All Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not me.
"REVENGE!" boomed a voice in the Gryffindor common room that night.
"Padfoot ..."
"I shall wreak bloody vengeance on those who have wronged me!"
"Padfoot!"
"He will regret this day!"
"SIRIUS!" roared James finally.
Sirius blinked and looked down at James. "Er ... yeah. Sorry, Prongsy," he said, smiling sheepishly. Then his face darkened again and he began making violent mid-air gestures. "But I'm going to kill him. I'm going to grab that oversized nose, tear it off and ram it up Malfoy's--"
"That's not going to win Gryffindor any points," James reminded him loudly.
They were lounging in the common room again, preparing a plan of attack. Or, more accurately, trying to prepare a plan of attack.
"I can't believe how underhand that was!" Remus exclaimed. "I mean, I know they're Slytherins, but that was way below the belt. Two hours gutting toads ..." He shuddered.
"I can well believe it," James grumbled.
"Well, it's like I said," said Peter, shaking his head. "We're just going to have to play them at their own game."
"I really don't want to have to cover myself in potions just to get one up on the snakes," James said doubtfully. "Anyway, if Remus or I tried that ... well, you know what we're like at potions. We'd end up with some irreversible ... affliction ... Argh!" He buried his head in his hands frustratedly and ruffled his hair. "Come on! Why are we in Gryffindor and not Slytherin?"
There was a thoughtful silence.
"Because only losers like Greasy-Locks and Co. get put in there," growled Sirius. "Pathetic little freaks who're anointed Dark Wizards from birth. Underhand little toe-rags who wouldn't know honour if it belted them in the face. Disgusting little--"
"Bravery, chivalry, honour, that sort of stuff ..." Peter interrupted. "We're really not cut out for a fight against a group of weasels who'll stoop to any level to get their way." He looked downcast.
"Exactly. They're playing to their strengths, ie. weaselling points away from Gryffindor, so we have to play to ours," James said, looking around.
They waited pointedly.
"Well ... I don't have that part figured out yet," he admitted, "but I'm getting there."
"We just have to do everything by the book," said Remus. "No stooping to Slytherin standards, or lack thereof. It'll be a better victory if we don't have to cheat."
"Now that's a Gryffindor trait," grinned James, gesturing at Remus. "We can defend ourselves and win points properly. We're already in agreement that they can't beat us a Quidditch."
Remus and Peter nodded.
"Okay, but we have to prepare ourselves for anything they throw at us. We need defences!" boomed Sirius, standing up. "We need to know what they're up to in that slimy pit of fiery Hell they call their common room. We need ..." here his eyes took on an inspired look, "to get a man in there."
"Er ... Si?" said Peter, sounding slightly nervous. "We don't even know where their common room is. And we'll undoubtedly need a password. In fact, they'll probably have torture devices in place for any unsuspecting soul who wanders into their domain. They'll hang their broken, tortured bodies on the common room wall ... as a warning." He gulped.
Sirius looked at the other three darkly. "Yeah, I wouldn't put that past that lot." He slapped the table with the palm of his hand. "Well, we're just going to have to brave the depths."
"We can't all four of us fit under my invisibility cloak, you know," James told him. "Three, maybe, but not four."
Peter, who had the unfortunate habit of tripping over the invisibility cloak, thus resulting in many a detention, jumped up. I'll go ... look up counter-curses in the library!" He took off out the portrait hole. "Let me know how the break-in goes!"
And he was gone.
The other three stared after him. "Well," said Remus after a substantial pause, "looks like that's that problem solved."
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
All was quiet in the passage leading to the dungeons. The intimidating darkness swallowed everything whole and the silence smothered everything like cotton-wool.
Suddenly a loud, bloodcurdling howl, rather like a dog baying at the moon, penetrated the silence, striking terror into the hearts of all who heard it.
"My foot, my foot, my bloody foot!" a voice half squeaked, half whispered.
"Sorry, Rem," muttered another voice. "I can't see."
"Getting close to the full moon, hmmmmm?" asked a third voice. "That noise'll definitely keep people away. Nice one, Moony!"
"What?" There was the sound of someone hopping on the spot. "Oh, yeah ..."
"Shhhhh!" said the second voice, with a distinctly soldier-like air. "We can't risk being found out. There's no telling what the enemy'll do."
"So, where to now?" asked voice no. three. "We don't have a clue where we're going."
"We wait. Obviously it'll be in the dungeons somewhere, and anyone going down to the dungeons has to walk past us."
