A/N: Ugh, I'm not too satisfied with this chapter. I went back and forth many times on whether this and the next should be combined into one, but in the end, I think they work better apart. The next chapter will be the last of second year. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! Enjoy!
Chapter 20 - 2.10 or "A Tricky Bit of Magical Mayhem"
"Let's go over it again…Sirius will activate the diversion, Peter and Remus will be the lookouts, and I'll sneak into McGonagall's office to get the book and duplicate it."
It was lunchtime on a Friday several weeks later and the four boys were huddled at the end of the Gryffindor table, talking in low voices. The plot to steal McGonagall's book would take place that afternoon and all of them were rather nervous, knowing how many things could go wrong.
"Right," said Remus, who had been very pale and shaky ever since the previous full moon. Sirius was slightly worried that he might pass out from the stress of the plan. "The important part is timing, though. Sirius, remember that you can't cast the spells until James is in place. It's only going to work if James can slip into her office as she's leaving it, or else he won't be able to get through her locking charms."
"And after you cast your spells, it will be five minutes before they activate, remember, so it has to be timed perfectly," added James.
"I know, I know," said Sirius, growing impatient with the constant rehashing. "Five minutes, and then it will stay activated for ten minutes – more if anyone tries to vanish it – which is why I have to stay on the scene for a bit, at least, to keep James updated."
"And how long will the copying-thingy take, again?" asked Peter.
"The Duplication Spell? We don't know, do we? It depends on how many pages the book is," James said, pushing his empty plate away so he could rest his elbows on the table in front of him.
"Oh yeah…"
Despite the general anxiousness regarding the situation, James had an energetic calmness about the whole thing; he never seemed rattled, particularly compared to Peter and Remus. It was one of the things Sirius liked the most about James.
Sirius, though he could recognize a vague nervousness lingering somewhere in his gut, was digging happily into his pudding. "James'll have the cloak, though, so even if something goes wrong, the worst that could happen is he gets trapped in McGonagall's office."
James frowned. "Right, but if you get caught, Sirius…"
"They might expel me, I know, which is why I won't get caught."
"You have the book, right, James? In your bag?" Remus asked. He had a plate full of roast beef in front of him, but had not touched it in his nervousness. The gravy over top of it had congealed and now was rather unappetizing.
James reached into his bag, which contained the Invisibility Cloak, his pocket mirror, and a thick, leather-bound journal that they had just recently purchased through owl-order. He pulled the journal out and showed it to Remus.
"You two worry too much," he said, grinning at Peter and Remus.
Sirius drained his glass of pumpkin juice. "Amen to that."
Remus glanced at his watch and then looked around the Great Hall. McGonagall – as she always did at lunchtime – had retreated to her office about fifteen minutes prior. A few other students had started to get up to move toward their next lessons. "We should get moving."
They all nodded and stood up, James grabbing the mirror out of his bag and shoving it into his pocket before slinging the bag over his shoulder. Once they had made their way into the entrance hall, Sirius turned right to head up the marble staircase, while the other three started toward a corridor off the hall, a back way that would take them to McGonagall's office.
"Good luck!" Sirius shouted from the top of the stairs, grinning at them, his voice echoing around the entrance hall.
Remus moaned. "What is he doing?"
"Being an idiot," said James, watching as Sirius disappeared from view. "If he gets caught, they'll expel him for sure."
"If you get caught, they'll expel you for sure," said Remus.
"Impossible. I've got the cloak."
Sirius laughed lightly as he strolled down the second floor corridor. They all worried too much, honestly. Sure, he technically could get expelled for what he was about to do, but they had done plenty of things they could have been expelled for since coming to Hogwarts, and the vast majority of those plans had worked out flawlessly. He smiled and waved at Ev Linney and a group of other Hufflepuff second years and ducked up a staircase that would lead him to the fourth floor.
