Chapter Two
The Prank
Lyric's P.O.V.
The next day was the day that we had been waiting for. Lily had agreed to wake us up at five o'clock in the morning so we could sneak into their room, take their wands and hide them, and then lock the boys up in a closet or something. We were all still in our pajamas as we were sneaking over to their room. Thankfully, only the Marauders slept in that room, so we didn't have to worry about anybody waking up while we were starting the prank. We were also starting it so early because nobody would be awake yet.
When we got over there, I had to clap a hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing. The floor was quite literally covered in stuff. We all quietly walked over to the Marauder that we would be turning into, and placed a silencing charm on them, then we blindfolded them, and tied their hands behind their backs, and then tied up their feet. We hauled them into their bathroom, put a muffling charm on the bathroom door, and sat down on their beds.
"Ready?" asked Lily. We all nodded our heads, pulled the hair and a small phial of the potion out of our pockets, added the hairs, and choked down the retched potion. I could feel my skin start to bubble as it changed shape, I could feel the scar on my face fading and new scars erupting just about everywhere else. Within five minutes, I was in the body of Remus Lupin, standing in his uniform, since the girls and I had changed out of our pajamas and into their clothes, knowing that we would be growing.
"Ready to cause some trouble gir- I mean boys?" Alice asked from Peter's body. We wanted to be careful because we knew that if the boys woke up, they would be able to hear if anybody was in their room. We had done this on purpose. Just because we were girls and we had feelings, that didn't mean that we couldn't be cruel.
I walked over to their bathroom door, momentarily taking their silencing charms off, allowing me to knock on the door and hear them wake up.
"Hey, what's going on?" I heard Peter yell.
"Why can't I see anything?" James asked.
"Where are we?" I could hear Sirius ask.
"Hello boys, prepare for the next couple of months to be your own personal hell. The Hunters are declaring war on the Marauders. Out prank us, and we'll reveal our identities. Fail, and you find out nothing," I said in Remus' voice.
"Remus, you traitor!" Sirius yelled, having not heard Remus' voice except for what I had said.
"I'm in here you dolt. The other one is obviously an imposter!" he yelled angrily.
"Correct, and for that, you will now receive a clue as to how to escape. One of you, shake your head until the blindfold comes off, then that person will have to scoot over to another and untie that person's hands. Then, that person will work on the next person, and so forth. After that, remember this, the door is not locked. But, if we see you, we will curse you without thinking twice. Understand?" I explained.
"Is that supposed to be a threat?" I heard somebody ask.
"No, the other Remus is just trying to scare us!" Remus exclaimed.
"And remember, anything is possible." I said, smiling when I heard him start grumbling.
"Goodbye boys, see you tomorrow. If we do see you tomorrow, we will not curse you. We will leave a note with Frank Longbottom explaining what happened, and he will come let you out. Have a nice day. Don't bother trying to yell out, the door will have a muffling charm, and we have your wands. Now goodbye." I said, turning and following the girls out of their bedroom. We ran down their staircase, and through the common room, and out through the portrait hole. We ran down into the Great Hall where people were now seated. I looked down at the watch that Remus usually wore on his left wrist and saw that it was 7 o'clock in the morning.
"Were we really in their room for two hours?" I asked Marlene/Sirius.
"They were heavy, and then you took forever warning the boys." she said, shrugging, and walking toward the Gryffindor table. He/she sat down and flipped his black hair out of his dark gray eyes.
By the time lunch rolled around, we had already earned the boys a month's worth of detention, and we were only getting started. When one of the teachers had asked where the girls and I were, I (being that I was Remus and the nicest of the group) told her that we were in the hospital wing getting a curse taken off of us when a prank had gone wrong. After confessing that the Marauders had been behind it, they were given yet another few detentions. I had tried not to grin at that.
