A/N do i need a pen name and I have found a fresh solution to our problem of never wanting to update. You see we have this aversion to opening word, in order to fix this aversion we have created a joint twitter account and now we write the chapter back and forth 140 characters at a time. Hopefully, this will lead to prompter updating. We are hopeful to write the concluding two chapters of this story very soon.
Thanks to all reviewers!
Disclaimer: We own nothing except for Marlene's siblings.
Chapter Twelve
March 31st was not the Winter Solstice. Scientifically, it was in no way, shape, or form the shortest day of the year. The residents of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were not convinced, however. If there was one day that was bound to pass faster than any other, it was most definitely the day before the one they had all been dreading since the arrival of the Marauders: April first. Or, in the world of pranksters: April Fool's day.
There was no doubt in most of their minds that something hugely, unpredictably awful would happen that day. A prank to end all pranks.
The people who had the most to fear, of course, were the residents of a certain snake-related house. Of course, they were also the ones who acted the least fearful. It truly was the greatest tragedy of all that these particular students were so woefully unprepared for life. That would soon change, however, as they would be receiving a crash course in life-preparation in the form of the first MMAFDP—or, Marauders and Marlene April Fool's Day Prank. But, generally, they (minus Remus) preferred to call it MMAFDP pronounced (muh-maf-dap). Which really means they liked to yell "Fear the muhmafdap!" while running throughout the corridors.
It was at times like these that Remus truly regretted not being a hermit. Because honestly, hermits didn't even have friends, let alone friends as clinically insane as his tended to be more often than not. But back to the point…
In short, if anyone thought they would be sleeping in on that particular Saturday, they were clearly delusional.
However, as of the night of March 31st, there was still one tiny, utterly minor flaw in MMAFDP...
"Remus still hasn't come back from visiting his mum," James stated, resisting the urge to repeatedly hit his head against the table they were sitting at in frustration. "What are we going to do?"
"Completely freak out?" Peter suggested.
"That's entirely unhelpful, Peter," Marlene announced. "What we need to do is remain calm. Clearly we need a new plan."
"But I like the one we already have!" Sirius whined. "It's completely diabolical." He paused momentarily before continuing, "Plus, it took weeks of planning. How in Merlin's name are we going to come up with another Grand Master Diabolical Plot to rival the genius of MMAFDP in just a few hours?"
Clearly the situation was proving to be just a tad stressful for the remaining Marauders and Marlene.
"We can't let our dear constituents down," James agreed.
"Our what?" Marlene questioned, completely sidetracked from the very important matter at hand.
"Constituents," James replied. "It's a big, complicated way of saying 'fellow Hogwarts students who benefit immensely from all of the extremely enjoyable pranks we play on them,'" He frowned. "At least…I think it is. Where's Remus when you need him?"
"Well, we've already established that he's not here," Peter stated.
"Which brings us back to our original problem," Sirius cut in swiftly. "How are we going to make this work without him?"
"We need to change the Plan," Marlene stated firmly. "And I've already got a few ideas. Here's what we need to do…"
The next morning dawned rather ominously for a majority of the residents of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Even the weather was ominous. April had decided to kick-start itself with a valiant attempt to prove that April Showers did in fact bring May flowers. Of course, the residents of Hogwarts did not know that they faced any particular danger although the weather was a bit of a downer. They had no idea the doom that was awaiting them in the form of 3/4 the Marauders and Marlene. Of course, that doom would only present itself if they could manage to muddle through without Remus which was a dubious proposition.
They had developed a great and sinister plot. One which had been months in the making.
They had developed a great and sinister plot. One which had been months in the making. Of course, one would find it very hard indeed to believe that this great and sinister plot had taken so very long to plan when one took into account what, exactly, their plot entailed. As Sirius liked to put it, they were going to poison everyone's food for dinner.
Of course, if Remus was present (which, sadly, he was not, as his mother was unfortunately quite ill so very often) he would strongly take umbrage with Sirius' wording, as he felt it was a rather unrefined statement. But really, what better way was there to say that the Marauder's and Marlene planned to taint a certain food item that everyone was sure to ingest (minus themselves, of course) with a potion they had made up themselves, thus resulting in mass chaos for the entire school? And in such a concise way, too.
Really, it couldn't be done. So maybe it was for the best, in this one instance, that Remus was sadly not present.