The fourth floor was mostly deserted, thankfully. Sirius glanced at his wristwatch; he had ten minutes until the bell would ring, which meant he had another minute before needing to activate the four small disks. He and James had sneaked up to the corridor during break that morning to hide the disks, which were barely visible in four corners of the hallway behind two suits of armor, one statue of a grumpy-looking warlock, and the tapestry leading to the hidden staircase, behind which Sirius would be hiding in a few minutes. It was not a particularly secret staircase – the boys had deduced that it was one of the more widely-known hidden passages in the school – but it was rarely used due to the rickety nature of the steps and the fact that they tended to vanish at random intervals. Sirius was not remotely concerned with the idea of another student traversing it before the bell rang, and even less concerned with the idea of getting stuck in one of the steps; he and James had spent countless hours in the weeks prior learning the pattern behind the vanishing stairs, and he knew exactly which ones to skip and when.
A few older students appeared and made their way toward the Transfiguration classroom, so Sirius wandered to the far end of the corridor, not wanting to appear suspicious. He checked his watch again. It was time.
He glanced around, but the few students now mingling in the corridor were not paying him any attention. As surreptitiously as he could manage, he pointed his wand at the first disk, the one behind the statue, and whispered the incantation to activate it. The disk glowed blue for a moment, and then settled back to the steely grey it had been before. Heart pounding, he then activated the two that were hidden behind the suits of armor, and made his way casually toward the tapestry. Checking around one more time, he slipped easily behind the tapestry and onto the top step of the hidden staircase, and activated the fourth disk, which sat close to his feet.
Grinning, he hopped down to the fourth step and leaned against the stone wall before pulling his mirror out of his pocket.
"James Potter!" he whispered into it.
James's face appeared in his mirror, looking nervous and somewhat distorted, as James was clearly already covered in the Invisibility Cloak.
"Sirius! How'd you do?"
"Piece of cake," said Sirius. "All four will activate in –" he checked his watch once more, "– three minutes. You in position?"
James nodded and flipped the mirror around so that Sirius caught a glimpse of McGonagall's closed office door, only a few steps away. "Remus and Peter are stationed at either end of the corridor, and they know to stall her if she comes back down here for any reason."
There was a noise at the bottom of the staircase and Sirius started. "Bugger, someone's coming. I'll get them out of here quick-like, but let me know once you're in, yeah?"
He stashed the mirror back into his pocket without even waiting for a response, just as the person became visible, hurrying up the stairs. It was Gin Leigh. She stopped several steps below him when she saw him standing toward the top of the stairs.
"Hello," she said, glancing around him curiously.
His nerves, already on edge, fluttered in his stomach. "Hullo."
"Why are you just standing there?"
"Hm?" he said distractedly. "Oh. Just waiting for James. He got held up in the entrance hall."
This made no sense, of course, and she knew it. She frowned at him in confusion.
"Why are you waiting on the staircase, then?"
He shrugged. "Seems as good a place as any."
"Okay," she said impassively.
He counted the stairs between them and then said, "Jump the next one up. It'll vanish if you step on it before dinner."
"Oh. Thanks." She hopped the indicated step and then paused once more as if she were waiting for something. Finally, she tilted her head at him. "Well do you mind getting out of the way? I'd rather not be late for History of Magic."
He shuffled over to the side as she approached him, but as the passageway was rather narrow, there wasn't a lot of room. When she made it to the top of the stairs to squeeze past him, he instinctively grabbed her wrist. She froze.
"What are you doing?"
"Er, you might not want to go that way," he said, his brain moving a bit more sluggishly than usual.
She looked at him funny. "Into the corridor? I'd have to go all the way 'round to the moving staircase, then. It'd take me twice as long."
They were very close together, and for a moment he forgot all about the plan and the disks and McGonagall and James. He had not been alone with Gin since that night in the library months ago and he wondered what she would do if he kissed her again. Then, shaking himself mentally, he remembered why he was there and that his friends were counting on him.
"Okay, then," he said, shrugging and letting go of her wrist. "You'd better hurry."
