Chapter 9-Whiskers The Feline Devil

After cleaning up the Polyjuice potion, James exited the boys' dorm and strolled into the Great hall, joining a seat at the bench of the Gryffindor table. He was in utter astonishment that his fellow Marauders were all back to their own bodies.

"Padfoot! You're you again," James spoke in delighted bewilderment, poking Sirius in the arm.

Sirius gave him a disturbed look in return. "Well, duh," he said lamely.

"I thought the potion effects were still going…Did the Polyjuice potion wear off whilst I was in the shower?"

Sirius furrowed his eyebrows at James. "Well, I woke up like this. It must've worn off eventually."

James looked confused at Sirius' words, but simply thought it was just Sirius getting his information wrong as usual and must have banged his head on something.

James nudged Remus with his elbow. "Glad to be back in your own body, Moony?"

"I cannot contain my excitement," Remus spoke tonelessly, chewing on a bagel while he kept his eyes down reading the Daily Prophet.

James turned his gaze on Peter who was eating porridge. "Hey, Wormtail," James patted him on the back, causing Peter's spoonful of porridge to miss his mouth and land in his eye. "Oops, sorry." He quickly changed the subject. "The Polyjuice potion didn't last long on you. Bet you're glad, right?"

Peter squinted with his painful eye and gave him the thumbs up confirmation, although really inside he was seething because he was now Peter Pettigrew and not James Potter who everybody loved.

"By the way, it seems as if cough medicine is on Filch's list of forbidden objects," Remus mentioned, glancing over his paper.

Sirius spat out his pumpkin juice - sadly over Remus' reading material.

"What?"

"Don't ask me how. Word must have got around about our antics last night." Remus wiped the droplets of juice that was staining and blurring the words of a possible interesting article that could have occupied him for the next five minutes.

"What happens if somebody has a cough, then?" Peter said worriedly, clutching his neck which suddenly felt tight and scratchy. "What will we do? Where will we go? What will happen?" he shrieked.

A boy sitting to the right of Peter suddenly made a spitting cough, making him squeal in horror.

"Then Hogwarts will be filled with rabid coughing spitters," Sirius said cheerfully. "Stupid Filch. He really needs a woman." He munched on a piece of toast, purposely not eating the crusts and flinging them at James who regrettably had sat across him.

"I take it you're back to your usual self, Padfoot," James commented, flinching as a piece of crust was flung at his nose. "You were acting really weird this morning. How come you didn't wait for me?"

Sirius stopped his crust throwing and smiled in amusement. "Well, considering you didn't tell me to wait for you - that might be a great factor on the not waiting for you."

"What?" James looked puzzled. "I told you before I had a shower, you pillock, before you were giving yourself a saliva licking." He shuddered, remembering Sirius licking his hands.

"That's unhygienic," Remus commented, still keeping his eyes on his paper.

Sirius' mouth opened in confusion. "What are you on about, mate? I never even saw you this morning!"

James didn't understand the conversation at all; he knew he hadn't hallucinated seeing the stripped James Potter look-a-like in front of his bed because all the cough medicine had gone. Plus, he had a bump on his head to prove his reaction to seeing a duplicate of him completely stalkers.

"But-"

"Hey, what's Frank doing?" Peter interrupted James, pointing to the Longbottom boy disturbing people eating breakfast. Frank was busy interrogating them about his girlfriend's still missing devil cat. A frightened second year was sobbing as Frank seemed furious at her for not knowing where the feline was.

"Oh, Frank," James sighed, unfortunately forgetting the subject on whether he saw Sirius or not in their dorm. "I talked to him earlier. Poor bloke. He's only gone and lost Alice's cat."

Sirius grimaced, also forgetting the argument with James. "Oh, not that fur ball that wanders off around the dorms. I'm sure that cat ate the last of my ice mice," he complained bitterly.

Remus also sighed. "He's been going round screaming that cat's name all morning."

"What's its name-?"

"WHISKERS!" Frank yelled, running out of the Great hall with his arms wailing in the air. "WHERE ARE YOU, YOU BLOODY FELINE DEVIL! WHISKERS!"

The Marauders laughed, shaking their heads at such a scene.

