rides to have, since I don't know what they are."

"All right. I can have one of the girls help me with that later. But we do need to plan other activities, and animals for the petting zoo." Lily said, consulting the list she had made earlier. "And then we need to recruit volunteers to help with decorations, and to help with the set up of rides, and the petting zoo, and we to buy prizes for the games and activities, and we should plan some sort of all-school contest. What sort of contest though? And then, what sort of prizes should we have? I would suggest a costume contest, but that is not only cliché, but also it is also subjective, and we really shouldn't have a subjective contest, unless we could find a completely impartial judge. But no one in this school is completely impartial to everyone because even the professors have favourites and –"

"Uh… Lily?" James was beginning to worry she might someday explode. Or something similar at least. Maybe just burn out all of a sudden in the middle of one of her rants. Either way it would be tragic.

"Yes, James?" Lily asked, taking a break from her rant long enough to look at him.

"I think you're forgetting to breathe again. We can figure all of this out in two weeks. Right now, let's figure out what sort of decorations we need, and then we can get a work crew and put one of them in charge of that, so that will be one less thing to worry about." James said, proud that, for once, he got to be the rational one of a group. Even if that group was only two people. It was still a lovely feeling.

"Yes. Yes, of course you're right. That's what we should be doing. Breaking everything into groups and recruiting volunteers. Bria will be willing to be in charge of decorations. Anything to get her mind off of Sirius."

"Wait, is Bria still mad at Sirius?" James asked, completely forgetting that he was trying to be rational, and stay on task, all at the same time.

"Oh, well, yes. But she also just realized that she doesn't think of him as a friend anymore. She is terribly upset about this. Especially since she still thinks he slept with Rose. He didn't, did he?" Lily said, for the first time thinking to confront one of Sirius's friends on the matter.

"Well, no. Of course he didn't. He is mad about Bria. He just doesn't have the balls to let her know that. And we tell him to just suck it up and get it over with. Like ripping off a plaster – not," he added hastily, " that it's anything horrible like that. Heh."

"Well, no, I completely agree with you."

"You do?"

"Of course! I've been telling Bria the same thing. Well, perhaps without the plaster-ripping metaphor."

"Well, yes. Of course. That was a dreadful metaphor."

"Yes. We keep telling Bria she should just confront Sirius about Rose, and get that over with. And also that she should just tell him how she feels about him. They should just both get it over with, and then they wouldn't have to come and whine to us all the time." Lily said.

"Right." James said, realizing how off topic they had both become. "But now we should get back to planning the carnival."

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Right. Well, we hope that that chapter was less of a disappointment to our loyal fans. But read and review to let us know what you think. Constructive criticism is always welcome.