Preventing the Future
Chapter Twenty One – Declaration of War
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and it's probably best that it stay that way.
Warning: Again, this chapter earns the 'T' but for a completely different reason. One of the pranks involves same gender kisses. It's all in good fun, promise.
Author's note: Here is the second 'half' (even though it's not really a half) of the original chapter 20. Enjoy!
Hermione woke the next morning with a groan, her back was sore and all she wanted to do was stand in a hot shower for an hour. But because of that stupid fucking cut, she had to use cold water, she even yelped as she stepped under the icy stream. Hermione never yelped. After a whole two minutes in the shower, Hermione was ready for something to take her mind off her freezing back. The first week of October in Scotland is not the time of year to be taking cold showers. To make her mood even better was the fact that it was Sunday and she had two essays to write, she was seriously considering testing her theory that Binns couldn't actually read the majority of their essays. She decided that nothing was going to be done until coffee and breakfast had been consumed, a trip to the kitchens was in order.
Lily heard Hermione groan as she woke up, to be honest, she was surprised her friend got any sleep at all, that cut must have hurt like a bitch. Lily would have laughed when she heard Hermione yelp in the shower if she hadn't been feeling so bad for her. When Hermione came out dressed in comfy sweats and a very warm jumper, Lily decided that she could use company...even if it was only five.
"Hey, Hermione. You all good this morning?" Lily asked quietly.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'm just headed down for some coffee, you can go ahead and sleep, it's way too early to be up." Hermione said as she just put slippers on instead of shoes, bending over was rather uncomfortable at the moment.
"Nah, I don't think I can sleep any more. Can I join you?"
Hermione blinked, Lily was offering to get up at five on a Sunday, after staying up most of the night? "Um. I guess."
"Okay." Lily jumped out of bed and just pulled a jumper on over her purple and blue swirled flannel pajamas. "But I'm having hot chocolate instead of coffee."
When they each had their respective hot beverages, Lily broke the comfortable silence. "I was thinking, it's time for the Bandits to strike again. If I'm keeping track properly, the Marauders have one up on us."
Hermione smiled, Lily was trying to take her mind off yesterday, and she planned on allowing it to work. "That sounds like a plan. Shall we retreat to headquarters?"
"Yes we shall." Lily replied, linking arms with Hermione and opening the Founder's door in the corner of the kitchen.
The two of them spent most of the day in their hide out in Salazar's rooms. The boys went looking for them when they didn't show up for lunch, and then they got really worried when they couldn't find them on the map, but then Remus told them that there are some Door Destinations that only Hermione can get to and none of them showed up on the map, so they figured Hermione was hiding and Lily was keeping her company. If they were actually hiding, there was absolutely no way even the Marauders could find them so they retreated to their dorm.
Hermione and Lily convinced Matri to bring them lunch and subsequently dinner, so they didn't have to take a break from their planning. By midnight, they had thought up, researched and fully developed six pranks, two or three of them were works of genius, if they did say so themselves. They brewed a quick potion and stopped by the kitchens before they headed back to the common room.
Sirius was sitting on the couch when the girls appeared from where he now knew the Founders Door to be.
"Nice flannels, Lily!" Sirius called from across the room.
James looked up, "Where have you guys been all day?" He asked.
The girls had discussed this and decided to use last night as an excuse. "We needed to relax and our dorm was invaded by gossiping girls." Lily said with a glare. "And now we're going to bed. Goodnight."
The boys watched as Lily stormed up the stairs and Hermione followed, making sure to carry herself as if she was in considerable pain. It wasn't that hard because her back was seriously painful, she was just good at ignoring it.
"I wish there was something we could do." James said quietly.
"I know, but there isn't really." Remus said with a sigh. "She has to get the stuff for that bandage and considering how much we knew about the ingredients, we can't help."
