CHAPTER 23: A THOUSAND POINTS

Peter was tied to a chair in Lady Grey's hall. He had been instructed to act maiden like Not that he ever needed to be told that.

There were webbed footprints all over the floor. The entire hall smelled of cucumber and nuclear waste sushi.

James was crouching behind some old sculptor's pretentious expression of artistic agony. Sirius came into the hall pulling Slughorn with him after having interrupted his bath.

"Sir, you must do something quickly!"

"What's the problem?"

The surrounding archways began to fill up. A gasping audience wasn't necessary but it was nice.

Slughorn stopped and looked at a trail of slimy footprints.

"What is this?"

A puff of gas hit him in the face and he staggered back with a cry of disgust. Peter tightened his shoulders and shut his eyes because the trail of footprints were now heading for him. He had a cucumber in his apron and slimy handprints all over him.

Slughorn's eyes were red and watery. He drew his wand unsteadily.

"I don't feel so… good. Everybody leave now. We need to vacate the hall and get… I don't exactly know who."

Da-ta-da-daa! James knew who and he jumped out from behind the sculpture with his wand already out.

Shishi the Kappa had been given clear instructions: go nuts. And so he began to empty out a rubbish bin looking for a cucumber that had been put there earlier.

"My word!" said Slughorn. All he saw was trash fly out of the bin, because Shishi was invisible.

James stuck a heroic pose and raised his wand over his head.

"Be gone, demon!"
The footprints went away, and so did the puffs of gas. James untied Peter. Somebody tried to get some clapping going but failed. Well he couldn't expect a rousing cascade of ovations every time.

Apparently.

"You dispelled the demon," said Slughorn tiredly. "100 points to Gryffindor. I think I better see doctor Pomfrey..." He staggered off.

Ka-ching.

"Alright! We're almost at 0 points!" said Sirius.

Remus turned up.

"Are you done with that thing you needed Shishi for real quick?"

"Better than great!" James replied.

"Ok. What did you need him for anyway?"

"We needed him to rescue Peter from certain death!"

"...Oh..."

"10 more times and we'll be in third place!" said Sirius. "If we just stick to this McGonagall will decide to not hold us back after all I am sure of it! That is what you said would happen, isn't it Rem?"

Remus looked wrongly accused.

"I've never said that."

"It's what you said. You said that McGonagall was just threatening us and that if we just accumulate a lot of points she will have achieved her goal."

"I did not say that."

"You did say that. If it's not what you said, then what did you say?"

"I meant making points doing good and helpful things. It's the good things, not the points-"

"We are doing 'good and helpful things!' Since we're clearly agreeing, why do you have to act like we're not?"

McGonagall turned up, like she had ears in the nose, sensing their goodwill.

"I just spoke to professor Slughorn. You've been saving many lives lately haven't you?"

"It's all in a day's work," James replied.

"I don't do it for the points," said Sirius. James had to slap his hand down.

McGonagall looked at Peter.

"Who's this?"

"Um," said Peter.

"That's Michelle!" said James. "She got lost in the forest and wound up here."

"Oh dear," said McGonagall. "How old are you Michelle?"

"She's nine."

"Also she has a speech impediment," said Sirius.

"I think we better go and contact your parents straight away."

Suddenly there was a tear in the cosmic fabric of time. Professor Powers hopped out of it, along with his assistant. The rift behind him shrunk into a dot and disappeared.

"Well hello Minerva baby! Do I make you randy? Do I? Oh behave!"
"There you are Eton! I've been meaning to have a word with you!"
"Then can we talk... over dinner? Baby? I can make coq...au vin? Baby? Yeah!"

"Listen. I have to help this little girl get home and after that I want you in my office."

"I want you in my office on my desk! Oh behave!"

"I want to know why you haven't attended any of your own classes. I'm told you're never there."

"What are you talking about Minerva? I have attended every single one of my classes!"

"That's not what my students tell me, nor is it what I have observed."

"But it's true! In fact I think I will attend one of my morning classes right now!"

Professor Powers possessed a magic cooking timer in the shape of an egg. He twisted it and was eaten by the mouth of spacetime.

After a few seconds it spat him out. With his assistant.

"And that will be your homework!" he shouted into a classroom in an alternate reality before the rip closed.

"Do you like sake? Shall I put on Burt Bacharach? Do you mind of Fanny joins us? We're swingers baby!"

"I have to go and contact Michelle's parents. Does your house have a palaphone, Michelle?"

"They do!" came James instantly. "And here's the number!"
He gave her the number to a hotline Slughorn liked to call a lot in the evening.

"Excellent. It's been very good of you to look after Michelle the whole time."

"I don't do it for the points though," said Sirius.

McGonagall tried to read the number. She squinted. She held it close, she held it far. She tried mouthing them.

"I don't have my reading glasses. I just don't know where they could be," she said, while adjusting her glasses.

"You're wearing them," said Sirius because he didn't get it.

"These aren't my reading glasses. I tell you I'd give 1000 points to whomever can find my reading glasses."

James took the magic cooking timer from a shocked professor Powers and stopped time, making sure to also touch Sirius and Remus so they wouldn't freeze along with everybody else.

Time was now still. Professors Mcgonagall and Powers were statues and so was Fanny. And Peter.

"McGonagall's reading glasses! Where are they!"

"Maybe they're in her robes!" Sirius suggested.

They searched McGonagall's robes but didn't find anything. James removed her glasses to look at them more closely.

"She wears Basil & Meduso just like me!"

"I think yours are probably too small."

"Damn we should have asked what they looked like!"

"It's ok. I know they look like that except they have green horn-rims."

"Then we shall get a new pair from the optometric wizard, come on!"

He whistled and they hopped on his sweet ride, flying to the optometric wizard in Hogsmead to ask for a pair of reading glasses similar to McGonagall's non-reading glasses except with green horn-rims. They fast-forwarded time when they saw fit, returned to Hogwarts when they had the glasses and went back in time again.

The cooking timer was easy to use and the chaps learned that day that time-travel wasn't remotely contradictory or complicated. In fact it behaved exactly the way they wanted.

James switched time back on.

"They will be in my chamber somewhere," McGonagall mumbled. "No, now I remember. I had them when I-"

"Here they are!" said James and gave McGonagall her new pair of reading glasses.

She looked at them suspiciously.

"These look new!"
James and Sirius swallowed. Their hearts pounded.

"So they must be mine!" McGonagall brightened up.

PHEW!

"I was so upset that I lost them after I just got them. Where did you find them?"

Um...

"We used the time travelling device to find them," said Remus. "While you were wearing them."

That... would have also been smart.

"Oh," said McGonagall. "Well you mustn't use time travelling devices like that! They are not to be abused! Here I thought you had actually stolen my glasses to get points..."

She laughed at the mere idea of it, and so did James and Sirius, while making mental plans.

"Now return that to professor Powers. Come on, Michelle. Let's contact your parents."

She began to leave with Peter.

"So do we get 1000 points now or what?" James asked.

McGonagall's face... It was like the most reluctant lemon.

"You said you would give 1000 points to whomever found your glasses," said Sirius.

Heavy, heavy sigh like a heavy sighing lemon.

"One thousand points to Gryffindor," she said at last. "Let's see if you can keep them."

What did she even mean by that? James wondered if she was implying something but knew it was just his imagination.

McGonagall and Peter left the hall and Powers hopped in a rift in the cosmic fabric with Fanny.

The Great Point Hourglasses glimmered nearby. Gryffindor wasn't quite as far behind Hufflepuff any more.

The house cup was practically in the bag!