Authors Note: People, I'm dieing here! I know exactly how many people are reading my story and who has added it to their alerts and what not, BUT I ONLY HAVE ONE REVIEW! Plus that one was from my sister who just did it to be nice. Covers face with hands and sobs dramatically while peaking through fingers to assure your continued attention Your killing my self esteem people! So here is my question. If you all hate my story that much, why are you reading it? Huh? Answer that for me. Well that's my rant for today so on with the story.
Parseltongue
Authors Notes
Retraction: After reading my story, my cat has decided to sue me for slander via my claims that she is the author. So this is a retraction stating that my cat has had nothing to do with this story.
Disclaimer: Still don't own the characters. Neither does my cat.
Chapter 3
9th October 1977
After Harry had informed the world of one of their greatest exploits, the four time travellers had no problems with giving details of some of their pranks. After all, they could always come up with new ones. Never let it be said that they repeated themselves. Draco, having given away enough for his liking was talking to his future godfather about the benefits of raspberry leaves to purify dragon scales for potions work. As luck would have it, Draco's father had graduated two years ago and although his mother was now in her final year of school, he had not met up with her yet. Pansy was doing a wonderful impression of Luna Lovegood as she fielded prank questions from the surrounding fifth years. Her slightly dazed, very literal, and exceedingly illogical answers were as exasperating for the Slytherins as lemon drops were to Voldemort.
Ginny was answering questions left right and centre keeping her answers short and to the point but she kept one ear open for the conversation Harry was now having with his father and his friends.
The conversation was not going nearly as well as it should have been. Despite Harry's often ditzy nature, he did have a brain and knew better than to give away too much about the future even if they planned on doing a mass memory charm later. The charm they had in mind would block the memories of their arrival until the moment that they disappeared from their own time. From there the memories would return as they happened in the past. In other words, the fours entrance to supper on October 9th of 1977 would be remembered at the start of supper on October 9th 1997. This would not be distracting for the people in the future as it would just become a background memory until they wanted to think about it directly (A/N Did that make any sense or should I explain it again another time?).
As it was, the conversation with Harry's father had not begun well.
Harry had been talking to Bill Weasley about the necessity to change his new nickname when the young red head had been slid along the bench so as to make room for all four marauders who then surrounded Harry.
"Oi!" Harry said looking outraged. "Do you not understand the seriousness of that conversation? I'm trying to save that boy from years of traumatic childhood memories."
"Understood. But there are more important things to discuss here." Sirius said looking grave. "Namely, who on earth would stoop so low as to marry Prongs here? Who's your Mum kid?"
"Who are you calling kid?" Cried an irate Harry "If I've got my dates right, at this moment I'm currently your senior so show some respect for your elders damnit! And another thing, you can't possibly expect me to answer that question can you? As I said earlier, I'd prefer to leave dear ol' Dad to work it out for himself."
"Rats." Muttered James with a pout "Come one pal, do me a favour here. This is important information."
"Drop it James." Remus said with an eye roll. "Amazingly enough, your some actually seems to have inherited a brain from somewhere. If you found out who it was you'd probably never make enough effort to get together with said person because you'd assume it would just happen."
"See. He gets it."
"Oh fine. On to more important topics, you said you did pranks."
Harry smirked. "That I did. Why? Want to pick up a few tips from the master?"
"Master? I'll have you know you are way out of your depth here pal. We four," Here Sirius gestured at the others "Are the greatest pranksters Hogwarts has ever known."
"Oh please." Ginny scoffed interrupting at this point. "A few colour changing spells, sneaking out at night, and pulling some rather nasty and definitely humiliating tricks on Severus. You call that pranking? You ain't seen nothing yet."
"Ginny, did you just say 'You ain't seen nothing yet.' Cause that's got to be the most overused line in existence."
"No Harry, your thinking of 'You wanna piece of me?' Try to get your vocab right."
"Sorry Gin."
"That's okay Harry I forgive you."
"Now just a minute here," Sirius exclaim "We do heaps more than that. And besides, what's humiliating about being turned into a griffin?"
"Um is that a trick question?" Ginny shot back.
