The House Championship: The Underhand Way

The next morning, Saturday, found the four Gryffindor boys sitting in their common room, discussing House Championship-winning tactics.

"Right. We know that the Slytherins will resort to any means to win. They´re slimy, sneaky, underhand gits. They´ll probably use the Imperius on us or something, make us throw food at McGonagall at mealtimes..." James was saying, staring into the fire.

"Well, they probably wouldn´t go that far, but we´re going to have to watch ourselves. I mean, why were they put in Slytherin in the first place?" said Remus, who was lounging on the chair across from him.

Peter spoke up from his place on the rug by the fire. "I agree. We´ll play fair at first, but the first sign of anything underhand, we´re just going to have to lower ourselves to their level."

Sirius was marching back and forth in front of them. He stopped abruptly and turned to face his friends like a General planning a military operation. "Right, men," he barked. "We need a battle plan. We have to win! It´s a fight to the death. I will die before I´ll be seen in green robes!" He punched a fist into his other hand furiously.

"Come on, Greasy-Locks and the Three Fools aren´t anything we can´t handle..." said James with a cocky grin.

"The enemy could be plotting as we speak!" shouted Sirius, sounding slightly hysterical.

The other three exchanged alarmed looks. "Sirius, we can´t do anything, you know, illegal--" Remus began.

"I knew this would happen," Sirius muttered, resuming his pacing.

"You knew what would happen?" asked James. "Sit down!"

"I think that trench you´re wearing in the carpet is taking things a little too far," added Remus.

Sirius glowered and threw himself unceremoniously down into an empty chair, muttering mutinously.

"Anyway," said James. "They haven't a hope in hell of winning, because, although we're drawing on points now, we have Quidditch to keep us in the lead. And let's face it, they have no chance of beating us at that."

Sirius catapulted out of his chair. "AHA! They're going to sabotage the team's brooms! Or the balls! Or...that's it! They're going to sabotage..." he paused here for dramatic effect, looking around ominously, "the captain." Here he fixed James with a piercing glare.

James rolled his eyes. "Even they aren't stupid enough to do something like that," he said. "It'd be obvious who it was, especially if they tried to curse me."

"No! No, no, no! They would! Snape would!" Sirius shouted, gesturing madly at James, arms flailing. "We're going to have to arrange twenty-four hour protection for you. We'll oversee your practice sessions..." he began stalking back and forth over the rug again, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "Ha! Thinks he can fool us...plotting to sabotage the Gryffindor captain...grumble...I've got his number...I'll break that immense nose...git...mumblegrumble..."

James sighed loudly. "Si..."

Sirius stopped rubbing his hands together. He shook his head sorrowfully and looked at James with an expression of sadness and compassion, as though he were about to tell James he had just a few hours left to live. "Don't worry about it, Prongs. We'll sort out Snape. Won't we, Moony?"

Remus looked up to see Sirius towering over him and nodded vigorously. "Oh...yeah."

"Wormy?"

"Er..."

"SEE?! We'll put Snapey under surveillance. Ha!" With that last outburst he gave James a reassuring pat on the shoulder and flopped back down into the empty seat.

There were a few moments of contemplative silence. Sirius was contemplating Snape's stupidity at thinking up such an obvious plan. The other three were contemplating whether to mention or not to Sirius that he had just made up that whole scenario in his head.

All three decided against it.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

On Monday morning in the Great Hall, Sirius was no calmer. It was now firmly implanted in his brain that the Slytherins, in order to prevent Gryffindor winning points through Quidditch, were going to attack James, the Gryffindor captain. He therefore spent the entire time using his cutlery as a mirror so he could see what the Slytherins were up to, and kept up a running commentary on their actions while the others ate. "Snape's taking a mouthful of porridge...swallowed it...he's going for another one...swallowed that one, too...oooh, he's talking to Malfoy..."

"Si, are you going to do this at every meal?" Remus asked tiredly. Sirius had kept them up most of the night preparing for the 'imminent attack' on James.

"What are they discussing, I wonder...?" continued Sirius, ignoring Remus completely. "Could it be a nefarious plot to put James out of commission? He's going for his wand! Action stations!"

The other three, having been put on edge by Sirius' close monitoring of Snape's actions, automatically dove under the table, amid loud cries of "What the hell are you doing?" and "You'd better get your hand away from there, Pettigrew...". It was extremely cramped. Sirius joined them, seconds later, and peered through the gap between the table and chair like a soldier in the wilderness spying on the enemy.

"Ow!" yelped James. "My hand!"

"Sorry, Prongs," apologised Peter. "Can you see, Sirius? Did he try to hex us?"

"Oh. Er...no..." said Sirius, sounding somewhat sheepish. "He was just...scratching. Ugh!"

"Oh, for..." James muttered and began scrambling back up to his seat.

Once the four of them were once again eating civilly, James lost his patience and grabbed Sirius' knife from him. "Give it a rest, Padfoot."

"What are you doing?" demanded Sirius loudly. "He could have his wand on us, and we'd never know! We could be caught off-guard!"

"Remus and Peter are both facing towards the Slytherin table," James answered matter-of-factly. "If it looks like Snape and his cronies are going to launch an attack, I'm sure they'll be able to see it coming. I want to finish my breakfast in peace, with no more death-defying leaps to the floor."

"It looks to me like he's doing nothing more than just eating his breakfast," Remus offered. Sirius answered that with a dark scowl and huffily began to eat.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

"Okay, men. We know the deal. You have the dungbombs, Pete?"

"Check."

"Moony, you have the Filibuster Fireworks?"

