A/N: Does anyone know Madam Hooche's first name? sorry if theres any mistakes.


Chapter 8

Spending the night with Snape?

James sat at the Gryffindor house table, quickly finishing off his Transfiguration essay for their first lesson. Sirius kept sneaking glances over James' shoulder and copying sentences onto his own parchment. Peter was sat opposite Sirius, hastily scribbling whatever came into his head while Remus sat watching them all and eating his toast.

"Why can't we copy your homework, Remus?" James asked for the seventh time that morning.

"Because you should have done your homework yesterday or Saturday instead of spending all day in the kitchens"

"That's not an excuses" muttered Sirius "you were with us Saturday, you'd disappeared Sunday morning but you still managed to do your homework! How did you do it?"

Remus swallowed his toast then said "I actually tried to do my homework"

"So do we" Sirius whispered so only James could hear, "But I'd much rather be eating"

"You can use that as your excuse" James whispered back "Sorry miss, I ate my homework."

"Is this right Remus?" Peter asked worriedly, shoving the parchment under Remus' nose.

Remus' eye's scanned the parchment so quickly that they appeared as brown blurs. He nodded slowly and hand the essay back to Peter, who hand ink stains all over his nose because he'd been writing so quickly.

"It's alright, but that last sentence doesn't make sense."

"Where were you on Sunday?" Sirius asked suddenly. He kept asking the question whenever he thought Remus least expected it. Unfortunately for Sirius, Remus was ready.

"None of your business" He snapped, going pale.

Sirius muttered something that sounded like "Loyalty to friends" but Remus didn't hear. The boys sat in silence for the rest of breakfast, munching toast and writing. The clock chimed 9:00 and everyone got up to leave.

"Did you see that notice this morning, about flying lessons?" James asked as he stuffing his essay into his already over stuffed bag.

"Yeah" Sirius said excitedly, his eye's lighting up "we start on Thursday, but we're with the Slytherins."

James grinned "I'd love to see Snape fall off a broom"

80)

Much to the Gryffindor first year's delight, Thursday came fast. Like many from all wizarding families, James and Sirius spent the days leading up to Thursday trying to impress everyone with Storys of how they had almost been spotted by muggle's while flying.

"… and on a trip to an all wizarding town in American, I borrowed Harry's broom and flew so high I almost crashed into an airyplan." James told a very uninterested Sirius, Travis, Remus and Peter.

"Aeroplanes" Remus muttered.

"Yeah, one of those things."

"I've never been on a broom before" said Travis, glad that James had finally finished. "I didn't even know about Hogwarts until I got the letter. Both of me parents are muggles."

"It's great fun" Sirius assured him "Isn't it Peter?"

Peter shrugged "Dunno, I've never been on a broom before either. My dad doesn't trust me on one. What about you Remus?"

Remus looked over the book he was reading "Nah, I'm not really into flying"

The bell rang, stirring James who had been staring at Remus with his mouth hanging open. "Come on; let's go to the Quidditch pitch!"

They stepped out into the sunlit grounds. Although it was still September the sky was cloudless and the sun was blinding. As they walked towards the Quidditch pitch, James kept muttering stuff like "Could do with a little less sun" and "hope they have good brooms" while Remus recited tips he'd gotten from his book at top speed. A bunch of Slytherins stood in a huddle at the entrance of the pitch. When they saw James, Sirius, Remus, Peter and Travis approaching, they started pointing and laughing.

"Hey! Four eyes!" A brown haired boy at the back of the group yelled "think you can handle a broom!"

James turned red but chose to ignore the comment. A tall, skinny man marched up to the Slytherins then said in a loud voice "Come on class, Hurry inside then we can get this lesson started."

Everyone followed him into the Quidditch pitch where a load of old brooms lay on the ground. The Slytherins quickly found the least battered brooms. James got the oldest, mouldiest broom there. He heard a snort and someone shout "Ha, look at that old log Potters got to ride! Mines much better"

James shot Snape a nasty look as the Slytherins chortled. Great James thought I get the broom that looks like it'll break the minute anyone touches it and Snape gets the newest one here.
Once the Slytherins had settled down the man introduced himself "My name is Mr Monkey" (Insert a fresh wave of laughter here (immature little first years)) "Ok, I know my names funny, but we really need to get started. Please hold your right arm over the broom and say 'up'"

Everyone, gasping for breath, held their right arm over their brooms and shouted 'up'. James' broom instantly shot up into his hand as if it was magnetised to his palm. He looked to his left and watched Sirius' saying up a couple more times before the broom flew into his own hand. To Sirius' left, Remus' broom was rolling feebly on the ground while Peter's remained motionless (A/N: Not based on what happened to Hermione and Neville, I wrote this bit before I realised that that's what happened to them) . After a while, the whole class had their brooms firmly clasped by their side.