The voices were silenced by the sudden sound of approaching footsteps. In the gloom, they could just make out the downright frightening face of a Slytherin prefect as he walked past. The disembodied voices followed behind until the prefect stopped before a bit of damp wall. "Grindewald," he said, and the wall slide aside.
The unseen intruders sneaked in behind him into a low-ceilinged underground room. They looked around interestedly. The dark wood and the green tinge from the dim lights gave the room an ominous quality. "No wonder the Slytherins are such a miserable bunch of sadistic gits," whispered Sirius gleefully. "Look where they have to live!"
"Where's Snape?" breathed James.
"There," Remus muttered, pointing to a small group of people a short way away. "Look, you can see the fire reflecting off his obscenely large nose."
Indeed, Snape's nose looked like a rather odd-shaped light bulb, one of the few sources of light in the room.
They tiptoed their way over. Snape, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle sat near a painting depicting a particularly violent scene.
"We'll just have to find it," Malfoy was saying.
"But we'll need a password, won't we?" asked Goyle. "And they'll probably have traps set. You'll be hung by your skivvies from the ceiling ... as a warning." He gulped.
"Don't be idiotic!" snapped Malfoy. "They don't have the brains or the cunning to do something like that. They walked right into our little ploy today ..." his face took on an almost dreamy expression, "and they couldn't have made it any better ..."
The four boys guffawed.
"So," said Snape. "When should we break in? I'll make an invisibility potion. It won't last for more than ten minutes, but it'll be enough time to follow a Gryffindor to their common room and find out the password, so we can go at night."
"Tomorrow night would be best," Malfoy answered. "Gryffindor are playing Ravenclaw on Wednesday, so they'll all probably be getting a fairly early night."
Snape smiled greasily. "Wonderful. We'll go about one in the morning just to be sure."
The Marauders looked at each other, outraged. Sirius, looking half livid, half delighted at the opportunity to hex Snape without him seeing, went for his wand. "No!" hissed Remus, grabbing his wrist. "They'll know we're here!"
Grudgingly, he put it back in his pocket. "Slimy git ... wouldn't touch his skivvies ... grumble ..."
James nudged the other two and motioned towards the exit. Throwing one last contemptuous glance at Snape, Sirius let himself be led to the door. Looking round to check no one was watching, they let themselves out.
They made their way quickly up to Gryffindor Tower with minimal injuries.
"Gobbledegook."
The portrait hole swung open and they entered their common room. Sirius wasted no time in launching into a tirade about Snape, security measures and broken noses. "We'll have to tell everyone to be on their guard! We're going to have to track Snape and Co., we can take one each. I'll take Snape. Who wants Malfoy?"
"Sirius ..."
"You take Malfoy, Moony, you've got good hearing ..."
"Sirius!"
"You and Peter can take Crabbe and Goyle, Jamie. It's not like Crabbe and Goyle are going to be difficult to hear, stomping about like a pair of--"
"SIRIUS!" roared James, again.
"What?"
"Well, if we know they're coming ... we can prepare. You know, confirm Goyle's skivvies theory..."
Sirius looked intrigued. "Go on."
"Well, we know when they're coming, right? So if we trap them, we can call Professor McGonagall and next thing we know ... Slytherin are in the negatives!"
"Prongs, my man. You are a genius!"
James nodded affirmatively.
"Only one thing, though," Remus said.
"Which is ...?"
"I refuse ... refuse ... to allow them to be in our common room in only their skivvies. No...way."
James laughed and Sirius grimaced. "That won't be a problem, mi amigo."
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
"Are all the preparations in place?" asked Sirius.
"Yep, everything seems to be in order," answered Peter.
The four boys stood back to admire their handiwork. Sirius was positively writhing with glee. "Oh, Snapey's going to get it! Slytherin won't know what hit them!"
"How long have we got?" asked James.
"Half and hour," Remus answered, grinning.
Sirius shot across the room and hurled himself into an armchair next to the fire, out of which he abruptly jumped up. "No, I can't sit down ..." He began pacing. "Git ... heh ... this'll be good ... slimy ... mumble ..."
"Prongs?" asked Remus.
"Yeah?"
"Do you still have your camera?"
James eyes lit up and, as quietly as possible, he bounded up to their dormitory to get it. He returned moments later, grinning like a maniac and waving it about. "Proof!"
"Only, we can't plaster them everywhere, because everyone'll know it was us," Peter warned. "McGonagall'll be so annoyed she'll probably dock points from Gryffindor, too."
"Hmmmmm ... we'll find a way to get over that."
Remus nudged James. "What's Padfoot doing?"
Sirius was kneeling before the fire, gazing at the ceiling with a reverent expression on his face. He was rising and lowering his arms slowly.