"Listen oh gentlemen of beliefs misguided, let us release ourselves of this dreary conversation and instead turn to other more cheerful matters." Here Harry smirked in a slightly evil representation of Lucius Malfoy "You can start by informing me of whom in this school is strait, who is gay, who is single, and who is taken. And from there I can narrow it down to people available to shag and people whose future spouses would crucio me if I even attempted."
Peter Pettigrew leaned over to James and murmured quietly to him "Are you sure he's your son and not Sirius'?"
"I heard that Wormtail." Harry shot back "I'll have you know that I am simply escaping expectations and enjoying everything I can about my life. You never know, I could be cruelly snatched from it in the prime of my youth and I'd like to think that everyone would have a little piece of Harry to remember me by. I can just imagine my funeral. I'd like people to remember me for my incredible stamina. Oh and if possible I'd like virgins to cry themselves to sleep over me. Yeah that would be pretty sweet."
"Sweet Merlin Potter you are such a man whore."
All six spun around to face a smirking Draco and Pansy who appeared to have dragged over a slightly nervous looking Severus.
"Snivellus." James sneered "How nice of you to bring your new friends over so that we could warn them of the distastefulness of your company before you completely contaminated them."
Sirius grinned at Harry and smirked at Severus. Eyeing them both, Harry turned to Remus.
"Are they always like this?" He asked in a slightly worried tone.
Remus nodded while swallowing down the mouthful he had just taken.
"Always." He replied "I've given up trying to stop them."
At this Pansy delicately raised her handkerchief to cover her nose as though she had smelt something bad and Draco looked mildly nauseated. While he had picked up some stories of his godfathers childhood, he had not expected this. Oh well, the pair were just childish, it could be beaten out of them. All they needed was the right motivation.
"I'm not sure if you've noticed," He commented lightly "But, although I am a Malfoy and a Slytherin, I am also a good friend of Harry's on many levels."
"Um Dray, I think the term you're looking for is 'friends with benefits'. It comes fairly close to what we have."
"Shut it Potter." Draco sniffed "Anyways… I propose a challenge."
"What sort of challenge?" Peter said cautiously, not trusting this new boy a jot. Although he was Lucius' son, Peter could sense the differences. While he had been inexplicably drawn to the power Lucius possessed, this boy just made him want to run and hide.
"A prank war." Draco replied lightly.
Ginny gasped, realising Draco's idea. It was perfect. Not only that but it sounded like fun as well. Draco glanced at her, realising she now understood and hoping she would know what to do now. She did.
"Hang on Dray." She said warily, "We can't use any spells or anything from the future or we could adjust stuff. Plus a lot of the things they will use, we will never have heard of cause there will be newer replacement spells in our time. Not to mention Harry will be sharing a dorm with them."
"Yes." Pansy said catching on. She turned to face the four marauders who were looking delighted although cautious about this new idea. "If you agree to this, then we request the option to pick a willing individual from the school body to join our team and act as another player and… I guess you'd refer to it as a guide as well. Do you accept on these terms with ground rules to be laid out shortly?"
Sirius, James and Peter all opened their mouths to accept but were interrupted by Remus.
"Just one moment here. If you pick another person then you'll outnumber us. We request permission to choose another player as well."
"Granted" Harry said, an idea forming in his mind "But if you'll take a word of advice, pick a girl. Women can be a whole lot more devious then men and can pick up on other aspects, and as we have two, we wouldn't want to feel as though we had an unfair advantage."
The other three time travellers all had to suppress grins as they realised what Harry was trying to do. Severus was trying to pry free of Draco and Pansy's grips. He didn't like the way this was going, with any pranks he was usually a target and with a prank war he didn't want to know what would happen. The four marauders all sat thinking.
There were not many girls that they communicated with enough apart from Sirius' dates that they would be willing to ask this of. There was one girl however that they all knew was more than capable of holding her own against whatever was thrown at her and although they were not always on the friendliest terms, if they asked in just the right way and kept James from being the one to approach her…
"Evans!" James yelled. Remus groaned and thumped his head on the table.
"There, there Moony," Sirius said patting him on the back "He can't possibly screw it up that bad. Or maybe he can, but we can interrupt when things look dire."
At the other end of the table a red headed girl whipped around at the sound of James voice. She crossly got up and marched towards them.
