Chapter 87: Give Me A Break
"It's over!!" Sirius yelled at the top of his lungs.
"Padfoot, calm down. This is only a normal exam." James laughed at his silly friend who was currently bouncing around the corridors.
"How could I calm down??" Sirius, as usual, was getting both admiring glances and strange glares from the other students. "It's like two more weeks of school!!"
"Padfoot, you're not exactly young to be bouncing around. Image, you know??" Remus called out. Several first and second years were eyeing Sirius with a strange expression on their faces. The three walking Marauders were laughing at the bouncing one.
"Who cares?? I'm young at heart." Sirius ignored all the odd looks that he was receiving from doing something as outlandish as bouncing along Hogwarts corridors, considering he's 1.8 meters in height.
"You really needn't inform us. We do have eyes." Peter added.
"Sirius, what's wrong with you??" Stefanie called out to the bouncing and jumping Sirius as the two girls joined the Marauders.
"He's mad."
"He's insane."
"He's crazy."
"I'm happy."
"Er.."
"Guys, I've to agree with you for Sirius' childish behavior."
"Oh, c'mon, I'm just expressing my joy and happiness."
"That's a good way, huh." Lily said, laughing. Funny was the understatement to describe Sirius' action. It was hilarious.
"You guys are just jealous."
"Padfoot, I don't know about the rest. But I assure you, I'm not jealous of you, not at all in any sense." James defended himself in a joking manner, which made everyone around him laughed.
"Can we get Arabella back, just for a day??" Lily begged. The four Gryffindors were in Dumbledore's office, making a request.
"It's nearly impossible to get someone non-magical to enter Hogwarts." Dumbledore eyes twinkled in the candlelight as he spoke to the girls.
"She was magical before." Samantha reasoned.
"And Arabella is magical by herself, whether she has the ability to perform magic or not." Stefanie added.
"Tell me one way why she's magical."
"There's the magic of friendship and bonding between the five of us that no one else can replace." Lily said instantly.
"Since you all are so persistent, I see what I can do." Dumbledore smiled warmly at them.
"Thank you so much, Professor." The girls chorused happily.
"I didn't promise that she'd definitely be here." The girls swore that they saw Dumbledore giving them a mischievous wink as he was saying that.
"What's gonna be the prank of the century this year??" James asked the guys. They had soundproofed the room for a major discussion on this sunny Wednesday afternoon. Since exams were over, the whole school was in total freedom.
"What else can we do in the Hall??" Remus commented. "We had done almost everything."
"As you said, almost but not every thing." Sirius pointed out.
"Since you always say you are the mastermind, why don't you think of something??"
"I'm racking my brains, just lacking of juices at the moment."
"I thought you've unlimited supply of ideas??"
"I used up most of them in the last six years."
"Does that mean we're going to tone down next year??" Peter asked.
"Of course not!!"
"No way!!"
"We can manage something decent over the break."
"But now we need some idea."
"Padfoot??"
"Don't disturb genius at thoughts!!"
"This looks pretty!!" Joey commented. The girls were out at Hogsmeade Village to catch up with some end of year shopping. Dumbledore had given permission for the sixth- and seventh-year students an additional Hogsmeade day upon request by most of the older students.
"Look at this dress!!" Samantha said, holding up a simple black dress.
"What about this top??" Stefanie placed the cream-colored top in front of her and checked out at the nearest mirror.
"This jeans look gorgeous." Lily held the faded denim hipster jeans in front of her and looked at the full-length mirror. Not many people in Hogsmeade would shop at the muggle clothing store, which was rather isolated, but Lily and Stefanie were almost regulars there.
"Why don't you girls give them a try??" Miss Selfridge, a pretty lady in her twenties, told her only customers in the store. "I can always do the alterations to make them more figure flattering."
"We always love your clothes." Stefanie told her. "You copied them from muggle stores??"
"Well, I love clothes from muggle stores like Levi, Mango, Zara and Topshop, don't know if you gals have heard of them. Anyway, I figure that young witches might like them too, so I just got the idea from there."
"You bet we love it." Stefanie was now looking at another top with a knee-length skirt. "My fave is still the denim jeans from Mango, I think, which I got from here. Made to fit, unlike from those muggle stores."
"That's why we're more fortunate than them." Miss Selfridge said honestly. "We can use magic to alter, but they need to use thread and needles which is so much more time consuming. Sometimes I just wish I could help them."
"Threads and needles are like a common thing for muggles, you need them when a button come loose or patching up some lose seams." Lily, being the muggleborn, told them.
"That's right. Threads and needles are essential to muggles. For us it's just a wave of wand."
"I grew up in mixed muggle and magical world, so I still have some rough idea about them."
"I must be the most ignorance one, I have absolutely how to go about using needles and thread, the muggle way."
"Some girls do like sewing as a pastime."
"Remember I showed you the cross-stitch that I done several months ago??"
"Yeah, it looked fascinating."
