By Admiral Albia
Right. Let's get one thing straight;
Disclaimer; I do not own the Marauders, the Weasley twins, or any friends, family and enemies thereof. I do, however, own Bria, Tkaa, Binary, Milton, Aelops and Otto... oh, and the recipe for invisible chalk ;-)
Chapter One; Declaration of War
"Custard cream, anyone?" Fred asked the Marauders
innocently. Remus shook his head.
"No thanks, Fred, I hate the things. They do strange
things to me..." He watched for a reaction, and wasn't disappointed when
Fred reacted; starting to grin until he caught himself.
"Your loss, Prof- er, Remus? They're lovely. Anyone
else?" He offered the plate to Sirius.
"Ooh, yes please..." Remus noticed that Harry, Ron,
Hermione, Bill and Charlie had all gathered round and were aimlessly staring
at nothing; but the nothing they were staring at put the Marauders directly
in their line of vision. He wondered what the biscuits did; Remus
had, after all, taught the Weasley twins for a year.
It was at that exact moment that he found out, since
Sirius changed suddenly into a large canary. The spectators roared with
laughter.
"I knew it! I knew it!" Remus yelled over
the noise.
"D'you think we should rename him Fluffles?" Harry
called out, just as Sirius began to moult.
"I heard that, Harry Potter!" It was at this
moment that the Weasley twins turned into a matching pair of Toby jugs,
revealing James standing behind them holding a small box, his wand and
with a satisfied grin on his face.
"Zonko's Amazing Transfiguration Badges," he announced
to everyone. "Great things, all you do is to put them on the victim and
poke `em... finite incantum." Fred and George resumed their human
forms.
"Right. Fred, get the toffees..."
"Oh, now come on, you have to do these things properly..."
Fred and George looked up from the box that Fred had just conjured into
his hand.
"What?"
"Let's do this properly. A prankster war; one week
to prepare, one week to wreak havoc." Fred and George looked at each other.
"Well... OK," Fred said.
"Goodo! Harry, we need that Cloak back now, please...
I promise I'll give it back afterwards."
"Well, they'll be somewhere private, somewhere they don't think the others know about," Hermione said reasonably. "Incidentally, do Fred and George know who wrote the Marauders' Map yet?"
"No. Hey, that means the adults can spy on them!"
"Spy? No, they're too busy," said a gloomy voice from behind them; it was Moaning Myrtle. "And if you're looking for your father, Harry, he's where he always was. In my toilet..."
"Yeah, right," somebody muttered from another cubicle.
"It's OK, it's just us," Harry said hastily. "Can we come in?"
"Do you mind?" the falsetto shrieked, "This is a girl's toilet!"
"And you're a girl, are you, Sirius?" someone called out.
"Well, no. But it's the principle of the thing..." The cubicle doors opened.
"Hello and welcome to Marauder HQ!" James called in a cheery voice. "Please shut the door, and warn us if you see anyone coming as we are sadly missing one member of our group this day and age... Sirius, what are you doing?"
"You said you wanted a Divination one, didn't you?" Sirius' voice was muffled by the lid of the trunk he was looking in. The words `S. Black` were just visible on the lid.
"Yeah, but that's your work stuff... oh!"
"Look, this is the best I can do, OK? I've written my piece, I'll show you once they've gone. Don't want to spoil the surprise, do we?"
"James, I need that Demiguise hair... thanks..." Remus had cleaned out two of the sinks and was using them as cauldrons. "And... powdered chair leg... sheesh, we're using chair leg in a potion... thanks..."
"Shall I leave `Wormtail` on the receipts?" Sirius called from his cubicle. Curious, Harry looked in. Sirius was now sitting on the toilet using his trunk - with the lid open and a board over it - as a table, and he was writing something. Harry frowned. Receipts?
"Nah, leave him out. "
"OK... it just feels so weird writing `Moony, Padfoot and Prongs` after all this time... damn! I've put Wormtail..."
"Cross it out, then." Remus seemed to be paying more attention to whatever he was doing in the second sink than to Sirius' writing woes. "Chalk please... thanks. Right, here goes... he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny bucket, tapped it with his wand until it grew, then reached under the sink and fiddled around; the pipe disconnected. He put the bucket under the plug-hole and pulled out the plug. The dark brownish-white liquid gurgled into the bucket and, looking disgusted, he poured it into the potion that was bubbling merrily in the other sink.
There was a soft implosion and, when Harry, Ron and Hermione next looked into the sink, they saw nothing.
"Um, has something gone wrong?"
"Nope, it's invisible. Flour please, James..." Remus sprinkled some flour over the sink bottom and watched as it settled over a small lump in the middle, which he picked up carefully between finger and thumb.
"Damn it all, I've put Wormtail again..."
"How d'you spell `fornication`?
"Is anyone interested?"
"Well, I am..."
"Uh, guys... we have a problem here..."
"What?"
"We're out of Dungbombs."
"WHAT?"
"We can't be out of Dungbombs, we're never out of Dungbombs!"
"Right, how's this; `Hi, I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat...`"
"C'mon, let's go," Hermione whispered, and she almost dragged the entranced Harry and Ron out of the toilets.
"Hey! What did you do that for?"
"I just thought... maybe we should go and find Fred and George..."
"Hey, yeah!"
"Great idea!"
"Took you long enough to find us, didn't it?" Fred said as they ducked into the room, "I mean, considering the fact that the changing rooms don't usually explode..."
"Found the adults," Ron said, poking a squishy black lump; it gurgled a little then exploded, showering him with small black lumps.
"Really? What're they doing?"
"No idea, they're keeping it all under wraps. Said they didn't want to spoil the surprise... what is this stuff?"
"The core for our fake wands, idiot. Leave it alone, you'll wreck it..."
"Just out of interest, how do you determine who wins?" Hermione asked.
"McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout are judging, `cos they're completely unbiased."
A/n; Well, whaddaya know? This war is gonna be big, if they're impressing Professor McGonagall...
Review, pleeeeease!
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