Hermione waited until her roommates were asleep before heading off to the kitchen and then to the Forbidden Forest. With 15 raw steaks in hand she attracted quite the herd of Thestrals and soon had a large collection of hairs. Then the hard part came. She walked to the part of the forbidden forest where she knew unicorns tended to hand out and sat in the middle of a clearing to meditate, reaching out with her mind she found a two full-grown unicorns and she called to them. Warily they approached her and stood just inside the trees, she carefully broadcast her emotions, pain, hurt, need, calm, determination, she gave them everything. Contrary to popular opinion, Unicorns don't just read and accept purity and youth, they also accept intentions. Hermione needed the help for something that an evil man had given her, the Unicorns could feel the dark magic emanating from her cut and one of them wanted to help. The other seemed concerned about the dark magic emanating from Hermione and stayed back for a while. Hermione explained what she needed and why as well as what she would do with the bandage when it was complete (seal it in an unbreakable jar so no one else could use the blood and tail hairs). The first unicorn gave her ten thick hairs and a small vial of blood while the second only gave her six hairs and no blood. But that didn't matter, she had all that she needed, especially because Fawkes took that opportunity to show up and fill a vial with tears. Hermione couldn't believe that this had gone as smoothly as it had but wasn't about to question it. No good came of questioning fortuitous happenings.
When she found the tree that hid the Founders Door, Hermione slipped into Salazar's chambers and carefully placed the materials into storage containers, she had to wait until the cut was mostly healed before changing the bandage. She chuckled when she saw the extra vials of potion she and Lily had brewed earlier, this next was going to be interesting. The school would have no idea what hit them, especially if the Marauders and/or Peeves and Hellion responded.
Monday morning dawned cold and rainy, the castle felt a bit damp and no one was looking forward to classes. Students trudged into the Great Hall and every single person poured themselves some sort of hot drink, little did they know that they would actually appreciate a prank for once. The first person to be hit was a third year Slytherin; there was a very quiet whistle and then bright blue steam was pouring from her ears. At first, she was way too shocked to react, then a grin plastered itself across her face, "That was awesome!" She yelled.
"What?" Asked a one of her classmates, "You just got pranked and you say it was awesome? Are you craz-" The boy got cut off as he produced a quiet whistle and then two jets of green steam.
Gradually, the rest of the hall fell victim, but 'victim' wasn't really the right word to use. When the whistle sounded, a warm fuzzy feeling built up in the person's stomach and then, as the steam blew out their ears, their entire body warmed up. This continued randomly all day, and even some of the teachers were a bit grateful for the sudden warmth that lingered long after the steam dissipated (not that they would condone such a thing of course). The whistle was even quiet enough to not interrupt class...much.
The students chalked it up to the Marauders, but for once the boys didn't have to test their acting skill by pretending to be surprised. Little did they know that this was the warm up, or warning, depending on how you view the world.
Tuesday started off innocently enough, but breakfast was disturbed by a high pitched scream echoing from the direction of the charms classroom. "NOOOOOOOO!"
The Marauders figured out what elicited such a reaction when they headed to Transfiguration. James was walking backwards talking with Sirius when all the colour drained from Sirius' face.
"What?" James asked.
"You- your- you-"
Then James felt something tickling his chin, when he reached up to brush it away he was greeted by a quickly growing beard. "Merlin's balls!"
Sirius chuckled, "I think you mean Merlin's beard."
Unfortunately for Gryffindor house points, Professor McGonagall rounded the corner at that moment. "Mr. Potter, I expect better behaviour from the Head Boy, that will be five points from Gryff- What on earth have you done to your hair? And how on earth did you grow a beard? I was under the impression that you were rather challenged in that department."
The students laughed at James' expense until they too entered the classroom, every single one of them grew a full gray beard and their hair grew/shortened to their shoulders. Only a very few people found this amusing, most reacted the same as Sirius.
"NOOOO! Not the hair! Anything but the hair!" Sirius lamented as he pulled his aged locks up to his eyes.