She gave him a slightly concerned, very suspicious look, and then hurried through the tapestry. He snuck a peek after her through a gap in the tapestry – students were filing into the Transfiguration classroom, some chatting loudly, others desperately trying to finish their homework. Sirius checked his watch again, just as Gin disappeared from his sight. He pulled his face back, not wanting to be seen. It wouldn't be long now…
Sure enough, he had just started to wonder whether the Zonko's disks were faulty or not when there was a loud series of pops and then a low gurgling noise, followed by a strong whoosh. Several of the girls in the corridor screamed loudly, and Sirius fought not to whoop with delight at how predictable girls could be. They needed those screams to draw a hurried McGonagall away from her office. He chanced the narrowest of glances into the hallway, which was now filling up with water, the invisible lines between the four hidden disks acting as imperturbable barriers against a movable swimming pool. The water was close to a foot high when Sirius felt a soft buzzing in his pocket and pulled his mirror out to see James's grinning face.
"I'm in," James said in a loud, frenzied whisper. "Daft girls…sounded like someone was being tortured up there. McGonagall bolted straight away. Has she got there yet?"
Once again, Sirius peeked through the narrowest gap in the tapestry and could now see McGonagall hurrying toward the scene, her wand at the ready. As he watched, the professor splashed right into the pool, soddening her formerly crisp robes up to the knee, and tried to comfort some of the wet students.
"Go on into the classroom, then, Jorkins, and you too, Laslow – it's just a Zonko's product, I'm sure…just some water, nothing to worry about…"
The water level stopped rising around waist-high and Sirius distinctly saw McGonagall, who had waded over to the doorway of the Transfiguration classroom, wave her wand to try and vanish it.
"She's here!" Sirius said into the mirror again. James grinned broadly and pulled the cloak from his head, causing his hair to stand in every direction imaginable. "She tried to vanish it! It's locked for more than ten minutes now, for sure. Do you have the book?"
James nodded and held it up for him to see. "It's 150 pages. Should take about five minutes to duplicate. Now get out of there before someone sees you. I'll throw the cloak back on just in case she comes back for some reason."
"She won't," said Sirius confidently. "I'll meet you in History of Magic when you're done. Thank Merlin for Binns not having any idea who's supposed to be in his class…"
Sirius sneaked into the History of Magic classroom only a minute or two after the bell had rung and, thankfully, Professor Binns was so engrossed in reading his notes that he did not notice him. Smirking slightly, Sirius sat down in his usual seat in the back and looked around. As this classroom was several floors away from the Transfiguration corridor, nobody had noticed anything amiss. His eyes fell on Gin, who had been staring at him. When he caught her staring, he shot her a grin, and she shook her head slightly and turned away. Word would spread about the moveable swimming pool – he'd be surprised if everyone in the school didn't know about it within the hour – and Gin would know immediately that he had been involved. He thought back to the previous year, when she had made him show her the kitchens in exchange for her silence about the prank they had played on Snape, and wondered what she was going to make him do for her this time. Strangely, the thought excited him.
The door to the classroom opened again several minutes later and James, Peter, and Remus all walked in, looking guiltily at Binns, who could not fail to notice the three of them walking into his classroom ten minutes late.
"You're late, boys," he said in his dry, wheezy voice.
"Sorry, Professor," James said, making his way to the back row and sitting down next to Sirius, as Peter and Remus also took their seats. "We got caught up in the library, missed the bell."
Several of their classmates glanced back at them, clearly disbelieving of the lie, some smirking, some rolling their eyes.
"Ten points from Gryffindor for your tardiness, then," said Binns, turning back to his notes and continuing in his monotone voice as if there had been no interruption.
Sirius looked at James eagerly and James gave him an excited thumbs up. He had done it.
When Lily entered the library after supper that evening, she found it nearly deserted. A few ambitious Ravenclaws were huddled together near the Charms shelves, and some scattered N.E.W.T students worked silently nearer the Restricted Section, but it was a Friday night before a Quidditch match, and only those diligently devoted to their studies could be found hunched over dusty tomes. Unfortunately for Lily, her best friend fell distinctly into this category. And even more unfortunately, on this particular night, Lily did not.
