The Pranksters Return

The Pranksters Return

"I am absolutely going to KILL him!" yelled a teenage boy with scruffy black hair as he burst through the Gryffindor portrait hole into the noisy common room. Most people turned around but three boys, all engrossed in Transfiguration homework, did not even glance at him. A red-haired girl with big green eyes raised her eyebrows and said,

"Let me guess. This has something to do with a certain detention you have just been doing?"

"Yes it damn well does!" growled the black-haired boy. "That greasy little...oh he's gonna pay....he is SO gonna pay!" With that he ran up a stone staircase leading off from the common room. The three boys who were all doing homework looked at each other.

"Whose turn is it to calm him down?" asked one of the boys in a tired voice. He had light brown hair and grey eyes that looked slightly wild.

"I'm not going up there!" squeaked another one of the three boys, a small blonde-haired boy, who looked terrified.

"You better go James," said the brown-haired boy to the third boy, a short youth with untidy black hair and blue eyes. "He's your best mate. He'll listen to you."

"Are you kidding?!" said James. "I'm crap at comforting people. You go, Remus."

"Oh come on," yawned Remus. "Let's all go up there." He and James stood up. The small boy remained in his seat, looking scared, Remus grinned.

"Come on, Peter! He's not gonna attack you!" Peter didn't move. James and Remus looked at each other; both picked up one of Peter's arms, and dragged him up the staircase, ignoring his mumbles of,

"What if he starts throwing things again?" and

"It's not that I don't like him, it's just...."

When the three boys entered the dormitory at the top of the stairs, they found the scruffy dark haired boy pacing the room, his eyes blazing.

"Sirius?" Remus said from the doorway. He knew from experience that when Sirius was mad the worst thing to do was to fling your arms round him. You needed to talk to him slowly and at a distance. Sirius turned and his head jerked up.

"Yeah?" Now Sirius had made eye contact, James stepped towards Sirius.

"What did he do this time?" Sirius stopped pacing the room and sat on the hard wooden floor. James sat straight down next to him and after a quick look at James, Peter and Remus followed suit. They noticed Sirius had a large red mark on one side of his face.

"He's a little..." Sirius then proceeded to say every offensive name under the sun. Remus and James merely let him continue, but Peter was looking confused.

"Is it Snape again?" he asked. Sirius glared at him.

"No, it's James," he said sarcastically. "Of course it's Snape!"

"Look, I wasn't in the class for more than ten minutes! I had to leave for the hospital wing when Lucius Malfoy knocked me into that cauldron of Flowering Solution!"

"And how beautiful you looked, with pansies erupting all over your face..." said Remus dreamily.

"Not to mention the daffodils coming out of your nose," remarked James in an equally dreamy tone.

"Oh, shut up," said Peter irritably, fingering the small green scars on his face that had not yet faded.

"What did Snape do then?" asked James.

"Well, as you know we were both in detention for a completely unfair reason..." Sirius began.

"Oh, come on Sirius!" said Remus, grinning. "Fighting on the floor in the middle of Dungeon 8 when you should have been making a Subsidising Potion together! Not exactly innocent, is it?!"

"Well he started it," growled Sirius.

"That's true," James added. "Snape did start it by flicking those fish eyes at Sirius."

"But you didn't have to respond by lobbing a dead cat at him!" Remus said exasperatedly.

"Anyway, after Transfiguration I went off to do this detention," Sirius continued, "and it turned out Snape and I had to spend three hours cleaning out Kettleburn's Mangotauts!"

"His what?" asked James and Peter together.

"Mangotauts are magical beasts that come from Malaysia," explained Remus. "They spend their time eating poisonous mushrooms. Very useful for getting rid of fungi in your garden."

"And you know this HOW?" asked James, amazed. Remus shrugged.

"I read a lot of books."