After he got over the fact that his hair (and face) had been aged, James looked at Lily. It seemed that the girls hadn't been spared, they were also sporting full beards and gray hair. Lily and Hermione were having a whispered conversation with panicked expressions on their faces, every now and then, they gestured to their hair or tugged their beard. What surprised him though, was when they laughed, stood up, and transfigured their clothing into early 19th century men's smoking jackets and slacks, Hermione completed her outfit with a monocle.
"Good Evening." Lily said a loud, fake male voice.
Hermione responded in kind, "And the same to you, Good Sir." They had the attention of the entire class by now, McGonagall included.
Lily sniffed pompously. "It seems as though we've been bamboozled."
"That it does." Hermione replied with a huff and her nose in the air.
"Whatever shall we do?" Lily asked with over exaggerated concern.
"I do believe we should applaud those known as the Marauders."
Lily appeared to think this over very seriously. "I agree, we should thank them for our distinguished appearance." She said, a smile playing around her lips.
"But however shall we do that? We know not who they are."
"We- " Lily broke down in laughter, "Okay, I'm done. But that was great!"
The class cheered and many of them changed their clothing to match the girls'.
McGonagall awarded both girls 20 points and another five to everyone who successfully transfigured their clothing. Then she proceed to do the same before starting class. Throughout the lesson, Hermione discovered a grand total of 11 different ways to get her monocle to fall out. Both Hermione and Lily expressed their disappointment when the beards disappeared as they left the classroom, they did leave their clothing as it was. This turned out to be a good thing because they were similarly effected when they walked into Charms.
"I can't believe they assumed it was the Marauders!" Peter exclaimed in a whisper as they were leaving Charms.
"Well, we do have a tradition and the new guys haven't done much yet and nothing like this, they've only done big things in the Great Hall and they both had their names on them." Remus said.
"Still. I don't like it. The steam yesterday and now the beards..." James grumbled.
Sirius shrugged, "We'll just have move up our next prank, is it ready yet?"
"No." Remus answered with what might have been considered a pout. "We have to wait until at least Thursday."
"That's fine." James said. "These new guys can't possibly pull three in a row, pranks just don't work like that." The others agreed with him but Remus looked a little worried.
Later that afternoon, as the Gryffindor Quidditch team was flying drills, James noticed something. "Hey guys, check out the lake!"
The team looked over to the lake and saw that it was covered in some sort of foam and there were tentacles waving around in the air. They all flew over and saw that someone, somehow, had poured a shit ton of soap into the lake. "How the bloody hell did they manage that?" Sirius asked.
"I have no idea." The girl next to him responded, "The Marauders are good but I'm pretty sure there's someone else helping out...I mean, who would think to put soap in the lake?"
James agreed, "Yeah, I would understand if it was Snape's hair, but the lake? That I just don't get."
"Holy Merlin!" A Chaser exclaimed. "It's that new poltergeist, he's playing with the squid!"
"Hellion? I didn't know the ghosts and poltergeists could get out of the castle." James said.
"It's like he's giving the squid a bubble bath."
"What's a bubble bath?" Sirius asked
"The best thing in the world but never mind. That's just weird." There were murmurs of assent before the team went back to training. James was wondering if it was possible for the poltergeist to have pulled the other pranks, but he didn't think so. The pranks were pretty advanced magic, this was just soap, vanilla scented, if he was correct.
James plopped down at the dinner table next to Hermione and Sirius sat next to him. "You'll never guess what Hellion did today."
Hermione and Lily looked at each other across the table, Hellion? "What?" They asked.
"He filled the lake with vanilla soap." James said as he loaded his plate with mashed potatoes and gravy.
Lily giggled, "You noted the scent of the soap?"
James obviously was obviously paying more attention to his food than the conversation because he replied, "Well yeah, it was nice. He could've used some citrus shit, but-" James finally realised that he was talking about soap. "Um..."
