11-year-old Albus Potter was jammed into the 5th-year Gryffindor boys' dorm with seven of his nine cousins and his brother James, listening intently to Fred and Rox as they laid out the plans for the annual Weasley Prank. Well, Weasley/Potter Prank, since last year when James had gotten to help. Technically, they were already breaking the rules just being in here, because this was Fred's room and none of the girls - or the boys in other houses - should be in it. But there was no better place to plan, and so here they were anyway. Even Victoire, and she was Head Girl. And since the annual Weasley/Potter Prank was at least nominally in memory of the uncle they'd never met - Uncle George's twin, who'd also been born today, but who had died before even Victoire was born - it seemed sort of . . . right to be breaking the rules to plan it. The way they heard it, neither of the twins had put much stock in rules, unless they were on the Quidditch pitch. (They'd never have jeopardized their team's victory by breaking the rules there.)
"So, there's nine of us this year." Fred announced, as if they couldn't count or remember, "And Rox and I figured we'd go extra big this year now that our numbers are this high." He said "Rox and I," but they all knew that The Prank was Fred's thing. He was the one named after late Uncle Fred, after all, and he was the older of Uncle George's two kids to boot, though there had apparently been some talk of giving Rox a turn at the helm after last year's fiasco - they'd meant to be setting off dung bombs in unison outside all of the professors' office doors, but the timing had gotten all mangled up and half of them had gotten caught and all of them had gotten in trouble.
Granted, they were all going to get in trouble again this year - no matter what they did, when the prank went off on April 1st the teachers were going to know it was them, after four years in a row of annual pranks. But if they didn't get caught, they would at least be in less trouble, because then you couldn't prove it was them. Al was just excited that he got to actually help, instead of just hearing about it the next time the family got together. It was one of the things he'd been most excited about when he was starting school. As Fred got going on his explanation, it became patently clear that they were going to get into trouble for this one. Probably quite a lot of it. And that most of them would get into trouble twice. But that didn't matter, because the plan was epic. He paid very careful attention, determined not to forget a single detail of what he was supposed to do.
This year's prank was going to be the biggest of all. It was going to be so big that Fred had even enlisted Peeves to help. They weren't sure how he'd gotten Peeves to agree to help, but even with 9 of them, they needed it, so they weren't about to complain. As Al and James got ready to do their part of the prank, hiding in a side hallway next to a window and waiting for the signal that Rox was ready, James slugged Al lightly in the shoulder. "Don't look so nervous! It's not like we don't do this all the time. Just pretend it's for real . . ." Al nodded. But it was one thing to say "pretend we're about to get into a real fight" and another thing entirely to fight his brother on purpose when he wasn't even mad at him for anything, really. Even so, they both leapt into action the moment the stream of red sparks appeared in the window, going off in opposite directions so that they could meet up again in the middle of all the staircases, but come from different directions.
They'd timed their routes perfectly so that they knew exactly how long it would take to run into each other, and Al was determined not to mess it up, walking steadily, but not running, until he turned the last corner and - yes! There James was, coming toward the stairs from across the way, their loops meeting up perfectly in time. He let himself smile for just a moment before switching to a frown. "James, you bloody prick!" he shouted, pulling his wand out, "I know you guys are doing the prank without me and I know it's your fault, and I think you're a jerk." He shot a bat-bogey hex, always his mum's favorite, at James, running across to the middle so they would be more visible as they fought. James put up a shield charm that blocked it, but Al knew he would - he was ready for it, because they both knew they were going to be "fighting." As he dodged the jelly-legs jinx his brother had shot in return, the charms class just a few doors down got out, flooding the hallway with people who immediately realized what was going on. Now he just had to keep at it and make it look real, because it was already working.
