Chapter 5- First year, part four

Weeks passed and seasons changed. The weather grew colder and snow started to fall when the temperature was too low for rain.

Long hours on the weekends were spent indoors, exploring the castle or trying to kill enough time before classes started back and everyone had something to do.

Chess, gobstones and reading started to be highlights for the first years while the older year levels reveled in the new found free time and spent the endless winter afternoons trying to tame the infinite pile of homework and assessments that never seemed to stop growing.

Rosie had always been content with reading as she'd been a bookworm from a young age, her life always wrapped up in the pages of a novel somehow. But of course she couldn't spend those days lost in the warm contention that literature brought her as she was dragged around by a group of four particular boys.

Everyone else seemed comfortable enough in his or her menial tasks.

Everyone except the Marauders.

The group of four boys, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew that made up the "thick as thieves" group were already popular among all the students due to their endless creativity with pranks and unpopular with teachers for the exact same reason.

Calm contention had never been their favorite thing and they spent the winter days prowling the castle and setting up endless amounts of pranks.

Christmas was looming upon them all and the last thing anyone wanted before the holiday was to be pranked by the boys who apparently never held back when it came to pranks.

Rosie had even had endless numbers of people come up to her, begging for her to somehow reverse whatever the rowdy boys had done. It had surprised her the first few times, as the people were a lot older than the girl.

The way she'd changed her hair to blonde and her eyes to a dull grey did throw some people off her tracks for a while but it didn't last long.

Not at all.

One of the best pranks had to have been the day everyone left for Christmas break.

Everything was in a sort of organized chaos as students and teachers rushed around to organize things for their trips and the students who were staying at Hogwarts.

Upon hearing she could stay, Rosie's heart leapt for joy. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with her family this year, not after her mother had mentioned her arranged marriage to her in the last forty seven letters.

All of which had been promptly burnt and used to keep the fire burning at a merry level.

Sirius and James had decided to stay as well; while Remus and Peter longed for home more than any of the other boys seemed to.

Rosie knew exactly why Sirius was staying and couldn't help picturing the horrific family she'd seen on the platform.

And she thought her family was bad but taking a rather large step back, she could clearly see that everything wasn't all sunshine and buttermellows for one of her best mates.

But it wasn't that easy for her either and when she thought about it, that was what really brought her and Sirius together on something. The continuous way he called her Red and how she called him White, just to piss him off, made their odd friendship flourish like a flower in a hot house.

Well, back to the prank.

It was quite genius when she thought of it.

The Marauders were good at utilizing things to their advantage and the prank was no exception.

Chaos and un-organisation was the Marauders elements and they wasted absolutely no time planning and acting out the biggest and possibly the best prank during their first year.

Up to the prank, the Marauders had caused a lot of mischief and had already acted out over twenty-nine detentions for their tendency to cause absolutely mayhem.

Prior to the prank, Rosie had been introduced to James Potter's "secret", which was as astounding as it sounded to the muggleborn first year, was an invisibility cloak.

And not shotty one like most people had that you could see the slightest shift in the background or the air, which would alert you to them. No, it was as beautiful, silky and absolutely perfect as a cloak could be.

Some people might've used it to sneak down to the kitchens for more food, eavesdrop on teacher's private conversations and to toy around with the ghosts, which was what the boy's did- but of course with their classic marauder twist.

Pranks and mischief were their forte and people looked up at them for it.

So, the cloak was a big prize in the prank working as well as it did.

Sirius and James, both under the cloak, had snuck into McGonagall's quarters, Rosie had always wondered by they hadn't chosen a less frightening teacher to prank, and had riffled through her drawers until they found a clean pair of her bloomers.

It went a lot like this.

Students, trunks and owls were everywhere as everyone rushed to get home, the thought of a short holiday with their family seemed priceless and no one was ready to give it up or slow down in the slightest way.

But one particular thing caused everyone, first year and seventh year alike, to absolutely stop in his or her tracks and gape at the sight.

The sight of a pair of floral bloomers parading it's way down the hallway, apparently upon its own whim.

"Why are you all stopping? Keep going! Come on! You have a train to ca-" McGonagall's voice trailed off as she looked at the sight, her face slowly turning a darker red until she yelled, "Who did this!?" as she stormed up, snatched up the bloomers and looked around at the laughing students with eyes narrowed accusatorily.

"Hunter! Where are those boys?' She snapped upon seeing Rosie who only gestured around helplessly, grey eyes as big as saucepans.

As if they'd been summoned, Sirius and James appeared beside her, a stack of books in both arms.

"Professor? What's wrong?"

An angry growl came from McGonagall as she stormed off to try and find out how her knickers had ended up where they had and why the Marauders weren't behind it.

Both boys burst out laughing when they were far away from her.

"That was a close one!"

"It looked like she was going to kill Rosie!" Sirius laughed and ruffled her auburn hair, eliciting a growl from her.

"Just the next time you prank someone, warn me. In advance."