Unfortunately for Sirius, he too wasn't paying much attention, "Well, I personally would have preferred coconut, possibly a tropical mix, but hey, you can't have everything in life." The entire surrounding Gryffindor table burst out laughing, James Potter and Sirius Black had opinions on scented soap! Both boys turned bright red (a rare predicament for them) but soon they joined in with the laughter.
As they were going to get up from the table, Hermione and Lily 'realised' that they couldn't stand up. "Um, guys?" Lily said.
The boys were busy talking. So Hermione tried instead, "Oi!" She yelled in James' ear.
"Gah! What?" James asked as he nearly fell off the bench in surprised.
"Can you stand up?" Hermione asked.
"Um, yes." He replied as if she was an idiot.
Lily scowled at him, "Have you tried recently? We're having a bit of difficulty."
James tried to stand up and found him unable. "Ah fucking Merlin!"
"Language, Potter!" Lily said loudly.
Pretty soon, everyone in the hall realised that they were stuck to their seats. And they weren't happy about it, especially the Marauders.
"Okay, that's it, this means war!" Sirius hissed at James.
Hermione smirked at Lily and subtly signed across the table, 'Mission accomplished.'
'Let the games begin.' Lily responded.
Breakfast on Wednesday morning saw every single shirt or jumper reading "THIS MEANS WAR!" The students and teachers realised that the 'Bandits' meant business and that they, the innocent occupants of the castle, were about to be in the middle of a prank war. During breakfast, the Gryffindor Quidditch team mentioned that they'd seen Hellion giving the squid a bubble bath yesterday and a Ravenclaw mentioned that the poltergeists were writing rude messages on the walls in the same soap. By the time classes began, people feared that it was going to be a three way war, this did not bode well.
The next people to be hit were the teachers, as soon as they left the Great Hall, they started speaking in pirate. And not just a few words, it was honest to goodness, traditional pirate. This made lessons interesting, it was probably the first History of Magic lesson that people actually listened to, especially since Binns didn't even notice the change. The "floating and sinking and floating and sinking and floating of the Garrrrblins" were much more interesting than the Goblin Rebellions. One of the great things about this prank was that many of the Purebloods had no idea what a pirate was, like the fake tans from before, the Muggleborns once again had to explain. Even the Slytherins wanted to know what the bloody hell was going on and the answers were outside their house, much to their chagrin. Regulus and Snape, who secretly asked Hermione, Lily or Sirius, had the privilege of knowing that they knew something their housemates didn't. And there was no way they were going to tell anyone else, Slytherins don't share unless there's something in it for them, they also love feeling smug.
After lunch, the students' fears that there were three groups were realised. Peeves and Hellion had managed to get their hands on water balloons filled with some kind of potion that would turn your hair and clothing a different colour (coughBanditscoughcough). The great thing was that the potion didn't leave you soaked, it didn't even hit the floor, there was no mess, it was just really annoying. By dinner time, nearly half the students and teachers had various coloured robes and hair. The amazing thing was that the "THIS MEANS WAR!" shirts were still as readable as they had been in the morning. Strangely enough, Lily and Hermione managed to be two of they few people who hadn't been hit.
The students and professors were infinitely grateful that everything went back to normal as soon as they walked into their dorms/bedrooms. But most of them were dreading the next day. There were six exceptions; Lily, Hermione, James, Sirius, Remus and Peter were all but cackling and rubbing their hands together in anticipation.
On Thursday morning, many students decided that it was worth skipping breakfast to possibly be spared from whatever the next prank was. It was too bad that it had nothing to do with the Great Hall or the food. The first person to notice the beginning of the first prank was Lily.
Lily and Hermione were calmly walking along the hall, minding their own business when all of a sudden Lily yelled "Marauders rule!" And then found that she couldn't say another word, she proceeded to sign angrily at Hermione.
'Damn those Marauders! Putting words in my mouth, the Marauders don't rule! I'm going to kill James. Correction; I'm going to castrate him, shove his bloody balls down his throat, seal his nose closed and watch him choke to death on his own genitalia!'
