Chapter Fifty – In April and May Hogwarts Students will Play

Easter fell on the second weekend of April this year, and the buzz around school all week had surrounded trying to guess what the big prank might be. There were those who hoped for something edible like the chocolate bunnies had been, and others who hoped for anything that involved the transfiguration of the students themselves, like the year they all had grown bunny ears.

The New Marauders had lots of time during the last weeks of winter to work on what they could do that would be at least as good as past pranks. This time, Rose was the member of their group that came up with the winning idea. No wonder her Daddy was so proud of her!

The Easter weekend had started out with a Hogsmeade day on Saturday. Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes had been the hot spot in town, with kids flocking there to get their hands on the Easter Chocolate Wheezes.

Al and Scorpius had made their trip a short one again, preferring to instead spend most of the day with the girls at school. While the other Marauders were gone, the two couples, and Lily finished up the last few details on their Easter plans, then went to work on their homework assignments so that they could take the whole day off on Sunday.

The students and Professors of Hogwarts woke up Easter morning to a world filled with pink. It was neon, plush pink to be specific in describing it accurately. The walls and ceilings everywhere were pink, fuzzy, and soft.

Al sat up in bed and looked around at their handiwork as the other boys woke up and started to laugh, check out the feel of the walls, and talk about this latest prank.

Nick and Scorpius joined Al as they also tested the softness of the walls, and laughed and joked with their other roommates.

Many of the students that had been at school for the great pumpkin prank got dressed quickly and went outside to see what the school looked like, and they weren't disappointed when they found out that they were living inside of a giant stuffed pink bunny.

When the kids started arriving in the Great Hall for breakfast, they found chocolate Easter eggs in front of each place setting. By the time that Al and the others reached the Hall after going outside, there was already a commotion in the room as kids had been taking the foil off of their eggs.

"EAT ME!" the chocolates would tell the kid that unwrapped them, egging them on. "WHAT ARE YOU, CHICKEN? EAT ME!" There was a lot of laughing going on all over the room, as more and more kids unwrapped their eggs, and the eggs taunted them.

That taunting didn't stop when you popped the egg in your mouth either. Al hadn't unwrapped his egg yet, but he watched Carolyn as she put hers in her mouth, and listened to the now muffled voice continue to egg her on.

"YOU THINK CHEWING ME UP WILL STOP ME?" the egg said as Carolyn ate it and swallowed.

"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?" it said from her stomach. "CHEW ME UP AND SWALLOW ME? NICE TRY – NOW IT'S MY TURN! TAKE THAT!"

Carolyn suddenly turned into a fluffy pink bunny, just like her school, and Al laughed and gave her a hug before opening his own egg and quickly joining the ranks of the pink plush bunnies.

Carolyn rubbed a furry paw over Al's arm and grinned. "You're nice and cuddly, Al. Can I keep you like this?"

Bunny Brianna laughed at her friend. "I'm not sure pink is Al's colour, Carolyn. I think it clashes with the eyes."

Like with their previous pranks, their stuffed Easter bunny fun could only last so long before wearing off. In this case the average time seemed to be a few hours, depending on how quickly the egg was digested. Some of the kids had waited to eat their eggs until later, so there were a few bunnies around the school for most of the day, and everyone certainly had fun with it. The school transformation would keep everything pink, soft and fuzzy until midnight.

After having breakfast, Al and the other Ravenclaw bunnies went outside to enjoy the morning, watch their fellow students play, and if they could, find a quiet place to cuddle for a while with their favourite bunny partner.

"We're going to have a tough time topping this one," Al told Rose. "I'd say your idea was a big hit."

"We're a pretty creative bunch of bunnies. I'm sure we'll still find something good for our next prank," she answered her cousin.

They took the whole day off, and even after they changed back from bunnies to young Witches and Wizards, there was still a lot of snuggling and hugging going on as they all enjoyed a break from their studies.

There were three weeks between Easter and the Quidditch match between Hufflepuff and Slytherin. There were probably more warm sunny days than normal, and whenever possible, the school grounds were dotted with groups of kids who took advantage of the nice weather to take their studies outside.

Aaron and Arianna had found that having only four subjects this year had allowed them to do much better in those subjects, now that they could concentrate their efforts on the areas of study that they'd been fairly good at without needing to spend the long hours struggling with the subjects that hadn't been easy for either of them. They might not be tops in their year, but they were definitely doing well enough that they'd be able to continue with their seventh year studies.

Since they'd finally opened up to Harry, Ginny, Tracey, and James about their childhood during the Christmas Holidays, they'd been learning to deal with the emotional damage that those years had caused them. They had each had good days and bad days over the past few months, and Tracey and James had been there every step of the way for them. Harry and Ginny had only been a WiComm call or Owl Post away too, and there had been several long letters exchanged between them.

The other New Marauders couples were enjoying the spring weather as much as their fellow students all seemed to be. Finding any privacy inside the school was nearly impossible, but there was lots of space on the school grounds that allowed them to find secluded spots where they could be alone for a while.

