Doesn't Ring a Bell

Over the next few days, Sirius and Katrina attracted many a stare from the students in the lower years, as did Remus and Emma. James didn't really notice, because he could hardly see. Just after Sirius had asked Katrina out, James had decided to try and ask Lily out. Unfortunately, his efforts had been somewhat inadequate.

"Hey, Evans," he had said. "My future must lie in carpentry because I'd sure like to nail you."

This had resulted in her slapping him so hard that his glasses had flown off his face and smashed. He would have just repaired them, but they couldn't find the frames. Turned out Lily had nicked them, just to make sure he would have to wait for his mother to send in another pair. He had already broken his spare pair, trying to turn into Prongs without taking them off.

As they sat down for breakfast on the fifth day of James's temporary blindness, the post owls came in. Sirius looked up in hopes of seeing James's owl, bringing him new glasses from his mother.

"Hey, James, looks like you're in luck, mate," he said, grinning. James's barn owl, Starfish (don't ask) was in amongst the other owls, and flying toward them at a rapid rate, carrying a package large enough to contain at least twenty-seven pairs of glasses. Which, as it turned out, it did.

"Huh," said James sheepishly, putting on a new pair. "Guess she wanted to make sure I don't have to write home for a while." He then got up and took the other pairs of glasses to his dormitory, where he hid them in the secret compartment in his set of drawers; he had lived with the other Marauders for four and a half years, after all.

Just after James left the Hall, Dumbledore stood up to make an announcement.

"Well, students, as you know, Valentine's Day is coming up. The school will be selling flowers and chocolates as usual to help raise money for new goal hoops on the Quidditch pitch; our current ones are in awful condition." The crowd gave a cheer in agreement. "So buy a box of chocolates or a bouquet of roses for your significant other - I'm sure they'll appreciate it, and it is for an excellent cause." Here he sat back down and started up a conversation with Professor Sprout about whether McGonagall would rather have chocolate or roses - not that the students were close enough to hear.

Katrina huffed. "I don't buy into all this commercial junk, it's a hallmark holiday designed to make money." She frowned.

Emma personally shared her opinion, but still wouldn't mind if Remus got her something, for she had never had a Valentine's gift before.

Soon after that, they finished breakfast and proceeded up to their dormitory to get their books for Transfiguration, and found Regulus Black lying concussed on the floor, a very agitated looking girl walking away from the scene.

"Looks like my little bro's been up to his old tricks again," noted Sirius, grinning. They stepped over him and continued up to the tower.

They found James there, trying to fit all his pairs of glasses into the secret compartment. He attempted to hide what he had been doing; he didn't want the others to know about his secret compartment, after all.

"James, it's okay, we all know about your so-called 'secret compartment'," Remus said with a sigh. James looked surprised.

"Er...secret compartment, what secret compartment?" he attempted, then gave up. He put the rest of the glasses under his bed and gathered his things for Transfiguration.

They met the girls downstairs, and began the familiar trek to McGonagall's classroom.

When they were about halfway there the bell rang.

"Shit!" Katrina swore loudly. Her bag had just split right down the middle, causing all her books to tumble out on to the floor.

"No, you guys go on; Professor McGonagall will kill you if you're late for another one of her classes."

The others shrugged and walked off, leaving her to repair the bag and try to stuff all her books and things back in.

"Geez, guys, don't offer to help me or anything..." she muttered to herself as she attempted to fit everything back in her newly mended bag. As she stood up, brushing some dust off her pants, somebody pushed her roughly into the wall, pinning her arms behind her.

"So..." Katrina recognized the voice of Jessica, a girl in her year, but in Ravenclaw. "I hear you and Sirius Black are going out?"

Katrina struggled to make herself heard; it was no easy task, with her face smooshed against a stone wall. "Don't you people have anything better to do than worry about who is dating whom?" she asked.

"So you admit it, you and Sirius are going out?" Jessica persisted.

"If you must know, then yes, we are, though it's really no big secret," Katrina said tiredly. "Now will you please release me so I can go to Defence Against the Dark Arts?"

Jessica pushed Katrina into the wall even harder. "I just have one thing to say - you stay away from Sirius, bitch. He's mine." She released Katrina and walked off. Katrina picked up her bag and headed to McGonagall's class.

"Sorry I'm late, miss, my bag split in the hallway! Everything fell out and all my ink smashed..."

"Sit down, Miss Collins," McGonagall said sharply. "And don't let it happen again." Katrina took a seat next to Sirius and told him all about what had just happened in the hallway.

"Oh, yeah, that Jessica bird's been after me for ages. My last girlfriend kept getting these threatening notes and then her cat went missing - we found him on a rock in the middle of the lake...eventually my girlfriend left me because Jessica tried to throw her off the Astronomy Tower one night when we were up there...that chick's totally psycho," he finished as McGonagall came over to check on how their vanishing spells were going.

