It took more than a week to execute the plan properly. Originally, Marlene had wanted to do it all at once, but Hermione convinced her that a slow, piece by piece prank would be better revenge.

It became a pattern after a while. Whenever the boys were in class or out studying, the girls would run up to the their room in pairs. One stood guard, the other would wingardium leviosa a pair of shorts or two, then both would giggle at the patterns and dash up the stairs to increase the pile of stolen underwear. Mary had the foresight to charm the pile to smell like flowers instead of the rancid yak butter they came in smelling like, which everyone was grateful for. All told, the whole process took about thirty seconds once they'd grown proficient.

Five days after they started, the girls decided they much preferred piece-by-piece pranking. The conversations between the boys at mealtimes, muttered under their breath while passing the peas or refilling their butterbeer, had the girls biting the sides of their cheeks to keep from laughing.

"Oi, did you steal my shorts? Are you sure?"

"You think the house-elves are on strike?"

"Mate, I know I saw you wearing mine yesterday, admit it."

Either Peter would ask James, or James would ask Remus, or Remus would ask either of them, and the conversation would loop in endless circles between the three. For some reason, there was an unspoken understanding that Sirius hadn't noticed. Every breakfast, the boys had more and more outlandish theories about how all their underthings went missing.

On Friday, James marched up to Lily in the corridor and asked if she'd been nicking them as the start of a romantic overture. In return, Lily sent a terrific tripping jinx his way, sending him right into Mr. Filch's bucket of dirty bathroom water.

When a howler about irresponsibility and a package of new underwear dropped onto Sirius' plate the next day at breakfast, every table in the Great Hall was laughing. Hermione had to force herself to even chuckle, recognizing the voice of the horrid woman whose portrait had called her 'Mudblood' so often. She looked towards the Slytherin table and saw a mini version of Sirius with embarrassment burning across his younger face, making her feel even worse for laughing. He had trimmed, tidy hair and perfectly straight posture, but his tightly crossed arms ruined the careful press of his green-blazed robes. She tucked away a reminder to herself to check in with the younger Black brother soon.

Sirius' package was a more pressing matter, however. If even Sirius Black had noticed his shorts were missing, the other parents might soon send along reinforcements, too. So it was early on that cold Sunday morning, the sky still starry and black, that they walked out to the Whomping Willow to put the plan into action.

Hermione found she hated working when she could see her breath puff out. She needed to constantly remove her hand from her warm pocket to enchant the underwear, and each time she did the new, feline part of her mind growled in warning. She fought the urge to slink away when no one was looking and curl up by a fireplace somewhere, which wasn't wholly unusual, but the strength of the desire surprised Hermione.

She'd been dealing with these new senses fairly well over the past two and a half weeks, she thought. They'd been coming on more gradually though, and the end of the month was sure to be a bugger. The worst of the symptoms so far was the constant noise from everyone's coughs, breaths, and malfunctioning digestive systems. Thankfully, she could minimize much of that by taking her meals at odd times and spending hours in the still, quiet library, which no one found strange. Hermione had seen Remus in the book stacks a handful of times, making her wonder if it had been thanks to his condition that he was such a studious person.

She hadn't needed to venture outside since the last moon, however, and so her feline instincts were feeling a bit overwhelmed now that nature was pressing so close. She could hear each fluttering mouse heartbeat from the edge of the forest, smell the snow coming on the breeze, and feel… actually she couldn't feel much of anything. Her toes had gone numb almost as soon as she stepped outside.

Guess I'm not a snow leopard, Hermione said, smacking her hands on her thighs to try and regain some feeling.

"Think it looks good?" Dorcas asked, tilting her chin up at their handiwork once the pile finally disappeared.

"Hold on," Mary said, casting a charm Hermione had never seen on a blue pair of boxers covered in tiny chickens and the phrase "SIRIUS' COCK" on the butt. Even though she promised she wouldn't help in the pranking, Mary brought plenty of excitement that morning, waking everyone else up with pillows to the face. Hermione smiled seeing the more playful side of Mary come out. When the bluish shimmer on the underwear eventually faded, Mary nodded and said, "There. Now we can go inside."

"Thank Merlin, because I was about to hex you all for taking so long," Alice muttered, pulling her fluffy hat tight over her ears and turning back to the castle.

Hermione's legs twitched with unspent energy, which that gave her an idea. "Last one to the castle has to tell the boys!"

She wasted no time taking off towards the gates, but her sprint was short-lived. She flailed her arms around to try and regain her balance, but she fell face-first. Mary sped past her, laughing, and Hermione growled. She got up and began running again, the wind streamed through her hair as she picked up speed. Her eyes grew wide as she passed Mary first, then Dorcas and Alice, and then even Lily. It was when she passed a shocked Marlene and her quidditch-toned legs that she crowed in glee. She got the feeling that the feline was enjoying the race too.

