A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but here (finally) is Chapter 4. Enjoy!


Draco POV

If there's one thing any prankster worth their salt will tell you, it's that you have to pace yourself. If you overdo it by pulling too many pranks on your victim within a relatively small timeframe, then not only do you risk running out of energy and motivation, you also risk the chance of your victim becoming too suspicious of your identity. Spreading out your pranks also lures your victim into a false sense of security, and thus they put their guard down, presenting you with the perfect opportunity to strike. That's why Dom and I waited almost two weeks to start with our next set of pranks on Potter. But to compensate for that long wait, we decided that that weekend, the first of October, would be jam-packed with our mayhem, but just enough so that it wouldn't seem like too much. It was Friday, and the next day would be the year's first Hogsmeade visit.

If you're thinking to yourself 'Hey, that's earlier than usual," then yes, it is. Here's why: part of Hogwarts' ploy to attract more students back after such a bleak and horrible year was to create more enticing offers for them. Those offers included more Hogsmeade trips throughout the year, the Interhouse Quidditch season starting a few weeks earlier, and even lifting the spells that prevented Muggle electronics from working inside the castle. All of those things would come in handy this weekend; Hogsmeade was on Saturday, and the first Quidditch match of the season (Gryffindor vs. Slytherin) was scheduled for Sunday. Talk about making changes, right?

Anyway, as I said, today was Friday, but more specifically it was Friday morning and breakfast had been going for a while. Just like our first prank with the pepper, our next one would be occurring at the same time of day. I know…have Dom and I ever heard of a thing called variety? Well, for one, we determined that breakfast was the only time of day what we were planning next could work and also, this wasn't one prank, but two. So there.

Potter and his group were in the general vicinity of the Gryffindor table that they usually populated, right where Dom and I wanted them. And from what I could see, Potter was calm and relaxed and completely unsuspecting.

Good.

"Nice orange," Dom said beside me. I glanced over and noticed that he had bitten into a peeled orange. "Very juicy."

I nudged him playfully and smirked. "Well, that's the point, right?"

He smiled back and nodded at me before he placed the orange on his plate. "So when do you want to do this?"

I checked my watch. "Well, the morning mail is due any minute, so…," I looked up. Just as I did, the usual swarm of owls, each carrying items for various students, swarmed into the Great Hall. "Now."

I put my hand on top of my wand, which I had already strategically and stealthily positioned so that it was laying between a collection of large trays, bowls and plates. But more importantly, it was pointed at a big bowl of fruit that was sitting pretty much right in front of Potter. The fact that he was sitting where he was at the moment only made this that much easier.

With my hand still on my wand, I glanced up at the owls and saw what I wanted to. A brown owl carrying a bold red envelope was heading in Potter's direction, as planned. Smiling, I refocused my attention on Potter.


Harry POV

As I put my orange juice back on the table after taking a long sip, I noticed that the morning mail had arrived. Not that I cared, partly because I wasn't expecting anything and partly because I knew not to expect Hedwig anywhere in that flock of owls. That little fact still made me a bit sad, but not as much as it used to.

At any rate, my mind was still partially on the events of early last week. No pranks or nothing out of the ordinary had happened to me since then, but that still didn't make me any less cautious. Granted, right now I was nowhere near as jumpy as I had been last week, however I simply couldn't shake the feeling that something was lurking just around the corner. On the other hand, maybe I was just being a tad too paranoid.

Or not. Because not three seconds later, there was a loud sound that was somewhere between a blast and a squelch, and the next thing I knew, my face and torso was covered in fruit juice. After a few moments of coughing and sputtering, I finally removed my pinkish-orange stained glasses from my face and said a cleaning spell. I put them back on and looked around. Ginny, Ron and Hermione were all spotless, which meant the only recipient of the fruit juice blast had been me.

"Bloody hell!" I said aloud. "Are you kidding me?" I got out my wand and began wiping the juice off. "Did you see anything?" I asked Ginny.

She shook her head. "We weren't really paying attention to begin with. Besides, with all of the owls flying around, we probably couldn't have seen anything clearly anyway."

"But look who's sitting right behind me," Ron said to me after turning back his head from over his shoulder.

It was Draco Malfoy. But if he was the one behind the fruit explosion, it was hard to tell, because he wasn't the only Slytherin laughing at what had happened to me.