"Well, this day has been ridiculously bland."

The four boys were on their way back to their common room after having dinner. Sirius was now sulking at the lack of abnormal events happening and was declaring the day as The Most Boring Day Ever.

"I thought Frank strangling Snape because he thought he'd stolen Whiskers was amusing." Remus couldn't help but chuckle. He especially liked Snape going through any type of torture or pain after Severus's sudden flirting disease.

"That was amusing for around five minutes," Sirius commented.

James smiled as he remembered his Longbottom friend's fingers around the greasy haired Snape's neck. "Why did Frank think Snivellus stole Whiskers?" he asked curiously.

"Frank thought he smelt like cat hair," Peter explained, making a sniff of the air.

James snorted, "Cat hair smells?"

Sirius nodded his head eagerly in response. "Of course it does!" he protested. "It smells kind of musky, a bit like the dust you get in old books," Sirius looked at Remus who he thought knew the smell of books especially, "with a tint of freshly mown grass," he added, very oddly.

James grimaced at him. "What have you been doing? Sniffing cat's butts?"

"That cat pounced on me, alright!" Sirius yelled frenziedly, putting his hands up in defence. The boys sent him strange looks.

"What are you talking about, Padfoot?" Remus queried.

Sirius gave a nervous chuckle and tucked his black hair behind his ears. "Uh, nothing! I didn't say anything." He turned a noticeable red tint.

"Really though, this day has been so uneventful. I'm actually quite worried," Remus looked around in a paranoid state, expecting something to pounce out behind a corner. He jumped when Sirius tugged his collar from behind, making him jump at least six foot in the air.

"Sorry, couldn't resist." Sirius laughed, noticing Remus' on edge state. "Nothing weird has happened, though, except for people pointing at Prongs, whispering and laughing about him behind his back…"

James stopped in his tracks and looked at Sirius with indignation. "People have been laughing at me behind my back?" He repeated madly. "Why was I not informed of this? How come I didn't know?"

"Great emphasis on the words 'behind your back', James," Remus pointed out.

James pulled a childish face at him, including crossed eyes, a sticking out tongue and a pushed up pigs nose.

"I never saw anyone pointing, whispering, or laughing behind your back," Peter told James loyally, although he was lying and had even made a count of the number of classmates who had mocked him without his notice. "But if I had seen one, then I would have knocked them out!" Peter shadowboxed, punching the air at the imaginary person.

James collapsed into hysterical laughter and Peter looked a little hurt at his reaction. "Sure you would've, Wormtail," James patted Peter on the shoulder, "I appreciate the support, though."

The boys finally finished their teasing banter as they stopped outside the portrait of the Fat Lady. She raised an eyebrow as she smirked at James.

"Glad to see you've got more clothes on, young man," she tilted her head in a sly manner.

The boys instantly looked at James who had a look of flustered horror. "W-what?" James quivered.

The Fat Lady was about to reply but shut her mouth, gasping as she looked at something behind the boys. The portrait looked at James, then at the person behind him, again gasping dramatically. The boys knew whatever was behind them would not be good.

"I don't want to turn around," Remus said bitterly, but nonetheless swivelled around, with the boys doing the same.

"Meeow?" The James Potter duplicate growled, standing with its hand crooked in a defensive pose.

"Huh?"

James was extremely glad the twin was not naked, but squirmed when he noticed the robe around the wannabe was loose and looked as if it would fall of within a few steps.

"Hey!" Sirius waved to the James Potter twin, then stopped abruptly when he realised there was also a James Potter standing next to him as well. "Hey, what the-" Sirius paused confusedly, pointing to the real James Potter next to him. He pointed back and forth between the James Potter's, arms outstretched and fingers sticking out wildly, until it made him dizzy and collapsed in heap to the floor. "My brain hurts…"

"Who are you?" Peter asked the Potter twin in confusion, but didn't want to seem intimidating in case the person underneath the body was somebody who could beat him to a pulp.

The boy in the robe, unfortunately naked underneath, gave Peter a blank look, and then stared licking his hands with his tongue.

"Who the hell are y-" James began to echo furiously but was interrupted by a distant shout along the corridors.

