Chapter 14: A Harmless Prank on Snape
Summer ended and we found ourselves once again heading back to Hogwarts. I wrote to Addi more often that summer and got to see her again in Diagon Alley before we went back, and again at King's Cross Station before we left. I guess you could say things really started getting interesting our third year. The beginning went smoothly. We had lots more classes to keep up with, like Divination. Our teacher, Professor Trelawney, was constantly making predictions. Most of them were ridiculous. Like the one she told Sirius on our first day of class. We were starting palm reading. She decided to use Sirius as an example. She looked at his hand and said that he had one of the shortest lifelines she'd ever seen. Sirius had looked a little concerned, but after a few classes we realized that her predictions were fakes. Then we had fun. Sirius would look at James's palm and say something like, "Hm, let's see now…oh my, it looks as though you're going to have a terrible future. Attacked by a dragon sometime next week, fall ill next month, oh, and what's this? You'll marry Lily Evans before the age of twenty." James would slap him and Professor Trelawney would give them a strange glance.
Snape was really starting to annoy us with his mudblood jokes. We plotted a very evil prank to play on him. Sirius wrote him a note that was supposedly from Professor Beaker.
To: Severus Snape
Please meet me in the dungeon this evening at eight o' clock to discuss your grade on your last exam.
Thank you,
Professor Beaker"I'm telling you, it's perfect," Sirius insisted to us. "Snape would listen to Beaker if he told him to use the Avada Kedavra curse on himself."
"I don't know," I said doubtfully.
"Come on Remus, he is really rude with all of those mudblood comments," said James. "He deserves it." James was right. He had been really ignorant lately. I nodded. We sent Peter to take the letter to the owlery and send it using a school owl.
"So," said Sirius. "Tonight when he goes down to the dungeon, we first steal his wand, then we lock him in, and bewitch all of the stuff in there to fall off the shelves. He'll still be locked in there tomorrow morning when Beaker shows up, and he'll get blamed for all of it."
"It's great," said James. "Stupid greasy git deserves it."
That night at quarter of eight, we left the common room under the invisibility cloak and sneaked to the entrance of the dungeon.
"He's coming," whispered James, a few minutes after we arrived. "I'll get his wand. James carefully slipped Snape's wand out of his pocket and under the cloak as Snape entered the room.
"Professor Beaker?" asked Snape as he walked in.
"Quick," I hissed. Sirius closed the door and performed the locking spell on it. James waved his wand, and we listened as things inside the room began to fall off of the shelves and crash to the floor. Snape shouted.
"Let me out of here! Someone trapped me in here! The door's locked! Help!" James placed Snape's wand on the ground in front of the door so it would appear that he'd dropped it there. We covered our mouths to keep from laughing and tiptoed up the stairs. At the top, we couldn't hear his screams, so we knew no one would find him before morning. When we were back in the dorm room, we exploded into fits of laughter.
The next day we had potions class first thing in the morning. We stood behind a corner and watched Professor Beaker descend the stairs to the dungeon. We heard him shout when he got to the bottom.
"What happened in here! Snape!" he roared. We tiptoed down the stairs.
"I didn't do it," said Snape. "I was locked in when I came to discuss my grade on the last exam last night. You weren't here."
"What are you talking about?" roared Beaker. Snape reached in his pocket and pulled out the paper. It was blank. Sirius had written it in special ink that disappears after five hours.
"Nice try," said Professor Beaker. "That'll be one weeks detention, and five points from Slytherin."
"If that was me, Gryffindor's points would be negative numbers," muttered Sirius, sounding a bit annoyed. Beaker glanced at the doorway where we were standing.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped.
"We're here for class, sir," I said. He nodded and continued to look at us suspiciously..
"Wow, what happened in here?" asked Sirius, staring at the shattered glass jars on the floor with odd looking liquids now seeping out of them.
"Nothing of your concern," said Professor Beaker, waving his wand to clean up the mess. "Now get ready for class." The rest of the class had arrived. Beaker hardly seemed angry with Snape at all. Sirius was right. He would have gotten a lot angrier if it had been one of us. But still, our prank worked, we didn't get caught, and Snape looked upset and terrified. All in all, it was another success for the Marauders.
Pranks went well the beginning of our third year and we can proudly say that we got 94 owls home before Christmas Break. James and Sirius finished the animagi potion, which scared me since they were so good at blowing things up. I didn't know what I'd do if something happened to them when they took it. I'd be horrified, and I'd feel so guilty. They were doing this all for me. But I had plenty of time to worry. The potion had to sit for 730 days before it would be ready. Two years. We hid it under one of the beds in our dorm room. We didn't have to worry about anyone finding it. The room was so messy that even all of us were afraid to look under the beds.