Of All the Stupid Things to Do...

In the early morning, the sun slipped along the walls of Hogwarts. It warmed the stone to a point that in the summer was considered sweltering, and brightened the hallways with its cheerful rays. As it glinted through the early morning fog on the Hogwarts grounds, it shot beams of gold through silver, and gilded every dripping leaf of every sodden tree, promising a happy day.

In the early morning, James Potter slipped through the halls of Hogwarts. He warmed the air with his passing only a bit, and darkened the hallways with a put-outer to make sure he wasn't caught. As he fumed through the early morning fog in his brain, he shot dark looks at the corners, and muttered every scathing epithet he could think of, promising a very bad day indeed.

Especially for one Lily Evans.

James ducked through the hallways a little faster, running down the steps, through the hall on his right, around another right corner and then another, to tuck himself quickly into a room near the Glass Stair. The Glass Stair was one that almost no one used, because it had the unfortunate characteristic of being invisible, which led to a lot of falls and just as many sights of things better concealed under the robes. There were two times when the stair was visible: when the sun was setting as the full moon rose, and when the moon was setting as the sun rose. It was the latter that was the current situation... unfortunately, Meredith Curtain was an avid photographer, and considered the Glass Staircase her particular challenge. James supposed it could be considered rather beautiful, with the sun giving red light and the moon giving silver and the stairs catching the edges of both and refracting them into a million rainbows... but the full moon didn't bring James so much joy anymore, and he couldn't be caught on film here at all, not like this.

So he waited for Meredith to turn her back and ran to the room he was headed for.

And with that, the most dangerous portion of the thing was over.

Every room the four of them used for their plans had at least two parts with walls and door in between. It was only sensible, really; there was just so much you could do with the extra time if someone caught you... This particular room had three segments, and as James slipped into the second one, he thanked his lucky stars that the Girl in it couldn't see what was in the third part.

Lily glared over the top of her gag. She lunged forward suddenly, then halted abruptly and sat very still as the chair she was tied to moved under her. Hah! Thought James. Well, Sirius certainly knows how to control women... sexual intimidation indeed.

There was a very becoming flush spreading across Lily's cheeks, just the faintest hint on the apples...

James stepped all the way into the light carefully provided by a simple radiance spell to avoid letting her see anything more than three feet from herself.

Of course, the gag made it difficult to understand her, but James was pretty sure the first thing she had screamed was "Remus", and her eyes widened over the gag. Apparently, Moony wasn't the one she thought she was going to find.

"This won't do at all, Lily," he said quietly. Lily stopped screaming and quickly shook her head in agreement. "We can't keep having the groups fighting like this." Her eyes narrowed. It was a bad sign, but James still had the advantage. "Before it was just fun and games, but it isn't anymore." He stepped towards her. "We're going to establish a precedent, Lily. Right now. You're going to be an example, for all your friends."

Lily attempted to move the chair back. It goosed her, and she stilled again. She looked intimidated, but defiant.

That was not, James thought, going to last long.

He got down in her face, putting his very close to hers. Time to make use of those eerie golden eyes... Polyjuice Potion was such useful stuff... "No more sabotage, Lily. No more waiting for James with a teacher, no more showing McGonagall to our stashes, and no more spoiling our plans. No more reporting us to teachers, no more booby traps, no more keeping penned up. We'll back off you, but you have to back off us. Agreed?"

He reached up and slowly pulled the gag off. As he did so, his hand brushed her cheek. It was soft and, as he realized after a moment of surprise, trembling. He looked into her eyes for dilation in case she was sick. He pupils were normal, but her irises were a bit darker than usual. He wanted very much to ask if she were all right, because annoying as she was she was still a beautiful girl and anyway no Gryffindor would leave an enemy or a friend sick, but he had to get his answer out of her or it wouldn't back down. He narrowed his eyes. "Agreed?" he asked again, throwing a little growl into his voice.

He'd have to remember to thank Remus for that growl... He could never have done it in his own body.

Lily gulped and said, "Agreed," quietly, before finally removing the rod from her... back... and leaning forward and brushing her lips against his.

James had to remind himself that he was not kissing Lily... Remus was kissing Lily... she thought he was Remus... She thought he was Remus... He just had to keep telling himself that...

Remus obviously had no idea what he was missing. It was tangy and sweet, soft and forceful, daring and reserved, innocent and ages old...

James stopped reminding himself that she was kissing Remus, and started reminding himself that for the next few minutes, he would have the distinct pleasure of being Remus...

