Sirius' Surprise

The second year at Hogwarts had begun for the Marauders, this year was to be their most interesting so far, as would every year after that if Sirius had anything to do with it. Speaking of Sirius, it was he who was the topic of a hushed conversation between James, Peter and Remus.

"I say we just use our bedroom. It'll be easier to keep out the people we don't want," Peter contributed.

"No, it's hard enough to hide anything from Sirius as it is, don't you think he'll notice if we don't let him anywhere near the room for the next week?" Remus had a point here.

"We could always just lock him in a classroom with Slytherins and tell him they're for target practice," James laughed. "That would keep him busy for a while."

"Well it seems our best bet is the common room, we just have to make sure he doesn't notice the odd box of party food, stuffed under a chair," he paused. "But someone will have to keep him occupied after last lesson on Friday, at least until we get a chance to set everything up."

"Set what up?" questioned Sirius who had finally been woken by the whispers of his friends. He looked at each of them in turn wanting a response.

"Errr... the plan I've been making to catch Snape off his guard Friday after Transfiguration," said James. That was quick thinking and a valid reason to keep him out of the common room all in one, now all James needed was an actual plan. Remus looked at his friend, grateful that he had thought something up and not put his foot in it.

So the basic plan was there, keep Sirius from finding out about his birthday party, it seemed simple enough... in theory. However, it wasn't long before the first problem made itself clear. It happened while they sat in Charms class, listening to a rather boring lecture on the Physics behind every charm you could possibly think of.

"Hah! Physics, this isn't stuff we need to know about, we're wizards, not muggles," Sirius muttered to himself, only to feel the heel of a shoe impact with his toes. Lily gave him a small but angry smile. She knew he probably didn't mean it. Hardly anyone in Gryffindor, not even Sirius Black, is thoughtless enough to insult a muggle.

"Now that I've got your attention, I suppose you of all people know about the rumours surrounding Friday?" He looked at her almost completely unaware of what she was referring to.

"Rumours, Friday? Rumours about me getting Snape again?" Lily shook her head "Rumours that I haven't heard about? This must be big, tell me everything you know!" Lily was just about to when Peter was lucky enough to create an almost accidental distraction by knocking over his ink pot. The black ink flowed along the table, staining several tops and sending several pieces of parchment into disrepair.

"Oh no!" he shouted, attempting to mop it up with his already soaked Charms notes. He took a deep sigh and looked at the Professor who was now approaching, it appeared he wasn't in the best of moods because he removed ten points from Gryffindor for "Continuous interruptions and being clumsy."

Luckily for the Marauders and the student body's stained tops, they managed to make it to lunch without any other incidents.

"Peter, I owe you an ink pot!" said James smiling. He had nudged Peters arm causing the ink pot to fall, having heard the discussion that was about to take place. "Remus has gone on ahead, he's hopefully going to clear things up with most of them." Referring to them, James of course meant those who had been invited, those who had been indirectly invited, and those who had overheard something in the common room and were trying to find out more by asking everyone. It appeared that Lily would fit into two of these groups.

Sirius looked at his friends. It unnerved him when James talked in code, and it unnerved him even more when he wasn't involved in that code. They each took a seat at the table near Remus, who was already sat and well on his way to emptying his plate. Upon their arrival he slowed down and joined in with the usual lunch time talk, this time revolving around the plot to embarrass Snape, the only event that was happening Friday. As Sirius peered around he couldn't help but notice that a lot of his fellow Gryffindors were giving him a strange look, but every time they noticed they were being watched, glanced away pretending to be very interested in their food all of a sudden. Sirius shrugged it off. Maybe he had some ink on his face from Charms.

That night, while uneventful for Sirius, was busy for James, Peter and Remus. James was filling out some last minute order forms for Honeydukes under his covers, who would have thought that it was so easy to put off something that important. Peter was busy finishing a History of Magic essay, no matter what he did he just couldn't make the conclusion make sense. As for Remus, unfortunately it was a full moon, so he was to be found in the Shrieking Shack. If it wasn't for James and Peter being so preoccupied Sirius might not have been the only one to notice Remus' absence, he vaguely recalled Remus muttering something about going to the library so it was possible that he had found a good book and forgotten about such small things as sleep. Early the next morning, no one heard Remus mutter the password. No one heard him creep across the floor, careful not to step on the creaky floorboard, which Sirius had enchanted to try and catch, allegedly, Slytherin spies. No one heard, until somehow Peter was disturbed from his sleep. He removed the long piece of parchment from his face that contained the essay, blinking with the air of someone who really doesn't want to be awake. Peter had sat up for a whole ten seconds before giving up and falling back asleep, if it was a burglar he figured that it could wait until morning.