Hermione's voice brought me back to my senses. "And look at what's sitting right in front of you, Harry." She herself was gazing at my plate, and I followed her eyes to see that a particular red envelope had been deposited on top of my breakfast. If the color didn't tip me off as to what the envelope was, its shaking gave away that it was indeed a Howler.

But…who would send me a Howler? What had I done? My friends' faces were just as confused-looking as mine was bound to be.

"You know the drill, mate," Ron told me as he continued to eye the Howler uncertainly. "You'd better open it and get it over with as soon as you can."

This had all happened so fast that I was still struggling to comprehend it. A few minutes ago, I'd been minding my own business, eating my breakfast without bothering anyone, and now, I'd been sprayed with fruit juice and received a Howler virtually in the blink of an eye.

I took a deep breath and picked up the Howler, proceeding to open it. The moment it was, a booming voice filled the entire Great Hall.

"HARRY POTTER!" it yelled. "HAVE YOU NO DECENCY? HOW DARE YOU NOT GET BACK IN TOUCH WITH ME AFTER THAT NIGHT! WE HIT IT OFF EXTREMELY WELL AND YOU SAID THAT WE WOULD DO IT AGAIN, AND THEN YOU DON'T EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT HAPPENED? YOU SAID WHAT WE HAD WAS SPECIAL, THAT I WAS A SPECIAL GIRL, AND THEN YOU JUST HANG ME OUT TO DRY LIKE SOME ROTTEN RAINCOAT! I MEANT WHAT I SAID WHEN I TOLD YOU YOU LOOKED GOOD THAT WAY! IF YOU DON'T CONTACT ME WITHIN THE NEXT FEW DAYS, YOU'LL BE DREADFULLY SORRY!"

Once the message was finished, the Howler ripped itself apart and the red shreds fluttered back down onto my juice-drenched breakfast. A deathly silence hung in the air for some time, which was finally, and mercifully if you ask me, replaced by intense whispering. Hey, better it be whispering than silence, right?

But anyway, that wasn't my problem. My real problem was Ginny, who was looking at me with an arctic cold expression. I hated that look. "Mind explaining just what that was all about?"

I glanced from my upset girlfriend to my two other friends. I was absolutely lost, but hey, could you blame me? "No!" I said honestly. "Absolutely not! That Howler…I don't know who sent it, but it certainly wasn't any girl I've seen in the last week! Not that I have seen any girls in the last week, at least…not in that way, mind you-"

"Shut up, Harry," Ron said by way of a mock-cough. I instantly decided to take his advice while Hermione gave Ron one of her signature glares.

Ginny gathered up her things and began walking out of the Great Hall. I looked back down at the rest of my food – wait…why was I contemplating eating instead of going after my girlfriend? I really wasn't that kind of guy, despite the claims of that Howler.

I picked up my schoolbag and pursued Ginny with the intention of reiterating that little fact to her.


Draco POV

Pranking Potter is always a great start to the day, no matter what day it is. Dom and I granted Potter a reprieve for the rest of the day, not because we felt he deserved it, but because our next one needed to take place later that night. Besides, our intention of pretty much placing a question mark over Potter and his Weasel girlfriend had been accomplished this morning.

It was just after dinner, and the two of us were back in our room, going over last-minute details.

"So, even though I helped plan this," Dom was saying, "tell me again how this is going to work?"

"Tonight is one of the select nights throughout the course of the school year that Hogwarts has decided to give its students some 'Muggle forms' of entertainment," I explained. "Tonight is Movie Night. A movie is -"

"A kind of live performance of a story, just filmed with contraptions called cameras," Dom nodded. "I know that part. In fact, I've seen a few myself. Some of my past babysitters used to use them as entertainment to try to keep me from torturing them, and I have to say, I liked what I saw of them." Dom paused as he took in my impressed expression. "What I want to know is how is Movie Night going to work?"

"Well, from what I hear, various rooms throughout the castle are going to be used to show the movies, and each year group will be watching movies together. The 7th year Gryffindors and Slytherins will be watching a movie together in one of the classrooms."