"Erm, Sirius?"
Nothing, said Sirius.
"Sirius?"
"Shhhhhhhhh!"
"What're you doing?"
"I'm worshipping whichever god of mischief and mayhem is allowing me this chance to completely and utterly humiliate Snapey and Co." He closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply.
The three boys exchanged looks. They were beginning to worry about his sanity somewhat. How someone could go from stoically soldier-like to insanely furious to deliriously happy to his current state of tranquillity and peace in such a short space of time, with almost no change in circumstances, was beyond all of them.
But they knew better than to ask.
"It's quarter to!" hissed James, and they all leapt over to the fire and dove behind armchairs, flattening Sirius in the process. "You're ruining my meditation!" he exclaimed, annoyed.
"Oh, shut up."
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
About twenty minutes later, Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy, Gordon Goyle and Derek Crabbe were all making their way silently to the Fat Lady's portrait. "Right," whispered Snape. "We find the fifth year dorm, leave the 'evidence' and leave." He shot a pointed look at Crabbe and Goyle. "Quietly!"
In his hands he held his and Lucius' old wands.
Malfoy smirked. "They're going to be in the negatives when they get caught with our these. Oh, Professor, my wand was stolen! What will I dooooo...?"
"Indeed."
They had reached the portrait. "Gobbledegook," said Snape, and the Fat Lady let them in without even opening her eyes.
They crept in, one behind the other, and stood near the doorway. Snape snorted. "It's all red and gold. It's disgusting!"
He took a silent step forward, followed by the other three. Suddenly, he felt something loop around his ankles, binding them together. He lost his balance and fell over, only to be flipped upside down and hauled painfully off the ground. He screamed and started flapping like an overgrown bird. Next to him he could hear Malfoy doing the same. Crabbe and Goyle were shouting for instructions, and he could hear laughter and two people shouting "Petrificus Totalus!". And ... no ... he had to be imagining it. No! He was sure he could hear the clicking of a camera ...
He roared again and struggled to free himself. Confound it, he couldn't see a thing! It took a moment for him to realise that his robes were now wrapped snugly around his head. And he had green pyjamas with little silver snakes on them on under his robes, too ... he was glad his face was hidden.
The laughter was getting louder and more frantic. He recognised those voices, God knew he heard them often enough. "Black!" he screeched. "Untie me this instant! Potter!" He was wrestling with his robes, trying to get them back around his feet, but it was proving extremely difficult.
"Crabbe! Goyle! You'd better not just be standing there!"
He recognised Lupin's voice. "Oh, they're both lying in a full body-bind on the floor, so I don't think they'll be ... be ... " He burst out into helpless laughter again.
Curses! When he got free he was going to--
"WHAT, may I ask, is going on here?!" McGonagall. Snape snarled. That was all he needed. He may as well pack his stuff now.
"Mr Potter, kindly explain why Mr Snape and My Malfoy are hanging from the ceiling, and why Misters Crabbe and Goyle have been body binded!" she snapped. "And WHAT, more to the point, are they doing in here?"
"Well, Professor," Potter said, in a wheedling voice. "We had a suspicion that they were going to do something tonight to sabotage the game tomorrow, so we ... er ... took precautions ..."
"Yeah," agreed that accursed idiot, Black. "Look, he's got his wand out and everything. He was going to attack the captain! Malfoy, too. And the reason Crabbe and Goyle are on the floor is that they started towards us when Snapey here went up, so it was self-defence!" He was speaking in a genuine sort of voice. An I'm your best friend and I would never think of harming any living creature voice. When Snape got down he was going to rip out that voice-box with his teeth and -- THUMP.
He and Malfoy hit the floor, still enshrouded in their robes. They both teetered about for a bit, trying to disentangle themselves while McGonagall performed the counter-curse on Crabbe and Goyle.
She was breathing hard through her nose. "Headmaster," she gritted out. "NOW!"
They had no choice but to go. Snape and Malfoy shot a Death Glare at the Marauders on their way out of the portrait hole.
Snape was last in line. Trying to look dignified, he began to clamber out of the portrait hole. Only, McGonagall had 'forgotten' to untie his ankles, so he tripped up and sprawled all over the floor, half in, half out of the Gryffindor common room, knocking over Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, who tumbled, domino-like, along the hall. This brought fresh peals of laughter from the idiot Gryffindors. They were all going purple from lack of air. To his fury, he even thought he saw the corners of McGonagall's mouth twitch, but she regained her composure and her thunderous expression almost at once.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Get. Up."
The heap of cursing Slytherins scrambled to their feet and marched sullenly down the corridor behind McGonagall.
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