I'd gone to the Gryffindor common room and bumped into Gideon on the way there, who actually stopped me for five minutes to talk about the switch in Quidditch team Captain, and that this year it was himself. I had a sudden flashback of third year when Fabian was Quidditch Captain, and he had made us do three laps of the field after a whole game of practice just for fun.
Gideon had also told me that there was no need to worry, as he wouldn't change the team as no one was leaving the school, and he told me to pass on the message to James.
Niamh Balocca was our other Chaser, and she was now in seventh year, myself and James were the other two Chasers. Richard Carter was in sixth year as our Seeker, and Natasha Rogers - someone who I find a good friend - was our Keeper in fifth year. I was wondering that next year if Fabian and Gideon would alternate again, or if they would delegate the Captaincy to someone else on the team.
If so, it would probably be Natasha, because she could actually take things seriously.
"Are you not going on a date with James?" Lily asked me as she sat on her bed. I'd just gone up to our dormitory room to change from our school robes into some of my comfier own clothes, and on the way, I had bumped into Lily who was petting her cat Crookshanks. The cat was rather nice to us, but it was a menace to everyone else who dared look her way.
Pulling a highly disgusted face, I put on a beige coloured jumper and tied up my hair, "It's not a date Lily, I don't like James like that, anyway, I wouldn't take James away from you." She made a funny noise and glared at me, all while I just laughed and ambled away.
I walked down the dorm steps into the middle of the common room and spotted Remus sat on one of the armchairs by the fire, reading something with a cup of coffee in one of his hands. For once, he looked peaceful and content, as he deserved to feel. I walked over to where he was sat, and decided to sit in one of the surrounding armchairs, waiting for James to show up.
"How can I help you Athena?" Remus asked me, not looking up from his pages. The front cover of the book looked quite confusing, and as I looked at the book he was reading, I just said, "I'm just waiting for James, but that doesn't matter, what are you reading?"
He lifted up the cover to properly show me, and I saw that the book was called Oliver Twist - an odd Muggle tale about an orphan boy. I didn't want to interrupt him any more, especially as he then pulled the book back towards himself and turned the page. I sat there next to him in silence for a few minutes, looking at my hands in my lap and then after the first three minutes, I heard a noise coming from the stairs of the boy's dormitory.
I turned around to see James, in a fluffy red and white jumper, practically skipping down the stairs and grinning, excited to show me how to bake a cake. "Are you coming then?" he asked me excitedly. I stood up and smiled at his enthusiasm, pulling the sleeves over my hands and following him out of the common room and down the sets of marble staircases, past the Great Hall and down near the Hufflepuff area.
We walked past the Hufflepuff common room and round a corner, until I saw a rather large painting of a bowl of fruit in the frame. It was a very interesting sight when James walked up to the said painting and tickled the piece of fruit. I stood there, not knowing what was going to happen, half expecting nothing to happen, but suddenly, the pear giggled and the portrait swung open.
I looked at James, impressed with his knowledge, and he just shrugged his shoulders, running a hand through his already messy locks of hair. I stepped into the kitchen, and myself and James were immediately bombarded with house elves with their big, pointy ears and large, round eyes. The nearest house elf was jumping up and down, smiling at the thought of being visited by someone.
James spoke first, "Hello everyone, Athena and I have come to make a cake." One small house elf with a tiny button nose squeaked, "What flavour would you like sir?"
I shook my head kindly at the elf, enjoying their tiny faces of surprise as I said my next words, "We want to do it ourselves."
After the initial shock had disappeared, the small elves left us to our own devices, and occasionally hovered around the kitchen or went into different rooms to clean up. James looked through many cupboards and said, "See if you can find any plain flour Thea." I looked through the higher cupboards and the lower ones and eventually found a bag labelled 'plain flour' and passed it to James who already had ingredients by his side, everything nearly ready.
James had me mixing some ingredients together, an experience I found highly exciting, and after a short while, he told me all about baking cakes with his mother when he was younger, and I could tell it was one of his favourite past times and it was making him happier to even get near the oven.
