Of All the Stupid Things to Do...

Sirius threw down his sack into the chair next to James. "That annoying old goat," he fumed. "Thirteen out of twenty! What does he think he's playing at? I spent five hours researching that paper, I will have him know, and I doubt that anyone else had points I didn't make!"

"He hates you," said Peter in an unconcerned monotone. "He's never going to give you better than a ninety percent average, anyway... I don't know why you bother." He flipped a page and made a careful note in the margin of his papers.

"You can say that," retorted Sirius, "He loves you! You never get less than ninety percent... if anyone should not bother, it should be you."

James looked up from the Potions text. "Maybe next time you two should write the same paper, practically word for word. Then if you get different grades, you can call him on it."

It really wasn't fair. That paper, James knew, had been far better than James' own. The points were better stated and better points anyway, and Sirius had a good three inches of parchment on him. Sirius was probably underestimating the amount of time he spent researching; James knew he himself hand spent an hour and a half on it. It just was not fair.

On the other hand, if his own death hadn't fazed Binns, a complaint from the students was unlikely to.

"How does he grade those things, anyhow?" groused Sirius, settling down and pulling out a Transfiguration text. "He can't mark them, he can't use a quill."

Peter looked up sharply. "You know," he said with interest, "I've always wondered that. How does he mark them? He's a ghost!"

"Good question," said Remus, returning from the stacks. "Shall we go find out when we're done here?"

"I have maybe half an hour to go on this star chart," said Peter. "What about you three?"

"I'm game anytime," said James. "I'm just working on that new, er, conditioner for Snape." He looked up, merry hell dancing in his eyes.

"I'd like to give it at least another half hour," said Remus. "I realize it's, erm, extra credit, and scholastic justice is more important, but I just wore my arms out getting these books here."

"And I just got here," added Sirius. "Half an hour, then?"

"Right!"

*******

Eventually, Peter and Remus stayed and worked on the conditioner-a delightful product that they thought could be gender based... simply make it femininely magnetic in nature, and it would cling to Snape until he got a woman to embrace him. Given that they were planning to make the stuff as noxious as possible, that was likely to be a long time in coming.

So, as Peter and Remus stayed and slaved away at the delightful task of potion theorizing, James and Sirius headed off towards the teacher's wing.

In the end, though, they, too, split up. Sirius headed towards Binns' office, and James towards the teachers' suites.

*******

It didn't take long for James to find Binns' room. It was the smallest by far, Binns needing the least space, and the smallest room was always in a certain place behind that last stairwell, no matter which floor you were on. So really, James had the advantage there.

Unfortunately, there was nothing in or near that room to suggest how Binns managed to get the papers graded. In fact, there weren't even papers. Or books. Or quills, or inks, or anything else a teacher might be suggested to need.

So how did Binns grade the papers? Now James was well and truly puzzled.

It was pure luck that found him the answer. He was about to give up-had, in fact, given up-when he saw a small, unobtrusive door right beside Binns. This would also be a small room, judging by the layout on every other floor, but likely had a substantial study.

James knew where every teacher slept. It was, in fact, one of the first things he had investigated with Remus and Peter. (He was getting into trouble with Sirius from before the time either one of them could toddle, so he didn't really think Sirius counted.)

By process of elimination, James had to conclude that no one slept in this room. It was, as far as James knew, unoccupied, empty, purposeless, an ideal place to store excess dung-bombs, now that he thought of it... In short, there was no one in there.

So why was there a light shining from beneath the door?

James crept closer. It wasn't hard; it was pitifully easy to sneak around this school with only a modicum of effort. Of course, the invisibility cloak helped, but still, the teachers should have been at least a little bit more alert.

He knelt by the doorknob. There was a keyhole, and it was the sort that was unenchanted, too, unless whoever was in there had done some complex charm themselves. It was possible, but the likelihood that the charm would identify him before he could sneak downstairs in the cloak was minimal, so he got as close to the keyhole as he could and leaned in.

He gasped when he saw what was inside the room.

Well, he'd found out how Binns graded papers, alright. He'd have to tell Sirius, Peter and Remus... just wait until they heard this!

******

"You have got to be kidding! That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of!"

"Surely you don't expect us to believe that a teacher could be so immature, do you, James?" asked Remus, looking so disapproving that James wondered if maybe he were planning to do that some day.

"Oh, please," said Sirius breezily, "That's the least of my problems with it! How did he get that started? Is it just for the dead guys, or do all the teachers have that? I mean, if you think about it, anything would do it, really. He could even make the papers grade themselves if he really wanted to."