Hermione laughed. "Why Lily, I didn't know you knew those signs. I have to say, I'm proud."
'Fuck off.' Lily signed with a death glare.
"Oh come on, you know you don't mean it." Hermione said.
"Wait! What?" James asked looking between the two of them, it was worse than that one time he heard Remus use the fellytone! He could only hear one side of the conversation, but this time he could see both expressions. "What did she say?"
Then Lily signed two unmistakable things, 'fuck you' and 'you're so dead'.
"Okay okay, I'm sorry." Hermione said quickly while everyone stared at Lily in disbelief, those gestures just weren't meant to be made by the Head Girl. Then Hermione got hit too. "Marauders rule!" She scowled and hexed a suite of armor to repeatedly facepalm.
'Okay, I'm sorry.' Hermione signed at Lily.
'Yeah, not so fun once you're on the receiving end, is it?' Lily replied, perfectly conveying her annoyance with her signs.
"I really don't like it when they do that." Remus grumbled. "I tried learning that finger language, it's too complicated, even for me." Then he was hit and had to stop talking. The Marauders didn't want to include themselves in this one but knew they had to keep up appearances.
Lily and Hermione smirked at each other. 'And they get their comeuppance.' Hermione signed.
'Still, they are going to regret this tomorrow.' Lily signed with an evil glint in her eye.
'Oh yes. I say they only get baby blue, orange and black, though we might have to let them have a few regular.'
Lily looked at the boys; Remus and James had both lost their voices by now. 'Hey, at least it shut him up.' Lily signed, pointing at James.
'Hey, we're annoying them with our signing again.'
Lily pasted a dreamy expression on her face. 'I love this.'
'I can tell.'
"We're leaving, you two are-" Sirius never got to finish that thought. "Marauders rule!"
The second prank of the day started right before everyone's second class; every single thing that people touched was left with a hand print, in the middle of the print was a huge 'B' with the names Nomad, Inky and Sly written around it, leaving no doubts as to who was responsible. There was some fail safe in the spell though, the hand prints never overlapped, that way you could always see the print. They didn't get smudge or so layered up that they couldn't be read. Books, desks, quills bags, doors, nothing was spared, not even skirts or pants where they had been moved for certain personal hygiene activities. It only took Remus a few hours to notice that Hermione and Lily had both been to the bathroom but had no compromising marks on their pants or skirts. He pulled out a piece of parchment at lunch and accused her of figuring out how to lift the spell. Then she reminded of a small thing called 'magic'. He was really confused, then it clicked, you can magically move your clothing. That explained the lack of prints on many of the girls', especially the Gryffindor ones, clothing. Word, written at least, had gotten around about the easy way to escape that particular embarrassing side-effect. However, some people (coughSiriuscough) took advantage of this and started intentionally placing their hands on strategic places on others. Soon, many students were sporting a hand print on their ass. Lily and Hermione were spared because those responsible were more than a little scared of those particular girls.
The third prank wasn't so much a prank as just hilarious, annoying and deafening. Just as afternoon classes were starting, everyone was treated to an example of the new definition for the phrase 'Bells and whistles'. Peeves and Hellion burst through the wall of a fifth year defense class. Peeves was fluorescent pink and Hellion was lime green; they each held a set of cymbals and there were cow bells, fog horns, trumpets and shrill penny whistles circling around them. Needless to say, everyone's ears were ringing by the end of the day. There were three main topics of conversation at dinner (via parchment); how long this was going to last, who was responsible, and how the hell the poltergeists managed to learn magic. Unbeknownst to everyone except themselves, Lily and Hermione had placed silencing spells over their ears during lunch because they knew just exactly how loud Peeves and Hellion were going to be. After all, they had been the ones to get the poltergeists all set up. They were also the only ones who carried on a 'normal' conversation during dinner, in truth, they were planning the embarrassment of the Marauders.
