In the Tower
Chapter Nine: Prank the Prat
Summary: If you've read the little summary before you clicked on my story to read it, then you have read my summary, and there is no need for you to read it again.
Disclaimer: NOTHING! NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING! My good gracious, if I owned anything, I would certainly tell you. Oh, I'll tell you something now! I have a complete and utter obsession with Gerard Butler, mainly him because he is the fucking hottest guy in the world, and Kevin Smith, hope he's having a blast in the great beyond, and Eric Bana, because he just ruled in Black Hawk Down. I own those obsessions. So tell me are you happy now?
Author's Note: Real obsessions there! Sorry guys, if you're searching for some more James/Lily, it's very scant in this chapter. It's Sirius/Katie. BUT THERE IS L/J, SO DON'T GO WITHOUT READING IT!
Previously: "Oh," he said surprised, not really knowing what to say. "You fell asleep playing the game. I thought of bringing you down but I didn't want any chance of hurting you or waking you." She grunted. "You fell asleep as I was answering who my first kiss was." He grinned at her and headed off to the bathroom to take his daily shower. "Happy Christmas Eve," She slammed her head down on the table as she heard another door close.
No laws. No limits. One rule. Never fall in love.
Tagline for "Moulin Rouge!"
*******
Sirius grinned at Katie as he pulled Charlie up to meet her and Clam Chowder. She grinned back at him the same way. "Happy Christmas Eve!" He said to her joyfully, handing her a neatly wrapped present.
"Same to you, Siri!" She said hastily, and gave him a poorly wrapped package. He looked at it, and then looked up at her. She blushed, as per usual when they exchanged their presents to each other. "I'm not very good," she stated, threading her fingers through Clam Chowder's mane. She tossed her head in agreement, dancing antsy. "Even Chowder here agrees with me!" She told him, laughing. He grinned lopsided at her and looked off in the distance behind them. He squinted when he saw something moving.
"Katie!" He stage whispered to her. She cocked her head at him.
"What?" She said in the same voice.
"Sindy Park at eleven o'clock!" She smiled slightly and looked in the direction he was looking at. "Prank?"
"Of course," She told him, as they both set off at a swift canter toward the east, closer to Sindy, but not close enough for her to see them. "So, what are we doing?" She asked him over the wind as she and he raced each other into the wind. She was wining.
"Well, I don't know really." He told her truthfully. She gave him a look and jumped a log, Charlie not a length behind. "Um… the woods are supposedly haunted, right?" He asked her, as she lived her much longer and knew the history behind all of the plots, which he hated to admit.
"Yeah," She said, and slowed to a trot that was completely too smooth to qualify as a trot. He slowed Charlie to a walk, since Chowder was barley going faster than that. "It was said that about three hundred years ago there was a witch hunt in the woods just here." She said, pointing out at the landscape and the enormous trees.
"But wouldn't it just tickle a witch?" He asked her.
"Right, but she wasn't a witch." Sirius did a real gasp. He heard that there was a hanging, but he didn't want to get too much in it. James was telling him when they were telling ghost stories when they were both a bit drunk lying on James's bed upside down. He fell asleep as he was saying a completely absurd version as how he though the Bloody Baron died.
"Really," He said, flabbergasted. She gave him another look, half-exasperated and half annoyed that he interrupted her story. "Right, sorry," He told her bashfully, "Go on." She cleared her throat.
"She was a muggle, and all the magic she knew was that the stars faded in the morning. She-"
"That's a stupid girl!"
"Sirius! I was being serious!"
"You can't be Sirius!"
"SIRIUS!"
"Sorry! Go on."
"Anyway, they hunted her because she actually said a spell, which she didn't know. And before you cut in, it was `Accio!' so you don't stop the story. Anyway, one of the town's people actually had a sister who was a witch and went to Hogwarts, and when she came back from her fourth year, she would scream, `Accio!' at random moments and things would come flying to her. So, obviously, he burned his sister, but she transfigured one of the twigs into a good looking corpse and disapparated. So when he heard the girl say that, he was immediately on her tail, not even thinking for a moment that she just made up the word." She told him, and elegantly jumped off Chowder and led him to the stream that happened to cross their path on the left, if that made any sense, and let him drink from it before continuing.
"So, they burnt her as soon as they found her, in the woods around this area, and they say her soul haunts it, waiting for the descendant of the man who wrongly accused her so she could do justice to her soul." Then she had a strangled laugh. "The descendant is supposed to be a witch or wizard. Because it sort of skipped generations and genders… They don't know when the next descendant would be, but they figure it'll be soon."