What we hadn't anticipated, was the chasing. Every time a girl saw either Marlene/Sirius or Lily/James, they would start chasing them. Even I had been chased a few times. I never really thought about how tiring it was to run from screaming fan girls, but it really was. The first time it had happened, Marlene hadn't known what would happen, and they had nearly killed her, so many people had piled on top of her. By the time Lily, Alice, and I had finally managed to pull Marlene out, most of her clothing was in tatters, her hair was sticking nearly straight up, and her face was covered in lipstick kisses. At the time, I had nearly fallen over from my laughter.
I was sitting at the Gryffindor table with the other three 'Marauders' when the real ones came in.
"Code red!" I yelled at the other three. Just after I had said that, the real Marauders saw us and came stalking over toward us.
"Ahh! Run for it!" yelled Alice/Peter. We all took off toward the hall, running along the side of the table that the four of them weren't on. I heard James mutter something, but hadn't paid attention to it until Lily told us what he had said.
"Guys, James just said that the real ones will have a password. The password is 'Stag'," whispered Lily/James.
"'Kay!" we all whispered to her, and then we took off in different directions, Lily toward the south part of the building, Alice toward the east, Marlene the west, and me toward the north.
"James, you take the fake Sirius, Sirius, you take the fake Peter, Peter, you take the fake James, and I'll take the fake me," I heard Remus yell. I wondered about his choices for a moment. Wouldn't it have been easier for each boy to take their counterpart? They wouldn't have to worry about knowing which one was which. But I didn't think about it too long, I was more focused on running. However, that was when I made a huge mistake. I tripped in a dark shadowy hallway, and fell flat on my face.
"Dammit!" I yelled. That was when I heard Remus say,
"I think I found my imposter. Hurry you three, go find the others!" I heard Remus shout. I took off down the hall, but was slower than I normally was because Remus was bigger than I was, and he had muscle to him, where I didn't. I could hear Remus behind me, starting to get closer. Well, I couldn't have that, so I quickly turned a sharp corner, and crashed into somebody who had incredibly messy black hair, glasses, and hazel eyes, who was being chased by somebody with black hair and dark gray eyes.
"Sirius! James! Stag!" I shouted out. Sirius stopped in his tracks, and I could only assume that Remus was now right behind me.
"Stag!" Remus said between his gasps for air.
"How does this one know the password?" James asked, pointing a finger at the Remus behind me.
"Because I'm the real Remus!" he shouted.
"No you're not! I'm the real Remus!" I shouted.
"Guys! We're never going to figure this out with the both of you here. You there, the one sitting on the floor, come over here with me and answer a few questions," said Sirius, signaling for me to follow him. I got up and did so.
"In first year, what did we choose to call the four of us when we were in our dormitory?" Sirius asked. I had to think about it, because the Marauders weren't called the Marauders until second year, and even then, it was the teachers that had started calling them that.
"Flighty?" I asked, using Marlene's nickname in the Hunters.
"Nice to see you too, Racingshadow." she/he said smiling at me. I smiled back at her, as we walked over to the other two.
"Alright, this is the real Remus, so that must be the imposter," Marlene/Sirius said, pointing at the real Remus.
"What? Sirius, James, you know that I'm the real Remus! That's the fake one!" He shouted pointing at me.
"I don't know what you're talking about, poser. Guys, get him!" Marlene/Sirius shouted. The three of us took off after Remus, but James kept looking at Sirius and I oddly, but kept chasing him nonetheless. After we rounded a corner, we crashed into a second James, a second Sirius, and two Peters, one holding the other.
"Grab him!" Sirius yelled, pointing at Marlene. We all scrambled around, trying to get away, and I would up in a hallway going toward the dungeons, with a yelling and swearing James Potter behind me.
Anyway, this continued for over an hour until everyone found themselves in front of the Room of Requirement.
"Flighty, let me handle this," I said, quickly running in front of that particular piece of wall three times, thinking; I need a place that only a true Hunter can enter.
