Out of the Books

Chapter 6 - Like father like son (and daughter)

"But there has to be a way to get back," said James for at least the twentieth time within the last hour.

Within the last week, since he had had the dream which made him remember his former life, he had said this sentence probably more than a thousand times.

Lily knew exactly how her husband felt as she had felt the same way fourteen years ago.

"James," she said gently, "there are no wizards in this world. Magic doesn't exist here. I see no chance we can get back under these circumstances."

James turned towards her abruptly, a desparate glow in his eyes. "But there has to be a way. I mean there definitely is a connection between the two worlds, otherwise we wouldn't dream about it, right?" James begged her to agree with him with his eyes. "I'm sure that together, we'll find a way back."

Lily sighed. She did not have much hope of ever getting back and she did not want to get her hopes up by again trying to return to her world only to be disappointed once again. They were dead in their own world. But she did not have the heart to rob James of his hope, not yet.

So instead of answering his question, she stood up. "It is getting late, why don't we go back to the hotel?"

Lily had a long day of working behind her as she wrote for her newspaper, the Exeter Express, about the tennis championships in Wimbledon. The tournament lasted for two weeks so there was still a week left. James and the twins had been visiting London for a few days while she was here. But of course they only had time to spend together during the evenings as she was working during the day.

Usually, they spent the evenings talking about their memories of their "other life" as they were calling it now. When they were alone, they liked to think of themselves as Lily and James again because it felt right. But of course in their public everyday-lives they still went by Jack and Liz. They talked about their own time at Hogwarts and the Marauders but they also speculated how their world would look like now. Both of them were very concerned about their son Harry although Lily had dreamt of him again and so they knew that he had survived his encounter with Voldemort. Of course the topic of getting back to their world came across their conversation again and again.

Tonight Lily and James had taken a walk in the cooler evening air while they had left the twins to play in the hotel swimming pool.

"So what did you do with the kids today?" Lily asked to stir the conversation on easier ground.

"Oh, we went to the zoo. Leo was so fascinated of the lions and told everyone who wanted to hear it that his name meant lion," he smiled.

Lily laughed. "Oh, I can imagine how Amy reacted to that." She put her nose up in the air and said in a slightly superior voice that was a good imitation of her daughter's. "Well, you know, lions are actually really lazy. They sleep most of the time and when they don't sleep, they eat. So it's actually quite a boring animal"

Now James joined her laughing. "Yes, you know your daughter quite well. That is pretty much what she said to that. But of course Leo, wasn't really impressed by that. For him it was enough that the lion is seen as king of the beasts."

For Jack, the rest of the summer passed in a blur of family activity, which he appreciated much more since his dream in June. He was also doing a lot of research. He was determined to find some way to get back in his own world.

As soon as he and the twins had come home from their London trip, Jack had installed a modem in their house so he could use the internet for his research.

Liz had helped him a lot with gathering information and especially her experience as a journalist was very useful. But so far they had not found anything that would help them to get back. Despite Liz's doubts and despite their lack of success, it felt good to do something which hopefully brought them closer to their own world - and most of all, to do it together.

They had begun their quest for a way back at the pub where they had "met" on Halloween 1981 and tried to determine whether there were significant wizard premises nearby in their other world but apart from an apparition point there was nothing of importance.

They had also tried to contact others who had died in the wizarding world. So far they had only found an old woman who Lily remembered had worked in the robe shop in Diagon Alley, but the lady had of course no memories at all about her life as a witch.

August turned into September and Jack had to start teaching again, which now of course occupied most of his time. The twins had turned twelve years this summer and began at the secondary school where James was teaching. Fortunately, they did not have any lessons with him as James was afraid that this would be awkward for him as well as the children.

It was now the end of October and Leo and Amy sat in one of their favourite classes - physics with Mr. Carpenter. Jonathan Carpenter was a year younger than their father and the two of them were good friends, so he had visited the Pearson family home quite often. The twins liked him a lot and in their opinion, he was simply cool. He had a great sense of humour and his lessons were never boring as he liked practical experiments in his class at least as much as Jack did.

The lesson was almost over and Mr. Carpenter cleared his throat. "Well, I think it's time for the Deal of the Week again, isn't it?" he asked his students, smiling.

Twenty-three heads nodded eagerly. Mr. Carpenter was the only teacher who had managed the students to be looking forward to him giving them homework.

The Deal of the Week consisted of him giving some tasks for his students to do at home while he usually announced some interesting sounding experiment, which he would show them in their next lesson.

