I watch my yellow cat
invade my red cat in the yard.
The feline war has raged for years
so I assume it'd be to hard
for me to drive my foot between
them. I would never risk the scratch
just to prove to one or both
of them a cat is just a cat.
Sorry for the delays, AP exams are a bitch. But, uh this one's a bit longer to make up for it. Read and review.
"You have the floor Remus." I instantly regretted it. It came out sounding all nasty, and I really wasn't angry at poor Remus. All my anger at the moment was reserved for James, and just generally the entire Slytherin House. But mostly James. I threw him another glare in case he'd forgotten in the last ten seconds that I was still mad at him.
Well, I wanted to give you the heads up. Amber and Masters have been saying that Radford wants a photo op with you two and Dumbledore for the Prophet. I guess I can see the angle, 'show a unified front against the Death Eaters' and all that, but really I think with the Dunhill attacks and the break-in in June his reputation is beyond saving."
Walden Radford was heading down a slippery slope. Just two years into his position as Minister of Magic and Radford seemed completely incompetent. Not that it was any less than expected, seeing as the last Minister, Nobby Leach, kicked the bucket after a rather nasty confrontation with a Niffler. During Leach's time in office his overly strict policies, like the enforced curfew and the shutdown of the Floo network, had created resentment toward the Ministry. Radford had promised a turnaround, but his lax rule hadn't had quite the desired affect. Pureblooded families were turning to the Death Eaters for security.
"Bloody brilliant. There's a war going on and instead of, you know, doing the normal thing and fighting it, he wants to pose for some pretty pictures. I mean, I know me and Lily can flash some winning smile, but do you really think that's going to intimidate old Moldy Voldy." James put on a high voice in what had to be the worst impression of the Death Eater Leader. "'Dear Lord, this picture, they're smiling and waving at me! Merlin, the teeth, they're so white, it's blinding me! I surrender! I throw in the bleeding towel; they just look too damn united in the picture!'"
Remus, who was struggling to keep from laughing, cut him off. "James, cool it. It's harmless, just a picture and an interview."
"Well, he has a point. It's a complete waste of time. This isn't exactly an issue that people are on the fence about. You either support the murdering of innocent muggles for the 'greater good' of the wizarding race or you've got a problem with it—"
"Yeah, it's not like you can be like 'well, I really like what he's doing for the economy..."
"Jesus the two of you are nearly worse than dealing with Ted and Tory." I felt a shiver run through me with the mention of Remus's younger siblings. The only thing they had in common with their older brother was the same light brown hair. The twin devils had just reached the horrifying age of three, where they could move faster than even I could, I still remembered the disastrous occasion that I'd been tricked into babysitting them. They'd somehow managed to tear the entire house apart in under twenty minutes, it'd taken several illegal stunning spells before I'd gotten the situation under control. Which by the way I'd never gotten a letter from the ministry about that…good old Radford. Never Again. Never.
James also seemed to recall the horrible duo, in an instant his wand was at Remus's throat, his handsome face devoid of any humor. "Take it back. Now."
"Righto. My bad. Note to self don't bring up the twins. You know I've got to go talk to Emily, she said she needed a bit of help on that Arithmancy summer assignment. I'll see you two at the feast." Remus started edging towards the door as he spoke, clearly a bit shocked by James reaction, though in all honesty when talking about his siblings it wasn't exactly an overreaction.
"Oh don't go Remus, just because James is being a prick, its no reason to leave." I shot a glare at James, who seemed to instantly transfer his anger from Remus to me. Well, it was his fault for getting all violent anyways.
"No, no. I'd better go." The change in mood didn't go unnoticed by Remus, his brown eyes darted back and forth from James and me as a small smile started to spread on his face. "You guys had probably best be getting started on those prefect schedules together anyways…" With that he backed out the door and scampered down the hall to find the compartment. I trudged over to the door, prefect schedules in hand and made my way back into the Head's Compartment. I collapsed onto the nearest armchair with a sigh, pleasantly surprised by just how comfy it was, and busied myself with the schedules.
"So I'm a prick, am I?" I'd nearly forgotten James was with me, but there he was sitting on the table, a dark scowl across his face. I looked back down at the schedules, and attempted to just ignore the comment. But somehow I could never seem to resist the opportunity for a fight with Potter.