Sad as it may be, though, the fact remained that April Fool's Day only happened once a year-and thus Marlene and the remaining Marauders simply could not afford to await Remus' return before pulling off their utterly magnificent plot.
And so, when the morning dawned so ominously that April morning, the four Gryffindors were all set to wreak havoc upon their fellow scholars.
There was just one minor remaining problem that had to be dealt with first.
"Er...which food was Remus going to poison?" Sirius asked, before they all went their separate ways.
"The dessert," James answered promptly. "There's no sense in letting a good meal go to waste. We'll never be welcomed into the kitchen again if the house elves think we made people stop caring about eating the fine meal they're sure to prepare."
"I thought it was supposed to be the main dish," Marlene argued, "Because we thought everyone was more likely to eat that, and of course we wouldn't want anyone to feel as if they've been left out of our devious plot."
"No, I thought it was supposed to be the salad," Peter cut in. "Because none of us would eat something so disgustingly healthy, just in case we forgot ourselves and ate it by accident."
"We have salad with our meals?" Sirius questioned. "I don't believe it. The house elves aren't stupid. They wouldn't waste something that truly is so disgustingly healthy on teenagers, such as ourselves and probably a majority of the school, who most likely won't touch it. I think it was the dessert."
"But teenage girls also do weird stuff like diet all the time," Marlene said. "And part of those diets always includes the ridiculous idea that sugar isn't one of the main food groups. I bet you half of the girls at lunch won't touch the dessert, which would ruin our genius plot."
"Mars does have a point," Sirius said slowly. "So I guess the dessert is out."
"Well so is the salad," James said quickly. "If such a thing actually exists."
"Which leaves us with poisoning the main dish," Marlene said happily, which had been her idea all along. "I knew you'd agree with me."
"Sirius only did because he's your boyfriend and he has to agree with everything you say or...or else," James finished lamely after saying the rest in one large breath.
"He. Is. Not. My. Boyfriend." Marlene insisted, her teeth clenched tightly.
"Touchy, Touchy…" James clucked.
"I would be an EXCELLENT boyfriend, I will have you know," Sirius burst out sounding offended.
Marlene glared at him. "I'm sure you would, but that's neither here nor there, as we are clearly just friends, platonic friends and nothing else."
"Yes, yes of course," Sirius hurried to agree. "I just wanted to make it clear how awesome I would be as a boyfriend, just as an FYI."
"Well, isn't that just really special?" James agreed. "Now while I do of course find your love life endlessly fascinating we do have a prank to be getting on with so could we possibly just get on with it?"
"Fine, Fine," Marlene sighed while Sirius swiftly nodded his head in agreement.
"Okay, so, who is going to go charm the main dish?" James asked.
"Well, I think we should send at least two people, so that one of us could distract the house elves while the other one charms the food." Sirius pointed out.
"Right, who's it going to be?" James asked. "Why don't you and your girlfriend go…" He continued without waiting for a reply.
Sirius and Marlene scowled but nodded their acquiescence.
"Excellent." James nodded. "Meanwhile, Peter and I are a go for phase two."
"Great. Let's meet back in the common room at 1700 hours. We are a go." Sirius nodded sagely, seizing Marlene by the wrist and dragging her off toward the kitchens.
"James?" Peter inquired after Sirius and Marlene had disappeared from view. "What exactly is phase two?"
"I'm not sure, but it sounds important." James said with a shrug. "Well, let's go see Evans, shall we?"
Meanwhile, in the kitchens Marlene was doing her best to be…dramatic to say the least.
"I am positively faint with hunger, I fear I shall die," she proclaimed to dozens of worried house elves leaning dramatically against a wall and doing her best to look pale.
"Oh, no, miss, we will get you some food, we will get it right away!" One elf squeaked.
"Oh, yes, yes we will get it!" Anther seconded.
Marlene swooned dramatically as she peaked over their heads to see Sirius sneaking toward the food.
"We'll just be going over there to get it now, miss, don't you worry." The first elf repeated.
Marlene's eyes widened as she thought quickly. The elves couldn't go near Sirius until he finished his task. So, she did the only thing she could do, she went limp and hit the floor in what was supposed to be a pretended faint, of course being herself, she managed to hit her head on the way down, and although she did not actually black out she did manage to create what would probably be a pretty spectacular bump.
Sirius finished what he was doing and hurried over to Marlene as all of the elves crowded around her. "Mars? Are you okay?"
