The Mischief Managers

Chapter 2: To The Super Lair

Hogsmead had caught roller skating fever. Sirius hated to do things that were too mainstream but in his defence, he had rolled before it was cool. He had been roller skating for so long in fact that the wheels began to wear out and creak and this made them come off as old and unfashionable and he was torn between sticking with them, like Brian May stuck to his Red Special, or getting a new pair just because he liked new things more than old things.

But until he could find the time to go and look at roller skates he would just have to fix what he could in the potions lab tonight. The wheels probably needed replacing since the fraying on the plastic surface wasn't easily filed away. But he could still oil the hinges so they wouldn't squeak at the next roller skate cheerleading session and he didn't even need to go out and buy some special wheel ointment at the specialty shop for the potions cupboards carried free alternatives that worked just as well.

The snout of the oilcan clicked against those hard to reach places of the roller skate undersides. Beside him, James was mixing various varnishes together for his Ziggy Stardust and telling Peter to get him things, and to his other side Remus was still skimming through the troubleshooting guide, desperate for answers and solutions to the unwanted grey tone his perpetually runny bubble gum seemed to have taken overnight.

"I still don't understand." he said when he after having skimmed the same pages for the last twenty minutes still was as clueless as ever.

"It really looks like sabotage." said Sirius and poked a dead rat that was floating around in the bubbling grey goo with his ebony, nymph follicle. "Unless you put that there."

"But who and why and that? Why would anybody want to sabotage a bubble gum potion?"

"It could be that somebody wants to sabotage your potion."

Remus seemed to find the idea genuinely shocking. People-pleasing do-gooders tended to find it hard to believe that anybody would want to sabotage their potions, not realising how annoying some people found people-pleasing do-gooders.

"My potion? What have I ever... actively done... Don't answer that."

"Congratulations. Somebody must be jealous of you."

Remus sat down on the lab stool, ever so disenheartened from the brutal defeat and his limp hands resting on the troubleshooting guide in his lap, that had never lived up to its boldly optimistic promise of providing solutions to every potions mystery out there.

Sirius put down the oil can and ran one roller skate at a time across the table, to test it for squeakyness as well as smooth wheel turns.

"Talk to Slughorn maybe he can help." he said.

Remus took this very classical piece of advice and hopped off the lab stool. As soon as he was gone Sirius put down his roller skates and picked up a ladle which he used to search the potion.

"Nice work, Padfoot!" said James and put down his Ziggy Stardust and little varnishing brush to watch Sirius struggle.

"It was an accident!" said Sirius.

"No, you planting those shrooms for 'elastic tripping' was not an accident."

"By accident I mean that it looked fine at the time, like I thought it would, and also it was your idea."

"Oh, so now it's my idea?"

Searching the potion with the ladle, Sirius hoped to find those shrooms so he could fish them out for that could on occasion sort things out. But aside from a dead rat there was nothing else floating around in the potion.

"You're the one who said: 'You know what would be fun? If somebody dropped shrooms in there.' And by 'somebody' you meant me because you always want me to do the dirty work because you're soooo loyal!"

Aside from some spider remnants there was nothing more to fish out and Sirius put down the ladle, disappointed in himself for not planning the spiking better and researching potential risks first. It looked utterly hopeless and beyond fixing and simply starting over would most likely be time better spent.

"What if we just add lots of pink dye?" James suggested, already fetching jugs from the cupboards. "It might just be a coloration issue."
"I suppose the spores could be messing with the look."

And so the two began to pour jug after jug of pink gel colouring into the potion until it began to shift back into a very shrill and eye burning fuschia. To take down the edge a bit and make it look less ginger sunburn and more soft and pale Sirius added just a touch of magic white, hoping for a happy accident.

"Ok now it looks like pig again." he said and dropped a scoop of potion in a glass of water, but it retained it's shape as poorly as yesterday. "I'm just going to crank up the heat."

When the heat had been cranked up and the potion was splashing at the sides again, Sirius dipped the scoop a second time.

"And now for the taste test." he said and brought it to his lips, blowing out some of the heat.

"Are you sure?" James asked. "A dead rat floated around in that."

"Why then did you think it was a good idea to add lots of pink dye?"

"Bubble gum for the enemy!"

