Sorry, for the wait. Whenever I thought I was done a new idea occurred to me. I think this is my longest chapter yet. I really should've known better than to give myself anything resembling a deadline. Hope you all enjoy.

Percy was minding his own business perusing the shelves of Flourish & Blotts' when two distinctly familiar heads of red hair appeared at the end of the aisle.

Now, he could have reacted normally and nodded or waved at the Gryffindor twins, but no, Percy pointed dramatically at the pair and said: "You!" with as much of a snobbish tone as he could manage. He had been trying to get his impression of Lucius Malfoy perfect over the summer. Mostly because it made his mom's face do an acrobatic act as she tried to decide whether she should laugh or tell him off for it.

The twins, of course, took his unusual greeting as some challenge to act even more ridiculous.

All was fine until they knocked over a stack of books when George attempted to fake swoon into his brother's arms, who then let him fall on to the stack instead. It was as George was bemoaning the betrayal of his own twin that their mother appeared behind the two. They had speculated in the past with Percy and Lee about the possibility of mothers having a sixth sense for when their kids were causing trouble. And to think Percy hadn't believed them at first.

"Just what is going on here?"

The Weasley matriarch raised a brow at her sons as Fred helped George up and the two brushed imaginary dust off themselves as they tried to decide on their story.

"I'm Percy! One of Fred and George's classmates."

Percy took the decision out of their hands. Probably for the best.

Mrs. Weasley smiled kindly at him and they exchanged the usual pleasantries Percy was used to having to go through at the events he was dragged to. But even as she kept up the conversation, asking how he had met her boys, she'd send a suspicious glance the twins' way every so often to keep them on their toes.

"Where are your parents Percy?"

She seemed somewhat concerned that he may just be walking about without adult supervision. Percy put it down to a side effect of having to keep an eye and ear out to try and mitigate the damage his red-haired friends undoubtably caused around the house.

"Oh. She's probably still in the Muggle Studies section trying to find a book that's actually up to date on muggle technology and its uses."

"Huh." "Think she's met our Dad yet?" "Entirely possible Gred."

"I should probably go find her. We've been here for hours already."

"See you at Hogwarts Perce!" "Yeah. We owe you one."

The two smiled deviously at the ominous phrase even as Percy rolled his eyes and walked back the way he came after assuring Mrs. Weasley again that he would be fine.

Percy had procured some extra supplies that were definitely not listed on the yearly supplies letter, but it wasn't specifically not allowed either. Though his mom was curious as to what he wanted with a giant container of sprinkles and didn't appear to be appeased by his response: "To spread joy and happiness?"

It was shaping up to be a good start to the year. The sun was shining, the Hogwarts Express was gleaming, and the first years look too young to be starting school. Then he had made the mistake of sitting in the same compartment as his so called friends.

"You turned Glinda scarlet."

"Oh, relax. It'll wear off in a second."

"You didn't think we'd take losing sitting down, did you?" "Don't worry though-" "-Gryffindor will be winning this year!"

"Why'd you have to go and pick on Glinda though?"

"Everyone knows you care about her more than anyone else at school mate."

"Are you admitting to being jealous of a frog Lee?"
Lee's eyes widened and he quickly and loudly denied it as the other three teased him.

"But really, now she looks like she has a full body sunburn, and I don't think that's even possible for her species."

Fred laughed and said that she looked nice in red.

Percy let out and exasperated sigh.

"Why'd it have to be red! She looks like a lobster! But ya know, without the claws and extra legs and stuff."

They had been a bit too loud and one of the older students stopped by to check up on them. To say that the four boys were surprised to see Tonks in the doorway of their compartment for the second year in a row would be an understatement.

Percy enlisted the help of his cousin in the mission of returning Glinda to her natural state. His baby seal eyes had absolutely nothing to do with it at all. Nope.

It only took her a few minutes to return Glinda to her preferred state of green. ("It's not easy being green~" )

"All good now! Keep it down in here and don't be scared to ask me to help with any future colorful mishaps!"

With a cheery wave and a mischievous grin, the seventh year left the compartment.

"She's so cool."

"Lads we can only hope to be as awesome as Tonks when we grow up!"

"When she graduates, we'll prank in her name!"

With that the four returned to what was truly important. Planning for the coming year.

And what fantastic plans they had.

You see, now knowing the first year curriculum the four knew when the first years would be learning certain spells and how to capitalize on this in the name of chaos and humor.

It began at the Gryffindor table during dinner.

