Chapter 13:- Pay back

"I can't believe that we're sneaking into the boy's dormitory!" Amy Brown said later that night "what if we get caught?!"

"Then obviously we'll lie" Miriam hissed over her shoulder. Lily still couldn't understand how Miriam had persuaded the girls to do this and even though Lily wanted to do be doing this she still couldn't help but think what if Amy was right what if they where caught?

"But it's not like they ever did anything to you Mi?" Amy whispered for the third time. Lily heard Miriam sigh next to her and Lily knew why, Miriam had been over the reasoning behind her plan again and again with the girls before they had all decided to follow her.

"That's not the point" Miriam said turning round to look at Amy "Severus is my oldest friend I've known him since I was born, and friends look out for one another"

Lily had to agree with that, friends do look out for each other and although Miriam had insisted that they would be doing this purely to revenge Severus, Lily couldn't help but think that Miriam's motives wasn't entirely selfless. After dinner that evening Professor McGonagall had informed Lily, Miriam, Frank, Remus, Sirius and James that they would be serving their detentions that night, helping Filch the caretaker with his chores. Lily didn't mind the idea so much she was used to doing chores at home, just never on such a large scale as Hogwarts. James was still ignoring Sirius after the revelation that his parents were dark wizards but he did seem disappointed when he was told he wasn't going to be working with Sirius. Instead he was assigned with Antonio Dolohov and Walden MacNair who had also received detention for the fight.

James, Dolohov and MacNair where sent to clean all the trophies and cups in the trophy room while Lily and Frank had to scrub the floor in the entrance hall, Miriam's brother Jedidiah and his best friend Ludovic Bagman where also serving detention that night for hitting MacNair after they had found out that he had almost hit Miriam, MacNair much to Lily's pleasure was sporting a really nice black eye, which Miriam joked about saying it greatly improved his looks.

At eight o'clock all the first years where waiting in the entrance for Filch to arrive and assign them tasks, but Jedidiah and Ludo immediately started work before Filch even arrived. The fourth years grabbed a mop and bucket from a nearby cupboard saying that they already knew the drill and that they'd be cleaning the great hall if Filch asked where they where, they headed off reminiscing about all the different tasks they had been made to do in the past. Miriam, Remus and Sirius where set the task of cleaning all the cauldrons in the potions class rooms with their bare hands, None of the students where to use magic, not that Lily knew any that could have helped her scrubbing the floors, but it seemed that Filch took a lot of pleasure in seeing the students struggle has his horrid skeletal cat stood at the foot of the marble staircase glaring at Lily.

Has soon as Filch had insisted that Miriam and Sirius where to work together Lily knew something bad would happen but as soon as Remus was told to help the pair Lily was able to breath a sigh of relief, Lily knew that Remus' presence would discourage the pair from bludgeoning each other over the head with a heavy cauldron, Although Remus did tell Lily after detention has they all slowly climbed the stairs back to Gryffindor tower well after midnight that it didn't stop them from trying!

Miriam had looked shattered after the detention she obviously wasn't made to do chores when she was at home but she hadn't complained has the girls entered their dormitory. Lily who had felt as bad as Miriam looked was extremely glad to see that Alice, Amy and Dymphna hadn't gone to bed but where waiting up for them to hear all about the terrible work which they had been forced to do.

But now has she climbed the stairs towards the boys dormitories with the rest of the first year girls Lily half wished that Alice, Amy and Dymphna hadn't stayed up to wait for them, and although it had originally been Amy's idea to somehow get back at Sirius and James for landing Lily, Miriam, Frank and Remus in detention Lily knew that Amy would never had carried the thought out. Unfortunately unlike Amy, Miriam had welcomed the whole idea of a revenge tactic and after a few minutes she already had a well formed plan of attack.

"If they had done anything to any of you I'd still be doing this," Lily heard Miriam hiss over her shoulder again as the girls slowly climbed the dimly lit spiral staircase towards the boys dormitories "you don't have to come along, no ones making you!"

"I'll stay thanks" Amy mumbled, Lily knew that Amy would never have waited in their own dormitory as the others went off to fulfil Miriam's harebrained idea, Amy may not have been brave enough to have followed through with the retaliation plan on her own but she was determined enough to help the others.

