DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER.
Ever since Lily had forgiven Snape, things had taken an upward turn. With the marauders as his friends, and being considered as a marauder himself, he had become much happier and enthusiastic than he had ever been around his former friends. While Lucius Malfoy, Avery and Mulciber were all racist power hungry people, and Lucius had already joined Voldemort, James and his friends were good-hearted and mostly mature, and were against Voldemort and his beliefs. Other than the fact that they were still silly pranksters, Snape now found nothing uncomfortable about them. Even Remus, whom Snape had earlier detested for being a werewolf, was now a close friend of his, and according to Severus, was the most mature among the group.
Slughorn had been extremely kind to him. He allowed him to sleep in the same room as him, and often asked if he needed anything. McGonagall had been kind to him too, allowing him to sit at the Gryffindor table and even allowing him to visit the Gryffindor Common room so that he could chat with Lily and the other marauders. There, he had become fast friends with a few other Gryffindors: Alice Fortescue, Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadowes, and Emmeline Vance.
Snape, Lily and James had decided to form a study group and help each other with their weak points. The group consisted of Lily, James, Severus, Sirius, Remus and Peter. Peter was extremely grateful to Snape as he didn't seem confident about his own abilities, not to mention he was considered to be a poor duelist. Lily and Severus were more than happy to help James when it came to potions, and James was happy to help them in transfiguration. The group would meet every day after classes under a tree by the lake and discuss the topics they had learnt that day. On the days that James had quidditch practice (he was a chaser as well as a substitute seeker), the group (minus James) would be in the quidditch stands watching the practice or studying in the stands.
"What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" asked Snape during one such study session. "The Draught of Living Death." answered James.
James then remarked, "You know, when it comes to preparing this potion, I always seem to mess it up. I mean, how are you supposed to cut that bean?! It just keeps flying away." Severus replied, "According to the textbook, you're supposed to cut it, but actually, the best way to get the juice, is to crush it with the flat end of the silver dagger that you're using, not cut it."
"Oh so that's the idea. The main point is to get the juice, right? So crushing it will actually make it easier!" Sirius remarked. Lily just said, "Exactly guys."
Peter whimpered and said, "I just hope I can do it when the time comes." Lily replied, "Don't demotivate yourself Peter. That's the worst thing you can do to yourself." Remus agreed saying, "Lily's right. You are a very talented wizard in your own way. You'll be fine."
As November gave way to December, snow started falling all over the country. Lily, Snape, James and the rest of their friends had a couple of snowball fights. During one such snowball fight, Lily and Snape kept on ganging up on James and hitting him with snowballs. Sirius managed to sneak up from behind and throw couple of snowballs at Lily, but was attacked fiercely by Severus and Remus. Peter tried to help Sirius and James, but ended up getting hit the most, thanks to Alice, Marlene, Lily and Severus.
One fine Saturday, the group went to Hogsmeade as it was a Hogsmeade weekend. James, Severus and Lily all held hands and skipped along, happy and exited as they were until they reached the Three Broomsticks. As they entered, they were greeted by Madam Rosmerta who said, "Welcome back. Well then, it looks like those troublemakers always trying to get extra butterbeer even on weekdays are back again!" Sirius laughed and declared, "Your butterbeer is always so delicious! Who can resist your special nectar, known as butterbeer?!"
"Trying to impress me, aren't you?" Rosmerta responded. "You were always that type! You're just saying all that stuff to catch my eye!"
James laughed at Sirius' attempts to butter her up, while Severus muttered, "Seriously Black!" although even he couldn't help smiling wickedly.
The group took up an entire corner for themselves, enjoying their butterbeer and food. James felt tempted to drink a little more butterbeer after having two, but Lily and Severus wouldn't let him. Lily said, "You'll get sick if have too much you prat!" and Snape agreed with her saying, "I fully agree with her. You've had two already in one go!"
After the group had finished their lunch, James, Lily and Severus went to a fairly wooded spot with beautiful trees all around from where they could see the castle of Hogwarts. However, a few minutes later, just as they were about to take a picture together (with Sirius' help), there strode two infamous figures.
Severus muttered, "Oh no, just great!" Sirius muttered, "Avery and Mulciber out here to ruin our lovely day!"
Sure enough, Avery and Mulciber stopped when they spied the group of friends and started taunting them.
"Well hello, you filthy traitors and mudblood! Enjoying yourselves, aren't you?!" Avery started. "Back off you two. We don't want any trouble here." Remus retorted.
"Of course you don't want any, but you're going to get it one day." Mulciber replied. Turning to Severus, he said, "Here's the Slytherin traitor hanging out with his mudblood friend. Do you really think James will stick by your side? He'll probably leave you when he realizes how weak and stupid you are."
"Shut up Mulciber!" Snape snapped, "I don't believe a word of what you just said. You two wrongly influenced me for six years! But I'm not going to fall to your ways! Never! And as for James, he is a kind-hearted man and a good friend! So don't you dare go about trying to say that he's not! And don't you dare call Lily that 'word'."
