The story thus far: After being advised not to make close friends at school, Remus and his dorm mates get off to a rocky start. Remus makes a friend in Lily, and they present a united front when it comes to Sirius and James. Remus has decided that it is due time for some payback in the form of his own prank.
Warnings: Slash, eventual RLSB
Disclaimers: Don't own it.
Notes: You missed me, didn't you? I missed me, too. Thanks to Rry, Werewolfsfan, and Oony!
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The Worst Year Yet
By Rekahneko
Chapter 12 – Fifth Year – Prank Time
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The day of the prank had arrived and Remus was so nervous he didn't get much sleep at all. Thankfully he had planned ahead and taken a nice restful nap while the prank victims were out the day before. Remus' inability to sleep actually worked out well as he was able to verify that his victims were up very late. By "accidentally" waking them up with a loud door slam in the middle of the night, he hopefully disrupted their sleep even more. The boys needed to be very lethargic in the morning. As usual, his three difficult roommates had stayed up late on Tuesday night since they didn't have an early morning class the following day, and Remus was relieved to see things were progressing according to plan.
When his almost silent alarm sounded at 5 AM, Remus was so wound up, he nearly leapt from his bed. In his haste to turn off the alarm, his feet got tangled in the sheets and he fell out of bed and onto the floor, the alarm clattering onto the floor after him. His heart beat wildly as he strained his hearing to see if the sounds of his clumsy wake up call had been noticed.
Settle down, he told himself, listening to the uninterrupted sounds of muffled breathing and snores around him. Remus slowly unwound himself from the sheets and blankets, wincing at the new bruise on his hip and trying his best to be silent. As he tugged at the twisted bedding, his wand spun out from its normal place under his pillow and dropped onto the floor somewhere, rolling away into the gloom. He couldn't see much in the darkness and the underside of his bed was completely pitch black.
Inside his head, Remus was using curse words he never would have dared voice. He felt around in the shadows underneath his bed for the wand, searching for anything that felt like a long wooden stick. Instead, he found what was obviously his missing Astronomy textbook, what might have been a Chocolate Frog wrapper, and something soft and squashy that he hoped he would never see in the light of day.
Don't Panic. Maybe it rolled the other way. Remus turned to look over at the neighboring bed, Pettigrew's, thanking Merlin that the boy was the heaviest sleeper of all his roommates. He crawled toward it and tentatively felt underneath, trying not to think of the possible things living in the darkness. Perhaps if he just pushed aside the empty Dungbomb box, he would be able to search behind Peter's trunk.
Bad idea! The back of his hand hit a bottle, tipping it onto the floor, and then another one and finally a third joined the first. The glass containers clinked as they hit each other and rolled around, making enough noise to wake a hippogriff. Remus froze and listened for the sounds of someone waking. Thankfully he didn't room with hippogriffs. He grimaced as his hand encountered a sticky wet substance. Who kept half-full bottles of butterbeer under their bed? Maybe they were there to provide food for the dust bunnies that seemed to have attacked him. Remus was glad he hadn't changed into his school clothes yet since he was bound to be filthy after this experience.
Just be calm. He was certain that any time now Sirius would wake up and ask him why he was sneaking around so early in the morning. Finally his questing hand found the comforting wood grain of his wand and Remus couldn't help a long sigh of relief.
Much more confident with his wand at his side, the werewolf silently slipped to his trunk, finding his plans for the day. "Sirius and James are prats," he whispered, tapping the paper with his wand and watching it fill with words. Remus checked the parchment one last time before beginning work on his meticulously crafted schedule.
His first order of business was to cast a minor sleeping spell on each boy sharing the dorm room. It wouldn't keep them asleep if something dramatic happened, but it was good enough to cover up his sneaking around. The next item on the list was to carefully place all extra articles of clothing into the dirty clothes hamper where they instantly disappeared, not to return until the end of the day. Finally, he methodically cast the complex spell he and Lily had developed on each item of clothing that was left. Dropping the prank notes into his trunk, he cast his newest locking spell to secure his belongings and left the room.
As he quietly closed the door and made his way down the stairs, Remus couldn't help a grin from twitching at the edges of his mouth. He might be tired, but he was already anticipating the rest of the day. The hard part was over! He hoped.
"Lily? Are you there?" Remus whispered into the darkness.
"Over here," came a quiet voice from the shadowed end of the common room.
"Well, it's done. Hopefully everything is ready to go. I'm a wreck! I have no idea how those two manage to do this so often. I could never handle this kind of stress regularly."
Lily chuckled. "Well, they probably haven't the brains to worry about getting into trouble and they certainly don't have the imagination to think of all the ways things might go wrong."