Although, I did break him out of his memories as I wanted to know why he had asked me to do this with him, and so when I did so, he told me simply, "I wanted you to experience a moment you wouldn't have had in your childhood."
I stopped everything that I was doing and stared at him, the whisk in my hand, bowl of rather messy ingredients in the other. To James, his words were not really a big deal, and he continued to mix something together for the icing and prepare the baking tray, but to me, it was something I had been waiting to hear for my entire life. James Potter really was one of a kind.
I was continuing to whisk the ingredients together, melting at the Potter's kindness, when James suddenly stopped me as he said, "I forgot to add the two eggs in." He then cracked both of the eggs and broke them clean into the mixture easily, making it seem a lot easier than it actually was, all with just one hand.
After about ten minutes, I placed the cake mix into the oven whilst James finished on the chocolate icing, which smelt extremely delicious. The smell of the chocolate cake made me hungry, even after I'd eaten my dinner at the normal time. I knew I wouldn't be able to eat it, but sometimes my appetite betrayed me.
James then finished off the icing and sat on a newly clean counter as he said, "Welcome back to Hogwarts, I have a slight inclination to prank some people while the cake is cooling." I rolled my eyes at him as he said it was one of his first priorities, and after 20 minutes of him trying to devise something on his own, I took the cake out of the oven.
"I have an idea! Why don't I just put Polyjuice potion into the pumpkin juice?" James exclaimed. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow, already knowing the answer, "Do you just so happen to have any Polyjuice potion?" I highly doubted it as of course it took at least a month to make, and it was extremely complicated with many different aspects needed to make it and such.
What I did not expect was James to be.. himself and say, "Actually, that would be a good point.. if you weren't James Potter. Who do you think I am? Of course I have a small supply of Polyjuice potion stored in my pocket at all times. Just for special, impulsive occasions."
And so, that was the story of how I had finished putting icing on a chocolate cake and James had added a small amount of Polyjuice potion to the pumpkin juice ready for breakfast the next morning, and then told the house elves to send it up and not tell anybody. The house elf was nervous, but he saluted and told James he would do so.
The one thing I did do after that, was check the curly haired boys pockets, just in case he had anything else stored in his pockets, in which I found his wand, a small vial of Veritaserum, and a liquorice wand. I was in awe. How this boy got away everything was a mystery.
Just then, a black haired bed head with grey eyes walked in, and a swarm of house elves greeted him at the door. Sirius smiled, walked over to us and asked for a sandwich and a pumpkin juice from the elves. I was about to warn Sirius, but James waved at me discreetly to be quiet, and we just watched as the boy took a bite of his cheese sandwich and then drank a sip of the potioned juice.
It was like watching something in slow motion, as the slightly attractive teenage boy transformed into an unsuspecting James in just a few seconds.
Sirius blinked like nothing had happened and then coughed, "What was in that pumpkin juice? It tasted like pepper but I might not be sure." His voice even sounded slightly like James', but maybe Sirius was just too tired to even notice, it was only until he turned around and ran a hand through his hair that he shrieked and pulled out the two way mirror that he had procured last year.
Except this time, the black haired boy said no name, but continued to stare into the actual mirror, his jaw hanging open.
"Why has my hair changed into James'? And why is my face structure changed, my eye colour changed, hell even my body has changed!" Sirius shouted. James looked once at me and then back at one of his best friends and asked, "Is that such a bad thing?" Sirius gasped and took a dramatic bite of the sandwich, his eye twitching.
He repeated, whispering dangerously, "Is that a bad thing? Is that a bad thing? Of course it is dumbass, I can practically feel my attractiveness disappearing, dripping through my soul, my hair has shrunk, and my eyes are now an ugly colour."
James looked at his new double and frowned, "I look much better than you describe me. Thank you Sirius, for being my personal mirror." I then watched at the newly changed boy fire twenty questions at the real James, before charging over to him and throwing the cheese sandwich at his face.
I took this as my queue to leave quietly, thanking the house elves for the patience, grabbing the decorated cake, and laughing to myself as I was about to tell a few important people about what had just happened.