CHAPTER 14: THE GRAVEN SLYPUFFS
For their boxing day detention James and Sirius had to clean owl sitting sticks. It began to feel like they were constantly serving detentions and they couldn't understand why.
"No we do have a maid," said James. "But I still sometimes have to clean my own room anyway."
"But why?"
"Because it builds morale!"
"How?"
Alas... James couldn't quite explain the how bit.
"It's so I won't grow up to be a posh twit who doesn't even know what a mop is, like you."
"I don't just know what a mop is, I have had to use one."
Sirius made a face that said you-don't-know-everything-about-me.
"Oh really?"
Sirius nodded and recounted the time he had accidentally broken a really expensive bottle of Chartreuse and then attempted to clean it up with a make-shift mop fashioned from his mum's least absorbent dress which he had then had to burn in her bathtub. He recounted the punishment he had received for charring the walls and spraying Ajax on the ash with a great big smile.
"Your mum really put you in a car and pushed it off a cliff into Lake Eerie?" James asked.
"Winter was pretty cold that year. The ice was pretty thick. Because I survived I wasn't allowed out of my room for six weeks. I was only allowed to eat blue yolks."
James hoped he was embellishing again. He had on a few occasions shown to be a, well, a liar. He wiped off a stick with a rag.
"One time I was sent to bed without dinner."
"What for?"
"For calling the hunters on Mr Teller-Penn."
"For being a good citizen? I'm sorry but I just don't think your mum is right in the head."
Sirius whipped out some nail polish and sat down.
"Don't just sit there and paint your nails like some damn princess!" said James. "You have to clean some too!"
"Why! The owls will just crap on them again! Why couldn't I just see the headmaster..."
Instead of cleaning owl sticks Remus had to see Dumbledore. It wasn't entirely clear what end of the stick that was.
"Why would you want detention with Dumbledore? I didn't think you were a fan."
"Did you know that 'detention with the headmaster' used to be a euphemism for being expelled?"
"Really?"
"It was when my granddad was the headmaster. Back then detention with the headmaster was not fun."
"I'm sure it isn't so bad now."
"Perhaps not. Dumbledore couldn't even expel a child eating giant."
"How do you know that?"
"Because his spine is jelly. What a wuss."
"If you say so."
"My granddad had to expel a child eating giant one time."
"A child eating giant went to Hogwarts?"
"Pretty hard to believe I know! But I guess that just shows what an open mind my granddad had, and how willing he was to give anybody a chance. But... Well, he was a child eater so he had to go, it was inevitable, he wouldn't fit inside any cage. Dumbledore was so upset by it. That old man does not have all the cards in the stable."
"You mean he did not want to expel a child eating giant?"
"No! And another time my granddad had to expel a child eating squib after it was revealed that he was using magic enhancing substances to advance and again Dumbledore threw a tantrum about it. He was always looking to oppose my granddad because he was jealous of his authority and power."
"Wow! Imagine being a squib...as well as a child eater."
"All squibs are child eaters. It's part of their defect. That's Dumbledore for you. Friend to all vicious cannibals. Birds of a feather or something."
James wiped off another stick. The outrageous things Sirius implied sometimes. It was as if, even though he had in a way been taken out of the Slytherin house, there was no taking the Slytherin house out of him.
Well. Nobody was perfect.
Except for James.
And he was going to take the Slytherin house out of him even if it required beating.
"You're not seriously calling Dumbledore a cannibal!"
"Of course not but what difference is there between the vegetarian butcher and the man who buys his meat, you know?"
James didn't know what that meant, nor was he sure, he wanted to go down this road at all.
By lunchtime McGonagall stopped by to tell them they had served their detention. On their way out of there James and Sirius passed the headmaster tower. Remus was just coming down the stairs, not at all looking traumatised or beaten down like he had enjoyed the taste of the whip.
"How was your detention?" James asked.
If it could be called that.
"Pretty good," Remus replied.
Clearly it could not. It was a little confusing.
"Did he give you a stern talking to?" Sirius asked, slightly hopeful.
Remus shrugged.
"I don't think giving stern talking to's is his style."
"But did he at least say: I'm not mad. I'm... disappointed?
"No."
"What the hell did he just invite you for tea?"
"He just helped me catch up a bit. There was tea."
Biscuits, too.
"Hey that's good!" said James. "That is just so unfortunate that you are your aunt's only living relative and that she won't take her pills unless you sing her that special song. I hope you can convince her to get rid of all the chickens so they will stop ruining your concentration. There's got to be something you can use for earplugs, that they won't just pick out of your ears and eat."
They headed on. Today's weather was extraordinarily superb. James was itching for fresh air and to expel some excess energy.
"Great weather today!"said James. "How about later we go do it!"
"Yeah ok," said Sirius.
James turned to Remus, to ask if he was in.
"Are you in?"
"On what?"
"We're playing quidditch with the Great Willow!"
"I thought we were going to Hogsmead on your Ziggy Stardust," said Sirius. "To investigate the case with the," Whip out local newspaper, "Woodland Lurker!"
"Woodland Lurker?"
"Did you not read about the Woodland Lurker? I thought you were reading for ages."
"Yeah the sports pages. There were twenty of them. What's this about the Woodland Streaker?"
"Woodland Lurker."
"Is he some sort of streaker?"
