Chapter 14
December 18th, 1989-The British Museum, Great Russell St, London, England
Asha Jordan was in heaven.
She was surrounded by kids, seven of them from her eleven-year-old Lee to nineteen-year old Bill Weasley (who still counted as a kid in her book, never mind what the laws said), in a museum that she loved, with her husband by her side. She couldn't be happier.
"What's that, Mrs. Jordan?" one of the Weasley twins asked, pointing at a helmet. She thought that it was Fred, but she wasn't sure.
"That's a murmillo's helmet from Pompeii. A murmillo was a type of gladiator."
"It looks kind of like a fish," the other twin said. "A big green fish that would live in the Black Lake."
"Do you think merpeople ride them?" Patricia Stimpson asked seriously. The four eleven-year-olds laughed.
"Learn Mermish and ask," Remus Lupin suggested. "You can add it to your list."
"What list?" Percy Weasley asked. The four first years began explaining Patricia's Hogwarts bucket-list to Percy, who was very approving.
"What do you want to do once you're done with school, Bill?" Charlotte Greene asked the eldest Weasley. "You're in seventh year, aren't you?" Bill nodded as he watched Charlie point out a carving of a dragon to Sirius Black.
"Yes, mam. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. My mum wants me to work for the Ministry but…" he hesitated. "I want to be a cursebreaker."
"My brother's a cursebreaker," Charlotte said lightly. "Perhaps you'd like to speak with him?" Bill's face lit up.
"That'd be great!"
"Is Friday good for you?"
"Yes, Miss Greene." Charlotte smiled.
"Good. I can force him to come home for Christmas. Finally."
"Glad to be of service."
"I told you this was a good idea, Moony," Sirius said with a grin.
"That kids are enjoying themselves," Remus admitted. Patricia and her friends were running around looking at tapestries while the elder Weasleys had left with the Jordans to look at a collection of medieval weapons. "It's certainly going better than your other past-midnight plans. Remember when you decided to climb Gryffindor Tower in fourth year?" Sirius groaned.
"Vividly. That was one time, Moony. One time."
"Trying to break into the Slytherin common room from the lake?"
"Two times."
"What about when—"
"Okay! So I don't have the greatest track record. It worked this time, that's all that matters."
"You're an idiot."
"Don't let your daughter hear you say that." Remus shook his head.
"She's not my daughter, Padfoot. You know that's not allowed. Bloody Ministry," he muttered the last sentence but Charlotte heard him as she came to join them. She kissed his cheek.
"It's not the entire Ministry's fault that good werewolves aren't recognized," she said quietly. "You're doing the same as that Umbridge woman."
"Sorry, love."
Sirius left the two lovebirds alone and went to run around the museum with the other children. By the time their group got back together the kids were talking over each other about what they had seen and the adults (plus Sirius) were pleasantly tired and quite ready to head back to Diagon Alley to Floo home.
"Thanks for everything, Mr. Black," Bill said when they got to The Leaky Cauldron. "We had a great time."
"You're welcome, Bill." Sirius handed Bill the jar of Floo powder that he'd gotten from Tom. "Have a safe trip." Remus elbowed him.
"We're going with them, remember?"
"Right," Sirius choked out. "I think you bruised my liver."
Patricia waved goodbye to Lee and his parents before accepting the Floo powder from Charlie. After he had gone spinning away through the fireplace, she took a handful and passed the jar back to Remus. She took a deep breath before throwing the powder into the flames, which made saying "The Burrow" a lot easier than if she had breathed in a ton of ash.
"So," Sirius said to Remus once all the kids had gone "about that New Year's party—"
"No, Sirius. Just no."
June 1st, 1990- The Library, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Somewhere in Scotland
Lee, Fred, and George were trying, and failing, to get the Ravenclaw girls to stop studying.
"Look how nice it is outside," Lee wheedled. "Wouldn't you rather be sitting out by the lake?"
"Where we can talk—"
"—without Madame Pince hovering over our shoulders."
"We've only got a week before exams," Patricia reminded them as she turned the page of her Potions textbook. "You should be studying to." The boys blushed.
"Well yeah, but we're working on this prank—"
"—for after exams to get everyone's spirits up."
"Especially Gryffindor—"
"—since we've lost Quidditch and the House Cup."
"But we need your help."
"Why don't you owl Mr. Black," Grace Abbot suggested. "That's what you've been doing all week, isn't it?"
"Yeeeessss," Lee said "but we need inside help for the last bit."
