(no subject)
The Gryffindor common room was emptying quickly but that was more than fine by Cat. She eyed her prey over her Runes book, tense and waiting. “Move, bloody move!” she growled under her breath.
Almost, her prey was almost -
Seizing her moment she pounced. Closing her book with a snap, she darted forward and finally seized control of her favorite sofa. The spots of the previous occupants (“Bloody seventh years,” softly muttered under her breath) were still warm. Cat sighed and stretched out on the settee, settling into the soft leather. “Now this is the life,” she grinned, opening her textbook again. It would be a better life next year when she was a seventh year and able to lay claim to the sofa.
“Talking to yourself again?”
Cat whipped her head around and frowned at her best friend. “You hush. I caught you giving your mirror a good snog last week, so me talking to myself is positively normal compared to your perversions,” she replied with a cocked eyebrow.
Cissy flushed, her eyes darting away in embarrassment. “Anyway,” she began, nudging Cat’s feet out of the way so she could sit at the opposite end of the couch. “I overheard the boys talking in the library a few minutes ago.”
“Mmhmm,” Cat murmured, her eyes straying down to her book.
“They had a most interesting plan,” Cissy went on, critically eyeing her flawless nail polish.
Cat sighed and closed the book giving Cissy her undivided attention coupled with a weary sigh. “They’re always cooking up some get rich quick scheme or some prank or another.”
A truly evil grin graced Cissy’s patrician features and Cat found herself unconsciously leaning forward feeling a familiar thrill shoot down her spine. “Ah, but I think you’ll absolutely love this one.”
********
“Have Cissy and Cat gone to bed?” Ronnie whispered to James.
James glanced quickly around the corner of the boy’s stairwell taking in the common room with one very fast sweep of his eyes before flattening back against the wall. “Yeah. About bloody time too. We’re in the clear.”
“Men, we boldly go where no Gryffindor male has gone before,” Sirius murmured quietly standing a couple of steps above where Ronnie stood a few steps from the bottom. He clutched his Phoenix broom as if it would provide extra courage. “Are we Gryffindors?”
“Yes!” Ronnie and James whispered excitedly.
“Are we brave?”
“Yes!”
“Are we bold?”
“Yes!”
“Are we stupid?”
“Er . . .”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Are we gonna get caught?”
“NO!”
“Then men, let’s fly!”
The three boys tipped the handles of their brooms together in salute and marched out the portrait hole.
“A little late for flying don’t you think?” the Fat Lady inquired with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s not curfew yet,” Ronnie retorted defensively.
“Hmm, that little defense never worked for your father or your uncles either,” she replied to Ronnie while eyeing all of them warily.
James rolled his eyes and began walking away. “C’mon. We have fish to shoot.”
“It’s ‘fry,’ James,” Sirius rolled his eyes in a way that James found eerily reminiscent of Aunt Hermione.
James rolled his eyes back and gestured for their fearless leader and all mighty thinker-upper of their latest plan to precede him. “After you, my liege.”
They made it out of the castle in short order, their eyes open and watching for professors, Mr. Morris, Mrs. Norris’ replacement, and the aging Filch, who in his advancing years had grown even more crotchety and spiteful.
“Where -?” Sirius frowned up at the tower above him.
“That’s the Ravenclaw tower you twit!” Ronnie hissed striding confidently past Sirius and around the corner. “This is Gryffindor’s.”
“You couldn’t tell Gryffindor’s tower from your own gigantic feet,” James whispered. “Our tower’s on the other side of the castle! That’s the Headmistress’s tower.”
“I’m telling you, Gryffindor’s around the corner back that way!” Sirius whispered loudly, jogging up to them.
“Are you telling me that this is your grand master plan and we’re lost outside our own school?” Ronnie asked incredulously.
“Oh shut it. I know where we are!”
Ronnie and James’ identical expressions of disbelief had Sirius sighing. “Ok, fine! We’re lost.”
“Ok, now that you’ve admitted that, stand aside and let a real wizard get us out of this mess,” James murmured cockily. “We can see the lake from the common room windows yes? Do you see the lake on this side of the castle? No. Therefore this is not our tower.”