"WHISKERS! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? When I get a hold of you, I'm going to rip off all your fur and use it to cover my cushions!"

The eyes on the Potter copy widened in fear.

This was finally the point when James realised where Whiskers was.

James gaped. "Oh, no..."

Whiskers in James' body made an exiting hiss. Falling to the floor on all fours, Whiskers sprinted down the corridor in the opposite direction of Frank's shrieks; most horrifically flashing his James Potter arse as the robe lifted in the air as he ran.

"That was strange...on so many levels," Remus commented.

Sirius, who was sitting on the floor in bemusement, suddenly stood to his feet with a face of realisation. "Hey! There were two James'! And one of them wasn't one of us!" He pointed to himself, Remus and Peter.

Remus rolled his eyes. "Bit of a delayed reaction there, Padfoot," he said humorously. He turned his attention to James who looked as if he were stupefied in a standing position; his face blank and unreadable. "You're taking this surprisingly well."

After a few minutes, James finally answered with a whispering "Inside...I'm screaming."

"Oh," Peter joined in the conversation unhelpfully. "That's not good," he noted on James' inner horror.

Sirius gasped excitedly, shaking with thrill because he'd figured what was going on. "Whiskers is-" he began with eager.

"In a James Potter body," Remus finished for him. "Yes. We know."

James groaned - a groan of most probably teen angst. "Oh, hell no! This is not happening!" He tugged at his hair. "We have to go after that bloody cat!" He suddenly took leader mode; funnily enough, making a pose of a super hero addressing his sidekicks.

"I need a cape..." James added the mutter thoughtfully. Remus gave him an exasperated look.

"Ooo," Sirius cooed. "A cat hunt! This shall be fun. We can have t-shirts!"

"Fushia t-shirts!" Peter added, smiling eagerly.

"And nets!-"

"There will be no shirts or nets," James said sternly. Sirius and Peter sulked.

Remus raised a hand to his chin in thought. "It all makes sense now…the people pointing and laughing at you, Prongs. They probably saw Whiskers moments before." James gave him an annoyed look that told him that he did not need anymore explaining on how much people has been making fun of him behind his back. Of course, Remus was unnaturally oblivious to it. "And you said before, Prongs, that you'd seen Sirius in your dorm before breakfast when Sirius has no recollection of it."

"Have you finished unearthing clues, Sherlock Holmes?" Sirius yawned. "I'm not getting any younger, y'know."

The others couldn't really comprehend why Sirius was complaining that he was getting old since he was such an aggravating sixteen year old.

James groaned with frustration. "C'mon!" he shouted urgently, trying to motivate his friends. "We've got to find that bloody cat before he makes even more of an arse of me!"

"Shouldn't be too hard of a job... "

James head snapped and turned to glare at the Gryffindor Tower entrance. The Portrait of the Fat Lady gave an innocent smile and blamed the remark on the painting next to her.

"Look, Prongs," Remus said steadily, trying to calm his rational friend down. "Sirius, Peter and I will go and look for Whiskers. You should stay in the dorm so nobody sees you. It's bad enough that there's been two James Potter's going around Hogwarts."

James gritted his teeth furiously at being told what to do. "No way!" He refused. "I am not being not being involved." He paused confusedly as he mixed up his words. "I'm being not involved." He tried to correct himself, but failed again. "I'm not...involved...being..."

"You don't want to be uninvolved?" Remus assumed.

James raised a finger in confirmation. "That's the one!"

"But-"

"I know!" James said triumphantly. "I'll go get my invisibility cloak! Then I won't be seen whilst I try find the fur ball, will I?" He raised his eyebrows suggestively at Remus. Remus finally nodded, not seeing how he could get his way out of this one. "You guys go ahead," James shooed them, pushing them down the corridor. "I'll go get the cloak and catch you guys up!"

"But James," Peter started, but sighed when the boy had already ran off, muttering the password quickly to the confused Fat Lady and storming into the common room without a hence thought.

"C'mon Wormtail," Sirius pressed, dragging him by the ear. "When that cat's away," he smiled, "the mice will play."