"I don't care what they do, I never want to see another one for the rest of my life," growled Sirius. "Snape spent the whole time hissing threats in my ear, until we finally finished about half-an-hour ago. Then we went into the Entrance Hall, and...well..." Sirius looked suddenly both furious and embarrassed.

"Oh god," said James, suddenly realising. "He didn't..."

"Oh yes he did," Sirius said.

"Did WHAT?" chorused Remus and Peter.

Put a bloody hex on me, that's what," said Sirius through gritted teeth. It made me...it made me..." He stopped, unable to get the words out. The silence in the room made them able to hear two girls on the staircase on their way to their dormitory. One had a Geordie accent, the other a normal British accent. They both appeared to be giggling like crazy.

(A/N: For any US readers, a Geordie accent is how local people from Newcastle, a city in the North of England, talk. "Aye" is a Geordie phrase that means "yes.")

"Did you see Sirius Black in the Entrance Hall?" asked one.

"I know! He was clearly under some kind of spell or other," replied the other girl. "When he went up to McGonagall with that red rose clenched between his teeth, bounding up to her like a dog, I thought I would die laughing!" James, Remus and Peter stared at Sirius in amazement.

"And when McGonagall slapped him round the face!" said the other girl, going into hysterics. The three boys' eyes travelled to the now fading red mark across Sirius' left cheek.

"Come on, let's get to bed," gasped the first girl, unable to talk a lot for laughter.

"Aye," replied the other girl, also finding it difficult to speak. They could be heard climbing the staircase again and were soon out of earshot. James, Peter and Remus gaped at Sirius.

"A red rose?!" said Remus.

"In the Entrance Hall?!" said Peter.

"TO MCGONAGALL?!" yelled James, his eyes wide with shock. Sirius grabbed a pillow from Remus' bed, buried his head in it and moaned.

"Do you mind!" said Remus, grabbing the pillow. "I want to sleep on that tonight! I could do without your saliva all over it!"

"Remus, show a little compassion!" said James, now patting Sirius' tangled hair. "This poor child..."

"Teenager!" came Sirius' muffled voice from the pillow. James rolled his eyes.

"This poor TEENAGER has been through enormous psychological harm! Can you imagine how hard it must be for him?"

"Can you imagine how disgusting it will be for me sleeping on a pillow covered in Sirius-slobber?!" retorted Remus. "Get OFF it Sirius!" Sirius let go and glared at Remus.

"Now," said James. "Let's get back to important matters."

"What, our Transfiguration homework?" asked Peter. The others rolled their eyes.

"Peter, don't be such a retard," said James, sighing. "I mean REVENGE!"

"Ohhhhh," said Peter. "I understand now."

"About time," muttered James. "Now, we need to get even with Snape in some way or another."

"Set fire to the Slytherin common room?" asked Sirius.

"We're Marauders and trouble-makers, not arsonists," James replied.

"Plus we don't know where the Slytherin common room is," added Peter.

"The MAP, Peter!" yelled the other three, exchanging appalled looks. Peter fell silent.

"Anyway, we don't want to actually KILL Snape," said Remus.

"I don't know about that," said Sirius menacingly, clenching his fists. Peter backed away slightly, looking scared.

"There must be some kind of potion we could use..." mused Remus thoughtfully.

"Remus, he's top of the class in Potions!" said James. "He'd just immediately make a counter-curse. No, we need something better than that..."

"Not if it was an incredibly COMPLEX potion," said Remus carefully. "A potion that you could only find in a CERTAIN type of book..." James and Sirius cottoned on.

"Nice one, Moony!" said Sirius, grinning. Peter looked confused for several seconds, and then smiled.

"Ohhhhh, YOU mean one from the Restricted Section!" Sirius clapped loudly.

"Well DONE Peter! Aren't YOU intelligent?! The Cloak, I think James." James got up and moved towards his trunk. Peter once again looked confused.

"But he's already got his cloak on, Sirius!" All the boys except Peter groaned. James went and pretended to bang his head against the stone wall.