"I'm not sure. Their imagination is pretty good. It's their planning and delivery that could use some work."
"So it's done then?"
Nodding in the dark, Remus let out a long breath. "Everything is set. Their clothing will spell out humorous sayings and Sirius, James and Peter will all be unable to read it. Now we just have to see how long we can keep them unaware. I'm hoping they get through at least one class before someone tells them what is going on."
"I bet they won't find out until lunch." Lily grinned devilishly. "Come on, let's go over the details while we wait for breakfast to start."
"Sure thing. I think I need to wash up very thoroughly first though," Remus replied, trying not to look at his sticky, dirty hands too closely.
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It was the tail end of breakfast and Remus was finishing off the last bit of his tea when three of his roommates finally stumbled into the Great Hall. Their bleary-eyed looks spoke of very little sleep and suggested the boys might not be at their most alert. Remus smiled across the table at his best friend who grinned back and, picking up her bag, made her way over to her Herbology study partner.
The recent arrivals sat in their usual spot at the end of the table, as far from the teachers as possible. They didn't notice the buzz of conversation they caused at their entrance. Remus thought their disinterest might be a leftover result of their poorly conceived prank earlier that month. The three had become rather accustomed to being a topic of discussion as of late.
Glancing over at the Hufflepuff table, Remus was pleased to note that Lily's friend from Herbology was quickly spreading the news about the prank, and he was hopeful that no one would take it upon themselves to let the boys in on the plan.
Remus thought that if he and Lily could somehow keep the boys from finding out before they finished breakfast and went back to bed, the prank had a good chance of success.
Sure enough, by the time his three roommates were almost finished stuffing their faces with sausage and eggs, word of the prank had spread to Remus' part of the Gryffindor table but no one had gone to talk to the notorious pranksters about the messages on their robes.
"Lupin, did you hear about the prank on Black and Potter," asked Frank Longbottom, the seldom-seen prefect of the fifth year Gryffindor boys. "I heard from my cousin their robes say, Will prank for food." He chuckled.
"I heard it was, I am so stupid, when someone told me to catch the Knight Bus, I ran after it with a net," added a younger boy sitting farther down the table.
"Sounds like a prank from the older Gryffindor boys," Remus replied sensibly. "Doesn't look like Black and Potter know what is on their robes yet."
"I'm not going to tell them," supplied Alice another fifth year Gryffindor, including herself in the conversation. "They were awful with that Yule prank. I spent my entire allowance on those dress robes!"
Frank put a comforting arm around Alice, and Remus thought he might know why Frank decided to sit at the Gryffindor table instead of with his Hufflepuff cousins as he usually did.
Remus says, "It's obviously a Gryffindor, angry about the pranking of their own house. Gryffindors should stick together, don't you think?" The younger boy down the table nodded his agreement.
"Absolutely," agreed Frank, tightening the arm around his Gryffindor girlfriend.
"You're so sweet and loyal," murmured Alice, gazing adoringly at Frank. The boy down the table made a gagging motion and turned back to the boys from his own year, speaking quietly and gesturing to the end of the table where Sirius, James, and Peter were sitting.
Remus smiled to himself and finished off his tea.
Meanwhile, Lily had finished speaking with her Hufflepuff study partner. She paused as she was walking past the Ravenclaw table and listened in to a group of girls discussing the prank. She hadn't quite expected news to travel so fast, but she supposed she shouldn't be so surprised. When Potter and Black were involved, strange things happened.
"Apparently their robes are spelled to say something embarrassing and they don't even know," one of the Ravenclaw girls was saying.
Lily lowered her voice and leaned in to the group. "I heard about the prank from an upperclassman. Probably one of the seventh years finally decided to get back at the two. After they disrupted the ball and everything… Imagine having your very last dance at Hogwarts be completely ruined!"
The young ladies around her made sympathetic noises, thinking terrible thoughts about boys who would ruin the most romantic and significant evening in a school girl's life.
"You don't think anyone will tell them and wreck the whole thing, do you?" Lily asked innocently.
"I hope not! Maybe if we spread the word to the other students, Black and Potter will spend the whole day looking like idiots. It's the least I can do to pay them back." The venomous voice made Lily wince. It was a wonder the boys had survived this long. She reminded herself never to make Bertha Parkinson angry. That whole family was a bit unstable.
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It was a bad day. Like many bad days, it started with a morning. Sirius hadn't gotten as much beauty sleep as he wished, not that he needed it of course. He flipped his hair out of his eyes and winked at a passing girl. She giggled, whispering something to her friend and Sirius smiled to himself, pleased that he was still capable of garnering the interest of some pretty girls. It seemed as if he was forgiven him for the Yule prank and the school was back to lavishing attention on him, as usual. It was too bad today was the day when, for whatever reason, most of his clothes had been put in the laundry and he ended up wearing one of his least favorite robes. Dratted house-elves. Probably the fault of one who was related to the Black family elf, Kreature.