"Chicken." said Sirius and swallowed the scoop, and felt utterly sick from the sweetness. "Woah!"

He was so dizzy he had to hold on to the table. Everything around him looked vibrant and vibrating. The side of his head pounded and his heart palpitated as if he had just had several tablespoons of grounded nutmeg with peanut butter. Hopefully this wouldn't render him blind.
"What?" said James. "Does your tripping feel elastic?"

"I didn't think that sugar high was a real thing!"

"Your pupils are really dilated."

Sirius could feel the diabetes expand through his body like an internal balloon and lift him off the ground and ping-pong him across the pink walls, all the while pink unicorns formed in the bubble gum ocean on the floor and began to fight with their horns until one stabbed the other in the heart. The loser bled bubble gum and the winner kicked pans and pots all across the lab victoriously whilst crapping bubblegum.

"Cool!" said a pink moose with kaliedoscope glasses and stuck his face in cauldron and began to slurp greedily, while his large head expanded until it was stuck. Panic struck he began to slam his head repeatedly against the walls and tables until the cast iron vessel broke like glass and the moose spiralled from the shards like a slinky.

"What's going on?" asked a frightened little pig in a blonde moptop.

"Try it!" said the moose and wrapped himself around one of the decorative pillars in the lab. "It's the way to be cool. Isn't that right, roller skate poodle head?"

"Ok then." said the pig uncertainly and dipped the sorbet scoop in the shards and had a lick. The tiny measure seemed to have no effect on the pig that was now beginning to shift back into the form of a short and fat ambiguous squib as the more trippy effects began to wear off for Sirius. The cauldron shards put themselves back together and the pink unicorns jumped back where they came from. The vast bubble gum ocean on the floor shrank into a puddle until it became too microscopic to be seen.

Although nothing was pink anymore, everything still had a pink hue, as if Sirius was looking through a pink window. He felt the sort of tranquility only unjustly illegal drugs could provide as he bounced around slowly below the ceiling.

"OoooOOoooOOO!" James moaned as he twirled himself like a candy cane and put himself in a knot.

The only thing that bugged Sirius now was the sweet aftertaste. Being more at peace with the world than he had ever been he began to bounce off the walls some more, accidentally bouncing the door shut just as it opened.

"Oh no what if it's Slughorn!" said Peter and burst. It looked like it would take a while for him to figure out how to inflate himself again.

But it wasn't Slughorn, it was just Remus and he noticed, using superb observational skills, that conditions weren't exactly the way he had left them. For example, the sorbet scoop was to the right of the potion and he was left handed. He looked around.

"I've missed haven't I?"

"It was us, ok?" Sirius confessed, bouncing around him. "We perfected your potion."

"What do you mean?"
"We dropped shrooms in your potion to make it awesome and we very, very succesful so sorry not sorry."

The feeling of soaring towards the ceiling and using it to launch a pinball effect was better than all the pink unicorns in the world. And he did not suffer any motion sickness, on the contrary; he felt light an airy like an angel food cake.

"I regret nothing!" said James, just bouncing across the floor on elongated corkscrew legs.

To catch a break from the intensive pinballing Sirius had to grab hold of a kitchen rail where wooden spoons and stainless steel whisks hung over portable medium stoves. Remus was looking over his notes and jotting down observations, seemingly still intent on fixing what was already perfect. Sirius soared back to him and dipped the sorbet scoop.

"Ok open up say ahhhhh..."

"I was trying to- Stop it! Blegh!"

Remus had to spit out the little potion he had been forcefed in a measuring cup.

"Why are you objecting this time?"

"I'm not-"

Remus shoved the scoop away from his face and covered his mouth. Since he refused to speak under the threat of having a dose of diabetes shoved in his mouth, Sirius removed the scoop. For now.

"I was trying to boost my grades" Remus explained behind his hand. "And a super potion is just the sort of thing I for one wouldn't want people to know of."

"You got your whole life to boost your grades."

"No I don't."

"Do you really think you will look back at your life one day and think: 'That time I boosted by potions grades, those were good times.'"

"No. I think I will look back at my life one day and think: That time I made the book club eat my grades, those were good times."
"They're stupid and boring who cares. I don't know why anybody would want to be able to recite kings and wars and fill your head with useless information you'll just have to delete at some point anyway. It's not how much you know that determines if you're clever, but what you do with what you know..."