"Yes, I thought we'd already established that ages ago. Do we need to go through all this again Potter?" Perhaps thinly veiled sarcasm wasn't the best way to approach the situation, but damnit if it wasn't the most fun. I watched in glee as his eyebrows furrowed together in that way they always did when he got mad.
"That's right. I'm an insufferable prick, a conceited arsehole, a jackass, a jerk, a twat, a bully, a bigheaded moron, a prat, a giant tool, an annoying bastard, a lazy son of a bitch, a temperamental idiot, an egomaniac, an arrogant berk, a douche bag—"
"A douche bag, I don't think I've used that one. What's it mean?" I cut off his spiel that had been growing louder and louder without even thinking. Had he come up with an insult that I hadn't thrown at him already?
"Err, nothing. I mean…God" I seemed to have messed up his argument with my interruption. He stuttered and ran a hand through his already messy black hair in that irritating manner of his. He took a deep breath and started over in a much calmer manner. "I mean damnit I kind of thought we'd be past petty insults at this point. I know we don't get along. I know that for some reason you think I'm insufferable. But…I'd have hoped by now you'd have realized that I'm not a jackass or an arsehole. At least not anymore that is." He waited for me to respond, but when confronted by silence carried on. "I thought we said we were going to start over, but here we are making all the same mistakes as we always do. If you're not willing to give me a second chance then were never going to get along." He shook his head with a disappointed look and walked out the door.
"Wait, where are you going?" He didn't respond.
……………………………
"Wow Lily, I mean no offense, but this is the worst photograph I've ever seen of you." I set down my orange juice and leaned over to take a glance at the Daily Prophet in Kate's hands. There on the front page under the headline of 'Minister of Magic Shares Wisdom with Head Students' was the photo of the minister Dumbledore, James, and I. I had to agree with Kate, I was waving in the picture, a strained and highly faked smile upon my face, clearly uncomfortable with the fact that James had decided to place an amicable arm around my shoulder. To be fair James and Radford didn't look too hot either, James was barely concealing the disgusted look upon his face as he stood next to Radford who despite his obnoxiously large smile and egregious wave still looked like a nervous old man. Only Dumbledore looked to be his normal serene self.
"Ooh, let me see." Sam snatched the paper out of Kate's hands and examined the picture with interest. "Good lord, that is awful." She remarked as she leaned in more getting a closer look at my face. "I mean Lily I could have loaned you some makeup to reapply before this was taken…" And if that wasn't just the most perfect way to start the first day of class I didn't know what was. Oversleeping and still waking up so exhausted that it'd had taken a painfully cold shower just to even begin to wake up. Then there had been the daily ordeal of attempting to tame my unruly fiery devil spawned red hair. I couldn't find a sock. And bugger me I'd somehow managed to spill orange juice on my robed, which by the way went splendidly with the aforementioned bright red hair. The only joy I had came from the knowledge that James was still asleep, he'd been out cold when I'd came down for breakfast.
"Well, I think she looks beautiful regardless." Apparently he was not still asleep; James eased himself into the seat across from me and attempted to give off a charming smile, but failed miserably. He looked like his morning was going rougher than mine. A shadow of dark hair indicated that he'd yet to shave. He still had a bad case of bed head, his jet-black hair was completely sticking up on one side of his head and the other side was wildly messed up. His glasses were askew, his eyes bloodshot and his face drained of any color. He'd clearly just woken up only minutes ago. So I felt a teensy bit bad about leaving without waking him. But, far from apologizing for that I just took another bite of oatmeal and rolled my eyes.
The long night had put me into a rather foul mood. And from the looks of it James wasn't much better off. We'd been whisked off the train the night before and taken straight to Dumbledore's office for a three hour meeting on safety and security. It had started out with the general guidelines, responsibility, honesty etc, and segued into what I could only assume were allusions to the mounting anti Death Eater movement. The whole speech had been peppered with the theme of constant vigilance. Safety was of the utmost importance and so on, but really I didn't see how safety was such a big concern at Hogwarts; we had Dumbledore. After the meeting we'd been rushed to the kitchens for a hurried dinner (the feast and the sorting had already ended). Then it was back out for an hour of patrolling, before finally finding our way to the Head Dormitories.
