"He gives me the creeps," Lily complained to Remus as they left the meeting.
"I know," he agreed. "Malfoy has always got to pick on anyone he believes to be under him. Especially if they're not purebloods. I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be a Death Eater." He looked down as Lily failed to stifle a gasp. "I'm sorry," he said immediately. "I shouldn't have-!"
"Hold on Remus," Lily quieted him. "It's okay. I know we can't always live in the safety of Hogwarts. Pretty soon, there won't be safety anywhere, maybe not even Hogwarts. That's a world I'm just going to have to learn to live in."
Remus put an arm around Lily's shoulder. "That's just it Lily. You shouldn't have to." He opened the door to her compartment. It's was empty.
"Odd," said Lily. Just then, there was a huge explosion from the compartment three doors down. The windows were covered in sparkling purple muck.
Remus and Lily ran towards the compartment and threw open the door. Every occupant of the compartment was covered in purple muck from head to toe. James, Sirius, Peter, Alice, Arabella, and Tina were looking in awe at the remains of a red balloon.
"What-?" Remus started. James held up the remains of the balloon as an answer to Remus' unfinished question. "Scourgify!"
Are you serious?" Lily looked around the compartment.
"My birth certificate leads me to believe so," Sirius replied cheekily. Lily burst out laughing.
"Lily, it's not that funny," Tina looked at Lily oddly.
Lily looked at her seriously. "Of course it isn't. That's the worst pun I've ever heard. I'm laughing at his hair!" Sirius had pretended to faint at her insult and Lily sat down.
"Dear Lily," Sirius started, conjuring a mirror big enough to give his ego a run for its money. "When will you learn that my hair is always perfect?" He looked into the mirror and let out a bloodcurdling shriek.
"Bloody hell Padfoot!" James yelled. "You scream like a girl!" James suddenly found himself under four angry glares. "No offense ladies," he said hastily.
Sirius ran back and forth in the compartment, trying and failing to tear out his now lilac-colored, glittering hair. He caught another glimpse of himself in the mirror and with a last cry of "My hair!" fainted. Arabella stood up and took out something that resembled a Muggle camera.
"That won't work Bella," Alice reminded her.
Arabella smirked and said, "Charmed."
In the space of about five minutes, each girl had taken a picture with the unconscious Sirius Black. Some girls made rude gestures; others poked more fun at his hair, styling it in pigtails and such. Finally, they forced Remus to take a picture of all four of them, doing something to Sirius that would make Lucius Malfoy faint.
"Ahh. Sweet blackmail," the girls chimed. They looked at each other and laughed. James was gawking at Lily, too entranced to stick up for his best friend. Remus was too busy laughing, but Peter looked horrified.
Peter marched over to Sirius, Conjured an out-of-date copy of the Daily Prophet, rolled it up, and proceeded to whack Sirius round the head with it. "Pull yourself together! What the hell are you doing?" Peter continued to box Sirius around and yell obscenities at him until he rolled over onto the compartment floor. Then he sat down looking positively horrified at what he'd just done.
James had finally come to, and took that opportunity to bound up onto Sirius and start singing Muggle show tunes. Sirius tried to jerk away from James' horrible voice, but no avail. "Mph!" he protested. James looked down at wiggling, horrified form that was his best friend and his eyes lit up.
"Tell me he's not," said Remus incredulously.
"He is," Alice and Arabella replied in unison.
James dance down the length of Sirius' back, still singing at the top of his lungs. "All right!" Sirius shouted. "Damn! What were you singing anyway?"
"Muggle show tunes," said James, grinning at Lily. She rolled her eyes and left the compartment. James shrugged and turned to face everyone else in the compartment. "So…how are we going to fix this? I mean Sirius' hair?" All the girls rolled their eyes and followed Lily. Remus and Peter followed the girls.
"Erm…Alright then, I guess it's up to me." Sirius' eyes went upwards and he mouthed the word, 'Merlin'. James rolled up his sleeves and studied Sirius' hair. "Um…Finite Incantatem?" he waved his wand a bit. "Excellent! Here," he handed Sirius a mirror.
"My hair!" Sirius cried joyfully. "My hair! Merlin, you have no idea how much I've missed you! Alex, good to see you back to normal. Dean, how the bloody hell have you been…." James rolled his eyes.
"Oi Moony! Wormtail! The hair's back!"
"Good," said Remus as he came in. "I don't think I could stand the sight of Sirius with glittering lilac hair any longer!"
"Hey!" Sirius glared at Remus. "Don't say lilac! The manly word is purple!"
"Lilac, purple, whatever. Your hair was a color closely associated with the color pink.
"Where are the girls?" asked James, cutting Remus off.
"Getting dressed," Peter supplied, smirking at James eagerness to know where Lily was. "I think we should be doing the same."
"Lily, is this your tie or mine?" asked Alice.
"Does it have an embroidered LAE on the inside?"
Alice checked. "Nope."
"It's probably mine," said Arabella and Tina at the same time. They all laughed.
"But seriously, whose is this? I know for sure it's not mine."
"Well, let's get a good look at it." The four girls examined the tie.
"Nope," they said as one.
"Then where's my tie?" Tina asked.
The four girls looked at each other. "The Marauders," they growled.
"They can be alright at times, but Black and Potter really get on my nerves."
"They are the limit."
"I don't know about you, but I'm taking a stand." Two other girls agreed. They all turned to Lily, who had her back turned.
She turned around slowly, a mad gleam in her eyes. "The days of the Marauders getting the best of us are gone. I don't care how, I don't care when, but I'm sick of it," the gleam in her eyes became more pronounced. "I'm pranking back."
"Severus, Andromeda, this will be my last year at Hogwarts. That means that this will be the absolute best year Hogwarts has ever seen; or the worst, depending on what side you're on." Severus looked at Lucius eagerly, awaiting more information. Andromeda just rolled her eyes and studied her fingernails.
'I've got much better things to be wasting an hour on,' she thought, thoroughly pissed. 'I could be talking to Evans. She needs to know what I'm going to tell her more that I need to know what this overgrown, bird-brained, inbred monkey is saying.'
"Black!" Malfoy was calling her. "What was I just saying?"
Andromeda shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, and frankly, I couldn't give so much as a rat's arse." She stormed out of the compartment, muttering curses under her breath as she went.