Owls and Musings - The Sequel

Chapter 7 - The Marauders' Mutiny

With Minerva in charge of the school curriculum, Severus had finally convinced her, several years before, that for peace of mind in his lower form potions classes, the pairings should go Gryffindor with Hufflepuff, and Slytherin with Ravenclaw. It made for less strife and less melted cauldrons in class.

He strode along the hall outside of his first class on Monday morning and noticed the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff first-years milling outside the classroom door. A bit of wandless magic opened the door, and he hustled them inside, pleased to note his son and Roger Lupin taking the seats in front of his desk with Nancy Longbottom and Jamie Potter joining them. He silently pleaded to Merlin that these two girls were unlike their fathers when it came to potions.

He gave his best imitation of a bat as he glided around the room reeling off his standard first-year speech. Good, he thought to himself as he saw fear and respect in all their faces, very good indeed. He waved his wand and the directions for the simple potion he had picked for today appeared on the blackboard. He hovered around the room peering into cauldrons and actually helping some of the students with advice. He noticed his own son helping Jamie Potter with preparing her ingredients, showing her the proper way to slice the shrivel figs. He snuck a peek into Emrys' cauldron as he walked by, saw that it was at the proper stage and gave the boy a nod of acceptance. Emrys had helped his father enough times over the years that this was an easy potion for him to prepare. Roger's potion, while not the perfect consistency, came close, and the Longbottom girl did not melt her cauldron, although the smells wafting from it were a bit off.

"Those whose potions have achieved the desired colour of lavender, bottle a sample and place it on my desk. The rest of you, two feet on the reasoning behind the preparation techniques used for this potion as well as why your version was not correct. Dismissed!" He nodded at the several children from both houses who brought up bottled samples and watched as the students cleaned their desks prior to the bell ringing.

"Mr Snape, a moment please!"

He watched as his son pushed his friends toward the door and then walked up to his father's desk.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Good job today helping Miss Potter," he said appraisingly.

"Thanks. She said she didn't get much potions tutelage at home - not like we got with you and Professor Weasley."

"No, she wouldn't have. Again, good job, and five points to Gryffindor. Now off to lunch!" His son grinned at him and, grabbing his book bag, rejoined his friends at the door, and they ran off towards the Great Hall.

Emrys, Roger and the two girls entered the Great Hall and found seats together with his sisters. Over the years, while inter-house rivalries still ruled the roost, Minerva had relaxed the rules of sitting only at your house table during breakfast and lunch as these meals were pretty much grab what you can, when you can. This also tended to increase the amount of inter-house cooperation. Dinner was a more formal affair, and the students were expected to sit at their house tables.

Alisha welcomed the other first-years to sit near her and Brigida, and passed them the platters of sandwiches.

"So, how did your first morning go so far?" she asked her younger brother.

"Great! We had Da first thing this morning in Double Potions with the Hufflepuffs. We four teamed up together," Emrys replied before stuffing half of his sandwich in his mouth. Brigida looked away from her twin in disgust.

"I had Transfiguration with Mum, and Charms with Professor Flitwick," she offered.

"How did you do?" Nancy asked her, a bit of trepidation in her voice.

"Alright, I guess. Mum pulled her owl routine and you should have seen the looks on the other kids' faces when she transformed back! It was fantastic! I managed to make my matchstick all silvery, but the tip wasn't sharp enough. I'll do it next time, I'm sure. And Flitwick's class was fun, too. Of course we all got our feathers to float - quite easy, that one. So, he moved us on to larger items..."

Roger and Emrys rolled their eyes at each other; she was gone into academia-land again. Nancy just shook her head in amusement at her best friend's ramblings, and Jamie looked frankly amazed. She leaned over to Nancy and whispered, "Is she always like this? So gung-ho about learning?"

Nancy nodded before answering. "Yes, and I am told our Primary Teacher, Professor Weasley, was just as bad when she was here as a student. Bree is mad about learning. There is a reason she and Alisha are both in Ravenclaw, although I've always thought Alisha belonged in Slytherin, myself. She can be quite devious, that one."

"I heard about the school Aunt Hermione was running here. Dad thought about enrolling me, but Mum said the local village school was good enough. Dad snuck around her, though, and had Aunt Hermione teach me some things on the side - like Latin."