Sirius barked out a laugh and jumped down from Charlie and let him graze.
"What a great way to finish up a story like that. And you had me in shivers before you got unsure." He walked up to her and she grinned up at him, pulling her big shirt closer onto her body. "What?" He said as he put his arm casually around her shoulders. "Don't tell me you don't trust me!"
"Oh that's not true." She told him, affectionately, and then said, "I just don't trust you looking down my shirt." He pouted as his lip stuck out in his extremely cute look that all the girls at Hogwarts fell for. "I don't fall that quickly for that look you know, Siri." She looked around and reached up a hand so her hand was holding onto his. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "I happen to have friends in Hogwarts, you know."
She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Wait, did I say that? I meant I happen to have friends in seventh year Gryffindor, while me being a lowly sixth year Ravenclaw." She sighed. "There are no hot guys in Ravenclaw," she grumbled.
He put his hand to his chest.
"What? I've asked you out loads of times being a so highly sought over seventh year Gryffindor." She scoffed and looked at Clam Chowder for a moment. Chowder had moved over to where Charlie once was and now Charlie was at the stream.
"Have not. I think you asked me out when I was pining after James. You haven't asked me out since I've liked you. You're mean to me like that." She looked around. "We should probably go if we wanna get Sindy tonight." It might have been only four o'clock but the sky was already turning slightly pink and it was getting quite cold.
"Yeah, you're right." Sirius pulled his arm off her shoulders and they both pulled their horses up and mounted synchronized. They both looked at each other as they squirmed in their saddles to find the most comfortable position. Sindy Park's house was on the Potter's other side, and to James, Sirius, Katie and the rest of the Marauders and whoever happened to live in the area, excluding her own parents, was the most annoying brat on the planet. She was even worse than Bellatrix, all his cousins; Snape and Lucious Malfoy combined. And that's saying something.
Sindy had it all, as she always told Sirius and James whenever they had mistaken their boredom for interest. As always, she said she had the perfect grades, the perfect house, the perfect friends, the perfect team, the perfect clothes, it goes on and on! But then she would stop her insanely long rant, size him and James up, and then tell that the one thing she didn't have. The perfect boyfriend. Then she would ask one out without a care, and they would both refuse, she would give them a roughish wink, laugh and say, "Oh, I'll get you next time." Next time has been the past five years.
"So!" He said conversationally, as they set off at a brisk trot, posting the entire way. "What is the prank?" Katie threw him a look and a smile, flicked her long hair over her shoulder and with her emerald eyes shining very brightly, proceeded to tell Sirius the entire prank that she made up, in very precise detail. He nodded after ten minutes, in which she took a breath. "I don't get it."
She growled and her eyes narrowed. He barked out a laugh. "Just joking!" He said in a high voice. He knew that when Katie got angry, her power went out of control and blew up things around her. It's just the way she was.
FLASHBACK, SIXTH YEAR SIRIUS, FIFTH YEAR KATIE
"NO!" Katie burst out; her books falling out of her arms as she threw them down on the ground watching Sirius, James and Snape hexing each other again. Lily was watching on the side, a disapproving look on her face, but none of the boys were listening to what she was saying, so when they were finished, she was going to dock twenty points from each of them. And then Katie, a fifth year Ravenclaw prefect, stepped in. "You stupid nitwits! Stop fighting!"
Sirius whipped his hair out of his face and caught a glance at Katie out of his now owls like eyes. Snape, who was in worse condition, was walking and moving stiffly like a… stiff thing. And James, who was under the bat bogey curse, had wings flapping in his eyes so he couldn't see what he was cursing. "Stupefy!" Snape yelled at the non-aware Sirius, and Sirius instantly shot back, "Protego!"
Lily looked at Katie weirdly. She was butting in on this fight? She could seriously get hurt! Lily hurried over to Katie, who was fuming, I mean really fuming. Smoke was curling out of her ears and then just staying around her, a shield of some sort. "Katie?" Lily yelled while dodging a curse that Snape hurled her way.
She got right up to Katie and tried to reach a hand through the smoke to touch her, but was instantly thrown back ten feet and hit the stone wall hard on the back. James, who heard the thud, was instantly by her side, making sure she was all right. She gave him a look, and he went back into the fight, but not as energetic as before. Then, just as a very dangerous curse Snape muttered got within a foot of Sirius, Katie exploded.
