Chapter 13.

Mischief Unmanaged.

POOF!

"Aw, buggers!" Peter cursed.

POOF!

"Turn you bloody match!" he muttered in frustration.

POOF!

Peter Pettigrew was sitting crossed legged on the gold and red carpet on the floor of the Gryffindor Boys dormitory with his wand pointed at a match trying unsuccessfully to turn it into a needle. It was their first task to master in Transfiguration class.

Sirius was laying with numerous textbooks laying hap hazardously across his bed chewing noisily on Drooble's Best Blowing Gum which had filled the room with random-coloured bubbles drifting around that refused to pop for days. He was shuffling through his chocolate frog card collection instead of reading his school books.

He asked,

"Anyone wanna trade for a Bowman Wright - Inventor of the Golden Snitch? I got four of him. I'm looking for Falco Aesalon - first recorded animagus that was able to turn himself into a falcon. I haven't gotten him yet."

James was laying on his stomach on his bed, kicking his feet back and forth behind him, engrossed in a library book, Quidditch through the Ages. He looked up at Sirius and shook his head.

He replied, "I don't think I've gotten Falco Aesalon yet, sorry mate."

Then James flicked his pointer and thumb fingers at a bluebell-coloured gum bubble floating in close proximity and it went quickly whizzing towards Sirius. It bounced off Sirius's shoulder and he laughed.

Remus looked up from his bed where he was reading his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook, The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and said,

"I'll check. Hang on."

Remus pulled out his rubber banded deck of cards from a shelf next to his bed and hurriedly flipped through them. After he checked his entire deck, he separated two cards and declared with a mischievous smirk,

"I don't have Falco Aesalon either. But I do have two of Alberic Grunnion - inventor of the Dungbomb?"

Sirius made a slight facial expression of disgust at the thought of the exploding putrid odor of the magical stink bomb.

He replied with a wave of his hand, "Nah! I have him already. Thanks for checking, though, Remus. I wish I had a Dungbomb right about now."

"Ew! What for?" asked Peter from down on the carpet. He set his wand down in defeat, temporarily giving up on changing the match to a needle.

Sirius grinned and replied, "I'd sneak it into a certain Slytherin student's cauldron in our portions class."

Both Remus and James looked up curiously from their books at Sirius.

James scratched his hair thoughtfully which made it stick up on his head even more wildly and asked,

"Hey, are you talking about that greasy-haired twit we saw on the train ride here?"

Sirius nodded and confirmed, "Yep...Snivellus."

"I believe it's Severus," Remus corrected. He briefly remembered the conversation when Lily and Severus had stopped by their train compartment. He was pretty sure he had heard her call him that name.

Sirius shot Remus a rebellious glance and said, "Snivellus fits so much better for that ridiculous bloke. I swear he nicked some of my potion ingredients, like a few of my snake fangs, for our first attempt at the boils cure and my smoke came out green instead of pink. The entire Slytherin house, the whole lot of them despise me. I'm sure of it."

"Why do they loathe you so much?" James asked.

Sirius rolled his eyes and explained, "Oh, it's because I'm the last remaining Heir of the House of Black in my pure-blood obsessed wizarding family and I've now completely betrayed them being sorted into Gryffindor, you see. They all know it in Slytherin and are doing their best to punish me for siding with the 'mudbloods'. Ugh. They're nutters... all of them."

James' eyes darted around his bedspread, he rubbed his chin and said,

"Hhmmm, I don't have a Dungbomb, but I did pack a box of Stink pellets I bought from Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop in Diagon Alley last summer. It's really the next best thing. I wonder if we could drop them in Snivellus's cauldron somehow."

Sirius' eyes widened in delight, "Yeah! Excellent James! Then he'd be the one with green smoke plus the burst of nasty stink. Ha!"

"It's way too obvious, though," Remus remarked, "I've bought those stink pellets with my Dad in the past and they're activated once they're dropped. It's much too risky in the middle of Potions class when Professor Slughorn or another student or even Severus's partner is sure to see."

