- Year Long Scavenger Hunt: (word) cucumber

- 2017 Drabbles: Landscape

Written for Liza (NeonDomino) after a long chat in the Hogwarts Mod chat about the things that happen to the Marauders!

Pairings/Characters: Sirius, Remus, James

Word Count: 1,147

"Key, please." The Goblin sat at the main desk of Gringotts demanded, holding out a gnarled hand. He eyed the three redheads suspiciously.

Fabian Prewett beamed at the Goblin as he handed over a large, bronze key. The Goblin assessed the key for a few moments, passing it through his fingers and running his palm across the ridges. Finally, he handed it back to Fabian, and nodded. "Very well. You may take the cart and proceed to your vault." He gestured a hand towards the corridor behind him, and Fabian, Gideon and Molly Prewett headed towards the cart.

As soon as the cart started moving through the bank, winding through damp tunnels and hundreds of gilt doors, Molly turned to face her brothers. "Why did I have to be Molly?" she hissed, glaring at the two boys.

"Because, my dear, you're the most Molly-ish out of the three of us," Fabian said. "And anyway—it was our idea. We got to pick first."

'Molly' folded her arms in protest, and leaned back against the cart. "Watch out for that waterfall!" she shrieked, suddenly noticing a spurt of water ahead of them.

They couldn't control the cart though—the Goblins above had already told it where to go, and that included a detour through the Thief's Downfall.

As soon as the water touched their red hair and soaked them through, they were no longer who they initially appeared to be. In place of the three Prewett siblings sat James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.

"Oh, brilliant," snarled Sirius. "A whole month of brewing that Polyjuice potion, wasted. Raiding the Potions stores, pointless."

"You know, you could have just asked Fabian and Gideon what they are keeping in that vault," muttered Remus dryly. The cart drew to a halt outside a vault, and the three boys climbed out.

"Where would be the fun in that? And anyway, we already tried to get in on what they are doing."

"As soon as Sirius mentioned that we heard explosions in the dormitories, they closed off on us," James said. "Whatever they are doing in the seventh year dorms—they're keeping it a big secret."

"And we want in on it." Sirius grinned mischievously and held the key towards the door. Remus put his hand over the lock, an expression of worry passing over his face.

"I just don't think this is a good idea. We've just broken into Gringotts. This is a serious offence!"

"Keep your knickers on, Moony," James sniggered. "We're just having a look, we're not going to steal anything."

Remus pursed his lips and pulled his hand away, allowing Sirius to slide the key into the lock. A series of clicks and clacks sounded up and down the door, and after a few moments, it swung open. They stepped inside, and the door slammed shut behind them.

"I knew this was a terrible idea!" yelled Remus. "We're locked in!" he pulled on the doorhandle desperately, but it didn't budge. "Guys?" he turned around, noticing that Sirius and James weren't paying attention to him. They were staring at the vault ahead of them—which was empty, all except the massive pile of wands stacked up in the middle of the room.

"Wands?" Sirius barked, sounding betrayed. "Wands?"

"They were making wands? So what was all that noise about?" James stomped forwards and grabbed the nearest wand. It was about eight and a half inches, made of a dark wood, and was quite crooked.

It had barely sat in his hand a moment before it transformed—suddenly he was holding a long, shrink-wrapped cucumber.

He dropped it in shock. "What the hell?" he muttered, kicking the cucumber into the pile of wands.

They soon learned that he had made a vital mistake.

The wands had been stacked precariously. But once the pile was disturbed, and joke wands began to tumble and clatter to the floor, they all began to transform. Many more cucumbers scattered the floor, along with aubergines, corn-on-the-cobs, and even pickles. A butternut squash narrowly missed Remus's head as it flew in his direction.

But that wasn't the worst part.

Fabian and Gideon were a lot craftier than James and Sirius had given them credit for. Clearly they hadn't wanted anyone to steal their fantastic idea, because another security measure had been applied. As soon as the joke wands touched human skin, a plethora more joke wands would burst from the first one, all hitting the floor and transforming as they did so.

"Gemino," Remus explained quickly, as the three boys backed up against the door. "I've read about this charm before. They will just keep multiplying."

"What the hell is that!" screamed James in horror, pointing towards the centre of the growing vegetable landscape. Something pink, rubbery and vibrating was emerging from the middle of the pile. It seemed to ride a wave of vegetables as it soared straight towards them, and finally brushed against Sirius's cheek.

About ten more pink vibrators burst from the first one, all of them juddering and groaning as they buzzed against each other. The room was gradually filling up, and it seemed that they had reached the centre of the wand pile—which apparently was where the worst ones were kept. More wands emerged and transformed into penis-themed items; regular, realistic dildos, stupidly enormous ones, ones that had a strap attached.

Remus was howling through the lock of the door, begging for someone to come and get them out, or for the ocean of dildos to end his life. James was crying; his glasses were long gone and he looked quite bare-faced and terrified. Sirius looked like he had gone mad. He looked horrified, but he was laughing.

"Joke penis wands," he wailed over the noise of a thousand buzzing vibrators. "Why did we never come up with this?"

oOo

"You three are in a lot of trouble," Griphook the Goblin told them sternly, just over an hour later. They were sitting in the main hall, waiting for Professor McGonagall to come and collect them. "You're lucky we aren't pressing charges with the Ministry. Thankfully, we would rather keep ridiculous incidents like this under wraps." He waddled away with as much haughtiness as a two-foot Goblin could.

Remus, Sirius and James were all covered in bruises. "I am never listening to one of your stupid ideas again," growled Remus, with an uncharacteristic danger to his voice.

"I hope no one ever decides to make joke products like that again," Sirius muttered.

"My parents are going to murder me," Remus sighed.

"Mine too," murmured James. "I don't think I'll ever be able to look a knob in the face again."

"Me too," Remus agreed.

"Me three," Sirius said, but he shook his head a moment later. "No, I take that back. I could never give it up."