Peter took interest at his use of a cat proverb and countered it by saying:

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"A cat in gloves catches no mice." Sirius tapped his nose mysteriously.

"There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream," Peter replied in proverb.

"The cat would eat fish, but would not wet her feet!"

"Keep no more cats than will-"

"ALRIGHT!" Remus screamed. "I get the point. There are A LOT of bloody cat proverbs! Now shut up," he ordered, warning his friends with a frightful gaze to not open their mouths. "One of you talks and I curse you," he said drastically.

The three boys carried walked on in silence.

"Grinning like a Cheshire-"

"Silencio."

James sprinted down the common room stairs, his hand clutched tightly around his cloak and his mind unfortunately working with stubborn recklessness. Jogging across the common room, in his utter clumsiness, he accidentally tumbled into a mountain of red hair. Finally focusing his eyes, he discovered an annoyed Lily Evans standing before him with her hands on her hips.

"L-lily?" James stammered, instantly feeling his stomach entering a gymnastics competition, highly unskilled.

"Look, Potter," Lily spoke dangerously, her face just about steaming. "I don't know what your problem is, but I don't like to be hissed at!"

James cringed; realising that Whiskers must had unhappily bumped into her earlier.

"Look, I'm really sorry, Lily," James said hurriedly, already stepping around her and making his way towards the exit. He wished it was closer as Lily's raging eyes were glaring a hole in his head. "I've got to go! I'll see you later!" he called, waving a hand nervously as he made his departure.

Lily gaped at him as he exited.

"Potter!" She screamed after him. "Potter, get back here!" Completely furious that she was being pushed aside, she determinedly raced out of the common room to follow him. Unluckily, she bumped into an agitated Frank Longottom.

"Sorry, Frank," she apologized, looking down the corridor. She cursed to herself when she couldn't see James, although he had already marched off and was hidden under the cloak invisible for her to notice anyway. "Have you seen Ja—Potter?" she quickly corrected herself.

"Uh, no, no..." Frank shook his head, and then looked suddenly delighted that he was seeing her for the first time that day. "Have you seen a cat?" he asked predictably, hoping the answer to be a yes and possibly a fixed destination on its whereabouts.

Lily frowned at the odd question. "Er, no. Why? Should I be seeing a cat?" She echoed James' words.

Frank somehow looked even more pathetically mournful, clutching at his neck as if to strangle himself and endure a public suicide.

"I lost Alice's cat," Frank whimpered. Lily winced, knowing Alice would throw a hissy-fit once she discovered her cat was missing. If the cat was lost for good, this conversation with Frank would probably be her last as she would certainly read an article in the Daily Prophet the next morning on Frank's shocking homicide.

"You look stressed," Lily pointed out the obvious, aware that the boy's appearance looked a little shabby. Frank's eyes had a hellish fire at the mention of the deadly word 'stressed'.

"STRESSED? I AM NOT STRESSED!" Frank shrieked, words spitting. "If I weren't STRESSED, I'd get STRESSED by everyone telling me that I'm STRESSED!"

Lily cowered and replied with an uncertain, "uhuh". Frank gave her an apologetic look before cradling his head in his hands, but almost suddenly, he peeked between his fingers.

"Lily?" Frank chuckled nervously. "You wouldn't do me the teensiest of favours, would you?" Lily remained blank. "Help me find Whiskers…please?"

Sadly, Lily couldn't help but feel sympathy for Frank and knew she had to help the bloke, and basically, she was a pushover. Not being able to stand Frank's puppy dog eyes any longer, she sighed.

"Alright, alright. I'll help you—aaah!" Lily shrieked suddenly. She was being pulled along by Frank who was already sprinting down the corridor, searching around wildly for the lost pet.

"Just keep your eyes open and shout his name!" Frank recommended, cupping his hands over his mouth. "WHISKERS!" he shouted. He made silly kissy noises with his mouth, the sound made by all cat owners that apparently captivated cats to come towards them. "C'mon, Lily, join in," he encouraged her.

Lily gave him a frown, but eventually pouted her lips, making a slight puckering noise sounding oddly like a fish. A third year asked her if she needed to go the Hospital wing, making her abandon her attempts of the cat luring sound.

