There was no way we were gonna get Regulus to wear his shoes. No way. Why? Well, the fact he was hovering way out of our reach kind of contributed to that fact. I considered, momentarily, stunning him, but I wasn't sure that we'd be able to catch him.

Sirius, meanwhile, had a different idea. Before I could say anything, he'd grabbed his sword and a knife from his potions kit and started scaling the wall. I groaned in exasperation.

"Sirius Black, not only are you going to fall and break your neck, you're gonna get your sword and knife stuck in the wall," I said, crossing my arms. Sirius ignored me, and continued scaling the wall. Regulus flew over to him and poked him in the side, causing him to lose his grip and come crashing down, landing in his bed and completely destroying it.

"Git," Sirius muttered, pulling himself out of the rubble of his bed and rubbing his head.

"Just let him miss class," said Remus. "Your dad'll probably give him detention for the rest of his life."

Regulus paled and floated down slightly. Not much, but far enough that I could grab him by the heel and pull him down. He yelped, and started to struggle upwards, but Sirius pulled out his wand and yelled, "Stupefy!"

I glared at him as Regulus stopped struggling.

He shrugged. "He's the one who made me fall in the first place. Now get his shoes on."

I rolled my eyes and let go of Regulus's ankle. He immediately started floating upwards, so I grabbed his arm instead. "Will one of you lot hold him for me?"

Peter leapt to the rescue, grabbing Regulus shoulders and holding him down. I quickly shoved Regulus's shoes onto his feet and tied them, before waking him.

"Huh? What?" he exclaimed, as Peter let go of his shoulders. He floated into a standing position. "Aw, c'mon!"

Sirius, maturely, stuck his tongue out at his little brother.

"Come on," I chuckled. "Let's go get some breakfast."

We ended up using a semi-permanent sticking charm on Regulus's shoes. By the end of breakfast, he'd almost managed to take them off. So, now he couldn't.

We had Dad's class first that day. What would he be teaching us? We had no idea. So far, Dad was much, much better than our original DADA fourth year teacher. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't sleep through lessons, unlike in classes like Binns's, where I slept through lessons in the original timeline, anyway.

"Today," Dad said, "we will be duelling."

I grinned.

"I want to see what you can do in terms of defensive and offensive spells," he continued. "This means no prank spells, James and Sirius."

"Darn it," muttered Sirius under his breath.

"I'm going to pair you up," said Dad. "And you and your partner will duel for the rest of class as I walk around."

He proceeded to walk around the room and put students into partners. Sirius and I were partners, as were Remus and Peter. Lily got paired with Marlene McKinnon.

"Now, don't go easy on me Prongs," said Sirius.

"Wouldn't dream of it," I replied, before whipping out my wand. "Expelliarmus!"

Sirius jumped out of the way, and my spell just barely missed. "I knew you'd do that. Stupefy!"

"Protego!" my shield went up just in time and Sirius's stunner bounced right off of it. "Levicorpus!"

In seconds, Sirius was hanging upside down, cursing under his breath.

"I win," I said.

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch, Prongs," said Sirius. "Stupefy!"

I brought up another shield quickly. "That the only spell you know, mate? Well, let me give you a taste of your own medicine. Stupefy!"

Sirius, who'd just managed to break out of the Levicorpus, lunged sideways to avoid being hit. "Haha, real funny, Prongs. Try this on for size!"

He charmed a nearby desk to go flying at me. I quickly transfigured it into a feather that landed harmlessly a few feet away. "Unconventional, but I suppose it works! Petrificus totalus!"

Sirius, instead of dodging, put up a shield. "Nice try. Aguamenti!"

I yelped as I was showered with freezing water, before spluttering and retaliating by transfiguring the feather from before into a net and sending it flying at Sirius. Sirius dodged, but the net caught his foot and he tumbled to the ground. I grinned. "Expelliarmus!"

Sirius wand came flying out of his hand and into mine. I walked up to him smugly. "I win."

"Good job boys," said Dad, walking over. "Smart to use transfiguration and charms in your duel. Now, everyone else, give it a try. No more watching James and Sirius like a gawking crowd at a Quidditch game. You two can go again, of course."

Sirius and I grinned; this was gonna be a fun class.

"That was not fun."

In retrospect, going all out in a duel was not a good idea. In fact, you could say it blew up in our faces. Literally.

"You're an idiot, Prongs," said Sirius, lying next to me in a hospital wing bed. I stuck my tongue out at him crossly. "You could of killed me!"

"I'm not that dumb," I replied irately. "Besides, if you'd been bright enough to throw up a shield charm (which, by the way, is what I thought you would do), you wouldn't have been hit with that cutting hex."

"You shouldn't have used a cutting hex on me!" Sirius protested.

"You shouldn't have used that bone-breaking hex on me!" I retorted.

"You wanted to go all out!"

"So did you!"

We were both silent for a minute.

"Sorry," I muttered quietly. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Me neither," said Sirius. "That was probably one of the dumbest things we've ever done."

"Nah," I chuckled. "We've done stupider things before. You especially."

"Definitely," Sirius snickered. "Did you see you Dad's face? He was so angry!"

"That face means Mum's gonna know," I grimaced.

"Well, it was good practice," Sirius shrugged. "And, hey, Madam Pomfrey's letting us out at the end of the day! We get to miss class!"

"You are going to fail your finals," I said, rolling my eyes. "And I will be laughing at you with my perfect score because I've already done this crud."

"Oh, shut it," retorted Sirius. "You, Lils, and Remmy can tutor me."

"Rem won't tutor you if you call him that," I pointed out, and Sirius pouted.

"Wanna sneak out?" Sirius suggested. I gave him an exasperated look. "Alright, alright, I get it. Sheesh. I'm bored, though. Bored. As in, so bored I'd rather talk to Bellatrix about Voldemort, bored."