Sirius straightened out the newspaper and opened it up:
The past several months there have been numerous reports of Hogsmead residents getting lost in the Mead Woods and winding up in odd places. This has caused rumours about the Woodland Lurker, a mysterious creature that causes paths through the Mead Woods to shift or disappear. 'I was just walking in the Mead Woods like I have all my life,' says Credulus Drinker, 'when all of a sudden I found myself walking down the motorway. Thankfully a lorry driver picked me up. If you ask me it is that dastardly Slim Shadow!'
"And I am inclined to agree!"
Close newspaper.
"Yeah that is classic Slim Shadow right there!" said James. "So good to see that people are catching on to all this. The Slim Shadow must be stopped!"
"Hey did you hear about Mitch Greenwood?" Remus asked.
"Mitch Greenwood the commentator? Did I hear about how Mitch Greenwood ate an entire Amanita Muscaria and nutmeg sandwich and was found in a ditch full of his own sick and with terrible stomach cramps? Bugger me that sounds awful. Some people will get high on anything. I once sniffed cough medicine. My cousin Steve said it was going to make me trip balls. By which I thought he meant, I was going to do some incredible tricks with balls. All it did was make my nose sting. I think Mitch was let off with a warning because they couldn't prove that he had eaten an entire Amanita Muscaria and nutmeg sandwich. He said he had IBS. But Margie Peregrine and the gang, they know. They say it's 'typical Mitch'. He's just the commentator, though. Had he been a player his quidditch days would have been over. If not for the rules, but simply because, who wants someone to turn up high on an Amanita Muscaria and nutmeg sandwich? Seriously, apparently the sandwich was ground nutmeg between two caps. I wish Mitch had invited Brian Shephard. Then I wouldn't be wasting away into nothingness right now..."
A small cloud rumbled, flashed and began to rain over James.
"Ok who did that?" Point up at cloud.
"Me." Sirius waved it away.
"Did you also hear that Mitch Greenwood just quit?" Remus asked.
"What? Mitch Greenwood quit?" said James.
"He dropped out of school. Said he wanted to focus on his band."
Being a commentator had never been James's dream. That was a job for mediocre quidditch players that failed the try-outs. But he didn't have a lot of choice. He just wanted the foot further in, whatever it meant. He just wanted to be a cog in the machine, whatever it meant.
"You go without me! I have to see McGonagall!"
James ran off with a gun shot sound effect.
And skidded to an abrupt and screeching halt outside McGonagall's office.
"Professor McGonagall!" Pant pant pant and grab chest. "Did Mtch Greenwood really quit?"
McGonagall was putting some tinsel back up.
"As commentator? Aye he quit."
"Can I replace him please?"
McGonagall got the tinsel back up on the curtain rod. A cat came and pulled it down again.
"I'm sorry. But we already found a replacement."
Typical. 'Better late than never', yet another bullshit proverb.
Oh well.
It wasn't the end of the world. Although James had already started fantasising about how he, through the sarcastic wit of his commentary, offended the Slytherin players by making jabs at their mums, suggesting that they were not very fit, and even less faithful to their husbands, and that their children were all adopted.
A little cloud started raining over him again.
"Oh by the way, Mr Potter?"
Damn she couldn't read minds, could she?
"Yes professor McGonagall?"
"You may not be able to play on the house team right now, but that doesn't mean you can't play on any team at all."
"Oh yeah, because of loser quidditch with the losers!" James muttered sourly.
"Well. You seem to have made up your mind."
He sure had and why had she even brought them up? QFA wasn't a team! There were enough people there to form three teams and some of them even switched positions all the time, like they all wanted to take turns and weren't even committed to one! Also they just played by the most basic child rules, and only barely followed those, and ignored all the rules that mattered!
Then he thought: Just what had McGonagall really meant to say? Was it... that he could form a team of his own? A mixed house team?
He recalled something... Hadn't there, in bygone days, been mixed house teams?
Not that they ever made it very far, or lasted.
Usually.
"Did you know," said McGonagall, "that when I went to Hogwarts there was a mixed house team called The Graven Slypuffs that, against all odds, beat everyone else and won the whole thing?"
"You mean, that fifty years ago today, The Graven Slypuffs won the school cup?"
McGonagall's eye twitched.
"How auld dae yie think I am?"
"18 mam! Oh professor McGonagall, can I be the one to revive The Graven Slypuffs pretty please?"
McGonagall opened a drawer and took out a chest containing a crystal pea whistle.
"Just know that I can take this fae yie as easily as I can give it tae yie."
"Yes I know!" James felt like a jittery puppy. Why was she giving him a warning like that? What had he ever done to warrant such suspicion? He had been a f angel since he had arrived here!
McGonagall gave him the whistle, which was a million times more beautiful than the Holy Grail.
He could see it before him; him turning up at the gym at loser quidditch hour, all hands-on-hips, and the inspiring montage that followed (to the tune of some up-beat arena-power-rock song that hadn't come out yet but had something to do with tigers) where they went from sad amateurs to international celebrities. Captains Margie Peregrine and Ursula Vulture dropping their whistles they were that turned-on...
At lunch his mind was a machine on overdrive.
"I need to start thinking about who I want in my team!" he said at lunch.
"How about what's-his-face, that's not any good?" said Sirius.
"Brian Shephard? Why do I want somebody that's not any good? That is beyond stupid!"
"Sometime I will explain to you what 2d chess is."
Alas... James couldn't start putting together the team until everybody was back from the holidays.
Already he found the wait unbearably boring.
It was as if Christmas hadn't even been.