"Shush!" Whispered Dymphna as they approached a door halfway up the stairwell the door had a plaque on it exactly like the one on the girls own dormitory door and like their own plaque this too was labelled 'First years'. The boys' dormitory was situated in the exact location has the girls' fourth door up the stairs with three other dormitories above where the second third and fourth years slept.

"Right" said Miriam looking at her wrist watch "Its One forty-five exactly, if all goes well we should all be out of there at One fifty-five, you all know what to do don't you?" Lily, Alice, Amy and Dymphna nodded all of them grinning happily and Alice patted her satchel which she had brought with her.

'Miriam's mischievous streak was spreading!' Lily thought as she looked at the others, ordinarily Lily stuck to rules and she was surprised to see how much of an influence Miriam had actually made on her and the others.

"Ready?" Miriam asked smiling mischievously and her eyes seemed to gleam in the light cast by the torches, the girls nodded and Miriam turned stretching out her hand to the brass door knob and turned it, slowly pushing the door open an inch or two so she could see inside before she opened it fully.

The boys' room was completely dark inside; obviously none of them had stayed up until one o'clock in the morning discussing revenge tactics. After the girls eyes had adjusted to the dark of the room they entered, hearing the soft noise of someone snoring in the nearby bed. Lily was glad to see that the boys bedroom was slightly smaller then the girls but other then that it was exactly the same,

"Which one do you think are James and Sirius" Dymphna whispered looking at the five four poster beds each had their hangings pulled around obscuring the occupant from view,

"James doesn't snore" Alice said softly "so he's not that one" she pointed to the bed next to them,

"No but it could be Sirius" Amy said tiptoeing over to the bed, but Lily stopped her by holding her hand out in front of her,

"What!" Amy hissed and Lily pointed to the trunk on the floor at the foot of the bed it read P.P.

"Obviously it's Peter who snores" Lily said and she could just make out Miriam smiling in the dark, impressed that Lily had remembered that all Hogwarts student were required to have all their trunks initialled and named to make easy work for the elves at the start of each year to find which house and dormitory a student stayed in.

Lily followed Miriam over to the bed on the far side of the circular room where the trunk at the foot of the four poster was initialled J.P

"He looks so peaceful" Lily said as Miriam slowly pulled back the drapes to look at James, at Lily's words Miriam turned to face her,

"Do you fancy him?" Miriam said in disgust still trying to keep her voice low,

"No!!!" Lily said shocked trying to force a laugh, "Of course I don't fancy him he's horrid"

"Too right" Alice said standing next to Lily "he's an ugly git!" Lily had meant that James had a horrid personality, the things that he did where awful like beating up Severus and falling out with Sirius just because his parents were dark wizards, Lily actually thought that James was quite good looking but she'd never let the others know that.

"Right" Miriam said taking the bag from Alice "Let's get to work!"

"How do you even know that this is even going to work?" Lily asked as she used a nearby water jug to fill a glass that Miriam gave her which she had asked Alice to but into her bag,

"Because I've got two older brothers that are constantly pulling pranks like this on each other" Miriam whispered as she pointed her wand at the glass now full of water and muttered "Egelidus",

Lily took the glass back and was amazed to feel that it and the water inside was now warm,

"Who used this one" Lily whispered as she moved over to the still sleeping James and put his hand into the warm glass of water, Miriam had already told the girls what they had to do and what exactly this would do to James and Sirius, Lily thought that the idea was pretty mean but then again James and Sirius had been pretty mean to Severus.

"Tad used it, he's the subtle intelligent one remember" Lily heard Miriam say flashing Lily a smile, Lily wished that she had an older brother or any other sibling for that matter, Petunia was ok but she was never much fun to be around she was always too serious and every time Miriam talked about one of her brothers Lily couldn't help but feel a little jealous.

"Poor Jedidiah" Lily heard Alice say bringing Lily back to the present, Alice was smiling as she helped Amy perform the heating charm on another glass of water and then placed Sirius' hand into it.

"Now for the finishing touches," Miriam said herding the girls out of the room; Miriam closed the boys' dormitory door leaving a few inches gap. Lily watched as Miriam pointed her wand up at the top of the doors frame

"Aqua Fonticulus" she muttered and a wisp of blue smoke shot out of the end of her wand and formed itself into a bucket of water perched on the top of the door,

"I guess that the bucket of water is Jed's little trick" Alice said smiling, as they headed up the stairwell, Miriam wanted to see how her plan would work out.

