DISCLAIMER: None of the elements of the Harry Potter Universe belong to me. Only the plot idea and events of this story are mine.


The Great Christmas Prank

The sun was brightly streaming through the window one Saturday morning when Harry woke up. He had been at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry the first half of the year already and now Christmas Break had begun. He threw a pillow at Ron, who was still huddled underneath his blankets.

"Wha-?" Ron grunted.

"Get up, it's morning. I think we slept in." Harry said.

The two boys quickly got up, dressed, and hurried down to the Gryffindor common room. The only other person who had stayed for Christmas was Hermoine, who was already sitting in one of the armchairs by the fire doing what else? Reading.

"About time you boys woke up, you missed breakfast; in fact it's almost time for lunch." Hermoine said matter-of-factly.

"Great, let's go, I'm starved!" Ron almost yelled while already ducking out of the portrait hole.


After lunch, the three of them walked up the main staircase on their way back to the Common Room. Suddenly Harry remarked almost as if to himself "We need to think of a really great prank to pull on Christmas, I want Sirius to be impressed. It'd have to be for the Professors though since they're the only other ones here." They all pondered this thought for a few moments, trying to think of something worthy of the legendary Marauders. As they said the password to the Fat Lady ("sniffledewiffle") and entered the Common Room through the portrait hole they started to share their ideas.

"We COULD do something to Mrs. Norris." Ron said thoughtfully as they took seats in armchairs in front of the fire.

"No, that's just a little bit TOO predictable." Hermoine said.

"I've got it!" Harry said so loudly he almost shouted. Ron and Hermione crowded closer in order to hear him. They couldn't stop laughing at the idea; this was going to be amazing.


Christmas morning came. All three were still a little tired from staying up late the last few nights getting everything ready but nevertheless had a bit of trouble hiding their excitement to see their plans in action. They had planned a stunt that would make even Fred and George proud. After everyone had hastily opened their presents in anticipation of what was ahead and Ron was done complaining about the sweater his mother had sent him (Maroon again, of course), they all went down to the Great Hall. It was more amazing a sight than ever before. They stood and gawked for a few moments, the professors had added to it this morning apparently. Nearly every inch of the vast hall was covered in Christmas colors and it was the most spectacular sight any of them had ever seen before (and at this school, that was saying something). There was only one large round table this year for everyone to sit at, which made sense since the three of them were the only students who had stayed.

"Merry Christmas!" Professor Dumbledore called jovially when he saw them.

"Merry Christmas!" they cheerily replied as they took the three empty seats at the table to begin the meal.

After they'd been eating for a few minutes the three of them started having a hard time suppressing laughs, and their professors were starting to notice. They had all been teaching students like the Marauders, Fred and George Weasley, and all the rest long enough to know SOMETHING was up when any of their students started acting like this.

"Are you three quite all right?" Professor McGonagall finally asked after listening to them for several minutes. She gave them all a deeply appraising look as if she could read what they were up to just by looking at them.

"We're fine, Professor." Harry said through a giggle, looking down at his plate.

Finally, when the meal was half over all hell seemed to break loose, all the food either exploded or started flying around the room trying to hit the teachers in the face. Real snow in shades of red, pink, blue, green, gold, silver, and white started to blizzard around the room from the enchanted ceiling, and all the dishes got up and started dancing around together while singing loudly:

"Hey diddle diddle,
The cat played the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
and the dish ran away with the spoon."

By the time the professors had disenchanted the food and dishes, and stopped the blizzard, Hermoine, Ron, and Harry were laughing so hard that they were rolling around on the floor almost crying. They quickly stopped however, when they saw Professor McGonagall's face, even covered in Christmas pudding it managed to look deadly. But unfortunately, when they saw how angry she was they couldn't help it, and started to laugh again.

"POTTER, WEASLEY, GRANGER," she yelled. "DO STOP LAUGHING THIS INSTANT!" They stopped. Luckily, someone came to their aid before she got a chance to think about how many months of detention they should get.

"Now Minerva, do calm down." Professor Dumbledore said with his eyes twinkling more than ever despite his robes being covered in food at the moment. "Their little prank didn't hurt anyone." He was smiling merrily as he said this. Of course it was true, in fact, besides Snape (whose face showed quite clearly that he'd kill them on the spot if he thought he had the slightest chance of getting away with it) and McGonagall, all the other professors seemed to find the whole thing quite humorous. Most were actually laughing while they used their wands to clean everything up, including themselves of course. In fact, when she saw the look on Snape's face, McGonagall calmed down considerably and even seemed for an instant as if she had to stop herself laughing as well. Professor Dumbledore then turned to the three pranksters. "Will you three please help clean up the mess you made?" his eyes were still twinkling and he looked ready to laugh. As the three started to help, they somehow knew they weren't going to get in very much trouble for this. After all, pranks were a part of school life at Hogwarts. If anyone understood that, it was Dumbledore.