"Okay! Flighty! Prancer! Nightwalk! Into the Room of Requirement now! They can't get in. Run!" I shouted. One Sirius, the Peter that was holding Peter let go of him and ran toward me, and the James that had been with the Peters came running toward me as well. We all ran through the wall and into the Room of Requirement.
Let me explain about the nicknames. We were illegal anamigi. We had become them because we had wanted to go into the Forbidden Forest and not have to worry too much about getting attacked. Flighty for Marlene because she turned into a hawk. Nightwalk because Alice turned into a panther. And Prancer because Lily was a doe. And I was Racingshadow because I turned into a cheetah, and I was practically invisible in school.
We could hear the wall being pounded on.
"Will they be able to get in?" asked Lily/James. We were starting to morph back into ourselves, I could feel the old scars fading and the ones on my face, stomach, and back resurfacing. Within the next few minutes, we were back to our normal selves, except for the fact that we were all wearing boy's uniforms that were at least twice as big as they needed to be.
"Guys, refer to each other by nicknames only, and don't use your real voice," I said, making my voice high and squeaky.
"Nightwalk, how did you get caught?" Lily asked, her voice low and gravely.
"Of all people, I came across Peter. He looked like he wanted to scream when he saw me, so I put my hand over his mouth, grabbed his hands behind his back, and called out to anybody who was near me. I guess Sirius and Prancer found me, so they were helping me keep hold of him until we found the rest of you. Then you four came hurtling around that corner and I heard Sirius and Prancer gasp." Alice explained, her voice monotone.
"What happened to you, Prancer?" Marlene asked, her voice light and airy, much unlike it's normal straight cut sound.
"Well, I wasn't actually being chased. I was actually chasing Sirius, when he convinced me that he was the real Sirius. He didn't bother to ask me anything, but then, we just eventually found Nightwalk. Then we ran into you two. What happened to you two?" Lily explained.
"Well, I had been chasing James when he fell after he crashed into you, Racingshadow. What about you?" she asked, turning to me. After I had explained, we were all giggling, barely able to keep our laughs disguised as well.
"Well, I have a question, how are we going to get out of here?" I asked after a while.
"Oh, you guys are going to love this," Lily said, pulling something out of her pocket. When she unfolded it, it turned out to be a huge simmering silver cloak.
"Wait, is that what I think it is?" I asked, my voice it's normal sound for a second.
"Yup, I think that you're right," Alice said, smiling.
"It's an invisibility cloak, James' invisibility cloak to be precise." Lily said, smiling. Even from where we stood, I could hear all four of them yell in outrage.
"They know about that?" I could hear Sirius yell.
"What else could they know about?" Remus asked. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was worried about something that we already knew about.
"We know about more than you may think!" Lily yelled, making sure that her voice was as different as she could make it.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Sirius yelled angrily.
"Aw look what you did Prancer, you made Padfoot angry." Marlene said, her voice mocking.
"They know about our nicknames too?" I could hear James ask worriedly.
"That's right, Prongs! And we know what they mean too!" shouted Alice.
"You do?" Remus asked, his tone of voice saying that he was very scared.
"Don't worry Moony, we won't out you, we wouldn't want our only competition to be kicked out of school. You're honestly the only decent Marauder." I said, my voice only slightly different from my normal one.
"You know?" he squeaked.
"Yes, Remus, Moony, whatever you want to be called. We know that you're a werewolf, we know that the rest of you blokes are illegal animagi. James, you are the majestic stag, Sirius, the huge black dog, and Peter, the timid rat," Marlene said.
"How could you possibly know all of that?" James asked, his voice shaking.
"Why we saw you, how else?" Lily asked cockily.
"How did you see us, but nobody has ever seen a trace of any of you?" Peter asked.
"Well, us like you, are in a similar situation, but nobody in our little group has a 'furry little problem', as some of you seem to call it. We are illegal animagi. One flier, one runner, one whitetailed, and one shadow. Figure it out, along with our names, and we'll give you some more clues about who we really are." I said, smirking.