"How long will we have to wait?" Dymphna said but the words had hardly left her mouth when there was a cry from the boys' dormitory that sounded a lot like James Potter,

"Oh no," they heard James say,

"Oh Merlin!" the girls heard Sirius' voice say in a slight panic,

"How- How embarrassing!" both James and Sirius said together the girls sniggered trying to suppress any noise that might give away their location by forcing their hands over their mouths.

"What's going on?" they heard Remus and Frank ask sleepily,

"Nothing! Just go back to sleep" the girls heard James snap and the next second there was a loud clatter and banging as the dormitory door had been opened and Miriam's water bucket had hit it's target. The girls couldn't suppress their laughter anymore and they all burst out laughing,

"What's going on out there" Frank called as James fell out into the stairwell with the bucket still on his head,

"Run!" Miriam said urging the girls forwards, someone in the boys dormitory had lit the candles and as the girls jumped over James' sprawled wet body in the stairwell, Lily could see Sirius standing in the centre of the room his bed sheets wrapped around his lower torso and legs, his face flushing red with embracement as Remus, Frank and Peter stood looking at him with a look of slight disgust on their faces.

The girls couldn't stop laughing and it didn't really matter that James had now removed the bucket from his head and had seen them, because has Miriam had explained James and Sirius where bound to work out that it had been the girls who had pranked them anyway.

"You should have locked your door!" Alice called up the stairwell has James called her a rude name which added to her amusement,

"What's going on" called the voice of Gideon has he and his fellow sixth years came out onto the stairwell to see what the commotion was, Lily and Miriam pushed the door to the boys dormitory stairwell closed and both grabbed hold of Alice,

"Come on!" Lily called pulling Alice who was still laughing towards the girls dormitory stairs "They'll be after us soon" Lily didn't really want to be proved right but she could hear the clatter of Miriam's bucket as it rolled down the stairs and the voices of the older boys has they where woken from their sleep.

The girls had reached the doorway of their dormitory as James had flung open the door at the bottom off the stairwell

"Quickly!" Miriam cried grabbing hold of Lily's arm and pulling her onto the stone plinth outside their dormitory door,

"What did you do that for?" Lily asked rubbing her arm where Miriam had grabbed her, Alice, Amy and Dymphna where beckoning Miriam and Lily into the room wanting to close the door and lock themselves into their room before James could get to them but Miriam didn't seem to show the faintest inkling of retreating into the dormitory, Lily turned to see James running up the stairs,

"Quickly inside!" Alice called holding the door open, but she needn't have bothered, Lily couldn't believe what she was watching James had only got as far as the fifth step when a loud Klaxon sounded the dim torches that lit the stairwell flared brilliantly, illuminating the stairs and then suddenly Lily heard the most strangest sound, like stone grinding on stone and she heard James yell; the stairs had shifted into a smooth stone slide and James was no longer running up any stairs but had stumbled and crashed against the stone slide and slid to the bottom of the stairwell and vanished from Lily's view as he slid into the common room.

"What was that?" Lily asked amazed as she and Miriam entered their dormitory and closed the door.

"It's a kind of magical protection charm" Miriam said smiling "Tad and Jed call it the early warning chastity spell; all the entrances to the girls dorms have them. Sorry I pulled you so hard," Miriam added looking at Lily's arm which Lily realised she was still rubbing "I just thought it wouldn't be a good idea for you to be out on the stairs when it happened!"

After assuring Miriam that she would live, the girls rejoiced in the havoc that they had created, the Klaxon was still sounding and all of the other girls in the other years where out of bed demanding to know what was going on. The noise that James had made in the boys dormitory stairwell meant that many of the boys where up and about complaining and after a few minutes Lily and Miriam braved a quick glance out of their doorway to hear Professor McGonagall's angry voice down in the common room.

Despite the constant noise of the klaxon which apparently no one knew how to switch off and the noise of the other students the first year girls sleep quite peacefully each wearing a smile on their faces knowing that not only had they avenged Severus' beating and the unfair detentions that Lily and Miriam had received but that they also had managed to get one over on Sirius and James, and as an added bonus Prefect Amanda Hugh-Genghis had been the first girl to step out onto the stairwell to investigate the sound of the klaxon when it had gone off and not realising that the steps had changed she had fell and slid down the slide and straight into James at the bottom of the stairs in the common room.