"She's a stickler about that, isn't she? I know it's necessary for all the spells we'll be doing, but I found it really hard. Brigida soaked it up like water." She reached into the bowl on the table for a handful of crisps, popping one into her mouth before placing the rest on her plate.

"I liked it well enough; wasn't fantastic at it, but she was patient with me," commented Jamie.

"What is it like with all those cousins?" the other girl asked, frankly curious.

Jamie perked up. "Oh, loads of fun. My uncles are all great, even Uncle Percy. But the clan is huge!"

"There were seven children of our parents' generation, right?"

"Yeah, and then they all had loads of kids. I'm kind of shy, and Mum and Dad adopted me when I was four, so at first I couldn't handle all these people all at once. So, at the first few get-togethers Grand-mum would take me in hand and introduce me to everyone one by one. Dad was good too; he would let me hide behind him until I got used to the noise. I'm used to them all now, but I still get shy in new situations."

"That's ok. My parents are that way. They are both kind of quiet, Papa especially. Well, you'll find out when you have him for Herbology." Nancy shrugged dismissively and reached for another sandwich half.

Esmerelda watched from the head table as her progeny and their friends ate a hearty lunch and discussed their first morning at Hogwarts. Some of Alisha's friends came over to introduce themselves and then hauled Alisha away to some project. The five friends headed out of the Great Hall, and she smiled to herself as she realised her twins were growing up. Of course, she still had two at home, and it would be another eleven years before the last one was attending classes like his older siblings, but it was still hard to let them go.

"Knut for your thoughts?" asked her husband as he sat next to her and reached for the sandwich platter.

"Nothing much, just reflecting. How'd Potions go with Emrys and his gang?"

"Quite well, actually. No meltdowns - amazingly enough. I worried when I realised I was ending up with another Potter/Longbottom combination, but Emrys helped Miss Potter with understanding how to prepare the ingredients and Longbottom did not melt a cauldron. Her father did that the first day he was in class with me and managed to spatter the potion everywhere." He smirked to himself at the memory and glanced down the table to where Neville was sitting, eating his sandwich while reading a recent journal. He looked over at his wife and noticed something was missing. "Where's A.J.?" he enquired, curiously.

His wife motioned further along the table. "Aunt Minnie has him; she offered to feed him for me. So I've had a rather delightful lunch." She grinned at him a bit evilly. He peered up the table to where his boss was cooing down at his son, feeding him his bottle.

"Doing alright there, Minerva?" he called down to her with an eyebrow raised.

"I'm fine, Severus. Eat your lunch and then you may have him back!" she shot back.

"Yes, Grandma!" He smirked good-naturedly. The rest of the staff members laughed at the verbal sparring between the in-laws. Esme raised her hands in mock defeat.

"I'll leave you two to it, then. Wizby is expecting him back by one, however." She kissed the top of her husband's head as she got up from her seat and went over to place a peck on her aunt's cheek, as well as bestowing a motherly kiss on her son's forehead. She traversed the length of the Great Hall to head back to her office for afternoon office hours, not that she expected much business on the first day back, but it was her routine.

That evening after dinner, she headed towards the Gryffindor tower for her traditional start-of-term speech to her house. Normally she gave a short speech welcoming the new first-years, and this year was no different except that this year were three children she considered 'family', literally and figuratively. After her speech she brought the prefects forward and introduced them and then headed up to the dorms to make a quick inspection and to make sure none of the children needed anything.

When she came back downstairs to the common room, she wandered around for a few minutes checking on the various activities, then quietly made her way out the portrait hole and back to her second-floor rooms quite contented with the way things were starting out this year.

+++++

The following day, the first-year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors had Herbology together. The four friends ended up sharing a table together, and Jamie was a bit apprehensive about the class, as she really knew nothing about plants.

However, when Professor Longbottom walked in, she relaxed a bit as she saw how kind he looked. Dressed in a sturdy canvas robe, gardening implements stuck in various pockets and his wand in a sleeve pocket, he gave off the air of a lovable uncle. He set the first-years to studying and identifying common herbs - various species of which were laid out on the tables. As they took notes on the various types and their common uses, they also spent some time re-potting the specimens into larger containers.

Professor Longbottom seemed to Jamie to have a bit of absent-mindedness about him as well, as he was constantly forgetting where he had laid a tool down. The children started snickering after the fourth episode of this - and Neville just smiled at them and then spotted his mislaid spade. He was used to the laughter. Jamie decided she was going to like this class and happily returned to re-potting the spearmint in front of her.