The smoke that was surrounding her flew back at all sides with the strength of a hurricane that just washed ashore for the first time. Snape crashed through a wall and landed in the corridor behind the one they were in, they all heard the yelp and the dull thud of his form hitting the ground. Sirius was likewise thrown, but he as thrown toward Lily's direction and he blasted through the tapestry that was next to her, and she didn't hear him hit the ground. James though, was thrown into the air, and was currently spinning rapidly, rising impossibly higher into the air. He starting falling after he went up one hundred feet, and would have slammed back to the stone floor and died unless Lily sent out a well casted spell that slowed his descent.
Katie was breathing heavily and slumped on the ground near her books, looking really confused and quite angry. She looked over at Lily who was staring at her in amazement. She looked at James, stood, and kicked him in the leg, gently. He groaned.
"Oh good!" Katie said with fake sweetness. "Now that you're awake, I can tell you that you were being a completely stupid prat, toerag! Why were you even doing that? You know you shouldn't, egghead!" She knew how to bring a guy down, not just with fists.
Then she looked over at Lily. "Hello, Lily." She said politely, then stomped through the tapestry she sent Sirius flying through and Lily heard her shouts reverberating off the narrow walls and enclosed space. "Why were fighting?! You know you were going to win!"
"I was defending your honor!" Sirius yelled, just as loud. "He was insulting you!"
"How was he insulting me?" She screamed, but not as loud, or as mad as before.
"You want to know? Fine! `That insufferable know-it-all, she makes me sick! She's such a complete mudblood; she has to know it all! She has to be number one!' And I was cursing him because I know you're not any of those! You strive to be the best you can be! And he was talking about Lily the same way! So don't you dare get mad at James, he was doing the same thing I was! Get mad at Snivellus!"
"I already AM mad at the stupid Slytherin!" She retorted hotly as she and Sirius came walking out of the tapestry, Sirius with a slight limp at her heels. "And now, I am a prefect, and I want to award points!" Lily opened her mouth. "But, Lily should go first, so if you would calmly come with me to Lily and James, she will tell you your points lost and such."
Lily scrambled up, muddled, and sat against the wall the way that Katie had left her. She stood, and offered James a rare hand.
"Do the point's thing." Katie deadpanned to Lily.
Lily cleared her throat and looked at Sirius and James.
"You shouldn't do that, it was very wrong indeed. You three did something completely out of line. You should know that after three years of doing it. James and Sirius, I'm docking twenty points each, the same fate to Slytherin!" She said to them as they both opened their mouths to comment. "And Katie, I'm docking twenty from Ravenclaw as well."
"Why?" Both the boys and Katie said together. "I was trying to make them stop!" Katie defended herself.
"You knocked out a wall!" Lily told her, hysterical. "You almost killed James! And Sirius could have run into a wall on the other side and would have caused serious damage to himself-,"
"I already have serious damage to myself, otherwise, how couldn't I be Sirius?"
"-He could have been killed too!" Lily went on, completely ignoring Sirius. She stared hard down at Katie, who was fuming, glowering up at her. "It was completely irresponsible and not even close to prefect standards."
Katie took a deep breath and looked at the boys.
"Not to undermine a superior prefect or something," Katie said sarcastically with her teeth clenched, shooting a look at Lily, "But I'm awarding both of you boys with thirty points." Lily had a horrified look on her face and the boy's high-five each other. "And I'm taking a further more ten points from Mr. Snape for insulting students for so long and getting away with it." She looked at Lily with a defying look on her face and both the boys behind her put a protective arm around her, James over her shoulders and Sirius around her waist.
"You three have detention!" Lily screamed at them.
"I'm lessening your detention from the usual four hours to one, and you both have it together with- Hagrid." Katie shot back, and the boy's smiled at each other. Hagrid was their favorite adult on campus, besides Dumbledore. "You should stop now, Lily." Katie said to her. "Whatever you do I'll make bearable. Don't think I won't know." Then she looked at the boy's, and muttered the counter-curse to each of their maladies, so they looked completely normal.
"I better go," Katie said to them finally, picking up her books. "I'm very late for History of Magic as it was, and now I've already missed a half hour." Then she looked at Lily, pointedly. "Don't dare do anything to them or me while my back is turned. I'll know." Then she walked, slowly, away down the hall. Sirius and James looked at each other shrugged grinning.
"See you, Lilly Billy. We're going down to the Kitchens." Sirius said lightly.
"You have Defense against the Dark Arts!"
