Disclaimer:

I solemnly swear that the literature and works of the Harry Potter Verse belong to JK Rowling, Bloomberg and Warner Bros. The only thing I own are the one-shot ideas that popped into my head and whatever OCs I would create for them. This is a work of pure fiction made solely for fun, constructive reviews will be welcomed, flames will be ignored. Any references to characters in real-life or fiction are purely coincidental. If I could make money out of my ideas, it would be nice...

Mischief Managed Damn It!

Title: Book 2, Chapter 03

Posted Date: August 30 2024

In a semi-empty corridor by the second floor, one head popped out of an alcove to check the area before going behind the cover. Shortly after, Fred and George Weasley emerged from their hiding spots and went over their plans, twin maniac smiles evident on their faces as they hoped to see the cumulation of their efforts to take down a target that had proven quite elusive over the past year.

The cunning creature known as Harry Potter.

Ever since his sorting in Hogwarts, Hogwarts has been a hub of activity that was in direct contrast to its previous years. Trolls invading the castle, wraiths possessing Aurors, fights that seemed too unreal to be outside of stories, unspoken rules and lines being crossed among the four houses. And it was a crazy delight for them who thrive on chaos. The only problem was the amount of attention placed on Hogwarts that prevented them from performing their usual pranks on the populace. The ICW officer who got their test candy by accident looked ready to hex them to the next century if not for the teachers disciplining them harder than normal which included temporary suspension from the Quidditch Team. The Flying Foxes were not happy with their attempts at levity and made it clear that they had to toe the line.

Recently, their youngest brother Ron had complained about Potter supposedly rebuffing his hand of friendship and messing with him. The twins knew that was a whole load of hogwash since they had watched his ham-fisted attempts to get into the tight group that was the study group for most of the first years at the time. They also knew that Ron had been more than rude towards said group, and getting increasingly confrontational against those who he deemed weaker in his mind, mainly Hermione Granger and the other muggleborns. They did make sure to rein him in but they knew it would be a matter of time before someone decided to take Ron out.

They had small bets on the Asian Ravenclaw or the Hufflepuffs, with Hermione coming up from behind like a tidal wave.

In this case, they would at least make a token effort to avenge their brother. They were more interested in finally getting one over Harry. He and by extension the Ravenclaw House had been avoiding their traps for almost a year now with a few lucky hits for the more obnoxious members, and while that was fun, the Weasley Twins had their professional pride to consider. Thus far only the headmaster had escaped them, they would not let a junior get away scot free!

"Are we set?" Fred asked.

"We should be, but let's do a recap." George spoke while pulling out a parchment to read out the list.

"Potion balloons?" Fred went to check on the items in question.

"Check."

"Dung bombs?"

"Check."

"Runes to turn the floor into a swamp-like pool?"

"Check and ready."

"Timed hex to trip Potter when he comes around the corner?"

"Primed and ready?" George did a quick check and nodded. "Check."

"This is it." Fred said.

"The big one." George answered with a smile.

"The one we have been waiting for." The two said together. "To finally prank Harry Potter!"

That was correct! They had spent roughly two months planning the pranks needed, and the past month to study his routes, and now they would finally have their revenge!

Victory was finally theirs!

A sudden pressure landed on their shoulders like giant hands pressing down on them, and they barely registered that before they were lifted off the ground and sent flying towards the wall, turning at the last second so that their backs hit the wall with their limbs spread wide open and stuck to the wall.

"What just happened?" George was a little disoriented from the sudden motion and impact.

"Don't know, maybe someone got us?" Fred tried to move his arms and grunted. "I can't move my arms. George, can you do anything?"

"Err, Fred?" George tried to motion with his chin at the small girl who was looking up at them. And by small, they were talking smaller than the first years like she was eight years old with shoulder length black hair, a button nose and some freckles that made her look like she was blushing. She was wearing the standard black robes of Hogwarts but where the house logo would be, the Hogwarts insignia took its place, and it had been resized to fit her which gave her a very adorable look, even with the cute glare directed at them at the moment. When she noticed their attention, she raised a hand to wiggle her finger at them like she was scolding them.

"Hello, don't suppose you know the one that stuck us to the wall?" Fred tried asking the girl but she merely puffed out her cheeks more while stamping her foot on the ground, and somehow, the pout directed at them made them feel a little guilty as if she was disappointed at them in her own silent way, and it was more effective than their mother's lectures through her howlers!

"Listen, can you get someone to help us down?" The girl crossed her arms and silently huffed before disappearing with a soft pop. "Did she just Apparate?"