"Hmm...Very good, Miss Collins," she praised, awarding the points. "Not so good for you, Mr. Black. Let's try and keep our minds focused on the task at hand, hmm?" She walked off, leaving Sirius looking at what used to be just a garden-variety mouse. He hadn't so much vanished it as turned it green with yellow polka dots.

"Miss Reed, why have you not even made an attempt to vanish your mouse?" McGonagall asked sharply as she saw Emma sitting there with her hands in her lap.

"Well, miss, I have a strong objection to animal cruelty. Why would I vanish a poor defenceless mouse? Do you have something against small, furry animals? You make us turn rabbits into slippers, mice into goblets and who knows what else, and now you're telling us to just make them vanish? Where do they go, I ask you? What have they done to deserve such treatment?" Since Emma had stopped being so emotionless, she had become a bit of a rebel.

"Miss Reed, if you do not vanish this mouse you will be put into detention. The mice go into a slip in time, where they wait patiently for me to bring them back," McGonagall snapped.

Emma seemed satisfied with this answer and pulled out her wand like everybody else. McGonagall continued walking around the room, correcting people who were doing the spell wrong.

"Wait, so you're telling me that dating you could get me killed?" Katrina whispered furiously.

"Erm...Yes?" Sirius answered, now very nervous.

"That's it...I'm getting a magical restraining order," Katrina said decisively.

Sirius eventually managed to vanish his mouse and, getting bored with the current lack of conversation, decided to take a nap, from which he was quite rudely awakened by Professor McGonagall shouting at him.

* * * * *

That night Katrina went to appeal to Dumbledore about getting a magical restraining order.

She presented her case well, and just to get her to stop bugging him, he gave her a piece of paper that verified that Jessica could not go within ten feet of Katrina or any of Katrina's possessions at any time. Being a magical restraining order, it truly enforced this rule.

She had fun in that next week walking up to Jessica and smiling as Jessica was forced to move away from her. After getting nasty warning looks from Dumbledore, she stopped abusing the restraining order, lest it be taken away from her, and the Marauders were once again without anything to do.

Then James stood up and suggested a game that they had never tried before. He took them all to the guys' room before explaining it.

After everybody was comfortably seated on either the floor or someone's bed, he explained the game.

"Okay, my doctor told me this last time I got dizzy and hit my head on the radiator at Remus's place: if you sit down in a very relaxed position, take ten or fifteen deep breaths then stand up, hold your nose and blow out, you'll faint. Want to try it?" he asked excitedly. Remus immediately refused, knowing that doing something like that couldn't be good for you, so Sirius and James tried coaxing the others into it by demonstrating.

Katrina pointed out that doing this would most likely have some negative effect on your brain, but after seeing them do it a few times, and seeing that it actually worked (they passed out for a few seconds), she then joined in.

"Guys, stop, what if you hit your head on one of the beds?" Peter asked nervously.

"Well, they're soft, aren't they; they won't hurt," Sirius said, grinning.

Emma pulled out a Sickle.

"Uh...what are you going to do with that?" asked Remus in confusion.

"I'll show you; watch." She balanced the coin on her thumb. "Okay, should I join in with their fainting or not? Heads for yes, tails for no." She then flipped the coin, caught it and turned it upside down on her arm. "Heads!" she announced, and joined in the fun. At least, it was fun until James fell on top of Peter, who squealed and ran from the room. As they didn't want to get into trouble with McGonagall, Remus suggested they go down and start doing their homework, so that they wouldn't look suspicious. Sirius pointed out that nothing would be more suspicious than him actually doing his homework. Remus ignored him.

Just then, a brilliant idea struck Sirius. He rubbed his head. He went along with Remus's idea of doing his homework, because now he had a way to make it fun.

He paid attention to what he was doing for once; he wanted his work to be excellent, at least worthy of an E.

* * * * *

The next day as Professor Slughorn was collecting their Potions essays on brewing a befuddlement draught, he looked extremely surprised when Sirius had his work actually in on time.

The class had to brew a sneezing solution today, and Sirius tried hard to get it right; he wanted to steal some and put it in Snape's evening pumpkin juice.

It wasn't until the class had left that Slughorn looked down to see that Sirius had, in fact, handed in his Herbology essay instead.

"BLACK!" he yelled.

Sirius heard him, and ran to his next class, which, coincidentally, happened to be Herbology.

"Mr. Black, do you have the essay on the honking daffodils I assigned yesterday?" Professor Greenleaf sighed; she knew she was wasting her time. Which is why she was so surprised when he handed her a three foot long piece of parchment. The only problem was that it was Sirius's essay on a befuddlement draught and not an essay on honking daffodils.

She sighed again. No point in punishing Black, it never worked anyway. She decided to go see Professor Slughorn after class to see if he had the essay on honking daffodils Black was supposed to have handed in that lesson.

And so Sirius got in no trouble, which he considered a bonus; it was an excellent prank.

When they got back to the common room, Sirius noticed that the next Hogsmeade weekend was in five days, on Valentine's Day. He had the strangest feeling in his chest that this would be a Valentine's Day he would never forget...