She tagged the stone archway of the castle, not even out of breath. She'd never won any kind of physical contest before, even in primary school, but now she understood why people liked them.


After a few more hours of sleep, the girls stumbled down into the Great Hall, still groggy but excited. Hermione, however, felt the anxiety pooling in her stomach from two corridors away, the zoo-like cacophony already audible. When they opened the doors it rushed towards her in a stampede, and she couldn't stop her hands from clamping down over her ears.

"What's the matter?" Lily asked, her brows creasing.

"It's fine," Hermione said with eyes closed, forcing her hands back down to her sides as the noise crashed back over her. "It's just really noisy in here."

"What noise?"

Hermione opened her eyes and saw that the hall was barely half-full of students, which was not unusual for mid-Sunday morning. Of those who were there, she couldn't see a lot of mouths moving, and many looked hungover. She had to think fast.

"Sometimes the cold gives me a headache and makes my hearing super sensitive. I haven't been outside much recently."

"I've never heard of anything like that," Dorcas commented, patting the seat beside her and filling a plate with fresh fruit for Hermione. "You might want to check in with Madam Pomfrey, but you should try some dragonfruit first. It's known for its healing energy."

Hermione sat down, grateful someone believed that lie. Marlene and Alice were looking at her with quirked eyebrows, and Mary seemed just about to say something. Before she could, though, a noise like a herd of elephants came thundering in through the doors.

"Good morning ladies," James said, sitting down in his usual spot at the table's edge, kicking up a foot like a prince on his throne.

"Well, ladies and Hermione," Peter added, staring at her with a knowing smirk.

Without looking up, Remus, taking a seat as far away from Hermione as possible and cast an inflatus on both Peter's hands, making them swell to twice their size.

James and Sirius laughed, but the girls could only stare, a mix of horror and confusion.

"What's wrong with Peter?" Marlene whispered across the table to Hermione, flecks of her muffin landing on Hermione's shirt, "He's always been the nice, quiet one."

Hermione couldn't answer, her face still burning and her ears ringing with the sound of the boy's laughter, which sounded more like a box of silverware clanging down a flight of stairs to her sensitive ears. Lily saw Hermione's discomfort, and when they made eye contact, she set her jaw.

"Dearest Alice," she said, turning down the end of the table so she wasn't shouting in Hermione's ear, "wouldn't it be a lovely day for a walk near the forbidden forest?"

Alice grinned. "Why, I think it would be. It's so nice and warm out."

"Oh, liar liar, pants on fire," Dorcas said, "It's freezing out."

"I expect you'd really need some long underwear to take a walk outside today," Marlene added.

The boys stopped laughing. Even Remus was watching the girls now, his eyes fully alert.

"Lily, you're a smarty pants," Mary said, "would you go outside today?"

"Oh no, I'd never go under there," she answered, biting the inside of her cheek.

There was a beat of silence as the girls waited for one of the guys to respond. It had been Alice's idea to hint at the prank, but poor Dorcas hadn't quite grasped the idea.

"Wait, under where?" She asked, looking back and forth between the girls, thoroughly confused.

Laughter bubbled up from the girls, but James looked panicked. "What's going on? What are you doing?" he asked, but the only reply was louder, harder laughter. Hermione saw students from other houses starting to turn around to watch. It was usually the Marauders who were laughing at the girls, after all. Anything that had them this befuddled had to be good.

Hermione heard the dry cough and waddling gait of Mr. Filch before she saw him, but when he finally came trotting into the Great Hall she was still surprised.

"Headmaster, sir!" he wheezed, shaking a wad of colorful cloth in his fist, "Underwear in the trees! Underwear flinging through the sky! Underwear sticking to the castle walls!"

The room erupted in snickers, which only escalated to howls of laughter when a pair smacked against the Great Hall's window and Peter stupidly yelled, "Hey! Those are mine!"

The Marauders looked murderous when they turned on the girls.

"What did you do?" James seethed, his eyes cutting straight to Lily.

"Oh I don't know," Lily said, tossing her hair over her shoulder, "but it sounds like a whomping good time."

"Bloody hell." Remus covered his reddening face with his hands, but Peter pulled them away with his still-swollen ones. Soon, he'd tugged the werewolf past Mr. Filch and out of the Great Hall towards the gates.

"I'll get you all back," James promised, pointing at the still cackling girls before he took off after his friends. This left Sirius, not looking happy, but still sitting at the table with a half-finished bowl in front of him.

"You're not going to retrieve your missing things?" Marlene asked, elbowing him in the side.

"I've got nothing to hide," he answered, delicately cutting his breakfast sausage with a fork and knife. "Plus, I've just got a new package from my Mum and Dad. I don't need whatever you lot took."

"Oh Sirius?" Mary said, waiting til he looked up. "We took all of your shorts."