The class that they were all looking forward to, was flying lessons with Professor Potter. The notice went up on the common room door during the second week, and the class was to be held for all four Houses at the same time - Wednesday afternoon at four o'clock.

The 'faculty five', as they were beginning to be called, could barely contain their excitement. They had all heard stories about Professor Potter, and Jamie was more than willing to expand upon their knowledge. She knew all the stories from when he had been a student, and all his exploits on the Quidditch pitch.

At lunch on Wednesday, she was the centre of attention with most of the first-years gathered at the Gryffindor table for lunch to discuss the upcoming class.

Severus noted the group as he came striding along the central aisle towards the head table. He grabbed an empty seat next to Harry and sat down, unfolding his serviette as he did so. Harry handed him the platter of roasted chicken.

"Some chicken, Severus?"

"Don't mind if I do, Potter." He took the platter and served himself a roasted breast and after setting it back down reached for the bowl of buttered asparagus tips. "I see your class today is stirring up the first-years. This has got to be the first time I've seen the students so fired up about learning to fly," he commented as he reached for some butter and a basket of rolls.

"So I'm told," Harry said drolly. "We'll see if there are some Quidditch potentials there. How is your House team shaping up this year?" he enquired.

"Oh, we have a chance this year - quite a strong team. I assume you will be cheering for the Gryffindors?" he sneered.

"Always." Harry grinned over at his fellow faculty member and was pleased to see a slight upturn of the lips in response.

Severus studied the younger man a bit as they set to finishing their meal. He had worked with Harry a bit after the war on various projects for the Ministry - mostly mop-ups. While their animosity toward each other had desisted, they were still merely cordial with each other. He knew Esme got along with him well, they'd had several conversations over the years, and she was especially close with Ginny. Of course Remus was like a second grandfather to the Potter offspring, and Severus knew Lupin still wished for Harry and Severus to get to know each other better rather than merely burying the hatchet.

When he was honest with himself, like he was at this moment, he could honestly say that Harry was nowhere near a copycat of his father. He was a serious young man; with his hair starting to go grey, a bit prematurely, from all the energy that he had unleashed fighting the Dark Lord during the final battle. He also was starting to get laugh lines around his eyes and lips, so he obviously was enjoying his life.

Severus decided that if he could make the time this afternoon, he would find a way to be in the stands to watch the lesson.

Four o'clock did not come fast enough for the first-years. Professors had to chide them in class to stop sneaking peeks at their watches and to pay attention. But eventually it did come and the entire first-year form trooped en masse to the Quidditch pitch.

Harry was waiting there with forty new brooms laid out in a circle in the centre of the pitch. He knew the brooms he had trained on when he had been a first-year and knew that the brooms were probably still the same ones, so when he had been hired, he had made a gift to the school of the forty new Comet 350s, a good solid standard broom; steady in the air with a comfortable cushion charm and easy acceleration. They would last for a good many years, with a bit of care given to them.

"Circle round, students. Everyone stand next to a broom - make sure the broom is on the side of your wand hand - very good, very good. Now before we start, how many of you have flown before?"

Several hands were raised in the air. Harry was surprised to see that Brigida and Nancy's hands were not among those that were up.

"Good. Those with their hands up, grab a broom and circle up down by the south goal; you will find some quaffles and golf balls to practice with, and my wife will be refereeing you. The rest of you, tighten up the circle." He waited for the children to move in a little closer to him. "Now, place your hand over your broom and say 'UP'."

Severus and several other of the faculty were watching from the stands. He saw the first group of students head to the southern end of the pitch where Ginny Potter was waiting with a large bag of quaffles and a smaller bag of golf balls. As the students reached her, she handed out about four quaffles to be tossed between them and then mounting her own broom, hung the smaller bag off of it in front of her and, reaching in, began to throw the smaller balls at various students as she called their names.

He looked over to where Harry was handling the other students and was pleased to see most of them had achieved some height off the ground. Brigida was white in the face with fear and had a death grip on the handle, but she was managing to hold her broom steady as she circled about ten feet off the ground. When all the students were airborne, Harry had them circle a few times, then started showing them how to raise and lower themselves, come to a stop in mid-air, gentle turns and, of course, landings.

