Chapter 11. Halloween

October 31, 1971

That night would be Halloween. Around the corridors the ghosts enjoyed appearing out of nowhere to scare the students, the teachers had spent the whole day decorating the castle and a delicious dinner was planned. The expectations for the evening were therefore very high, but never as high as those of James, Sirius, Peter and Remus.

After the story that took place in Potions, the hatred between the boys and Severus, Mulciber and Avery had grown a lot: every time they had lessons together, the three Slytherins made not very nice comments towards the four Gryffindors who, by common decision, had decided to ignore and pretend nothing happened. In fact, Lily had asked them not to respond to the constant provocations.

"If you don't want to do it for me, at least do it for the House .. if you start a discussion during a lesson you risk making us lose points and so we will never win the House Cup!" the redhead said one day.

And she was right. There would be no point in starting a fight if there was a risk that it could lead to the loss of the Gryffindors, so they agreed to hold back as much as possible and they did. But it wasn't easy: sometimes they just talked nonsense, but other times they went down hard and on those occasions it was very difficult to keep quiet. They all had different ways of reacting: Peter's ears became red from nervous, James and Sirius held back for the moment but then once back in the Common Room they reacted dramatically and Remus always remained very calm, even if inside he was seething with anger. He didn't understand why they were so angry with them. After all, they had never done anything wrong.

A week before Halloween the insults got worse.

"I can't take it anymore! I'm going crazy!" Sirius exclaimed. He threw himself on the bed and snorted. "They'll give me a nervous breakdown."

"You're 11, I don't think you're at risk of a nervous breakdown." Remus said wryly.

"Well, if they continue like this I will be the first case in the world of a young boy affected by this condition!" the boy continued dramatically.

All three laughed.

"Anyway Sirius is right. Today they gave their best! " Peter said. "Do I really have teeth so big?" he then asked, all worried.

"See what they do to us? They play with our heads and in the long run we will begin to believe all the nonsense they say! We have to change things. " A lot of things were blending in James's head, you could see it in his face.

"But we can't answer them or we'll lose the House Cup!" Peter pointed out.

Sirius jumped up.

"Then we don't have to get caught."

"What do you mean?" Remus asked immediately afterwards. At that moment, Sirius's mind was also working fast.

"We can't answer them, but we haven't been told not to do anything about it." said the black-haired boy.

"I still don't understand…" Peter looked confused.

"Yes! Exactly!" James exclaimed enthusiastically. He sat on Sirius' bed and smiled at each other for a few seconds: it seemed they were reading their minds.

"What are they doing?" the little guy asked Remus.

"I think they both have an idea."

"Oh no .."

"Oh yes."

"So guys, here's the plan: we're going to use this week to make a commitment to find a joke to play on those three empty pumpkins." James declared.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Rem, this is a great idea! For once we will have fun! " Sirius said standing up and joining Remus on the bed. "What do you think about it?"

"I don't know .. it's risky."

"True. But imagine their faces when something happens to them and they won't know who did it! Think about how they treated us and how they will continue to treat us for a long time to come .. "

" Don't you think they deserve punishment? " James added, sitting on the bed too.

"We operate only as knights of justice!" Sirius said theatrically, making the other two laugh.

"They are actually not doing well towards us .."

"Exactly! We just want to have a little revenge. Compared to the millions of times they've treated us like shit, this is nothing. Plus we won't let ourselves be discovered .. "the one with the glasses continued.

"How?"

"Well, we're smart .. something will come to mind."

"So? Are you with us? " Sirius asked.

The two boys stared at him hopefully. He had to admit that he liked the idea of playing a joke but terrified him at the same time.

What if everything goes wrong? What if someone gets hurt? What if they find out?

There were so many doubts to be resolved. They should have worked well and organized themselves well. In that case he would have accepted.

"I'm in, but-" he stopped and looked at them "I have conditions: the first is that no one should get hurt, it must be harmless and fun; the second is that we can't play the joke on just the three of them or they'll know it was us and the third is that we have to make sure we don't get caught, otherwise we might as well answer when they tease us .. Okay? "

"Absolutely yes!" Sirius answered.

