~ Chapter 13 ~

The next morning, after doing all of their girly things and feeding Ignatius, Lily and the girls went down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"Good morning Lily. Ashley. Kristy." The Fat Lady smiled as they were leaving the portrait hole.

Kristy and Ashley mumbled a 'good-morning' and Lily was just about to reply also when she saw the elusive Mr. Wind waiting for her.

"Not again."

"Bonjoir madmoiselle."

Lily was silently even more disgusted than expected. She hated French. It was too over-done. "Didn't I tell you to leave me alone?"

"Well yes, but third time's the charm. I was hoping you'd let me walk you to breakfast."

"Um, let me think about that. NO!"

"Why are you so stubborn, my flower?"

Lily was very aggravated and this last statement to her was definitely the wrong thing to say. Kristy and Ashley could see that her fury was rising because her face was turning red and her eyes strangely became bright silver. They always did when she was mad, but no one knew why.

"Can you not take a hint?! I never want to have anything to do with you! EVER! Go electrocute yourself for all I care!"

"What's electrocute?"

This was no time to be talking back to Lily Evans. "Stay away from me!" She yelled, not losing eyes contact, and Gustov went flying into a statue. "Apparently third time is NOT the charm."
She stormed off, along with her 2 friends, all 3 of them unaware that Sirius and Remus were watching from on the other side of the portrait hole, formulating a plan.

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"Professor Evans has been getting a lot tougher on us," Remus said the following morning at breakfast.

"No kidding. His final exam is going to be killer. He's not even cutting Lily any slack," James agreed.

Lily was listening to this conversation, unable to keep from smiling. She was excited about pulling her next small, old-fashioned muggle prank. "Ashley, kick Sirius' book bag into the aisle," She whispered.

"Why?" She was looking at Lily strangely.

"Please, just do it. It's for a fairly harmless prank."

"Fine, but only because I'm feeling exceptionally generous today. Plus, I'm getting bored of hearing them complain about classes."

"Thanks Ash! You're great."

"I try." She grinned and innocently kicked his bag, hard, out from under the table. It went spinning clear over to the Slytherin table.

Sirius saw it go skimming along the floor and glared at Lily. "Oh that was bold Lily. Real bold. And quite humorous too." He said dully, walking over to the Slytherins.

He came back after a verbal fight with Lucius Malfoy.

"Great! Malfoy's feet touched my bag! His feet! I'm going to have to disinfect it."

He was looking up at James and Remus long enough for Lily to slip a whoopee cushion onto his seat right before he sat down.
As he sat down, the infamous noise was heard from all around. Only the muggle-borns knew the real source of where it came. All the others had never seen a whoopee cushion before, so they just assumed it was a natural, bodily produced sound.

Everyone was laughing and when Lily looked at Sirius, the supposed 'victim', she saw that he was laughing too! That wasn't what she wanted to happen; she was hoping that he'd be the slightest bit embarrassed, but that was close to impossible. He was just laughing and flopping the whoopie cushion in the air.

"Wow! This is a great prank item!" He was examining every inch of it, even looking inside the hole to see if anything was in there. "Muggles aren't as stupid as I thought!"

There was a loud 'humph' from all the muggle-borns.

"This better than a dung bomb! But who...Lily! You were the one who did this!"

Lily smiled angelically.

"Do you mind if I borrow this muggle contraption?" He was still trying to figure out how it worked.

She nodded, not really caring one way or another. He couldn't do anything to destructive with it...could he? Well, knowing Sirius, he probably could. The idiot could probably summon the Loch Ness Monster with an old sock if he wanted to.

"YES! Thanks Lily! C'mon guys, this could be the breakthrough for the business of our future prank shop!" Him, Remus, and James took off out of the hall to do god knows what.
Their first class the next day was Professor Loritz's History of Magic class with the Hufflepuffs. Lily about fainted when she saw Gustov in there.

"What's he doing here?!"

"Lily, he's always been in our history class," Ashley said.

"No he hasn't!"

"Yes, he has. You've just never noticed him."

"But he's a 4th year!" She was about to get sick at the sight of him waving and smiling at her.

"Yeah, but from what I've heard, he's as dense as they come."