"Okay, Prancer, pull out the invisibility cloak, and we'll leave them to figure out our little clue," Alice said, smirking. We covered ourselves in the cloak, and walked through the wall. Unfortunately, only two people would have been able to fit underneath it comfortably, and I would up tripping, and crashing into Alice, who crashed into Lily, and so on. We all wound up on the floor, tangled limbs everywhere. I felt a slight breeze on my pants leg, near the shoe and knew that it probably wasn't a good sigh. I used a single finger, and pulled up the edge of the cloak to see if they had noticed. They were all looking directly at where the four of us were standing. That was when I heard my heart stop beating.
"Guys, change appearances, and run for it, Prancer, you take the cloak and hide it," Alice whispered to the rest of us. Soft murmuring must have alerted the Marauders to what we were doing, because then, they started racing toward us.
"Hurry!" I shouted, after using a spell to disguise my voice. I ducked out from under the cloak and my now short blond hair streaming behind me as I took off at full speed.
"Come on guys! Come get me!" I shouted over my shoulder. Only one of them changed their course, the rest of them continued running to where I had just appeared. I could hear Remus already panting behind me.
"Come on, you should be able to keep up with me! You should have enough practice running away from them, so you should have no problem chasing girls!" I shouted over my shoulder, laughing at his expression when those words left my mouth. His face turned pink, his blue/gray eyes widened, and his mouth nearly hit the floor, but he quickly shook his head to focus on trying to catch me.
"Come on Remmy-poo!" I shouted, slowing down to give him a chance to get closer.
"Guys how are you doing on the rest of them?" Remus asked, slowing down significantly.
"Not good, they're all really fast. Granted, not nearly as fast as blondy, but still pretty damn fast!" Sirius yelled, trying to catch a dark auburn haired girl that I could only assume was probably Marlene, considering the way that her left foot was turned slightly more inward than her right foot. Looking over, I could see that James was trying to catch the person that I knew to be Lily. She had a small mole at the base of her neck that I had never seen anybody else have. And Peter was busy trying to catch Alice, who had a slight limp from an injury that she had gotten while we were in the Forbidden Forest during one of yet another of our trips to find hidden places to plan pranks. It had yet to heal. But even with that injury, she was one of the fastest of the Hunters. Then came Lily and then Marlene.
"Come on Moony! I know that you can run faster than this." I taunted, knowing that now I was starting to get to him. That was when he growled from deep in his throat, and came charging toward me. He quickly came within reaching distance of me, when I dove to the side, and it took a minute for him to stop, turn around, and come running toward me again.
"Aw come on! Come get me," I further taunted. He growled again, and this time, he managed to grab my arm. But, then he tripped, pulling me down with him. He landed on the ground with a grunt, and he then grunted again when I fell on him. While he was still in shock, I stared into his blue eyes, and smirked.
"Nice try Moony, but, I have something else that I need to do. See ya!" I said as I stood up and started walking down the hall.
"Wait, which one are you?" he asked me, after standing up as well.
"I'm Racingshadow, and you'd do well to remember it," I said, stopping for a moment.
"Nice to have finally met you, Racingshadow. Have I met you before?" he asked, looking troubled.
"Yes, more often that you may have thought. And you're also quite well acquainted with Prancer, if I know Prongs at all, which I make it my business to. Nightwalker and Flighty too. You know us all, you just don't know us. Catch my drift?" I asked, starting to walk again. I looked around, and noticed that the rest of the Hunters had disappeared, and the other Marauders were just staring at me now.
"Well, it was nice talking to you boys. How does it feel to have come face to face with your tormentors, and still have no idea who we are. How much are you hurting right now? I'm afraid that I can't stay any longer, but I am an awful busy person. Good bye boys." I said, rounding a corner and breaking into a run, running all the way to the Hospital Wing where I had to visit an old family friend...