Quidditch season resumed the first weekend in May, when Hufflepuff met Slytherin. The captain of the Slytherin team had apparently not learned anything from their loss to Ravenclaw, and had been going around school telling anyone who would listen that his team was not only going to win, but they were going to embarrass the winless Hufflepuff team.

For their part, the Hufflepuff players took a page out of the Ravenclaw playbook and pretended that they too expected to lose big to the mighty Slytherin team.

On gameday, Andy played right into the Hufflepuff strategy as he warmed up the crowd before the game.

"Well, boys and girls," he began, "it's finally game day again, and we have beautiful weather for the match between the overwhelming favourites to win, Slytherin, and the underdog, 0 and 2 Hufflepuff squad." This announcement brought cheers from the Slytherin section, but the students in the Hufflepuff section remained quiet. Their team captain had instructed his fellow students not to react to anything that Andy announced, to help keep building the Slytherin overconfidence.

"While the outcome of this game may not be in doubt, I would encourage all of you to stay, enjoy the game, and support all of our Quidditch players," Andy continued.

When the teams flew out into the stadium, the Slytherin section cheered the loudest, and the Slytherin captain smiled and waved, puffed up with confidence and bravado. He even bumped the Hufflepuff captain in mid-air, nearly knocking the other boy off of his broom in the process, and smiled even more broadly as the Slytherin students laughed and jeered the Hufflepuff captain's obvious ineptness.

Al was chuckling quietly too as he sat with Carolyn and Brianna in the Ravenclaw section.

"Please tell me you're not laughing at what that jerk just did," Carolyn said to him.

Al smiled and shook his head. "No," he said quietly. "I'm laughing because the Hufflepuff captain is doing such a great acting job – just like the entire Hufflepuff student section is doing."

Carolyn looked over to where all of the Hufflepuff students were sitting quietly, looking all the world as if they'd rather not be there to witness what was about to happen, but stoically willing to stand by their poor, hapless team – no matter how badly they were beaten again this season.

"It's a wonder that the Slytherin team doesn't suspect anything," she said. "Hufflepuff's two losses were mostly because they didn't catch the snitch, not becaue they didn't play well against us, or against Gryffindor."

"That's what's going to make this so much fun if Hufflepuff can pull it off," Al told the girls.

Right up until the Quaffle was thrown into the air, the Hufflepuff team maintained the façade that they themselves didn't believe they could win the game, and were just going through the formality of playing the game – already conceding the victory to the puffed up Slytherins.

"And they're off!" Andy announced as the teams took to the air. "Hufflepuff reaches the Quaffle first, and head straight for the Slytherin goal. He's going for the left goal – NO!, it's a fake, and he SCORES! Hufflepuff takes the early ten to naught lead! That's the spirit! Even the underdogs can have something to cheer about!"

The Hufflepuff section of the stadium erupted in cheers, while the Slytherin fans continued to just jeer, believing that it had just been a lucky shot.

"Slytherin's captain takes the quaffle and moves out toward the Hufflepuff goals. He passes – AND HUFFLEPUFF INTERCEPTS! They pass, and another quick pass, and THEY SCORE!" Andy was on his feet now as he shouted.

"What a goal! Don't look now, Quidditch fans, but we might just have a game after all!"

The match went downhill from there for Slytherin. Their Seeker was hit by a bludger six times during the game, and he became so obsessed with watching out for them that he completely abandoned any thought of looking for the snitch, no matter how much his captain screamed at him to do it.

By that time they were down by three hundred points anyway, so catching the snitch would have only helped them lose the match faster. The Hufflepuff players weren't interested in getting the game over with. They were having fun, and they kept pouring it on until they were up four hundred and seventy to seventy, at which point the captain gave their Seeker the signal to catch the snitch.

They scored one more time before that happened, and finished with a final score of 630 to 70. It was all Andy could do to control his enthusiasm as he announced the end of the game, and did his post-game summary. The Slytherin section of the stands emptied out quickly, and the team didn't even meet the Hufflepuff team on the pitch, instead flying straight to the entrance to the locker rooms.

"They're consistent," Al commented. "Bad winners are usually worse losers."

Carolyn took his hand, and stood up. "Let's get out of here, and get started on our homework. Maybe if we get enough done before Lily and the others get done their post-game analysis meeting, she'll take it easy on us later and let us go out to play."

Brianna laughed. "You wish. We've only got four weeks to exams. She's going to keep pushing us until we're ready to scream."

"You'll be happy to be screaming – with happiness when you see all of those 'E's' and 'O's' when we get our letters for next year," Carolyn told her.

Brianna wasn't far off of the truth as Lily prepared her brother, cousins, and friends for their exams, and helped them with year-end assignments and projects. The Quidditch practices also became more intense as the last game of the season approached.

