All the young dudes

Chapter 12: Physical graffiti

"You didn't hear a word of that, did you?"

Sirius stops staring vacantly into the swirling white of their crystal ball. He stays slumped over the table, face on his arms, when he peers up at James. "Mm?"

"I know you didn't actually see anything interesting in there," James says. "You've definitely got a concussion."

Sitting up straight, Sirius tries his best to look interested. All week James has been hypothesizing about possible brain injuries he might have. "I heard you, you were talking about how you hexed Jorkins. What happened?"

"The nosy cow was spying on me, that's what happened! Pete and I were coming back from Muggle Studies, minding our own business, and out of nowhere she comes up and starts threatening to dock us points!"

"Out of nowhere? She must be a pretty bad prefect."

"We were tossing around a Fanged Frisbee at the time, but the point is I told her to sod off and she started taunting me!" James puts on a high voice. "'Maybe next time I'll report you and Florence for sneaking around behind the greenhouses!' Now I know she was pulling my leg because there's no rule at all that says I can't go, y'know, spend a bit of quality time with my girlfriend on the grounds whenever I like, is there? But she'd been spying on us! Must've followed us down there, hoping she could get some gossip! I couldn't not hex her, could I?"

"Bet McGonagall loved that explanation."

"Minnie didn't appreciate it, no," James says. "But two whole weeks of detention? It's outrageous! Sandra's gonna have my blood— we've got to beat Hufflepuff or the Cup is a wash."

Sirius shrugs, slumps back onto the table, and pretends to contemplate the depths of the crystal ball some more. He very much doubts James' two weeks of detention is truly punishment for making Bertha Jorkins grow shiny green scales all over her body.

When Filch came to raid James' surprise party in the small hours of last Sunday, the mad exodus back to the dormitories was already underway; overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the miscreants running in different directions, no one was apprehended. It was the single most miraculous event in the student body's collective memory. Everybody's still talking about it a week and a half later, and even those who weren't in attendance seem to have agreed that James Potter and his mates are heroes. James was right— they're legends.

The problem is that even if there wasn't evidence at the time to convict the four of them, there isn't a soul in the whole school who doesn't know which group was responsible for the spectacle on the Astronomy Tower that night. A few of the staff (and a good number of disgruntled prefects who weren't invited) seem hell-bent lately on catching James, Sirius, Remus, or Peter in wrongdoing. Just yesterday, Professor McGonagall took thirty points from Gryffindor when Sirius cursed at his hedgehog for refusing to become a pincushion. James groaned loudly at the injustice. Sirius, on the other hand, couldn't manage to care. He hasn't been able to care about much, lately— not even James' endless chatter about how wonderful his new girlfriend is.

The truth is, everything's coming up pretty fucking rosy for Sirius.

On Monday afternoon he and Remus were walking out of the forest after Care of Magical Creatures with the rest of the class. Sirius was just noticing that they'd fallen to the back of the group when Remus grabbed him by the front of his robes, gave him a sharp tug sideways into the brush, and pulled him close.

But this wasn't the parapet again. This time, Sirius was prepared. Remus had him by the shoulders and was steering him backwards, but Sirius' reflexes were faster; he caught him by the arms, swung him around, and pushed him up against an enormous old tree, pinning his wrists to the gnarled trunk.