By Friday morning, people had given up trying to avoid the pranks, all they could do was eat their breakfast and hope that the war ended soon. There was a sigh of resignation when everyone's shoes were turned into fluffy animal slippers corresponding with their house mascot. With every step, they made completely random animal noises; the worse was when one foot was an elephant and the other a really loud rooster, that was just not pleasant to listen to. The only good thing was that they were silent in class.
However, getting to class was a task in and of itself. Placed completely randomly around the castle were hundreds of sprigs of mistletoe in almost every colour of the rainbow that stopped you until a certain action had been taken. Fortunately, it only caught those in fifth year and up so the youngsters wouldn't be scarred for life. The first strange thing was that as soon as you were caught, the mistletoe would yell out one of five names; Nomad, Inky, Sly, Peeves or Hellion. There was regular mistletoe, that was easy enough to figure out, get caught, have it scream "NOMAD" get a kiss from the opposite sex, move on, simple. Then there was the lime green ones that screamed "INKY!" It only took people a few tries to figure this one out, just have an all-out snogging session and it would let you go. The yellow ones (Sly!) were figured out completely accidentally; a seventh year Slytherin guy was caught when a fifth year Ravenclaw guy came around the corner a little too fast and fell into the Slytherin, managing to give him a sort of violent hug. When the mistletoe let them go, they were extremely relieved that it was yellow, neither wanted to have anything to do with kissing the other. Orange (Hellion!) didn't even catch you, it just forced you to cross dress, red (Peeves!) would undo the effects of the orange ones. Navy blue (also Peeves!) was similar to red and orange in that it didn't really catch you, it just forced you to dance the Funky Chicken while singing Ave Maria at the top of your lungs. Then things got interesting.
The six friends were walking to DADA, with James and Hermione leading the way, when they passed under a sprig of regular piece of mistletoe, it yelled "NOMAD!" Hermione sighed and turned to James, pasting a lovesick, starstruck expression on her face.
"James, I have dreamed of this day my entire life! I've spent sleepless nights pining for you! I didn't know how to tell you before, but I am completely and absolutely head over heels in love with you!" Hermione exclaimed before planting an over-exaggerated kiss on his shocked lips. She then promptly fell over laughing.
Once James got over the shock of it, he laughed his head off too. Lily on the other hand, wasn't laughing, when they had planned this prank, she had completely forgotten that she'd have to participate. She grabbed Remus, "There is no way on earth I'm kissing James or Sirius! Or Peter come to think of it..." She missed the look of pain on James face. So she dragged Remus to the offending vegetation and very quickly pecked him on the lips before pointing her wand at her mouth and washing it out with copious amounts of water.
Hermione sighed, "Does this mean I'm responsible for getting the rest of you through?" Sirius grinned but Peter glanced behind him.
"Get him through fast, I like the Hufflepuff heading this way. You can tease me about it later." Peter said in a rush.
Hermione shrugged and beckoned to Sirius, "Come on handsome, lets get this over with." Sirius grinned, they kissed, and the five of them hurried around the corner only for Hermione to get stuck under a piece of baby pink mistletoe and for James and Remus to run right past. Sirius and Lily came to a screeching halt. Lily looked at the colour and stifled a grin, shecouldn't wait to see the guys' reactions. Especially because she knew there was a matching baby blue one between them and DADA.
Sirius looked between Remus and Hermione, "I was pretty sure Hermione was in front of Remus a minute ago."
Hermione pretended to scowl, "I was."
"Then why are you stuck and he's not?" James asked.
Lily made a show of looking a the colour, "It's pink." She widened her eyes at Hermione. "You don't think..."
"Oh they wouldn't." Hermione said, now looking as 'concerned' as Lily.
Sirius figured it out. "Oh I love these guys!"
You won't in a few minutes... Lily thought smugly. "I don't." She said, matching Hermione's scowl with one of her own.
"What?" Asked Remus.
Sirius grinned, "It's girls mistletoe! It only catches girls!" He straightened up and stalked past Hermione.
