When a Prank Goes Too Far

Harry was depressed. But, of course, he had been depressed ever since his godfather Sirius Black died, in a confrontation with a sorry bitch named Bellatrix Lestrange. He still remembered her taunting, and the flash of light, and watching Sirius fall through the Veil which separated this existence from what lay beyond.

So he was laying in his bed at the Dursleys, not moving. He had been there for days. His appearance was ragged, he hadn't been eating or sleeping. He hadn't even showered. All he could do was lay there and stare at the wall. The Dursleys had learned better to bother him. Oh, sure, they tried, at the beginning, being angry and surly and threatening him. But after Harry pulled out his wand (no, you dirty readers, the OTHER wand) and threatened to hex them into oblivion, law or no law, the Dursleys relented and hadn't said another word to him. Harry was, although not happy, content with that situation. All he wanted to do was lay there and stare at the wall.

And he would have been content to sit there staring at the wall until he was forced to go back to Hogwarts, if it weren't for the owl that came tapping at the window. Harry tried to ignore the owl, but the owl tapped more and more insistently until he finally grudgingly got up from his bed and let the owl in. The owl dropped a piece of parchment, and annoyed at the amount of time it had to wait outside the window, nipped at Harry before leaving back through the window. Harry wanted to leave the parchment and just go back to bed, but since it had the Hogwarts School Seal on it, he decided he may as well read it.

He opened the parchment, which read:

Harry,

I have just found out something very disturbing. Please use this parchment to visit me immediately. Just tap it with your wand and it will act as a portkey.

Professor Albus Dumbledore

Of course, Mad-eye Moody would never have used the portkey, considering the origins were entirely unknown. But Harry, in a blast of the same impetuousness that got him into so much trouble over the past five years, cleaned himself up a bit, grabbed his wand, and tapped it to the parchment. He felt the familiar tug behind his navel and ended up in Professor Dumbledore's office.

"Ah, Harry, there you are. Good to see you."

Harry looked at the Dumbledore. He looked a little older than his (already quite advanced) years, and there was no twinkle in his eye. This disturbed Harry. Even though he knew he could not trust Dumbledore after the incidents of last year, when he had completely ignored Harry because he was afraid of the link to the evil dark wizard Voldemort that the scar Harry was currently carrying around on his head, the lack of the twinkle meant very grave news indeed.

"Please have a seat, Harry."

Harry sat.

"I'm afraid I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like first?"

Harry thought for a bit, and said resignedly, "How about the good news?"

"OK. Sirius is alive."

Harry popped up from his chair and yelled, "WHAT? Are you KIDDING me? I saw him -"

Dumbledore waved him back down. "As with everything else, there is much more to this story than you know, and there is indeed bad news. I fear that after you hear the rest of the story, you will not be so happy to hear this news."

Harry did not know how he could not be happy with this news, but his head was swimming and he could barely think straight, so he stayed quiet and allowed Dumbledore to continue.

Dumbledore sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Harry, I am not going to make any excuses for what I am about to tell you - other than to say that I honestly had no idea. I am an old and wizened wizard, but alas,I am not omnipotent, and I don't know everything."

Harry nodded, impatient for Dumbledore to continue.

"Well, Harry, when Fred and George left the school last year, their parents were very angry, and kicked them out of the Burrow. They were just setting up their joke shop, and didn't have enough money to get an apartment, so they stayed that Grimmauld place for a while. Harry, Sirius was quite the prankster back in his day, and I feared that bringing him together with Fred and George was a really bad idea. But the side of light has to stick together, and we always try to take care of our own. Sadly, I was right. It was a really bad idea."

Harry looked confused.

"As the story is told to me, Fred, George, and Sirius were sitting around the table at Grimmauld place, and they were brainstorming on... what did they call it again? Oh, yes, 'the mother of all pranks'."

Comprehension dawned in Harry's eyes. "They... faked it, didn't they?"

Dumbledore sighed. "Yes, Harry, they faked it."

Harry sputtered, "How -?"

Dumbledore looked pained. "The Death Eater attack was real. Hermione was injured, and I did have that fight with Tom - Voldemort. However, Sirius and Bellatrix did not duel, and Sirius did not fall through the veil. After all of the Death Eaters were subdued and accounted for, Sirius did a complex spell that made it _appear_ as though the duel was happening." There was anger in Dumbledore's eyes. "Sirius was actually off in the corner directing the whole thing, under an invisibility cloak."

"And Fred and George..?"

"They helped Sirius plan it."

Dumbledore sat back, calm as ever, but there was a subdued kind of anger underneath that Harry had never seen. And Harry's blood was beginning to boil as well.

"But.. how could they..."

Dumbledore looked at Harry with a piercing gaze. "What they did was inexcusable. However, I told Molly myself about what Fred and George did. I have a feeling they are going to live to regret it."

Harry was seething. "And Sirius?"

Dumbledore frowned. "I don't really know. What he did was technically not a crime, although all parties concerned agree that it was in extremely bad taste. He insists that he never meant to hurt anyone, although I can't see how he could have expected not to..." Dumbledore's gaze went off into the distance somewhere as he faded out for a bit. "Regardless, I thought it best that I tell you. I was afraid that if I allowed Sirius to tell you, you might be tempted to try an Unforgivable."

Harry jumped out of his seat, an aura of power radiating from around him. Dumbledore's outward appearance never changed, but he was just a little scared of the power that this boy had at his command. "THAT BASTARD!"

Dumbledore just stayed quiet.

"AND ALL THIS TIME I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD! I COULDN'T EAT OR SLEEP OR ANYTHING. AND NOW IT TURNS OUT THAT HE WAS JUST FAKING IT?"

Harry was pacing around the office. He wanted to throw something, to break something, but this wasn't Dumbledore's fault, not really, not this time, so he kept his temper just barely in check.

Suddenly a wide grin crossed Dumbledore's face, and Harry stopped and looked at him.

"WHAT IS SO BLOODY FUNNY?"

Dumbledore was now laughing hard, giggling and guffawing, so that he could barely breathe. Harry's face turned from anger to confusion. After Dumbledore calmed down a bit, he looked Harry straight in the eye and said...

"Gotcha."

Harry snapped. Dumbledore was reputed to be the most powerful wizard in the world... but, as it turns out, he was only the second most powerful. The most powerful wizard in the world was, apparently, standing across from Dumbledore with a scar on his head. And over the next few minutes, he went about proving that he was the most powerful wizard in the world.

Twenty years later, Dark Lord Potter, after having defeated Voldemort once and for all, and having destroyed Hogwarts, set about an even darker reign. The strangest law of all was one that Harry enacted immediately upon taking "office": Pranks of any kind are punishable by ten minutes of Cruciatus, then death. And, sadly, those who knew Harry understood entirely.