Chickens and Jokes

And then there was her. Lily Potter. Perfect, red-headed, and enough to make any guy go crazy if she wanted to, or at least make them think in improper grammar. Lily who loves to study and read and...oh if only-

"Dude! Stop daydreaming!"

A comment from Sirius Black snapped James Potter out of his reverie and back into the cold reality that it was: He was still Lily-less. "How do you know I was I daydreaming again?" he asked stupidly.

"Duh! That's simpler than Goyle's brain. It's what happens when you stop walking, your eyes go out of focus, and-"

Oh if only you would notice me-

"-DON'T COMPREHEND ANYTHING I SAY!!!"

James let out a cry of pain and rubbed his ear off with his sleeve.

"Eww...I never knew you spit when you yelled, Sirius."

"I do?"

"Yeah."

"Eww."

There was a slight pause in their conversation as Remus Lupin joined their group, alongside his girlfriend Rebecca Knightly. Peter, being a year older than them, graduated from Hogwarts the prior year.

"What's the answer to this?" James shoved a piece of crumpled parchment at Remus, who opened it and studied it.

"Dunno," he said shoving it back at James.

"I don't get it! Why do we have to learn Math in Muggle Studies? I mean, when does the problem..." James took a look at the paper; "Fifty times twenty-four divided by three plus two minus six come up in everyday life?"

"Have no idea," muttered Remus.

"I can't believe that oaf Goyle won an award!" Rebecca said in her clear voice.

"I don't understand it. But the joke's still on, right, Prongs?" Sirius asked, nudging James in the side playfully.

"You'd better believe it. I can see it now...."

Oh! Son, this is what your daddy did when he graduated! Your daddy helped take part in the biggest prank Hogwarts has ever seen-

"EARTH TO JAMES!!!!!!"

James cringed. "You know it's a good thing I like you, Padfoot. If I didn't, you'd be wearing a mesh muzzle to keep that spit of yours in your own vicinity."

"I swear I've never spat when yelling anytime before this. Honest."

They stopped around a group of kids when they reached the doors of the Great Hall. The kids looked up as the pranksters approached. They formed a huddle and put their heads together. There were about 10 others there besides James, Remus, Sirius, and Rebecca.

"Everyone's still in, right?" James asked, and everyone else nodded. "You all remember your places?" They nodded again. "Good. Now, Becky, you know your cue?"

"Of course I do," replied Rebecca, grinning.

"You have everything ready?"

There was another nod.

"Good. Break!"

The huddle dissipated and they all entered the Great Hall and sat at their respective tables' seats: Rebecca at the Hufflepuff table, the others at the Gryffindor table. James went through everything in his mind once more. Making sure the plan was flawless again, he looked up at Sirius and grinned. "This is going to be great."

Then, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked over to see John Creevey looking at him. "Hi James. D'you wanna come to my slumber party tonight?" he asked in a nasally voice.

"Umm...no, sorry, I'm kind of busy."

"With what? Do you have a reason for not going?"

"Uh, yeah, actually I do. I found the reason for me to not go. I have homework. Lots of it."

"Oh, that's too bad. Well, see you later then!"

And John Creevey slouched across the table to poke Nora Abbott in the shoulder for no particular reason.

Meanwhile across the hall, at the staff table, there were jugs of pumpkin juice out for those who were to speak for the ceremony. Professor Trelawney was slouched over across her plate, holding a goblet half-full of pumpkin juice in her hand (though the bottom of the goblet was on the table), and was hiccupping.

"And so-hic-here I am after my-hic-love leaves me, spilling out my-hic-heart to you, Terrance...HIC!"

Professor Vector, who was absentmindedly listening to Professor Trelawney next to her spill her guts out about her poor love life, reached over and patted her fellow teacher on the back. "There, there. It'll be all right. It's not the end of the world you know, Sybil."

"I think-hic--I'll lock myself up in my-hic-tower and become a-hic-hermit! Away from all these-hic-students and everyone. Then I'll never-hic-love again! EVER!!!"

And Professor Trelawney broke out into hysterical sobbing once more. Professor Vector patted her on the back while gazing absently at some random place around the Great Hall. That random place happened to be at the Slytherin table, where a glum Severus Snape sat with a froglike look on his face as some Hufflepuff girl he didn't know sat next to him, giggling madly.

"Severus! Your hair looks so cute in pigtails!" she squealed, tapping one of the pigtails that sat high on either side of his head. Severus dropped his head into his empty gold plate.

"I wish I were a cow," he muttered.

Meanwhile at the Ravenclaw table, Lily Potter was talking animatedly with her friends Karen Tawny and Wendy Englebrecht.

"Oh. My. God. Have you seen Sarah Blacksmith's pants! They are so...short!" Karen said in her gossipy voice.

"Why are her pants short?" asked Wendy, sounding absent and ethereal, as usual.

"Because they're clam diggers. They're supposed to be short," Lily said simply.

"Is that even dress code?" asked Karen quietly, as if someone would hear them.

"No, you need to wear your uniform skirt. That's what McGonagall said to me when I wore my jeans that one day," Wendy said.

"Oh..." the other two girls said in unison, and they all giggled.

Back at the Gryffindor table, James and Sirius were busy conjuring up ice cubes and trying to see who could make theirs slide around the circumference of their plates the fastest without them shooting across the table, and Remus was judging. Without their noticing, Professor Dumbledore stepped up to the podium set up at the front of the hall and cleared his throat. The hall fell silent at once, and James and Sirius made their ice cubes disappear with a swish of their wands.