"Took you a while," said Severus as Lily approached his table. Despite the large assortment of parchment and books that littered the table in front of him, he had left the area on his right completely clear for Lily, though he hadn't even looked up from his notes at her. "Have an extra helping or two, did you?"
In actuality, she had dawdled at the Gryffindor table, knowing that this would be an unpleasant task and delaying it for as long as she reasonably could. Since their reconciliation a few weeks prior, she and Severus had met in the library every evening after supper to work on their ever-expanding pile of homework. There was a tacit agreement to their nightly ritual, and now Lily was going to shirk it.
"I can't stay," she told him. Now, his eyes snapped up and found her.
"What do you mean?"
She shifted, trying to reason with her own guilt. It was not as if she were committing some terrible betrayal. Nevertheless, she sighed and sat down in the empty chair next to him.
"It's Mary's birthday. We were going to do something fun for her."
His back, which had been curled toward the table as he read, now stood rigid. His face had gone stony. "Mary?" he repeated.
"Mary Macdonald," Lily said. At his blank stare, she rolled her eyes. "You know Mary, Sev. She's in my dormitory." When he still did not respond, she added, "I'll still meet you tomorrow, though. During the Quidditch match, when we'll have the library to ourselves? We can look into the properties of Murtlap essence like we had talked about?"
For a few long moments, he just stared at her, his face unreadable. Then, at length, he said, "That will be fine," and turned back to his notes, and Lily fought back a small smile at his eventual submission. Apparently the prospect of Murtlap essence was appealing enough for him. He slid his open Charms text closer toward his notes before saying, "It's for the best. Charms started late and I've got catch-up reading to do. We both know you're no help in Charms, anyway."
She snorted and slapped his arm lightly. "I'm better than you at Charms, what are you on about?"
His expression didn't change, nor did his gaze move from the text before him. "Are not."
"Are too. Who got top marks on the essay on Chattering Charms, eh?"
"You're naturally chatty. I'd imagine if there was an essay on a Ginger-Haired Charm, you'd earn top marks on that one, too."
He had said it in the same bored voice, but she grinned at him nonetheless, relieved at the idea that he was being playful with her. He wasn't too cross, at least.
"Why did Charms start late?" she asked.
He flipped through the book in front of him, clearly looking for a specific passage as he told her, "Some simple-minded numbskull turned the Transfiguration corridor into a swimming pool this afternoon, hadn't you heard? They had it blocked off, so we all had to go back down to the entrance hall and back around. The lesson started twenty minutes late."
Of course she had heard. The prank had been the most-discussed topic of the day among the gossipy Hogwarts population. The general consensus among the students was that the swimming pool had undoubtedly been the work of James Potter and Sirius Black, but last she had heard, no one had been apprehended for the trouble-making. Lack of evidence, she supposed. Still, any hint of a mention of Potter or Black these days between her and Severus was dangerous territory.
"Oh," she said, trying to keep her voice casual. "That's…that's too bad."
But Severus seemed to know what she was thinking. He looked up at her once again and narrowed his eyes. "It couldn't have been them," he said pointedly.
Lily decided to play dumb. "Hmm?"
"As elementary of an idea as it was – any dunderhead can purchase a movable swimming pool from Zonko's – the magic was tampered with and was far too advanced for cretins like Potter and Black. Lestrange overheard McGonagall saying that there had been a responsive locking spell cast upon it, making it impossible to vanish, and –"
"Okay," interrupted Lily, shushing him with her hands. From her desk in the corner, Madam Pince was craning her neck their way, clearly annoyed by the way Severus's voice was carrying. Besides, Lily had no interest in discussing Potter or Black tonight, especially with Severus, especially when his volatility where that topic was concerned was what had led to their most recent rift. "I agree. No way it could have been them…they simply aren't clever enough. You're right."
Satisfied, he turned back to his notes and muttered, "Of course I'm right."
