17 September 1976
James sat dangling his legs over the arm of an armchair, throwing spitballs at a squeaking Peter. Sirius sat in the center of the couch, pinning the squirming, mousy boy down. Remus sat quietly on the other side of Sirius, attempting to read. It was late and everyone else was presumably asleep.
A sudden burst of noise caused them all to sit up. Roseberry, Lily, Alice, and Mary came bounding into the common room, well past curfew, making a beeline toward the boys. Alice pounced and landed in an empty chair by them. Roseberry leapt over a low table and threw herself down on the floor between Remus's and Sirius's legs. Mary scuttled forward and sat down with her back to the fire. Looking around, Lily plopped herself down in the only available space, the arm of James's chair. The girls struggled to slow their frantic breathing and pointed their wands at each other, tucking in a stray lock of hair here and straightening a shirt there.
Moments later, Argus Filch came bounding into the Gryffindor common room. "Who? Who was it?" he glared, spittle foaming at the corners of his mouth. "You," he waved his fist at James and Sirius. "You did this!"
Sirius looked at James, then back at Filch. "We did what, exactly?"
"You know full well what you did!" he responded. "You are responsible for everything that goes on around here! Don't think I haven't been watching you! I know you are responsible for tonight."
Roseberry sat up and looked up at him through shyly fluttering lashes. "But Mr. Filch," she cooed. "The boys have been sitting here with us all night. We'd have known if they were up to something." She bit her lower lip and looked up at him bashfully.
A blush of red crept into Argus Filch's craggy cheeks. "Well, then, perhaps I was mistaken this once," he permitted, "but don't think that I won't be watching you two." He left the room muttering under his breath something about Black and Potter getting their due.
As soon as the portrait swung shut, the girls burst into a fit of laughter.
"What was that all about?" asked James.
"If we're going to get blamed for it, we ought to know what it is we're being blamed for," Sirius chimed in.
The girls exchanged looks. "Narcissa and her lot started it last week," began Lily. "It seems that she has recently started dating Lucius Malfoy and he let it slip that he'd dated Roseberry for a while. I overheard some Slytherin girls talking and he had evidently drunk too much Firewhiskey and told her that Roseberry had broken his heart. That she was the one that got away."
Sirius clenched his jaw and fought back the sudden rush of jealousy. He glanced down at Roseberry to watch her reaction. He sighed silently in relief as she met his eyes and gave him a sheepish smile to let him know that she harbored no feelings for Lucius Malfoy.
"Needless to say, she's incensed and has decided to take it out on us full-force. Of course, she's never liked Mary or me because we're Muggle-born."
"Muggle-born and besting her at every turn!" chimed in Roseberry, eyes blazing.
"Then there's the issue of Alice," added Mary. Alice blushed furiously.
"Narcissa thought that dating Lucius would make her the talk of Hogwarts," explained Lily. "Being that he's much older and was much fancied, at least by the Slytherin girls, when he was a student here."
"Dating an auror, though, is infinitely cooler," teased Roseberry, watching Alice grow redder.
"Who's dating an auror?" asked James, as the boys looked at each other, confused.
"Alice is!" replied Rose, grinning.
"Alice has been dating a dashing young auror by the name of Frank Longbottom," said Mary. "It's so romantic!"
"All-in-all, Narcissa and her friends have decided that we are sworn enemies," Lily summed up. "So all last week, we've had to put up with being locked out of classes, having Impediment hexes being thrown at us at inopportune moments, and just general discomfort. We didn't rise to the occasion, though, so they took a different approach. This morning they kidnapped the first year Gryffindor girls and hung them by their feet in the Slytherin common room while the other Slytherins laughed and threw things at them."
"The idiots made a mistake though," smirked Rose. "The first years heard the password to the Slytherin common room. Alice and I snuck into the Slytherin dormitories this evening." The girls burst into laughter.
"We cast disillusionment charms on ourselves and hid fifty dungbombs all around the room that Narcissa and her friends occupy," said Alice curling her lips mischievously. "A case of fireworks has been set up around the common room as well. The best part is that Lily and Rose managed to make a few improvements to the dungbombs…visible improvements." The girls doubled over with laughter.
"The dungbombs and the fireworks have been charmed to release early in the morning. Here's how we envision it," said Rose. "The dungbombs will go off early in the morning, just before everyone rises, bathing the girls in the lovely pungent fragrance and dying them and all their belongings in Gryffindor red and gold. The girls will, no doubt, run out of the room and down into the common room…only to be met with the fireworks, which are timed to go off ten minutes after the dungbombs. This will wake the rest of the Slytherins, causing them to rush down to the common room as well, where they will behold the smelly and dyed seventh years. Narcissa and her friends will undoubtedly be screaming bloody murder in their nighties." This time the boys laughed with the girls.
"Where does—," Sirius gasped with laughter, "Where does Filch play into all of this?"
"In order to pull this off, we had to keep Filch out of the way. Lily and I hid near his office and cast various spells to keep him occupied. You know, animating the suits of armor and the like," explained Mary.
"And that's why he came bounding in here tonight," said Lily.
"I didn't know you had it in you, Evans," said James to Lily, grinning impishly as he mussed up his hair. "I'm great at pranks. We should pull a prank together some time. We'd make a great team."
Lily was reminded that she was sharing a chair with the ever-arrogant James Potter. She leapt up and responded coolly, "We are certainly not ever making a team, Potter." With that, she turned sharply and bounded up the stairs, followed closely by Mary MacDonald.
James stared after her, "What did I do?"
Alice and Roseberry laughed. "You were being your usual arrogant self, dear cousin," said Rose, leaning her head back to rest between Remus's and Sirius's thighs while Sirius's hand stroked her hair.
James sighed, "She'll never like me. It'd almost be better if she didn't know that I existed." He rearranged himself, flopping histrionically over the chair, "She knows that I exist and she hates me."
"Now, stop being so melodramatic, Jimmy. It doesn't become you," Roseberry grinned. "Handsome, popular quidditch stars shouldn't be throwing hissy fits like adolescent girls. In all seriousness, though, you already have a lot going for you without having to try so hard. You should tone it down some, you know. Talk to her like you would talk to me."
"Maybe," sighed James, rising from his chair. "For now I think I'll go to bed."