Marlene looked woozily at Sirius. "Since when do you have a twin?" She asked.
Sirius frowned at her. "I think it's time for a trip to the hospital wing," He declared.
"You is leaving so soon? But we have not given miss her food yet!" The house elves protested.
"That's quite all right," Sirius assured them. "We will come back some other time." He continued as he bent down to pull Marlene to her feet.
She swayed uneasily and he wrapped an arm around her waist.
Sirius all but dragged her to the hospital wing.
Strangely enough, when they arrived at the hospital wing, Remus was just emerging.
"Remmie! What on earth are you doing here?" Sirius inquired, puzzled.
"Uh, I'm just, uh, yeah, wait what happened to Marlene?" Remus said in a completely non obvious attempt to change the subject.
"Oh, she hit her head," Sirius waved it off like it was nothing, because well, knowing Marlene another head injury wasn't much to remark on.
"Rem, Rem, Remmie, since when do you have a twin? I thought it was a little odd when Sirius two arrived, but now there are two Remus' also, and that's kind of weird, why does everyone have so many twins?" Marlene asked nonsensically.
"Uh, I think you had better get her to the hospital wing," Remus pointed out trying not to look too relieved.
"But I wanted to hear about what you're doing here." Sirius complained.
"Yes, well, plenty of time for that later. And, I've got to be going, work to do on the prank and all!" Remus proclaimed before hurriedly rushing down the hall.
Sirius shrugged and dragged the delirious Marlene into the hospital wing.
Remus meanwhile, headed to the kitchen to complete his task of putting their special concoction in the pumpkin juice which circumvented the problem of students not eating the various parts of the meal, because everyone drank the pumpkin juice!
He was of course; blissfully unaware of the fact that Sirius and Marlene had already placed some of the concoction in the main dish. Surely, this discrepancy would not come back to bite any of them…
Dinnertime found Marlene newly patched up, and Remus tired-looking but otherwise okay, after what had apparently been a very trying trip to visit his ill mother. James and Sirius were bouncing up and down like kids on Christmas morning, and Peter seemed nervous but similarly eager.
They didn't have to wait long for their concoction to take effect. Of course, not everything went exactly according to plan.
You see, the concoction was something like a truth serum in that it forced people to say what they thought, except that the words just tumbled out of their mouth in a veritable stream without the need for prompting questions. And of course, they said these things in the most offensive way possible.
The problem of course, was that Remus had put the serum in the pumpkin juice, and Sirius and Marlene had put it in the main dish, so everyone except Remus drank the juice and succumbed to the effects, and Remus ate some of the main course also falling under the spell.
Soon, the Great Hall had erupted in a series of fights, there was hair-pulling, crying, violent brawls, and much more.
"Yes, I do think those robes make you look fat," One unfortunate Ravenclaw boy told his girlfriend. Needless to say, she wasn't his girlfriend for much longer.
"Don't you think we should do something about this?" McGonagall inquired of the headmaster looking horrified.
"I suppose the heads of houses should do something don't you think so, Horace?" Dumbledore asked.
Slughorn who had also succumbed to the effects of the serum, spoke his mind: "I'd really rather not."
"That's the spirit!" Dumbledore said as though he hadn't heard him. "Now why don't you all get down there and get the situation under control."
McGonagall rolled her eyes but immediately marched over to her house table. "What is going on here?"
A chorus of he called me fats, she slept with my boyfriends, and etc, etc erupted from most of the table.
Except for the Marauders and Marlene who were babbling something considerably more promising that included something about a truth serum.
So, of course McGonagall like any logical professor immediately targeted the guilty party and marched over to them. To their own inner horror they confessed seemingly unable to stop themselves. McGonagall was of course quite gleeful over this.
Just was she was about to slap them with a couple thousand detentions, the Headmaster stood up and spoke in a magically amplified voice.
"SILENCE," He commanded. "It seems that you all have a lot of negative feelings about each other, and it is in a way good that these five fine students have exposed this negativity to administrative attention,"
McGonagall looked horrified.
"Therefore, you will spend next month attending team building and friendship type bonding activities which will place you in small inter-house groups! That is all!" Dumbledore's eyes twinkled madly as he pronounced this new doom. "You may all return to your houses!"
It looked like May was not going to be a very fun month for the residents of Hogwarts.
A/N Review! Only two chapters left!