"Maybe the next charm you should invent should be one that can hoist people up by the scruff of their necks so they can be lifted over such immature hallway obstructions," she said, grinning.
Something like a flicker of interest, or perhaps pride, crossed his features. "And yet you think you're better at Charms than I am."
She rose from her chair now, glad to be leaving him in decent spirits. The whole exchange had gone better than she had expected. "Perhaps I'll concede that one to you, Sev, just this once." She let her hand drop against his shoulder for a brief second before backing away and saying in a voice just soft enough to not carry to Madam Pince's desk, "I'll meet you here tomorrow, after breakfast, all right?"
His only response was the jerk of his head, and he did not look up again from his parchment until she had exited the library.
That evening was a lively one in the Gryffindor common room. While Friday nights in general were always more bustling than weeknights, Friday nights before Quidditch matches were downright raucous. Add that to the fact that somebody had turned one of the main school corridors into a giant swimming pool for about a half-hour that afternoon, and the noise-level was bordering on exuberant.
Sirius, though, was less than entertained. He sat at a corner table playing a lazy game of Exploding Snap with Peter, while next to them, Remus pored over the new leather journal. The formerly blank journal now contained a duplication of all the contents of McGonagall's book and was charmed to look like a beat-up copy of Quidditch Through the Ages to anyone who had not given it the password. Not remotely interested in the card game and losing patience every time it took Peter several minutes to play a card, Sirius leaned his chair back on two legs and surveyed the common room.
James had gone over to sit by the fire with a few other members of the Quidditch team, and was now in the midst of a lively discussion with Fiona Beal, his Captain. In the opposite corner, several sixth years sat in a close group, passing around a half-full bottle of an unidentified dark liquid, their clishmaclaver growing louder and louder as the evening wore on. At a table nearby, Lily was laughing at something that had been written on a scrap piece of parchment along with Adin and Kaia, Adin's younger sister. Sirius looked around for Gin, but she was nowhere to be seen.
"Your turn, Sirius," said Peter. Sirius let his chair fall back to the ground with a thump and then quickly tapped one of the cards with his wand. It exploded and engulfed Peter in a cloud of smoke.
"Ha! One more point and I win," he said, laughing at Peter's exaggerated coughing. He turned to Remus, who was not paying them any attention, and grabbed the journal out from under his nose.
"Hey!" Remus said angrily, reaching for the book, but Sirius shifted and kept it at arm's length from him. "Give it back. I'm trying to understand how all of this is going to work!"
"Give it a rest, Moony. We've only had the thing for a few hours and you've not taken your nose out of it since we got it. There'll be plenty of time for working out the spells. Tonight, we should celebrate our accomplishments."
Remus rolled his eyes and gave up trying to snatch the book back from Sirius. "Yeah? We haven't exactly accomplished anything yet."
"Haven't accomplished anything? Are you mad? We thoroughly disrupted the entire school this afternoon with a tricky bit of magical mayhem, managed to break into McGonagall's office to steal a book that will tell us how to become illegal Animagi –"
"Will you keep your voice down?" implored Remus, looking around them anxiously.
" – and we did all of this without getting assigned a single detention. I'd say that warrants a night without your nose in a book. Plus, I'm bored and James is busy being all Quidditch-y."
"Why are you bored? We're not done with our game!" protested Peter.
Sirius sighed, dropped the book onto the table, and tapped another card, which also exploded.
"Oi!" yelled Remus, diving onto the table to grab the book before it went up in flames. "Sirius, you idiot, you almost just lit the book on fire!"
"Whoops," said Sirius, amusedly watching Peter try to stamp out his smoldering robes. "Well that would have livened things up, wouldn't it have?"
"After everything we went through to get this thing? You're a bloody dumbarse, Sirius," snapped Remus.
Sirius's eyebrows shot up, a shadow of laughter crossing his features. "Language, Moony. You have impressionable innocent ears listening, after all."
Remus snorted and went back to reading the book, a flush creeping up his neck from below his collar. "I don't think there's anything innocent about you."