"It is fascinating to some extent."
"Hey, what do you think of my outfit??" Joey asked, a little unsure of her image.
"It looks great on you." Samantha said approvingly.
"It suits your cute sweetie pie look." Lily added positively.
"Lils, that's too exaggerating. Stef??"
"I think it looks good, maybe you can try alter the top a little to make it more fitting??"
"You do have a good fashion sense."
"Inherited from my mum."
"Sam, you look so feminine!!" Lily exclaimed a little too exaggerated the moment Samantha appeared in a simple white dress with small pink embroidered flowers.
"Your image isn't exactly the feminine type, ya know??" Stefanie and Joey laughed a little.
"Ok, whatever. I'm just trying to see how I look." Samantha gave a pout and turned back to change to her next outfit.
"Lily, aren't you going to try this new hipster?? This is one of the newest arrival."
"Oh ya." Lily went to the other changing room to change while Stefanie was still searching for other clothing hung around the racks.
"Eeep, I can't zip up this dress." Samantha exclaimed a little too loudly in the changing room. All the five ladies started laughing at her little comment.
"NO!! NO!! NO!!" James emphasized. Sirius had just came up with a crazy suggestion of making the professors do pole dancing as a breakfast treat which was totally irrational and out of the question.
"I don't know if your mind is ok, but I still want to graduate next year." Remus laughed. The very image of Dumbledore, McGonagall, Porky dancing on the staff table with newly transfigured metal poles was ridiculously funny although it would never happen.
"Padfoot, have you gotten some post-exam stress or pre-results fever?? You seems a little off these days." James said in genuine concern.
"I'm trying to find some decent suggestions."
"Doing pole-dancing in Hogwarts for breakfast don't seem very decent to me."
"Whoever said pole dancing must be dance naked or stripping??"
"Yeah, imagine Dumbledore wearing his normal long white cloak and dance while Maggie in her tall pointy hat dancing with a pole??"
"Very funny indeed."
"Next idea please." James was a little flustered. They were always more worried about not coming with a good prank than scoring for an exam.
"Let's make a list from what we did in the past."
"What did we do in the first year??"
"We didn't do anything."
"Second??"
"The super soakers."
"Then Operation floaty and itchy Slytherins."
"I still can remember Porky, well – hmm.."
"Animal potion in fourth year."
"Last year was the ultimate, sex change."
"Then this year?? We need something that shake the world."
"Wait, I will definitely think of something." Sirius assured.
"I'm not assured by that. I think we might come up with something before you do."
"I already had so many suggestions, you guys just rejected them."
"Professors doing pole dance and Slytherins doing striptease for breakfast is totally impractical, Padfoot!!"
"I wonder if Dumbledore agreed to let Bell come for the end-of-year feast and stay with us for that night." Lily told James. The two were doing their night patrol after curfew hour after the final prefects meeting for the semester year.
"It would be wonderful if she can come. Sirius had gone bonkers without Bell."
"I thought he was never sane to begin with."
"He used to be more level headed."
"In what sense??"
"More like pranking sense, I guess."
"He probably ran out of ideas."
"Probably."
"So what's the year end prank??"
"I'm not saying."
"C'mon, just leak a bit."
"No."
"A wee bit??"
"Nah, don't try to convince me."
"I get some Veritaserum."
"I get my short term memory erase then."
"Oei!!"
"No!!"
"C'mon!!" Lily was pulling onto James' sleeve.
"I'm not saying anything."
"Aww, you can't do that."
"Why not??"
"Never mind, I ask Stef. Remus tells her everything."
"Remus do tell Stef everything, but he never tell her about our pranks. And this is like the biggest prank of the century."
"You all say the same thing every year."
"Because it just get better."
"Lift up to your Marauders standard, huh."
"Of course, we're doing advance magic that even some professor have no idea about it."
"Like??"
"Like the animal thingie and sex changing stuffs."
"Then this year??"
"Zip!!" James gave the zipping mouth signal.
"Fine."
"Good."
"I thought you zipped your mouth??"
"I unzipped it when you were not looking."
"Haha, very funny."
"I know you love my sense of humor."
"I prefer Sirius insane humor."
"No one can beat his insane humor."
"It's exactly seven more days before the feast and we have absolutely no clue what prank we would be doing." Remus said in another of their major discussion. Most students were at Hogsmeade while the rest were hanging out in the outdoors in the sunny weather.
"In any case we need a potion which might take a longer time to prepare."
"We can always travel back time to do it." Remus assured. "No worries about that."
"But at least we need an idea. A ground shaking idea."
"Earthquake in Hogwarts??"
"Haha. Very funny."
"Just kidding."
"Making objects tumbling??"
"Raining cats and dogs??"
"Chaos??"
"Mess??"
"It seems like none sounds anywhere near impressive."
"We need something absolutely, well, impressive."
"You don't need to repeat my speech actually."
"People are starting to wonder what we might do."
"And we have just no clue what we're going to do."