The Losing One || Sirius Black

17. Invitiations

James Potter

Tuesday, 7th December 1971.

Hogwarts

"Can we leave?"

"No, Mr. Potter, you and Mr. Black still have another 10 minutes of detention."

"But Minnie—", Sirius was cut off with the warning look from the witch, "I mean professor, we already finished the lines.", he waved a stack of parchment while giving her puppy eyes.

James could never master those stupid puppy eyes.

To his surprise, McGonagall didn't budge, "Mr. Black don't tempt me into giving you another hour. Continue writing for another 10 minutes and then you may leave."

James smirked at that, "Finally someone who doesn't fall for that idiotic look."

"Mr. Potter! Language."

He just smiled at her before continuing to write on the parchment. He and Sirius have tied an invisible string in front of all the classrooms in the castle. When the bell rang, the corridors were met with piles of falling students and professors. It was brilliant until Mrs. Norris, Filch's devil cat, caught the two of them crying from laughter in one of the bathrooms. Of course, the caretaker wasn't far behind her, thus they were now at the end of their two week's detention.

His hand hurt from writing "I will never tie an invisible string in front of the classrooms again" so many times. James didn't even know the exact number. He hoped that the detention will finish soon, because the two Marauders already had somewhere else to be.

He lifted his gaze to look at Sirius, giving him a "how much time do we have" look and, in return, he got the "maybe 5 minutes" look. James hoped they won't be late to see the chaos.

Before he and Sirius came to detention that night, a planned mission had to be set in place. They got the paintbombs, the ones Andromeda so kindly sent Sirius for birthday, drenched them in invisible potion, also a thoughtful gift from Andromeda, and placed them all over the ground floor. The two casted the time delay spell on the paintbombs so that they would explode exactly before dinner, when the corridors were the fullest.

Of course, it wasn't easy. James and Sirius had to do a lot of research to get the time delay spell correct, which resulted in a lot of time being spent in the library with the help of their genius friend Remus Lupin. Peter couldn't help due to the homework he didn't finish, but accompanied them nonetheless. Thankfully, their sacrifice was well worth which will be proven in no time.

James tried pleading once again, "Can we go now?", his leg was starting to bounce nervously.

"Yeah, we'll miss dinner. We are hungry children in development.", Sirius insisted, starting to pack his quill, James mirroring the action.

McGonagall sighed before giving them another stern look from her desk, "Okay, but don't try anything like that ever again."

"Of course we won't, it would be unprofessional to repeat the same thing twice—", Sirius smiled at the witch while getting up, but as soon as he saw that she wasn't pleased with his answer, the smile faltered and he started to backtrack, "I mean, no! Of course we won't because we have learned our lesson and we are polite, young gentleme—"

But he got caught off when they started hearing explosions coming from downstairs. McGonagall jumped from her seat, confusion spreading on her face. Then the explosions became accompanied by the screams of students.

James saw the realization click on her face, "Oh, would you look at the time!", he pretended to look at his non existing watch, "Sirius, we're late for dinner!", he got a hold of the other boy's wrist and pulled him hurriedly out of the classroom.