It was a fast hour, and the children were all loathe to put the brooms away, but Harry insisted as well as showing them how to properly maintain the brooms. Severus was satisfied with how the lesson went, and there was a lift to his stride as he walked back to the castle. He had never been able to get Brigida onto a broom by herself, and by the time the lesson was over, she was attempting to catch a Quaffle that her brother had thrown at her and had actually caught it! Yes, Severus was very satisfied indeed.

+++++

"Emrys McGonagall Snape! I am thoroughly disappointed in you, and you too, Roger Lupin!" The headmistress' brogue was prominent as she let her anger get the best of her while verbally chastising the two young men. The boys cringed in their seats as she continued her tirade concerning their actions that morning. With her lips pressed into a thin white line and the colour up in her cheeks, she looked as if she was going to blow steam without the benefit of Pomfrey's Pepper-Up potion. The boys had seen her mad over the years, but never like this and never at them directly.

It had started out innocently enough. Early snowstorms had cancelled all outside activities for over a week, and the children were starting to go a bit stir-crazy. It was the second full weekend cooped up inside the castle, so Emrys and Roger decided to have a bit of fun.

Earlier that summer, when the children had shopped at the WWW, the boys had come across a brand new product line from the twins. A whole box load of pranks! The boys were chatting excitedly over it when George came over to see what they had discovered.

"Ah, young Master Snape, that is our best product line yet - The Marauders' Mutiny. It is close to outselling the Deluxe Skiving Snackboxes!"

"How much?" Roger had eagerly asked the ginger-headed proprietor.

"Two Galleons and 10 Sickles." George watched as the young boys emptied their pockets and pooled their money together. They were a few sickles short. Never one to quash the budding prankster, George instantly decided that the box was on sale and led the smiling customers to the cash register to get rung up.

The boys had been saving that box for a day like today.

They decided they would just prank the Ravenclaws in general and had stayed up late that night to plan their attack. Jamie Potter had been sitting near them and listened in very quietly as she pretended to study her chapter for Charms. When the area around their table had cleared enough to allow a private conversation, she placed her book down and leaned in to the two best friends, asking a question that frankly stumped them.

"How are you going to get there without being seen?"

Rhys stammered a bit trying to come up with an answer. "Well, we... erm... we... we haven't discussed that yet." His friend nodded sagely beside him at the clearly lame excuse.

Jamie just looked at them a moment as if they were a pair of idiots and then, seemingly making a decision, ran up the stairs to her dorm leaving her books behind. Roger and Emrys just stared at each other, shrugged and resumed their planning. Jamie quickly returned, however, with an old piece of parchment in her hand and a piece of shimmering material.

"Look, I'm not a prankster - much as Dad wishes I was - and he gave me these at the start of term. He got them from his dad - in a round-a-bout way. This is an Invisibility Cloak, and this is The Marauder's Map." She tapped her wand on the map muttering the incantation 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good', and the boys watched in amazement as the entire grounds of Hogwarts and the castle floors magically appeared on the map as lines.

"What are these..." Roger peered closely at the map. He gasped. "Those are people walking around the castle, there's your Da in the Dungeons, Rhys!" Jamie nodded wisely as the realisation hit the boys what this old piece of parchment meant.

"You boys do know who the Marauders were, don't you?" she asked as if it should be a foregone conclusion as to what the answer should be.

"Sure," said Roger. "My dad was one of them; he's Moony," he said proudly. The boys had grown up on the tales of the Marauders as told by Remus. He never told them when Severus was within earshot, but sometimes he was able to get Esmerelda to add a few stories of her own to the mix.

"Right." She nodded. "My Grandpa was Prongs, Sirius Black was Padfoot and Peter Pettigrew - the traitor - was Wormtail." She fingered the parchment in front of them. "This map was created by them so that they could go around the castle without getting caught. It shows all the secret passageways and every room, well, almost every room. Dad discovered that it wouldn't show the Room of Requirement." She pushed the map towards Roger after muttering the counter-spell 'Mischief managed'. "You can have it, your dad was a Marauder. But I'll need the cloak back when you are finished with your prank."

The two boys thanked her profusely as she picked up her stack of books and headed back up the stairs to her dorm.

The boys decided to set up the pranks that night so that they would have all day on Saturday to enjoy the fruits of their labour. They waited until the common room had cleared out around midnight, and donning the cloak and taking the map in hand while Roger carried the box of pranks, they made their way through the portrait hole. They were so intent on activating the map and checking to see who was around that they never heard the Fat Lady mutter, " Oh, not again!"