"Lily, you have to keep shouting the cat's name so it knows where we are and it can come back to us," Frank explained. Lily couldn't help but feel that the cat must be running away from the name-shrieking.

"WHISKERS!" Frank shouted, making Lily cover her bursting ear drum. He gave her a pressing look to take part in the uproar.

Lily looked nervous, glimpsing around the corridor; noticing students had stopped and were standing in silence as if waiting for her to shout her heart out. She made a furious glare at a girl who had started an encouraging clap, slowly getting faster, as if she were at Glastonbury and about to perform to thousands of people.

"W-whiskers!" Lily called embarrassingly, slightly higher than the normal speaking pitch. Frank gave her a parental disappointed look, forcing guilt upon her. "Whiskers!" Lily called more strongly, cupping her hands around her mouth so far that she had hid her face in them.

"That'll do, I suppose," Frank said. "But you need practice."

"This is bloody ridiculous!" Sirius shrieked, collapsing against a corridor wall to regain his breath. Remus had eventually taken off the silencing spell as he'd been annoying him by mouthing swear words mutely; not that Remus could hear the swearing, but he could guess from Sirius' blazing face.

"That cat is too fast!" Sirius complained. "Even in James' body he runs fast!" he said, as though running in James' lanky body was simply incomprehensible.

"We don't seem to making any progress," Remus added.

"And we still...haven't met up with James," Peter said, clutching his stomach as he wheezed.

Sirius had a sudden dangerous glint in his eye. "I say," he growled, "we just a gun and shoot the damn thing!" He made a shooting gun gesture with the fingers of his hands.

Remus rolled his eyes and tiredly pressed a hand to his forehead. "Oh yes, Padfoot," he started dryly, "let's just get a shotgun, something that we don't have by the way, and shoot Whiskers that looks like James, in front of the entire school body."

Sirius didn't find anything wrong with the plan. "Hell yeah!"

"Which way did Whiskers go?" Peter said, looking around. Remus joined him in the frantic gazing and swore.

"We lost him." Remus stomped a foot to the floor.

"No we haven't, Moony," Sirius reassured him calmly. "All we have to do is follow the—"

"AAAAH!" A distant scream cut in.

"—screaming," Sirius finished, following Remus and Peter as they speeded towards the shouting.

Wildly, James stormed down another corridor, his invisibility cloak tugged over him as he searched for his friends and the devil feline; so far he had not bumped into either one of those but very confused people instead.

"Bugger," James swore, colliding with a first year who flew in the air once he'd bumped into James, as if he were shot out of a cannon. Hurriedly, James placed the boy to his feet, who by now was so frightened that he'd been picked up by the thin air that he was wailing as if he were in a horror film. James rolled his eyes, leaving the small boy to be comforted by a busty seventh year.

"Crapcrapcrapcrap," James cursed under his breath, running in his distressed state.

The more he ran the more he was getting panicked about Whisker's antics. It was bad enough that his three friends had turned in to him, but a cat running around in his body? James could hear the alarm in his head ringing for Mental Overload.

As James was lost in his thoughts as he was jogging down a staircase, his foot got lodged in the trick step that had tricked so many before him, and so many in the future. Yelping at the unexpected fortune of his foot being caught, he couldn't keep his balance and landed forward on the staircase with his head smacked painfully against a step.

"Bloody...typical," mumbled James.

Unfortunately in his fall, his cloak had slightly tugged up and was revealing his feet.

"Oh MERLIN! Feet….FEET!"

James eyes' widened in horror. He tugged the cloak quickly over his feet and breathed a sigh of relief as his trainers disappeared from sight. Watching silently, he grimaced as a couple were in the middle of climbing up the staircase; the girl's face full of confusion as her boyfriend was worried of her sanity.

"Feet! I saw feet!" the girl repeated, pointing at the steps where James lay. The boy looked at her girlfriend with an odd gaze and couldn't help but laugh.

"Yeah, sure Bella," the boy teased. "There were feet suspending in mid air!" he said dramatically as he raised his hands above him. "Floating feet from The Gods! In fact, dancing floating feet! There were just these hovering feet and—Bella? Bella, where are you going?" the boy asked, watching his girlfriend turn on her heel in a definite huff.

