A/N: This hur chapter is one I quite like...enjoy!
Chapter 3: Time-Turner Mishap
It had been a week since the spectacle that was Stacy and Sirius' incredibly awkward break-up; unfortunately, the vast majority of the girls who overheard the news still had not ceased in their efforts to find out whom Sirius was going to the ball with. They showered him with affection and gifts, which, James joked, was kind of backwards from normal relationships. Sirius didn't find that very funny, but Peter and Remus did-though the latter tried not to be obvious when laughing. Peter, on the other hand, laughed outright and didn't stop until Sirius had stalked off in high dudgeon.
It was, inevitably, during one of these laughter-fests that Sirius exploded.
"HOW DO I GET THEM OFF OF ME?" he groaned piteously. By this point, Remus couldn't take it anymore and, instead of chuckling quietly, broke into loud gales of laughter. The look on Sirius' face was priceless.
"Well, mate, short of becoming gay or making yourself ugly, there isn't much of a chance of that," replied James sympathetically. Sirius blanched at the idea of purposely making himself ugly. He prided himself on his intelligence, his charm, and his good looks. Just then a third year (it was a girl; of course it was a girl; Sirius did his best to hide behind James, though their height difference made the latter a flimsy defense at best) came rushing up to him.
"I-really-want-to-go-with-you-to-the-ball-please-say-yes-here-is-a-gift-from-me-to-you-please-accept-it-my-daddy-works-at-the-Ministry-it-took-me-ages-to-get-it-but-I-got-it-because-I-really-like-you-and-oh-this-is-so-embarrassing-just-take-the-gift-don't-take-me-to-the-ball-I-can't-stand-being-next-to-you-you-shine-with-such-a-bright-light!" With that long and garbled sentence (later on, James privately reflected that it was the sort of statement that deserved at least three or four extra exclamation points tacked onto the end), she threw something at Sirius, but Sirius made no move to catch it and it landed at the ground in front of him. The object shattered and sprayed a fine mist of powder all over the four boys.
"Argghhh!"
"Pgggft!"
"Yuck!"
"Acck!"
They all started coughing and wheezing as the powdery substance made its [gaaah "it's" and "its" is a pet peeve of mine, by the way] fiery, stabbing way down their nostrils and mouths.
"What was that, Padfoot?" cried James as he brushed his tongue off with his hands. Due to said action, it came out more as "Ah as dat, Tadfuh?" Peter was copying James and Remus was sneezing from all the powder in his nose. Sirius blinked a couple times as he tried to see past the film of sparkly sand that was coating his eyeballs. When he could finally see clearly, he promptly knelt down to inspect the 'gift.'
"It's…blimey, it's a time-turner!" This stopped the boys in their tracks. Remus stopped mid-sneeze, and Peter and James immediately stopped pawing at their tongues.
"What? How'd she get a time-turner? They're incredibly rare! The Ministry's only started to let people use them outside of the Aurors just last year!" exclaimed James.
"Are you sure it's a time-turner, Pads? You sure you don't have too much sand in your eyes?" scoffed Remus. "It can't possibly be a time—" He broke off as Sirius thrust the broken shards of what was once a time-turner in front of his face. Remus's jaw dropped. James and Peter crowded around to see it for themselves.
"BLOODY HELL! IT'S A—" Poor Remus was shushed again, this time by a hand covering his mouth.
"Shut it! Do you want everyone to know?"
Remus looked abashed for a second, but then gave a start that would have been considered melodramatic in any other circumstance. "Shouldn't we tell McGonagall? I mean, who knows what Time-Turner sand will do to you? What if something horrible happens?"
James and Sirius pondered his statement carefully. "True. Maybe we should go see McGonagall. Just. . . to make sure we don't die horrible, painful deaths or something."
They all raced to McGonagall's office entrance. Sirius started to pound on the door, but before he could, the aforementioned portal opened, leaving four very surprised and out-of-breath boys gaping in the doorway of the office. One very familiar bespectacled face appeared and regarded them caustically.
"Mr. Black! And Mr. Potter as well! I should have known it was you two making all that ruckus out in the halls. What in the world are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in class?"
Remus shoved James and Sirius aside (ordinarily such a maneuver would have caused no end of exclamatory remarks and much retaliation, but this instance was a particularly delicate situation that the two were only too glad to let their dear old Moony handle) and stepped up in front of their exasperated Head of House.
"Professor, we all have a free period right now-erm, well I think Peter is supposed to be in Remedial Charms"-it never hurt to be as honest as possible with McGonagall-"but, ah... This is an emergency."
Professor Mcgonagall cranked one thin grey eyebrow up to half-mast as she listened to his stuttery explanation. Remus had always been an exemplary student, and although she had her suspicions about his relations to the pranks pulled off by his audacious friends, he had only ever been directly linked to a few of the minor ones. "What sort of emergency?"
