Fun with Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

"For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion."
- Benedick

Act I, scene i
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, January, 1978.

"THEY'RE BACK!!!" shrieked Peter Pettigrew, skidding into the Great Hall.

The Head Girl, Lily Evans, was the first to leap to her feet, although she quickly tamped down her evident excitement. "Those bloody idiots," she said.

The other students barraged Peter with questions - but fell silent as Professor McGonagall approached him.

"Are they all unharmed?" the professor inquired.

"They're fine! A few nicks and scrapes - Madame Blommel says it's nothing."

"Fifty points each from Gryffindor, then," McGonagall announced.

"Wasn't Snape with them?" called out Andrew Weasley.

"Quite right," said McGonagall. "Fifty points from Slytherin as well, then."

As the professor returned sedately to the head table, the students crowded around Peter. Lily, who was closest to him, asked, "I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?"

"Who?"

"She means James," said Rosie Doyle, the sixth year Gryffindor prefect.

"O! He is returned, and as pleasant as ever he was!"

"I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars?" asked Lily. "But how many hath he killed? For, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing."

"You promised to -?"

"Never mind her," said Rosie. "She wants to know if James killed any Death Eaters." Lily glared at her.

"Oh!" said Peter. "He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how."

"Yes, I'm sure," said Lily. "You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it; he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach."

"And a good soldier too, lady, according to Dumbledore," Peter said proudly.

"And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?" Lily quipped.

The conversation had got totally away from Peter now. "A lord to a lord," he said. "A man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues..."

"It is so indeed!" exclaimed Lily. "He is no less than a stuffed man; but for the stuffing... well, we are all mortal."

"Oooo, she likes him!" giggled Rosie. "You must not, sir, mistake my friend. There is a kind of merry war betwixt James and her; they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them. I'm sure you've noticed."

"Alas! He gets nothing by that," said Lily. "In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one!"

"I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books," observed Andrew.

"No; an he were, I would burn my study."

"Lily, remind me to stay on your good side!" said Peter.

"Do, good friend," she said with a wink.

"You will never run mad, Lily," Rosie commented.

"No," said Lily. "Not till a hot January."

"Well, it HAS been unseasonably warm..." teased Rosie, receiving a pinch on the arm for her trouble.

A commotion at the entrance drew their attention.

"Albus!" exclaimed McGonagall, leaving the head table again.

Headmaster Albus Dumbledore laughed. "Good Minerva, you are come to meet your trouble! The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it."

"Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace, for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave."

"Couldn't take anymore paperwork, eh?" he joked.

"No, I really couldn't."

Behind Dumbledore, three young men, all seventh-year students, strutted into the Great Hall. Actually only James Potter strutted; Severus Snape slunk, and Sirius Black sauntered.

"So," said McGonagall, "I see you did bring them all back, each in one piece. That was quite a feat. It sounds as if they were quite determined to get themselves killed."

"We knew what we were doing!" James protested.

"I very much doubt that," McGonagall said sternly. "A handful of half-trained wizards against a dozen Death Eaters? Gryffindors are supposed to be brave, not foolhardy."

"Sometimes it's a fine line," said Dumbledore. "Although, I must say I'm rather surprised that Mr. Lupin went with them instead of talking them out of it. Still, all's well that ends well."

"It's Mr. Snape I'm most surprised at," said McGonagall. "I thought surely a Slytherin would have had more sense!"

Snape only glared at her from under his stringy black hair.

"Actually, Snape was great," said Sirius, slapping Snape on the back so that he staggered. "He totally saved our a- er, he was a big help."

"He did okay," muttered James.

Dumbledore spoke up, quietly enough that only those next to him could hear. "Although I don't condone anything the four of you did this week, I believe Mr. Snape is to be congratulated on cooperating with the rest of you for what you believed to be the greater good. I expect you'll be treating him with more respect from now on, Mr. Potter. Now," he continued, raising his voice, "all of you, back to your lunch. We're not suspending afternoon classes for this little reunion."

"We would have done fine without Snape," James grumbled, as the students drifted back to their tables. "In fact, I think we could have made it out without Dumbledore rescuing us..."