Lily looked at Hermione, and Hermione, who was facing away from the boys, winked. Lily walked right up to Hermione, grabbed her face and brought her lips right up to it. From the boys perspective, it looked like she kissed her smack dab on the lips, actually she kissed her cheek, but the boys didn't need to know that. They both turned around, grinned and walked past the boys whose jaws were hanging out on the floor.
Remus blinked, "Did they actually do that?"
James swallowed, "Yup."
"That was the sexiest thing I've ever seen!" Sirius said with a face-splitting grin.
When they followed the girls around the next corner, they weren't smiling anymore. Hermione and Lily had both conjured chairs and were pointing at the ceiling with matching smirks on their faces.
"You have GOT to be kidding me!" James groaned.
"Ah, fuck no!" Was Sirius' contribution.
Remus just paled.
"What goes around comes around." Hermione said sweetly as James winced and stepped forward.
"NOMAD!"
"I'm killing Nomad, whoever the hell he is." James muttered.
Hermione and Lily watched as James and Remus grimaced and kissed each other as fast as possible. Unfortunately, they forgot that there were three of them. There then ensued a five minute argument between James and Remus, which Remus lost. He returned to the mistletoe, made a 'yuck' face and kissed Sirius.
Lily smirked and signed to Hermione, 'I wonder if anyone else will figure out you only have to kiss them on the cheek for these ones?'
'Probably not.' Hermione signed back before standing, vanishing their chairs and continuing on to class. 'But I will be telling if I manage to get caught with someone other than you.' Lily nodded in agreement as they left the boys who were too busy washing their mouths to notice.
Purple (Sly!) was also an accidental discovery, two really really good friends got caught under it and were planning on giving a show but when they gave each other a high five, they were released. The crowd was a bit disappointed to have lost the show but also relieved that they could get through the purples without a kiss. White (Manic laugh!) was by far the most embarrassing, you were stuck for a minute whether you liked it or not, meaning you were left guessing and 'experimenting' for the entire time, only to be released. Black (Inky!) was also embarrassing because it was random. Completely random. In fact, when Hermione and Lily got stuck under one they tried everything and still didn't get released, turns out, it was a combination of everything and anything; sometimes it was a high five and a hug, a hug and kiss, a hug while kissing, much to both of their horror, the only thing they were left with was an all-out snog. It was a good thing Hermione had erected indestructible privacy barriers after the first few tries, people were just a little too interested in their activities, especially the boys. When asked later, they refused to say what they finally figured out and Lily had trouble looking Hermione in the eye for a while. Hermione on the other hand, just thought it was funny, so Lily got over it in less than two hours.
By dinner time, every single student, fifth year and up, had been embarrassed in some way or another, the poltergeists made sure that no one escaped the day unscathed. The sixth year Gryffindor boys seemed to have the worst of it though, for some reason they had only found themselves caught under orange, baby blue, white and only twice did they get regular green. This meant they ended up wearing dresses all day, kissing a fair number of guys, and having to guess what the blasted plant wanted them to do. One of the best things (or so those responsible thought) was that the poltergeists raced around the castle switching up the colours, after the one incident with the black mistletoe, Hermione had a few words with Hellion and he agreed to make sure that such a thing didn't happen again. Just as they were finishing up dinner, a huge dragon hat appeared on everyone's head and they all roared "TRUCE!" It seems the Marauders wanted to go out with a bang, they knew they lost with battle, but they refused to lose the war! And if the new guys had the help and cooperation of the poltergeists...well, the boys were going to need some help of their own...
The hall erupted in cheers, the war was over! What's more, they got to keep the hats! The dragons on the hats fell asleep when taken off and if you tickled it, it roared and snapped at you. Unfortunately, when they snapped, it was more like a bite. The hospital wing received quite a few patients with bloody fingers. Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.
Author's note: There you go, two chapters in 15 minutes! The price is that you will have to wait a while for the next one.