Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Pasila.
Chapter 2 − Phil Collins –Hang-Over
"James, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you in Charms? Why do you avoid people?" Sirius had apparently decided to skip Charms as well to come and check on James, who was sitting in a corner in an empty classroom.
"What time is it?" James asked.
"Half-past nine."
"Bloody hell! I've got the entire day still ahead of me!" James exclaimed in exasperation.
Sirius sat in front of James and placed his hands on his best friend's shoulders.
"Now, that's not just a hang-over that's bothering you."
"Yes it is."
"No, it's not. Tell me."
James sighed.
"Okay, then. Sirius, I have a Phil Collins –hang-over."
"A what?" Sirius rose half-way to his feet. He intended to drag James down to Madam Pomfrey's and have her check again whether James had actually lost it for real.
"A Phil Collins –hang-over. Sit down again."
Sirius sat down.
"Good boy. Padfoot, do you remember that day when I called you Phil Collins all the time?"
"Yes..."
"It wasn't a joke. I had the Phil Collins –hang over. Sirius, there are different levels of hang-over. Mild, bad, very bad, painful, semi-paranoid, paranoid, mandolin and so forth. The worst of all, however, is Phil Collins –hang-over. It's been named after a muggle singer and songwriter, Phil Collins."
"That was about the only thing I understood of your story."
"I got acquainted with it a few years ago. For some reason, I had ended up drinking rather heavily with some muggle tourists. That was when you were all somewhere and I had a Friday alone in London before you could meet me. Anyway, those muggles were insane. Booze, beer, wine, champagne, we drank everything.
In the morning, I woke up in a muggle hotel with the worst hang-over ever. Without thinking much, I switched the... the what's its... tellyvision on. Phil Collins was singing in there. Well, I had no idea who this Phil Collins guy was, but he started to annoy me at once. I mean, he is annoying as hell."
"I'm not sure if I want to hear where this is going," Sirius muttered under his breath.
"Anyway, for a reason I don't know, I watched that for a couple of minutes. Then I left to meet you guys. Outside my room, everyone was Phil Collins. The lady next-room was Phil Collins, her baby was Phil Collins, the receptionist was Phil Collins. Even a dude who looked a bit like Stubby Boardman now looked like Phil Collins.
And it got worse. In the Leaky Cauldron, everyone was Phil Collins. In the Diagon Alley, everyone was Phil Collins. That was horrible! I hit Peter, because he looked like Phil Collins and whistled that tune on top of that. I dumped my summer-fling, because she, too, looked like Phil Collins! And it wasn't over until the next day. I decided then that I'll never drink again. Later on, I did drink again, but it doesn't come every time." James stopped to draw breath.
"And that, my friend, is what Phil Collins –hang-over is like." James fell silent.
"Right..." Sirius' eyebrows had risen steadily higher and higher as James' story went on, and they were now on the point of flying off his face. He had expected something pretty strange, but this was a bit... extreme.
"Let me just... digest... that for a while..."
"Sure, go ahead."
"Phil Collins, you say?"
"Yes, Phil Collins. Yep, that's a bloody bad one."
Without another word, Sirius stood up and left the classroom for a while.
x~x
Sirius came back after he had pulled himself back together. Apparently his worry of his friend's well-being extended just far enough not to give in to his desire to fall on the floor laughing his head off while he was in the same room with James.
"Prongs, around 72 questions came to my mind concerning that problem of yours, so I cut them down to a few. Is it always Phil Collins?"
"No. The last time, I saw a dancing weatherman on the Prophet. And that day, everyone was a dancing weatherman. And before that, it was that trainee Prophet reporter, Rita Skeeter, who came through my window and started to demand an interview on my life as a rich pure-blood." James grimaced in disgust.
"So they have all been annoying," Sirius smiled fondly, remembering what he had done to Skeeter, when she had come to pester him.
"Yes. Phil Collins –hang-over is triggered when an extreme hang-over is combined with an extreme idiot. When you have the Phil Collins –hang-over, you have to be with your own. Family and friends. People you are used to. The unknown are a risk."
"Okay," Sirius said slowly. And the people at Hogwarts thought he was insane. "Yes, Prongs, I want to understand."
"Phil Collins."
"Right, got it."
x~x
Sirius had seemed somewhat dubious as to whether he really should leave James on his own, but he had eventually decided that James would really not be a danger to himself. At worst, he would be thoroughly humiliated and Merlin knew that would be nothing new. So Sirius left for his detention and James decided to head for the Room of Requirement for some peace and quiet. Unfortunately, he ran into professor McGonagall again.
"Potter, I've received complaints about you. Firstly, you're drunk."
