Doesn't Ring a Bell

Oh sure, the day started off simply enough. James and Sirius tried reducing the size of Snape's proboscis as they had planned, but unfortunately were caught by Professor Slughorn, who was passing; he gave them a detention and undid the spell before it actually accomplished anything. Remus was caught passing notes to Emma in Charms, and was also put in detention. Peter, who hadn't done anything wrong, requested to have a detention too, just so he wouldn't be left out. McGonagall took pity on him and said that he could join his friends.

No, the part of the day that was unusual came around lunchtime.

The Marauders had just started lunch when Katrina tapped Sirius on the shoulder and winked furtively. This was of course, not noticed by James, who was staring at Lily while the lettuce slowly dropped out of his sandwich and onto the floor, where a grateful mouse was picking it up and taking it back to its little mouse home.

It also went unnoticed by Remus - he was very much occupied with Emma, who was sitting across his lap, locked in a fierce make-out session with him, which is why she didn't notice Katrina and Sirius walk out of the Great Hall either. Not together of course, because that would just be too obvious.

Nor were they noticed by Peter, who seemed to be having trouble with his gourmet salad. Every time he raised his fork to his mouth, the salad would shoot randomly across the hall, hitting somebody in the eye or nose. The culprit was sitting at the next table; a forth-year Hufflepuff girl, the very one that Peter had said seemed interested in him at breakfast that morning. She had an unkind expression on her face, and every time Peter didn't connect with his salad, a vindictive look of evil pleasure flitted across it. Peter dealt with his flying salad problem in the smartest way he thought possible; he shoved his face down into the bowl and started eating it like that. Well, it was a very delicious salad. His strange eating habits attracted the attention of the people sitting nearest him, but he didn't really seem to notice, with his head shoved in his bowl such as it was.

Emma and Remus finally parted, Remus looking breathless, Emma looking satisfied. She looked around at the people who had been staring at them and gave them a challenging look. They hastened to fix their eyes instead on the food in front of them or to talk to their friends.

She then noticed that Sirius was missing, as well as that girl in her dorm - what was her name... Katherine-something?

She only noticed that they were both missing because it was the middle of lunch and nobody had even halfway finished eating yet, let alone been ready to leave. She found this slightly suspicious.

"Hey, Remus, where do you think Sirius has gone?" she mumbled in his ear, too content to take her head off his shoulder, where it was now resting.

"Hmm... I'm not sure...it's not like Sirius to leave lunch early..." he said, puzzled. Remus turned and looked around the Great Hall to see if his friend was chatting up one of the girls at another house table. This was much to Emma's annoyance, as it meant she had to remove her head from its resting place. She also decided to sit on the bench; she was getting annoyed with the piercingly stern looks McGonagall was shooting her every five minutes.

After satisfying himself that Sirius was nowhere to be found in the Great Hall, Remus chucked a pepper mill at James, who was jerked rudely out of one of his many fantasies involving Lily.

"What do you want?" he asked grumpily.

"Sirius is missing," informed Remus.

"Missing? What do you mean, missing?" James was showing a bit more interest now, and Peter had pulled his head out of his bowl to listen as well.

"As in, he's not here in the Great Hall, with all of us," Remus said exasperatedly.

"But Sirius never leaves the hall without us!" exclaimed James in dismay.

"Let's go see if he's in the common room; he might have thought of some homework he really had to do," Peter chimed in.
Remus, James and Emma all thought this very unlikely, but the common room was as good a starting place as any to begin looking for the missing delinquent.

As they were walking along the fourth floor corridor, they heard some heavy breathing coming from one of the broom closets there, along with some banging and the sounds of falling objects. James grinned.

"It sounds like someone's having a good time in there. Shall we interrupt and spoil their fun?" he questioned. Emma frowned, knowing she wouldn't like that to happen if it had been her in the closet, but she didn't say anything. Remus thought it was a bad idea - who knew what form of decency, if any, the two people in there were in?
Peter stood there quietly singing to himself, something about a "Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream, make him the cutest, that I've ever seen..."