"That's pretty bored," I remarked. "Be careful, though. You might jinx it and all the relative peacefulness we've had for the most part of this year will completely disappear, and I will blame it on you."

"Gee, thanks," said Sirius. I rolled my eyes and closed them for a moment, thinking of what we could possibly do to stop being bored. Suddenly... "Bloody heck!"

My eyes shot open.

"What are you doing in the hospital wing again?" said a fifteen year old Regulus Black.

"Reggie! Not fair, you're older than me!" Sirius whined. I leaned over and whacked him in the back of the head. "Ow! Jamie!"

"Stop whining, you sound like a baby," I retorted. Sirius scowled childishly. "Hey, Reg, what's up?"

"Just thought I'd drop by, see how you were fairing," he said, eying both of us as we lay in hospital beds. "Not so well, I see. What'd you do this time?"

"Well, he-" I pointed accusingly at Sirius- "broke my arm."

"And he-" said Sirius, pointing at me- "cut me all up with a cutting hex."

"So there's no arguing that it wasn't your own faults this time," Regulus snickered, sitting on the foot of Sirius bed. "So, what's going on since last time I visited?"

"Well, you tried to bake cookies for Sirius," I started. "But they turned out absolutely awful. I got kidnapped, and the gang came to my rescue. The cookies turned into pretty good weapons, and you acquired your frying pan of doom-"

"Frying pan of doom?" Regulus asked sceptically. Slowly, a grin spread across his face. "I'll have to look into that. Go on."

"Then Sirius was almost killed," I said, and Regulus paled. "But he wasn't and he was finally out of St. Mungo's. And then we pranked the entire school. And we went with Moony and found out Voldemort is camping out in the Forbidden Forest. And then Sirius got all possessed the next full moon and led us to a place that isn't supposed to exist. And then over Christmas you became immune to gravity. So yeah."

"Immune to gravity?" asked Regulus incredulously. "How does that work?"

"You float," Sirius said simply. "Really simple. And you really don't like walking. We had to stun you this morning."

"That was nice of you," muttered Regulus, but he didn't seem upset. "And somehow, you managed to beat the snot out of each other and end up here."

"Yup," Sirius and I proclaimed in unison. "Pretty much."

"Some things never changed," he muttered under his breath. "Why?"

"Well, we were duelling," said Sirius.

"What idiot let you two duel?"

At that moment, my dad walked up behind Regulus with a bemused expression. I hid sniggers, as did Sirius. "This idiot."

Regulus turned and paled. "Oh- er- I meant-"

Dad held up a hand, and Regulus was silenced.

"Regulus, aren't you supposed to be in class?" asked Dad. "Have you been messing with aging potions?"

"Er... would you believe me if I said I'm visiting from the future?" Regulus said meekly.

"No."

"Go figure," I snickered. "He is, actually."

"Like I'm going to believe any of you," Dad snorted. "Reg, get to class."

"Let me rephrase," said Regulus slowly. "I can't get to class because there is no class."

Dad gawped at him. I blinked.

"What do you mean, there is no class?" I asked cautiously. Regulus looked at me gravely.

"Hogwarts has been taken. He's too strong," Regulus said darkly. Dad paled. "Voldemort is. Dumbledore is leading a resistance... your parents are in it, James. Me and the rest of the Marauders are in it. So's Sev. A lot of other kids too. Most of the teachers. It's terrible."

"Merlin," Sirius breathed. "It's that bad?"

Regulus nodded tightly. "I'm glad you're safe, James. It's terrifying when one of the Marauders goes on a mission and I don't know if they're even alive. At least I know you're here."

"Oh," I said. "This may be a weird question... but... have you had any weird dreams? Like with Sirius- the one from our timeline?"

Regulus eyed me strangely. "No. Why?"

"Just wondering," I muttered.

"You're really different," said Sirius after an awkward moment. "You seem so... hard. Like... like..."

"Like I've lived through a war?" Regulus asked dryly. "Reality check, Sirius. I'm living through a war. I have to go now- looks like Frank's back. Bye."

He faded out of view without another word. I stared at my hands darkly. Dad, deciding whatever he had to say could be said later, left the room. I didn't look up.

"Mate," said Sirius softly, and I felt the bed shift as he sat beside me. "I know what you're thinking. It isn't your fault, okay?"

"Yeah," I said noncommittally. "Whatever."

"Prongs, snap out of it," Sirius said. "Whatever happened was not your fault! You're here."

"Exactly!" I snapped, looking up at him. "I'm here! I could be there, helping out. But I was selfish!"

Then I realised what I'd said.

"Sorry, Sirius, that came out wrong-" I stammered. Sirius smiled slightly.

"It's fine, mate," he said. "I'm glad you came back. I can't imagine the boring life I'd've had if you didn't. And there's not much else you could do there. Heck, if you'd stayed, you might've already died. You weren't being selfish. You put everything on the line to save me. That's not selfish."

"When did you become a philosopher, Padfoot?" I asked, smiling slightly.

"I never did," Sirius grinned. "I was just about to call you incredibly stupid and stupendously dumb and completely idiotic and-"

"Alright, that's enough," I laughed, trying to look put out but failing miserably. "You are not helping!"

"I beg to differ," Sirius grinned, before giving me a solemn look. "Really, mate. Don't go beating yourself up about this."

I smiled. "I'll try not to."

A/N: What the heck was I thinking with the crud going on in the original timeline? Oh well... James and Siri are idiots, but what else is new? Thanks to my reviewers, N.E. Person, Lady Loophole, jeremiah123, sk8boards4ever! Free... er... video of Jamie and Siri's duel! :D Hope you enjoyed!

I don't own Harry Potter.