"This is fantastic!" Emrys whispered to his friend as they slowly made their way along the deserted corridors.

"Uh, oh - there's Mrs Norris up ahead!" The boys quickly took a detour behind a statue and waited for the cat to pass by. They thought they were caught when she stopped in front of the statue and began sniffing the air and the floor, and they breathed a huge sigh of relief when she continued on her nightly prowl.

Things went a little easier from there until they noticed another person coming along the corridor ahead of them. Roger leaned in to read the tiny nametag and nearly gagged when he realised it was his dad and Professor Potter patrolling the halls together. He pushed at Emrys to turn around, and they ended up having to backtrack over two previous corridors and three sets of stairways to avoid getting caught by the two wizards.

Eventually, they did manage to make it to the Ravenclaw corridor. Roger nudged his friend as he blanked the parchment.

"What?" Emrys hissed at him.

"How are we getting in?"

"Oh, no problem, whatsoever!" Emrys grinned over at his friend as he whispered a set of words at the portrait guarding the common room door.

Brigida learned her lesson the next day of never sharing her common room password with her twin.

The Ravenclaws' morning began with arriving in their common room to find everything covered in a thick film of Instant Ice-Rink Ice, and they had to slip and slide their way to the portrait hole where the first person to open it discovered the next surprise: A bucket of WWW stink pellets. These were not your run-of-the-mill stink pellets. No, these had different charms built into them.

When the pellets hit the ice they scattered all over the common room and disappeared from view. When an unsuspecting student slid into one the pellets realms of influence, a shield sprang up around the student encasing them in their own personal stink pellet torture that only they could smell. Some of the pellets had realms of influence that caused the unsuspecting person to suddenly shrink down to the size of a mouse. Even more transfigured themselves into Instant Nifflers when stepped on, and these caused even more havoc throughout the tower.

As screams tore through the Ravenclaw tower, Roger and Emrys were hiding in a nearby classroom watching the chaos reigning supreme on the map and laughing uproariously. The straw that broke the camel's back was when Emrys' sisters slid across the room together and landed on a spot where a shrinking pellet and a shield pellet had combined. The girls were too small to take the fumes from the stink pellet and passed out before they could get beyond the charmed area. Luckily, another student had spotted them before a nearby Niffler had decided that they qualified as booty, and scooped them up in his hand.

Unfortunately, when Flitwick arrived after hearing the commotion, he was unable to break the shrinking charm on the girls - the two spells combined had changed the nature of the shrinking charm. As McGonagall and Lupin came rushing to see if they could help Flitwick negate the pranks, McGonagall heard the two Gryffindors in the classroom laughing. She rushed in and discovered them hastily trying to hide the map.

"Boys, what do you know of this?" She stared down at them over her glasses, her hands crossed in front of her body and her lips tightly pursed.

The two boys reddened up pretty quickly, but did not say a word. They knew they had been caught.

"I don't have time for you right now, go up to my office and wait there. I'll be with you after we get this sorted out," she growled at them.

"Yes, ma'am," they mumbled. As they passed her she held out her hand expectantly. When neither boy responded she prompted while snapping her fingers. "The map, Mr Snape, if you please!" Emrys guiltily pulled the parchment out from his robe and handed it slowly over to his great aunt. "And the cloak," she continued, switching her gaze to look at the other junior marauder. Roger sighed and pulled the Invisibility Cloak from his pocket and handed it to the headmistress. They trudged off in the direction of her office and dutifully sat down in the two hard, wooden chairs in front of her desk to await their fate.

"You realise, Roger, that this will be my first detention?" Emrys felt compelled to point out to his best friend.

Roger looked dumbfounded at Emrys, then placing his face in his hands moaned, "Bloody hell!"

++++

"Do you know that your sisters could have been eaten by that Niffler? That they had passed out and were too small to get away to safety?" McGonagall stood in front of Emrys' chair. The terrified boy shook his head violently, the colour draining from his face.

"I am dealing with this because your parents are too upset to be rational about it. Four pranks at once? And where did you get the map and the cloak? I happen to know that these were Professor Potter's. Do I need to add stealing to the mix?" The boys looked at each other, but neither would give up Jamie as the provider of the two items.

"We didn't steal them, Grandma," Emrys muttered.

