The students of Hogwarts had been finding letters all over the place. Concealed in their copy of the Daily Prophet, in their potions textbook, in their shoes, one student even woke up with one glued to their head.
Every letter was the same word for word.
Dear Students of Hogwarts,
You're probably wondering why we are writing to you, and the answer is simple, the future of awesome pranks and random conversations is in jeopardy.
Let us explain since our departure from Hogwarts, not one of you have performed a prank, and that won't do, so to give you an incentive, we are offering a year supply of our products to the person or persons who complete our list of challenges,
1. Redecorate the potions classroom in a way that bugs Snape.
How you decorate it is up to you. Get creative, children.
2. Walk around barefoot with paint on the soles of your feet.
It'll bug Filch. He needs to be annoyed. Otherwise, he'd go insane, so you are doing a public service; if you think about it.
3. Use water balloons, dung bombs and spray paint in one prank.
4. "Swap houses".
Sit at any house table that isn't your own, wear that house uniform and no matter what, claim the sorting hat put you there.
5. Hug Professor McGonagall and tell her, "I love you".
Do this every day for two weeks.
6. Break into Snape's quarters, steal his stuff and then auction it off in potions.
7. Opposite day.
Do the opposite of whatever a Professor tells you to do.
8. Pretend to be injured to get Hagrid to carry you to the castle.
When you get to the castle, tell Hagrid you were faking it.
More challenges will arrive at a later date.
Sincerely Fred and George Weasley.
Each house took a vote on whether to snitch to the professors. Overwhelmingly, the answer was no; they wouldn't. They needed some fun.
The students waited for whoever would be brave enough to start the challenge. It was a student nobody would've guessed in a million years, Neville Longbottom.
Neville was tired of being seen as the clumsy boy that Snape belittled. He wanted people to see him. For the brave Gryffindor, he was.
Neville chose to do the Swap Houses challenge, and the house he chose was Slytherin.
At lunchtime, he sat at the Slytherin table. He wore a robe charmed to show a Slytherin emblem and his tie Slytherin colours.
The Slytherins knowing it was a prank and curious about what Snape would do about a Gryffindor claiming to be a Slytherin, just carried on as if Neville wasn't there.
It took five minutes for Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall to notice Neville at the Slytherin table.
Somehow sensing the Professors observations, the students descended in silence and waited to see what was going to happen.
They watched as the Professors got down from the teacher's table and walked over to the Slytherin table,
"Mister Longbottom, please explain why you're not sitting at the Gryffindor table?" Professor McGonagall asked, her left eyebrow arched.
"Because I am sitting at my house table," Neville told her, feigning puzzlement at the question.
"Mister Longbottom, you have never been a member of my house, thank Merlin," Professor Snape said, muttering the last two words. Because Professor McGonagall was protective of her Gryffindors, and he didn't want to be on the receiving end of her temper.
"Um, I think I know what house the sorting hat put me into, and that house was Slytherin," Neville said, looking at Snape as if he was crazy, causing restrained laughter from the other students.
"Mister Longbottom, I don't know what is going on here, but you are a member of Gryffindor, and you should be proud of that," Professor McGonagall huffed. Taking it personally that one of her lion cubs would pretend they weren't a Gryffindor.
"Professor McGonagall, if I were a Gryffindor, I'd be proud of it, but I am a Slytherin. I don't understand why you and Professor Snape keep denying it," Neville said, acting confused.
"Longbottom, you have not nor will you ever be a member of Slytherin," Professor Snape said. He glared at him. That usually put him in his place, but not today.
"Ask any student you want. They'll back me up," Neville said, knowing Snape would pick a Slytherin and wanting to test how on board the Slytherins were with the challenge.
"Fine, Mister Malfoy, what house does Mister Longbottom belong to?" Professor Snape asked.
Feeling the glance of every student on him, each expecting him to ruin Neville's prank, Draco Malfoy did the exact opposite,
"Um, Longbottom is a Slytherin, sir," Draco said, shocking himself and everyone else.
"Now, if you don't mind, Professors. My fellow Slytherins and I want to eat our lunch in peace," Neville said, grinning.
Both Professor Snape and McGonagall looked up at Dumbledore with a silent plea on what they should do next.
The Headmaster seeing no problem with a Gryffindor sitting at the Slytherin table, shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "come back and eat lunch, who cares whether he's a Slytherin or Gryffindor."
As Neville watched his head of the house and the potions master walk away, he couldn't help but think, Neville one, everybody else nil.
Snape wrote to Neville's Gran about his antics. Because he wouldn't know what a sense of humour is if it slapped him in the face every day for a month.
She sent a Howler. But thanks to the Weasley twins, silence a Howler spray. He didn't have to hear a word of her rant. Much of which he was sure was how much of a disappointment he would be to his parents.
But from the stories he had gotten from Remus Lupin in his third year, Neville knew both had a wicked sense of humour, and they would find what he was doing funny. And he was going to continue doing it.