Author's note: Thank you to everyone who has been reviewing! This next chapter has a few bits that might not be familiar if you're not British, so after these parts I've put explaination in *'s, also, I think British mischief night is different to elsewhere, so if you're not British, for us it's November 4th, not October 30th. Anyway, a little bit of seasonal fun, centred mostly around the Marauders.
All was unnervingly quiet in the Gryffindor first year boys' dormitory. Sirius Black lay wide-awake, staring at the bed hangings above him. He and James had been planning today for quite some time, they'd even gone to the trouble of persuading two of the three other boys with whom they shared a room to pitch in with the mischief making, and thus the concept of The Marauders was born. Sirius paid no mind to the fact that he would probably end up in detention for the events that would undoubtedly unfold today, but his only desire was for Susanna Hartwin-Magia to have no hand in foiling his plans.
Sirius rolled over and yanked the hangings surrounding his bed apart. To his left, a tuft of untidy black hair was just about visible from beneath a cocoon of blankets. Sirius rolled over to the side of his bed and groped around under it for something to throw at James, who was fast becoming his best friend. His hand landed on a battered trainer *or sneaker if you read the non UK version of the books* and he launched it at James' slumbering figure,
"Narg," he snorted, "Wass 'appnin?" he mumbled sleepily, groping around his bedside table to his glasses.
Across the dormitory, woken by the kafuffle made by Sirius and James, Remus Lupin stirred, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He still felt exhausted from his, ahem, visit to his dying grandmother two nights ago.
"Get your arse in gear, Jamesy boy, it's the day we've been waiting for!" Sirius leaped out of bed and bounded around the room like an over excited puppy, leaping onto the beds of James, Remus and his final recruit Peter, and bouncing around.
Remus rolled his eyes. Today was November 4th, mischief night, the night before some crazy muggle tried to blow up the muggle government, the night before bonfire night *otherwise known as Guy Fawkes night*. A month ago, James and Sirius had cornered Remus in the Library and begged him to help them orchestrate a little bit of chaos to brighten up the otherwise dreary November day. The idea of having 'friends' was somewhat of an alien concept to Remus, having been warned his whole life that he probably wouldn't have any, as so had been swept up in the moment and had agreed to assist in the mischief making, even if he was probably going to end up in detention for a month- or worse, expelled. Nevertheless, who doesn't love a good bit of mischief making? Had become a phrase Remus repeated over and over to himself as James and Sirius began thinking up wilder and wilder plans.
Slightly disgruntled by his rude awakening, James began pulling on his robes and attempting the impossible task of trying to get his unruly hair to lie flat on his head. He was all for the monumental jokes that he and Sirius had been planning ever since his latest batch of Zonko's goodies had been delivered, but the main thing on his mind that morning was that the first Quidditch match of the season was being held on Saturday. Despite his best efforts, James had been unable to persuade Madame Hooch to bend the rules on allowing first years to try out for the team, but since then he had been desperately trying to concoct a plan in order to worm his way onto the Gryffindor house team, and with the first match of the season (against Slytherin, no less) fast approaching, he needed to think of something, and he needed to think of it quick. Sirius, who had calmed down enough to stop bouncing on the beds, caught sight of James' expression, tutted and rolled his eyes,
"Not still moping about Quidditch are you, mate?"
James sighed, but shook his head all the same. He was fully aware of Siruis' opinion on the matter by now.
"You are, aren't you?" Sirius asked, not pausing for a reply, "there's no way in hell you're going to get on the team. First years just don't do it. Ever. Ok?"
James didn't know it, but Sirius was just bitter about the fact that his mother had confiscated his first broomstick on his seventh birthday, after pushing his brother Regulus down the stairs for trying to play with Sirius' most prized possession.
"What's first then boys?" squeaked and excited Peter, who, in the opinion of Sirius, made far too much of an effort to fit in with the boys than was necessary. For this reason, he often irritated Sirius. It was only through James' persuasion that Sirius had consented to letting Peter tag along with their little group.
"We've been over this a thousand times Peter!" groaned Sirius exasperatedly, "Remus, you're on breakfast duty, take Peter with you. James, you know what to do, just make sure you keep out of sight. Ok?"
James saluted Sirius with a wicked grin on his face, Remus looked rather pleased at having been chosen for the most magically complicated job and Peter just looked puzzled,
"What are you going to be doing?" he asked Sirius, a lock of his mosey blond hair flopping into his eyes,
"I," he smirked, looking please with himself, "will be in the girls' bathrooms."
This was the only part of the plan that Remus actually objected to. All of the other tricks the boys had in store were fairly harmless, but this one was taking things a step too far, particularly seeing as Remus' first ever friends had been Lilly and Susi, and he didn't see them being too pleased with what Sirius had in store for the Gryffindor girls that morning.
"Onward!" cried James excitedly.
Sirius led the way out of the room, pausing to spring into mid air and click his heels before sneaking off to the girls' bathrooms. Remus and Peter headed off out of the portrait hole and James seemed to disappear into thin air with a flourish of silvery grey material. The mischief had begun.
By the time The Marauders had finished preparing their tricks, the rest of the castle was just waking up. By the time breakfast was served, the four boys sat huddled at one end of the Gryffindor table, sipping pumpkin juice and eagerly awaiting their first victims.
Suddenly, there was an almighty shriek from the entrance hall, shortly followed by a haughty looking sixth year Slytherin girl on the arm of an equally snooty looking Slytherin seventh year boy. Both were covered in a rather disgusting looking yellowish slime and were emitting the foulest sulphurous odour of rotting eggs.
"Was that supposed to be some sort of joke?" She screeched, stamping her feet.