She sniffed and looked at them some more and then walked around her desk to grab a stack of parchment and began to furiously write out several notes that magically Apparated off her desk as she finished each one.

"Grandma, are they alright?" Emrys asked timidly. Minerva glared at the young boy.

"No, thanks to you." Both boys cringed at the harsh tone in her voice. She clasped her hands in front of her on the desk and leaned in towards the miscreants. "We had to call in Bill Weasley, as well as the Weasley twins, to figure out how to nullify the two spells and restore your sisters back to size. Madam Pomfrey had to give them a number of potions to restore their lungs. The fumes were toxic to them at that size. They will be spending the rest of the weekend in the infirmary to make sure that there was no further damage. I would not advise going to see them; they are not in a charitable mood at the moment."

"We're sorry, ma'am," Roger began to apologise.

Emrys chimed in right on his heels, "Yes, grandma, we're sorry; we didn't know that would happen!"

Minerva sighed as she finished the last of her notes, and it Disapparated to its destination with a last flick of her wand.

"I am deducting fifty points each for you." She watched as the boys just looked at each other and then looked back at the floor, which apparently had become quite fascinating in the last hour.

"Emrys, I know your father gave all of you the behaviour speech at the beginning of term as I was sitting right there when he gave it. You know that the punishment will be harder. Besides the points lost from your House, you will each be doing detentions with each of your fathers every Friday night for the next month, and you will be apologising publicly to Ravenclaw. Tonight. At dinner," she snapped out.

"Yes, ma'am," was the muttered response she received.

"I am so disappointed in you!" she reiterated. "Now, get out of here and march straight back to your dorm. I don't want to see your noses out of there until dinner time."

The boys rose as one and shuffled out the door and down the steps, heads still hanging down avoiding her gaze, and all those of the previous headmasters and mistresses who were tutting away in their frames.

When she was sure the boys were out of hearing range, she turned to the portrait of her former colleague and best friend. "Albus, what am I going to do with them? They are almost worse than the Weasley twins! Oh, I gave Fred and George such a good tongue lashing after we got the girls restored!" She leaned back in her chair covering her mouth with one hand as she started to chuckle.

Albus sucked on a painted lemon drop as he laughed with Minerva at the morning's antics. "They didn't give up their sources either. True Gryffindors, both of them."

She snorted. "Yes, to Severus' displeasure. Not a Slytherin amongst the lot." She retrieved a piece of shortbread from the tin on her desk. "Harry told me in the infirmary that he had given the cloak and map to Jamie. Felt it was part of her inheritance." She snorted in incredulity. "He has decided that maybe the children are still a little young for it and took the objects back to place in hiding until they are older with cooler heads on their shoulders, if they should make it that far!"

"They will, my dear. I really think that there is more Slytherin in Emrys than he lets on. I should think that this escapade has taught them a lesson, and if it hasn't quite sunk in yet, well, I believe between their fathers' detentions and the tongue-lashing they will receive from Mr Snape's sisters that it will, soon enough," commented Dumbledore with a little upturn of his mouth and a glint in his eyes. Minerva just sighed and conjuring a pot of strong tea, prepared for the rest of the day. It wasn't even noon yet, and it felt like a full day.

Severus and Remus found the most disgusting jobs between them for the two miscreants to participate in for the next month. Besides scrubbing desks and cauldrons until their hands were red and raw, Severus had them preparing the most foul of potions ingredients that he could find for the student stores. Remus had them cleaning the DADA room every Friday night after Severus' duties and then working on lines for the remainder of the time.

Meanwhile, their mothers had sent Howlers that had exploded open at dinner prior to them having to get up and apologise loudly to the Ravenclaws for the destruction of their common room. Then came the shunning from Emrys' sisters. The boys were ignored for the entire month and forced to eat all meals at their House table. It was a happy day the Saturday after their last detentions when Brigida came over and invited them to join her and Alisha at the Ravenclaw table.

Emrys started first as soon as he sat down. "Guys, we're sorry..."

Alisha shushed him. "Enough said, Rhys. You'll know better next time. You absolutely blew it by getting caught, and setting off four at once! Even the Weasley twins never did that! Let me give you a hint," she said as she piled eggs and sausages on the boys' plates and passed them a rack of toast. "One at a time is much better and much funnier. You only managed to piss off a lot of people by piling them all on at once. So, now that you've learned your lesson, eat up!"