Chapter 11
Detentions
The next few days went alright, and Melody found herself adjusting to the Hogwarts lifestyle well enough. And with Sirius' help, she was catching up in all her classes and was soon doing as well as everyone else in the class.
Days turned into weeks and weeks into a month and soon enough Halloween was right around the corner. Melody was excited because she had never been at Hogwarts for Halloween before. She loved all the decorations that had been put up and how the ghosts were all acting much more 'spooky' as that is what was expected at Halloween. Peeve especially was taking great delight in scaring the students and causing all possible havoc on everyone. Sirius on the other hand was excited because that meant he and James and Remus and Peter would be able to pull of a huge prank, as they had done last year.
"What did you do last year anyway?" Melody asked at breakfast, the day before Halloween. (Halloween that year just happened to be on Friday the 13th, who knew?)
"You didn't hear about that?" Lily said, surprised.
"Uh, no I didn't actually." Melody looked down, taking a sip of her drink, avoiding any further questioning about why she didn't know anything about it.
"James and Sirius somehow convinced Dumbledore to let them have balloons at the Halloween feast." Remus explained. "I don't even know how they did it now."
"And it will go with us to the grave." James interjected.
"I don't see why," Lily mumbled. "It seems kind of silly if you ask me."
"Everything's pretty 'silly' when you're involved." James retorted.
"You know what-"
"Anyway," Remus continued loudly. "James and Sirius filled the balloons with orange and black confetti." He grinned at his two friends. "Well, most of them had confetti, but all the balloons over the Slytherin table had green goo in them. And the balloon that just happened to be over Professor Sable had green goo in it too."
"That doesn't seem very nice." Melody said ever the kind one.
"Sure it wasn't." Sirius said easily. "But it sure was funny seeing Professor Sable all covered...in…goo..." Sirius' sentence faltered based on the faces in front of him. "She's standing right behind me?" He asked James, closing his eyes, wincing.
"Oh yeah."
Sirius turned and gave the most charming grin he could for a boy all of twelve.
"Why hello Prefessor! How are you this fine evening?"
"Let's skip the pleasantries, shall we Black?" She said icily, looking him up and down.
Professor Sable was known for being the iciest and strictest teacher in Hogwarts, and although she was head of Slytherin house, she did not favor them. It was kind of nice actually. Instead of just hating two-thirds of the student population of Hogwarts, she hated everyone. It made all forms of favoritism non-existent. But if there was one student she disliked more than anyone else, it was Sirius Black.
"I never did thank you for covering me in goo last year," She continued dryly, "which is why I've come over to have a little chat."
"Oh, how lovely." Sirius said, flashing a faker than a plastic Christmas tree smile.
"There is no doubt in anyone's mind that you, Potter, Pettigrew, and Lupin are all going to pull some stunt tomorrow evening-" Sirius opened his mouth, but then thought better of it and closed it again. "-so I figure that I should punish you all ahead of time."
"Professor that's not fair!"
"We didn't do anything!"
"Come on Professor!"
"Would anyone else care to join them?" She asked sharply, causing all around them to fall silent. "I didn't think so."
"Professor, you really can't, it's not fair!" Melody burst out.
"Ms. Caldwell." Professor turned her eyes on Melody. "You can join them tomorrow evening right before the feast." She looked around at them all. "Anyone else?" They all stayed silent. "Good. Have a nice day." She turned on one heel and left her black cloak swishing behind her.
"That's so like Sable!" Sirius exploded as soon as she was out of earshot.
"Sirius calm down." Melody soothed. "It's not that big of a deal." Four incredulous faces turned to look at her. "Alright so maybe it does."
"What are we going to do now?" Remus asked quietly. "How can we pull off a prank if we're all in detention?"
"What if we weren't all in detention?" Peter suggested.
"Come on Pete, we can't be in two places at once." Sirius scoffed.
"No, he may have something there." James said. "Sable will probably just leave us there with the threat that if she sees us we're dead meat."
"So?"
"So, why don't we leave?"
"Prongs I think those glasses are a bit too strong again." Sirius said shaking his head. "We can't leave because people will see us…" he trailed off, realization dawning on his face. "Because people will see us!"
James nodded. "Exactly."
"Come on guys," Remus said hurriedly. "We should go and plan things, yeah?"
The other three nodded quickly.
"Yeah."
"Let's go."
"Right away."
The four stood up and walked away, muttering among themselves quietly. Melody shook her head. Who knew where they were going? Even if class was starting in ten or fifteen minutes, Sirius, Remus, Peter and James always seemed to have their own agenda.
"Okay, does anyone know what they were talking about?" Lily asked, bewildered.
Rebecca shook her head while Melody said, "No idea." She paused. But there's no way they can do anything in the Great Hall without being seen by Professor Sable."
"But it seems as though they have a plan not to be seen doesn't it?" Rebecca said quietly.
"Yeah it does." Melody said thoughtfully.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You never can tell with those four."
"That's for sure." Rebecca spoke up. "They're always so secretive. They pretty much always keep to themselves."
"That's weird." Melody said. "They seemed to talk a lot with us and everyone else."
"Oh sure." Lily nodded her head. "But I mean about whatever secret stuff it is that they do together. Like pranks and the like. And it's always been the four of them," she continued. "Ever since the firs day of school." She giggled. "It's like they have their own secret club."
Melody laughed. "Yeah, that does sound like them."
There was silence for a while as everyone finished up their breakfast and began walking to class. Lily, Melody, and Rebecca all had Herbology first thing. It was fairly sunny that morning as they walked out to the greenhouse.
"I have a question." Melody said suddenly as the three walked together.
"Alright, shoot." Lily said, taking her eyes off of the book she was holding
"What do teachers make you do in detention?" She asked nervously. "I've never had to go to detention before."
"Oh, usually they make you clean things without magic or something of the sort. Nothing too hard."
"Oh." Melody thought on this for a minute. That didn't sound like anything too difficult, and Melody did cleaning at home (without magic of course) all the time. She was a little mad at herself though. If she hadn't said anything she wouldn't be in this position in the first place. But she couldn't just let Professor Sable punish Sirius and the others like that, with no real reason. It was unfair.
By then they had arrived at the greenhouse (all four boys present she noticed) and found out from Professor Sprout that they were replanting mandrakes today. She somehow ended up next to Sirius somehow and she tried really hard to pay attention to what Professor Sprout was saying, but Sirius kept whispering in her ear and making fun of other people in the class who he didn't like.It was making it really hard to concentrate.
So it was really no surprise when Professor Sprout told them to put their ear muffins on and Melody didn't put hers on the right way. She didn't notice of course, as she had barely heard the direction
"And you pull them out, like so…"
A mandrakes cry suddenly split the air and everyone put their hands to their ears to help with the noise. Melody began to feel dizzy. That scream was so loud.
"Sirius…" She said shakily. "Sirius…" she reached out to grab his arm, but grabbed the air instead as she hit the floor and the world went black.
Yeah, a short chapter I realize and kinda bad since I haven't updated in a long long time. But here it is, I hope you like it. Anyway, please review and tell me what you think. I'll try and get the next chapter up as soon as I can. Thanks!