Sirius snorted, but followed James nonetheless. “You were the one who told me to lead,” he grumbled.
“Trust me, I won’t make that mistake again,” James cheeked with a grin.
“Wanker.”
“Git.”
“Ponce.”
“Oi! Don’t involve me in this,” Ronnie held up his hands defensively when they turned on him.
“Just trying to share the love,” Sirius grinned. “Didn’t want you to feel left out.”
“That makes me feel so much better.”
They darted around the castle, two keeping an eye on the darkened grounds, the other keeping an eye on the towers above them until they came to the only tower on that side of the castle.
“Ready?” Sirius whispered. The other two boys nodded, mounting their brooms.
They rose steadily and swiftly into the sky, circling the tower windows until they found their intended target.
“Cor,” Ronnie whispered in awe, his bright blue eyes wide.
“The rumors were true,” James whispered in the same quiet awe.
On the other side of the window were six seventh year girls in t-shirts and short pyjama tops laughing and having a pillow fight. It was as if every male fantasy had come true. “Am I right or am I right?” Sirius whispered, flying just a bit closer to the window.
A pillow ripped, then another almost obscuring the girls in a shower of feathers, but the boys didn’t seem to notice or mind much. They still had a healthy view of skin from the girls closest to the window.
“How I want to be one of those pillows,” James sighed longingly.
“Forget the pillows, I want to be the feathers,” Sirius grinned.
“Oo, who’s that one?” Ronnie asked pointing to a leggy looking shadowy figure moving about the room. They couldn’t quite see who she was with all the feathers, but she had curves and a grace that transfixed the boys and urged them closer to the window. “Think that’s Julia Giles?”
“No, that has to be Maria Mackennan,” Sirius replied.
The leggy figure drew closer to the window, the blizzard of feathers parted and the boys came face to face with Minerva McGonagall staring straight back at them.
The boys screamed in panic. The windows flew open and McGonagall pinned them to their hovering broomsticks with a beady eyed glare. “Do not even think of flying away,” she ordered in her stern brogue.
The boys felt as if they’d been petrified. They couldn’t have moved even if they wanted to.
“What do you think you’re doing hovering outside the girls’ window?” McGonagall asked, eyeing each sixth year boy in turn.
“We - uh-“
“Well -“
“I - we - um -“
“Enough!” McGonagall’s eyes flashed dangerously. “I know exactly what you were doing and I must say I am disappointed. In all my years as head of Gryffindor House and Headmistress, never have I seen such disrespect and disregard.”
“But -“
“Save your excuses Mr. Potter. I will see you in my office tomorrow morning before your first class. I will give you your punishment then. For now, I expect you to return immediately to your room. I will give you ten minutes before I check on you myself so I suggest you hurry.” McGonagall closed the window with an angry snap and pulled the curtains shut.
James, Sirius and Ronnie sped with all due haste back to the main entrance and ran up the shifting staircases, sliding to a stop in front of the Fat Lady. “Pink pixies!” James gasped, clutching the stitch in his side.
The Fat Lady started awake, glowering at the three as they stepped inside. They hardly even noticed, bounding up the boys’ staircase and into their room. Aiden Finnegan and Franklin Longbottom looked up from their game of Exploding Snap, curious about the disheveled appearance of their dorm mates. “How’d it go?” Aiden smirked.
In answer to his question, there was a brisk rap and the door opened revealing the Headmistress. She looked at James, Sirius and Ronnie, her mouth set in a thin line. “Good. I expect to see you tomorrow morning.”
The silence that filled the room lasted all of five minutes after McGonagall had left. “So?” Franklin asked excitedly. “Was it worth it?”
“We need details!” Aiden cried.
Sirius, James and Ronnie looked at each other and broke down laughing. “It was definitely worth it,” Ronnie sighed, placing his broom in his trunk.
Franklin looked over at Aiden and they both sighed regretfully. “We have to get brooms!” Aiden groaned.