"What is it Potter?" She snapped "Finally decided to pull your head out of your arse and apologise for what you did with my camisole on the first day of term, because I'd be happy to come up with some new curses just to help you get it out."
"I like her." Pansy murmured to Draco.
"Evans," James said looking pleased with himself "We have decide to gift you with extended periods of time in my delightful company and if you play your cards right, you may just get a Hogsmeade date to go with it."
"You were saying Padfoot?" Remus inquired.
"What James means to say Evans," Sirius intercepted hurriedly "Is that we would like to offer you a place in a slight contest we have agreed to with these four esteemed time travellers."
"Uh huh… how about no. I've no interests in your petty contests Black." Lily said crossly.
"She's pretty bad tempered isn't she?" Ginny said quietly.
"And if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is." Harry said.
Pansy sighed.
"I guess it was true after all." She said mournfully.
"What was?" Lily said suspiciously.
"Well" Pansy continued "I was told that at this time, most women and girls had no courage and considered themselves beneath men. I always thought it was an exaggeration and that there must have been some strong women but if you're the best these guys could come up with, I guess I'll have to admit it to myself that women haven't always had the strength we now have in my time."
Lily's eyes flashed dangerously.
"Lupin" She said without breaking Pansy's gaze "I accept your offer."
"Ah, I think it was Padfoot and Prongs' offer." Peter corrected nervously.
"No" Lily said calmly "Their offers were degrading. I am accepting the offer Lupin would have made momentarily if Miss Parkinson hadn't goaded me."
"I definitely like her." Pansy said to Draco again.
"What just because she picked up on what you were doing? It was pretty obvious Pan." Draco replied.
"Shut it prat."
"Well, we have our team, Me, Remus, Sirius, Peter, and now Evans. Who's on yours?"
Pansy, Draco, Harry and Ginny exchanged glances before chorusing as one;
"Severus Snape."
"What!" Cried James and Severus at the same time.
"You heard us." Draco said mildly "We choose Severus on the basis that if he's as good at potions, defence spells, and sneaking around in this time as he is in the future, then he'll be perfect for our team."
"But… I…"
"Oh pipe down Severus, you'll be good at it and, if your part of a team, we'll protect you from many of the spells and whatnot sent your way." Harry said.
"Well…"
"Severus, we are not giving you a choice. Just accept it. It'll be easier in the long run."
"Well…"
"Yes?"
"Alright then."
"Yay!" Harry screamed and seemed prepared to do another victory lap but was grabbed by Remus.
"We need to set ground rules." He reminded him.
"Rule number one: targeting." Ginny said "While class pranks or school wide pranks are acceptable and often appropriate, you cannot specifically target individuals unless they are on the other team."
"Agreed." Sirius said "Rule number two: hindrance. You cannot do pranks that interfere with another persons school grades. No homework stealing for example though that would be lame anyway."
"Agreed." Draco said "Rule number three: assistance. You may ask others for help but they cannot participate directly. Like if I need equipment for something, I can ask a prefect to get it for me but they can't put it together, set it off, or act as an alibi if I'm caught by a teacher."
"On that note, rule number four: Teachers." James said "No tattling but if someone does get caught; the other team won't lie for them if questioned though the persons own team may."
"Alright, and last rule," Harry said "Visitations. We are expecting people from the future to come back and find us although due to our unusual means of transportation, they may not be able to take us back strait off, just give us items we may need like our own trunks, etcetera. If they come back, they will remember what has already happened while we are here but not what will happen. As such, they may choose to directly help either team. I think this is fair as our first visitors will probably include Remmy and Severus."
"That seems fair." Remus said cautiously.
"How will we know which people are from the future?" Peter asked, confused.
"Well Peter," James said slightly mockingly "They will be the people you don't recognise or seem only vaguely familiar."
"Oh… right."
"The winner is decided only if the other team surrenders. Do we have a deal gentlemen, madam?" Draco said formally.
"We do indeed sir" Lily replied and the pair shook hand on it.
"May the best pranksters win."
Okay much as I hate doing this cause I know how annoying I find it… reeeeeviiiieeeeew. See, I put extra vowels. For every time you review I'll read one of your stories and review it. If you don't have stories I'll give you cyber cookies.