Peter chimed in skeptically from the carpet where he was fidgeting with a matchstick, picking at his teeth with the blunt end like a toothpick, "Yeah, and isn't Professor Slughorn the Head of the Slytherin house, too? You could loose house points and your chances of being in his special Slug Club."

Sirius's face tightened into a scowl and he replied, "Oh Peter, I don't give a kneazle's arse about the Slug Club, it just going to be a bunch of hoity-toity teachers pets that think they're better than the rest of us. I wonder if we could distract Snivellous and his partner away from his cauldron in class somehow, though."

Remus asked, "What about Bulbadox powder?"

James frowned in confusion at him and said, "Bulbadox powder? What about it?"

A mischievous flame suddenly lit in Remus' eyes and he explained further,

"The other day when I walked back from the Owlrey with a Gryffindor girl, she told me coating a cauldron with Bulbadox powder before brewing the Cure for Boils potion could make the cauldron explode."

Sirius asked, "And how do you propose we get our hands on Bulbadox powder, Remus?"

Remus jumped up from his bed and held up his pointer finger at him, "One moment."

He dug through his other textbooks on the shelf beside his bed and pulled out their Herbology book, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, by Phyllida Spore.

For a few moments, they were all silent listening to the sound of Remus thumbing quickly through the pages. He now had a giddy expression on his face like a kid in Honeydukes sweet shop.

"Yessssss! This is it. I've seen it," Remus cheered pointing to a picture in the book. Peter, Sirius, and James all scrambled over to the Herbology book to see what he was pointing at.

Sirius started snickering and said, "Aaaaah yeah, I think I see where your going with this, mate. You've seen it in the greenhouses, haven't you?"

"I haven't seen that plant," commented Peter looking puzzled.

James teased, "That's because you were too busy trying to keep that screaming young mandrake from biting off your finger."

Peter shook his head with a look of repulsion, "Those mandrakes are such miserable and disgusting little buggers. I'll sure be glad when we're done with them."

Remus stated, "If we can manage to nick some of this Bulbadox plant when no one's looking then I'm sure we could extract enough juice or powder from it to coat a cauldron."

Sirius agreed, "Quite right. Nice work, Remus, remembering that. I'm in!"

The following day in Herbology class, Sirius faked an accident by knocking off Peter's ear muffs which caused him to hear the shrill cry of the screaming unearthed young mandrakes in the greenhouse. Without the ear protection, hearing the cry caused Peter to loose consciousness. Peter keeled over and fainted.

Pamona Sprout and Remus assisted Peter's limp body up to the hospital wing. Sirius then told some rousing jokes diverting student attention away from James who nicked a decent handful Bulbadox plant in the back corner of the greenhouse.

Several hours later, Remus was sitting next Peter's bed in the hospital wing reading a book when he woke up. He had hurried to wait by his side as soon as his classes were over.

"Remus? Uuugh. Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, Peter. You passed out in Herbology today when your ear protection came off and you were overcome by the scream of those young mandrakes."

"Oh Merlin, yes, how could I forget? Damn, my head is pounding now."

"Hang on for a few, Peter, I'll go get Madam Pomfrey to get you a potion for pain relief. She seems to be a very kind and skilled woman," Remus reassured him and darted away from the bed.

Though Peter's fainting episode was premeditated as part of their mission to make Snape's cauldron explode, Remus was secretly glad for the opportunity to connect with Madam Pomfrey before his first full moon and figure out the location of the hospital wing.

Peter looked sheepish when she came to his bedside with a pain relief potion and she told him sweetly,

"No need for any shame or embarrassment regarding your reaction to those dreadful young mandrake screams, dear. This happens almost every year when first years start Herbology class. You'll be just fine. Take this potion here and your head will clear up in a jiffy. Then I'll go fetch you are your faithful friend here two glasses of pumpkin juice," she said.

Peter took the potion and thanked her. Before Madam Pomfrey walked away to fetch the pumpkin juice, she turned and asked, "Would you like me to send an owl to your parents letting them know about what happened?"

Peter snapped, "No! Dear God, no. I, I mean n-n-no thanks, Mah-Madam Pomfrey."