Remus dared to open one eye, and then slowly, the other. He felt worse now, than if he hadn't slept at all. Looking around the room, he saw James sat on his bed opposite, staring at Remus in the recognisable manner of a concerned friend.

"Ergh my head!" was the only thing he could manage to say as he attempted to sit up and then gave up.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you went out drinking once a month... without us!" commented Sirius who had just walked in.

"Very funny," Remus muttered.

They neglected this statement realising it was almost time for their first lesson, James told Remus that he would inform the Professors that he was ill and that they would check back on him at break time. Remus sighed and collapsed back in his bed, it was doubtful that staying there would make him feel any better, but getting up certainly would not help either.

The remaining three hurried down the stairs, out of the common room, and towards the dungeons for a helping of double Potions. It was first thought that this was an error on the timetable but alas no, they really did have to put up with the strange smell of the dungeons for two hours running. The rest of the day was a little unsettling as it went by with little or no notable occurrences. Except for Severus, who felt he knew best, trying to tell the Potions Professor he was wrong and creating a handy distraction to add some unwanted ingredients to his cauldron... the effects of which resulted in a classroom wide truth epidemic.

Every student, one after the other, all managed to inhale the gas produced by the small explosion and revealed something they had been hiding. Luckily when it was the turn of James, he simply revealed that he was the one who had taken one of each pair of Sirius' socks and placed them under his bed, creating the great odd sock mystery. Peter on the other hand came close when he said "I'm terrified something's going to go wrong on Friday." Luckily this wasn't much of a secret.

At break time, and again at lunch time they went up to their room to see how Remus was doing, at lunch time they brought him a plate. Unfortunately all they had managed to fill it with was potatoes and gravy, everything else having gone before they had a chance. Before they knew it the day was over and they were going to sleep. The moon was full once again, so Remus had to sneak out and away without anyone noticing. This was a daring feat all of its own, as all three of them insisted on checking he was all right every two hours.

Finally Friday arrived. This week had done nothing for their sanity, and there was still a chance that Sirius would find out. At lunch they sat discussing the plan of events to follow last lesson.

"Alright, so operation Snape goes like this: after Transfiguration Sirius and I head for the stairs to the dungeon, we know a short cut so we should get there in plenty of time, then we place the pool of white paint at the bottom and enchant the top step so that he will slip right off. Then all we do is wait."

"And of course any other unfortunate Slytherin who happens to get caught by it too are a bonus!" added Sirius, with a slightly manic grin.

"While we're doing that Peter and Remus will be on the lookout, at the top of the stairs for any approaching Professors," James mentioned with a pointed look at the both of them who nodded understandingly. They of course would really be back in the common room, setting up the decorations, putting the food out and making sure everyone had a good hiding place. This left the plan open to Professor meddling but it was a risk worth taking. Sirius managed to keep his birthday secret all last year, so this would be fun to say the least. It took several conversations and some bribery with his brother and cousins to finally find out when it was. It wasn't as if it was some great secret, the Black sisters just saw this as a chance to get what they could out of it.

As expected, Transfiguration dragged on for quite some time. The four of them had never been so ready to leave when it was finally over, considering each of them had been watching the clock intently for the last twenty minutes of the lesson.

Instantly the plan was put into action. Peter and Remus raced up to the Gryffindor common room as quickly as they could, after two attempts at the password Peter admitted failure and Remus, still suffering from the effects of sleep deprivation, said it as he caught up "Antidisestablishmentarianism!" The portrait swung open and they both jumped inside. As they were the first ones back they had a few minutes of silence where they could move the chairs to the corner of the room, making as much space free as possible. Gradually other Gryffindors started to arrive. It isn't an exaggeration to say that almost every Gryffindor knew of Sirius Black. The only ones that didn't go to the party were either too busy with homework, not really bothered about "Some silly second years party" or were just plain boring.

Meanwhile at the entrance to the dungeons James and Sirius were both carrying a large pot of industrial strength, cheap as can be, white paint. They had acquired a children's paddling pool from somewhere and were now pouring the pots of paint in, this filled the paddling pool perfectly and they headed back up the stairs careful not to fall themselves.

"I'll let you have the honours." James said stepping back in what would have been a very graceful way if he hadn't stepped onto the foot of Narcissa Black, possibly Sirius' least favourite cousin. Yet to notice her presence, Sirius finished the spell on the top step and turned around.

"And what would a pair of Gryffindor girlies be doing here?" Narcissa spoke with a tone that could break glass, but only if and when she told it to.

"Nothing to do with you, now is it?" Sirius seemed to lose his edge a little when faced with a relative,

"Oh its plenty to do with me, stood outside the dungeon, a well known fact that that the Slytherin common room is somewhere down there. You wouldn't be waiting for poor (and slightly pathetic, I must admit) Severus, would you? Don't you think you've tortured him enough for one week?"