"It's over in fifteen minutes, Evans." James said to her, picking up his bag and Sirius's and handing Sirius his. "It won't matter now." Then he and Sirius jogged after Katie, hollering, "Katie! How `bout the Kitchens?"
And Lily heard the answering call of, "Hell yeah!"
They jogged to catch up with Katie, and then, laughing loudly, they all walked down to the Kitchens and out of sight. Lily looked around, helpless, at the disaster area. She heard Snape finally starting to shift over in the hall. She ran to her bag, ripped it over her shoulder, and sprinted off to Defense.
END FLASHBACK
"So, basically, we're going to pretend that we're the muggle that was killed and is haunting the forest, and chase Sindy through trails and miles upon miles of horse poop without her knowing it?" Sirius summed up, making it sound how it sounded to him.
"Basically, yeah," Katie said, slowing Chowder horse to a walk. Sirius slowed Charlie down as well. "I have the makeup for it." She said thoughtfully, looking at the sky. It was getting darker. "We have got to do it tonight."
Sirius nodded. A light bulb turned on over his head. "How are we going to get her out of her house?" She shrugged. "'Cause I was thinking I can send her a letter from her `secret admirer' to meet him in the middle of the woods so they can… do stuff, if ya' know what I mean." Sirius said to her, wiggling his eyebrows. She chortled at him.
"Yeah, sure," She said, and turned Clam Chowder toward the Potter mansion. "I'll go with you, if you want." Sirius smiled at her. "Question answered. Race you!" She said, kicking Clam Chowder in a flat out gallop. Sirius grinned at the challenge and kicked Charlie, who's a thoroughbred like at the Kentucky Derby, into his element.
Katie already had Clam Chowder in his special stall in the Potter stable and was sitting on a bale of hay waiting for Sirius as he and Charlie made their dramatic entrance.
"How do you get here so fast?" He said, jumping down from Charlie and leading him to his stall, where he took the bridle off and loosened the girth so Charlie could breathe properly.
"I ride Clam Chowder way more often then you might know, Sirius. My parents some how manage to bring him to school on my Hogsmeade weekends, so I get to ride him in the Quidditch Pitch without a care in the world. We are in our element, as one. You can kick Charlie into his element, but you're not fluent with him as me and Clam Chowder are." Sirius shrugged his shoulders.
"Whatever. Are we still writing this letter?" He asked her, giving her a hand to help up. With a small tug, she was on her feet, and was briskly setting the pace to the mansion.
"Of course! And Sirius, don't forget to bring your present in." She said over her shoulder. Sirius doubled back and got his present and hers as well then sprinted up to meet her. They were in the house and were writing the letter in less than five minutes.
It was done in less than two. "There!" Katie said, sitting back and propping her feet on the table, as Sirius did the same. "It's a good letter." She told him, and he nodded his head. "Where's Talons?" She asked him.
"Upstairs," Sirius said, blushing a bit. "I took him with me." She gave him a queer look.
"Where's James?" Sirius reached in a jar and took out a cookie, and chewed on it thoughtfully, deciding whether or not to tell her.
"He's in a tower." He said vaguely. She gave him the look she always has reserved for him. "With Lily," Another look, "At school, without their wands." He finally said, looking away from her face, missing her awe.
Her face instantly broke into a grin. "Finally!" She yelled, slapping Sirius on the back, happily. And he looked up at her, grinning just because she was. "If you weren't going to do it, I was going to do it over Easter break! Right on!" Talons fluttered down the stairs and landed on the back of her chair. "'Ello Talons," She cooed at him.
Sirius rolled his eyes at her kissing up.
"Would you deliver this for me and Sirius, Talons?" Talons chirped. "Sindy Park," The owl gave her a look of, if it could be true, disbelief. "Yes, I know, just please go do it." He hooted and nipped at her fingers gently, tugged on Sirius's long tresses of hair, and then flew out the open window toward Sindy.
They both grinned at each other as they jogged back down to the horses and trotted to Katie's house, to get the sufficient makeup for the scare. Needless to say, at the end of the night, he and Katie were both drunk of their laughter, in his room with the horses put away neatly and all the tack in the appropriate places. Sirius slunk into the place where he knew the Potter's had all their alcohol, and stole two bottles of whiskey, and then sneaked back up to his room where Katie was sitting upside down on his bed like he had so long ago with James. Needless to say, they both got quite drunk and fell asleep on the bed next to each other; all of their clothing still on.
NEXT CHAPTER: Sirius and James! WHOOT!
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