Italian Lessons Chapter 11: Not Quite As Good, a harry potter fanfic

While I was sleeping sweetly last night, I was hit by a bit of a Plot Bunny, in the form of the Lovely Marco (if you haven't read the Animorphs, you definitely want to. They're dreadful, but Marco! ah, Marco! Love of my life!). It was actually really weird because it started off with my psycho family turning to stone and breaking (and also a chimaera. This story is infesting my mind!), but that wasn't happy so my brain said 'Happy thoughts! Happy thoughts!' and Marco responded. And he said 'I am here!' and I said 'Marco! Love of my life!' and he said 'You know, James is an Animagus.'

That's not actually what he said, but for the purpose of the story…

Credit to K.A. Applegate for one of the hotter fictional characters in non-existence! (Applause please.) Also to Jill because many ideas/people (Marvy)/first words were used with her input. And to J.K. – if you don't know why, you shouldn't be here. And to myself, for posting... finally.

Chapter Eleven: Not Quite As Good As Lifesavers, But Pretty Damn Close

White is the colour of pineapple lifesavers. I'm not going to deny that I like the flavour. It's got this aftertaste that's exactly like my mother's upside-down cake, and it really hits the spot.

White is also the colour of Lily's skin. Ironically, lilies-of-the-valley are the exact same shade, though without veins and hair.

I was pondering this over breakfast the day after our encounter with Dumbledore, when Dori came up and sat beside me.

"Oh no, not you," I said.

"It's time."

"Time for what?" I looked her over suspiciously, thinking she might be hiding some kind of deadly poison that she intended to slip me. Her answer was worse than that.

"I've stolen Dumbledore's Pensieve. Are you ready?"

I scowled at her. I was already regretting my Plan. It had all happened the previous evening, in a quiet corner of the Common Room…

Doo

It was a dark and stormy night. Sinister plots were brewing; first years were parading about, bellowing and stomping their feet; Head Girls were tossing their hair and screaming in a vain attempt to maintain order (it was actually quite hot). Unbeknownst to the rest, however, a group of elite new members of the Order of the Phoenix worked tirelessly to develop a scheme to overthrow the reign of the Dark Lord…

Doo

And that was pretty much it. We basically sat around drawing little stick men and making them act out our lousy ideas. Or, in Padfoot's case, playing hangman. For some reason Dori thought all this was productive, and managed to talk McGonagall into borrowing the Pensieve, which she then proceeded to steal and hide in the kitchens. Why there, I have no idea. Maybe as a lure for Padfoot, she really seemed to enjoy him.

I pushed myself to my feet with a heavy sigh. "Oh, Dori," I said. "When will you learn to tell a crappy idea from a good one?"

"Ha. Your idea of a good idea is to make everyone in the Great Hall sneeze or some such tosh." She sniffed.

I gave her a funny look to display my disgust at her lack of imagination, and then waved my wand to display my magical capabilities. There was an outbreak of sneezing at the Slytherin table. "Gosh, that was difficult. Wherever do you come up with these clever schemes?"

"Achoo," said Snape, as Dori glared.

"Okay, here's the deal," she said, dropping her voice to a hushed whisper once we were out in the Entrance Hall. "You're going to go into the Pensieve and see if you can find any useful memories. Sirius and I will stand watch."

"Just as I suspected," I said darkly. They would snog while I wasted my time. Then I brightened up at a sudden thought. "Hey, can Evans come with me?"

"No, she's tutoring some Ravenclaw until – something wrong?"

"No, nothing," I rasped, trying to regain control of my spit, which had chosen that moment to wander into my windpipe. "Ack, ack. Did you say Ravenclaw?"

"Yeah, that what's-his-face, Mitchell or something."

I narrowed my eyes. So. Marvy Mitch was after my honeycakes. If he thought he'd get anywhere with her…

"Sorry, I've got somewhere I need to be." I bolted toward the library. The quiet, nook-filled, empty library. The library that was used only for snogging and social outcasts. As I knew the latter to be false, I could only assume...

"Mitchell!" I bellowed, tearing down an aisle and leaping over a table. "Get your dirty hands off of her! Oh." I pulled up short. "Where is she?"

Mitch raised one elegant eyebrow. "She isn't here yet," he drawled. "I take it you're jealous, Potter? Thought you could get some?" He stood up suddenly. "You were wrong!" he thundered.

"I'll have you know that she has been MY girlfriend for EIGHT days." I glowered down my nose at him. "So you can bugger the hell off."

"Pillock!" he cried, striking at my face. I blocked his attempt and landed one in his stomach.

"Berk!"

"Wanker!"

Then I got him into a headlock and wouldn't let go until he swore to give up.

He sat back down. I joined him.

"So. What's she tutoring you in?"

"Italian," he said shamelessly.

"You speak Italian!"

"Shh," he said, sending a furtive glance down the aisles. "No I don't."

"Yes you do, you have the place next to me in Venice."

"Well, come on, it wasn't a bad way to get her."

"Yeah it is, I already tried."

"Really." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "What worked, then?"

"I pretty much dragged her into an empty classroom and snogged her."

"Huh. Maybe I should do that."