"This is tragic," James declared, his voice echoing in the silence. "A handsome, stubborn, glory-filled hero dies on the staircase after being cheated by the dastardly trick step! Oh woe is me...woe is me..."

As James was about to abandon fidgeting as he tried helplessly to tug his foot from the step that had eaten his foot, his eyes widened as he heard the familiar voices of his friends.

"I told you already, Moony. This is a shortcut. It skips at least two floors."

"Yes, yes, I know. Stop bragging that you know about it," Remus snapped as he lead his friends, jumping down the steps; fortunately missing James as he made a perfect leap on purpose to avoid the trick step.

James brightened at their appearance. "Guys, help me!" he yelped, his voice slightly muffled by the step that was plumped against his cheek.

Remus paused, his head moving to the complete opposite direction where the voice was coming from.

"Prongs?" Sirius called in bewilderment. "Prongsie-"

"Sirius, watch out for the trick step," Peter warned, unfortunately too late.

Sirius yelped as he tripped over James' lolled out body, tumbling down the staircase and knocking into Remus and Peter in the process.

With slight amusement, James watched his friends tumble into each other, now laying in a mess of limbs and hair at the bottom of the staircase.

"What. The. Hell." Sirius tried to detangle himself from Peter's legs. "I know that was probably all you fault, Prongsie!" He searched around, expecting James to suddenly reveal himself behind a secret door or shining knight of armour. "Where are you, you tosser!"

"I'm guessing that you tripped over him," Remus assumed, getting to his feet.

"We tripped over James?" Peter said confusedly. "But I don't see him."

Sirius smacked him on the back of the head. "The cloak, you twat," he reminded Peter, not so subtly.

The boys trudged up the staircase to where the trick step was, where Sirius' foot promptly connected with James' head. They both swore loudly as they equally endured pain. Remus, in a swift motion, felt for where the invisibility cloak was and pulled it off James.

"Hello there," James waved a hand, sprawled on the tilt of the stairs like a rug. Remus glances at James' foot that was locked in the trick step and sighed. "When I remember and get a hold of moving my legs again, I'm going to kick you," James warned Sirius, consequently for smacking him in the face moments before.

"Honestly, Prongs, falling for the trick step? I'm disappointed in you."

"You fell in it too, Padfoot," Peter reminded him. Sirius smiled ludicrously.

"At least we bumped into you." Remus added, "Literally."

James tried nodding along but couldn't as he was currently suffering foot pain.

"Little help, please?"

The boys pulled him by the arms -Sirius amusedly by James' hair- and tugged his foot out of the step with much great moans of strength.

"Right!" James dusted himself off, taking the cloak from Remus' hands. He made a breath of determination before pulling the cloak over him as the boys walked down the staircase. The boys looked at James warily, watching as he broke into a slightly frightening face.

"Let's go make kitty litter," he announced, continuing running down the corridor with his friends loyally jogging to keep up; funnily enough, looking like the Fantastic Four, except they weren't strange with odd superhuman powers evolved from a random cosmic radiation exposure.

…They were just strange.

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Lolzzz.... Wait till you read the next chappie!!! I just realised that there are only 13 more chappies after this one.... a shout out to nymphadora_tonks! Sorry... I thot today was yesterday then found out today is today and thot how dumb i was for thinking today is yesterday when yesterday would have been the day before yesterday and yesterday was actually today... lol... If you dont understand, leave it... BTW!!!!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

yeah... i forgot the preview in the past chappie, so now, PREVIEW!!!!!!!

 Lily was frozen with confused shock, peeking at the saliva that was trailing from her face to his mouth.

"Shit," James repeated again.

"That's rather unhygienic," Frank noted, standing next to Remus observing. Slowly, Remus nodded.

"Why...did you...just-" Lily began to murmur, wiping a hand over her saliva-covered cheek, but was interrupted when the James Potter's mouth brushed with Lily's lips.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! *coughs*

Yeah.... wait for some time... :P SUSPENSE!!!!!!!! Lol.... i'm gonna watch Vampires Suck later 2night...

<3 Y