Lily cut him off. "I wonder that you will still be talking, Potter; nobody marks you."

James whirled on her. "What! My dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?"

"Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as James Potter? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence."

"Then is courtesy a turncoat," he replied. "But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted, and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none."

"A dear happiness to women; they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me."

"God keep your ladyship still in that mind, so some gentleman or other shall escape a predestinate scratched face!"

"Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were!" she shot back.

"I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's name; I have done." To make sure he'd had the last word, James turned his back on her and proceeded to the far end of the Gryffindor table.

"Cop out," muttered Lily. "You always end with a jade's trick. I know you of old."

"Faith, Evans, you tax James too much!" said Sirius, appearing next to her, pulling Severus along with him. "But he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not." Lily scowled, and Sirius changed the subject quickly. "Remus should be along any minute. His arm was broken; Madame Blommel wanted to make sure it was completely healed before she let him out of the hospital wing."

"Peter said you only had a few nicks and scrapes," said Lily, frowning.

"Pretty much true, thanks to old Snape here - he knocked Remus out of the way of a nasty curse, so it only got his arm."

"Well," said Lily, forcing a smile at Severus, "let me bid you welcome. If you saved the one of these scoundrels worth saving, I owe you all duty."

With a concerted effort not to sneer, Severus answered, "I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you."

Lily reached to shake Severus's hand, but over his shoulder she saw Remus Lupin in the doorway, looking around the Hall. "Remus!" she cried, and ran to welcome him back.

Sirius and Severus, watching her greet Remus, were joined by a boisterous James. "Hey, Black, what's with the slackjawed look? Taking a fancy to Evans now, are we?"

"No..." said Sirius. "Look at Lupin. We come prancing in and soak up all the attention we can get, and he sneaks in when nobody's looking."

"You're saying he's making us look like jerks?"

"I'm just saying he's modest."

"Modest...?" said James, as if this were a strange concept.

"Yeah. It's, you know, virtuous. And stuff."

"Ah, and by 'virtuous' you mean 'hot,'" James translated.

Severus swept a disgusted look over both of them and stalked over to the Slytherin table.

"Ooo, we scared him!" said James, grinning.

"He is kind of hot," mused Sirius.

"Severus?!" James was aghast.

"Remus, you twit. I mean, don't you think he's fit? I pray thee, speak in sober judgment."

"Well," said James, thoughtfully, "methinks he's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise; only this commendation I can afford him: that were he other than he is, he were unhandsome, and being no other but as he is, he's not exactly my type."

"You're a total jerk, Potter."

"That does seem to be the general consensus. But speak you this with a sad brow, or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song?"

"I'm being serious!"

"You're always Sirius," James pointed out.

"Look, Potter, I know you're a straight guy, but you're not blind! What do you think? Is Remus sexy, or have I just been spending too much time with him?"

James sighed. "I'm looking, and I see no such matter. Of course, he IS standing right next to Lily, who, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds him as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you? I thought we were going to be old bachelors together." Sirius just stared at Remus and Lily, still talking in the doorway. "Oh, go to, i' faith," said James, "an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays."

"Sorry, what did you say?" asked Sirius, turning his attention back to James.

"I said, let's have some fucking lunch already!"

"Yes," said Rosie, coming within earshot on her way out. "Why aren't you two eating? You must be starving!"

"It's Sirius," said James. "He's in luuuuv. With who? That's your line. With Remus Lupin! Can you believe this guy?"

"Amen, if you love him," Rosie said to Sirius, "for he is very well worthy. Lily always says he's the only halfway civilized one of you lot."

"You speak this to fetch me in," said Sirius, with a suspicious look.

"By my troth, I speak my thought!" she replied indignantly.

"All right," he relented. "That I love him, I feel."

"Well, that he is worthy, I know!" said Rosie.

"That I neither feel how he should be loved nor know how he should be worthy is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me! I will die in it at the stake!" said James.

"Oh, who asked you?" said Rosie. "Sirius, is he always like this?"

"Yes. He was ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty, and never could maintain his part but in the force of his will."