"But no one can do it in Hogwarts. Who was that girl?" Another soft pop drew their attention to her only for their eyes to widen at the sight of all the balloons, dung bombs and every other prank item they had prepared for the corridor floating about in the air before them. The little girl herself held an armful of balloons in her arms, and she had a grin not unlike their own when they wanted to pull a prank, and they only just noticed her eyes changing colour each time she blinked. With a small jump, she threw the items in her arms where they hung in the air in front of them and they showed signs of activation. The girl then maturely stuck out her tongue at them before popping away. The two boys only had one thing to say as their prank items glowed brightly.

"Oh bugger."

'Boom!'

5 minutes later, Harry and his friends arrived from the Great Hall to find the corridor completely wrecked, the Weasley Twins kneeling in front of the new Gryffindor Head Of House while covered in whatever stuff they were in and getting scolded, and one Professor McGonagall walking away with a audible mutter stating she was so glad to not deal with them or the paperwork they would generate any more.

All in all, typical Hogwarts.

~ooOOoo~

Harry had a really bad feeling about the upcoming Halloween that year.

He was not sure why, but Hogwarts had been giving him small updates on what was going on in the castle and for the most part matters were okay. But the issue with the cursed item was eluding the entity, and Harry was not having much luck on his end. He could however conclude that the item in question was nowhere near the areas where the purifying crosses were placed given how quickly they worked to dispel any dark magic harming a person. So it limited the places it could be around unless it was not active.

He had approached Filius on the matter, and the goblin promised to look out for the cursed item after much vocabulary. So on that front he had help which was good.

Harry also had to deal with the attention that came from him having done his OWLs earlier than most students, and a few jealous twits who kept trying to make trouble for him. Some of the senior students were doubling down in hopes of doing theirs early, and then there were those of his age like Anthony Goldstein and Zacharias Smith who kept sniping at him for his supposed attention-grabbing antics.

Seriously, what was their problem with him?

Then there was Dumbledore's activity, or inactivity, that made Harry a little nervous. He was not openly calling him to his office which may imply the restraining order was working, but the times when the man just staring at him was really reedy, and then there were the laws being discussed in the Ministry that were supposedly designed to keep early achievers like him from leaving the country to do the work even though the advanced program allowed for such a thing. While the man was no longer working at the Ministry with whatever political strength he had from using Harry's name had been diminished and whatever seats in the Wizengamot and the other areas revoked from him, whatever allies he had were still doing what they could to limit Harry, especially with him having obtained his OWLs and thus retaining wand rights and giving him the chance to leave Hogwarts soon.

Harry was not taking chances and doubled his efforts to prepare for at least one NEWT subject to complete so that he could get away. He knew Arcturus really wanted to get him out, but the Ministry and by extension Dumbledore would do what they could to keep him from leaving Hogwarts. So he just needed to keep his head down and get the early slots to do the NEWTs exam.

At the moment, he was in a different type of trouble.

Harry was cursing his luck as he rushed to get to the Potions Lab, having been delayed by a combination of Peeves laying out dung bombs by the corridor, the staircase playing Musical Chairs by changing positions, and the worst delay for the day, Gilderoy Lockhart trying to get him for whatever conceived reasoning in his head to talk about their fame. If it was not for the fact he regularly checked for spells on him, he would swear the man had tagged him in some manner. He was now wondering if the man was a bloodhound because he kept appearing at odd corridors like he had memorised the route for his subjects.

And wasn't that a disturbing thought?

Harry put on a bit more speed, and managed to get into the potions classroom with seconds to spare and a scowling Snape who was in the middle of attendance-taking. Without hesitation and not knowing why, Harry just threw up his arms and spoke loudly "I hate Lockhart! That guy is a bloody menace! Please professor, tell me there is a potion that emits some sort of pheromone to get that man away from me! That or something to scare him away from me!" The other male students turned to look at the professor with honest hope in their eyes while the girls looked offended at the idea of someone wanting to get away from their idol.

Snape looked at him steadily, but those closest would swear his mouth twitched in amusement. "There are such potions, but the ingredients needed to make them are rather expensive and not within the school budget. You have to make do with running away like a brat. Now get to your seat."

"Ah damn it." Harry dropped his head and went to his assigned cauldron while the others chuckled at his situation, with the Ravenclaws mentally thanking the stars that the man did not want to remove points. They were tasked with creating a potion designed for low releases of energy for the body to slowly heal for serious cases, sort of like a downgraded version of a Pepper-Up potion, and it had to be correctly made to avoid the body transforming into a grenade.

Not a pretty sight.

For his part, Harry had the added challenge in the form of a half completed potion to fill in the blanks and to bring it to completion, with half of the instructions written next to the cauldron for him to decipher, and it needed to be done by the end of the lesson. This was to see if he had the knowledge to work with half-done potions, and the professor appeared to have a sadistic streak to test him or other advanced students if they were able to salvage them and do another potion at the same time.