"His Invisibility Cloak, you prat," said Remus.

"Oh," said Peter. "Are you going to use that to get the book then?"

"Oh no," said Sirius sarcastically. "I thought I'd just stroll right into the Restricted Section, find the book, and get it out."

"But that's really stupid, Sirius!" said Peter in a horrified voice.

"Mental note: Do not use sarcasm on Peter again. He clearly does not understand it in the slightest," muttered Sirius.

"Oh now, that's not fair," said James. Peter beamed. "He doesn't understand cynicism, dirty jokes or sarcasm." Peter head-butted James.

"Yeah, like that joke about McGonagall and Dumbledore in a shower together...." Sirius began, grinning.

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" yelled Remus, covering his ears with his hands. "That gave me nightmares for a week!"

"I never understood that joke," said Peter, looking thoughtful. "You say they're in a shower Sirius, and then..."

"LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA!" shouted Remus, drowning out Peter's voice. "DUM DE DUM, LA LA LA..."

"I'll explain it when you're old enough, Peter," said Sirius, grinning at Remus, who was now running in circles clutching his pillow over his head to block out any sound. Evidently he had forgotten about Sirius' saliva on it.

"Anyway," said James, grabbing hold of Remus' robe and pulling him back to the floor, "when do we go to the Library?"

"I say tonight," said Sirius. "I want revenge as soon as possible."

"Well we're not taking Mr Brain of Britain here," said James at once, pointing to Peter. "Remember last time, when he got us caught?"

"It wasn't my fault that caretaker, Grubs, had left a bucket out!" said Peter angrily.

"However it WAS your fault that you tripped over it, caught the Invisibility Cloak on it, nearly got it ripped and then burst into tears that woke half the castle!" shouted Sirius.

"It cut me! There was a socking great gash down my leg!" Peter whimpered.

"No more than a scratch," said Sirius scornfully.

"I don't want to go anyway," said Peter. "I don't want to go into that Restricted Section again. It's creepy!"

"Well I'm not going," said Remus, who had now removed his head from the pillow. "I'm transforming in two nights time, I've got to get plenty of sleep."

"Nice to see you're full of bravery and moral fibre, Moony and Wormtail," said Sirius, turning to James. "Looks like it's just you and me then, mate."

"Yep," said James, fingering his Invisibility Cloak which lay in a heap on his lap. Sirius beamed.

"See?" he said to Remus and Peter. "PRONGS doesn't give up on me."

"No, Prongs just doesn't trust you in the slightest with that invisibility cloak alone," retorted James. Sirius hit him with the pillow.

"So, while you two are sleeping away, WE'LL go and get the book," Sirius said. "What time, about midnight?"

"Yep, everyone should be asleep by then," said James, yawning. He had spent three hours at Quidditch practise today and was exhausted. "What time is it?" Remus checked a large clock on the dormitory wall that James had been too tired to notice.

"9:00pm. Go to sleep now, and Padfoot can wake you up at midnight," he advised, seeing the dark circles under James' eyes.

"Fine with me," said James, climbing into bed without even taking his shoes off. Sirius grinned.

"C'mon, let's leave Sleeping Beauty to get some rest," he said quietly to the others, and they slipped out of the dormitory and back into the common room.

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"James! JAMES!"

"Wha?"

"James, you idiot, get up!"

James Potter sat up sleepily and rubbed his eyes. About three inches from his nose was Sirius, looking tired but excited.

"C'mon, get up!" Sirius and James could not call each other by their Marauder names, because two other boys, beside the four Marauders, slept in the dormitory, and the Marauders were a deeply secret organisation. James got out of bed and grabbed his invisibility cloak, which was lying on top of his trunk.

"What time is it?" he asked Sirius. A grandfather clock's distant chime answered him.

"Midnight," Sirius whispered back. "Come on, let's go." The pair of them slipped under the invisibility cloak and headed silently out of the dormitory.