"I wasn't talking about me, I was talking about Peter here. He's only twelve, you know. Poor boy's never been exposed to anything remotely indecent. You don't want to corrupt him before his thirteenth birthday, do you?"
"Well then he should stop hanging 'round you, shouldn't he?" said Remus from behind the book, the corners of his lips twitching.
"I'll be thirteen in six weeks and three days!" said Peter. "And I'm not innocent, I know lots of swear words…" Curls of smoke were still issuing from his robes, but no one was paying him any attention.
Sirius was distracted when Didina Murphy walked by, holding hands with a fourth year by the name of Barrett Merriweather. He watched them take a seat in one of the squishy armchairs by the fire that Newlyn Gallit had just vacated, Didina curling up against Merriweather and twirling his hair between her fingers.
"Do you think we'll win tomorrow?" asked Peter after a few moments of silence.
Sirius was barely listening, still watching Didina. "Hm?"
"The match! Do you think we'll beat the Snakes?"
"James certainly thinks so," said Remus. "Says we're a cinch to beat Slytherin."
"Well James would also say we're a cinch to beat Puddlemere United, wouldn't he?" said Sirius.
Remus smirked. "Confidence has never been his problem. Maybe that's why you two get along so well."
"Because I bring him down to earth?"
"Because yours is the only ego that can rival his."
Remus, Sirius thought, was at his best when he was joking easily with him and James. Sirius chuckled at the barb, and certainly took no offense. "You're on form tonight, Moony."
"Glad I can entertain you," he said dryly.
"You'd entertain me more if you'd put down that book," Sirius shot back.
At that moment, the portrait hole swung open and Gin, Mary, and Raeanne climbed in, each carrying a lumpy bag. Without missing a beat, Sirius jumped up and walked over to intersect them right as they reached the table where Lily sat with Adin and Kaia.
"Hi," he said, smiling at them.
"Hi Sirius!" said Adin as she, Lily, and Kaia rose from their seats to join the other girls, all looking at him expectantly.
"Did you need something, Black?" asked Lily.
Sirius frowned at her tone. "Geez, Evans, can't a guy just stop by to say hello?"
She softened just a little. "Sure, but with you, there's usually an ulterior motive."
He eyed the bulky bags that Gin, Raeanne, and Mary had just brought in. "What are you girls up to?"
"We're having a party," said Adin. "It's Mary's birthday."
"Excellent!" Sirius said. "Now we're talking…this place needed some livening up…"
"Sorry Sirius," Raeanne said, walking past him toward the dormitory staircase, the others following behind her. "No blokes allowed."
"What?" he said, crestfallen, hurrying behind them as they neared the stairs. "What fun is that?"
"Oh it's plenty of fun for us," said Raeanne, giving him a cheeky grin.
He scowled. "Fine. Hey Gin…can I have a word?"
Gin froze at the bottom of the staircase, the other girls looking at the two of them curiously. She gazed at him for a moment, her expression inscrutable, and then handed her bag off to Lily. "Here, take these up, I'll be there in a sec."
Once the others had disappeared up the staircase, he pulled Gin aside and leaned casually against the wall. She looked at him expectantly.
"What was in the bags?" he asked.
"Drinks and sweets from the kitchens. Why?"
He shrugged. "Just wondering."
She crossed her arms and looked around impatiently. "Is that all?"
"No," he said, distracted for a moment by the sight of Didina Murphy kissing Barrett Merriweather rather vigorously in the squishy armchair. He turned back to Gin. "Why were you on that staircase today?"
"What?"
"The hidden staircase? It's not a common way to get from the Great Hall to the History of Magic classroom. Seems like…odd timing."
She didn't answer him immediately, but instead seemed to be searching his face for something before she said, "I had stopped in to talk to Professor McGonagall about our Transfiguration assignment. I'm…having some trouble."
For a moment, he was taken aback by the way she could be both so transparent and so guarded at the same time. Then, he grinned at her. "So what will it be this time?"