"Not just any movie," Dom winked as he fished around in a bag of his, "the movie the Slytherins have picked out." He held up the box of a movie, the title of which was Scream. "It's said to be one of the scariest Muggle movies ever. And if all goes well, we'll use the effect of the movie, as well as Potter's reaction to it, tomorrow in Hogsmeade." From the same bag, he briefly pulled out two pieces of clothing.

"Just like we planned," I smiled. I partially rolled up my sleeve in order to check my watch. "Movie Night's just about to start. We'd better get there now, so we can get the full effect of Potter's reaction."

Dom and I walked out of the dorm room with the movie in Dom's hand. As we did, I subconsciously placed my hand on Dom's back in a half-friendly, half-fatherly gesture.

I know…it surprised me, too.


Harry POV

To say that I was paranoid was a bit of an understatement. I was absolutely on-edge.

Oh, it wasn't because Ginny was still upset with me, because she wasn't. She'd calmed down by dinner last night. The reason I was on-edge was Movie Night last night. We had ended up watching something called Scream, a Muggle film I was relatively familiar with. I'd seen parts of it years earlier when it had first been released (don't ask me how), and what I'd seen had haunted my nightmares for quite some time. And seeing the movie in full last night had only reawakened those memories, and maybe even strengthened them. My dreams last night had been filled with visions of Ghost Face brandishing his razor-sharp knife at me while chasing me down. Needless to say I hadn't gotten the best of sleeps last night.

I realize how ironic it is that someone like me, who defeated perhaps the darkest wizard of all-time, is afraid of a movie character, but bloody hell, it's a scary movie character. That's what movies can do: latch onto your fears and feed on them. And as I walked through the streets of Hogsmeade with Ginny, Ron and Hermione by my side, that was exactly what Scream was doing to me.

"Harry? Did you hear me?"

Ginny's voice snapped me out of my reverie. She was staring at me curiously. "What?" I asked.

"I said would you like to go grab a butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry, I was just…distracted, is all."

"By what?" Hermione questioned.

"Well," I began uneasily as we passed Honeydukes, "that movie last night…did it unnerve any of you?"

"Can't say it did," said Ron, scratching his chin idly. "After all, it was just a mohvay."

"Movie," Hermione clarified. "It was a work of fiction, Harry. Not real; nothing to get bent out of shape over."

"It's just the idea of it all," I said. "A killer with a really big knife -"

I stopped, in both mid-sentence and mid-stride. The reason for that was something had caught my eye; something that…no…could it have been real?

A figure cloaked entirely in black had darted past an opening between two buildings to the right, and it had been directly in my eyeline as I had turned to address Hermione. But that wasn't the weird part. As the figure had run by the opening, it had turned its head so that I could see it; more specifically, so that I could see what its face looked like: a screaming ghost.

Ghost Face!

What the bloody hell?

It couldn't be! But nevertheless, I advanced toward the small alleyway between the two buildings that comprised the opening between them.

"Harry?" Ginny called after me. "Where are you going?"

"I'll be right back," I called over my shoulder as I turned it to be able to fit through the narrow alleyway. Within seconds, I had emerged on the other side and was now standing in a decadent alleyway with cobwebbed walls and a lot of dust. The hum of chatter from the street on the opposite side was duller over here.

I cautiously walked in the direction I had seen Ghost Face go, noting that up ahead of me, the small, makeshift street I was walking on broke off to the left. Once I noticed that, I guess I should have anticipated what happened next. But it still scared the bloody daylights out of me.

Ghost Face leaped from that sub-street in front of me, a very big knife raised above his head, and rather menacingly, at that. The sudden appearance caused a reaction that I simply couldn't help.

I squealed.

Yes, me, Harry Potter, The Boy Who Defeated Voldemort and functioning wizard with a bloody wand, squealed and turned as Ghost Face began to chase me. When I reached the alleyway I first came through, I noticed Ghost Face was still on my back. So I hurried as fast as I could through that alleyway and when I came out on the other side, I ran as fast as I could through the crowd. I didn't care about what Ginny, Ron or Hermione thought as they saw me do that. In fact, I didn't much care what anyone thought as I ran as fast as my legs could go in the opposite direction of Ghost Face.

I don't know about you, but despite me having a wand and the benefit of magic on my side, when I see a masked figure running at me with a huge knife, my first instinct is to, oh I don't know, run!

But I just knew I'd be hearing about this later.