"Well, Sirius', ah, admirer"-here, all four of them would later swear that Professor McGonagall had rolled her eyes-"gave him a present. Or rather she attempted to, but Sirius didn't manage to catch it. So then it smashed and sprayed us all. With the dust inside of it, I mean. It seemed harmless, but afterwards we found that the present was actually a Time-Turner. We were worried about the effects of the Time-Turner sand."
"I see," said the professor, though her lips were tightened into an almost nonexistent line. "Actually, no, I don't. How did this girl get a Time-Turner? The Ministry is supposed to have a tight security on them; if a mere girl could sneak one out of the Ministry, untold dangers are possible!" She blew out a large breath of exasperation. "That idiot Millicent Bagnold-!
"As for you four," she continued, in a slightly less threatening tone, "I'm not quite sure what time-turner dust does to one's health, but Madame Pomfrey should-"
She was cut off by a loud sound not unlike a cannon shot, which came from the space where James had been standing mere seconds before.
"-be. . . Well! I guess this is the main side-effect of time-turner dust. . ." The other three Marauders stared dumbly at the empty space where James had until very recently been occupying. Their mouths were once again hanging open in shock.
"Erm, professor?" asked Sirius, his voice rather higher than usual. "Where did James go?"
"I think a better question would be 'when and where,' Mr. Black. And the answer to that question is, unfortunately, I don't know." Professor McGonagall looked nearly as shocked as the boys did, and she looked far removed from her usual capable self. However, she quickly pulled herself together and soon began to issue orders.
"I must report this to the Headmaster at once. You, Mr. Pettigrew, come with me. Professor Dumbledore will be quite interested to hear your account of what happened. The rest of you, wait here in case Mr. Potter returns while I am gone." The three on waiting duty nodded, crowded into the office, and chose chairs to lounge in to wait for Jame's return from who knew where, while the professor led Peter towards Dumbledore's office.
Meanwhile, in another place and time, two girls were out enjoying a summer afternoon, completely unaware of their imminent (and very dusty) visitor.
"So when do you think one of the band directors will come over to ask us to leave?" asked Gail as she absentmindedly licked her ice cream cone. An ice-cream truck had come by shortly after they had finished their ice cream from home, meaning that they could continue their overindulgence in deliciously cold fats and sugars. It was summer, after all.
"Uhm...I don't know. They're probably too polite to do anything right now. Though I think that the clarinet player over there will leave the formation and come over here to yell at us. She's sweating all her uniform, and she's looked over here to glare at us plenty of times," remarked Bianca.
Gail looked over at said clarinet player and nodded. "Yeah, I agree with you there." After about twenty minutes, however, no one came over (though a nearby flute player had made a rude, though covert, hand gesture at them when Bianca purposely poured icy water over herself and shivered delightedly) and the girls' attention spans wandered. It all eventually culminated in the two of them heading home, incredibly bored.
"Hey, Bianca, what's for lunch? I'm starving."
"We can order a pizza or something. You know how my mom's not big on cooking. Dad does the cooking when he's home," said Bianca. As the two girls walked into Bianca's house, they heard voices from the living room.
"Did you leave the TV on, Bianca?" asked Gail teasingly. Bianca was known to have an iffy memory. But Bianca shook her head slowly.
"No...I didn't."
"So that means someone else did, or..." The two girls rushed into the house just as they heard male voice, worryingly loud, crying, "WHOA!"
"What was that?" whispered Bianca to Gail.
"I don't know!" Gail hissed back.
"You go-I don't know-just-just get a weapon, and I'll go distract the person, okay?" Bianca told Gail.
"Okay. Be careful," said Gail, and she made a silent, speedy dash toward the kitchen.
Bianca slowly crept into the family room, where she was treated to the sight of a boy of about fifteen or sixteen was running in a most ungainly fashion on their treadmill. As she watched, shocked, the boy jabbed at a random button on the treadmill, and the incline went up.
"Whee!" cried the boy. Bianca gaped at him, disbelievingly. Of all things for a robber to do, this was one of the last she would ever have expected. It was as if he had never seen a treadmill before.
Clearing her throat loudly and (she hoped) threateningly, she said, "Uh, who are you, and what are you doing in my house?"
The boy jerked his head around in surprise, blinking at her through round black glasses. "Huh? Erm, uh, hi?"
Bianca stared at him in confusion. He looked like someone she'd seen before. "Do I know you? You look familiar."
The boy continued to stare. "Er. I don't think so. I mean, if you're a Muggle, which I'm presuming to be the case as you have this strange contraption, you probably don't know me... I mean to say, erm, sorry for using your. . . thingy. And yeah, that kind of sounded wrong. Sorry. About that. But seriously, I didn't mean to land in your house-"
"What did you just call me?"
The boy looked rather guilty as he looked shiftily around the room and mumbled, "N-nothing. I didn't call you a 'Muggle,' nope. You must have imagined it... And, erm, you didn't see me here...?" he trailed and started laughing awkwardly. Bianca did not join in.