*******
“What do you think she’s going to make us do?” James asked. The three Gryffindors stood uncertainly outside the gargoyle that guarded the Headmistress’s office.
“Whatever it is, it’s going to be insidious, I just know it,” Sirius muttered. “Scotch Bonnet!”
The gargoyle leapt aside and they rode the spiral staircase up in tense silence.
McGonagall looked up from the parchment she was reading and eyed the boys over her half moon spectacles. She set the parchment down on her desk, lacing her fingers together. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” they mumbled back, looking down contritely.
McGonagall gave them an assessing look, one eyebrow raised in question. “And why are you here?”
Sirius winced. He hated it when the Headmistress made them recount exactly why they were there when she already knew. “We broke curfew and were caught peeping on the seventh year girls,” he recited with a sigh.
McGonagall’s other eyebrow joined its twin somewhere in her hairline. She slipped off her glasses while gesturing for the boys to take a seat. “And when did this happen?”
Sirius, James and Ronnie froze and looked at each other, a strange feeling of unease creeping down their backs. “Last night,” Ronnie spoke up. “You caught us.”
“I did? I don’t recall having left my quarters at all last night, Mr. Weasley. I seem to have a doppelganger,” she looked at the three of them significantly.
James groaned and dropped his head in his hands. “I’m gonna kill Cat.”
Sirius and Ronnie looked dumbstruck. “How -?” Sirius muttered.
“Be that as it may, you did confess to two infractions to which I’m sure the seventh year girls can corroborate your stories,” McGonagall continued as if neither had spoken. “Detention for the three of you for two weeks and you will apologize to the seventh year girls. I believe that Mr. Filch was saying just the other day that the statues needed a good cleaning. He will be expecting you after your last class. Good day.”
“Dead, she is so dead!” James muttered on their way to class. “We’re not twins anymore!”
“And here I thought Cat would only use her powers for good instead of evil,” Ronnie murmured dazedly. How could his girlfriend do something so . . . so - mean?!
“Men, I believe we vastly underestimated our own allies,” Sirius sighed.
James snorted. “Allies? Evil incarnate more like it.”
“My own girlfriend!” Ronnie wailed softly.
“Morning boys,” Cissy chirped sitting down at the desk in front of them.
“Have a nice night?” Cat kissed Ronnie’s temple as she passed them. She sat in her seat next to Cissy, crossing her legs and turning to watch her best friends behind her. She tossed her hair over her shoulder with a grin; today it was straight, long and lavender to match the color of her eyes.
The three boys scowled at the two girls. “How’d you know?” James asked.
“I overheard you in the library,” Cissy replied. She shook her head sadly. “Honestly, if you wanted to make secret plans, do it in your room where no one can hear you, don’t make them in the middle of the most used section of the library.”
“Duly noted. We’ll remember for next time,” Sirius frowned.
“Why’re you mad at us?” Cat asked, indignantly. “You three were being a bunch of perverts. You deserved to get caught!”
“Legitimately,” Sirius retorted. “It’s one thing to be caught by an actual professor; it’s another to be tricked!”
Cat rolled her eyes. “Any other prank we would’ve wanted in on, but you guys went too far this time. Spying on the seventh years hoping to see some knockers? C’mon. That’s low even for you. Especially when all of you have girlfriends!” She shot a glare at Ronnie.
The three boys looked down in contrition. “Still, you shouldn’t have done that,” Sirius muttered. “We’re sixteen. We’re allowed!”
Cat rolled her eyes. “Consider it payback for the Bogey Bombs and the rhyming hex you placed on me that I never got you back for.”
“And the time one of you hexed me to hear ‘help me’ for an entire day or the jarvey you let loose in our bathroom,” Cissy spoke up. “I never got you back for those either.”
James, Sirius and Ronnie sniggered softly. “I’d forgotten the jarvey,” James muttered.
“So what did McGonagall say?” Cat asked after class on their way to Transfiguration.
“Detention for two weeks cleaning the statues. We have to report to Filch after our last class,” Ronnie sighed.