Suddenly, someone tapped Avery on the shoulder and he turned around to find himself looking into the stern face of McGonagall who said, "I heard you taunting these students. If you do not leave them alone this instant, I will see to it that you end up in detention! With Filch! Now get going you two." Avery and Mulciber nodded politely (for sake of formality) and left the group alone.
Looking at the group, McGonagall said, "I'm glad to see that you are all sticking together. Those two are quite a lot of trouble already. As if You-Know-Who isn't enough! Anyway, I hope you enjoy your day."
Lily gratefully said, "Thank You Professor for helping us. From the way they were arguing, I thought they might end up hexing each other!"
McGonagall sighed and replied, "Well you'd better avoid that as long as you can unless you absolutely have no choice. Do your best to avoid Avery and Mulciber. If they cause any more trouble and it's getting out of hand, make sure to inform me or any other teacher you see." With that, she proceeded on her own way after wishing them a good day.
That night, Snape came to spend a little while at the Gryffindor common room. As the curfew deadline approached, Lily got up and went to her dormitory after blowing Severus and James kisses. Just as Severus was about to leave, he told James, "I just badly want to get back at Avery and Mulciber for the way they wrongly influenced me! Somehow or the other, I just have to! They have given us enough trouble already!" James smiled and responded, "I'm thinking of doing the same. I think we should play a prank on them and make sure they have a hard time. You may not like the idea though." To his intense surprise, Severus darkly but enthusiastically responded, "You know what?! If it's against them, I don't think I mind the idea of playing a prank on them that'll give them a hard time! They deserve more than that, but it's what we can do, provided we don't get caught!" James smiled wickedly and said, "You are truly a Marauder Sev! I think I know what we should do." He then began to whisper his plan into Snape's ear as quietly as he could.
The next day, Avery and Mulciber were returning to their common room after their potions class, the last one for the day. As they walked, they were criticizing Professor Slughorn.
"Who does he think he is?! That old guy! I mean, he's the head of our house and yet he favors that irritating Mudblood! We're purebloods and yet we aren't even a part of his Slug Club!" Mulciber said darkly to his friend.
Avery responded, "Yeah. We should be in his Slug Club, getting all the points, not those stupid Mudbloods!"
They reached the entrance to their common room where Avery gave the password. "Pureblood" He muttered and the wall slid open for them to enter. However, no one noticed a voice whispering in the common room, "Now, activate."
As soon as they entered the common room, there were some huge explosions and the next moment, the entire common room was stinking. It seemed someone had set up a huge load of dungbombs.
"Ewwww…. What's that smell?! Who stank up the common room?!" shouted a very angry burly sixth year in the common room.
Just then, a shower of confetti appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly, the confetti began to arrange itself into the following big words in capital letters in the middle of the air, "AVERY AND MULCIBER ARE PLEASED TO WELCOME ONE AND ALL TO THE STINK PARTY! ENJOY THE STENCH AS WE BEGIN!"
The angry burly sixth year was even more incensed and roared, "SO IT WAS YOU WHO DID IT! YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR IT!"
Avery responded, "We had nothing to do with it. We…"
"How dare you! I was just applying some perfume and now I'm stinking!" a very angry seventh year girl screamed.
Mulciber and Avery tried to explain, but the burly student and a few others roared at them and tried to beat them up, just before Professor Slughorn entered the room, hearing the commotion, just as two figures under an invisibility cloak ran as fast as they could from there.
Near the Gryffindor tower, in a corridor where no one else was looking, the cloak was removed and the two figures, James and Severus fell to the floor in peals of laughter. Just then, Sirius, Remus and Peter entered the corridor, went up to them and asked, "Did it work?"
"Yes it did!" Snape replied, "I bet Professor Slughorn must have given them detention by now. Serves them right, just after they made rude remarks about him and Lily! These thickheads think that they should be his favorites simply because they're purebloods!"
Sure enough, Slughorn had saved Avery and Mulciber from getting beaten up, but had been quite horrified seeing the confetti 'welcome to the stink party' sign still in midair, just before it all fell down as confetti. Needless to say, Avery and Mulciber lost points, and earned detention from Slughorn. As if that was not enough, Remus, who had spied on them just before they entered the common room, went and told Professor McGonagall about their rude statements against Professor Slughorn and muggleborns including Lily, and she was so angry that her threat of detention with Filch became a reality for Avery and Mulciber.
They were surely having a hard time, thanks to the actions of the five marauders, especially Snape, since he had been the one to guide James to the Slytherin common room the previous night (fortunately, the password hadn't changed from the one that Snape already knew). Peter, Sirius and James had then set up the dungbombs in different spots, and finally, Severus had been the one to activate the dungbombs when Avery and Mulciber had stepped into the common room.
Avery and Mulciber were not going to be bullying people for a while now. Thanks to the actions of the five marauders.