Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

Chapter 4

James let himself drop on the bench beside Sirius, his muscles aching far too much to do more than sprawl low in the seat. He shucked off his helmet and the sweat beading his hair was already starting to turn to ice in the cold air.

Sirius kept his eyes forward, watching as the rest of the Quidditch team made their way off the field. "I can't believe you got Josiah Pines to replace me," Sirius whined. He was glaring daggers into the back of Pines's head.

"He did alright."

"He missed two out of three bludgers."

"He'll learn."

"Not before the next game." He shook his dark curls. "I can't believe McGonagall took me off the team." He had repeated some variation of the same sentence for the past two months, as if he still couldn't bring himself to accept it. Even James found it surprising. McGonagall was fiercely competitive; benching a star player was probably the last thing she wanted to do, and still she had done it. James wondered about that, if maybe she was unhappy about what had happened to Snape too.

They fell into an awkward silence and where once Sirius would be pressed against James's side, practically halfway into his lap, there was now a careful distance between them, a sort of no man's land.

"You know, what Reg said... it wasn't true," Sirius said, still without looking at him. "You're not that good-looking."

James, grateful for the out Sirius provided, took it with both hands and tried not to notice how forced his friend's smile was. "You just can't appreciate real beauty."

Sirius nudged him with his knee and where James would have once responded with a shove or something similar, he just gave a half-hearted chuckle.

A silence fell over them, and Sirius, who could never stand silence, suddenly blurted, "Hey, holidays are about to start. Let's do something, something that will really get people talking."

"What do you have in mind?"

*****

James's teeth had already started to chatter in his head. This was a stupid idea. How did he let Sirius talk him into this?

"You ready?" Sirius asked with a feverish glint in his eyes.

"No! Absolutely not!" Remus squeaked, his voice cracking like a third year as he held his cloak tightly around his body.

"On the count of three! One..."

"No, no, no, no–"

"Two..."

"You're not serious. Are you actually serious?"

"Three!"

James shucked off his cloak and ran stark naked out from underneath the dark safety of the alcove and across the frozen grounds. Sirius was right next him, and Remus a few steps behind. He could hear the shrieks and laughter of the people around him, but he couldn't see them. Their faces were just a blur, flitting past like hummingbirds as he streaked over the frost-dipped grass.

The edge of the lake appeared in front of him. A thin layer of ice floated on top of the dark, murky water. James leapt. The water swallowed him completely. So cold he felt as if he was burning.

As the water enveloped his head, the laughter stopped. He could hear nothing. He opened his eyes and peered through the black waters. Something white floated past. He squinted, trying to make out the details. It was a body, naked and pale, a twisting white snake, with long black hair wrapped around his face and neck. James felt his heart stop.

No, no this wasn't right. He–

James had stripped Snape of his clothes, left them lying underneath the tree. James had laughed, watched him wiggle in the air like a worm on a hook, the boy's hands clasped together in a desperate attempt to keep himself covered, before James had shouted, "Liberacorpus!" Snape had plummeted head first into the lake. Long strands of black hair rose up first, twisting like the tendrils of a sea creature, before his face finally broke the surface, spewing water as he gasped for breath.