“Have you learned your lesson?” Cissy asked primly.
“Yeah, we learned not to get caught!” Sirius snorted.
Almost, her prey was almost -
Seizing her moment she pounced. Closing her book with a snap, she darted forward and finally seized control of her favorite sofa. The spots of the previous occupants (“Bloody seventh years,” softly muttered under her breath) were still warm. Cat sighed and stretched out on the settee, settling into the soft leather. “Now this is the life,” she grinned, opening her textbook again. It would be a better life next year when she was a seventh year and able to lay claim to the sofa.
“Talking to yourself again?”
Cat whipped her head around and frowned at her best friend. “You hush. I caught you giving your mirror a good snog last week, so me talking to myself is positively normal compared to your perversions,” she replied with a cocked eyebrow.
Cissy flushed, her eyes darting away in embarrassment. “Anyway,” she began, nudging Cat’s feet out of the way so she could sit at the opposite end of the couch. “I overheard the boys talking in the library a few minutes ago.”
“Mmhmm,” Cat murmured, her eyes straying down to her book.
“They had a most interesting plan,” Cissy went on, critically eyeing her flawless nail polish.
Cat sighed and closed the book giving Cissy her undivided attention coupled with a weary sigh. “They’re always cooking up some get rich quick scheme or some prank or another.”
A truly evil grin graced Cissy’s patrician features and Cat found herself unconsciously leaning forward feeling a familiar thrill shoot down her spine. “Ah, but I think you’ll absolutely love this one.”
********
“Have Cissy and Cat gone to bed?” Ronnie whispered to James.
James glanced quickly around the corner of the boy’s stairwell taking in the common room with one very fast sweep of his eyes before flattening back against the wall. “Yeah. About bloody time too. We’re in the clear.”
“Men, we boldly go where no Gryffindor male has gone before,” Sirius murmured quietly standing a couple of steps above where Ronnie stood a few steps from the bottom. He clutched his Phoenix broom as if it would provide extra courage. “Are we Gryffindors?”
“Yes!” Ronnie and James whispered excitedly.
“Are we brave?”
“Yes!”
“Are we bold?”
“Yes!”
“Are we stupid?”
“Er . . .”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Are we gonna get caught?”
“NO!”
“Then men, let’s fly!”
The three boys tipped the handles of their brooms together in salute and marched out the portrait hole.
“A little late for flying don’t you think?” the Fat Lady inquired with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s not curfew yet,” Ronnie retorted defensively.
“Hmm, that little defense never worked for your father or your uncles either,” she replied to Ronnie while eyeing all of them warily.
James rolled his eyes and began walking away. “C’mon. We have fish to shoot.”
“It’s ‘fry,’ James,” Sirius rolled his eyes in a way that James found eerily reminiscent of Aunt Hermione.
James rolled his eyes back and gestured for their fearless leader and all mighty thinker-upper of their latest plan to precede him. “After you, my liege.”
They made it out of the castle in short order, their eyes open and watching for professors, Mr. Morris, Mrs. Norris’ replacement, and the aging Filch, who in his advancing years had grown even more crotchety and spiteful.
“Where -?” Sirius frowned up at the tower above him.
“That’s the Ravenclaw tower you twit!” Ronnie hissed striding confidently past Sirius and around the corner. “This is Gryffindor’s.”
“You couldn’t tell Gryffindor’s tower from your own gigantic feet,” James whispered. “Our tower’s on the other side of the castle! That’s the Headmistress’s tower.”
“I’m telling you, Gryffindor’s around the corner back that way!” Sirius whispered loudly, jogging up to them.
“Are you telling me that this is your grand master plan and we’re lost outside our own school?” Ronnie asked incredulously.
“Oh shut it. I know where we are!”
Ronnie and James’ identical expressions of disbelief had Sirius sighing. “Ok, fine! We’re lost.”
“Ok, now that you’ve admitted that, stand aside and let a real wizard get us out of this mess,” James murmured cockily. “We can see the lake from the common room windows yes? Do you see the lake on this side of the castle? No. Therefore this is not our tower.”
