Heading the School

SGR's Note: I know in OotP, Kingsley Shacklebolt is not in the picture, but I'm using one of my poetic licenses just because I like how I introduced him. I (hopefully) will only use my PL once more, and that comes when the prophecy is told, in Those that Thrice Defied Him.

Also, once again a recommendation for those who want to read these chapters first. Well, they're more like teasers, but it's something. Friend susherevans and you'll get it at least...three days in advance.

BTW, a big thank you to SoulAvenger. I recieved the same review from you no less than 70 reviews from you because of this review bug. I appreciate your fervor. (*big grin*)

"When you're down and troubled
and you need a helping hand
and nothing, whoa nothing is going right.
Close your eyes and think of me
and soon I will be there
to brighten up even your darkest nights."
-You've Got a Friend, Carole King

Heading the School
Chapter Five

"Merlin's beard, this year's gonna suck!" James exclaimed, looking at his schedule with wide eyes. Sirius was unable to speak as he started at his schedule. Remus and Lily were looking quite ashen faced as they nervously picked at their breakfast. Professor McGonagall gave them terse glances.

"Mr. Potter, if you don't think you can handle your work schedule, perhaps I should lighten it for you."

James turned his head upwards and managed a charming smile. "C'mon, Professor. It's not that bad yet, I was just lamenting on how busy I'm going to be this year."

McGonagall stared down his smile and then turned away. "Sevenitis begins early this year, I fear," she mumbled.

Once she left, James turned to Remus. "What's ‘sevenitis?'"

"If I remember correctly, I believe it is the ‘disease' that Seventh Years get when they don't want to do any work anymore because they're done with school."

James grinned. "Oh, well I've definitely got sevenitis."

"No, you're just lazy," Lily reminded him, poking him in the side.

"Yeah, that too."

Once they left the Great Hall, they were in much better moods. Their first lesson of the day was Transfiguration. They were pleased to see the first lesson of the day was small item to large item transfiguration.

"But we've already done this?" Lily said, as James put his hand over her mouth to quiet her.

"Shh! If we don't tell her, she won't make us do extra work!"

"Quite late for that, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said above them. "The four of you need to go sit over at those two tables." She thrust a very large, heavy book into Sirius' hands. "And read over the first two chapters and be ready for a quiz tomorrow."

And she left them, gaping as she went to go teach the other students about the new lesson. Sirius plopped down at the table and read the title of the book.

"Transfiguring to Save Your Life, by Henry Ayuda," he read. He looked down the row to Peter who was looking quite lonely by himself. "Look at Wormtail over there. He's gotta do all of these classes by himself."

Lily nodded and took the book over for herself. "Well, let's get started, shall we?"

"Do we have to?" James whined. A look from Lily and Remus silenced him. Sirius finally tore his eyes away from Peter and sighed.

"I hope that this isn't permanent, else Pete's in trouble," he sighed.

As it turned out, in every class that they took, Peter was sequestered off to the side while they studied more difficult techniques. And without James and Sirius to help him, by the end of the day, he was in near tears because he neither understood it while he learned it in the first year of training, nor now.

"C'mon, Pete, we'll show you how to do it," James nudged him at dinner. "It's real simple once you get the hang of it."

"Simple for you," Peter said. "And when are you going to help me? You've got class tonight."

"We do?" James turned to Lily who was across the way from him.

"Yes, every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday," she said, smiling. "From 6:30 until 10."

"We can get a bit done, c'mon Wormtail," James said. "Pull out a book."

A smile appeared on Lily's face as she watched James and Sirius tutor Peter. They weren't mean or condescending to him at all. She'd seen them over the years huddled in a corner teaching Peter before, but she'd always assumed that they treated him the way they always treated their inferiors.

"James, Sirius, it's 6 now, we need to start getting ready," Remus reminded them. James and Sirius stood up and patted Peter on the back, who was more near smiles than tears now that he understood the concepts more.

"We'll teach you some more when we get back, if you're still awake," Sirius nodded to him. Lily walked beside James and took his hand in hers.

"What?" James asked. Lily grinned up at him and put her cheek against his shoulder.

"You amaze me sometimes, you know that?" she said, simply. James, confused, said nothing in return.

***

When they Apparated to the Ministry of Magic, they found some of the other students there as well. Lily broke away from James to go talk with Emmeline, who was with the other two girls that made it in the class.

"Hi," Lily said. Emmeline gave her a small smile.

"I'm surprised your boyfriend let you leave his side," she said, good-naturedly.

"Oh, Emmeline, leave them be. Frank's barely let me leave his side since we've been married," the blonde with the round face said.

"I'm not sure that we've been introduced, so I'm Lily," she said, properly introducing herself.

"Alice C-Longbottom," she said, a blush coming to her face. Her friend next to her, a rather metropolitan-looking witch, gave a dry laugh.

"Not as if you haven't been practicing signing that last name for the past year and a half," she said. "I'm Dorcas, by the way."

"Hello Dorcas," Lily nodded. "So did you two go to Hogwarts?"

They nodded and Alice cocked her head to the side. "You don't remember me? I was in Gryffindor."

Lily blushed and shook her head. "Sorry, I don't."

"Aren't you the muggle-born?" Dorcas asked, looking Lily up and down. Lily nodded and Dorcas whistled. "Just so you don't have any false hopes, you'll probably be the first one to go."

Alice nudged her, roughly and Lily gave a nervous laugh. "Too late for that, I'm afraid."

"How so?"

"Did you hear about the Bellatrix Black incident?" Lily asked, smiling. Dorcas raised her eyebrow.

"So you were almost killed by the Trifalsus potion and yet you're still training to be an Auror?"

Lily nodded. "I figure that you need all the help you can get."

"Isn't that the truth," Alice said. "Did you hear another muggle family was killed yesterday?"

