James was sitting with wide, excited eyes as he watched Remus add more ingredients to the bubbling potion that they had been working on for three days. He sometimes did wonder why it was Remus that was brewing the potion. The pale boy could beat his friends in every single subject, but James and Sirius destroyed him in Potions. Aside from Peter, he was the worst at the subject.
'Remus, Remus, Remus, did you remember to add the dried Billywig stings?' Sirius asked, reading over the instructions for the millionth time.
'Yes, Sirius, I did,' Remus replied calmly, even though Sirius had been asking him similar questions for the entire duration of the potion brewing and he was beginning to get sick of it. 'Listen, why am I even doing this? You know I'm not the best at potions.'
'Remus, my friend, myself and James are lazy,' Sirius sighed, flopping onto his bed.
'Oh, don't I know it,' his small friend replied, flipping his light brown hair out of his eyes and yawning. He had been working on the potion since 3am and could feel his eyelids getting steadily heavier.
'Ok, I think that's that. We've just got to leave it to brew again and then add a few more ingredients and it's done!' Remus announced, to the excitement of his friends.
'When does it stop brewing?' Peter asked, leaning over the steaming cauldron to gaze at the bubbling pale blue potion.
'Erm…5am tomorrow morning,' Remus replied, adding the numbers up in his head.
'5am?!' Sirius repeated incredulously, raising his eyebrows and his voice shooting up an octave.
'It was 3am this morning,' Remus yawned, lying back onto the ground.
'Right, well I'll get up for it tomorrow. It's not fair on Remus,' James offered, tossing a pillow at his small friend. 'You can go to sleep if you want, mate. We'll bring you up some food from the kitchens if you miss dinner.'
With a grateful smile, Remus grabbed the sheets off the bed closest to him, which happened to be Peter's, and fell asleep right there on the ground, without even bothering to get up.
Sirius looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.
'Well, I guess we'd better get out of here then, so we don't wake him up,' he said, standing up and dragging his other friends out of the dorm.
'So, tomorrow's the night,' James whispered across the table to Sirius, and turning to share an eager grin with Peter beside him.
'Let's run over the plan again,' Peter suggested.
'Good idea Pete. Right, so first you will go down to the kitchens and get the house elves to put the potion in all of the food-'
'Even ours?' Peter asked, frowning in confusion at his friend.
'Yes, that way we won't look suspicious. If everyone gets pranked except us then it's kind of obvious that we did it,' James explained in a low voice. 'Continue, Sirius.'
Sirius explained the rest of the plan in whispers to James and Peter who nodded and grinned. This was going to be one Christmas prank that wouldn't be forgotten in a while.
The next day dragged on slowly. The four friends were getting ever more impatient but tried to remain calm to as not to draw attention to themselves. It was the last day before they would all separate for the Christmas holidays and they were looking forward to their last day of mischief together. It was with this thought in their heads that they practically bounded into the Great Hall and took their usual seats. Although they were all doing a good job of not looking to out of the ordinary, Remus could feel Sirius's leg shaking with anticipation under the table. He smiled. He was going to miss his friends over the holidays. He had initially planned to stay at the school over the holidays but his transformation was only a few days from now and he knew that it would be better to transform at home and avoid any suspicion.
Sirius was so excited. The majority of this plan was his idea and, if they pulled it off, the four Gryffindors would forever be legends for it. He wanted to have one last bit of fun before he went back to Grimmauld Place for Christmas. He didn't want to go, he intended to stay, but his mother got threatening in her letters and he didn't have much of a choice. Sirius couldn't imagine a worse way to spend Christmas. It was going to be a horrible few weeks away. He thought about all of the letters he didn't send, the fight he had with Bellatrix and the fact that he was a Gryffindor now. 'Most people will be going home to presents,' he thought. 'I'll be going home to a beating.'
Peter couldn't wait to go home. He loved Hogwarts and he loved his friends, but he did miss his family, especially his mother. His father worked long hours at the Ministry of Magic and with Peter at school, she would have been alone most of the time. He didn't know much about his father; only that he's never around. Sometimes on the odd occasion when he was home, Peter would hear his mother crying and the two of them arguing. On nights like these he would pull the covers over his head, close his eyes, and pretend none of it is real. He loved his father; he just didn't understand why he made everything different. His mother loved him too, but all they seemed to do was argue and Peter hated arguments. Hopefully it won't be like that this year. Hopefully things will be better.