"Sure!" James also said. "And now Pete."

The three boys turned to him.

"Oh, I don't know .."

"Come on! I know you want to do it too .. and then we won't do anything evil! We just want to have some fun. " Sirius explained looking at Peter. "And then Remus has created some great guidelines that we will follow carefully so nothing will happen to us."

"Pete, only you are missing." James added. The boy was pleading with his eyes.

"Uff, alright!"

"Yes!" James and Sirius shouted happily.

"Now we just have to choose the right joke." Sirius said.

"You say little ..." Peter looked up and lay down on his bed.

"We could go to the library and see if we find something in any book that inspires us." Remus suggested.

"See?" Sirius pointed his finger at Remus and looked at the other two. "This is how we work!" he sent the boy a flying kiss and went back to his bed.

The boys spent all hours after class in the library. They desperately leafed through countless books in the hope of finding something to inspire them, but it was useless. Until casually they found the perfect idea thanks to something that happened to Peter. It was harmless, stupid and still quite funny and they thought it might be okay to start. They organized the plan in great detail and then, on Halloween, they put it into action. It wasn't very difficult - they had to find the right spell and then try it out to be sure it would work.

That evening the four were visibly excited.

"What do you have? You are strangely silent… "Dorcas noted. The girls looked suspiciously at the boys in front of them who shrugged and ignored them.

After dinner, Dumbledore made a short speech and after finishing he dismissed everyone inviting them to go to bed immediately since for the occasion they had stayed longer than usual in the Great Hall. But when it was time to get up, the Slytherins remained stuck to the benches. Everyone laughed with amusement.

"A good old Halloween joke to end the night!" exclaimed Dumbledore smiling. "Horace, please take care of it."

Professor Slughorn waved his wand and in no time the Slytherins broke away from their sessions.

"What do they have there?" asked a Ravenclaw pointing at some boys. Printed on the back they had written 'Happy Halloween dear snakes!' in fluorescent green. Then when everyone noticed the writing, they laughed again. It also amused some of the older Slytherins who showed more of their butt shaking it here and there, while others were red with anger.

Remus saw that everyone in the room, except for a few Slytherins, was laughing and he was happy.

"Well, with that I would say it's time to go to your dorms .. Prefects, drive everyone out, thanks!" declared Dumbledore.

This time everyone went out.

When they arrived in the common room there was still cheer in the air.

"Brilliant!" Mary yelled.

"True? I don't know why they took it so much, it was just a joke. " Dorcas said.

"Indeed!"Mary shrugged and then turned to the others. "I'm going to bed guys, see you tomorrow!"

"I'm going too. See you tomorrow!"

Everyone greeted the girls and then, smiling but still in silence, sat on the sofas in front of the large fireplace.

"Do you four hit it off with everything that just happened?" Lily looked at the boys one by one. "You don't talk, huh? Too bad, I wanted to compliment you, but obviously it wasn't you, so don't worry .. "

" My dear and sweet Lily. " Sirius said "you have four genes in front of you!"

"I doubt it." the girl made an amused face. "Anyway it was a good idea .. in the last period they didn't go down lightly and you took your revenge. You did well. "

"Evans? Are you OK?" James asked.

"Sure Potter. Just because Severus is my friend doesn't mean I always agree with what he says .. I also tried to make him think about you all, but he doesn't seem to want to change his mind. "

"Don't worry: whatever he feels, it's mutual." continued the boy with the glasses.

"How did you come up with this idea?"

"Thanks to me!" Peter exclaimed. "I sat on a chewing gum and we worked it out from there."

"Wow! And how did you do it? "

"We looked in the books for the spells we needed." Remus explained.

"I'm pleasantly surprised .. Well, at least it's over now."

Sirius stood up, walked over to Lily, put a hand on his shoulder and with a mischievous smile looked at the others and said,

"Oh no, this is just the beginning."