Sirius snorted, but followed James nonetheless. “You were the one who told me to lead,” he grumbled.
“Trust me, I won’t make that mistake again,” James cheeked with a grin.
“Wanker.”
“Git.”
“Ponce.”
“Oi! Don’t involve me in this,” Ronnie held up his hands defensively when they turned on him.
“Just trying to share the love,” Sirius grinned. “Didn’t want you to feel left out.”
“That makes me feel so much better.”
They darted around the castle, two keeping an eye on the darkened grounds, the other keeping an eye on the towers above them until they came to the only tower on that side of the castle.
“Ready?” Sirius whispered. The other two boys nodded, mounting their brooms.
They rose steadily and swiftly into the sky, circling the tower windows until they found their intended target.
“Cor,” Ronnie whispered in awe, his bright blue eyes wide.
“The rumors were true,” James whispered in the same quiet awe.
On the other side of the window were six seventh year girls in t-shirts and short pyjama tops laughing and having a pillow fight. It was as if every male fantasy had come true. “Am I right or am I right?” Sirius whispered, flying just a bit closer to the window.
A pillow ripped, then another almost obscuring the girls in a shower of feathers, but the boys didn’t seem to notice or mind much. They still had a healthy view of skin from the girls closest to the window.
“How I want to be one of those pillows,” James sighed longingly.
“Forget the pillows, I want to be the feathers,” Sirius grinned.
“Oo, who’s that one?” Ronnie asked pointing to a leggy looking shadowy figure moving about the room. They couldn’t quite see who she was with all the feathers, but she had curves and a grace that transfixed the boys and urged them closer to the window. “Think that’s Julia Giles?”
“No, that has to be Maria Mackennan,” Sirius replied.
The leggy figure drew closer to the window, the blizzard of feathers parted and the boys came face to face with Minerva McGonagall staring straight back at them.
The boys screamed in panic. The windows flew open and McGonagall pinned them to their hovering broomsticks with a beady eyed glare. “Do not even think of flying away,” she ordered in her stern brogue.
The boys felt as if they’d been petrified. They couldn’t have moved even if they wanted to.
“What do you think you’re doing hovering outside the girls’ window?” McGonagall asked, eyeing each sixth year boy in turn.
“We - uh-“
“Well -“
“I - we - um -“
“Enough!” McGonagall’s eyes flashed dangerously. “I know exactly what you were doing and I must say I am disappointed. In all my years as head of Gryffindor House and Headmistress, never have I seen such disrespect and disregard.”
“But -“
“Save your excuses Mr. Potter. I will see you in my office tomorrow morning before your first class. I will give you your punishment then. For now, I expect you to return immediately to your room. I will give you ten minutes before I check on you myself so I suggest you hurry.” McGonagall closed the window with an angry snap and pulled the curtains shut.
James, Sirius and Ronnie sped with all due haste back to the main entrance and ran up the shifting staircases, sliding to a stop in front of the Fat Lady. “Pink pixies!” James gasped, clutching the stitch in his side.
The Fat Lady started awake, glowering at the three as they stepped inside. They hardly even noticed, bounding up the boys’ staircase and into their room. Aiden Finnegan and Franklin Longbottom looked up from their game of Exploding Snap, curious about the disheveled appearance of their dorm mates. “How’d it go?” Aiden smirked.
In answer to his question, there was a brisk rap and the door opened revealing the Headmistress. She looked at James, Sirius and Ronnie, her mouth set in a thin line. “Good. I expect to see you tomorrow morning.”
The silence that filled the room lasted all of five minutes after McGonagall had left. “So?” Franklin asked excitedly. “Was it worth it?”
“We need details!” Aiden cried.
Sirius, James and Ronnie looked at each other and broke down laughing. “It was definitely worth it,” Ronnie sighed, placing his broom in his trunk.
Franklin looked over at Aiden and they both sighed regretfully. “We have to get brooms!” Aiden groaned.
*******
“What do you think she’s going to make us do?” James asked. The three Gryffindors stood uncertainly outside the gargoyle that guarded the Headmistress’s office.
