So this is how it was supposed to go:
1. Don't wake Lily Evans.
2. Sneak into the Gryffindor seventh year boy's dorm.
3. Permanently stick three troublesome pranksters into fluffy pink bunny suits. It was almost Easter, after all.
Easy enough, right? Maybe not so much. The problem with permanent sticking charms, other than the fact that they're apparently a nuisance to undo (and by nuisance I mean 'impossible'), is that they're incredibly hard to pull off. Dare I say that at the age of seventeen we weren't entirely ready to be attempting such spells.
Anyway. We got through two thirds of the plan easy enough. Lily's snoring on our way down the stairs to the common room made it pretty clear that part one had been a success. The surprisingly quieter but equally present sleeping sounds of our victims as we entered their room indicated that part two was going swimmingly also. Using an infinitely useful spell we'd learnt from Lily in second year we dressed the previously only underwear clad marauders in their new attire.
Here's where things must have gone a little funky. We never were quite sure if it was the clothing spell or the sticking charm that did it. Could have been both. Either way, everything seemed fine. If you could call Potter, Black and Lupin asleep in bunny suits 'fine' then sure, everything seemed fine.
After muttering the incantation and trying not to laugh ourselves into hysteria we left for the comfort of our own beds and the safety of the knowledge that we'd got our own back. Not just in verbal abuse or physical pain. We would be able to wake up tomorrow knowing that the three main players in the plot to embarrass us every day of our school lives would finally know, to some extent at least, what public humiliation feels like.
Maybe it was a little bit harsh but it was the kind of closure we needed. And maybe we shouldn't have done it without Lily but we all wanted to prove we could orchestrate a plot without her. But Merlin knows, we got what wished for. More than any of us could comprehend at the time.
Before any of us knew it morning had arrived. We all slept well and awoke with proud smiles on our faces. Until we realized why we had been interrupted from our dreaming in the first place. Arguably manly screams of sheer terror sounded from beyond the common room. I jolted into an upright sitting position in my bed and turned to the rest of the girls.
Lily's wavy red hair was obscuring most of her vision and despite the fact that I knew for sure she had slept last night her normally bright green eyes were dull and surrounded by red. She looked tired. I put it down to exam stress and instead examined her expression. Confusion was paramount.
Rory was scrambling about around her bed, her long mass of brown curls following behind her, as she attempted to change into her robes as fast as possible. All the while a broad grin stuck firmly on her delicate features.
Pritha sat on her bed mirroring me. And although her short blonde hair was a complete mess, which would normally have caused her significant distress, a look of unbridled joy was present on her face. That alone was enough to make the whole endeavor worthwhile, especially considering how distraught she'd been a mere two days ago.
To be perfectly honest, this had not been an out of the blue unexpected prank. I wish it could have been. Getting one up on the boys just for the fun of it would have been a success far too sweet to imagine. But truthfully, this had been revenge. Retaliation rightly due.
To say that Pritha was a control freak was an almost criminal understatement. She was a perfectionist. Everything had to be neat and tidy. Her clothes, her bed, even her thoughts. And when her thoughts wouldn't sit where they were told to in her head she sorted them. Using paper and pen. She organized them and hid them away where they would stay silent. She took her notebook everywhere with her.
It had started out as just a normal book. Something bought from a muggle shop. But Pritha soon fixed that. She charmed it so it never ran out of pages, so she could change the colour of the ink at will, so the pages numbered themselves automatically, so it checked her spelling. But the one thing she never did to the book was make it hard to open. She thought the only people who paid enough attention to know of its existence would respect her privacy. She was right to trust us. But she was wrong to trust the boys.
Naturally, being friends of Lily's we were all targets and we knew it. But Pritha had always stayed under the radar and the rest of us always drew their fire. The more argumentative amongst us stood out so Pritha wouldn't have to. We thought it had worked. We were wrong too.
You see there are many kinds of boys. Most can be categorized by what course of action they take when they wish to endear themselves to a female. Only two types of boy were the direct cause of the incident we were seeking retaliation for. The I'm-too-scared-to-say-anything type and the I-find-it-physically-impossible-to-keep-my-mouth-shut type.
The trouble really began when Remus Lupin took a very obvious liking to poor Pritha.
Remus, of course, had tried his hardest to make it unnoticeable or at the very most subtle but when your friends are the infamous James and Sirius subtlety is not an easy task. There were hallway taunts, dorm room break ins, implicating notes and finally the theft of an all important notebook. That was the line in the sand. The point at which their behavior could no longer go unpunished. And so the plan was hatched.
We thought by some miracle that we'd succeeded too as we raced down the stairs to investigate the source of the commotion. Instead of being met by the three marauders stuck snugly in their bunny suits as we had expected we witnessed something far more disturbing. Sirius was picking himself up off the floor after tumbling down the boy's staircase on top of James. Both boys were significantly underdressed for the occasion having arrived at the foot of the stairs in only their underwear.
Sirius then began thrusting his leg deeply into his pants, as James watched on from the carpet in anticipation, which to us seemed odd until his pants abruptly flung themselves off his person and across the room. The boys began yelling again as the trousers landed on the mantle.
We had managed until then to remain silent but as soon as our laughter caught James and Sirius' attention they collected themselves, or Sirius did, and we became the ones in the cross hairs. Sirius advanced upon us in a manner that, were he not wearing boxers with tiny broomsticks on them, would have been menacing.
"You did this!" Sirius accused as he moved closer. By now the girls had retreated to the dorms and I had stayed to brave the onslaught.
"Who me?" I pointed to myself in a mocking manner.
At this point Sirius was fuming. Not because he had no pants, he was probably enjoying the added attention, but because we had after all these years finally got the better of him. And as he stood before me red faced and angry I didn't even have time to admire his quidditch toned body for all I could do was burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter.
Now, I wish I could say that we removed the spell and no harm was done. But this isn't a hilarious tale that one tells to their wayward grandchildren. It's a story about broken hearts and mended ones, sporting events and school outings, cold winter evenings and inappropriate amounts of skin. As all high school stories are.