A/N: Hello :) This is just a little story I wrote a while ago; hopefully you'll enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I don't own the world of Harry Potter :(
"Aw, come on Sev, it'll be fun!"
Severus Snape, or Sev, as his best friend, Lily Evans, called him nowadays whenever she wanted something from him, sighed. "But Lily, what if they find out it was us? They'll turn my life into a living hell!"
"You just said they were already doing that! It can't get worse now, can it?"
Severus sighed again. There was no point arguing with Lily. "Maybe, but what if they start torturing you as well?"
Lily's eyes shone mischievously. "Well, then we'll just have to make sure they won't know it was us. Come on, Sev! Don't you want to get some revenge for everything they've done to you? Besides, there are more people they always pester. Maybe they'll think it was one of them. What harm could one small prank do?"
Severus thought this over for a moment. It would be awesome if they could pull this off, pranking the biggest pranksters in school. Give them a taste of their own medicine. They would never expect it, especially not from them. He and Lily both were not the most outgoing students around, and they weren't known for crossing the rules or pestering people. And together, they were smart enough to make this work.
He glanced up at his friend, who was looking at him with a hopeful look in her eyes. He gave her a slight smile and told her, "Alright, I'm in. Let's do this."
Lily clapped her hands together in a rather childish way of displaying her happiness and grinned widely at him. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you Sev!"
Severus grinned back at her. "One condition: stop calling me Sev."
Lily pouted. "Why? I like calling you Sev!"
Severus crossed his arms. "Well, I don't like being called Sev."
Lily now tried glaring at him, but she had never been too good at that, so she had to give up quickly. "Alright then. But only after we've pulled this prank! Sev."
Severus rolled his eyes at her. "Fine. If it makes you so happy… but if you don't stop calling me Sev after we did this, I'll call you… Lils."
Lily shrugged. "I don't mind that."
"Fine. Lilsy?" Lily just grinned at this. "Lila?"
He laughed as Lily wrinkled her nose. "Ew, Lila. That sounds like Viola." Severus wanted to point out that those two didn't actually sound very alike to him, but he could see Lily's point. Viola Lemmings, an extremely annoying and superficial fourth year, wasn't someone he would want to be compared to.
"Then you'd better not call me Sev anymore after this, understood?" he asked sternly. Lily just nodded, though not very enthusiastically. "Do you actually have any idea of what we could do?"
Lily's face brightened immediately. "Yeah, I've got an idea! I'm sure you'll like it. I was thinking of doing it, say, the day after tomorrow?"
Severus grinned. "Fill me in, then."
#*#
Two days later, preparations were completed. The spells had been looked up, and everything they needed was at hand. At midnight – the entire Gryffindor common room should be deserted – Lily opened the portrait hole. "Come in, quickly," she whispered, and Severus, dressed up in all black (as usual), hastily stepped into the room. He blinked.
"It's all so… red," he said, looking around. "You Gryffindors sure like boasting your strength, don't you?"
"Some people do," Lily said, shrugging. "Come on now, they went to bed over an hour ago – they should be asleep by now."
They walked up the stairs towards the boys' dorms, and Severus kept looking around at the extravagance that the Gryffindors obviously like to display. The Slytherin common room seemed much more sober to him, even though it probably wasn't. Slytherins liked to show off as well, it was just that they did so with lots of green and silver, instead of gold and red.
Lily put a finger to her lips and slowly opened the door. She poked her head around it and waited for a moment. Then, she turned back to Severus. "It's okay," she whispered. "They seem asleep. Don't make a sound, though, I have no idea if they're heavy sleepers or not."
Severus nodded in confirmation and they set off. While Lily took care of Lupin's and Pettigrew's robes, she had left Potter and Black to Severus, for which he was quite grateful. They were the biggest bullies, and this was his big chance to get back at them.
For a couple of minutes, they worked in peace and quiet. Once Severus had completed charming Potter's robes, he moved on to what he suspected was Black's trunk. It was one giant mess, and Severus wasn't happy to see that his clothes were literally everywhere. He was halfway done when he heard a small gasp coming from the other side of the room; Lily.