"Hung-over," James muttered.
"Second, you haven't punished people for rule-breaking, even when it's happened right under your nose."
"I can't notice everything."
"And thirdly, you didn't go to Charms today. Explain yourself at once." McGonagall glared at James rather like a hawk would glare at a particularly cheeky rabbit.
"Are there any chances that you'd give me a day off, professor? Or... should I maybe go to polish the stuff in the Trophy Room? Anything that doesn't include meeting people," James pleaded.
"No way," McGonagall snapped. "You'll go to patrol. The Head Boy maintains the order by patrolling the corridors. Students trust the Head Boy."
James could not help snorting. McGonagall ignored him.
"The Head Boy has credibility. The staff has, too, credit, the staff may buy with credit in the Three Broomsticks. Very handy, and we don't always have to have money on us. Very flexible-"
"Medication, professor," James suggested uncharacteristically timidly.
"Oh, yes." She swallowed a pill. "What were we talking about?"
"The quality of my work," James answered. It was obvious that the professor had absolutely no recollection of her previous rant.
"Was that what we were talking about? Well, bloody good job, Potter! Keep up the good work!"
"What?" Did Minerva McGonagall just... swear? In front of a student, who would forever remember it?
"That'll be good. For your future career. You'll get an Order of Merlin and everything." McGonagall's eyes shone with pride as she shook James' hand and then went on her way leaving a thoroughly perplexed young man staring after her.
x~x
"Exciting, these new quills. Amazing precision. Hardly any blotching at all. Exciting. Almost everything is exciting nowadays..."
James had spotted Peter, who had probably been on his way to the Care of Magical Creatures, but had dropped his quill. He was now examining it, muttering to himself with a strangely clouded look in his eyes.
"Peter, do you know what's wrong with McGonagall?" James asked him.
"New medication," Peter answered.
"Yeah, I meant that. What medication?"
"For her nerves. She had a break-down after the flirting toilet-seat –incident yesterday. Madam Pomfrey assigned her mild tranquillisers. Exciting, nerves, they can just break..."
"Yea, excitement is all around, Pete. Listen, I have a feeling that they don't work at all." James looked at Peter strangely. Wormtail did like to pretend to be more stupid than he actually was, but he never was this slow around the three of his friends.
"No, they don't work, not on her. Sirius, he stole her pills and changed them for something else. That's exciting, too..." Peter kept staring at his quill as if it were the single most fascinating thing he had seen for a while.
"Very exciting, Wormtail," James cut him off. "Look- Are you feeling all right? Are you- depressed or something?"
"Depression... it's exciting..." Peter muttered as he stepped outside to go to his lesson. "Very common, these days. Rare in the old times. Nonexistent during some times... Very exciting..."
James was not sure, whether Peter's answer had confirmed or denied him being fine.
x~x
James ran into Remus on his way to transfiguration.
"Hey, Moony! Do you know what's wrong with Wormtail? He seemed a little... odd... when I saw him."
"Oh, yes, you wouldn't remember. Yesterday, when we were getting back from Hogsmeade, a group of Slytherins were trying to do – well, I don't really know what, just pick a fight, I guess. In the commotion, Pete was hit with a Confundus curse. Not too well cast one. Madam Pomfrey says it's not dangerous, but it'll take some time to wear off. Where were you? I didn't see you patrolling?" James was relieved to hear Remus' explanation. He had feared for Peter's sanity for a moment there.
"The Room of Requirement. Sleeping," James answered as he sat between Remus and Sirius, who was already in the classroom.
"What did you do to those Slytherins, who got at Wormtail, Padfoot?" James asked his friend.
"Me? I did nothing. I was dragging along a bloody heavy deer, who couldn't hold his liquor." Sirius smiled in a way that usually sent friendly old ladies fleeing fast to the opposite direction.
"Moony took care of them. They are taking a day off." Sirius' evil grin widened.
"I think we are rubbing off on the good little Prefect," he continued smugly.
"Really?" James was genuinely surprised. "Why was Sirius having a detention this morning, then?" he asked Remus, who smiled guiltily.
"I got a little carried away," he explained. "And since I, as a Prefect, would've been in deep trouble for that, Sirius told McGonagall that he did it." Remus looked at Sirius gratefully.
"Honestly, Pads, thanks for that. I owe you one," he said sincerely. "But you really shouldn't-"
Sirius waved his hand and smiled.
"It's nothing, Remus. McGee won't even bother to punish me too badly anymore; she knows I'm a hopeless case. So what's in the lesson plan today?" Sirius changed the subject.
"Some guest lecturer," Remus replied.
