Written for The Dinner Table Challenge Round 1
Prompt: Out of the blue
Character: Minerva McGonagall
After six years worth of pranks one would think Minerva McGonagall would be used to the antics of the Marauders, yet here she was not even one whole week into the new school year finding herself the victim of one of the boys' pranks. It shouldn't have seemed so out of the blue. This wasn't the first time they had pranked a teacher, they had pranked Slughorn successfully at least once the year before but up until now they had never succeeded in pranking her. This caused Minerva to become more determined to catch them since her personal pride was at stake. "They're getting more and more brazen. Something must be done about this," she muttered under her breath, shaking her head as she cast a spell to clean her office.
It took McGonagall roughly three weeks and five or so pranks, they had the nerve to attempt to prank her one or two more times, before she actually caught the four of them, in this case three, in the act. Having briefly overheard part of James Potter's plan as she walked around her classroom watching the progress of her seventh years she roughly knew what the prank was and where and when it was supposed to take place.
She was still upset about what they had done to her office and rumored to have attempted to do to her classroom but had yet been unable to find any actual prove rendering her unable to justly give them a detention. She entered the fourth floor quarter fifteen minutes prior to when she had overheard Potter tell Sirius Black to meet him there. She checked all the empty classrooms and broom cupboards for either the group of young wizards or any of their supplies but came up empty handed, until she reached the last classroom and found Peter Pettigrew. "Where are they?" she asked him crossing her arms and glaring at him.
But Pettigrew just squealed in response to nervous to say anything or be of any real use to her. She was about to ask him again and deduct house points when she heard a loud commotion outside of the classroom. She stuck her head out the door barely catching Sirius Black's curls as he rounded the corner. "Black! Potter!" she shouted after them waiting patiently in the corridor for them to turn around.
Moments later the two seventeen year olds walked back into the corrirdor heads down and shoulders slumped. "15 house points a piece from Gryffindor for this and my office," she said to which Sirius opened his mouth to complain before being cut off by the Transfiguration Teacher. "And you all will be serving detention for the rest of next couple of nights cleaning out the bedpans in the Hospital Wing without magic."
She walked away then before she could hear anymore complaining from the trio, she didn't want to deduct anymore points from her own house after all she did want them to win the House Cup and she did have a soft spot for the boys. In fact she would find herself missing the boys the next year when it was so quiet and calm without their pranks.