"There, there, Cissy, I'll catch the brats that did this. And when I do, they'll wish they had never been born," the boy had longish white blond hair and the coldest grey eyes, which he used to survey the Gryffindor table with, eyes pausing on the Marauders, who begin enthusiastically tubing into breakfast to avoid detection. With that, the pair strolled out of the great hall, but not before several of the students had captured their appalled expressions on their cameras.
All of the students (other than the Slytherins, who were most un-amused) began snickering to themselves, but little did they know they too were about to fall foul of the next of the tricks.
The Gryffindor girls were later than usual to breakfast this morning, and when Lily and Susanna plonked themselves down at the table, they bore less than impressed looks on their faces,
"Everything alright Lily?" asked Remus, trying to remain as casual as possible.
"No, everything is most certainly not bloody alright, Remus," She snapped,
"Someone, thought it would be hilarious to change all of the soap in the girls bathroom to frogspawn soap," hissed Susi angrily, "and I'm pretty sure you had something to do with it Black!"
Remus suppressed a snigger, while the other boys fell about laughing. Both girls looked less than impressed, and as the Gryffindor table filled up with females, the expressions on Lily and Susanna's faces were mirrored.
Lily glared icily at the boys, before pouring herself a cup of tea, she raised it to her mouth, only to find that it suddenly grew teeth and latched itself onto her nose,
"OW! What the- Get it off!" She shrieked, leaping up. She was not the only one, ever since the beginning of breakfast people had been going to take a sip of tea, and finding that their teacups were taking nasty nips at their noses.
"Nose biting teacups, genius!" whispered James to Remus, giving the boy a sly pat on the back.
Up at the staff table, Professor Dumbledore let out a chuckle; he was taking great delight in watching the chaos unfold before his eyes. Beside him, Professor McGonagall tutted loudly, buttering her third slice of toast of the morning. Unlike many of her students (and some of her colleagues) she had figured out the teacup problem and had transfigured a nearby apple into a suitable drinking vessel that would not take a chunk out of her nose. There was no doubt in her mind who was behind this little fiasco, but while the headmaster seemed at ease with the situation, she would allow it to go unpunished…For the time being…
The rest of the day passed in a blur of stink pellets and dung bombs, along with the occasional firework and harmless explosion.
Susanna was initially rather miffed by the japes of the boys, but as the day went of, she grew more and more amused by the happenings as long as they were not harming her, though she would never admit that to the boys of course. One thing that dampened her spirits, as it did every Thursday, was double history. After lunch they trudged up to the first floor and began yawning before they had even reached their seats.
The first half an hour of the lesson passed in it's usual dreary way. However, soon a ripple of strange noises filled the room, and Susi found a sweet being pressed into her hand, warily, she popped it into her mouth and soon began to realise what the strange noise was. Every few seconds, a student would jump up out of their chair and make the loudest hiccoughing sound possible. It seemed as though the Marauders' latest tactic was to try and liven up the most boring lesson ever by passing around hiccoughing sweets. Susi, half heartedly rolled her eyes and slid a note over to Lily's desk,
It seems the boys have bought out the entire stock of Zonko's. How original- S x
Lily grinned at her and did a bit of a cross-eyed goofy expression that Susi presumed conveyed some sort of amusement at the situation. By the time the first half of the double history lesson was up, Professor Binns was at his wits end, and instead of putting them through another hour of torture, ordered them all to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey dished out reversal potions.
Susi gave a grateful smile to Remus as the students revelled in their hour of freedom before being dragged up to the common room by Lily.
"I must say, I'm quite impressed with the way HM's taking all this," remarked James, in reference to Susi, as the boys began preparations for their final act of mischief, "I thought she was far to goody-goody for this sort of thing."
"Told you she's alright. And she hates history, so in a way we did her a favour," Remus replied,
"Urgh, then I wish we'd done something else. Anything that makes that witch's life easier is not something that I want to do," again, Sirius did not say witch.
"Alright, alright, we get the picture, you hate her. But Remy seems to like her," James interjected.
Sirius glared, he did not expect mutiny on a day like today, thus giving him yet another reason to hate Susanna.
"Lets just get on with this, shall we?" he spoke through gritted teeth, and the boys returned to laughing and joking as they prepared for their next act of mischief.
During dinner that evening, the great hall was buzzing with excitement, as all anyone could talk about were the tricks that had been occurring all day all over the castle, with one third year boy claiming that one of the teacups had nearly taking his eye out that morning.
"Professor Dumbledore, I really think we should have a word with the students I suspected, they've bond to have cooked something up for this evening, and I think they've been disruptive enough today without giving them the opportunity to inflict more chaos!" Professor McGonagall spoke in a hushed, urgent whisper,
"Now, now, Minerva, I assure you it's all good natured fun. No one has been seriously harmed by the pranks; in fact I find them rather charming. Come now, lets see what they've cooked up for this evening's entertainment." Dumbledore patted McGonagall's hand in a reassuring way as the food appeared in the large serving dishes on the tables.
The shepherds' pie was served and consumed without a hitch, and people were beginning to wonder if the jokers had bottled out of whatever grand finale they had been planning. However, the moment the treacle tart hit the tables, the great hall began to be swamped with huge, luminous balloons, which, despite the best efforts of teachers and students alike, would not burst. The great hall soon became full of them, and the occupants of the great hall were quickly being pushed towards the exits by the tide non-explodable luminous balloons.
By the time the boys had reached their dormitory, they collapsed on their beds laughing.
"Well done boys, mischief managed!" bellowed Sirius, following his utterance with his bark-like laugh,
"From now on, mischief night will be hereby known as Marauders day!" exclaimed James, who begun bouncing happily on his bed, just as Sirius had done that morning.