"It's today?" James put in, delighted. "Excellent. They'll dim the lights, won't they? Wake me up, when this is over."
Professor McGonagall entered the classroom and they quieted down.
"Dear students," she began. "We didn't use all of our Ministry funding last month. You know what funding is. It's the money that has to be used. But not to buy candy. Candy ruins the teeth and is fattening. Fatness leads to glaucoma, which, according to Madam Pomfrey, is extremely annoying. Besides, it is well known that the eyes are the mirror to the soul. You know what a mirror is. A reflecting looking-glass where one can see one's own face."
"Take your drugs!" Sirius yelled, looking extremely pleased with himself.
"What?" McGonagall looked nonplussed.
"Your meds, professor," Sirius said.
"Your meds, professor," McGonagall echoed. "Oh, right. Me. There they go."
She downed a couple of pills and Sirius' self-satisfied smirk grew even wider, as she continued:
"So, if all of the funding is not used, we'll receive less money in the future. That's why a very expensive man has come to talk to you today. I mean, not 'expensive' in the sense that he'd be for sale. Or I mean that he isn't exactly cheap, either. Merlin's beard! I wonder if these pills work at all. They are pure garbage!" She glared her pills and drew a deep, steadying breath.
"So, today a very expensive lecturer comes to talk to us about the importance of teamwork. I give you: Gilderoy Lockhart."
A widely smiling man in his mid-twenties marched to the front of the class and swirled around so that his perfectly curled blonde hair waved smoothly, and everyone got a full view of his expensive-looking pale-blue robes. Both Sirius and Remus sniggered evilly. James paled.
"Oh, sweet Merlin, that's him," James gasped.
"Who?"
"That's the man, who was on the morning show today. The one who made me break my Wireless. Phil Collins was this close. I have to get out of here!" James' tone bordered panic.
Sirius and Remus changed a confused look. Since they had not had time to share James' hung-over explanations with each other, neither of them had completely understood James' rant. Then Sirius said soothingly:
"Come on, Jay, he can't be that annoying. I mean, he is a hell of a ponce, but-" Sirius was cut off by Lockhart beginning his lecture.
"We'll talk about relationships today. School partnership is also a sort of relationship. I am going to read to you a chapter of my book. It asks: Are We Together a Twosome, Or Are the Two Of Us a One Some?"
The entire was reduced to a state of shocked wordlessness. Then Sirius, who looked like he was going to be sick, hissed to James: "Ok, go, go, go, go!"
James stood up. Thank Merlin they were sitting in the back.
"I've got to go. Don't say anything before I'm through that door."
Lockhart's snow-white teeth reflected sunlight as he smiled to James.
"This is completely voluntary, young man. You are always allowed to dare."
"Right, you've already said something," James said and fled from the classroom.
"An exciting negation, he's got," Lockhart pointed out to the rest of the class.
x~x
James had once again sought refuge in an empty classroom, where he sat in a corner, curled to a ball, as Lockhart walked in.
"Why didn't you want to listen to my lecture?"
James groaned and covered his ears.
"Away! Go away!" he whimpered.
"Did you know that a lot of people who close their ears want to open their eyes?" Lockhart asked pleasantly.
"Yes, I know, I understand everything. Now, please, please, please, go. You have no idea what kind of damage you can do to me. And to the world."
Lockhart was completely oblivious to the fact that a person, who was sitting hunched in a corner with his hands over his ears, begging for him to leave, probably did not desire his company.
"I can't leave a person who's in pain. You are all curled up, little friend. You have to dare to dare," Lockhart placed his hand on James' shoulder. James flinched and pleaded:
"I have a Phil Collins hang-over. You have the ability to trigger it. Soon everyone'll look like you. I'm losing control. Go, please, go! Don't say anything anymore, it's one word away, go!"
McGonagall, who had apparently heard James' pleas, peeked into the classroom. She looked at James with an annoyed look on her face.
"Why are you sitting in here?" she asked irritably. Then she noticed Lockhart and her expression lightened up.
"Thank you for the lecture, it really broadened my mind. I've never realised how curled up I actually was. Now I can dare again. To be a teacher. And a human."
Lockhart smiled radiantly to McGonagall and turned to leave the classroom with her. By the door he looked back at James and said:
"Listen, I'll throw out one for you. Why do you think you mess up your hair all the time?"
James' mind snapped and he screamed inwardly. In addition to the real Gilderoy Lockhart standing by the door, there was another Lockhart next to him, dressed as professor McGonagall. James screamed audibly this time and pushed past the two Lockharts, running as fast as he could.
x~x
AN1: Review. Please.