“Whatever it is, it’s going to be insidious, I just know it,” Sirius muttered. “Scotch Bonnet!”
The gargoyle leapt aside and they rode the spiral staircase up in tense silence.
McGonagall looked up from the parchment she was reading and eyed the boys over her half moon spectacles. She set the parchment down on her desk, lacing her fingers together. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” they mumbled back, looking down contritely.
McGonagall gave them an assessing look, one eyebrow raised in question. “And why are you here?”
Sirius winced. He hated it when the Headmistress made them recount exactly why they were there when she already knew. “We broke curfew and were caught peeping on the seventh year girls,” he recited with a sigh.
McGonagall’s other eyebrow joined its twin somewhere in her hairline. She slipped off her glasses while gesturing for the boys to take a seat. “And when did this happen?”
Sirius, James and Ronnie froze and looked at each other, a strange feeling of unease creeping down their backs. “Last night,” Ronnie spoke up. “You caught us.”
“I did? I don’t recall having left my quarters at all last night, Mr. Weasley. I seem to have a doppelganger,” she looked at the three of them significantly.
James groaned and dropped his head in his hands. “I’m gonna kill Cat.”
Sirius and Ronnie looked dumbstruck. “How -?” Sirius muttered.
“Be that as it may, you did confess to two infractions to which I’m sure the seventh year girls can corroborate your stories,” McGonagall continued as if neither had spoken. “Detention for the three of you for two weeks and you will apologize to the seventh year girls. I believe that Mr. Filch was saying just the other day that the statues needed a good cleaning. He will be expecting you after your last class. Good day.”
“Dead, she is so dead!” James muttered on their way to class. “We’re not twins anymore!”
“And here I thought Cat would only use her powers for good instead of evil,” Ronnie murmured dazedly. How could his girlfriend do something so . . . so - mean?!
“Men, I believe we vastly underestimated our own allies,” Sirius sighed.
James snorted. “Allies? Evil incarnate more like it.”
“My own girlfriend!” Ronnie wailed softly.
“Morning boys,” Cissy chirped sitting down at the desk in front of them.
“Have a nice night?” Cat kissed Ronnie’s temple as she passed them. She sat in her seat next to Cissy, crossing her legs and turning to watch her best friends behind her. She tossed her hair over her shoulder with a grin; today it was straight, long and lavender to match the color of her eyes.
The three boys scowled at the two girls. “How’d you know?” James asked.
“I overheard you in the library,” Cissy replied. She shook her head sadly. “Honestly, if you wanted to make secret plans, do it in your room where no one can hear you, don’t make them in the middle of the most used section of the library.”
“Duly noted. We’ll remember for next time,” Sirius frowned.
“Why’re you mad at us?” Cat asked, indignantly. “You three were being a bunch of perverts. You deserved to get caught!”
“Legitimately,” Sirius retorted. “It’s one thing to be caught by an actual professor; it’s another to be tricked!”
Cat rolled her eyes. “Any other prank we would’ve wanted in on, but you guys went too far this time. Spying on the seventh years hoping to see some knockers? C’mon. That’s low even for you. Especially when all of you have girlfriends!” She shot a glare at Ronnie.
The three boys looked down in contrition. “Still, you shouldn’t have done that,” Sirius muttered. “We’re sixteen. We’re allowed!”
Cat rolled her eyes. “Consider it payback for the Bogey Bombs and the rhyming hex you placed on me that I never got you back for.”
“And the time one of you hexed me to hear ‘help me’ for an entire day or the jarvey you let loose in our bathroom,” Cissy spoke up. “I never got you back for those either.”
James, Sirius and Ronnie sniggered softly. “I’d forgotten the jarvey,” James muttered.
“So what did McGonagall say?” Cat asked after class on their way to Transfiguration.
“Detention for two weeks cleaning the statues. We have to report to Filch after our last class,” Ronnie sighed.
“Have you learned your lesson?” Cissy asked primly.
“Yeah, we learned not to get caught!” Sirius snorted.