She nodded once and walking away said, "Very well."

Remus told him, "I took notes for you in the classes you missed."

"Oh, okay. Cheers for that, Remus. Ugh, how long was I asleep?" he asked rubbing his dazed eyes and wiping off the wet corners of his mouth from taking the potion.

"A few hours."

"Oh. Um, did James get...uh, you know?"

"Yes. James was successful."

"Oh okay, good."

"Thanks for your... contribution, Peter. We'll keep working on uh, you know, more tonight in the dorm together. Oh yeah, and here, I brought you one of my chocolate frogs from the train. I hope it has a card you're looking for."

Late that night, James worked steadily to grind out a paste from the Bulbadox plants he nicked when the Prefect was not around. Sirius had hidden a small metal pan in his robes after super and they dried out the paste into a powder over the small stove in their dorm. Unfortunately, as it dried in the pan over the stove it gave off a rather terrible stench which did not escape notice of the Gryffindor prefect.

"Merlin's beard! What is that awful smell?" the Prefect asked as he wandered into their room, looking around suspiciously.

Thankfully, Sirius hid the drying Bulbadox paste quickly under his bed quickly and said,

"Sorry, I'm full of bottom burps tonight. I shouldn't of ate such a load of beans at breakfast this morning. I suppose the extra helping of cauliflower and cheese at supper didn't help either," he patted his guts a little too proudly and declared, "Colin bowlin!"

The others groaned in disgust to play into it.

"Ugh, yeah he's a real 'robe ripper' tonight," James remarked holding his hand over his nose.

"Eeeew. Merlin spare us from him 'droppin' the dung bombs'," Peter commented.

"Perhaps we should work on learning the bubble head charm next?" Remus proposed.

James continued, "Damn, I wish you'd stop 'stepping on the pigmy puffs' here, Sirius."

The prefect rolled his eyes, waved his hand in front of his nose and said, "Alright alright, well I'm sure glad I'm not sleeping near here tonight."

The four of them waited until long after midnight to creep quietly out of the Gryffindor house that night with their freshly concocted Bulbadox powder to coat Severus's cauldron in the Potions classroom. They each kept a close watch out for Filch and his spying cat, Mrs.Norris.

They tip toed with their wands lit just enough to reach the Grand Staircase which was a enormous access point for every floor of the castle. They crept by countless portraits with wizards and witches fast asleep hung everywhere on the walls of the tower. Sometimes the staircase would move around which they had grown accustomed to navigating since the start of classes.

James whispered, "Rowena Ravenclaw was the one who apparently came up with the idea of these bloody moving stairs."

The Potions classroom was located on the bottom level down a long, gloomy stone corridor that felt damp and cold. They made it in and out of the room flawlessly preparing Severus's cauldron for the grand surprise the next class meeting.

When they began their ascent back up the stairs towards the portrait hole behind the fat lady, Remus began to sense this was all going a little too well thus far. Peter whispered,

"Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"That drop of water."

"It was probably from the dungeons, it's always so damp and drippy."

"Yeah but we're not in the dungeons anymore."

"I know, but, hey, there it was again. Didn't any of you feel that?"

"Shush, Peter. You're going to alert Filch."

"There it is again."

"Hey, I felt it, too."

James paused, looked above them and gasped in surprise.

Floating above their heads, was a little man with a wicked grin, dressed in an outlandish colorful clothes like a court jester including a bright orange bow tie. He was holding a goblet of water, shamelessly dipping his fingers in it and flicking it over the top of them.

The others slowly followed James gaze upward to see Peeves sing out,

"Sprinkle sprinkle, it's not my tinkle, naughty naughty, you firsties are about to get caughty!"

He swooped around them snickering to himself and then dumped some water over Sirius's head.

"It's Peeves! Oh no," Peter cried out in desperation. The poltergeist cackled in laughter and then spitefully dumped the remaining water over his head.

Peeves' dark, wicked little eyes glittered and he began to bellow out loudly,

"STUDENTS OUT OF BED! WATER ON THEIR HEAD!"