He and James dueled for a few minutes, but they could feel the audience around them getting bored, most of the older kids rolling their eyes and walking around the crowd because they didn't know enough magic to make it worth watching and Al knew that if they weren't careful, a prefect would stop the fight before any of the staff could get here - and the staff was what they needed. All of them. He caught his brother's eye and he knew James could sense it too, so he threw his wand away without a worry and flung himself bodily at his brother, tackling James to the ground as his brother tossed his own wand away. Hopefully, it had looked like he'd knocked it out of James's hand - that was the plan, anyway.
He saw Louis run out of the crowd, on the way to fulfill his own mission - getting someone to come stop the fight. McGonagall, if it could be managed, though from the noise he could hear outside the nearby window, he could tell Rox had started lighting off her dad's fireworks, so the headmistress might end up going to stop her instead. James pushed him over and he kicked out, actually catching his brother in the shoulder with his foot - oops! They'd meant to be fake fighting, but James seemed to think Al had missed on purpose and responded with a punch that seemed all too real - Al was pretty sure it would have hurt if he hadn't managed to scramble out of the way. He didn't know how Rose and Dominique's distraction in the largest and most popular of the girls' toilets was going, but he could feel the energy from the crowd around him and James intensifying as more people joined in, shouting "Fight, fight, fight!" at the top of their lungs. That would bring someone running, even if Molly was doing her part well.
He lost concentration for a moment, and James landed a punch to his jaw that he looked completely unapologetic for and Al shouted, throwing himself back into the fight in earnest. Even so, he couldn't miss the sounds of Peeves's part of the plan - a set of loud crashes and explosions. They didn't know what Peeves was doing. They just knew Fred had told them Peeves was helping them and that Peeves was going to be causing some sort of chaos to help with their many distractions. He and James were wrestling now, and he took an elbow to his left eye before getting a good shot in with his knee that made James wince. They were both going to have quite a few bruises out of this, and he was kind of hoping a teacher would get here sooner, rather than later. Surely, it had been long enough, with all of this happening at once, that McGonagall had left her office. Hadn't it?
Finally, the Charms professor came out of his classroom, Molly trailing behind him and looking disappointed that she hadn't managed to distract him longer with her questions after class. He waded through the crowd and, with a flick of his wand, levitated the two of them into the air, separating them. Both boys struggled weakly, as if they wanted to keep fighting, but at least Al felt all the urgency drain out of him once he knew they were caught. Suddenly, Louis came running up, looking winded. "Professor! Professor! The headmistress says . . . you're supposed to take . . . Al and James to the Great Hall - sorry Al." Albus glared at his cousin, but they both knew he didn't mean it. This was great! If there was so much chaos that McGonagall wanted them in the Great Hall instead of in her office, it meant the others were going to have more time to get Part 2 achieved than they'd ever even dreamed.
The crowd dissipated quickly as they were led off to the Great Hall, which was empty at the moment. Before long, they were joined by a shamed-looking Rox, who winked at them briefly when the astronomy professor went off to talk to the charms professor and stopped watching her for a moment. The teachers were talking too quietly to be overheard, which didn't make Al any less nervous. What if their plan hadn't worked? A noise in the hallway caught their attention next, especially when it turned into two more cousins. Dom and Rose were splattered from head to toe in about eight different colors, and they were being followed by a crowd of equally coated girls who were demanding that one of the not one but three professors surrounding Dom and Rose do something about the dye right now.
As the girls joined them, Al moved to stand next to Rose, still on pins and needles. There was no way to know if their plan had worked until it all wound down completely. Finally, finally, finally, Professor McGonagall herself appeared and Al forced himself not to look triumphant - Professor Longbottom was behind her, but Fred and Victoire were nowhere to be seen. They hadn't been caught, then! That was excellent! Al hoped that meant their plan had succeeded. "Weasleys!" she exclaimed. James nudged Al lightly and Al grinned back a little, but the old lady's eyesight was as sharp as ever. "And Potters!" she added, in a tone that suggested she had very little patience for them right now. Al and James looked down at the ground. "If I find out that you've had anything to do with Peeves blowing up every toilet on the fifth floor . . ." The cousins tried to keep their faces straight - apparently Fred had been more specific with Peeves's directions than they'd thought, because blowing up a toilet had been an inside joke among the family since . . . well, since the first Fred, really. They stared at the floor because they knew if they caught each others' eyes, they'd never make it through this without laughing. "You will all be cleaning up the mess from it yourselves." That was actually quite the threat, and Al, at least, felt less like laughing once she'd said it. He hoped Peeves wouldn't rat them out.