"I don't think we want to know what that is," Violet Moon muttered. She frowned and reread a sentence of her DADA notes. "Isn't it curses that need intent? I've got it as jinxes."
"It's curses," Noe Lie replied absentmindedly. Violet scribbled over her notes and made the correction. "Do Moly plants have black roots or white roots?"
"Black." Noe nodded. Fred and George tried to turn the conversation back to pranking.
"Look, it would just be—"
"—casting some spells. We need more people—"
"—because we don't think we'll be able to finish it alone."
"Not on time anyway."
Patricia tilted her head sideways and looked up at the boys. Just casting some spells, they said… "What sort of spells?"
"Targeted ones."
"Transfiguring ones." A smile crept over Patricia's face as she thought of all the possibilities for the prank's results. Grace groaned and put her head on her textbook.
"That's it! We may as well pack up now, girls. We've lost her." Patricia giggled. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't resist a good prank. She had been raised by a Marauder!
"Shall we step out to our office?" Fred and George asked. Patricia grinned and Violet joined Grace in putting her head down and lamenting.
"Lets."
Planning the prank was actually harder than exams. Professor Darrow had them have a mock battle with stinging hexes and shield charms for their practical. The longer you lasted the more marks you got, simple. Everyone who wasn't a Ravenclaw would have failed History of Magic if Professor Binns actually marked the exams properly. Instead, according to all the older students, he marked all of them as if they were written by a Towler ancestor and everyone passed.
When their last exam was done the first years went and sat outside on what was another beautiful day, though all of the boys stayed far away from the lake. Patricia smiled to herself. That prank was still going strong.
After a night of sneaking around under House Elf invisibility charms, the Gryffindor/Ravenclaw prank group went down to breakfast with yawns and bags under their eyes. Casting the spells had taken a long time, and it was made even harder by the fact that Gryffindor House had been celebrating the end of the school year until 'wait, what time is it?' o'clock in the morning. That at least gave the boys an excuse for their obvious exhaustion. The girls had to tell everyone who asked that they'd been going though all their exam questions and hope that no one asked about them.
Noe's eyes widened when she saw Patricia eating breakfast as normal. "What—" Violet elbowed her friend and Noe quickly changed her question. "—did you get for question seven on the Charms exam?" Penelope Clearwater, who had sat down next to the first year girls, rolled her eyes.
"Don't worry, Lie, you'll pass. Ravenclaws always do." She began nibbling on a bit of toast. The three first year girls looked at each other and started on their breakfasts as well.
The first post owls soon arrived. Benvolio landed on the edge of Patricia's bowl of porridge and gave her a letter before stealing a strip of bacon from Grace and flying away to escape the coming chaos. Patricia tucked the letter into her robes and started mentally counting down. At 'one' it began.
Adrian Pucey was just lowering his goblet when he saw the scales forming on his hand. He spit out his mouthful of pumpkin juice, which hit Cassius Warrington in his slit-nosed face. The unwelcome transformation left Adrian a very unhappy snake when it was over. Not as unhappy as Warrington though. He would have been spitting mad if they had been turned into a type of snake that could spit.
Over at the Hufflepuff table the badgers that had been students were rolling around laughing at each other. Laughing with each other? Laughing with each other, that was loyalty right there. The mix of eagles and ravens at the Ravenclaw table (since all of the pranksters thought that Ravenclaw's symbol being an eagle made no sense) stood frozen on the benches until the birds that had been the first year boys thought that it might not be a bad idea to try a bit of low flying. The rest of their house ended up joining them, because they were birds and it would be criminal not to fly. Gryffindor's lion cubs (because no one was crazy enough to set full grown lions loose in the Great Hall) were play fighting, except for one cub that was trying to stop them.
That was probably Percy Weasley.
The teachers sitting at the High Table just stared at the menagerie until tiny Professor Flitwick let out a laugh. He clapped his hands over his mouth but wasn't able to stop a giggle from escaping. All attention was diverted from him when another laugh sounded, one that had never been heard in Hogwarts before.
Professor Snape was laughing.
The student-animals stopped what they were doing and stared at the Potions professor. His face turned red and his eyes bugged out as belly shaking laughter bubbled out of his throat. Then the potion kicked in for the rest of the professors and they all started laughing. It wasn't just the potion though. Anyone would have laughed had they been in the Great Hall that morning.
It was the first success for the New Marauders.
A/n: Happy New Year! Best of luck for 2016!
-Cynder2013