"Nonsense, Sirius," said Peter with sarcastic cheer, "If that were the case, how would he grade yours down?"

"I stand corrected," Sirius bowed to Peter. "But still... how on earth did he manage to pull that off?"

*******

It was a puzzle that James found himself coming back to day after day. Every day in History of Magic, of course, but also sometimes in Potions, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures... anything involving physicality, really, brought his mind back to the puzzle of Professor Binns.

He didn't figure it out for almost three weeks after he first found out how Binns was grading his papers. When he did, he was stunned that he hadn't before; but of course, it was just that sort of thing: once the first piece fell in, the rest had to follow.

He was sitting in Herbology when it clicked. He was watching Joel Ruthmeyer trim a flutterbye bush when he thought about why Joel was at Hogwarts anyway... it wasn't common knowledge, but James' parents were rather high-ranked; every member of the Ruthmeyer family was under a curse. No more magic than your average muggle in the lot of them, just a whole lot more belief. Joel's teachers helped him out, and he was good in the indirectly-magical areas, such as astronomy and History of Magic, but he just didn't have the gift.

This thought, of course, led him to thinking about History of Magic... And all of a sudden, James just knew that the two were related, somehow... if only he could just figure out how...

What did Joel being a squib have to do with History of Magic?

And then, of course, the pieces all fell into place.

******

"No way!" crowed Peter. "That's just too rich!"

"Let me see if I've understood you correctly," said Sirius. "Professor Binns, being intangible, cannot directly grade our papers. Correct?"

James nodded merrily.

"So he has, instead of using magic to enchant them to grade themselves (the lazy old goat)-" Peter let out a snort. "-He has hired an attractive, nubile, twenty-something, 36-24-36 and five foot two young squib girl to grade them for him?"

James nodded again, grinning from ear to ear.

Sirius looked half thoughtful, half flabbergasted. He opened his mouth to say something, but Remus beat him to it. "That sounds like something you would do. Are you sure you aren't making this up?"

James' face was a study to behold. "I am not making this up! You can ascertain it if you want to, you know; it isn't exactly hard. All you would need to do would be to skive off some lesson or other and go during the day, he's not going to be able to be in there while he has class."

Peter threw a sly look at Sirius.

Sirius threw a thoughtful look at Remus.

Remus rolled his eyes and gave a frank look to James. "You're going to have to take copious notes for us, you know," he said. "Seeing as poetic irony requires that we make this sojourn during History of Magic class."

James grinned again. "Of course! Well, irony and the fact that Binns is least likely to miss you."

"Precisely," Peter threw out carelessly, flopping down into a chair that he had left precipitously when James bounded over to them. "How do we feel about going down to dinner?"

*******

James glanced to the side of the room where The Girls sat taking notes. The Girls were Evelyn Bryce, Foxfire Lumiosi, Morgan Lovegood, Lily Evans, and Mary O' Connor. They were nearly as troublesome as James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus, and half as much fun.

When they should have been pranking, they were snitching; when they should have been providing answers, they were brown nosing; when they should have been silent, they always spoke up; and when they should have been plotting, they were doing. In short, they gained as many points for Gryffindor as they caused James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus to loose, and were as beloved by those who disliked the four as they were loathed by James' and Sirius' admirers.

James couldn't stand them, but had learned how to keep them silent. Correct timing of Snape's "conditioner," ominous timing of the introduction of the one thing that no girl would ever want in her hair, was all that was necessary.

And of course, the girls couldn't know that there was no way he would be pouring that into their hair. For one thing, Snape's conditioner was gender-biased, and while attracted to men, it was repelled by women; even if he wanted to put it in their hair, the stuff wouldn't go.

Although Sirius had lost a three dollar bet that the stuff wouldn't go near Snape, either...

James turned to look instead at the chairs on his left and in front of him. All three were empty, mute testament to the investigation of the teachers' quarters that was underway.

History of Magic class had never seemed so long.

*******

"Well?" James asked, as soon as they got together again outside of Transfiguration. "Is she not the foxiest thing on this planet?"

"Well, that's what took so long," said Remus. "We agree, the woman is beautiful. But James... correct me if I'm wrong... the woman you saw was dark, correct?"

James nodded.

"With black hair?" piped up Peter. Again, James nodded.

"And short, but curvy?" finished Sirius.

James nodded a last time, now thoroughly puzzled.

"James," said Remus, "The woman we saw was pale, very Nordic looking. Tall, graceful... curvy, but definitely not short."

James looked around at the other two. They nodded agreement. "Well," said James. "The plot thickens."

*******