He turned around quickly, and saw her staring apprehensively at Lupin's bed. She looked his way, panicking.
"Duck!" he mouthed, and he crouched down on the floor (that was littered with Black's robes and all sorts of other stuff. Severus decided that he didn't want to know what it all was). Lily, by now, had ducked as well and was sitting by the end of Lupin's bed now.
"Who's there?" Severus cursed silently: apparently, Lupin had really woken up. But how? They hadn't made a sound! He heard a yawn and the sound of someone scratching their head. "Is anyone there?" Now Severus rolled his eyes. As if they were going to tell him that they were, in fact, there.
There was some more mumbling, but after a minute or so, Lily stood up again and walked towards where Severus was sitting. "He's asleep again, I think," she whispered in a hardly audible voice.
"Are you done already?" he asked her at the same tone.
"No, I need to finish up. I'll be done soon, though."
Severus nodded. "Yeah, me too. Black really is a pig." Lily grinned at him.
"I know," she replied. Standing up, she stretched a bit. "Let's finish this, I'm tired."
At least she doesn't have to walk back to the dungeons, Severus thought, sighing to himself. Shooting some more hexes at Black's robes, he decided that he was never going to come back to this room ever again, no matter how much Lily would beg him. It was like he had walked right into a hog's pen.
"And now, for the finishing touch," Lily whispered once they had left the room, "I filled this bucket with some magical powder I ordered from Zonko's." Severus was impressed. He didn't know Lily would ever want to have to do anything with that shop. Neither did he, when he thought about it. But of course, neither of them had thought that they'd ever be pranking someone, and yet, here they were.
"What does that do?" Severus asked, curious. Lily hadn't told him this part of the plan. She just winked at him.
"You'll see tomorrow," she whispered conspiratorially. "But can you give me a hand here? Thanks." As Severus held the bucket for her, she performed another spell on its contents. She then magically attached it to the ceiling. "It should cover them once they walk out of their room," she said happily. "Now let's go to bed."
#*#
When Severus entered the Great Hall the next morning, he noticed that Lily was already present at the Gryffindor table. She gave him the thumbs up as he walked towards the Slytherin table himself, and he nodded back at her. Fortunately, he had managed to return to the dungeons last night without being caught. That would make his involvement in this prank all too obvious.
It didn't take long before the four most obnoxious boys in the school (also known as the Marauders, but since they wore that name with pride, Severus refused to refer to them like that) walked into the Great Hall, which fell completely silent. Severus had to stifle a laugh, just like most other students at the Slytherin table. He glanced at Lily, whose lips were pressed together in a fashion that failed to hide her amusement. The other Gryffindors just looked shocked, and the other two Houses didn't quite know what to do.
There they were, Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew, wearing robes that seemed to have been taken out of a Slytherin's wardrobe; all green. Their faces, necks, and hands, however, were a nice shade of silver. Severus suspected that the contents of the buckets Lily had attached to the ceiling were the cause of that.
"What?" Black yelled loudly. "What's wrong?"
"They're probably just admiring how handsome we look again," Potter said in an equally loud voice. "Don't worry, people, we will always be looking this good!"
Lily was rolling her eyes at this, and Severus noticed that many other people had to refrain from doing so, not just Slytherins. Thanks to that comment, it appeared, nobody cared enough to tell them what was going on. And thanks to Lily's spell, they wouldn't be able to see it for themselves; they didn't see that something was wrong with the four of them, unless someone would explicitly tell them first.
Soon enough, breakfast was over, and Severus had Transfiguration, with the Gryffindors. As he walked out of the Great Hall, Lily caught up with him. "Pretty awesome, don't you think?" she asked him gleefully. Severus nodded.
"It's unbelievable that nobody told them what was up," he said. Now it was Lily's turn to nod.