"How about this? You read pages 46 to 49 in the book and calculate the velocity of the cars in the examples, which the text gives, with the formula you have learned today. "

He waited for the students to write down the task in their calenders before he continued. "So next Wednesday I'm going to show you how I have a bucket of water, which is turned up-side-down, over my head without getting wet."

Leo and Amy looked excitedly at each other. They knew this experiment. Their dad had shown it to them during the summer holidays.

"Well, he will only not get wet if the bucket keeps moving; what do you say we stop it when it is right over his head?" he whispered to his sister mischievously. Amy grinned.

"That would be really funny; too bad we can't just do something like that." But Amy did not sound too sad while saying that, instead she giggled about her imagination of the wet physics teacher.

Leo looked thoughtful for a moment before his eyes started to glow excitedly.

"Well, why not? I have an idea how we can do it. We just have to plan it thoroughly."

Amy, who knew her brother quite well, knew that he would think about nothing else than this prank until next physics class.

As the bell signalled the end of the lesson, the twins slowly left the classroom, the plan of a prank beginning to form in Leo's head while Amy kept throwing him curious glances.

Wednesday couldn't approach quickly enough for Leo and Amy. Over the weekend they had planned everything they wanted to do carefully and they felt lucky that the physics lesson on Wednesday was right after lunch break. They skipped their lunch to prepare the classroom for the show.

They drew a long line of string across the ceiling of the classroom and knotted an old net, in which Leo usually kept his football, on one end of it. The net stayed hidden behind the blackboard until the twins, who would sit on the desk in the back of the room, pulled the string so that the net would hang right above their teacher.

The physics classroom was perfect for this kind of prank as the ceiling was covered with checked panels to cover the lamps so the string was not easily seen against those.

The preparation took Amy and Leo the better part of their break and after they were ready they did not have any time to go to the school cafeteria to grab some lunch. So they just went into the corridor outside of the classroom to talk with some friends.

A few minutes before their lesson started they saw their dad coming towards them with some books under his right arm and carrying a small plastic bucket in his left hand.

Leo stared at him. "What are you doing here, dad?" he asked, totally confused. Jack grinned at him. "I'm going to teach you," he answered simply as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Amy, who had joined her brother, sputtered "What? But where is Mr. Carpenter? It's his lesson."

Jack frowned at his daughter. He knew that the children liked the lessons with his friend, but that did not justify the almost panicked reaction from them. "He is a little under the weather and I'll be substituting for him today," he said and watched the twins suspiciously.

Amy forced a cheerful expression on her face as she said, "Oh, well I'm sorry to hear that; I was just curious why you were teaching today."

Jack threw one more suspicious glance at the twins and entered the classroom, in which he also looked around carefully, but still he did not notice the string on the ceiling before he set the books on the teachers desk.

Leo's eyes were still on his father as he mouthed "What now?"

Amy grinned at her brother. "We'll do it anyway," she decided as they took their seats in the back of the classroom.

Jack, who suspected that his children were up to something, threw glances at them throughout his whole lesson. He knew that they had a very Marauder-sense of humour at home; but he had never heard of any of his colleages that his children were too out of line in class. And surely they would not start today, would they?

Finally, he came to the experiment, Jonathan had asked him to show the students. He filled the plastic bucket with water at the sink in the front of the class room and when he returned to the teacher's desk, he caught the faces of Amy and Leo, who now looked perfectly innocent.

Feeling a bit as if he was walking into a trap as he explained the experiment to the class, James slowly and carefully began swinging the bucket in front of him before he started to let the water-filled bucket make loopings over his head. After about three loops his students were cheering loudly and James wanted to take the bucket down in relief, when it suddenly caught right over his head and its contents showered all over his hair, face and shirt.

Jumping in surprise, James looked up over his head and saw a wet ball net dangling above him, which he had already seen several times in the room of his children.

Through the loud laughter of the class, James brought his arm down and closed his eyes, while he leaned his head back and breathed in deeply to calm himself.

After a glare, which he shot at the twins, he continued the lesson with a calm and firm voice. "Well, that, what most of you witnessed with great amusement now, was a brilliant example for a combination of a circular movement and an abrupt negative acceleration..."

The physics lesson went on without further incidents, even though Jack's hair was still dripping wet, and when the bell rang the students packed away their books and began shuffeling out of the classroom, chatting excitedly about this great prank and Jack knew that they were only waiting to get out of his hearing range, before they burst out laughing about it.

