The dragon thing
James was sitting down at his desk, rubbing his arm and going over the notes he had gathered from his previous test subjects.
"Subject one inconclusive, subject two got very angry, subject three punched me in the nose, the spot is still sore, subject four was on drugs, so results are inconclusive. Subject 5 was decent looking, got all the answers wrong, but I didn't shock her, managed to get a rise out of the other one, that's what I wanted. And subject 6 was smart too, figured out what I was doing straight up. Shame he was dating subject 5, what were their names... There was Alice and... Frank! That was his name."
The door flew open and in barged Sirius.
"James! James! James! You, my good man, will not believe what happened." Sirius is like a hurricane, something must have happened. But he was only at the library, nothing interesting ever happens at that library.
"No, I probably will not believe what happened, but tell me anyway." James mused, still flicking through the notes of today's ESP experiment.
"Okay, okay okay okay. So I was at the library, yeah? You following me Jamie boy? Don't look like it but never mind that, okay. So, anyway, I was at the library and there is this God awful scream, like horrendous, like the person had seen, like Satan or something -"
"-Or your mother, both look so similar, it's really easy to mistake the two."
"HA-HA! Very good there James, very good." Sirius slaps his knee. "Anyway, the scream, it was guttural and raw, and it was almost like the person had seen something, like a ghost! And anyway, the floor starts to shake, and there is this deep, and when I saw deep I mean deep. It was this growl, almost like a dragon was under the library!"
"Oh, you're not back on the Dragon and the Gargoyle thing again. Are you, Sirius? Remus and I had to bail you out of jail a total of nine times because you kept trying to feed live chickens to statues. It nearly got us chucked out of the university." James complained, rubbing his eyes. Sirius's 'statues of mythical creatures are real animals that have gone into hibernation from lack of food' Theory was a tough three months to deal with.
"No, I'm not back on the 'Dragon thing' again James. I'm actually rather offended by that, how dare you. Anyway, we have to go down to the library. I called Remus the moment everyone fled the library to go there and scope out the joint for us. Come on! These people need us and it's only a block away." Sirius insisted, grabbing James' arm, trying to pull him out of his chair. James groaned and got out of the chair, putting down his paper and trailing after Sirius, who practically danced out of the building.
As they walked into the library, the first thing they saw was Remus. Sitting under a table. He was listening to it with a stethoscope. Why? That's what James wants to know, too. James silently crept up, tiptoeing to the table.
"REEEEEEMMMMMUUUUSSSSS... REEEEEEMMUUSSS." James groans, in an attempt to imitate the ghost, and knocks on the table. He picked up a massive book and slammed it down on the table. Hard.
"Ow." Remus' deep voice rumbles, as he gets out from under the table.
"Good to see you too, James, Sirius. Today at this library at one-forty in the afternoon, about four people witnessed a free-roaming, vaporous, full-torso apparition. It blew books off shelves from twenty metres away and scared the socks off poor Minerva, a Librarian. She witnessed the whole thing, and was stalked by the ghost for ten whole minutes whilst she was down in the basement."
"You know what? Remus? This reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole in your own head." James chucked.
"It would have worked if only you didn't stop me." Remus complained, as he led them to a table where a lady (presumably Minerva) was laying down.
"Hello Minerva, I am Doctor James Potter, this is Doctor Sirius Black, Remus." James said, pointing to each of them in turn. "Can I ask you a few questions?"
Minerva nodded, looking concerned.
"Don't worry, we're not going to send you to the nut house, we just want to find this ghost, and hopefully communicate with it." Remus reassured
"Okay," Minerva nodded, still looking worried.
"So, Minerva," Sirius began talking, and Remus took out a notepad from his pocket, starting to write down the whole interaction.
"What did the ghost look like?" Sirius asked, Remus leaned in, pen at the ready.
"I don't remember seeing any legs, but it most definitely had arms, because it reached out for me, i got so scared I threw a dictionary at its head, and that must've made it upset, because then it roared, so incredibly loud." Minerva said, probably still feeling the after-effects of her spiritual encounter.
"Arms? I can't wait to get a look at this thing!" Sirius said, looking like a kid in a candy store.
"Minerva, have you or any other of your family members been diagnosed as schizophrenic, or mentally incompetent?" James asked, still seeming slightly sceptical about the whole interaction.
"Well, my Uncle thought he was Grindelwald once." She confessed, looking slightly embarrassed.
"I'd call that a big yes," James motioned for Remus to write that down.
"Are you habitually using drugs, stimulants, narcotics, hallucinogens, alcohol?" Remus asked.
"No,"
"Just for the record, are you, Minerva, Menstruating?" James asked, seeming awkward.
"What in the good graces of baby Jesus has that got to do with anything?" Dumbledore interjected, looking deeply disturbed.
"Hey back off man, I'm a scientist." James said, and Remus stood behind him, giving his best stink-eye. Dumbledore paled, and walked away, muttering something about fixing an organising system.
"Can you, please Minerva, describe your interaction with the spirit?" Sirius asked, looking intrigued.
"Well, Albus told me to go downstairs to get him an old dictionary. He was trying to write a letter to his grandfather to get written back into the will. And he said he needed to sound 'old' in the letter. I was looking through dictionaries when I heard a thud. I turned around and one of the books had fallen off its shelf. I thought that was a little weird, and as I walked along, I could feel something staring at me. Watching me. And then as I was walking by the catalogue, all the cards started to funnel out of it, and then when I turned around to put a dictionary back, I noticed the cards flying everywhere. And then the path forward had been blocked by a moving shelf. It made me turn right, so before I turned right I said if it was Albus I would quit." She reached over for the glass of water beside her and took a drink.
"Keep going," Remus urged, pen scribbling down every drop of information.
"And then there was this rumbling, and the floor began to shake, and a voice said: Not Albus, and it hissed the letter 's'. It made me so scared that I ran down all the aisles, and the shelves kept moving, forcing me to go in different directions. And then it had finally stopped, and I was a couple metres away from the exit. A shelf full of dictionaries blocked my path, and then I saw it. It was huge, and purple, it had a gross looking mouth and long arms, and then there was this white light, and I must have fainted, because I don't remember anything else after that." Minerva finished.
"Well, that certainly was a very interesting story," James said, Patting her on the shoulder.
"I can't wait to get a look at this thing! Come on!" Sirius shouted, pulling James and Remus along by the shoulder, heading to the basement stairs.