"What will what be?"
"Your terms. If I remember correctly, last year, when we turned Snape pink and trapped him in a bubble, you held that over my head for about a month and threatened to tell McGonagall unless I showed you the kitchens…"
She looked at him blankly. "You remember correctly."
"So what's it going to be this time? Don't play dumb, I know you've put two and two together…"
"I'm not playing dumb," she said, frowning slightly and gazing at him. "I know you're the one behind the movable pool – though I'm sure James played a part as well – I just don't care."
"Really? You're not going to hold this over my head like you did last year?"
"No."
"Well why not?"
"Last year I wanted something from you that I knew you wouldn't give me otherwise. I don't need anything from you now and if I do, I'll just ask," she said with a shrug.
He didn't know if he was relieved or disappointed by this. Across the common room, James had rejoined Remus and Peter at their table and Sirius noticed them watching him, smirking. He turned back to Gin, who was still looking at him as though waiting for more. "Is that all, then?" she asked.
"What are you girls doing up there anyway?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," she said, her standard impassivity betrayed by a ghost of a smile.
"I'm thinking gossip and giggles," he said, before adding hopefully, "Maybe a pillow fight?"
Her laugh made him swell with pride. "Something like that," she said. "I'm only there for the food."
"Right. I never took you as a gossip. Or a giggler."
"Yes, well, if I don't get up there soon, all the caramel bars will be taken, so I'll see you later, Sirius," she said, before hurrying up the stairs. He watched her disappear and then made his way back to the table in the corner, where his friends were all watching him curiously.
"What was all that about?" James said.
Sirius shrugged. "Are you done with the Quidditch talk for the night, then?"
"Probably," James said. "Fiona went wandering off with Gallit a little while ago."
Grinning, Sirius shook his hair out of his eyes and glanced around to make sure no one was too close. "Good, because we're going to sneak up to the girls' dormitory."
"Why?" said James, brow furrowed.
"They're having a party…Mary's birthday or some rubbish like that. They took a bunch of drinks and food up, and I want to know what they're talking about."
James didn't seem overly interested, but nodded all the same. "Okay, I'm in. As long as we don't get stuck up there too long, Sirius, I've got to get my rest before the match tomorrow."
"How are you going to get up there?" Peter asked, eyes wide.
"The Invisibility Cloak," said both James and Sirius at the same time, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Won't work," said Remus, who had not even looked up from his book once during the conversation.
Sirius frowned at him. "What do you mean it won't work?"
"Boys can't go up the girls' staircase, didn't you know?"
"What?" James yelped. "Why not?"
Remus sighed and finally looked up at the two of them from over his book. "The founders made it like that. Apparently they thought that boys aren't as trustworthy as girls." He paused and gave them a pointed look, but when both James and Sirius only stared back at him with mingled expressions of disgruntlement and confusion, he added sarcastically, "I wonder why?"
"So what happens if we go up there under the Invisibility Cloak?" asked Sirius, extremely disappointed by this bit of unexpected news.
"The stairs will turn into a slide and you won't be able to get up them."
"Well there's got to be a way around that."
"Why do you want to go up there anyway?" Peter asked.
"Why not? I want to know what those girls are talking about up there."
James laughed at the innocent expression on Sirius's face. "You want to know if Gin is talking about you."
Sirius flicked a piece of dirt from the front of his robes nonchalantly. "Gin…Adin…Muller…Evans…really any of them could be up there swooning over me right this very minute. I think I deserve to know if that's the case."
"I take back what I said earlier," said Remus, returning his eyes to the book still in his hands. "You definitely pass James on the ego factor."
"Hey!" protested James indignantly.
"So how are we going to get up there?" asked Sirius, growing impatient.
James bit his lip and pondered this for a moment, before shrugging. "Seems you're out of luck, mate."
This was not what Sirius wanted to hear. He huffed and narrowed his eyes at the girls' staircase, as if it had done something to offend him personally.
"We'll figure a way around it eventually," he said, resolute. "You mark my words."