"Wait just a second!" called Jack after the children. "Amy and Leonard Pearson, I would like to see you in my office after school is out today," he said sternly to his son and daughter.

The twins nodded with expressions on their faces that Jack interpreted as Oh-well-it-was-worth-it. He had worn this expression quite often in his own school days and smiled inwardly as he returned to his office to change clothes before the next lesson.

When the twins stepped into their father's office at four o'clock in the afternoon that day, they felt a bit apprehensive about what would meet them there. After all it was the first time they were about to get detention in their new school, and it was their own father giving it to them.

Jack Pearson was sitting behind his desk and was grading some testpapers. When he noticed his children entering his office he looked up, his face void of any emotion.

Considering their prank in his class today, Leo and Amy were quite unsure what to expect of their father and teacher now. Had they gone too far? They knew that Jack would have laughed about it, had they just done it in the garden behind their house, but now? Did he feel compromised in his authority? Was he really mad at them?

Amy and Leo had not thought about any consequences their prank would have either on them or on their father. Now, as they saw him, staring expressionless at them, they both felt some guilt creeping up in their consciences and suddenly they found their shoelaces extremely interesting.

"Well, why don't you come in and take a seat?" Jack flatly invited his son and daughter in.

Amy and Leo walked in carefully and sat in two chairs in front of the full desk of their father.

Between stacks of testpapers and essays, which were waiting to be corrected, there were many framed pictures of Leo and Amy, and a bowl filled with candy and chocolate. Jack used to say that he needed energy while doing paperwork, and most energy could be found in sugar.

The twins had been in this office quite often already and usually they liked it a lot, because it was the only room they knew of that was more chaotic than their own bedroom.

There was only a thin corridor of floor cleared between the door and the desk. Everywhere else in the room stood different wooden and metal structures, used for all kinds of physical experiments. The spaces between them were filled with masses of books, whereas the walls of the relatively small office were plastered with family pictures, diagrams and Tae Kwon Do posters.

Despite the apparent chaos, the room usually had a light and friendly atmosphere to it, but at the moment, Amy and Leo could feel the tension in the air.

The silence stretched on while Jack was sitting behind his desk, looking at his children, who were now sitting opposite their father and still did not dare look at him.

So of course, the twins did not see how Jack's lips started twitching and soon curled into a small smile. He put a final effort into concealing it again before he spoke in the sternest voice he could manage. "You know, why you are here, don't you?"

Amy and Leo looked up and Jack could immediately see that Leo didn't like the tone in his question at all, as the expression on his face rapidly changed from guilt to defiance.

"Yes, sir," he answered stifly while Amy only stared at him.

"Bet you don't," said Jack simply and was proud of himself, that he still did not give in to the urge to smile.

Leo leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms in front of his chest and said in a tone that teachers usually do not like at all (but Jack did not mind at the moment), "Well, and why are we here?"

Now Jack could not stop himself any longer and grinned broadly at his children. "I wanted to congratulate you," he told them cheerfully.

Amy, who had just opened her mouth to defend herself and her brother, closed it again.

"What?" she asked disbelievingly while she and Leo looked at their father as if he had grown an extra head.

"I wanted to congratulate you," he repeated himself. When he saw, that the twins were still staring wordlessly at him, he continued. "Congratulation on your successful prank. You really had me there."

Amy was first to regain her speech. "You...you mean, that we don't get detention?" she asked carefully.

"No, of course not!" said Jack. "I and my friends from school always prided ourselves to be the worst pranksters of the world. How could I now punish the first promising sign you show to be worthy successors!" he exclaimed dramatically.

Leo and Amy laughed loudly, from the antics of their father and teacher, as well as out of relief that their behavior in their physics lesson was thousand times more appreciated by their dad than they could have ever hoped for.

"Why didn't you ever tell us, Dad?" Amy wanted to know. "I mean, you never have told us anything about your own time at school."

Leo nodded eagerly.

Jack thought for a moment. "Well", he said somewhat like a child being caught with their hand in the candy jar. How could he have told his children about his memories, when he only found them back himself half a year ago? And his school days as Jack Pearson had been less than a shadow of his school days as James Potter.

Then he caught himself. "You see, I didn't want to give you ideas, especially as I don't think your mother would like that. But now that you seem to have a great prankster potential yourselves, why don't we use your 'detention' to make up for that now? Let me get some hot chocolate for all of us, and then I can tell you about my glorious days as a marauder."