"Whats this Peter?" Remus looked at Peter inquisitively as a school owl dropped a rather bulky newspaper into his lap before flying off. Peter grinned as he took the tie off the front and spread the paper out on the table.
"The London Examiner." He replied proudly.
"That's a muggle
newspaper." Kate remarked, I looked closer and sure enough the
photographs weren't moving. What on earth was Peter doing with a
muggle paper?
"What gives Petey, since when do you read muggle
papers?" James leaned over Peter's shoulder to get a better look
at the foreign paper.
"Since when can you read?" Sirius asked with a smirk.
"Since this summer. You know what a fool I looked like in front of all the girls when they realized I didn't know the first thing about England?"
"Hey wait, yeah. Peter you've still got to tell us that birds and bees story you wouldn't say on the train" Emily insisted, and suddenly my ears perked up. Peter's stories were amazing, Emily and I always thought he should be an author. No matter how fabricated they might be, Peter always told the most entertaining stories.
"How'd you look like that big of an idiot Pete? You can't tell me you didn't know anything." Sirius seemed unconvinced that Peter's lack of knowledge could keep him from picking up ladies. And I had to side with Sirius, he wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, yet he still managed to have all the girls in Hogwarts swooning over him.
"Yeah, whats it matter? Besides, how could you not know like the basics?" James interjected through a mouthful of toast, sad that even with his mouth full we could all still understand him.
"I'll get to that Emily. And because it just does make a difference if you meet more intelligent women, they want to discuss intelligent things." Peter smirked with his shot at Sirius, and his sometimes less than stellar choices in girls. Madison Reynolds in fourth year…dreadful. "And James, you don't know at thing either I bet. Who is the prime minister?"
James's cocky demeanor evaporated immediately. "Err…Churchill?" I winced at his answer. Ok, Peter definitely had a point. There was no way these boys could go off and live in the world next year if they couldn't even name the current prime minister. Really now, Churchill had been out of office for more than twenty years.
"Wrong. It's James Callaghan. See what I mean? We don't know squat." Peter folded the paper up for a moment to look at James seriously, a feat that was difficult to do seeing as James had to be nearly six inches taller and looked several years older than Peter. "Even five year olds in London know who their prime minister is." James seemed suitably embarrasses, though it was clear from the sheepish looks being passed between the others that he wasn't the only uninformed one. Kate (the only other muggle born) and I looked at each other in horror.
"Uh oh. Hey when you've finished reading that, maybe could I borrow it, to do some studying on?" Everyone turned to look at Sirius with eyes wide in shock. Sirius Black asking for something to read. Impossible. "What? I don't want to lose any ground with the ladies. And now I've got that new flat in Suffex…" Sirius trailed off, attempting to explain his decision and Peter beamed a glow seemed to come off his already tan skin.
"Ok, now for the birds and the bees story." Everyone settled in, ready for a good story as Peter began. "You know I went to Seville this summer for holiday with my dad. Lovely place, beautiful city, beautiful ports, beautiful women. And so easy too. Err, well not loose per say, they were just easily charmed by my lovely British accent." At first glance most people would dismiss Peter as having absolutely no talent whatsoever with women. But he had this certain charm to him, he wasn't intimidating, he could smooth talk without being inappropriate (like Sirius) or just showering the girl in compliments (like James), and he was cute in a little boy sort of way. "Anyways, my very first night in town, I go out to enjoy a bit of the night life in Seville. I'm not much of a dancer so I went over to the theater to go see if there were any girls at the pictures. I didn't even get there when I had this girl begging me to take her back to my place. I didn't even say a word to her and she was all over me. Exclaiming how handsome I was, how much she wanted to…uh wanted to get to know me better. So I took her back to the hotel and before we're even inside the room she's on me. Immediately though she's asking to use the toilet. So I let her go, and I wait. And I wait, and wait. She never comes back. After about ten minutes I go and check the bathroom, she's gone; in fact she's left the hotel entirely, and with her had gone a hundred of my money. That was the first time I've ever paid for sex, literally. Anyways, that managed to scare me from trying to pick up any more women for a couple weeks. That bit of the trip was boring, unless you're really dying to hear about the giant bass I caught." Everyone shook their heads. "No? Didn't think so. Ok, so two weeks later, is when the fun begins. I decided to go try out the clubs. And Merlin I may be an awful dancer, but those girls more than made up for me with how well they could dance. I had this one girl and, it was way too easy. All I told her was tu eres tan bella como el mes and she was all ready to get to it."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"It means you're as beautiful as the sea, Sirius. Anyways I learned from my mistake from last time so I refused to take her back to my place. We ended up on a picnic table in a park, it was so dark out I could barely even see her. We were just getting to the good part, when bzzzzz!" Peter buzzed and traced a curvy line with his finger. "A fucking bee. Now she's freaking out and has the brilliant idea to try and slap it away with her handbag. Which worked just great, cause then it got ticked off. Next thing I know I'm in the grass in the fetal position screaming in pain. The bloody thing got me in the balls." Everyone at the table, including the crowd that had gathered around to hear Peter's tale busted into laughter. I couldn't help myself, I could just picture the scene in my head. James fell out of his seat and Emily looked about ready to start crying.