An hour later, Harry was thankfully able to get the two potions done on time with the second potion showing the right colour and giving off silver mist. The potions professor looked at the cauldron with a keen eye and nodded before moving on to check on the others. After that, the students left the classroom except Harry who was called back by Snape who was finishing up on his work.

"You have done well identifying the Sizzler Potion, and even included some alterations to make it more potent while ensuring the release of energy is more gradual." The potions master looked at Harry with the dark eyes that seemed to absorb light into darkness. "I will be testing you with more advanced potions making. Given your OWL grade, you should be up to the task."

"Understood professor." Harry nodded and waited for the man to continue. It was subtle but Snape had a look that said he was pondering something.

"There is a matter I may need to approach Lord Arcturus Black." The man paused again with an expression of clear reluctance evident on him. "I might need your help with this, Mister Potter." Harry merely nodded, knowing the man still had issues with his father and by extension the family name.

"I shall alert him about your possible request." The man nodded and went back to his desk, a clear indication of dismissal. Harry went to move to the door while checking his belongings out of habit, then left the potions lab to get to his next lesson. He was about to turn around the corner when his ears picked up something.

/"Let me rip you…Let me tear you…I am so hungry!"/

Harry paused with his protections set to high and hands tensing in anticipation. He peeked around the corner to see just an empty corridor and then around him slowly, his fingers twitching slightly from the alertness. Given the warning he had gotten from Hogwarts, and the supposed cursed book still moving about in the castle, Harry did not want to take his chances in case this was the next crappy issue like last year.

Except the voice went away into the distance, and after a few seconds of silence, Harry slowly lowered his arms and powered down the spell runes on him. With another check of his watch, Harry moved on, not wanting to be late for his next class, but his mind was going at a few miles per hour at what was going on while he took a few shortcuts to avoid being caught alone.

He was really not looking forward to the upcoming Halloween.

~ooOOoo~

(Halloween, 1992)

Sirius sighed as he leaned back in his chair, a small glass of scotch by the table and his mind adrift over all that had gone on so far. It was the evening of October 31st, 1992, aka Halloween, aka Samhain, aka the night when everything went wrong and he let his emotions take control and ended up in Azkaban for a few years before the miracle came in the form of Amelia Bones coming to interrogate him and he finally got his trial.

In a way, he had been keeping himself busy helping Harry and his grandfather to try and avoid thinking about this day despite his visits to the mind healer and to the psychologist from the No-Mag side (he adopted the terminology from his godson, and he actually preferred that to Muggle or mundane). Despite the progress, there was a fair amount of guilt that stayed with him over the decisions that made up the mess of that night, and he would at times suffer nightmares of his failures, with Pettigrew's laughter in his ears. Chief among those nightmares were James and Lily standing before him in bloody clothes, screaming at him for his failures while Harry was begging for help.

There was another reason for his mood. Remus Lupin had returned into his life after the news of his trial had spread long enough to reach Ireland where he was apparently doing some sheep herding. (Sirius had let out a laughing bark at the thought of a werewolf herding sheep) While they reconnected just fine, Harry did not connect with Remus as successfully, not accepting his excuse for not being there to help them. It probably was not for the best that Remus started his excuses with "Dumbledore says" when it was Dumbledore that had gotten them in this much trouble.

If it was just that, Sirius would have called Harry out on some supposed childishness for this and would have tried to get them to reconcile, but Remus had been asking Harry more questions on where he was living and what he was doing quite frequently, and it was merely driving Harry away with his insistence. Remus had then shared the location of the house used for their meetings with Dumbledore who had appeared one day to ask to meet Albert and Harry "on matters of great importance", and more recently shared the information of Harry doing his OWLs early and going overseas to do so, prompting the headmaster to attempt blocking him with the excuse of him being too advanced or pushing his privileges too far.

Arcturus was not amused with Dumbledore's attempts to stop Harry, and certainly not happy knowing that he got the information from Remus. After some stern talking with him, Sirius had to go to Remus to ask why he did what he did. There was a fair amount of shouting and nearly resulted in a hexing match between the two, and it did not escape Sirius's notice that Remus still had his rose tinted glasses on about Dumbledore despite the increasing amount of evidence, and that he genuinely saw nothing wrong about telling the old wizard private matters involving Harry. And unfortunately, the werewolf was stubborn in that regard, so with some reluctance, Sirius had to avoid bringing him over to certain places and to not talk of certain matters around him.

When did everything get so complicated?

"A Galleon for your thoughts?" His moping was interrupted by Albert who had entered the room with his own tumbler.