"Yeah, I expected some of their so called 'fans' to warn them, but obviously they didn't." Severus pulled a face at Lily's mention of 'fans'. Why would someone want to be a fan of those four? What self-depreciation. "I suspect McGonagall will tell them off, though."
Of course, McGonagall. She would get angry at them for doing this. "Perhaps they'll even get a detention for it," Severus said, smirking a bit and Lily grinned.
"Oh, that would be just wonderful!" she exclaimed, before quickly looking around to check that they weren't accidentally walking behind them.
And indeed, once everyone had arrived in class and found a seat, McGonagall entered. Upon seeing the four Gryffindors, her mouth fell open.
"You four! Do you think that's funny? Are you trying to make the Slytherin House look ridiculous? Are you trying to make Gryffindor look ridiculous?" She was fuming by now, and the four boys stared at her wordlessly. Although, those four would never be completely wordless (worthless, sure, in Severus' opinion; but even he had to admit that they always had something to say, to everything).
"We would never want to make Gryffindor look ridiculous!" Potter protested, and the other three nodded fervently. "Never!"
"Why would you even think that?" Black added.
"This is a very sad excuse for a joke, Mr Black," McGonagall said, and she looked very angry.
"We didn't do anything!" Black cried out, but after a look sent his way by Lupin, he added, "Well, not today, at least."
"Have you even looked at yourselves?" McGonagall asked them angrily. "You're a disgrace to my House!"
"Of course we've looked at ourselves," Potter said cockily, and Severus shook his head disbelievingly. How they could act like that while a very angry Professor was shouting at them as beyond him. "Why would we disgrace your House?"
"You are covered in silver and green, Mr Potter! That's a disgrace to Gryffindor, to Slytherin – to the entire school! Detention, all four of you!" Severus tried to hide his grin, and from the looks of it, so did Lily.
"D-Detention?" Potter spluttered. Severus thought that, with the amount of trouble those four got in, they ought to be used to detention after two and a half years. "But we didn't do anything!"
The other three murmured in agreement, but that only seemed to make McGonagall more furious. "Yes, Mr Potter, detention. This entire week, starting tonight."
Potter spluttered some more, but eventually, he calmed down. Severus tried to focus on the lesson and not look too conspicuous. Who knew what Potter and his gang were up to now. They had to be severely upset, although none of them seemed to have realised what McGonagall had told them.
#*#
"Sev! Hey, Sev! Over here!" Rolling his eyes, Severus looked to his right, where Lily was standing in some or other passageway.
"What did I tell you about calling me that, Lila?" he asked, slightly peeved with his best friend.
She just rolled her eyes. "Of course, Severus, I'm sorry. That was quite a stunt, don't you think? They didn't find it very hilarious, I'm afraid. They were shocked to death when they found out that they were really silver and green." Lily paused for a moment and looked around. "They were now discussing who could've pulled that prank. And as much as they hate you, they didn't believe it was you for a second when Potter brought it up. They didn't figure you could get into the common room." Severus grinned. "I'll keep you posted, though."
Right then, voices (and probably people too) approached them. "So we're agreeing on this, then?" Black. And the rest of the gang, probably. Lily pulled Severus further into the passageway. "Longbottom and his friends did this to get back at us for pulling that prank on them earlier this month?"
"It's the only explanation," Lupin said, and Severus was glad that they thought so. "They're the only ones who have the knowledge and the access to the common room." Although it was a bit offending to hear that they apparently didn't have the knowledge for the prank they pulled, it was nice to hear that they didn't need to worry about being pranked as a revenge.
"Let's go get them back, then," Potter said. With that, the four of them marched away again, and Severus let out a breath of relief.
"Well, that's settled then," Lily said, smiling. "We pranked the Marauders and got away with it. That has got to be satisfactory, right?"
Severus grinned at her. "It sure is, Lily. Thanks for dragging me into this."
A/N: So, what do you think? Did you like it, hate it, anything else? If you have any comments whatsoever, don't hesitate to leave a review! :D