George had offered to help one of the new first years with mastering the levitation charm using one of the napkins and then working up to plates.

Everything had been going fine. Percy Weasley looked over at his younger brother in suspicion while Charlie grinned from his seat with most of the Gryffindor Quidditch team further down the table. Probably proud of his brother for helping one of the first years.

Then a few other first years gathered for tips on perfecting the charm.

Gradually the other tables caught on and started their own impromptu first year tutoring sessions to compete with the others.

It was going pretty well for the first five minutes or so until someone hit one of the Hufflepuff beaters with a levitating loaf of bread. A bowl of soup was returned in the general direction and the dining hall quickly devolved into a food fight.

Percy ducked under the table to escape the ongoing food war between the snakes and lions. He grabbed the large container of sprinkles and levitated it over the Head table where all the professors were shouting at the students to stop the insanity and were threatening to take away points. Dumbledore was just sitting back and laughing though so Percy doubted that anyone would be getting punished for the food fight. At a peak in the battle while several bread rolls were getting thrown between the tables Percy allowed the container to tip a bit a pour the hundreds of sprinkles down on the professors.

McGonagall looked on with her lips pursed as sprinkles rained down on her and gathered on the brim of her hat. Snape was also just sitting in place as the brightly colored bits of sugar fell on his dark apparel with his eyebrows so high Percy could feel his disdain from his seat near the end of the Slytherin table. Professor Flitwick and a few others, including the Headmaster, seemed to be delighted by the rain of sprinkles.

Most of the student population knew that the password to the Headmaster's office was always some muggle candy name. With any luck their prank would pay off and they'd be able to gain access to the office and do the unthinkable by pranking the Headmaster.

"Percy! If you don't open your eyes you'll definitely crash!"

"I never agreed to this!"

"Come on man! Face your fears!"

"You barely passed flying last year! How are you going to get your apparition license?!"

"Shut up!"

Percy still had no idea how they had gotten him onto one of the death sticks they called brooms. Whoever thought: "Yeah, I'll just hop on this uncomfortable old broom and charm it to carry me out into the wild blue yonder." Had to be either really desperate or really drunk. It did not however change his current situation of holding on for dear life behind Fred as the Gryffindors zipped around above the Black Lake.

Percy didn't know how they had got him onto the broom in the first place, and whenever he tried to remember his thoughts were entirely cut off by his current internal mantra: 'don't look down, don't look down…'

All he really wanted was to be set back down on the ground with nice solid ground under his feet instead of cold rushing winds.

It was hardly surprising to Percy that during a particularly daring loop-d'-loop by Fred he found himself falling into the depths of the lake as the Gryffindors shouted and tried to circle back and catch him but they were too far away.

Percy found that he was floating underwater and before he could think about the consequences, he was taking a breath and instead of choking on water he was breathing as normal. As far as he knew that wasn't normal for even those of the magical community. A moment later he looked into the gloom and noticed the merpeople staring at him curiously.

They didn't seem all to worried about him, then again they were the ones with spears.

"Uhh… Hi?"

Apparently, he dropped off the broom in the middle of the merfolk's home. When he was brought to one of the elders, they had discussed his ability to breath underwater. Percy was told that he would not be especially welcome because as far as anyone could tell he gave off a sea water feeling, and they didn't want him accidentally messing up their freshwater ecosystem.

After they kindly kicked him up and left him close enough to the shore for him to make it back. Fred and George had already gone back to their dorm after he had surfaced earlier and told them he was fine and definitely never getting back on a broom.
-

Madame Hooch was on guard the moment she saw Perseus Black waiting to speak with her at the edge of the Quidditch pitch. He had been one of her worst students the year before and barely made it off the ground to earn a passing mark.

To say that his presence was a surprise would be a sever understatement.

"Mr. Black. What do you want?" She raised a skeptical eyebrow at his general appearance as he gave the rack of brooms a cautious look.

"We still have spotters for the house Quidditch games, right?"

"That is correct."

"Are second years allowed to join?"

"Certainly. They're also allowed to try out for their house team. Though I think your… talents lie elsewhere."

"Would you allow me to join the spotters?"

"I don't see why not, but you will not be allowed to participate in any games your house's team is competing in."

Perseus shrugged and agreed to the terms.

Madame Hooch sighed but marked him down as a spotter for the Quidditch games and went back to her lesson plans after the enigma of Slytherin made his way back to the castle.

Percy couldn't let his Gryffindor friends' prank on Glinda go and began planning revenge. This led to his discovery of a very simple potion that would turn a person's hair a random color. The only issue was finding a quiet place where no one would notice him brewing the potion. Luckily, he had some old family portraits around the castle willing to give him advise.