James could barely sit still. This was going to be the best prank ever. And then he could go home for Christmas! Christmas was amazing in his house. His parents throw a massive party three days before Christmas and then again on New Years Eve. James intended to invite Peter, Sirius and Remus when he had got the proper details from his mother and grinned at the thought of a member of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black in the Potter household. He had made all of his friends promise to write over the holidays because, for some reason, he got the feeling that he was the only one really looking forward to it.
James felt someone kick his leg under the table and looked up to see Sirius grinning wildly and winking at him. Dumbledore had just finished his speech. It was time.
Wands already in hands, the four Gryffindors began their prank. Sirius flicked his wand, whispered the incantation and all of the lights went out and the Great Hall plunged into darkness. A few students screamed, but that was nothing compared to what was coming. In an instant blue flames filled the Hall, eating up the Christmas trees, and lining every possible space of floor that was not occupied. Remus grinned at his handiwork. He liked making these flames. Right on cue, a blood curdling howl rang out through the hall courtesy of Peeves and by this point, most of the pupils and even some of the teachers were panicking and frantically trying to see around the Hall, and cowering away from the flames. Sirius grinned. This next bit was his favourite part. With a whispered 'Wingardium Leviosa' James began to levitate away from the Gryffindor table up to the front of the Hall where everyone could see him. He hung above the flames limply until he was sure all attention was on him and began to jerk around wildly, crying out in pain and stealthily releasing droplets of red wine from the kitchens to make it look like he was bleeding. Remus began to shout out, calling his name, acting frantic and worried, although he knew that there was nothing to worry about. Soon after, people began to join his lead, calling out to James, screaming, shouting, panicking. James raised his head a fraction to see the red hair of Lily Evans staring at him with wide terrified eyes, calling his name. For reasons he couldn't comprehend, this gave James a strange, warm feeling in his chest and he fought a smile as he let out a heart stopping yell and crashed to the ground, falling into the flames. It was chaos. Everyone was now screaming. James crawled through the flames. Remus really had outdone himself this time. Instead of burning him, the flames merely warmed him up, almost as if he were in a very strange blanket. Once he reached his seat on the Gryffindor Table, he slipped a note next to Peter and continued, leaving the Great Hall. When he was outside, he pulled out an old doll that they found discarded in Gryffindor Tower one day. It had been altered and dressed up to look like Santa Claus. James took out his wand and enlarged the doll until it was about the same height as Hagrid. He performed a second, more difficult spell that he had been researching and practicing for months, and the Santa doll came to life and walked into the Hall whilst James headed up to the dormitory, since he was supposed to have been burned to a crisp. As soon as the Santa doll entered the Hall, the flames disappeared and the room lit up once more. The massive Santa Claus walked right up to the teachers table and presented Dumbledore with a wrapped gift and disintegrated without any explanation.
The silence that followed was almost comical. After the screaming and crying and chaos, having no sound at all sounded completely absurd. Dumbledore opened the gift to find a small note that read, 'Watch out for the turkey.' After reading this out, the students leaned away from the food in front of them. Once again, a few people screamed as the food seemed to be rippling before their eyes. The food continued to ripple and grow to twice its normal size when it all exploded and confetti filled the room. The entire school was stunned into silence, and Remus, Sirius and Peter had to duck underneath the table to try and control their laughter. When they resurfaced, Dumbledore had restored the food with a flick of his wand and everyone was cautiously eating. Peter picked up the note beside his elbow.
'I hope that went as well as we expected. Talk about leaving with a bang! Now don't forget to bring me up some food!'
Remus, Sirius and Peter ran into their dormitory, laden with food from the kitchen to find James sitting in the middle of the floor. The four looked at each other and burst out laughing. They laughed and ate the food all night, whilst filling James in on how the rest of the prank went.
'There was a girl that I saw, I think she was in Hufflepuff, but it was hard to tell it was so dark, but she actually started crying when you fell into the flames!'
'I meant to say Remus, well done mate, those flames were extraordinary!'
'I think we should make this a regular thing!'
'I can't wait to tell my cousin all about it tomorrow night!'
The four boys heaved their luggage off the train and walked towards their families. How strange it was going to be, to be apart from each other for so long. They all turned to wave and caught each other's eye. They knew that they were all thinking the same thing. It was going to be horrible to be separated.