Remus felt his mind go blank in panic. Peter stood frozen in terror with the water that had been dumped on him dripping off his hair like a drowned rat.

Sirius was frantically wiping water out of his eyes and face. James tried to think quick on his feet, whipped an object out of his robes and said,

"Peeves! Look at this! I have a brand new box of stink pellets all the way from the joke shop in Diagon Alley. They will be all yours if you promise to hush up and distract Filch and the cat for us!"

The poltergeist stopped hollering for a moment and looked very tempted by the offer of the stink pellets. The seconds seemed to crawl by and the four of them cringed when they heard a cat meow from a hallway in the nearby distance.

Sirius now somewhat recovered from the unexpected shower of water, began fumbling through his robes and took out what was left of his package of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. He quickly thrust it out in view towards Peeves offering,

"Yes, and I'll sweeten the deal with this Droobles gum, too. You can have some fun stuffing keyholes or pestering that dreadful Mrs. Norris with the floating bubbles as well."

"Okay, DEAL! Shan't say nothing if you don't say please!" Peeves cried out.

The four of them burst out desperately, "PLEASE!"

Then the naughty little man flew downward and snatched the two negotiated items from them. Without waiting a second longer the four boys sprang into action running up the staircase faster than any of them had ever climbed up to the Fat Lady Portrait in their entire time at Hogwarts thus far.

"Collywobbles!" Remus said hurriedly to the Fat Lady blinking sleepily at his glowing wand.

The Fat Lady yawned and replied, "Oh dear, little Firsties, that's not it. Shame on you four being out and waking me at this ridiculously early hour. What in Merlin's name have you been up to in the castle?"

Ignoring her reprimand and question, Sirius said firmly,

"Codswallop!"

The Fat Lady rolled her eyes still refusing to let them pass and declared a bit patronizingly, "No password, no entrance."

James shook his head and said, "No no no, that was last week, Sirius. It's NEZARA VIRUDULA!"

The Fat Lady's face instantly brightened and she said, "Very good! Alright. Go ahead. I do admit, I was starting to look forward to you waiting here until the others came through for breakfast."

Remus thanked her graciously as they scrambled through the portrait hole into the common room. Peter muttered, "What in b-b-bloody hell is 'Nezara Virudula' anyway?"

James whispered, "I think it's Latin for a green vegetable eating stink bug."

Suddenly the sound of a door creaked at the top of the spiral staircase leading to the Boy's Dormitory. Instinctively the four of them dived down flat on the floor behind the couch like soldiers taking cover in a war zone. They extinguished their wand lights and for a few tense moments all that could heard was the sound of their heavy panting breaths.

James slowly lifted his body up and carefully took a peak up the spiral staircase. He saw the evanescent form of Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost, floating along fiddling with his round, millstone ruff collar around his precariously attached neck. Thankfully, he was humming happily to himself and didn't see them.

Nearly Headless Nick drifted through a wall and Peter took a wrong turn starting to mindlessly wander up the girls spiral staircase. Sirius clenched his teeth and then whispered as loud as he could,

"Peter! Wrong staircase!"

James cursed at him quietly under his breath, "Bollucks! What a twit."

The staircase to the Gryffindor Girls' Dormitory was accessible from the Gryffindor Common Room and unbeknownst to Peter was enchanted long ago by Godric Gryffindor to turn into a slide.

Somewhere between Peter's step number eight or nine, the stair case began silently morphing into a slippery, flat stony surface.

"What the...?" Peter yelped in utter bewilderment. He flapped his arms and completely lost his balance. Then he went tumbling backwards down the slide.

Remus, James and Sirius clambered over to the bottom of the transformed slide and with a group effort caught him before he made a big noisy thump at the end.

They then dashed up the proper spiral staircase to their dorm room. Remus cast a bunch of cleaning charms around their room to cover their tracks and they all collapsed exhausted into their beds. They each fell asleep relieved to not gotten caught and more excited than ever for the next Potions class.