"Check."

"Excellent. But only if the Slytherins get nasty. Okay? Only if they try something. It's a defence mechanism. Only if they do something first. We can't afford to lose any points. And you, Prongsy-boy, just you concentrate on not being hexed."

"For Merlin's sake--" James was cut off as Professor Actaea swept past them into the potions classroom with a sharp "Hurry up, boys."

Sirius frog-marched James into the room, glaring viciously at the Slytherins already in there, as though daring them to try anything. He pushed James into a seat between Remus and him. Peter sat on Sirius' other side.

"Good morning, class," scowled Professor Actaea, as though the thought of a 'good' morning was as attractive to her as the thought of Snape naked was to Sirius. She was fairly new, so had no preferences as far as houses went, but instead hated everyone equally.

She spent the first ten minutes explained how they were going to make shrinking potions. "Any horse-play," she concluded, "and there will be detentions and loss of Hogsmeade privileges."

The class set to work.

Sirius shared a cauldron with Peter. They were both quite adept at potions and finished theirs quite quickly. Remus and James, on the other hand, were seemingly unable to even cut up the ingredients correctly, so bad were they both at the subject. Sirius and Peter helped them when Actaea disappeared into her store cupboard, because, as Sirius so frantically pointed out, Actaea would almost certainly take points from Gryffindor if the potions weren't finished.

"All done," James said cheerfully, as he dropped the last handful of lacewings into the cauldron. "No reason for Actaea to want to--"

BANG! Someone's cauldron had exploded. The boys, stunned, looked around. Sirius burst out laughing. "Look! Look! It was Snape! Snape's cauldron actually exploded! Look at the height of him!" They all dissolved into laughter. Snape was now approximately three feet tall, but his nose was the same size as ever, taking up practically his whole face. He wasn't looking angry or embarrassed, as one might have expected, however. Instead he was looking extremely pleased with himself.

Actaea swept furiously back into the classroom. "Mr Snape!" she shouted. "I would have thought you were above letting your cauldron blow up, like an incompetent first year!"

Sirius was grinning madly. "Actually, Professor," said Snape with an evil look at the Marauders. "Black and his friends over there threw something into it. I didn't even have time to see what it was but I think it was a firework."

Sirius' smile disappeared at the speed of light, to be replaced with a look of utter disbelief. "What?"

"Well?" asked Actaea dangerously.

"We...didn't!" stuttered Sirius.

"Excuse me, Professor," put in Snape smoothly, "but why would I want to explode my own cauldron? And who else in this room would do something like this? Black's the only one droolingly stupid enough to do such a thing."

'Droolingly stupid' as he supposedly was, Sirius knew better than to burst Snape's mountainous nose in front of Professor Actaea. That would have to wait.

Actaea considered the Gryffindors a moment before saying, "Empty out your bags."

With a feeling of dread, they did so, fully aware of the dungbombs and fireworks that Peter and Remus were carrying. The expression on Snape and Malfoy's faces when they saw them were ones of absolute delight. Obviously, they hadn't been expecting the Gryffindors to practically hand over the evidence.

Actaea, when she saw them, looked positively livid. Vulture-like, she loomed over them. "Well, Mr Black. It seems that you and your friends have too much time on your hands. We will have to remedy that. Twenty points from Gryffindor and detention for all four of you. Also, don't think you will be going to Hogsmeade this year."

They were completely nonplussed. Had Snape known or had he just been lucky? "Professor--" began Remus.

"Do you want to make it fifty points, Lupin?"

Remus shook his head in disbelief. "No, Professor."

"Then I suggest that all of you...keep...quiet."

Snape and Malfoy were looking more smug than ever. Even Snape's new height, or lack thereof, couldn't detract from the infuriatingly self-satisfied look he was sending at the Gryffindors.

"You will stay behind to arrange your detentions," ordered Actaea. "Mr Snape, hospital wing."

"Yes, Professor." He swept past, smirking.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

That evening, at dinner, Sirius was more manic than ever. "A week's detention!" he exploded. "That slimy, pathetic, disgusting bas--"

"Mr Black!" It was McGonagall, walking past on her way to the teachers' table. "Language!"

Shooting him a disapproving look, she kept going.

Sirius took a deep breath. "Right. We need new tactics," he said, frighteningly calm. "Anyone got any ideas?"

No one did. It seemed that they had underestimated Snape's sliminess. They ate in silence.

After a while Peter sighed. "It looks like Snape's way's quite effective," he said defeatedly. "We're going to have to do bad stuff to ourselves and make it look like they did it."

James and Remus raised their eyebrows. Sirius, on the other hand, looked at Peter approvingly. "Good work, Peter," he said seriously, giving him a congratulatory pat on the arm before digging in again.

Peter looked at James and Remus questioningly. "Er...thank you...sir."

"Black!" shouted a voice. It was Snape, now back to full height. "Enjoy your detention! Better start digging out those green robes!"

Sirius' military stoicism broke. With a snarl of rage, he grabbed a fistful of mashed potato, preparing to launch it across the room. Remus grabbed his wrist. "No, Padfoot. Ignore them."

Sirius smashed the mashed potatoes down onto the table with a warning look at Snape that said something along the lines of "that'll be your face if you don't watch". With a smirk, Snape went back to his meal.

"Right!" Sirius raged. "I'm going to kill the bas--"

"MR BLACK!" McGonagall was now on her way back from the teachers' table. "I'll hear no more outbursts like that! Five points from Gryffindor!"

Sirius stared momentarily.

A shriek of rage echoed through the Great Hall.