Dresses, Ducks and Chaos
"I'm bored," Sirius groaned, rolling onto his back on his four-poster. James sighed; catching the snitch he had been fiddling with and tucking it away in his front pocket. He sat up, his eyebrows furrowed, thinking. The marauders would usually spend their Saturday's outside, either practising for a Quidditch match or lounging about down by the Black Lake. On this particular Saturday, however, they were stuck inside due to the rain. While they could –and probably should –have been doing their homework, they were, instead, lying about lazily in their dormitory, thinking of things they could do to entertain themselves.
"We could do a prank," James suggested, gazing around at his three best friends. Sirius, upon hearing James's idea, sat up a bit straighter and grinned mischievously. Remus and Peter both smiled toothily, sitting back in their four-posters.
"A big one; on the whole school," Sirius continued on with James's idea. James nodded and the four huddled together to plan their biggest prank yet.
If anyone at Hogwarts expected the following week to be just as quiet as the last had been, they would be terribly wrong. Monday morning found the Marauders treading the familiar path to the Great Hall with wide grins on their faces and laughing about something they had done. When they entered the hall, they sat down at the Gryffindor table and regarded the Slytherins with smug looks on their faces.
James found Snape among the Slytherins sitting down to breakfast and smirked, calling out 'Snivellus' to grab his attention. Snape, who had been calmly eating his breakfast while wondering why everyone seemed to be laughing at the Slytherins, groaned and looked over toward the Gryffindor table, where most of the laughter seemed to be coming from. James was standing up on the bench, a smirk on his face as he stared at Snape.
"Nice uniform! Did your girlfriend let you wear it?" Snape looked down at his uniform confusedly. It looked the same as it did every other day. There didn't seem to anything wrong with it. He looked across to a few of the other Slytherins around him, who were regarding his uniform with the same confused expression Snape was sure he was also wearing.
"Don't know what you're talking about Potter," Snape finally said, glancing at Lily Evans, who was sitting a few seats down from James Potter and staring down at her own plate. It had been a few months since that day down by the lake, but it still felt like it was only yesterday to Snape.
"Of course you don't, Snivellus. You'd have to have eyes for that." James sat back down and proceeded to quietly talk to Sirius about the next prank.
The Slytherins didn't find out what James meant by their uniforms until that afternoon, when the charm that had made them unable to detect the change wore off and they found themselves wearing the Gryffindor robes while in their last class. Snape was one of the first to notice the change. It was in the middle of their potions lesson and they were brewing Draught of Living Death. Snape had just turned to discuss something with a fellow Slytherin when he noticed what he was wearing.
"What are you…why are you wearing Gryffindor robes…and a skirt?" He asked, glancing down at his own Gryffindor ensemble. From the back of the classroom he could hear a barking laugh. He turned toward the noise and found Sirius Black and the rest of the marauders pointing and laughing at him and the other Slytherins, who had discovered their own uniform changes, with glee.
On Wednesday, the marauders arrived at the Great Hall to find everyone –including the teachers—staring at their utensils rather strangely. The reason being that whenever someone came in contact with the utensils, they would transform into completely random and useless objects such as rubbers ducks, marbles and empty ink bottles. When they released the objects, they'd return to their original state. Furthermore, whenever someone would try to remove the charm used to make them do that, the issue only got worse.
When the marauders arrived in the Great Hall, they headed straight to the Gryffindor table and sat down. They pulled out their own sets of knives, forks and spoons and began to dish out their own breakfast. They had just started eating when they heard a scream from across the hall. They looked up curiously toward the noise and found a first year running from what appeared to be a rubber duck mixed with a real duck's head and legs. The animal was chasing after the student, quacking loudly and trying to bite the student. From the other side of the hall, they heard screams and several more quacking noises and realised their prank was going horribly wrong. Soon nearly everyone was either running from their very own malicious duck or trying to get rid of them, including the marauders.
"What's wrong, Potter? Prank gone wrong, has it?" Came the voice of Evan Rosier from the Slytherin table. The four marauders turned to face the Slytherin and his group of death eater wannabe friends and glared at them.
"What would you know about it, Rosier?" Sirius yelled across the hall. "I doubt you could tell the difference between a duck and a rubber duck. Isn't it obvious?"
He pointed to one of the ducks that was further down the table from them. Remus turned to Sirius, ignoring the Slytherins. "You think the Slytherins messed up our prank?"
"I wouldn't be surprised." Peter agreed. "I mean, they were only supposed to change forms into harmless objects, not change into live creatures and chase everyone around."
As the four pranksters thought about the prank and the Slytherin's involvement, they watched as the teachers tried to restore order out of chaos by trying to get rid of the half-live-half-rubber ducks. But the more they tried, the more they failed, it seemed. In the end, the teachers paraded all the students out of the hall and sent them back to their common rooms.
"Potter, Lupin, Black and Pettigrew will come with me please." Professor McGonagall ordered, staring at the four sternly. They followed her as she led them up to the headmaster's office. They didn't say anything along the way, preferring to remain silent as the Transfiguration professor led them up to the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore's office. Professor McGonagall told the password to the statue, which stepped aside and let them pass. "Professor Dumbledore will be waiting for you at the top."
The four stepped onto the first few steps and let it carry them up. Once they came to the top, James tapped on the heavy door and listened for the headmaster's 'come in'. It came a moment later, loud and clear, and the four stepped into his office.
The four received a week's worth of detention for the mess they created with the ducks and utensils and were made to give out an apology to the Slytherins for changing their uniforms. The marauders descended from the headmaster's office feeling like they had gotten off easy.
They ended the week, not with an apology, but with a bang by giving out a fireworks display with some rather rude words directed toward the Slytherins.