The Losing One || Sirius Black

50. Seven Books

James Potter

Saturday, 17th February 1973.

Hogwarts

On the way back to the Gryffindor common room, James and Sirius bragged about their perfectly executed prank to one another. They kept retelling the event even though both of them were there and saw what had happened. Needless to say, they were quite satisfied with the outcome, especially the part when Slughorn accused Snape of always mentioning James.

They just stepped onto the seventh floor. James was laughing about the ink mark on Snape's nose, but then he remembered what happened before the Slughorn part. Snape tried to hex him.

"By the way, did you hear what spell Snivellus tried to use?", James asked Sirius. He remembered the anger on his friend's face, so he was quite sure that Sirius knew what spell it actually was.

Just like back at the Restricted Section last year, Sirius had a disgusted tone to his voice while he answered James' question, "He used the Knee Reversal Hex. I read about it back at the house. It would have hurt like hell if he managed to hit you with that one."

The disgusted voice now made sense to James. Not all of them, but some hexes had dark magical roots and, from the look on Sirius' face, James was quite sure that Knee Reversal Hex was one of them.

"Thanks for saving me.", James said while ignoring Sirius' tone. He didn't want to say anything about it and ruin the happiness from their revenge.

"Any time.", said Sirius, now with a smile, while bumping his and James' shoulders.

The two entered the dorm only to be met with sleepy Peter, "Hey Pete. Where's Remus?", James asked once he noticed Remus' empty bed. The two pranksters wanted to tell everything about their revenge to their friends and Remus missing wasn't part of their plan.

"Hospital Wing.", Peter said as he put some shoes on to go and have dinner. The small boy threw one glance towards the end of the dorm and, naturally, James followed his gaze. It fell on a half-finished portrait of some aristocratic-looking man. James' attention was back on Peter once the boy spoke, "You two coming?"

James knew that there was a possibility of them missing dinner since they didn't know exactly when Snape will show up, so he came up with a plan to make sure him and Sirius didn't starve.

"Nah, we brought some food from lunch. We can share it if you're too tired to go down?", Sirius offered while gesturing to the trays full of sandwiches on his and James' desks.

Peter shook his head, "No, thanks. I'm gonna go insane if I spend one more minute in this room.", he said with a shiver and then left the dorm for dinner.

James saw Sirius shrugging and taking a seat at the desk, but then Sirius turned to him, "You joining?"

He was still stood near the door, "Yeah, but I'll first go and return those library books we left in the common room. We can't leave any traces behind.", James winked at Sirius while grabbing the door handle.

"Suit yourself.", the curly haired boy said as he took a huge bite of the sandwich.

James slipped out of the dorm and closed the door. He strode downstairs, still very satisfied with the prank they did. The books were right where they left them, at the table closest to the fireplace. James knew that there was seven books in total, so he just counted them and made his way to the Library.

Needless to say, Madam Pince didn't look pleased to see him, but, once she saw that he was bringing her precious books back, her face relaxed. James wanted to take advantage of this slightly positive reaction from her, so, once she checked the books, he offered to put them back in place.