Chapter 10: Pranks
Harry ran a hand through his hair again and focused on what he was doing.
He was in the Great Hall and he was concentrating on the warding for his prank.
Wards were impossibly hard to keep up and focused, especially for a fifth year but he would be damned if they beat him.
Since he was eleven years old he'd been embedded in powerful magic that was supposedly too much for him and he'd mastered it.
Warding would be no different.
"You slept with Vixen again,"
Harry faltered and looked around seeing Draco stood there with his arms crossed.
It was two days after his meeting with Indigo.
"How the hell do you figure that?"
"The fact that she isn't moping about anymore and the fact you're more focused than you've been so far this term. Last year that only happened when you'd been with her. Not to mention Luna told me," Draco shrugged sitting down.
Luna had become a third little sister to the group despite her ties to Indigo and Granger.
"I couldn't help it," Harry said instead of denying it.
If there was one person you could trust to tell the truth it was Luna and so rebuffing anything she said just made the guilty party look bad.
Draco shook his head.
Hadrian was playing with fire.
Then again, Hadrian always played with fire.
"What are you doing?" Draco asked spotting where his brother's wand was pointed.
It was pointed at the Gryffindor table, specifically at the pumpkin juice.
"I'm warding the pumpkin juice at a distance. In a minute I'll let it down and when I do, hopefully if I've got things right, then the juice should explode over them all," Harry said happily.
Draco shook his head, Hadrian was impossible.
As he sat down next to his brother, Hadrian's wand was suddenly snapped down and gone from sight.
A massive combined screech was heard from the Gryffindor table as every pumpkin juice jug on the table erupted in a spray of the juice.
The two twins turned to look and they watched as the Weasley twins caught their eyes.
They hadn't had much to do with Ginny's favourite brothers since the first train ride but they had a sneaking suspicion that was about to change.
"Oh goodie a prank war," Harry grinned.
Neville sat down just as Harry said that and groaned.
"You're impossible. Is it completely out of your abilities to have one normal week?" the boy asked.
"Of course it is," Blaise answered for Harry. "Things would get too boring,"
"Prepare boys for the Weasley twins are plotting a retaliation prank," Harry grinned with a wink.
The next day the Deviants sat down for dinner and as soon as they sat the whole Slytherin House turned a bright vivid green with scales erupting over their bodies.
The thing that amused Harry was the spiky tails they all had.
"Well hell, I didn't expect that," Harry snorted looking at his hands before pulling his wand out.
"We look kind of cool," Neville chuckled.
Harry motioned his head to them and pointed over to the house of the lions.
They understood the silent implication and the four of them had the whole of Gryffindor house with bright red scaly skins and pig snouts on their faces with huge elephant ears.
The Weasley twins looked over and cocked their heads with a flick of their imaginary hats.
Over the next few days there were various different pranks erupting all over the school.
Everyone was running for cover.
The professors had no idea who was behind it, they only had their suspicions and that wasn't enough to punish anyone.
"Instead of pranking each other why don't we prank our one common enemy?" Draco asked one night as he changed his hair colour back to blonde.
Harry looked at his brother and smirked.
"I always knew I kept you around for a reason,"
Draco flipped him the bird, shaking his head.
"So glad I can reassure you of my purpose," he said dryly.
Harry wasn't listening though, he was penning a letter to the Weasley twins.
The two sets of pranksters met on the Quidditch pitch, neutral ground.
"We're here to propose an interesting proposal that will benefit us both," Draco said easily.
"And why would we make a proposal with a set of snakes?" Fred asked.
The Weasley twins were a bit taller than the Malfoy twins and they were broader as well.
"Yeah you're an untrustworthy bunch," George continued.
"You can trust us to work in our best interest though and with this proposal it'll benefit all of us," Neville pointed out.
The Weasley twins looked curious.
"These pranks between us are about scoring points so what about if we score these points by our pranks on Umbridge," Blaise said simply.
"And what would you all get out of pranking Umbridge? You're her little pets aren't you?" Fred said suspiciously.
Harry stepped forwards.
"More like she's our little pet, she just doesn't know it. Pranking her will make her more furious and aggravated and that is a benefit to us. The benefit to you two is the chance to make her furious and aggravated without your father being implicated at the Ministry. We know you're part of Vixen's little study group-"
"You know about that?" George gaped.
The Deviants smirked as one.
"As I was saying we know you're a part of it. We're in charge of leading that search, the longer we can get Umbridge concentrated on something else the longer the lot of you have to study," Harry shrugged with a devious smirk.
"I still don't get how this benefits you," Fred stated.
"You don't need to know how, you just need to know it does. We're not going to go back on this, you're Red's brothers, her favourite biological ones at that. You have our respect, we'll be straight with you because of Red. Give us a reason and we'll turn on you though," Harry responded coolly.
"So what does this proposal involve?" George said slowly.
"It's simple. Instead of pranking each other and scoring points we'll prank her and score points that way. It has to be kept anonymous though," Draco stated.
"Fine, we agree," the Weasley twins said after a silent conversation.
"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," Neville smirked.
The two groups split off both feeling rather triumphant.
The next day Umbridge turned into a giant toad with a bright pink ribbon tied around her neck.
The whole hall burst into laughter.
The Deviants looked at the Weasley twins to see the redheads smirking smugly.
The Deviants retaliation prank came the next morning.
The woman's tongue lengthened and shot out anytime she went to eat, not only that but her eyes took on a bulging look and every time she went to speak, she croaked instead.
Her face was covered in warts and her hair had retreated into her head.
The woman looked hideous.
Floating above her head was a sign.
The human toad disease, contagious, beware.
What was worse was that when the woman actually touched something she made it turn into frogs and when she touched professor Sinstra the Astronomy professor ended up looking like her.
For days after the prank people gave her a wide berth not daring to let her touch them.
The Deviants watched the woman simmer in anger.
They made their pranks regular charms that were taught in Charms and Transfiguration and put a twist on them.
They then whispered where the woman could overhear them discussing the laughter coming from Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall.
The woman was easily lead to believe that it was the professors that were pranking her.
The blatant anger she directed at the professors showed that the woman had fallen for it hook line and sinker.
"And you've found nothing out?" Umbridge seethed at Hadrian.
Hadrian shrugged coolly.
"I heard the professors laughing about the pranks a couple of days ago saying they couldn't wait for the next hit. They were betting on when they thought it would drive you out," he said spinning the fabrication easily.
The woman tensed and visibly bristled.
"We will see about that!"
Hadrian left the office with a smirk on his face.
It was a productive deal with naive Gryffindors even if he did say so himself.
AN: Well I was asked in a review on a previous book (not sure which one or who it was that sent the request) that the Malfoy twins and the Weasley twins had a prank war. So if whoever sent the request is still reading I hope you enjoyed it :)
Dragons-Twilight1992 - A pleasure as always :) More coming up!
cocobyrd87 - Haha well that would be telling wouldn't it ;) All I'll say is that during this book Hadrian and Indigo won't be active enough to be caught but that's not to say it couldn't happen in book 6 or 7 :) That is if you think Daphne is clever enough to be able to catch them without Hadrian catching her snooping first? ;) At the moment Hadrian doesn't have enough information to string it together, so the cat isn't out of the bag just yet :)
NCIS FTW - Haha hardly surprising though is it? ;)