"No." Remus glanced down at his own groin with shock and a grimace on his face.
"Yes. At that point the girl decided to just run off and leave me dying in the fucking park. Some bum finally comes over and helps walk me over to an urgent care facility. I spent the next week indoors with a bag of ice over my bollocks."
"Wouldn't that cause some like serious shrinkage? Like if they're cold long enough they never drop back down?" Emily looked around the table noticing the dumbfounded looks of her peers. I had no idea what she was going on about. "What? It's true. Bryce told me that my hands were too cold and it could have a permanent damage…" Bryce, who the heck was Bryce? I knew Emily's list of 'acquaintances' was a long one but for the life of me I couldn't remember a Bryce.
Sirius laughed as Emily trailed off realizing how big of a fool she looked. With a chuckle Sirius explained. "Methinks he just wanted your warm mouth on them." He ran a hand over his smooth chin with a smirk on his face. "Props to the kid I wouldn't even have thought of that trick…"
I looked at Kate sitting next to me with an eyebrow raised, who was Bryce. And then somehow we both remembered at the same moment. "Bryce!? The boy from fourth year?"
Sirius continued on in his monologue failing to notice that no one was listening to him. Though to be honest he'd probably have kept on talking even if he knew. "…though really I've never needed to trick a girl to do favors for me. They've always been perfectly willing to participate in any exercises…" Lord the boy just loved the sound of his own voice.
Kate and mine's discovery seemed to snap Sam into action. "You did that in fourth year? I mean even I made it to—" Her exclamation was cut short as Emily clamped a hand over her mouth and stifled her screams.
"…now for me I think it's because of the charm. I have a certain way of making girls feel special, needed…" Sirius continued to speak to no one in particular.
"Stuff it Sirius, no one cares. Shouldn't we be heading to class soon?" Remus finally got fed up with Sirius's spiel. And thank goodness because without his intervention Sirius probably would have kept talking to his death. At least one person had common sense.
"Yeah. Right now actually." The voice came from above. I looked up to see Preston Mills standing behind me, waiting at Sam's side. The sixth year Hufflepuff was practically Sam's servant (though he looked young enough to be a little brother), waiting at her beck and call, walking her to her classes, carrying her books, etc, etc. They'd been friends since being paired together in potions in third year; they'd managed to melt through not one, but two cauldrons in their first day together.
"Already? Time flies when you're having fun." Sam stood up and dumped her notes into Preston's arms. She turned around and then proceeded to grab Sirius by the tie and pull him across the table to plant a kiss on his lips before running off to class with Preston. I blanked, my brain shut down.
Several minutes later when my brain had started working again I realized that I was near alone at the Gryffindor table. I looked over at my only companion, hoping to see some sign of recognition in the eye's of Sirius's best friend. But no, James was sitting there, still bug-eyed in shock with his mouth hanging open, looking about ready to catch some flies.
"James. James!" He seemed to come out of his stupor at my last yell.
"Did you, did you see that too?" He looked around seeing for the first time that everyone else had left. "And where did everyone go?"
Before I had a chance to answer the bell rang throughout the school, signifying the start of first period. "I saw it. I don't believe it. And I believe they went to class, where we should probably be right now." A great way to start the year, Head Boy and Girl are late to their first class.