So, he visited the abandoned girl's restroom where Moaning Myrtle haunted the stalls.

"Hi? Myrtle?"

"Who are you?" She was floating over the sinks.

"Percy. Nice to meet you." He was starting to actually be somewhat grateful for the lengthy lessons on manners he had to take.

"What are you doing here Percy?"

"Is it alright if I use one of the stalls for some extracurricular potion making?"

"Ooh, what kind of potion?"

"The pranking kind."

"Hmm…" She did a few turns in the air as she considered allowing him to work there.

"You can work in that stall. Just don't say anything mean."

"Sounds fair."

Over the next week he carefully snuck potions supplies into the stall. It would only take a couple days to brew enough of the potion for his purposes. The next step would be getting the help of the Hogwarts House Elves.

Soon all preparations were in place and it was time to spring the prank.

"Wish me luck Myrtle!"

"Good luck Percy! Come back any time!"

Myrtle wasn't as bad as most of the older students made her out to be. She was just sad and lonely, if a little creepy at times. But his house ghost was the Bloody Barron so Percy couldn't really judge.

Percy sat in the middle of Slytherin's table with a good view of the whole hall, but overall, pretty inconspicuous.

The first person to be affected by the prank was one of the new first year Ravenclaws whose hair spontaneously turned a dark purple.

From there everyone else began to be affected as well and chaos ensued.

When Fred and George turned to each other they pointed at each other and laughed. George because Fred's hair had turned a light pink and Fred because George's hair was highlighter yellow.

Lee seemed perfectly happy with his shinning gold hair though the twins were quick to crack goldilocks jokes.

Percy had taken some of his potion as well and now had light blue hair. Percy was happy with this outcome.

The Prefects were having difficulty getting their houses to calm down. Tonks was just laughing as she had ended up with red hair and decided to keep it for a bit before turning it back. Charlie was trying to convince one of the fifth years down from where he had climbed onto the Gryffindor table and was shouting a very dramatic declaration of war on whoever was responsible for the prank. Charlie's hair was now a sunset pink and the guy shouting on the table had the unfortune to get gray as his new hair color. The situation was not helped by the fifth years dorm mates calling him an old man ("Oh look Greg 's turned into an old guy." "We all knew this day would come." "Yeah, guess the stress finally got to him.").

Up at the Head table Dumbledore's hair had all turned a mossy green. Even his beard. Professor McGonagall's hair was now a lovely dark red and she sighed at the spectacle her house was making. Snape was especially unhappy with his new hair color, lavender. Percy hid a laugh as a cough when he first saw his head of house with light purple hair. Professor Flitwick's hair was now teal, and Professor Sprout's was magenta.

The only major change to everyday life for a few days was that the twins were distinguishable to all of Hogwarts until the colors wore off.

Only a while after Percy pranked the whole school, Lee had figured out it was him who master minded the event. The twins were quick to catch on after Lee and were mad for a few days even though they had admitted before they knew who had pulled the prank that it was an impressive prank.

Fred and George had decided that the only reasonable response was to declare a prank war against Percy and broke whatever quiet partnership the Gryffindors and Slytherin had in the past. At least as far as their nighttime escapades went.

Their last joint prank was sneaking up to the headmaster's office and moving whatever furniture they could just a little bit out of place. A few of the portraits of the past headmasters glared at them disapprovingly, but Percy's ancestor who had been Hogwarts's headmaster had grinned and bullied the other portraits into keeping quiet.

It hadn't been difficult to get in the office thanks to their prank at the beginning of the year. After saying different variations of the candy, they had poured over the head table the gargoyle moved for "Jimmies". What had been difficult was finding a time when Dumbledore wouldn't be in his office.

The most unfortunate part of this prank was that they couldn't watch the Headmaster's reaction, but Phineas Nigellus Black later told them that Dumbledore had been very confused for a while and they had seen him looking thoughtful at a few meals before things went back to normal. The important thing was that they knew what had been done and that they were the ones who had done it.

In hindsight, it wasn't really surprising to Percy that the Gryffindors wanted to break off and cause mischief on their own, especially the Weasley twins. They were naturally dramatic and liked to make a show of everything they did. With Percy's sneakier pranks, they didn't get the same recognition as troublemakers they had no doubt earned long before the four had met.

The twins wanted to take credit for all their pranks regardless of the loss of house points.

