Story Title/Link: It was a prank bro

School and Theme: Mahoutokoro/Injustice

Mandatory Prompt: [Pairing - any] Sirius Black/Lily Evans

Additional Prompt(s):

Year: 4

Word count: 1908

"It.. It isn't fair, Red. All that effort, the laughter, the fun we had together — all those feelings and for what?"

Despite the tenseness in the air and the glass flying out of Sirius' hand, shattering on impact with the wall and spilling its amber contents across the floor, Lily Evans didn't flinch. Being the only level headed female in a group of guy friends, she was used to them losing their heads on a regular basis. Peter was the sole exception, he was a coward who would've been better off sorted with the pacifists in Hufflepuff. It was a harsh thought about the timid young man, but it was nonetheless true.

It was a fact that she was the sole level headed female in the group while James, Sirius and Remus so often lost their heads with her to balance them out. She would never judge them, if they were being stupid then she might poke fun but it was all part of her own little mad way to deal with their outbursts.

Bad day? Belt your frustrations to the world with Lily to be your emotional balancing board.

Feeling depressed? Sit down, drink and mope with the compassionate redhead to take your mind off what was making you depressed.

Needed help with homework because your brain was melting out your ears from boredom? She could be a little tricky about that one, but, if you bribed her with the correct items, she might consider it. The only one out of the group that had any form of consistent luck with this was James and everyone else pinned it down as her throwing her dope of a boyfriend a bone.

"Sirius, I can't help you if I don't know what the problem is." Lily looked up from the book she had been reading in the Gryffindor common room to her distraught friend. Sirius was not one of the more emotionally expressive group members, not much outside of general mischief or a dogged playfulness anyways, so for him to be mad and upset at the same time was a new experience for her.

"Marlene dumped me is what's wrong!"

Ah, that was the problem. If Lily was perfectly candid with Sirius she'd have said that she was surprised with it taking this long for the girl to do so. It wasn't that SIrius was a bad guy, he wasn't, but he could be extremely juvenile and irresponsible. Extremely was an understatement here. Almost to the point of being exhausting really.

Marking the page in her book, she cast it aside on the cushion beside her. "Did she happen to say why she was dumping you, Sirius? You two were just fine yesterday. If I didn't know any better, yesterday you two were happy as a newly engaged couple. It took Professor McGonagall and the Headmaster to separate you two from that rather public intense snogging," Lily said as she folded her hands thoughtfully, fingers interlacing as the gears in her mind turned. Marlene was absolutely head over heels for Sirius. They were only going on eighteen and they had professed intentions to marry after graduation. Hell, the sappy and overly dramatic gestures of love were as sweet as they were stomach turning at the worst of times.

"If you aren't going to help, I'll sort this out myself!" Sirius said as he stomped his foot like a petulant child.

The irritation in Sirius' voice made Lily's eyebrow twitch. "I was thinking, you short-sighted mutt," she said crossly.

Poking fun and joking around with the boys was one thing, it was regular par for the course, but being cross with any of them was a rarity. It took a lot to rouse her ire and that meant something considering she was the very antithesis of the redhead stereotype in most regards. Even when the blow-up of her former friendship with Severus occurred, she was only mildly annoyed at him while declaring him anathema.

"Her breaking up with you makes no sense. I could set my watch by the frequency of displays of affection in public between you two. Surprisingly accurate down to the minute if you want to know the degree. Now why would your girlfriend, the woman you have made public declarations you were going to marry once we graduate, break up with you so suddenly? Use your brain and read between the lines for once in your life, Sirius," Lily said rubbing at her temples.

The silence was thick between the pair. It was rather fortunate that Sirius had chosen now to have his little melt down. Everyone who had opted to go home for Yule had left yesterday on the Express and the number of students that were present made this little episode more or less a shadow performance. Marlene was not here, they'd seen her off at the platform last night so Lily had to ponder how she broke up with Sirius when she wasn't even at Hogwarts. House-elves were one option, word a command in the right way to sound like a kindly asked request and the little buggers fell all over themselves. She quickly eliminated it as the method after a moment of thought. House-elves were far from stealthy or inconspicuous, they made too much noise to do anything simply.