Bianca looked at him and then squinted her eyes to look at him more closely. After a few moments of intently scrutinizing the ever-more-uncomfortable intruder, she suddenly burst out laughing. "I GEDDIT! You're a prank, right? Like on that one show, 'Prank'D'! That's hilarious! I must've won that one contest that I entered ages ago and you're the TV show stunt man or something! HA! HAHA!"
"No...wait, what's a 'Prank'D'? And about pranks...I mean, I'm pretty good at them, but I'm not pranking you right now. Maybe she was a part of a prank! That's it! They probably shoved me into the Room of Requirement or something. Except, I don't know you. And the Room hasn't ever brought in people before. . . Huh," he said this last word with a rather puzzled look, "Are you Hufflepuff? Or maybe a really nerdy Ravenclaw. I know you're not a Slytherin; Padfoot wouldn't do that to me, and I'm pretty sure I know all of the people in Gryffindor.."
Bianca had stopped laughing about the part where the boy had started talking about "Room of Requirement" and "Sirius"and "Hufflepuff." Those were words she recognized. "Wh-what did you just say?"
The boy looked at her, with a cocked eyebrow. "I said that this is all... Oh shit. It isn't, is it? Did I just break the-" At this, he started patting his pocket madly, swearing under his breath all the while. "Where is my damn wand when I need it?"
It was at this moment when Gail appeared with what appeared to be a frying pan in her hand. She held it like one would hold a baseball bat and was preparing to swing at the boy. Bianca started waving madly at her, trying to communicate to her to not swing, as Bianca wanted some answers from this strange guy who seemed to be taking the whole Harry Potter thing just a little too far.
However, it seemed that Gail did not understand her; she proceeded to swing away at the guy (Bianca thought with an inward groan that she still didn't know his name yet). With a low BONGGGG indicative of the meeting between stainless steel and human head, the boy collapsed into a heap on the treadmill. With a horrified expression on her face, Bianca watched as the treadmill track continued on, and unceremoniously dumped the boy onto the floor. His head was still on the track though, and it was making a sort of whirring sound as it rubbed against the still-moving rubber track.
"Gail! Why did you do that?" cried Bianca, rushing towards the fallen boy. Gail looked on in bewilderment.
"I thought you told me to? Besides, wasn't he was reaching for his gun, or something? Knife? AK-47?" Gail asked in a steadily increasing pitched voice as she saw Bianca grab hold of the boy's shoulder, and lean her ear down to his chest. "What...what are you doing, Bianca? He could be dangerous! Get away from him!"
"He might be hurt!" replied Bianca matter-of-factly.
Gail gave a slightly hysterical snort of laughter and said, "Well, I hit him in the head with a stainless steel frying pan with non-stick coating, and I had a running start. I highly doubt he's ready to pop up and frolic in the daisies. Speaking of 'popping up', get away from him! He could be dangerous!"
"Pshh, yeah, and dangerous people threaten people with major references to Harry Potter, right?"
"Yeah!" said Gail, in a 'duh' sort of voice, and then paused to consider what Bianca had just said. "Wait, what? Harry Potter references? Like, 'Muggles, magic, and wands, oh my!' references?"
Bianca rolled her eyes from her position on the ground, peeling back the boy's eyelids to reveal hazel irises. "Yeah. He also mentioned the Room of Requirement and Sirius and Padfoot."
Gail paused for a second before she said anything. "Well...he could be crazy? Maybe he broke out of an insane asylum..." But before Gail could expound upon her theory, a loud bang sounded from where Bianca was. Gail blinked as she stared at where her best friend had been moments before, along with the unconscious boy. There was nothing there. The only thing that was proof that they had been there was the still going treadmill.
"Wha- Bian- Wha- Who-" Gail, unfortunately, seemed to have lost her ability to form a complete sentence. She blinked furiously at the spot where Bianca had disappeared, and then dove down to inspect the treadmill in the futile hope that the two had somehow become stuck underneath. "OH MY GOD SHE'S GONE! WHAT THE HELL? BIANCA? BIANCA!"
Quite predictably, nothing answered her.
In Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, two people appeared with a loud bang and fell three feet from the air onto the hard flagstones in Professor McGonagall's office. Two boys stared at their unconscious buddy and the strange girl who was holding onto his shoulders. Their mouths dropped decisively open.
A/N: So...it's been a while. Sorry! You see, I had finals, and homework, and then the start of SUMMER BREAK! And because summer has started, I shall update more than once per 5 months :) At any rate, I hope you liked this chapter!
I'm planning on starting a fic for King Arthur (movie), as I've become obsessed with the fandom...but it will come second to this story. I've started chapter 4, and there are some...painful but funny things that happen to poor Sirius...again. 'Til next time!
-Weyrmage