In the Gryffindor Common Room, Albus sat with his little sister Lily and their cousin Hugo, helping them with their Charms homework.
"What exactly is the problem you're having with them?" Albus asked them.
"I want to get these charms right by the next class, Al. I refuse to be the last to get it!" Lily exclaimed. "Emily's already gotten them both and Amita's having some trouble with the Engorgement Charm, but she can do the Freezing Charm!"
"I'm not quite as stressed about it as Lily is, but I want to get these down too. When I tried the Freezing Charm, it made my object a little cold, but it didn't actually freeze..." Hugo pouted.
A stocky boy with dark brown hair walked past them.
"Oh, you two haven't gotten it yet? I got them on my first try!" He claimed.
"Oh shut up, McLaggen and stop lying." one brown-skinned girl with dark hair up in a braided bun scowled at him.
"I'm not lying, Thomas." the boy turned to glare at that girl.
"Yes you are. I was sitting next to you and by the end of class, you still hadn't gotten it right, so as Thomas said, kindly shut up." A boy with cropped black hair and light blue eyes spoke with an Irish accent as he walked past them all on his way to the dorms, idly playing catch with a small ball in one hand.
"I wouldn't have added the kindly part, but thank you, Finnegan." Thomas said.
"No problem!" Finnegan waved cheerfully as he continued to his dorm.
Everyone in their year started cracking up, as well as Albus and a few others present.
McLaggen merely grumbled and went out the portrait hole.
"And with that delightful interlude from Alistair McLaggen over," Lily picked her wand up and twirled it idly. "We can get back to you helping us, my dear brother!"
"These charms really aren't that bad. Do you have the movements down right?" Albus asked.
"I think so..." Hugo picked up his wand and mimed the motions.
"Yeah, that's it. How about you, Lily? Mime the motions with your wand, but don't try casting it yet." Albus instructed his sister.
Lily did so and Albus took her hand and moved it in a slightly different motion.
"Your wand motion was a bit off. Charms allows for a bit more freedom in wand movement, but not when you've not gotten the hang of it yet." Albus said. "But you're only Second Years. It's not like you'll master everything yet. Or even need to..."
James entered the Common Room just then, talking with his friends and his cousin Fred.
"And then Auntie Angelina's new dog Chester doesn't seem to get along well with Auntie Hermione's cat Lulu at all..." He said to them.
"It's true," Fred agreed, coughing slightly from the flu he was recovering from. "That dog moves as swift as the wind. Mum could call him a thousand times, but he still seems to like to messing with... Oh? What's this?" Fred noticed his cousins working together in one corner of the living room.
"Looks like some of our relatives are working together on something. I think I should... pay them a visit..." James suddenly wore a mischievous grin.
"Just a little minor homework it looks like..." Fred sneezed.
"Perhaps," James said. "but I'm still going to try and mess with them..."
While the trio was fixated on their work, they paid little attention to what was going on around them and didn't notice when James snuck up on them, performing minor stinging charms on them.
Their first reaction was to whip around and cast the spells that had been on their minds- the same ones they were just working on.
A cold mist engulfed James- and the entire floor of the Common Room.
"That wasn't supposed to happen, was it?" Lily looked at Albus nervously.
"No... It doesn't really produce a mist..." Albus scowled at said mist as it dissipated.
When it cleared, somehow, the effects of the two spells had combined to produce some interesting results.
First of all, the Common Room floor was completely iced over.
The second result...
James was now twice as tall as he usually was and was frozen stiff.
The Common Room went silent.
A little giggle from a curly-haired blonde girl who had just came through the portrait hole when the spells were cast broke the silence.
Everyone broke into laughter.
Fred, who was laughing the most of all, noticed that his flu seemed to be gone.
"Laughter is the best medicine!" He thought as he laughed. "My flu seems to have completely gone now!"
It took about six Finite Incantatem spells to undo the effects of the Jamesicle as the Gryffindors were already starting to call it.
"I can't wait to tell Mum and Dad!" Lily chortled.
"Y-you w-wouldn't d-d-dare..." James growled, still shivering from the cold.
"This is going to be a Hogwarts legend! The Jamesicle. This is great!" Lucy and Roxanne howled.
"October 16, 2020. Fix it in your minds forever, ladies and gentlemen. The day the Jamesicle was invented.
"Should someone undo the floor, you think?" an Arabic looking girl pointed out as she narrowly caught her twin sister, preventing her from crashing into the now slippery, icy floor.
"What? No way, Shah! We have our own ice rink now!" Thomas exclaimed. "Now if someone could Transfigure some ice skates and perhaps rearrange the furniture in the room..."
"G-glad to s-see that s-s-s-someone is e-e-enjoying m-m-my misfo-misfortune..." James' teeth chattered.
"Oh, we are, my dear brother. We are..." Albus chuckled.
"Come on, Potter. Let's get you to the Hospital Wing. Get you checked out..." one older student took pity on him, conjured some ice skates, skated across the room and helped him out of the portrait hole before vanishing the skates and stepping out behind him.
The Gryffindors then proceeded to rearrange the Common Room so that there was space in the middle of it to ice-skate.
The older students and those who were more skilled at Transfiguration either conjured up of nothing or transfigured from other objects several pairs of ice-skates for everyone.
Being Gryffindors- and being known for being the party house of Hogwarts, they quickly made a party out of it, which only ended later in the night when Professor Longbottom- their Head of House came to investigate how James had ended up as a human popsicle, only just finding out about it as he'd been off school grounds the entire day.
The next day, the story of The Jamesicle Incident as it later became known, began making the rounds of Hogwarts, with people telling their friends and family members in other Houses about it.
Rose, Molly and Louis, who were Ravenclaws, had a good laugh at their cousin's expense and Albus, who was friends with Scorpius Malfoy despite the latter being in Slytherin, vowed to never let the oldest Potter boy live it down.
When James entered the Great Hall for breakfast that morning, he kept his head down and ate his breakfast quietly.
"You're never going to let me live this down, are you?" he grumbled.
Lily and Hugo looked at one another while buttering their toast and then looked at their brother/cousin.
"Never." The two burst out in fresh peals of laughter and triggered the rest of those around them to laugh as well.
"You would think it common sense not to sneak up on and startle someone practicing spell work, but no... That idea never occurred to you, did it?" Albus sipped some tea idly.
James only sunk further down into his seat and did his best to ignore them.
Written for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Competition Year 2 Charms class on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges Forum. Prompts used are listed below:
Animal: Dog
Action: Catch
Phrase: Laughter is the best medicine.
Date: October 16
Event: Going to the Hospital Wing.
Extracurricular: Art: minor, move, call, swift