First things first, I wanted to apologize times infinity for this unintentional hiatus. I honestly did not mean for it to be this long of a wait, and thank you to everyone who has sent in a review at this point! My love for my faithful reviewers is strong, and I thank you for doing so. And now, without further adieu, I give you the next installment.
Disclaimer: See every other chapter prior to this.
Previously, on "The Ancient Art of Maraudering"…
"James and Sirius have been gone a while…" Harry said, suspicion underlaying worry in his voice. McGonagall had long since returned to her place at the Heads table.
"Remus and Hermione are gone, too…" Lily stated, biting her lip nervously.
"You don't think…?" Ron asked, trailing off.
"Lily, do you know where James and Sirius usually go? Like - some of there normal hangouts?"
"Well…" Lily bit her lip and narrowed her bright green eyes in concentration.
"There's the Quidditch Pitch, the Common Room, Courtyard… oh, and the kitchen!"
"The kitchen?" Harry echoed, thoughtfully.
"They didn't eat much here," Ron pointed out. Harry and Lily's eyes widened, and Ron eventually caught on.
The group - what was left of it - Harry, Ron, and Lily, exchanged glances before leaping up and racing towards the Hogwarts kitchen.
Chapter 22: Keep Your Friends Close... Part 2
Sirius Black was terrified.
What made it unique was that he was almost never afraid; ninety-five percent of the time, he was not afraid.
This was one of the five percent of the time that he was afraid.
"Remus, what the hell is this nonsense? Yes, we're in a prank war of some kind but this is taking it too far!" James yelled, as a piece of cabbage hit him in the face and knocking his glasses off.
"Sirius, my glasses!"
"Shit, Prongs!"
There was a maelstrom of wind and food flying around in the Hogwarts kitchen that had been going on for a good thirty minutes; the disastrous mess that James and Sirius had gotten themselves into would not be very easy to escape from this time. It would be next to impossible to even reach the door through this mess of food soaring about in midair, and to make matters worse, James had lost his glasses. If one needs better imagery, picture a humongous tornado of food encircling the kitchen at a ridiculously fast speed.
"Padfoot, help me find them. I can't see a damned thing!"
"I'm trying, but there's so much shit flying everywhere that even I'm having a hard time. Oh, the curses of having ridiculously good-looking, long hair…"
"Suck it up and help me find them!"
Unfortunately for James, his glasses had been sucked into the whirlpool of food. They might have never been recovered, if not for Sirius's ingenious action… "Accio James's glasses!" he exclaimed, performing the spell. His friend's glasses managed to find their way out of the mess and into his outstretched hand. Remus and Hermione had forgotten to block them from performing magic. HA! The fools...
"Here, Prongs," Sirius said, handing him the glasses. "How do you propose we get out of this one?"
"Wait it out?" James suggested, weakly.
"I doubt that'll they'll stop their wrath anytime soon…" Sirius said, trailing off doubtfully over the roar of unwittingly malicious food.
"I agree, Padfoot. I wonder if…"
"If what?"
"Petrificus Totalus!" James exclaimed, waving his wand and stopping the tornado of food in its tracks. The wind stopped; everything held still in midair for a split second before falling to the ground, in an almost peaceful way. They had made the tornado alive; to this day, James didn't know how they managed to accomplish that.
"Way to go, Prongs!" Sirius grinned, high-fiving the other Marauder.
James grinned back proudly as he said, "Come on, Padfoot. Let's get out of this before someone sees it and blames us."
"Good idea," Sirius agreed. Together, the duo tip-toed over the remains of the tornado of food.
Once they were at the door… "Do you think it's locked? What if it's shocked?" James asked.
"Alohamora!" The door clicked open, and Sirius tentatively turned the doorknob to find that… nothing happened.
"You know, that's kind of anti-climatic. I thought we trained Moony better, Prongs," Sirius said, sighing in slight disappointment as they realized there was no threat of imminent doom ahead of them.
"I thought we did, too," James said, shaking his head. They took a few tentative steps forward, and Sirius began to feel like he could relax, maybe just a little bit. A sideways glance at James told him he was feeling the same way.
And then…
"WHAT THE HELL, MOONY?" James screeched, as they were flipped upside down in mid-air and their worlds' were overturned.
The man had set up a booby trap, like in those old Muggle movies.
"I'm going to kill him, James!" Sirius declared, seething.
"I'll help you with that," James said, as he tried to get his feet freed from the rope.