It took a moment for that to sink in, but when it did, Sirius tripped over his own feet running out of the hall at full speed.

"I've been waiting all week for this," Marlene grinned, pulling a camera out from her bag. Hermione had to hide her laugh behind her sleeve as they ran down the hall with an outdated muggle Polaroid. It was so big! She hadn't seen a camera that old since she dug through her father's old dental school keepsakes in the attic back home.

Immediately, she pushed away the memory, feeling her heart speed up as the past closed in around her. No time to think about that now, Hermione, she told herself, mentally holding the memories at bay, you're having fun right now. There's not even a reason to freak out. Dad is a happy memory.But even with her pep talk, it was still several minutes of biting her lip and concentrating very hard on breathing in (2-3-4) and out (2-3-4) before she could mentally banish the past and rejoin the chaos.

And it was certainly chaos. They'd made it outside ahead of the professors, and there was underwear everywhere. The Whomping Willow had been dormant while the sun was still down, but it was certainly awake now. It was thrashing in every direction, its branches and vines snapping at anyone who got too close, even the boys who were casting accio after accio. This method seemed to be particularly frustrating to Peter, and Hermione smirked at the infuriated way he was jabbing his wand and cursing the tree. All he had to do was transform into the rat he was, and the whole problem could be solved. But since he couldn't, the willow continued to fling more and more of his shorts into nearby trees, the ground, or even, as Mr. Filch had noted, onto the castle walls itself.

"How're they sticking like that?" she whispered to Lily, whose eyes were gleaming with some secret knowledge.

"Oh that? Dorcas must have done it, but I'm not quite sure."

But when Hermione asked, Dorcas didn't seem to know, and neither did Marlene.

"Mary? Do you know how they're sticking?"

Mary flipped her hair out of her face and looked down at Hermione from her perch, sitting cross-legged on a rock.

An uncomfortable minute of feeling somehow searched later, Mary just whispered, "Watch."

The underwear, it turns out, wasn't actually touching the walls. Hermione could now see that they had been floating close above the surface, but now they were zipping along, rearranging themselves.

"Say," Hermione read when the shorts formed themselves into a word against the wall. Everyone who had been pointing and laughing at the tree now turned the opposite way, also reading.

"You're. Sorry." The next two words declared. Hermione whipped her head back towards Mary, who shrugged.

"They were being total arses to you. Only serves them right."

"Oh. Well, thank you," Hermione said, lamely. Mary didn't seem to care, just uncrossing her legs and landing lightly back on the ground.

They both walked over to where the boys were, still looking up at the wall. Remus noticed Hermione's arrival first, and he squared his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," he said. His eyes betrayed nothing, and his face was emotionally blank, like he'd said nothing more than 'pass the salt.' She also noticed, sadly, that he was holding his breath.

"Apology accepted," Hermione said softly, hoping those words wouldn't be a dismissal that sent him running from her. She shouldn't have felt so rejected when he backed away, but she did, and her heart twisted. "Wait a second. Remus!"

He didn't turn around. She watched his long legs carry him up the steep bank to the gates and his hands smack his head over and over. She lost count before he disappeared behind the stone walls, just like his shorts had disappeared when he'd apologized. That bit had surprised Hermione, but Lily grinned like she'd won the lotto when she saw twenty pairs of shorts disappear before the crowd's eyes.

James watched the exchange between Hermione and Remus too, and looked fairly worried. He'd gotten the idea of how it worked, though.

"I'm sorry, Hermione," he said, his voice low so only Hermione could hear him. The others in the crowd, now chasing after a Black or Potter 'souvenir' probably wouldn't have paid attention anyways, but Mary was still close. James leaned in more just to be safe before he said, "I was just upset to see Remus so hurt. I don't really think you'd do something like that on purpose. I wasn't thinking."

"I can promise you, James," Hermione said, looking up into his face, framed by that familiar wild hair, "that I would never hurt Remus on purpose."

He looked surprised at her unsolicited revelation, but he nodded his acceptance. "He's a good mate."

Peter was kicking clods of dirt in the background, but James pulled him front and center. The short boy cleared his throat, and enunciated, "I am sorry for my actions, which have offended you. I will make amends if necessary."

Hermione had heard these sentences often whenever Ron had done something stupid he wasn't at all sorry for. She wondered if every pureblood was taught the same words of apology. If so, he'd missed something. "And you'll never do it again?"

Peter's eyes narrowed with absolute loathing, but still he looked over his shoulder to check with James, who answered for him.

"Of course Petey won't say stuff like that again. None of us will. Right, Pete?" James asked, slinging an arm around the smaller boy's neck in a playful headlock.