"Now," McGonagall continued, "I don't know what you thought you were doing, or why you feel you have to do these sorts of things every single year . . ." Guilty as charged, Al thought, though technically this was the first year he'd done it. "But it has got to stop." Then she started lecturing them, and they nodded and tried to look like they were ashamed of themselves, but Al knew what they were all really thinking - if the professor didn't know why they were really doing it, they would all be very much surprised, and as much as they hated the lecture, a lecture wasn't really so bad, was it? It could be much worse. Especially coming from McGonagall, who tended to take away rather large chunks of house points when she was disappointed in someone. Or several someones.
The lecture lasted almost half an hour, which was fine, because it gave the others more time, and then she doled out their actual punishments - a detention apiece for all 5 of them (but at least Louis and Molly had escaped punishment for their parts in Part 1, and Fred and Victoire were still out there. . .) and a loss of 30 points each for their respective houses. Luckily, the points really changed nothing. Al's 30 points lost for Slytherin were balanced out by Dom's 30 from Hufflepuff and Rose's 30 from Ravenclaw, and then James's 30 from Gryffindor put all the houses even and Rox's lost Gryffindor an actual 30 points. Which wasn't so bad as it could have been, really. They'd definitely taken the house points into account when they were setting up their teams, under the assumption that she'd punish them all equally once it was all sorted - and she had.
Then they just had to wait to see if it had all actually panned out. Part 1 of the plan had been a massive success. There had been enough chaos to get McGonagall out of her office and to keep her out, and there had even been enough chaos to keep the other professors out of her office, too. It was even better than they'd thought it would be. The only question was whether or not Part 2 had succeeded. Once McGonagall let them go, they split off in different directions to return to their respective common rooms. But then they snuck back out again and up to the Gryffindor tower, one at a time, staggering it, to find out if they'd succeeded or not. Al was the last to arrive, just in time for Part 3 to begin.
Waiting until dinner was underway, the cousins left Fred's room, accompanied by his roommates who had been rather emphatically forced into their company once they found out what was going on. The cousins were not going to risk someone else messing this up. Outside the Great Hall, they paused to get ready. Fred climbed onto his broom and readjusted the cape they'd made him from one of the drapes around his bed, long and red and dramatic. Then he plopped the Sorting Hat onto his head, kicked off from the ground, and waited for his sister to float the stool from the sorting along beside him. Taking a deep breath, he waved his arm forward with a chopping motion, and the burst into the hall, Fred flying overhead, Rox sending the stool zooming to the high table with the teachers, and the rest of them singing their loudest, rowdiest chorus of "Weasley is our King," which had originally been about Uncle Ron, but really who was to know the difference? What mattered was the shock on everybody's faces as Fred descended, stepping onto the stool behind the high table as if he belonged there and standing regally as he accepted his cousins' singing with a flourishy bow.
Al's face split into a massive grin as the teachers sat in their seats, too surprised to do anything at all. Ever the dramatist, Fred stepped from the stool to the table top at the end of the song, scooping up Hagrid's massive goblet and holding it up to the ceiling. "This is for you, Dead Uncle Fred! Happy birthday, and may you have many more, for as long as we, we happy few, we band of Weasleys, walk these halls!" Then he tried to take a swig of the whatever it was and Hagrid stopped him and it all degenerated into them being in trouble again. But they were in trouble together, the applause from the other students was deafening them, and the shouts of "to Fred's Dead Uncle Fred!" led by Fred's roommates, who had dissipated to their table without being noticed as the Weasley/Potter clan took center stage, made everything worth it.