So, a semiofficial interhouse prank war was begun. They decided that at the end of their seventh year the master prankster(s) would be decided once and for all.

A few months after going it on their own Fred and George got caught for the first time that year snooping around Flich's office and they got detention for a week. They had been smiling smugly when Percy had next seen them though and seemed to be giving a lot of attention to some scrap of paper they had found during their exploration. Percy decided that he didn't want to know badly enough to try 'borrowing' the paper and endure whatever revenge they cooked up in response.

To let Percy, know that they weren't joking about no longer including him in their plans the twins had made a big deal of blowing up one of the toilets in the prefect's bathroom and got detention for the rest of the semester.

They sent him a bit of the tile by owl the next morning.

-
It was getting near to the end of the year and the second years were all deciding what electives they would take for their third year. Percy considered taking muggle studies to make fun of the professor, because the muggle studies textbooks were all way out of date and his mom had even made a formal complaint to the school board about it and provided an example textbook she had compiled since joining the wizarding world and learning about all the assumptions pureblood society had about muggle technology.

He ultimately decided against it. The class was bound to be unbearably boring for anyone who had grown up in the muggle world. Ancient runes and Care of Magical Creatures sounded far more interesting.

However, when he had told his fellow housemates and a few other year mates, who had asked which elective courses he was going to take, they tended to get a slightly shifty uncertain look in their eyes like they wanted to say something but decided not to.

Of course, he later found out that the reason they hadn't said anything about it to him was that they had instead went and told Professor Snape for reasons beyond his understanding. Which led to his current position sitting confusedly in front of Snape in his office near the Potions classroom.

"I don't see why I should take Divination, Professor."

Snape kept his usual flat look of disdain, but it held more exasperation than usual. He smoothed his black silky robes as he shifted and cleared his throat.

"Well, Mr. Black, I have noticed that you have an affinity for the arts of divination. It is the belief of your fellow classmates as well that you would do well to learn more on the subject."

Percy briefly felt betrayed by his housemates, but it was all overshadowed by the confusion and pervading knowledge that Professor Snape was just as uncomfortable with the conversation as he was.

"Yes, but why?"

"Listen M. Black. I don't pretend I know anything much beyond the general in divination, but I do know that I am your head of house and it is my job to do my best to help you reach your highest potential as a wizard. Take my word, you will take divination and you will reach your full potential."

The awkward air of the office had fled to accommodate Snape's glare. Percy held up his hands in surrender and filled out the paper to take Divination and Ancient Runes his third year.

"Fine Professor. If you think it best." Percy gave Snape his best disbelieving look and was quickly dismissed with Snape's usual biting annoyance.

When Percy had gone Snape had slumped a bit in his seat and ran a hand over his face with a groan. The young Mr. Black had proved in some ways to be even more troublesome than either of his uncles had been.

At the end of the year Slytherin had won the house cup again. The only strange thing was the thought that Tonks and Charlie Weasley were graduating and wouldn't be there next year. Oh, and that not just the DADA Professor but the Muggle Studies Professor as well would not be teaching the respective subjects again. Though from what he had heard from one of the sixth year Slytherins Professor Quirrell, the former Muggle Studies Professor, was going to travel over the summer for some hands-on experience and come back next school year to teach the DADA class.

So, Percy's second year at Hogwarts ended.

Bonus scene:

Fred and George trying to crack the Marauders' Map

"We've tried just about all of the usual passwords."

"What about password?"

"What kind of idiot would make their password: 'Password'?"

"It's worth a try." George offered sheepishly.

"Password." Fred said as he touched his wand to the paper. This time they were informed that all four of the names they had become familiar with from their other attempts were laughing at them and thought that 'password' had to be the worst of all passwords.

Fred sighed.

"Maybe we should ask Black for password ideas?"

To their astonishment the paper bled with long passages of writing from the Marauders. Fred had forgotten to take his wand off the paper when he had made the suggestion.

'Padfoot would like to enquire who the two young mischievous lions are talking about.'
'Prongs would also like to know and hopes those two who are up to no good will inform them.'
Were just the first few lines and the insanity quickly grew from there and the words started informing them that the four were insulting them for withholding the information.

"Our friend Percy Black."

More statements bled onto the parchment all full of confusion and some jokes at "Padfoot's" expense.

The brothers shrugged and later when they found the right password, they celebrated by sneaking down to the kitchens and grabbed some cauldron cakes and butter beers. They put the incident down to one of Percy's ancestors having some hand in the creation of the map and resolved to use it to their favor in future pranks.