"Right" said Mr Monkey, clapping his hand together. He showed them how to mount their brooms then went around the correcting their grips. Once everyone was ready, he said "On my whistle, you will kick off from the ground, raise a few feet in the air then come back down by leaning forward slightly. Make sure to keep your broom steady and kick off hard. Three… two… one…"

He blew the whistle and everyone stamped the ground. James and Sirius were two of the few who actually got off the ground. Remus remained on the ground, stomping his feet in frustration and Peter had frozen in fear. James touched down lightly and dismounted his broom whereas Sirius landed firmly on the ground beside James, his knees buckled and fell face first into the mud. Mr Monkey blew his whistle again and everybody stopped.

"That was good" He called "But I think we need another go. So everyone set up again the go on my whistle."

After several tries, everyone managed to get into the air. Mr Monkey got them all to divide into groups of five then told each group to fly around the pitch once. In their group, James and Sirius were the only one's who remained airborne. Remus lost control and gave up, Travis was so surprised that he was actually flying that he slipped sideways off his broom and landed on the group of Slytherins below him. Peter, on the other hand, crashed into one of the fifty foot goal posts as soon as he set off. They did this a few more times (Not crash, fly) until everyone had gone around the pitch at least once.

"Ok then everybody" Mr Monkey shouted, clapping his hands together again and forcefully reminding James of Slughorn, but thinner "I think you've got the hang of it now. Now, still in your groups, I want you all to hover in the air and see how many times you van throw these tennis balls" (he pointed to a basket of small, yellow balls) " To each other without dropping them. We'll do that until the end of the lesson."

"What's tennis?" Sirius asked, picking up one of the balls and throwing it to Travis.

Travis caught it before mounting his broom and kicking off wobbly. "It's a muggle game. It's normally played with two players holding rackets and batting a ball to each other trying to make the ball go out of the court"

"Sounds completely stupid and boring to me" said James, "Quidditch is much better"

He hovered steadily between Travis and Sirius. Suddenly his broom started bucking uncontrollably beneath him. James clung onto the handle tightly with his hands and knees. The broom gave another wild lurch and threw James off completely, sending him flying into Remus. They both fell to the floor. James' landing was cushioned by Remus who had hit the ground with a loud thump.

"Are you alright?" Mr Monkey asked over the howling laughter of the Slytherins. He rushed forward to where James and Remus lay. "I… I'll go and get the nurse. I want to see no-one in the air when I get back."

Everyone landed softly on the ground. Sirius and Peter pulled James' crushing weight from Remus as the Slytherins approached.

"Told you that you couldn't handle a broom Potter" The brown haired boy shouted.

"Who are you?" Sirius asked rudely. He walked up to the boy and looked down at him.

The boys grin faltered slightly when he saw Sirius towering above him. "Johnny Parkinson. Why do you wanna know Black? Gonna tell the teacher?"

The Slytherins around him sniggered.

"What did you do to James' broom?" demanded Sirius, glaring at Johnny.

"N…never said it was me" Johnny said, his voice shaking slightly "It… it was Snape"

Sirius advanced on Snape "Should have know"

"Just call it revenge" Snape said coldly.

Sirius drew his wand and Snape mimicked him. They both pointed their wands directly at each others hearts before Lily pushed between them.

"He hasn't done anything" Lily told Sirius.

Sirius spluttered "Didn't you see… he… he jinxed James' bro-."

Sirius was hit in the side by a leg locker curse. He promptly fell backwards.

"Move it mudblood" muttered Snape, shoving Lily out of his way and pointing his wand at Sirius again. Next second, Snape was on the floor with James on top of him, punching every bit of Snape he could reach.

"Don't call her a … you-know-what" James panted as Snape pushed him off "and… don't you ever… curse my friends"

Snape lashed out at James. The Slytherins were cheering, girls were screaming and some Gryffindor's were trying to pull Snape away from James. Snape pick his broom from the floor and smashed James around the head with it. James froze and blinked stupidly before collapsing in a crumpled heap on the floor.

80)

"Hey guy's, he's waking up"

James opened his eyes from the darkness that was blinding him. Blurred shapes surrounded him. One shape moved towards him, and then everything became clearer. James adjusted the glasses on his face and beamed at Remus, Peter and Sirius.

"What happened?" He asked in a horse voice.

"Well, Snape whacked you around the head with a broom." said Sirius simply. "Then I whacked Snape around the head with your broom. It snapped in half!"

"You've both been out cold for a couple of hours" Remus said.

They all looked around to see a lump in the bed across from James. Snape's greasy head was visible on the pure white pillow beneath his head.

"The nurse told us you both have to spend the night here" Peter said quietly.

"WHAT?" James said, shocked.

Sirius smile faded. "We also got detention tomorrow night. Me, you and Snape."

"Great" James said sarcastically "Two nights with Snape"