Chapter 2: Crime and Punishment
The next morning at Breakfast Professor McGonagall handed out the timetables. Brenna had at least one new friend in every class except History of Magic.
"Don't worry about that one; the whole class is usually comatose within 2 minutes." Alice told her laughingly earning a disapproving look from Lily.
"Well we all have double Defence this morning, a nice change from double Potions." Marlene said a dislike for Potions clear in her voice.
Just then there was a loud bang that echoed off the walls of the Great Hall. Instinctively, Brenna's hand flew to her wand and her head snapped in the direction of the bang. Fighting the urge to run to the site of the chaos, Brenna searched the clearing smoke for Cyrus, hoping that he was alright, because if he wasn't…
Finally she found Cyrus' eyes in the confusion, though it was only his eyes that were recognisable. All the Slytherins had been transfigured into strange creatures, some that were entirely fictional. The majority of the Great Hall burst into laughter and applause as the Professors hurried over to the Slytherin Table. It was only then that Brenna noticed three boys smirking proudly, two of them taking bows, and a fourth standing with them, though he did not have the confident appearance the rest possessed.
"What just happened?" Brenna asked turning back to her friends that were rolling their eyes.
"The Marauders annual beginning of term prank." Marlene said exasperatedly.
"Those four over there are the Marauders, or at least that's what they call themselves. They basically torment people for the fun of it, their usual targets are Slytherins." Lily continued.
"The one with the glasses and really messy hair is James Potter, completely obsessed with Lily and will never leave her alone.
"Then there's Remus Lupin, the tall one with light brown hair, he's the most tolerable, we actually quite like him as long as he's not with the others.
"And Peter Pettigrew is the short one that seems scared, honestly I don't know what he's doing hanging out with them I guess they felt bad for him or something, but he's a total creep.
"Finally, there's Sirius Black. He's completely gorgeous and he knows it. But then he's also an arrogant, chauvinistic, womanizing prat. He's dated over half the female population and has pretty much every girl swooning at the sight of him. It's quite pathetic, really. He's also got what we like to call a 'flavour of the week'. Basically whatever girl he feels like snogging. When he gets bored with them he just moves on." Alice said pointing out each individual member of the group.
"And there you have it, the Marauders. A new prank everyday, a new girl every week." Lily finished.
"Well I hope they know how to duel, my brother isn't one to just 'take' that kind of humiliation." Brenna said knowing her brother's pride and abilities; it just wasn't a good mix.
"The Slytherins always try to get them back but it doesn't work. The four of them are almost always together and they are pretty good at duels I guess. Plus the entire school loves them so attacking them ends bad, not that the Slytherins care, they just never win." Marlene said sighing.
"They don't know my brother." Brenna said shaking her head as she saw Cyrus, now back in human form, completely stone-faced.
When they got to the Defence classroom, Brenna was actually excited for the lesson, not that she would be learning anything new, but still, it would be interesting to see what was taught at Hogwarts.
Professor Miller, who had been the Defence against the Dark Arts professor for the past three years, was the youngest of all the professors at Hogwarts and as such he was often the students' favourite. Unfortunately, this meant that he was also one of the favourite staff targets for the Marauders, second only to Filch.
About fifteen minutes late, Sirius Black and James Potter walked into class receiving a death stare from their Professor.
"I will not tolerate your shenanigans this term. 20 points from Gryffindor and you two will wait after class for your punishment." The two boys muttered apologies but looked unconcerned with their loss of points and detention simply taking their seats at the back of the class with the other 'Marauders'.
For this lesson Professor Miller taught them the basic principles of duelling. Though many of the students had participated in duels with rivals at the school (completely ignoring school rules), they had never been taught how to duel, they didn't know the manoeuvres and the details of it, they didn't know the little things that would save their lives in a real duel with a dark wizard.
Both Brenna and Cyrus had this class as it included Gryffindors and Slytherins and though they already knew how to duel they listened attentively. The Professor wasn't bad, he knew what he was talking about, but Brenna and Cyrus had learnt differently and had fought differently than what he was teaching. Professor Miller walked them through the logistics of a duel, proper stance and distance from an opponent. The entire lesson was theory, but most of the class paid attention since Miller had promised that they would begin practicing on Thursday, their next class.
Brenna paid particularly close attention since she needed to know exactly how well to fight. She wouldn't let herself lose, but she couldn't win too easily without raising a few questions on her training.
"Class dismissed; Black, Potter my office." Miller said glaring at the two cocky Gryffindor boys who walked nonchalantly into the office as the rest of the class packed up their things.
:.:.:
James and Sirius walked into Miller's office, not caring that we would get a detention on the first day, the worst thing they got was usually just polishing the trophies or writing lines, plus it was good to know they can still get under their Professor's skin. Taking the seats in front of the desk, they waited for Miller.
"I was right, walk in late, and he's already snapped. How many detentions do you think we'll get?"
"Depends whether he's still mad about turning him pink last year. We might get two or three, he gave us like 20 last year for that." James said with a smile remembering our prank.
"True…what do you think, polishing trophies or helping professors?" Sirius asked idly as Miller walked into the room and took the seat behind his desk.
"Neither Mr Black" He said answering Sirius' question and earning quizzical looks from the two boys. "For your punishments you both will be tutoring other students." Sirius and James' faces went blank and a confused.
"Come again" Sirius said completely shocked.
"You, as in Sirius Black and James Potter, will be tutoring a couple students individually on your own time in the Library."
"You've got to be kidding me!" James said shaking his head disbelievingly.
"I'm not kidding you Mr Potter. You two have been disrespecting Professors and ignoring school rules for four years now and not received proper punishment. So you will be spending your afternoons and evenings when you do not have classes. I have spoken to some of the other Professors and they agree that this would be an adequate punishment for all of your offenses, so you can forget about filling your time with other detentions to get out this." Miller explained a confident half smile on his face. The two boys just stared at him in horror.
"But what about Quidditch!"
"You may work out a schedule with the students you will be tutoring, but Quidditch is not my priority here. You two will do this, at least 3 times a week, you will be on time and you will tutor the students properly. Their success is yours and their failure is yours. You will start tonight, be in the Library by 7 o'clock sharp. You both will have a different student to tutor and you will not be tutoring together, understood?" The two boys nodded but didn't say anything. "I'm sorry what was that?"
"Yes Professor." They muttered sullenly.
"Good, you may go." He said as the grumbling boys left the office.
"I can't believe he's making you tutor someone, that poor, poor student!" Remus said through his laughter when Sirius and James told him about their punishment at lunch.
"Shut up, Moony, this is bad enough as it is. Three times a week!" James grumbled causing Remus to cover up his laughter with a cough.
"What the hell are we even going to tutor these kids in? How old do you think they are? First years can't possibly need tutoring yet!" Sirius added as he shovelled food into his mouth. "I barely do my homework on time, how am I supposed to help someone else do theirs?"
"Padfoot I'm sure it won't be that bad, you don't know who you'll end up tutoring, it could potentially be a girl." Remus said trying to make his friend see the bright side of his situation.
"Very true Moony. Prongs, this might not be bad after all."