Across the hall, Rebecca got up and muttered to a Prefect that she had to go use the restroom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you all for coming tonight to celebrate the award ceremony for Logan Goyle. Professor Yellowstone, the head of Slytherin house, will you please step forward?"

As Dumbledore stepped back, the bulking figure of Logan Goyle stood in the background wearing his Slytherin robes. Professor Yellowstone, the Potions master, stood up and started to walk over to the podium, a roll of parchment in his hand. James glanced over at a 4^th year Ravenclaw that was sitting near the front of the hall and nodded. She nodded back, then looked to the front of the room and covertly made a swish of her wand at Professor Yellowstone. Slowly but surely, the professor started to shrink. His face started to grow rather pointy, and his hair turned red and started to become more of a Mohawk than anything. His head started to bob as he walked, and across the silent hall grew a quiet clicking noise. When Professor Yellowstone emerged from the back of the table, he was a chicken, holding the scroll under one wing.

The students in the Great Hall tried their hardest not to break out into hysterics as the chicken-Professor strutted up to the podium. Somehow, the staff and Goyle didn't know about the chicken. The chicken-Professor ignored the students and started to speak with an overly proper English voice to Goyle. "Logan Goyle, you are hereby awarded a 300 Galleon scholarship to any college of your choice for your services to the school in helping track down the person who stole Professor Flitwick's bunny slippers."

Professor Flitwick hugged the pair of bunny slippers he held in his arms tighter to his body and looked around, paranoid, and sunk lower into his seat.

"Are there any remarks that you wish to say?"

"Uhh...sure," Goyle said in his low, slow voice. He plodded up to the podium with the scroll the chicken-Professor gave him, and cleared his throat.

James smirked and nodded at a 5^th year Ravenclaw who also covertly swished his wand in the general direction of the podium after smirking back at James.

"I'd just like to thank my mother and father and-" Suddenly, Goyle's voice started to sound rather squeaky, like he had just taken a few deep breaths of helium, "-everyone else who helped me get this award. Thank you."

Again, the students tried hard not to laugh as Goyle left the podium. The teachers, the chicken-Professor, and Goyle still had no idea what was going on.

Goyle opened his scroll and read it slowly to himself. "Umm..." he mumbled to the chicken-Professor. "My name is spelled wrong."

"Is it?" The chicken-Professor glanced at the scroll. "We-he-hell! So it is. Will someone please pass me a quill and some ink please?"

"Here you go, Professor Yellowstone," Professor Vector gave Professor Yellowstone a quill and some ink, which the chicken-Professor wrote with his right wing the correction to Goyle's name. When Professor Vector took back her writing utensils, she saw on the other side of her Professor Sinistra giving her a very evil glare indeed. "If it's that bright then don't look at it," Professor Vector said. "Squinting I heard is bad for your eyes.

"That-was-my-writing utensil," said Professor Sinistra through gritted teeth.

"Sorry."

"You SOILED IT!!!!"

At that moment Professors Sinistra and Vector both leapt to their feet and started flapping their hands up and down by their wrist joints at each other.

"CATFIGHT!!!!" someone called from a random place in the hall.

That's when all hell broke loose.

Uproar occurred throughout the students. Rolls of toilet paper were thrown all over the place and got caught on the rafters and decorative stone that filled the Great Hall. People conjured up water balloons filled with a mixture of water, used bubble gum, and dissolved Fizzing Whizbees. Filibuster's fireworks dotted the portrait of the sky on the ceiling and rained showers of sparks upon everyone. Goyle hid under the podium, took out an apple, and took a huge bite out of it. He started coughing for some reason, and held out his hand as he felt something come up and out of his throat. It was an apple seed.

Rebecca Knightly ran into the chaotic hall, wearing nothing but a dress slip and bunny slippers exactly like Flitwick's, shouting at the top of her lungs: "Hallelujah! Filch is a sex god!" Then she ran up to Remus and dragged him out of the Great Hall, with James and Sirius following them. They ran up to an empty classroom in a tower somewhere and locked the door.

James collapsed against the wall with hysterical laughter. Sirius was rolling around on the floor with tears rolling down his face. Remus and Rebecca were laughing while being very clingy to each other.

"That...was...the best joke we have ever pulled!" James managed to say.

"It was indeed," replied Sirius, finding a break in his laughter before starting to chuckle again.

"One question, though. How on earth did you think of the line: 'Hallelujah, Filch is a sex god?'" Remus asked Rebecca.

"It was the first thing that came into my head," shrugged Rebecca.

"Oh, okay. Just wondering, because if you..."

"Oh no of course not. Filch is probably sterile anyway."

There was a brief pause, and then they all shuddered.

"That is a nasty thought," replied Sirius.

"Well, whaddaya say we call it a night?" Remus asked.

"Good idea."

The four got up and headed back to their dormitories.

*************************************

EPILOGUE

The next day, the four got found out for their joke, but Dumbledore found it too clever to invoke much punishment. Thus, he sentenced the four to clean a mirror on the 2^nd floor, which he failed to mention made very rude remarks at everything that happened to walk by it.

John Creevey ended up being the only person at his slumber party.

Oh, and James finally figured out his math problem. The answer was 396.

THE END