"Of course. Never again," Peter deadpanned. He returned James' clap on the back with his enormous, puffy hands and even jumped on him for a piggy-back ride, but Hermione saw the way his jaw was still clenched as they rough-housed. When James wasn't looking, Peter managed to flip her a two-fingered salute with his swollen fingers. If anyone else had seen it, they would have thought it playful. Hermione wasn't sure.

"Mister Black," a male professor Hermione didn't know was lecturing Sirius behind her, "are you incapable of a simple summoning charm?"

"It keeps flying away!" he shouted, waving his wand erratically at the chicken-covered boxers, fluttering in the breeze.

Mary, who'd been a few paces behind Hermione while the boys made their apologies, now came forward. She gave her wand a good swish and flick, and the boxers flew down into her outstretched hand.

"You had NO business going through my things!" Sirius said, his long, dark hair, catching on the wind behind him in a way that made Hermione imagine the mast of a ship. Maybe a pirate ship, she thought wryly, watching the way he was trying to steal the pair of shorts out of Mary's hand while still being a gentleman. Mary held her own though, and shortly pulled her wand on his temple.

"It seems you need something from me, Black," she said, so quietly Hermione couldn't be sure she heard right. "Well I need something from you. Shall we trade?"

"I'll show you where you can shove-" he started, ducking away from her wand and lunging once again for the pair. She tucked them behind her back, making him swear in frustration. Something over her shoulder caught his attention which stalled him, though. All of a sudden, he straightened up, smoothed his hair back, and took a deep, calming breath. "I apologize most sincerely for my actions, which have offended you, and will make amends if necessary."

"I'm not the one you apologize to, nimrod. And that's not what I need from you either- hey!"

Mary whipped around to watch James and Peter running away with Sirius' embarrassing boxers. "That's cheating!" she nearly screeched as she dashed off after them.

"I know it was to you I was supposed to apologize, kitten," Sirius said quietly to Hermione, taking her hand and kissing her knuckle. "If you wanted my attention that badly, you just needed to come up and say hello."

"You've done nothing but send rude gestures my way for the past two weeks, Black, why should I have been polite? And do not call me kitten. Or any nickname, really." Hermione pulled her hand away, still feeling an uncomfortable tingle on her knuckles.

"All water under the bridge, kitten," he emphasized, a slow smile spreading across his face when hers grew twitchy and cross. "Course we can't have you mess him up like that again, but I don't see why we can't get along the other twenty-nine days of the month."

Hermione nodded slowly, unsure how to take smooth, polite Sirius so close on the heels of angry, pirate ship Sirius. She glanced around for the other girls and spotted them already walking back to the castle with the rest of the crowd, ushered by the unknown professor and Mr. Filch. She looked back at Sirius, feeling like there was some proper way to end the conversation but not knowing what.

"I'm going to eat now," she settled, jerking her thumb towards the girls. It must have worked, because Sirius laughed and headed out towards his boys.

She was almost in the castle before she heard him call "Oh, Hermione? If you ever want to pull a real prank, you give the Marauders a call, all right?"

"That dog!" she said, whirling around with her wand raised, fully prepared to hex him.

"Woah, calm down," Lily said, pulling her shoulder. "Don't listen to him."

"It was a great first prank, Hermione," Mary said, a little half smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, "but next time we'll really show them what a full-blown magical prank looks like."

"Are you kidding? This was brilliant!" Marlene said, snorting as she flipped through the still developing polaroids, "Don't worry, Hermione. They won't be laughing once we've got these puppies up all over the halls."

There were a few good ones of the boys chasing after their shorts, and some of the laughing crowd, too.

"Can I keep this one?" Hermione asked, pulling a half-developed photograph from the pile.

"Sure," Marlene shrugged, not even looking. She ran up to a group of sixth years ahead of them. "Hey Rosie! Check this out!"

Hermione let the rest of the girls morph in with the larger group of Gryffindors, but she hung back, slipping into an alcove. She leaned against the wall and fingered the white edge of the unmoving, wholly muggle picture. Remus's face was coming into focus now, and Hermione bit her lip as it became clear. There was a mess of wild, curly hair in the foreground, the same she saw in the mirror every morning, and Remus was staring right at it with such longing it took her breath away.

No, she chastised herself, putting the picture down. She wasn't going to pine after someone who hated her, especially when that person was Remus Lupin of all people. She'd been ridiculous to even think about it.

She shook her head to clear it, then tucked the picture deep into her pocket and marched herself to the library. Drowning herself in work always helped her forget her problems. In her purposeful stride, however, she somehow missed the fluttering heartbeat of a wolf hidden in the alcove next to her.


A/N: Happy Easter! I took last week off for Holy Week, but I'm right back at it now. I surprised even myself with how long this chapter was.

Anyone spot the Office reference? I love the prank wars between Jim and Dwight, and I feel like some of this chapter was just channeling that inner goof.

Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed. You should see the stupid dance I do every time I get to read what you're all thinking, haha.

As always, thanks for reading!