"Inspirational stuff Padfoot where did you read that?" James asked.

"In some Warlock Gnomes fanfic. It's the new Shakespeare I tell you."

"That doesn't sound like something Warlock Gnomes would say, 'though."

"'Elementary, my dear Wombat, eating too much peanut butter will make your tears taste like peanut butter' doesn't sound like something he would say either."

"Now you're taking things out of context."

"'The moment I kissed your cheeks, I knew it was you'."
"Yes, but did you like my Femlock slash?"

"I don't know. It was a lot of fem but not enough lock."

Remus put down his notes. "You're right. Grades aren't important."

"What is your potions average?"

"Uhmmmm... Seven."

"Seven?"

"Yes, seven. It was 8, but then I got 1 on the Roofie Potion and that lowered the entire average."

"The Roofie Potion is really easy as well as vegan. You should have made it and given it to Slughorn."

"Uhm, no."

"I wish I had now, that would have served him right."

"But he might have liked it doesn't he collect little boys?" James asked.

"Posh little boys."

"You know, on second thought," said Remus, "maybe I will do that"

"Yaaaay celebratory super scoop!" said Sirius and gave the sorbet scoop to Remus who would not be fed like a baby the second time around either. Instead he took the scoop in his own hands and swallowed it quick like it was echinacea. His eyes blackened within seconds

"Woah!" he said. "I didn't think that sugar high was a real thing."

"Are you seeing unicorns yet?" Sirius asked.

"What?"

"Nothing"

"What unicorns?"

"What unicorns?"

Remus just stared at him, as if he was a unicorn. Then he began to stroke him on the nose, which was weird. James sneaked out of the lab quietly for a moment to get his camera. Not before long the lab was full of invisible unicorns as well as bunnies and angels by the sound of it. So he was seeing weird things but so far there was no sign of any superpower, unless it was extrasensory of course. Instead of bouncing around he just sat down a giggled, looking fascinated at his surroundings and popping invisible bubble gum.

"The film is probably close to full so I better make it embarassing." said James, having returned unnoticably and began to shoot discretely. But he ran out of film after only four shots, as predicted.

"Oh damn, why did I waste so much film on food art? Talk about waste, photographing pizza pies and croissants and cheese wheels..."

"Don't forget those mooncakes from the Chinese mid autumn festival." Sirius reminded him. "Those were weird, but pretty. "

"I don't know how I managed to eat myself full on those."

"Those moonpies sure were good, 'though."

Suddenly Remus began to emit deafening screams that cut like a knife, uninterruptedly and uncontrollably. Winds of screams sent tables and stools and wizards crashing into cupboards and sinks in a laboratory that was shaking with earthquake proportions.

"Oh shoot the good trip became a bad trip!" said James and wrapped himself around a vibrating pillar while Sirius clung to a lamp that was close to come off with the raining debris.

"Yeah but I love those photos you took of bunnies and homework and Professor McGonagall's comments in the margins."

"That was my favourite too because her 'o's are always slightly oval."

The screams subsided and the hallucinations began to wear off, and furniture stopped breaking down to firewood.

"Oh God I thought it was real!" Remus sighed and was so exhausted he had to lie down on the dusty floor for a minute. His nose twitched. When he tried to get up again he had to use all his strength because apparently his potion-induced power was getting stuck to things. That just couldn't prove to be useful.

"Ok ladies," said James and untwirled himself from the pillar and shook some ceiling debris from his hair, "I guess we have become superheroes at last. I shall from now on be known as captain Stretchmark. And you guys?"

"Pinball Wizard." said Sirius.

"You will be Bouncy Balls, Power Puff and Wrinkly"

"And together we shall form The Incredible Hunks. And Wrinkly."

"Now come on, to the Super Lair!"
The new superheroes were just leaving to search for wherever danger was calling when the door opened. They froze, for it wasn't unlikely that those psychotic screams had attracted worldwide attention.

But this time it was Professor Slughorn who emerged through the door. He would probably have questioned just why Sirius was flying and James had corkscrew limbs when he was sneezed through the door and passed out under falling dungeon walls.