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"Well that was easy. I thought there might be SOME kind of obstacle." Sirius sounded deeply disappointed as he said this, as though hoping they would get into some kind of trouble. James lay back in his red and gold armchair, staring into the fire in the Gryffindor common room. The pair of them had just returned from the library holding a large blue book that was clearly from the Restricted Section. The image on the front cover alone was enough to give anyone below third year nightmares.

"Let's have a look at it then," said Sirius, opening the book but James snapped it shut.

"Na, let's go to bed. It's not fair to start without Remus and Peter."

"Awww, OK." Sirius and James headed up to bed, filling the common room with the sounds of the dim fire crackling in the grate.

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The following morning James, Sirius, Remus and Peter were all sitting in a small corner of the common room. Breakfast wasn't for another half-hour, and the only other people in the common room were a boy and girl two years above the Marauders, kissing a corner. Sirius grinned over at them. Remus noticed Sirius.

"NO, Sirius."

"Awww, c'mon! It wouldn't be that bad....."

"Just leave them alone!" Remus grabbed Sirius' hand before it could pull out a Filibusters Firework from his robe pocket.

"Spoilsport," Sirius muttered. James picked up the spell book that was lying on a table next to the four boys and opened it. Remus began to skim through the pages. The other three Marauders allowed him to do this, because they all knew Remus was a much faster reader than themselves. While he did this, James and Sirius amused themselves by making magical paper aeroplanes that did figures of eight and loop-the-loops all over the common room (Sirius' had a strange knack of swooping near the couple kissing.) Peter watched as James enchanted his so that it left smoke trails behind it, spelling out phrases like "Quidditch rules," and "Sirius is an annoying git." Sirius immediately retaliated with messages such as "James is a rule-obsessed bast..."

"Oh stop it, you two!" said Remus, noticing and grabbing the planes before Sirius and James could launch a full verbal war in pink smoke. "Look, I think I've found something." The four Marauders all bent over Page 86 of the book, reading the words:

MAXITUTUS POTION

This potion will enable the drinker, despite what age or sex, to form the appearance of an eight-year-old girl. The drinker will immediately grow shoulder-length brown bunches tied with green ribbon in bows, become four foot eight in height, become dressed in a pink leotard and tutu with pink ballet slippers, grow large green eyes and slightly bucked teeth and talk in a young girl's voice. This potion will last for only 48 hours before the drinker resumes their normal body.

Sirius and James were now rolling on the floor with laughter at the thought of Snape dressed up like an eight-year-old ballet dancer. Peter was looking nervous as he read the ingredients list. Remus however remained perfectly calm as he continued to read.

"Right, we need sixteen things," he told James and Sirius, who were now beginning to sober up slightly. "Five are already in our Potions kits, so that'll be no problem. I'm sure you can buy that...and that...and that," Remus jabbed the page three times with his wand, "in Hogsmeade. We can steal those other seven from the Potions teacher, Professor Arseonica, private stores. But the last one..." Remus broke off, looking worried.

"What do we need?" asked Peter, who was a much slower reader and was only half-way down the page.

"It's a Tranpatorted Sponge," explained Remus. "It's almost identical to a normal bathroom sponge, except that it has a very small black mark on its surface. It's incredibly rare but it holds very few magical properties, so I wonder..."

"Why don't we just use a normal sponge then?" asked James, although his voice sounded slightly muffled, because as he and Sirius had the shortest attention span on the planet they had got bored and had started fighting. Remus pulled them apart, muttering "Merlin knows how you two became prefects."

"Yeah, just use a normal sponge," said Sirius, now climbing into an armchair.

"I doubt it would make much difference..." said Remus thoughtfully. "OK then, we'll use a normal sponge." A bell rang in the distance.

"Come on," said Peter, closing the book. "Let's go and get some breakfast." The four Marauders headed out of the common room, Remus first hiding the book under a pile of cushions lying in a corner of the common room.