"Hey!" said James. "That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is -- for the which I may go the finer -- I will live a bachelor."

Rosie and Sirius, having witnessed six and a half years' worth of sparring between James and Lily, rolled their eyes at each other.

"James," said Sirius, "I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love."

"With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid."

"Methinks the maiden doth protest too much," observed Rosie.

"Yeah, just slightly," Sirius agreed.

"Well," said Rosie, "if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument."

"If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam."

"Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke,'" she quoted.

"The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible James Potter bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write, 'Here is good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign 'Here you may see James the married man.'"

"We'll do that," Sirius promised.

"Well, I think I've made my point here." James sniffed haughtily and went to the table for what remained of the lunch hour.

"Now that he's gone," said Rosie, "Let's hear it. Dost thou affect Remus?"

Before speaking, Sirius looked around to see that Remus and Lily were still talking, and James had got down to the serious business of eating in a manner worthy of a seventeen-year-old boy. "When we went onward on this ended action, I looked upon him with a soldier's eye, that lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand than to drive liking to the name of love... But now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts have left their places vacant; in their rooms come thronging soft and delicate desires, all prompting me how fair Remus is, saying, I lik'd him ere I went to wars."

"Enough! Thou wilt be like a lover presently, and tire the hearer with a book of words. Look, if thou dost love him, cherish it. Lily and I will feel him up - uh, I mean feel him out for you. That was your point in feeding me that load of crap, wasn't it?"

"Um... yeah. I guess it was," he admitted.

"Then don't worry about it. We'll win him over for you. It'll be fun. And hey, no thanks necessary."

"I'm not sure it will be that easy," said Sirius. "I've been rooming with him for over six years; I'm pretty sure he likes girls. Look how close he is to Lily."

"Oh, don't worry about that. I wasn't kidding about Lily and James - I think they're totally into each other. In fact, while I'm talking you up to Remus, you can talk Lily up to James, and we'll see who gets married first."

"What?" said Sirius. "Married? I wasn't - I don't- what?"

"I'm just kidding!" said Rosie. "Well, sort of. In the way that I'm not at all kidding. Oh you should see yourself, you just went white as a ghost! Look, go eat something and talk to James; leave Remus to me."

"Somehow," said Sirius, "I don't really feel any better about this."

Act I, Scene ii
Point Place, Wisconsin.
1978
Eric Forman's Basement.

Just kidding; I'm skipping scene ii. Nothing happens.

Act I, Scene iii
Outside the Great Hall

Severus Snape left the Great Hall as quickly as he was able, but he was hardly out the door when Peter Pettigrew caught up with him.

"All right there, Sni - Severus?" he panted.

"Quite all right. Why do you ask?" he returned imperiously.

"Well, I thought you and the other guys were friends now, since you all went off hunting Death Eaters together..."

"Oh, is that what you thought."

"Well..."

Severus increased his pace, but Peter scurried along beside him. Finally Severus said, "I may fight on their side, but I won't be their friend. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour."

"But shouldn't you try?" ask Peter. "Everyone expects you to join the D.E.s. You have of late stood out against James and Sirius, and Sirius hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest. And James still doesn't trust you."

Severus snorted. "James? He's just a student like we are. What do I care whether he trusts me? I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any! In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me."

"Um... are you sure you're on our side?" Peter asked timidly.

Severus glanced at him. "For now."

"But you'll still cause trouble for James and Sirius," guessed Peter.

"If I can. Whenever the opportunity presents itself."

Peter giggled. Severus stopped and looked at him. "That amuses you?"

"I can't help it," laughed Peter. "You three always going at each other - it's the best entertainment most of us ever get."

"Glad to be of service," Severus snarled, resuming his pace.

"Hey!" Peter caught up with him again. "I overheard something you might like..." and he proceeded to tell Severus what he'd overheard of Rosie and Sirius's conversation.

"This could be useful," Severus admitted. "Come, come; let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up Sirius hath all the glory of my overthrow, making me look like another of their fan club. If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You will assist me?"

"To the death, my lord," Peter agreed.

"I really don't think that will be entirely necessary," said Severus, "But let's not rule it out just yet."

END ACT I