"How dumb are they?"

"I know. The engagement thing was a stroke of genius. How did you think of it?"

"My sister played a prank on her school last year. She has just left the all girls private school where dad sent her in consolation for my Hogwarts letter. She has a long term boyfriend, who is the perfect boyfriend. Her girl friends at school had met him a few times and it was obvious how in love they were. One day she was wearing a cheap glass diamond ring on her engagement finger because it wouldn't fit on any other finger and it tied her whole outfit together. She's big into drama, and they had just finished a performance. They didn't have much to do, since it was too early to start writing it up so they were just chilling and chatting. Anyway, one of her friends suddenly stops talking and grabs her hand. She then yells out 'You're engaged!?'. The whole class hears her and for the next two months my sister had the lower school asking her if they could be bridesmaids. The whole school believed her. It even got into the yearbook."

Hermione started chuckling in remembrance. Harry also found it hilarious and flopped back onto the bed. She stood and leant against the bedpost.

"Remember their faces when they first saw the ring?"

"Classic. We have to do something else too."

"Give me a hickey."

"Hermione!"

"What? If I go down with my hair and clothes crumpled it would freak them out. But if I have a hickey on my neck then it will be really believable."

"This is weird."

"Don't be such a wuss Harry."

After Hermione had a sufficient mark on her neck she undid some of the buttons of her shirt and loosened her tie. Harry rumpled up her hair and smudged her lipstick a bit.

Then he stood back, looking at her and then an idea came to him. He began ruffling up his own clothes.

"What are you doing, Harry?"

"We have some more work to do. We are making them think that we have just had sex. We both go down to the common room ruffled with insane grins on our faces. They'll totally freak."

Hermione grinned and then stepped closer to him and kissed him on the lips, sucking on the bottom one to make it red and a little swollen.

"Let's do it properly, then. Now you have some lipstick on your lips." She crumpled up his hair and undid his tie completely. She opened his shirt a little at the front and cast an appreciative eye over his well defined chest.

"Hey!"

"You checked me out the other night. Tit for tat. We may as well do the thing properly. Untuck your shirt." She pushed the robe off his shoulders.

"We really should think up some more magical pranks."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Hey! I'm not the brains of this operation remember?"

"Operation…operation! Operation Parsley! We haven't used that yet!"

"What's Operation Parsley?"

"You're father invented it. Sirius told me about it." she thought for a moment then clicked her fingers as the idea struck her. "Are you prepared to prank your own team members?"

"Always! I thought that was what we were doing?"

"No, Harry dear. Well, yes. But this as well. Subtly I will cast this spell on the girls and you spell the boys with Parmetem Aurae. Got that?"

"What will they do?"

"You'll see. Come on. Show time."

The looks on their friends faces when the pair arrived, looking dishevelled and thoroughly pleased with themselves, was absolutely priceless. They all believed that they had just slept together.

"Well, I'll say this for him, the gossips weren't lying when they named him the sex god of Hogwarts." Hermione said casually to the girls, shooting a small vindictive grin at Pansy who was looking very hurt and beginning to bubble with anger.

Harry glanced across at Hermione who nodded and winked. Harry leant forwards and gave her a quick peck on the lips. She grinned and then made a show of declaring that he had lipstick on his face and wiping it off.

The next moment the boys, as one shouted "PARSLEY!" and they couldn't stop either. Over and over again they shouted the one word and whenever they tried to say something else they could only say "Parsley!".

The girls meanwhile were completely oblivious to this as they had parsley growing out of their ears and could therefore not hear a thing.

As one they bolted for the portrait hole and were undoubtedly aiming for the nurse.

Harry and Hermione high fived and took the free sofa laughing like hyenas.