Everybody exited the bus as soon as possible, hoping to put some distance between themselves and the two creepy little kids who had sat at the back of the bus. Sirius watched them with disgust, having a hard time believing that anybody could act so stupid while James stood on the edge of an abyss of hysterical laughter. A fifth grader took one look at him and ran away like a two year old who had seen somebody they didn't know. They walked across the campus to the far side of the building where their classroom was supposed to be and everybody maintained a ten foot radius away from them; obviously the word had gotten out like a bolt of lightning.
"Great load of idiots they are," James commented as they reached the line for the class, which was empty at the moment. "They all act like we're radioactive or something. I'll give them a reason to run, trust me." Sirius looked at him like he was crazy and James started laughing. "What?"
"What in the universe are you talking about? Are you going to scare them or something, or just give them a reason to run off campus while you drop dead on the spot laughing at your own stupidity?" Sirius asked, slightly bored.
"I dunno. Why? You going to help?" James answered, grinning like an idiot.
"It depends on what it is. If you're going to do something absolutely idiotic, I'll just follow everybody else off grounds and start for the mountains where you'll never find me," he said in amusement. James stuck his tongue out and crossed his arms, successfully imitating Bellatrix although he didn't know her.
"A lot of fun you are. Besides, I'd find you because I'd know where you went," he said in a mocking tone.
"Yeah, thanks. Oh, and by the way, I didn't tell you which direction I'd go in, so you can't be a stalker." James looked a little disappointed, then shrugged.
"Too bad. I wouldn't want to follow you anyway because you're the most boring person on the planet, except for my grandma; she's just like a slug." Sirius started laughing, imagining a slug with curly white hair, a bright red dress with flowers on it, and a cane. "No, I mean it! You can actually poke her with a stick and she won't notice!"
"Did you try?" he asked, the old slug woman leaving a slimy trail as she slowly slid out of his mind. James looked like he had just been caught doing something he shouldn't have and turned a faint pink.
"Maybe." The Death Eater look crept back onto his face and mischief shined in his dark brown eyes, making Sirius wonder which side of the line he was on: was he against pure bloods taking over the world, or with it? The plan was asking for all human-kind to become a thing of the past, but Voldemort seemed to think it was worth the risk. The Potters had been one of the strongest families to protest the plan of Muggle and mix-blood extermination and also one of the biggest losses, but could James be an exception to that rule? After all, he was part of a family that believed in it and had turned it down as soon as he had been able to speak, which had ended in him being treated as such.
"What do you mean by that?" Sirius asked, beginning to get suspicious of his intentions: did he plan on trying to murder all of those Muggles? If there was one thing that he had learned over the years, it was to distrust anybody who can your way unless and until they gave you a reason not to.
"How about setting off the fire alarms?" he asked, glancing around to see if any teachers had heard. Something told Sirius that this was not what James had had in mind, but he couldn't tell what his original plan had been since he had obviously had just as much practice at keeping others from knowing what he was doing as Sirius had; his practice had mainly come from tormenting the old, decrepit house elf named Kreacher who usually roamed around the house making messes instead of cleaning them, then blaming Sirius and make him clean it instead.
"I doubt we'll have a chance if the teacher's as bad as you say she is," Sirius replied, as the older kids started toward the building as a sign that classes would start shortly.
"Who says we have to go to class?"
"If that teacher's as bad as you say she is, do you really think that's a good idea?" Sirius asked, dodging a group of stampeding third graders. "What would we do if we got caught?" James looked thoughtful for a moment, then smirked.
"If we do get caught, which I doubt we will, I'll take care of it," he said. Sirius looked skeptical and tried to imagine what would happen if they were taken to the principal's office, which wasn't a good thing because he had made a kid fly into a tree less than an hour ago. Who knew what James could or would do?
"You really don't want to be here, do you?" he asked, grimacing as the bell rang.
"No way. Mum made me come, and I'll correct that mistake today!" James answered, flinching when he saw the short, white haired form coming to the nearly complete line of students. "If we don't go now, we can't go, or more like you can't go, because I'm going whether you come or not."
"Fine, but if we get caught, I'm pinning it all on you; I'll tell whoever it is that you said you'd take me to class because I was late." With that, Sirius reluctantly followed James through the line of students where the old lady couldn't see them as she approached the front of the line. They passed the last few people and slipped into the thick bushes on the edge of the playground.
"What are you, afraid or something?" James taunted as they watched Mrs. Umbridge lead the line of miserable kindergartners into the building; nobody seemed to notice that they had left the line because nobody turned to look in the direction they went. "I guess they assumed that we got in the wrong line or whatever. That was lucky since I must have pushed five of them down on the way over here."
"I am not afraid of an old three-hundred year old bat who looks like she's wearing a wig! I'd like to introduce her to an acromantula if I ever get a chance. I met her when I came to get a registration sheet and she started yelling at me about something; I don't know what it was because I don't pay people like her a lot of mind." They watched as the last few kids turned the corner on the way to the classroom and one of the girls started crying like there was no tomorrow. James and Sirius both had to cover their ears as Umbridge started screaming at the top of her lungs about "wimpy little brats these days".
"I guess that was the sonar I heard about," James said jokingly, his ears ringing with the menacing teacher's words. "Maybe all of it is true..."
"What?" Sirius asked, climbing out of the bush as the last class disappeared into a portable room about twenty feet away. "You're really big on gossip, aren't you?" They started brushing off the collection of leaves and hideous red and orange berries that had accumulated in their hair and on their clothes.
"No, not really. The only time I listen to it is when it can do me some good, which is almost never," he replied, pulling out a rather stubborn thorn he had been unfortunate enough to come across. "I'm big when it comes to revenge, in case you haven't noticed."
"Yeah, I know, considering the fact that you want to fill the building with water from the sprinklers because your mum made you come to kindergarten," Sirius added sarcastically, noticing what appeared to be a metal tool shed was on the side of campus they had just come from.
"Correction: come to kindergarten to be screamed at by an over sized rat with wings," he said as they went over to the end of the row of bushes to escape another attack by the thorns and branches. They went down a small hill and went into the almost forest-like groups of trees that surrounded the school on three and a half sides. "If we stay down here and walk, then nobody should be able to see us." Sirius glanced further into the trees, wondering what was one the other side since he truly didn't have the slightest clue where they were.
"I'd hate to see what you'd do if you were sorted into Slytherin," Sirius responded, realizing too late that that could be the family house of the Potters, as it was for the Blacks; he didn't think people who were anti-Voldemort would be Slytherins, but more along the lines of Gryffindor. James just shrugged and then started laughing manically at the look on his parents' faces if he was.
"I highly doubt that, since we've been Ravenclaw and Gryffindor for the last six generations," he responded, almost able to hear his mum screaming like a hag at the thought of him in Salazar Slytherin's house.