Lily felt a flutter in her heart. "How many is that now?"

"That's got to be the 8th one in the past two months," Dorcas said. "The mother was pregnant and had another little girl about 3 years old. It was a complete shame."

Lily bit her lip. "Any connection?"

"There isn't one," Alice said, grimly. "At least that's what Frank said. They think that it's just...for fun."

Lily turned a particular shade of green. Dorcas looked beyond her and gave a dry laugh.

"Looks like Kingsley is introducing himself to the young blood."

"I wish that this class would start," Sirius said, moving from one foot to the other. "This is so bor-ing."James and Remus were staring about three feet above Sirius' head, jaws hanging ever- so-slightly. "What?"

"Hello," a deep voice said behind Sirius. Sirius spun around and was face to face with a stomach. His head slowly moved upwards until he saw a chest, shoulders, a neck, a chin, a nose, and, finally, when his head was as far back as it could go, two eyes.

"H-Hi," Sirius said, in a small voice.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt," he thrust his hand in front of him and Sirius took it. Then Sirius nearly fell to his knees because Kingsley squeezed it so hard.

"Kingsley, let him go," Dorcas called over to him. "You'll break his hand."

"Too late," Sirius squeaked, shaking his hand. Kingsley gave a deep laugh and clapped Sirius on the shoulder, nearly sending him flying to the ground.

"I'm just playing with you kiddo," he said. James, who was getting a good laugh out of Sirius' predicament stepped forwards and nodded.

"I'm James, this is Sirius, and that's Remus."

"Wasn't there a fourth one of you?" Kingsley eyed them. "A fat kid?"

James looked down a bit. "He didn't pass, you know?"

Kingsley nodded in understanding. "I'm surprised that you all passed as well as you did. Only four out of our class made it this far, Dorcas, Alice, Sturgis, and myself."

"All right there King?" A straw-haired man with a square jaw came out of the Apparating chamber. "These the youngbloods?"

"Yes, this is James, Sirius, and Remus," Kingsley said. Sturgis grinned and nodded.

"I remember you two once blew up a toilet in the prefects bathroom," Sturgis said. Sirius looked at James, confused. At once, identical looks of recognition dawned on their faces.

"Oh yeah, I remember that one," Sirius nodded.

"I hear you're Head Boy now," Sturgis continued. "How'd that happen?"

"I was the best for the position," James replied, snootily. "Thank you very much."

"I doubt that," Kingsley said. James glared at him, offended.

"Plus, I happened to save my girlfriend's life last year from a psychotic bitch," James bragged. "Among other people."

"Careful James, you'll trip on your own ego," Remus said.

"Speaking of her, have you heard anything about Bellatrix?" Sirius asked, calmly. James shrugged.

"Isn't she in Azkaban now?" he asked Sturgis and Kingsley.

"Bellatrix Black?" Kingsley said. "She's still in holding."

"What for?" James exclaimed. "She blatantly admitted that she was a Death Eater!"

"First of all, her parents are extraordinarily influential."

"Yeah," Sirius said. "Isn't that the truth?" At Kingsley and Sturgis' questioning looks, Sirius clarified. "I'm her cousin, unfortunately."

"It's not just her parents, either. Her brother-in-law is Lucius Malfoy, a very influential man in the Ministry, very old money. Not only that, but she's also dating the son of another influential family, the Lestranges."

"So she's just sitting in a holding cell?" James said, outraged.

"Oh no," Kingsley said, grimly. "Because she was so involved in the plans of Voldemort, she has a lot of valuable information regarding other Death Eaters. They're....questioning her."

"Questioning her?" James asked, looking at Sirius and Remus.

"That's probably putting it lightly," Sirius grimaced. "Not as though she doesn't deserve it though."

***

After the Auror class was over, James wasn't pleased to learn that he still had another two hours of patrol to complete. He didn't quite complain so much, because he got to walk around for two hours with Lily's hand held firmly in his. He was thinking a lot about Bellatrix and how she was still waiting to be brought to justice and how Lily would react if she knew what was going on after Bellatrix was led away.

"Oliver told me to tell you that he wants you to teach him to fly during Christmas," Lily smiled at him, breaking him from his trance. "I'd watch out, else Oliver may mistake you for a brother."

"And what would be so horrible about that?" James said, keeping an eye out. He was sure he wasn't going to find anyone, as he knew from experience that one of the only two people that were ever out was on the arm of the Head Girl and the other one was passed out in his room.

"I'm just worried that he's not going to be a wizard and his hopes will be dashed," Lily said.

"You know we can test that theory, right?" James grinned devilishly. Lily turned her head and raised her eyebrow at him.

"How's that?"

"It's just a matter of breaking into Dumbledore's office and finding a certain magical list."

"What list is that?"

"All witches and wizards born that are accepted to Hogwarts are written on a magical list when they're born, and every July McGonagall writes letters to them. The list is said to be located in Dumbledore's office. It's just a matter of distracting him long enough to find the list."

"Or we could just ask him," Lily offered.

"Now where's the fun in that?" he said. "If we want to just go easier, we could just throw him out a window and see if he bounces-"

"I don't think so, James," Lily said, firmly. "We could just wait until next July?"

"I'm impatient," he said. "And, from the letters I've been receiving, so is Oliver-"

"Wait, he's been sending you letters?" Lily stopped. "When?"

"After I took him to the Quidditch game," James said. "Mostly asking me questions about the book I lent him-"

"What book?"

"Quidditch Through the Ages," James said, simply. "Anyways, I-"

"You lent him a book on Quidditch?!" Lily said.

"Of course, he's gotta know the basics if he's going to be a Seeker-"

Lily rolled her eyes and continued walking. "You are so predictable."

"Hey! I am not!" James frowned.