The War Between James and McGonagall
DISCLAIMER – I own nothing but the plot, and a little of the strange made-up terms. The rest you can profusely thank Madam Rowling, Lady of Edinburgh and Duchess of Hogsmeade for. Enjoy!
James was absolutely bonkers-and-a-bored to hell. He hated uncle Neville's dull-as-deer-droppings Herbology classes, he didn't really give a whiff of wacky-mole-Wednesday to be sitting here staring at some leafy green thing, or woody brown thing, and if he really wanted to sniff dirt, he'd drop dead in the forbidden forest.
"James, could you pass those earmuffs over here?" someone whispered at him, and James turned hooded eyes in the direction of Emily Fickelheart, who was the one to call at him. He raised an eyebrow in expectation. His ears were temporarily on holiday; sorry, but he didn't want them rotting from the drone.
"The earmuffs!" Emily insistently jabbed her finger in their direction, and James gave a lazy huff, reaching over to toss them at the Hufflepuff, one of twenty with which the Gryffindor's shared the class. And uncle Neville kept up his droning on how to re-pot the ugly plants they were to be working with, and blah-blah-blah…
James kept his eye on the large glass wall which gave a view to the forbidden forest and a slight triangle of Hagrid's Hut. What he wouldn't give to be in that hut, a lovely cup of tea held in his hands, planning some brilliant prank which was likely to lose him twenty house points before falling flat on its face, but being fun all the same. So much more interesting than stroking roots to get them to settle down.
James slumped further down in his seat. He noticed uncle Neville giving him a wary look, and smirked to himself. Well should Neville be wary. James had single-handedly managed to ruin the roast turkey every Christmas since he was three, no matter the precautions taken. The grown-ups had taken to making two turkey's and a half-dozen chickens and roasts to make up for it. It should be expected that at 12 he was a lot more capable than at three.
From his low position, James could see every idiot and their neighbours laces under the table, and leaning just a little lower gave him a perfect vantage of uncle Neville's own laced up sensible's. James smirked to himself, having thought of a rather rotten prank.
Bringing to mind that book he'd read, 'Jolly Good Jinxes and Their Cousins', James recalled two jinxes that would work rather well in this scenario. One was to make hair-based material extend, the other was to meld two ends of said materials together. James then used a spell learnt in first year, a quietly spoken wingardium leviosa, to make a pail of manure hover across the ground before coming to a halt behind uncle Neville. He repeated this several times, unseen, situating pails of manure behind almost every Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. He skipped a few to slightly alleviate suspicion from just him, and make it possible that ten other people could have been responsible.
Ready to put his jinxes to use, James extended everyone's – including his own – shoelaces, and made it so that one person was connected by their shoe laces to two other people. Then he sent a carefully aimed tripping jinx at Ambert Huxley, a rather portly fellow in Hufflepuff, who James thought was a little too pompous to be liked. Ambert's tripping sent him headfirst into his pail of manure, pulling down the two he was connected with as well, and setting off a domino effect. James made sure he was ready to drop down, so the landing didn't hurt so much.
"JAMES SIRIUS POTTERRR-ERGH!" uncle Neville's shout was cut off as he made his own way into a manure pile. James was busy rapidly muttering lumos and nox, so that they couldn't trace the many spells back to his wand unless they tried for days. He managed to repeat the two spells over fifty times, before the table where all the patiently waiting plants gave a tremble, and exploded. Well, there goes the prank, falling on its stupid face as it was wont to do. The baby mandrakes set up a wailing as they were evicted from their pots, and James' last thought was, "well, at least they can't pin this on me." before he passed out with a nosebleed.
It would be an hour later that the next class due in the Herbology greenhouse trudged down to find the entire 2nd year classes of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff passed out with their shoes interlaced, and Neville Longbottom – with his head half in a pail of manure – likewise passed out. Headmistress McGonagall didn't know what to make of the bizarre situation, except to have the entire lot of them placed up in the hospital wing, and have Neville and James in her office as soon as they were fit to be interrogated.
"Well, Mr Potter?" she spoke sharply, after Neville related what had happened so far as he knew. James gave McGonagall an innocently confused look.
"What is it Aunt McGonagall?" he asked, sending an angry flush into McGonagall's cheeks. She glowered at his insolence, counting to ten slowly in her head before forcing out in a tight voice, "What did you do?"
"ME?" James yelped, looking horrified, "I didn't do nothing! Why would you go blaming ME?" he looked so depressed at the very notion that McGonagall knew that someone who wasn't aware of his home temperament, or his hundred and one other disastrous activities, would probably be contrite and set him free. But McGonagall knew better. She had taught his uncle's, his parents, and his grandparents, and was well aware of the genes that ran through his veins.
"Your wand, Mr Potter." James didn't even blink, just held it out. McGonagall eyed him suspiciously before taking it from him, and waited an experimental few seconds to make sure the thing wouldn't blow up in her face before proceeding to try Priori Incantatum. After five frustrating minutes of getting nothing but pale imitations of Lumos and Nox, McGonagall gave a frustrated huff and scowled at James, half expecting to see a young George Weasley smirking at her.
"Just what possessed you to require so many illumination spells, Mr Potter? Do you do nothing all day but glow?" James let out a low snicker which was hastily stifled at the warning look in McGonagall's eyes, and he shrugged innocently.
"Two weeks detention, Mr Pott-"
"What for?" James cut her off rudely, and McGonagall breathed in and out deeply, trying to control the urge she had to hex the little brat. She had been in this school for far too long.
"For disrupting Herbology and causing over forty individual's to be laid up in the Hospital Wing-"
"But if you can't prove it was me, and it wasn't me, you know, then how can you be punishing me for something you don't know I did. For all we know, it was you who interrupted Herbology Class, and laid up over forty people in the Hospital Wing. Can you prove your innocence? Professor?" James added at the end for extra effect, smirking slightly at the puce-red colour McGonagall was slowly turning.
McGonagall pulled her own wand out in a moment of frustration, and gritted out, "Priori Incatatum." An imitation of the exploding charm Expulso was emitted. Mcgonagall looked in shocked amazement at her wand, horrified.
"Well…" Neville finally spoke up in the awkwardly smug silence (smug on behalf of James).
"W-…Huh?" McGonagall doesn't look up from her wand, and Neville gulped nervously at seeing the normally stoic teacher resort to unintelligible grunts. James smiled slowly, and got up.
"Well, I guess I'd better go professor. I have a charms essay to work on." James watched as McGonagall nodded slowly, practically on the verge of tears. James was careful not to look at the bits of cockroach he'd left on McGonagall's hearth as he leaves the room, feeling quite smug at having stolen McGonagall's wand and used it and put it back all under her and Uncle Neville's nose. Looks like this prank didn't quite fall on its face.
The next morning, James is the recipient of a livid howler from his mother, delivered in the middle of breakfast, berating him for his 'completely atrocious and rude actions' towards her former head of house. James, the whole time, smirks at a stony-faced McGonagall. The two of them know who's really won.
A/N – well, it's 12 hours before I have to wake up for my Biology exam ( T^T) and I'm here writing another piece of fanfiction. Total editing and writing time = 48 minutes (or so Word tells me). Please review, and wish me luck tomorrow! This is my worst subject, I have managed to flunk every exam on it thus far, so I need all the help I can get. After I submit this I'll drown myself in the books, so toodles and hope you enjoyed!
EDIT – several hours later (lol) because I'm neurotic and found grammar mistakes as well as tense errors. Sorry.