"My thoughts are worth more than a Galleon." Albert rolled his eyes in good nature as he settled into the chair next to him.

"If they were, you would be getting yourself drunk on some island." Sirius preened at that thought. "Now what is really going on?" Sirius let out a sigh at that.

"I had another argument with Remus over his actions to tell Albus of Harry's private business." Sirius took another sip of his beverage. "He had apparently attempted to tell Albus of another matter that was meant to be secret. Granted, it was a red herring given by Harry to test Remus, but Remus actually told Albus despite Harry telling him not to."

"If I may ask, why is he so loyal to Dumbledore?" Albert asked.

"The headmaster let him study in Hogwarts at a time when werewolf discrimination was on the rise. Something about reduced fees and a place to change in secret." Sirius took a sip of his drink. "He did make sure that Remus's needs were taken care of in his time at Hogwarts. And when Snivellous," Sirius paused to shake his head, remembering Harry's admonishment of the man's usage of the nickname, "I mean Snape tried to get Remus into trouble with his suspicions about his furry identity, Dumbledore stepped in to stop the proceedings."

"And there have been no other werewolves after him?" Albert hummed thoughtfully.

"What are you thinking?" Sirius thought he got to know the man who had adopted Harry as his ward, although there were moments he had a hard time reading his face.

"I just find it curious that the man went through a lot of effort for one werewolf, yet he did not let in others despite the success." Albert took a sip of his own drink. "He had proven that Hogwarts can handle at least one werewolf student, but he did not continue after that?"

"The war was already going on back then, so werewolf prosecution was quite high. What you see right now is more of the tail end of the actions." Sirius answered as his eyes glazed a little, recalling the days when owls delivering the black envelopes of Gringotts were common during the mornings in Hogwarts and people wondered when they would get notifications about the blood relatives having perished in some manner. He still remembered the day when James got the black envelope during his sixth year about his parents perishing not from the death eaters but from the after effects of the dragon pox they contracted before James was born. Sirius was right next to him when he collapsed from the shock and grief, and he too felt numb about the news. Fleamont and Euphemia were the parents Sirius ever wanted growing up, and they took him in after he ran away from his "loving family" during his summer holidays. He and James spent that day in the privacy of the dorm to let out their tears, not wanting to chance losing their tempers around the Slytherins who were taunting those with the black envelopes.

"Still, after the war, Dumbledore should have been able to bring in more werewolves as students." Albert pointed that out. "Even if the cost of making Wolfsbane is a little high for the moment, it should not be an issue, right?"

"I can't tell you why he did not do it, but the Ministry did enact a lot of laws after the war that saw the werewolves getting the short end of the wand." Sirius shook his head as he considered what he had read up while waiting for his trial. "They made it practically impossible for werewolves to get an education or a job. I think Remus is the only werewolf left in Britain that is not aligned with Greyback's pack."

"Well you are wrong about that part. If you recall the special building that was built a few years ago, there are werewolves not aligned with Greyback or Dumbledore." Albert spoke as he took another sip.

"You really do not like Dumbledore." Sirius noted. Albert stayed silent for a while before answering.

"Some of his policies seem reasonable but have rather nasty loopholes that are obvious once looked at. Some of his actions seem reasonable if not to the detriment of the one they are meant to help. And then." Albert's eyes went blank while his cup started to show some cracks from his tightening grip. "I have some personal thoughts about the man that are warning me about him."

"Such as?"

"If we use the werewolves, and especially your friend Lupin as an example, I feel that Dumbledore did not really accept him into his school out of good will." Albert placed the cup down to control himself while fixing the cup. "Given the timing of the war and the werewolves being pushed to join the dark faction, Dumbledore would need something to attract the werewolves. He would need someone to talk to them." He turned to Sirius with a firm look. "Who better to talk to the representatives than a werewolf who owes him big time?"

"Wait, you are saying Remus was only let in to be a spy?" Sirius wanted to refute, but a part of him had started wondering from his discussions with Albert, Arcturus and Harry. It was quite fortuitous that Remus was around to help talk with the werewolf clans to try and get them to be neutral if not allies, but the long durations of silence in those days led to people suspecting Remus to be working undercover, only for Sirius to be thrown into Azkaban. And given what he had learned about his incarceration, Sirius had the nagging thought that perhaps he was not the only one getting shortchanged.

But was Remus an unwitting pawn, or worse?

His troubling thoughts got broken by the sounds of something beeping and he watched Albert reach into his pocket to pull out some rune tablet with a glowing gem that blinked red at intervals. Albert checked the glowing symbols before looking at Sirius.

"Something has happened in Hogwarts. Harry needs our help."