The students spend the rest of the week hanging around the Great Hall because not only are the acromantula perhaps planning a culling of the humans but Harry did in fact inform the professors that he told the basilisk to patrol the halls.
"Basilisk," Dumbledore says and it doesn't quite sound like a question but definitely is.
"Yeah, I found one," Harry replies because he's been spending too much time with the other three and honestly, if he had as much confidence as James then Voldemort would be dead already, but regardless it's still rubbed off on Harry.
"And it's just going around?" Dumbledore confirms.
"I'm a Parselmouth -yes, like Voldemort- and so the snake is listening to me but I can't help if someone is dumb enough to walk up to it, you know?" Harry shrugs. "If they look at a basilisk even with a warning…that's natural selection."
Dumbledore hums, noncommittal. "I see the resemblance between you two."
"Oh, I'm not actually related to Voldemort."
"I meant James Potter."
And so the students in the Great Hall spend their time doing homework on the floor or circling the small outside space the teachers have cornered off and warded.
The Marauders are completely fine, no issue at all, and Harry is pretty calm too, often times missing because he's walking the halls with a giant snake that barely scrapes past the portraits with how big it is following him.
The easy-going mentality can't be said for the other students, so Saturday night -when one too many students have started crying and it's affecting the already tense atmosphere- McGonagall pulls aside the three Marauders to just outside the hall.
"I'm going to regret this," she starts off with.
"Fantastic," Sirius replies in glee, knowing this is going to be great.
"Can you -very calmly- try to perk the students back up. Calmly. Nothing too much, just something very small," McGonagall requests. "Not a lot of mess either."
"Wait!" James cries with a laugh. "Are you actually – are you asking us for some chaos?"
"No," McGonagall says firmly. "No, no chaos. Something nice and humorous because the students are distressed."
"I'm hearing chaos," Sirius hums.
"If you keep it calm enough, I will not dock points or give you a detention," McGonagall bargains. "But if you go over the limit, you sit in the naughty corner of the Great Hall until the acromantula are gone and I can put you to scrubbing cauldrons."
"All that's coming out of your mouth is the word 'chaos'," James admits to McGonagall.
"I'll keep them in line," Remus cuts in.
McGonagall gives them a wary look but nods.
Five minutes later, James rolls up onto his knees on his sleeping bag and peers across the hall. "Oi, Stevens!" he calls across to the sixth year Ravenclaw prefect.
"Yo?" Stevens calls back, turning away from his circle of friends.
"Remus doesn't know," James says with a thumb hooked over his shoulder. "But the reason prefects can take House points is because of the badge, right?"
Stevens pauses. "Huh. Well, I've never tested but I guess-"
Sirius reaches over and grips Remus' badge. "Five points from Ravenclaw for that haircut, Stevens."
Five little crystals tink as they fall out from the end of the Ravenclaw vial at the head of the Great Hall and disappear.
"There you go, it's the badge," Sirius says happily.
Stevens splutters and it's the Ravenclaw Head Girl who has to step in, calling out, "Five points from Gryffindor for abusing a prefect's power."
"I didn't even do anything," Remus protests.
James reaches over and unpins Remus' badge. "Twelve and a half points from Slytherin because we all know you've done something."
"Ten points from Gryffindor for each of you idiots," snaps back a fifth year Slytherin prefect.
A second year Gryffindor lurches around James and grabs the badge. "Twenty points from Ravenclaw because Gregson keeps saying I'll be eaten by spiders!"
A Slytherin straight up accios a badge to her hand, ripping a prefect's shirt. "Ten points to Slytherin because I look cute today."
McGonagall already looks like she's regretting this but stays off to the side with the other professors as the students surge towards the nearest prefect and strip the badges off, tossing them around as they all try to claw for the new toy.
"Ten points from Gryffindor for starting shit!"
"Six points from Hufflepuff because that's how many marks I beat you by in the last essay, Bennett!"
"A point from Ravenclaw for every textbook you have!"
"A point from Gryffindor for every item of red or gold you own!"
"A point from Hufflepuff for every Hufflepuff you have!"
"A point from Slytherin for every time one of you wanked off this week!"
The large vials of tiny crystal stones are rapidly clinking, the sound building like a wave, draining and refilling at almost the same pace because a lot of the badges are being held by people who don't scream across the room to make a point of things.
"Twenty points to Hufflepuff because I bloody well deserve it today~!"
"Thirty points from Ravenclaw because you're all nerds!"
"Forty points from Gryffindor for having James Potter!"
Sirius cries in outrage and snatches the badge away from a nearby fifth year Ravenclaw. "Five thousand points from Hufflepuff for being Hufflepuff!"
The Hufflepuff points are sucked away so violently and so quickly it slams straight through to zero and the vial shatters, exploding magical glass everywhere and sending students screaming and taking cover under sleeping bags.
Sirius barks out a laugh. "Five points to Hufflepuff as a consolation prize."
Five tiny little crystals fall from the broken top of the vial that still remains attached to the wall. The crystals clink down, having nothing to catch them, and settle on the stone floor.
James' eyes light up and he grabs Sirius' hand, holding the badge as well. "Fourteen million points to Hufflepuff!"
The screaming, which had just started to settle down, starts up again even louder as an entire tsunami of tiny crystals floods out of the broken vials and sweep across the hall, burying students and rattling like a high-pitched earthquake.
The good news is that if the kids have nightmares, it's about crystals and not spiders.
Despite being distracted by the mess the Marauders made, Harry is still worried that nothing is going to get done, like with the basilisk in his second year, and theoretically he can take care of it himself but it'll be difficult-
The Potters come in swinging.
Even before Dumbledore's creature specialist arrives, the Ministry was basically booted out of the office and into a floo to take care of the acromantula because of the absolute wave of howlers that were loud enough to shake dust off the ceiling from all the parents Fleamont had contacted and organised.
Euphemia herself comes to Hogwarts on Sunday with the world's leading magical spider specialist and the woman's entire team, because they'd known each other from an overseas holiday a few years back, and the team is immensely interested in the abnormal hunting pattern of this nest.
With aurors as muscle, they comb through the forest and get a quick survey of the acromantula nest before contacting some more people who have potential space and an ecosystem that can handle the transplantation, plus any transport logistics. They'll stay back after as well to make sure the forest food chain can handle the nest being displaced.
It's pretty anticlimactic, all told, but these people do it professionally so it's not odd that classes resume on the Monday without any problem (although a lot of worried letters from parents are still filtering in).
Harry is explaining all of this to his Sirius on the mirror Monday morning, curtains drawn around his bed, and Sirius is just laughing himself to tears.
"Shit actually gets done around here!" Harry cries in shock. "Can you believe that?! I bloody well can't! Is this why people have grandparents – so they can put pressure on the Ministry?"
Sirius wheezes. "Wow, Harry, can't last a single year without doing something to poor Hogwarts, can you?"
"This was not me," Harry declares firmly. "Literally none of this has been me since I got here and it's so refreshing – I heard your ridiculous fight against the Minister in third year by the way. You and Professor Lupin all like; oh, Harry, getting yourself into trouble again, sigh – you fucking hypocrite, Snuffles."
"We were trying to be a good influence on you!"
"It would have been nice to know my dad is just as chaotic as I am," Harry complains. "At least it would have prepared me for things like this. Do you think it just runs in my blood? Do all Potters get force-fed liquid luck to balance out being born fucking cursed? Because it feels like that sometimes."
Sirius needs a good minute before he has enough air to talk again.