If one were to come down that particular hallway, they would have seen the two Marauders suspended upside down, with rope tied around the feet. James's glasses had fallen off again in the process. They were quite the sight to see; not only were they hanging from the ceiling, but also looked like they had just been in a food fight of some kind, because they were absolutely, positively covered from head to toe in food.
Luckily for them, Harry, Ron, and Lily came running down that corridor towards the kitchen at exactly the moment Sirius cursed Remus's existence for the third time that day.
"We need to get to them before something-" Lily was saying.
"Um, Lily?" Ron muttered, stopping in his tracks and gesturing towards where James and Sirius were suspended in the air.
"Howdy, boys!" James grinned, in an eerily good western accent.
"How's it goin' down there?" Sirius asked, crossing his arms and smirking, shamelessly.
"What even happened to you guys?" Lily asked, awestruck.
"We'll explain, if you can stop staring at us like a bunch of mindless idiots and get us the hell down from here. My feet hurt!" Sirius whined.
Lily rolled her eyes, and with a wave of her wand and a whisper of a spell, the rope snapped and the duo fell mercilessly onto the ground as gravity caught up to them.
"You couldn't have gotten us down nicely?" Sirius said, glaring at her.
"You didn't say please," Lily smiled, not bothering to hide a sliver of a smirk.
"Bitch," he muttered, and James hit him lightly.
"We've had a long day," he said, half-shrugging and trying to justify Sirius's cross mood.
Glancing at James's attire, which was covered with smears of food, Lily raised her eyebrows and asked, "Do we even want to know?"
"No, probably not," James said, with a laugh.
"James, can we please go kill Remus now?" Sirius pleaded.
"Yes, we will! We've gotta figure out our plan of action, though. What is it exactly that we're going to do to him?"
"Let's get you guys cleaned up, first things first," Lily said, interjecting.
Together and reunited (with the exclusion of Remus and Hermione), they trudged back to the picture of the fat lady.
MEANWHILE…
"That'll show them!" Remus grinned, high-fiving Hermione.
"Exactly!"
"You know, they are going to retaliate…" Remus said, after a moment's victory silence set in.
"We can take it," Hermione murmured, kissing him.
"You sure? They looked pretty pissed. Do you think we took it too far?"
"If we did, it's too late now," Hermione said, sighing. She missed Harry and Ron, just like Remus missed James, Remus, and Lily.
Oh well. All's fair in a prank war gone wild.
AND THEN…
"What in the blazes have you been up to?" McGonagall exclaimed, staring at James and Sirius as she passed them in the corridor.
"Don't ask," James said.
"Don't even ask," Sirius repeated, with the same, toneless edge as James.
Wisely, McGonagall didn't.
ONE HOUR LATER, IN THE GRYFFINDOR COMMON ROOM…
It was well-known that Lily Evan's favorite pastime was reading. Not spellbooks, per say, but Muggle books. People used to give her weird looks for reading Muggle books, which were usually Shakespeare; now, people were used to it. They knew Lily read when she was pissed at James; it helped usually to calm her nerves, to escape to a different reality for a few hours.
This time, she was reading to forget about her worries about James.
Yes, she, Lily Evans, was worried about James's next scheme. Normally he and Sirius were lucky enough to escape unscathed, but even more recently in their clashes with Remus and Hermione, she began to be frightened that something terrible would happen to them, and soon. Call it women's intuition, but she couldn't help her fears. She supposed it was normal, especially when James put himself on the line so frequently in his fearless and shameless pranks, but it didn't make much of a difference in the long run. Worrying wouldn't help anyone except their enemies, and while reading was a fantastic escape, Shakespeare wouldn't help them in this case.
Her thoughts were interrupted by James and Sirius, who came bounding down the stairs of the boy's dormitory in an obnoxious manner..
"I've never been more grateful for indoor plumbing!" Sirius burst out, jumping up and down ecstatically.
Noting the equally ecstatic expression on James's face, Lily asked warily, "And why are you two so cheerful?"
"We've got a plan to end it all," James said, grinning and linking arms with Sirius.
"What do you mean, 'end it all'?" Lily was definitely afraid of the answer now.
"You'll see at dinner, flower," was all that James said in response to her question. Lily glanced at Sirius's expression, and asked, "Should I go to dinner, James?"
"I'll make sure you don't get hurt, Lilykins," James spoke soothingly, in an attempt to allay her worries.
It didn't work.
"Well, we're off to set up. I'll see you later, love," James said, giving her a quick kiss farewell.
Lily bit her lip and murmured a soft goodbye.
She was a woman, goddammit. It was her job to worry.
Sorry for the painfully filler chapter, but the grand finale is on the way. I promise!