"I could have told you that."

"No, seriously. He's been failing 1st year history for 3 years now."

"That's not surprising. I'm amazed that he can actually remember his own name," She muttered, walking to the other side of the room.

"Want to come sit by me, Lily?" He asked eagerly.

"No thanks." She replied as sweetly as she could without gagging. "Personally, I'd rather kiss James." She murmured this last comment to Kristy and Ashley.

"Oh, I'm sure you'd enjoy that Lily." Kristy said, rather seriously.

Lily elbowed her. "I'm already feeling sick enough. Don't make it worse for me."

"Sure Lily."

As they took their seats, Lily noticed an enlarged whoopee cushion and something else on the floor next to Sirius and Remus, who were right behind the Hufflepuffs. What in the world were they up to?
Professor Loritz was a very professional man. His motto was "Always do things the right and proper way" which he reminded them of every day by making them stand up when he entered the room to show respect. Then, they'd sit when he sat. Lily thought this was the corniest thing she could imagine.

When he entered, they rose from their chairs and Lily saw Remus slip something on to Gustov's seat.

"You may be seated," Professor Loritz announced.

Just as they did so, Gustov sat on the giant whoopee cushion and James set off a dung bomb.

"Ugh!"

"Gross!"

"Gustov!"

"That was nasty!"

The whole class was either groaning over what they thought Gustov just did or laughing hysterically. All except Lily. She thought it was juvenile and upsetting that someone would steal an already-used prank of hers.

"Phew Gustov!" Sirius was wafting the air in front of his nose, trying to get rid of the smell. "Now we know where your name came from! Because that sure was one foul 'gust of wind'!"

This sent everyone into even worse uncontrollable laughter.

"But it.." Gustov tried to protest. He was close to tears. What a wimp.

"Why don't you just leave Lily alone. Maybe this'll teach you a lesson. She'll never want to go out with you because she'll be scared that she'll re-experience your bad habits." Sirius whispered to him, but loudly enough for Lily to hear. He winked at her and she scowled.

"But you can't..." The 'stink bomb', as the class now called him, said.

"We just did." Remus concluded.

"SILENCE!" Loritz yelled, quieting the room, as he performed a spell to get rid of the stench. "Mr. Wind, I would refrain yourself from doing that in public again. It does not do well for your social status. As for the rest of you, don't be so childish! It's not like you've never heard it before!"

This got them hushed, but many people were still snickering under their breath.



That evening after dinner, the boys found Lily sketching a picture in the common room. They saw that it was a perfect replica of Gustov, except Lily had added her own touches to the piece of artwork. Such as a giant pimple on his nose and missing teeth, he was more over-weight than usual, and it seemed that he had been stabbed by her pencil several times over, especially in his eyeballs.

That's nice Lily," Remus criticized sarcastically.

She didn't move, just kept stabbing.

"Uh...so...how'd you like our prank today?"

She looked up at them sternly. "Now listen," She pointed her pencil at them. They were completely amazed that she was talking to them. "I'm only speaking to you right now to get my point across." Their smiles disappeared at this news. "Got it? Good. First of all, give me my whoopee cushion back!" She snatched it from Sirius who looked like he had just lost a best friend.

"Aww...Lily. Let me keep it! It's awesome!"

"Shush! I'm keeping it. End of story! Second, I was very disappointed with your prank."

"WHAT!?"

"Yes, I found it very unoriginal. I don't need your help to begin with, but if you insist on doing so, you could have put a little more thought into it. You three stole my idea and that just shows stupidity."

"But it did work."

"Yeah! He won't pester you now!"

"I could have done it on my own!" She slammed her pencil down in frustration.

"When will you quit being so stubborn?! I'm sure you want me to tell you the secret behind that turtle now, don't you? My parents got him in South America. You'll never figure it out if I don't tell you."

"I'll figure it out! It's gotta be in a book!"

"Lily Evans! You are impossible! Tell me why I should have spent money buying an animal for someone that obviously hates me! A lot of money! That turtle was expensive!" James was yelling now.

"James Potter! You are such an arrogant jerk! I'm now leaving to resume my vow of silence!" She left, and to Sirius' disgust, with the whoopee cushion.