Except that this was not in the plans, and the first rule of mischief was always "When in doubt, follow your gut, but if you doubt your gut, follow the plan." James was starting to have severe doubts, but since he didn't think that part of him was quite high enough to qualify as gut he should really be following the plan...

Reluctantly, he drew back.

When she had her breath again, Lily asked, "How exactly were you planning to make me an example?"

James went cold... she could still think after that? Good heavens, here he was and he could practically feel his bones melting-

James realized, just before the change started to show on the outside, that his bones really were melting, and quickly just back out of the radiance spell before downing the second vial of potion. He had one hour. No problem, if he could get them out of here.

He'd thought of numerous ways to do this, but the easiest was still the simplest. He gripped his wand firmly and said, "No more interference, on either side, Evans. Stupefy."

The invisibility cloak was in the third room.

~~~~

James pelted up the stairs to the dormitory just before seven, hoping against hope that neither of the boys who shared with Sirius and Peter and him was awake yet. (Remus was in the other boys dorm on this floor, seeing as there were some many in their year.) Luckily, neither of the two was. Sirius was not quite in the room yet, but entered barely two minutes after James had, looking quite terrified. He dove for bed without looking left or right to find out how the other two were and hid under the pillows. When James went to see if he was alright, he heard a muffled voice from the direction of the vague black spot that was Sirius when James wasn't wearing his glasses. "Make 'em go away, Moony; please, they aren't like us, make 'em go away!" James grinned and tumbled into bed himself. Of the four, only Remus was still out of bed. He wouldn't be picked up for another hour because of the risk of the moon not having waned enough. Peter must have come in just before James, because he had just been getting to sleep and had scolded James for making so much noise.

James couldn't sleep.

At all.

He was just too excited... it was possibly his most creative revenge yet, and that was saying quite a bit. (He still thought the conditioner came close, though...)

Eminently appropriate, too... James remembered Eclypsia's words when he told her about it... she had laughed with that fey quality she would sometimes get. Every once in a while, she scared James a bit... he rather liked thinking she was a human... It made her nicer to think about...

James swung he feet out of bed and crept over to where Steve and Killian were. He slipped over to Steve first-he was generally a quiet waker, and although he wasn't up to the sorts of elaborate things that James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus did, he was always game for a startling wake-up call. He came awake instantly and silently, looking up at James and smiling slightly before nodding and creeping out of bed himself. Once there, he looked at James like a bit of a demented bird, curiously.

James made a face at the two friends of his sleeping on the opposite site of the tower from Killian. He narrowed his eyes in concentration, trying to think of something that would be good dripping from the ceiling. Did either of them have any alcohol? He thought Sirius might have some... "Accio booze," he said in a low voice, and sure enough, it soon floated over. Steve had begun rummaging in his trunk, and came up some time later with plastic tubing.

James grinned.

This was perhaps the best part of pranks: pranking something else as if you didn't realize that something bigger was about to happen. Morning wake-ups were entertaining, the perfect distraction. They weren't enough to take the focus off the real prank for more than a second, and they were enough to make people look elsewhere for a culprit.

Steve poked his arm, and James looked at him, one eyebrow raised in the air. "We need to make that not booze, James. Booze means either it's in the trunk or you've been sneaking out, and a search..." And future comments were saved for some time when they wouldn't awaken the victims.

James focused on the bottle for a second. It slowly changed its shape, becoming less square and rounder, and smaller, but denser, acquiring a bit of a silver sheen, and finally becoming a pitcher, suitable for holding water to be turned into butterbeer by the third years. It took a bit more concentration to turn the liquid inside to butterwater, so he just did a switch charm with the similar pitcher in the bathroom and then halfway transfigured the water into butterbeer. After that, it took a simple "aging spell" to get the butterbeer moldy enough. Steve held out the tubing which he had managed to make come together in the center to form a sort of bottlecap with tubes, which was the spellotaped to the ceiling. They screwed in a funnel from Peter's potions set (he had the most complete set of all of them) and poured the butterwater in (the funnel was guaranteed not to spill).

James watched. And watched. After about five minutes he turned to Steve and whispered, "Nothing's happening."

Steve looked at him like he was crazy. "That's because I was waiting for you to tell me to turn it on."

James frowned. "You were?"

Steve nodded. "I take it that means you want me to?"

James nodded impatiently. Steve pointed his wand at the funnel and said something under his breath. The butterwater slowly started pumping through the tubing, across the ceiling and onto the faces of the three still-sleeping boys.

The yells, although they brought a prefect and ten points off Gryffindor, were most satisfactory.