I jumped at him, knocking the table flying. "Fuori di testa, un saccente! You will die with quattro gatti!"

"James!" came a shocked voice from behind me. "He will not die with any cats, let alone four, he has asthma. And you've conjugated 'You're out of your mind' wrong."

"Sorry," I said, brushing myself off. "I was a little distracted."

"What are you doing here? I thought Dori said you were going to help her with something."

"Yeah, but it was stupid. She just wanted an excuse to get Sirius by himself."

"Hm." Lily leaned past me to look at Mitchell. "All right down there?"

He waved a weary hand.

"Come on," I said, "let's get out of here. He won't be doing any studying for a while."

We trudged out of the library and were all set for a long, meaningless conversation when Fate intervened, in the form of Padfoot.

"Prongs," he gasped, "you've got to see this." He clutched a stitch in his side, waving us on with the other hand.

"What is it? Did you go into the Pensieve?"

He shook his head and kept moving. Passing the basement door, he led us straight out onto the lawn.

"Oh no…"

Hagrid's house was on fire. It wasn't very bad; he had it under control already. However, the fact that it was burning meant something, and 'something' was probably big and scary.

Naturally Padfoot had recovered and was tearing across the grounds screaming his head off. I cast a Silencing Charm before he alerted the whole castle to the fact that Hagrid was doing something illegal. Then I turned to Lily.

"Chances are this is going to be dangerous," I said.

"Should we get a teacher?"

"No! Just decide whether you're coming or not."

"Of course I am." She drew out her wand. "Do you think Hagrid could be hurt?"

I shrugged and took off after Padfoot.

By the time we got there Hagrid was making tea. He smelled very badly of singed fabric, but they had cleaned up the worst of the mess and restored the wall. I still scanned the room before letting Lily enter, though, saying,

"What happened, Hagrid?"

"Oh, jus' a li'l thing, yeh know… bit o' this, bit o' tha'."

"Was it a dragon?" Padfoot asked excitedly.

"'Course not," Hagrid said, trying to sound severe. "Tha's illegal."

I grinned. "And what you were doing definitely wasn't."

"No, no. Jus' a bit o' cross-breedin' gone wrong."

I choked on my rock cake. "What! What were you breeding?"

Hagrid looked stern all of a sudden. "You kids min' yer own business. 'S not up to yeh to decide what I'm doin'."

"Ah, Hagrid," Padfoot said, "don't make us think you were doing anything wrong. We wouldn't want to have to report you."

"As if yeh would!" Hagrid scoffed, but looked a little nervous.

"I don't know, Black, this sounds a bit dodgy to me." I tipped my chair back, pretending to study my nails.

"All righ', I guess I could tell yeh," Hagrid said, scowling. "I's not like I shouldn' have it. I've got a Fire-Crab."

"Wicked! Can we see it?" Padfoot ran to check under the bed.

"I wouldn' keep it there, yeh great lump! Think I wanna set fire to my house?"

I leveled a look at him, and he flushed. "Look, it got away," he said. "I got it back! It was jus' fer a mo."

"What are you breeding it with, Hagrid?" Lily asked. I nodded my approval.

"Nice catch. That why you're looking so keen to get rid of us?"

Hagrid sniffed. "Huh! Who's pourin' yer tea?"

"Don't try to change the subject," Padfoot warned. "We're going to find out sooner or later, you know."

"Yeah, I reckon you will. All righ', but look, don' tell anyone. Don' wanna get caught in some kind o' – o' legal dealie." Padfoot and I exchanged excited glances. This was going to be good. "There's a manticore in the Forest."

"A WHAT?"

"You didn't actually manage to breed it, did you?" I asked, a trifle faintly. He shook his head.

"Nah. 'S on'y a matter o' time, though."

"How did it get into the Forest?" Lily asked. She was clutching the edge of the table and taking deep breaths, which I took to be a bad sign. I poured her more tea and shoved it into her hands.

"More importantly, how are we going to get it out?"

"Yeah, we could set it on the Slytherins!" Padfoot exclaimed.

"We should tell Dumbledore," I continued, ignoring him, "they're supposed to be really intelligent, we don't want it wandering around eating first years."

"But they come from Greece, don't they?" Lily asked. "How in the world would we get it back there?"

"Nah, they're from all over," Hagrid said. "Mos' suited to Greece but they'll get by anywhere."

"Lily," I said, thinking hard, "didn't Dumbledore tell us about a big chimaera trade going on in that area?"

"Yes, but he said they won't get into Europe because of our laws."

"And now a Greek beastie shows up… hmm. I think I may be on to something."

"If you think Voldemort is in Greece –"

"That doesn't really matter. I'm thinking we should be in Greece."

"What? To take the manticore back? Why?"

"Well, anywhere in the Mediterranean would do. Do you think your parents would let you stay at my villa for a few days?"

To be continued…

A/N: Aaaaaahh sleepover! Maybe they'll have a pool party and play truth or dare!

No, never.

The Animagus thing didn't actually crop up in this chapter, but I think I'm finally getting around to connecting my various plots. Hip hip! Hurray! I heard the funniest clarinet the other day, doing staccato scales. It sounded just like that. Hip! hip! hip! It was so cute.

Live long and prosper, friends.