James looked around at them all, waiting for an objection, and looking slightly disturbed at the lyrics to the song Peter was singing, but as nobody protested, he pulled open the closet door. Two people tumbled out, falling at the others' feet. Everybody looked down to see who the people were...

Flashback

The Marauders had just started lunch when Katrina tapped Sirius on the shoulder and winked furtively.

He followed her seductively swaying hips out of the hall, as though hypnotised. A forth-year Hufflepuff noticed this, and a shadow crossed her face. Sirius could tell she was going to take her annoyance out on somebody, but right now he didn't give a crap; his eyes were fixed back on Katrina's arse.

She turned a corner, and walked up a flight of stairs. In Sirius's opinion, this made her arse look even better. He imagined her clad in tight leather clothes, but that reminded him of the dare Remus had done, which was a big turn off; all he could see in his mind's eye now was a naked Snape.

He shuddered.

They kept going like this until they reached the second floor corridor which, conveniently enough, was empty. Katrina turned to face Sirius, who wasn't quick enough to disguise where his eyes had been. She smirked to herself.

"Well, Sirius, where shall we go? I happen to know that at lunchtime Filch never uses the closets on the second floor or the fourth floor - which one shall it be?"

Sirius, though overwhelmed by the urge to tell her to keep walking, just so he could stare at her some more, was also battling with the idea that walking all the way up there would be a waste of valuable snogging time. His mind continued to argue with itself, while Katrina waited for an answer, tapping her foot on the ground impatiently.
Sirius noticed this, and decided it was best not to keep a girl like her waiting.

"Okay then, I'd rather..."

End Flashback

As they looked down upon the couple who had fallen out of the closet, they stood up.

"Alice, you and Frank?" Emma exclaimed in disbelief. "I never would have believed it of you!"

Frank stood back, shuffling his feet, but looking not all that put out. Maybe this would mean he could snog Alice in public now..."

"Yeah, so what? So what if I'm dating the guy who explodes things in Herbology, who turns cauldrons into nightingales, who makes a Shrinking Solution in Charms. He's really sweet, and funny, and..." Here she lowered her voice to a whisper, and leant in closer to Emma. "And I think I may be in love with him." She blushed. Emma looked astonished, then delighted. "You know, I wasn't referring to who he is. I was talking about where you are."

"Oh." Alice blushed deeper. "Well, we were only in there because we didn't want people to talk..."

"Hey, after Remus and me, you two are hardly going to be a blip on their radars."

"Really?" Alice beamed. "Well, in that case," she said, turning to Frank, "do you mind if we go public?" she asked shyly.

He shook his head vigorously. The use of words seemed to have escaped him for the moment, or perhaps he just wanted to reserve his tongue for things that were more important.

Alice beamed even brighter and hugged Emma, and then she and Frank went off to see if they could still get a sandwich before lunch was over.

"Hey..." James had apparently had a bright idea. "Let's see how many other couples we can get to 'come out of the closet'!" he suggested, sniggering at his own pun.

And so, having nothing better to do, they went round checking in closets. They found quite a few people, too, including Bellatrix and Lestrange, in the year above them. Sirius laughed at his cousin's choice and the fact that she was in a closet with him. (impossible. Sirius is in a closet. Fix?) When they found Lockhart and two bimbos in the year below him, he just grinned and walked off with them, not perturbed at all by the fact he had been found in a closet. They also came across two guys in seventh year; James joked that they really were 'coming out of the closet.'

Eventually they started getting bored of this, and debated continuing their search for Sirius, who was still missing in action. They had forgotten they were supposed to be in Care of Magical Creatures right now - well, Remus hadn't, but it was such an unimportant subject that he didn't mind as much as if it were say, Transfiguration.

Peter begged them to do just one more closet, so they walked around for a bit, trying to find one that still had noises issuing from it. Eventually they found a very loud one; James grinned and pulled open the door, then stood there speechless as he saw Sirius with a girl in their year - Carol or something like that. Sirius and his girl continued for a few more seconds before realizing that their private session had suddenly become not so private. As they parted with a noise that sounded like a plunger, Sirius saw James storming off round the corner, and Remus and Emma staring on in incredulity.