A pre-written letter left with a school owl told to deliver said parcel today was another option. Owl mail deliveries were frequent enough and the fact that the school owls were non-descript would give a sort of anonymity to a letter. If there was a trinket attached, it could be attributed as an early christmas gift delivery. It was another discarded idea since Sirius hadn't come in waving a letter with fury.

"She left me a bloody lump of coal and the ring I gave her! In a shoe box delivered by a school owl this morning! Is there any other conclusion that can be reached from that? I would bloody well love to hear it if you have any alternatives." Sirius' tone was laced with irritation but Lily was the only smart person to turn to since the professors would be of no assistance in deciphering why what was happening.

A shoe box with a lump of coal and the ring, huh? Now that was certainly interesting to say the least. "Do you have the box, said lump of coal and the ring on you?" Lily asked.

Sirius grumbled about something under his breath before reaching into his pocket and pulled out the shoe box containing the other two items. "I don't thin-"

"Shh, I'm working here. Sit, read, do something while I work this out before you do something you might potentially regret for the rest of your life," Lily said, snatching the box from Sirius. The exterior of the shoe box was a bland brown with a white star logo on all four sides and the top of the lid denoting it was a muggle brand. After processing that, she discarded the lid to the cushion beside her and peered at the two objects that were at the heart of this whole conspiracy rattling around Sirius' mind. The ring was rose gold with an expertly cut smoky quartz heart in a dragon claw setting. She barely gave the ring a moment since it had been her who had helped Sirius pick out the ring for Marlene.

The lump of coal on the other hand was very strange. It was uneven, chunky and rough to the touch as she picked it up, but she knew there was something wrong with it. For several minutes, she rotated the chunk of coal in different ways before her eyes caught sight of what was inscribed on the inside lid of the shoe box.

"You are an idiot."

Sirius looked affronted by the words as he held a hand over his heart.

"Read the inside lid of the shoe box cover out loud," Lily instructed after throwing the chunk of coal at the wizard. Watching him fumble to not drop it made up for a tiny bit of having to listen to his whining.

Sirius looked at the shoe box cover in question. "It was a prank. I want my ring back." It took him a minute to realize what was written in Marlene's loopy cursive handwriting. "She pranked me?" he asked incredulously. As if on cue, the chunk of coal began to crumble away in Sirius' hands. At the center of the coal chunk was a masculine but light weight silver necklace that had a closed pendant dangling from it.

"Are you going to stare at it like an idiot or see what she got you? Obviously, she wouldn't have gotten you something like that if she was breaking up with you," Lily said, crossing her arms across her chest expectantly.

Shaking his head clear of any loose thoughts, Sirius popped the latch on the pendant to reveal two sides to it. One on side was an engraved inscription that read 'To the dog who stole my heart' in a fancy script that Marlene couldn't begin to pull off with any amount of spell work. On the other side it was charmed to cycle through a selection of photos from their happiest moments together.

"She pranked you to prove how much she loves you, huh? A match made in hell for everyone that annoys you. Well, now that you know your girlfriend isn't dumping you, can I go back to reading my book?" Lily asked, kicking Sirius in the shin to get him out of her personal bubble.

"She is so getting it when she comes back from the break," Sirius said with a serious tone despite the fact he was almost smiling ear and grasping the necklace close to his chest like it was the most precious gift on Earth.

"It was just a prank, let it go. You, Remus and James do it to everyone else often enough. It was a matter of time before it came back to bite you on the tail." Lily was already grabbing her book again and sliding the bookmark out of its place to pick up from where she left off. "Take the box with you and go somewhere else. Raoul was just about to make hot, passionate love to—"

Sirius bolted up the guys side stairs to the dormitories. The last thing he wanted to know about was Lily's trashy muggle romance novel.

Lily snickered to herself as she rolled her eyes and went back to reading her mystery novel. Just because she loved to make Sirius and the guys squirm by making them think she read that sort of horrible romance books did not mean she actually did. The only thing she used those types of books for was to feed her monster book for their Care of Magical Creatures class. It wasn't her stash of horribly raunchy anyways, served Petunia right for being such a wench towards her. On the plus side, Reginald her monster book made for a rather effective guard pet.

"Heh, let him have an awkward dream about that and bother me with something that simple again without looking at everything first," she said to herself as her laughter died.