"Hurry up and stop thinking about your hair, Sirius. We were late for Herbology last week and Sprout might still be annoyed."
Peter looked tired and grumpy and so Sirius ignored him, turning to James and asking, "Why is it that I'm always more worn-out on the day we don't have a class first thing?"
"Life is a mystery," James replied dryly between yawns. "Maybe it's because we always stay up so late the night before. Nah, that couldn't be it."
Sirius agreed, waving his hand dismissively, "Much too logical a reason."
Down a different hallway, another group of students were also on their way to class.
"I heard the Hufflepuffs were still feeling very hurt by the Yule prank," Remus said conversationally to his Runes classmate as they walked down the hall.
"It seems like a lot of hard work went into the prank. I suppose that is a Hufflepuff for you. Certainly I want to encourage that sort of determination and work ethic," the boy with the Ravenclaw patch replied.
"I think I'm not going to tell them what is going on," Remus confided.
"It is good to be supportive of these kinds of efforts," agreed the other boy pompously. "I'm sure a Ravenclaw won't be the one to tell them. See you later, Lupin."
Remus turned down the long hallway leading to the greenhouses. This would be the first class of the day for the rest of the fifth year Gryffindor boys, none of whom had chosen to take Ancient Runes. It would be interesting to see how the prank would fare with so many students around. He hoped no one would tell the Sirius and James for a while yet, maybe even the whole class period.
"Remus," exclaimed Kirley Duke, his excitable Herbology partner, jumping up and down a bit. "Did you hear about the prank on Black and Potter? Something about funny stuff on their robes!"
Nodding gravely, Remus answered. "The Ravenclaws told me not to explain anything to the two of them. You know, after the Yule Feast and all…"
"Of course not! Good idea! Gotta help the 'Claws, right? Wait until I tell the others!" Kirley bounced over to his own housemates to share the information. Remus grinned at the enthusiasm. Hufflepuffs were loyal to the hilt.
Sirius and James entered the greenhouse, chatting with each other, Peter trailing them, all three paying no attention to anyone else. There were about five minutes before class started and usually everyone chatted after they got their supplies settled at the worktables. Specifically, Sirius usually flirted with a random student or two while James tried to talk to Lily.
This time, the entire room went quiet when the three entered and then the whispers started. Sirius and James looked confused for a moment and then brushed it off. People had been acting strangely since their last prank so the behavior wasn't as surprising as it might have been. When Sirius tried to chat up a girl, she did nothing but giggle though that also wasn't particularly unusual. Lily just tried to hold in her laughter and stood in a way that, when James was trying to talk to her, his back was facing the rest of the class who all got a wonderful view.
The class stared in fascination at the message on the back of James' robes. Anyone who told me to be myself couldn't have given me worse advice, it read. There was snickering but he didn't pay attention to anything but Lily. It wasn't every day she would actually stand around and talk to him, after all.
In the meantime, Sirius' robes were providing amusement by announcing, School – It's not just for sleeping anymore. It certainly seemed like something he would be all for if one was judging by the occasional yawns.
"Okay class, it's time to start. Everyone pass your assignments to the front please and we can begin." Professor Sprout smiled kindly at the students, motioning a few toward their seats.
As James bent over the mess in his school bag and tried in vain to find his, the words on the back of his robes changed. "As organized as a soup sandwich."
Lily's eyes widened and she looked at Remus, trying not to giggle.
He whispered, "I didn't even plan the timing on that!"
Professor Sprout called for attention again, and sorted the students into small groups to work on the latest project. She didn't seem to be disturbed by the lack of attention her class was giving her, but Remus supposed she never did expect strict adherence to the rules.
The Hufflepuffs on the far side of the room snickered as a new message appeared on the two pranksters' backs. The Gryffindors in the class just tried to look innocent and pretend nothing was wrong when faced with the prank victims' confused expressions. Remus worked on holding in a grin but it was difficult. Meanwhile, the boys in question just looked around them, trying to figure out what was so funny.
This day was turning out even better than he had imagined!
99 percent of Gryffindors give the rest a bad name was the slogan decorating Sirius' back.
"What's that one about?" Lily looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"To divert suspicion," Remus replied in a whisper.
She shook her head and smiled. "Today is going to be the best, ever. I wonder if I can borrow a camera. Thankfully I have been practicing my evil laugh."
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Next Time:
"Are you stalking me? Because that would be brilliant."