Slytherin and Hufflepuff were both out of the running for the Quidditch Cup this year, and even Gryffindor would not only need to win, but win big to overcome the point advantage that Ravenclaw had again this year. They were hoping for a narrow win, and that Madame Hooch would declare the Cup a tie – counting a win over Ravenclaw and the Ravenclaw points lead as being equal. Nobody was predicting that either team could pull out a blowout win – the two Keepers were just too good.

That was certainly proven true during the game on the third Saturday in May. For those fans of the game that loved defense, the game was the best they'd seen in years as Scorpius and Hugo dueled against the opposing Chasers. After two and a half hours, they had each only allowed three scores.

There might not have been many actual goals, but even fans that would prefer to see high scoring games weren't disappointed, because there were lots of scoring attempts by both sides.

Scorpius had predicted that the game would come down to the Seekers, and he was right. Lily and Jeremy had both been playing hard. Lily had stuck with her plan, and had done such a great acting job with sending Jeremy off on one wild chase after another, just with a look or sudden flying move that he wasn't ready when she finally was able to pounce on her best opportunity of the game to go after the snitch.

When he realized what was happening, Jeremy vainly tried to catch her, but it was far too late, and he watched in dismay as she reached out, seemingly in slow motion, and pulled the snitch out of the air and held it above her head victoriously.

"Potter catches the snitch!" Andy announced. "Ravenclaw wins the game 180 to 30, and wins the Quidditch Cup with their second undefeated season in three years! Well done, and Congratulations to both teams for another exellent match and to all of our teams for a terrific season!"

Both teams had landed on the pitch by the time that Andy had moved on to his game summary, and the Gryffindor players were congratulating the Hufflepuff team when Al, Carolyn, and Brianna joined them at nearly the same time that Allie and Tracey reached the spot where the two teams had met.

"That," said James, "was a lot of fun – even if we did lose."

Aaron gave Trinity a hug. "I'm just glad that Ravenclaw will have a new captain in town next year. We haven't done so great with this one in charge."

Trinity beamed at his praise. "Thank-you, Aaron, but you're still going to have to deal with the rest of the team next season, so I don't think it's going to get any easier for you."

Arianna gave Trinity a hug too. "At least we know that we're competitive – now we just have to figure out how to stop SuperSeeker there," she said, grinning and winking at Lily.

James laughed. "Oh, is that all? Why don't you just go ahead and hand her the next five or six Quidditch Cups now then."

Lily gave her brother a hug, and smiled. "Thanks, James, but if it's alright with you, I think we'd like to go out and try to earn them one at a time. Besides, this is Quidditch – anything can happen!"

The party in the Ravenclaw Common Room was even bigger and better than usual. They found out on Sunday that Gryffindor had a party too, despite losing the game and the Cup. They did still manage to come in second in the standings despite only having the one win, and with Hugo to anchor their next six seasons, they were all excited about their chances for some really great years to come.

Party time was over by Sunday morning. They had one week left before exams started, and they all got down to work. For the Ravenclaw Marauders, that meant doing everything that Lily told them to do. The Gryffindors worked hard too, but their efforts were done more by group consensus.

Just before dinner on the last Saturday of May, Lily was sitting at a table with the rest of her study group. She closed her books, and got everyone's attention.

"Congratulations," she told them. "I think you all deserve to take the rest of the night off."

This was greeted with cheers from everyone, and Carolyn and Brianna even gave her hugs.

"You kids go have fun now, and I'll see you in class again tomorrow," Lily teased.

Al and Carolyn, and all of the others, took advantage of the break, and enjoyed one last night to relax before they entered nearly three weeks of intense pressure and work while exams were under way.

"It's hard to believe that in three weeks we'll be going home," Carolyn told Al as they cuddled on one of the sofas in the Common room later that night.

Al nodded. "By the time exams are done, we'll be ready to get out of here too."

She gave him a kiss and smiled. "You're going to be busy when we get home too," she told him. "You've got a lot of cuddling, hugging, and kissing to make up to me after all of this time that we've done almost nothing except study."

He laughed and hugged her close. "I'm all yours."

Carolyn hugged him back. "And don't you ever forget it!"

Sunday was another intense day of studying, and Lily had them all go to bed early so that they'd all be well rested for the exams they were writing on Monday. That last day of May transitioned into the first day of June unnoticed by the sleeping Ravenclaws.

In the Gryffindor Common room, James, Andy, Jon, Therese, and Tracey were all still up to welcome the start of a new month as they continued to study for their exams. Aaron and Arianna didn't have an exam until Wednesday, so they'd kissed their respective girlfriend and boyfriend goodnight, and left them to study without distraction.

It was after one before James finally closed his books.

"That's it for me, guys," he said tiredly. "Nothing else is going to sink in at this point."

Tracey looked up at him, then at her watch, and nodded. "You're probably right, James," she said, standing up. "Have a good night's sleep. I'll see you in the moring." Therese had agreed, gotten up, kissed Jon, and left with Tracey for the girl's dorms.

The three boys watched the two girls disappear into the girl's dormitory stairway, and then gathered up their own books and went to bed. There might only be three short weeks until summer holidays, but they were going to be three very busy and challenging weeks.