Later, when the time finally arrived, the boys settled into their usual places in Potions class, each of them worked hard to keep strait faces as all the students began their practice once again carefully following the recipe for the cure for the boils potion. James, Sirius, Peter and Remus tried to remain inconspicuous about sneaking side glances over to Severus working unassumingly and steadily at his baited cauldron.

"Mind that you crush the six snake fangs into a fine powder with your mortar and pestle, not a crumbly thicker texture, too many students don't care to take the time to properly grind them down," Professor Slughorn reminded them.

Students began lighting fires under their cauldrons that contained the finely ground snake fangs to reach the required temperature. A thunderous bang suddenly resounded across the entire classroom:

KA-BOOM!!!

Some students immediately screamed. Putrid smelling smoke was fiercely billowing out of Severus's cauldron. Severus himself had been blasted backwards from the explosion and was lying on the stone dungeon floor looking completely dumbfounded.

Professor Slughorn waltzed over to the violently smoking cauldron with a wrinkled brow of displeasure. Students covered the lower halves of their faces with their hands or pulled up bunches of material from their robes to cover their orifices from the stench.

"Severus Snape! What in Merlin's name happened here?!" Professor Slughorn asked angrily.

Severus's pale face began to flush with reddish pink in embarrassment and he scrambled to stand to his feet. He stammered in response,

"I, I, I don't know, sir."

Sirius watched the interrogation and found himself really struggling to suppress laughter bubbling up inside. The corners of his mouth twitched.

Lily Evans quietly walked over next to Severus and spoke up boldly, "Excuse me, Professor Slughorn, but it could of been a sabotage of another person coating his cauldron with Bulbadox powder without him knowing it."

Remus's heart rate accelerated wondering if she knew he was responsible for using that important tid bit of information about Bulbadox powder she had shared with him when they had walked back from the Owlrey together. But she did not look in his direction at all.

Professor Slughorn's angry expression lightened after Lily's comment and he replied,

"Yes! That is correct. Well, I was going to take ten points from Slytherin house but given the most impressive comment by Miss Evans, that does bring up a good point that there's a chance it was not any of your doing, Severus-"

Severus shook his slick, oily black hair back and forth and said awkwardly, "No, no, I swear, it wasn't me."

Professor Slughorn held up his hand to hush him and continued, "I will take only 5 points from Slytherin instead of ten and award 5 points to Gryffindor for Miss Evans showing excellent knowledge of an important substance interaction, Bulbadox powder, with brewing the cure for boils potion. Nicely done, Lily, nicely done."

Numerous moans and groans broke out across the classroom from Slytherin students and Severus had a irritated facial expression. Gryffindor students clapped and some gave Lily a few handshakes of gratitude as she walked back smiling proudly to her station.

James shamelessly gazed at her in amazement. Lily felt his bold gaze on her and looked back at him with a questioning expression. He winked at her with flirty, pompous grin. She looked away ignoring him remembering James and Sirius's rude behavior to both her and Severus from the train ride.

After class, the four mischief makers tried not to laugh too loudly but still snickered together at the recent mayhem as they climbed up the Grand Staircase for a second time that day.

As they made the ascent upwards once again, Sirius started scratching his arms incessantly. James started scratching his neck. Remus started scratching his shoulders and Peter scratched his cheeks.

A few minutes later the four of them looked at each others' distorted faces in fright as they each started to break out in huge, round boils. James cried,

"Oh Merlin noooo!"

Peter anxiously asked, "What's happening?!"

Remus said, "We better head strait for the hospital wing! Quick, before someone else sees us like this!"

The four of them raced at once to Madam Pomfrey who assigned them each to their own hospital bed side by side and promptly treated them with already brewed boil cure potions.

They each swore, of course, it had to of been related to exposure to this mysterious explosion incident in in Potions class earlier. Madam Pomfrey insisted they stay under watch for several hours. She gave them each a square of Honeydukes chocolate to clear their mouths of the nasty potion taste.

Peter complained, "Blimey. That makes two days in a row I visited the hospital wing."

Once Madam Pomfrey was out of listening range, Sirius sighed contentedly, folded his arms behind his head on the pillow and said in a pleasant tone,

"But so worth it, mates."