"We haven't tortured him nearly enough! We haven't even reached our weekly Snape annoying average yet," announced Sirius, starting to find himself again.

"Hmph," was all that she said and she walked away to the dungeon. James was just about to speak out and stop her, when he found a hand over his mouth. Narcissa went tumbling down the stairs and landed directly in the children's paddling pool, soaked with white paint.

"Take that you bleach blonde!" Sirius grinned, only for his grin to get smaller a moment later.

"Oh wait until I tell your mother about this Sirius Black! You'll regret this!" Narcissa shouted from the paddling pool before she stormed off to the common room.

"Well at least we know it works now," James added, trying to cheer him up. Sirius nodded, the incident was well timed because Severus Snape had just appeared at the top of the stairs above them. Quickly they backed up against the wall, James pulling the invisibility cloak from his pocket and throwing it over them. They watched in silence as he walked towards the top step, this was it, what they had been planning, the moment they were waiting for. Snape stopped, James looked at Sirius mildly confused.

"What's he doing?" he whispered. Sirius shrugged, he had no idea.

Snape was opening his bag, looking for something, something he felt important enough to check he still had. A look of worry was on his face as he searched the bag slightly more frantically now, and then finally he pulled out something, satisfied that he had not forgotten it. They weren't completely sure but both of them swore it was a rose, what would Snape be doing with a rose? They watched as he put it back in his bag along with a small piece of parchment and then continued towards the stairs. He put his foot on the top step and the moment he did, he flew off and went flying down into the pool, with a satisfying splash that covered the surrounding walls. James pulled the cloak off laughing, Sirius stood at the top of the stairs, peering down at the now even more pale than usual Snape.

"Black, Potter... I should have guessed, what on earth do you think your doing? I hope it was worth it when I tell the Professor about this, you'll be in detention for months!" he shook his fist at them glaring through the drips of paint falling from his hair down his face.

"Why Snivellus, whatever makes you think it was us that set this elaborate, yet brilliantly simple trap?" Sirius piped up in his faked innocence voice, specially reserved for after pranks, "and furthermore how could it have been us when we were nowhere near here?"

And with that both of them ran for it, taking a shortcut hidden behind a tapestry of a Veela. That passage had been discovered by pure luck only two weeks ago thanks to a similar incident that required backing away. James hoped that it had been long enough for everything to be ready, but there was no way of telling... unless, he looked around and there he was, Nearly Headless Nick, waiting at the end of the passage to the Fat Lady.

"I trust your quite funny ideas were well rewarded?" he asked them.

"Absolutely, went off without a hitch, no problems at all." beamed Sirius, with the air of someone who's just solved world hunger.

"Excellent, then I trust you two will want to return to the common room to celebrate this triumph." At this point the slightly transparent Nick looked at James, it was clear that they were indeed ready for Sirius. James grabbed his arm.

"That's right Nick, see you later!" he shouted back as they got towards the Fat Lady "Antidisestablishmentarianism" shouted James, rather louder than expected, Sirius gave him a strange look.

"You want the whole world to know our password?"

The common room was quiet, dark too. All the curtains had been closed and a strange huddled shape blocked the fire. Suddenly the huddled shape moved, the curtains opened and the candles around the room were lit. The word "SURPRISE!" echoed around the room several times. Sirius was stunned, certainly not lost for words, but stunned!

"You scheming, lying toads!" he shouted at Remus, Peter and James as he hugged each of them "How did you find out?"

"It wasn't too hard, just annoying that we had to spend so much time around certain Slytherins," James commented with a laugh, already a glass of Butterbeer in his hand.

This was great, Sirius thought, there was cake, food, music, drink, everything a good party needs! What was really important was that his friends were there. This would be his first true Hogwarts birthday, and he enjoyed it thoroughly. As the night went on, the party slowly died down, the large crowd that could hardly get moved turned into a decent sized crowd who were really enjoying themselves.

At about ten Sirius noticed something on a table at the other end of the common room, something familiar, as he went over he noticed a quiet girl in his year pick it up. Lily next to her, was begging to know who it was from. It was the rose Snape had, that was unmistakably his handwriting on the note tied to it. The girl smiled at Lily and shook her head.

"Come on Emma, who's it from?" Lily prodded her shoulder.

"No one really, just some silly crush!" Emma blushed, then panicked and ran up the stairs to the girl's bedrooms. Lily thought about following her, then noticed Sirius.

"And what are you grinning at? It may be your party but that doesn't mean you can listen in on other's conversations." She took a careful look at him, it seemed that he knew something. She would have liked to know what, but didn't get a chance to ask.

"I couldn't help but notice the rose that's all, it seems Emma has an admirer." He walked away picking up a hand full of crisps from the table, and when he was out of earshot added, "I'm surprised it survived his scrawny self falling on it!" and smiled.