The Prank (year 1)
Remus Lupin may have been small and shy and nervous and may not talk very much, but the three boys soon learned that he was an incredibly creative and possibly evil mastermind. He had come up with what seemed like hundreds of prank ideas and he seemed to know exactly what needed to be done in order for each and every one of them to work. Once October had finally rolled around all four boys were giddy with excitement and Remus had them practicing spells in a corner in the library everyday after lessons. Sirius admired Remus in a way he had never really admired someone before. Sure Sirius was smart, and James was too. But neither one of them were nearly as hard working or passionate as Remus. One day after Remus had come back to school from another visit to see his mum, the four boys were sitting in the library quietly practicing their Levitation spells when Lily Evans, the annoying redhead that Sirius had come to strongly dislike, walked in. The only good thing about this incident was that she was alone and that the slimy git Snape was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey Remus.” Lily worked her way through the shelves of books and sat down next to Remus, uninvited.
“Oh, hey.” Remus seemed startled but moved over his books to give her more space.
“So,” Lily looked around at the three other boys with distaste, “are you lot going to tell me what you’re up to?”
“And why would we do that?” Sirius asked, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms.
Lily crossed her arms too.
“Don’t worry,” Remus assured her, “We’re not up to anything.”
Sirius was surprised at how easily the lie escaped Remus’s lips. He would’ve thought that the boy was one of those kids that never liked to lie.
“Yeah,” Peter agreed, “Remus is just helping us with homework!” He held up his parchment excitedly where he had taken a few messy notes.
Lily raised her eyebrows skeptically.
“As if I would need help with homework.” James huffed under his breath. They all looked at him.
“Are you serious?” Remus asked.
"No, I'm Sirius." Sirius interrupted. James and Peter who had heard that joke hundreds of times before, groaned but Remus who hadn't grown tired of it yet snorted before stopping himself, at Lily's face expression.
Sirius grinned to himself, proud that he could make the mysterious Lupin boy laugh.
“I know you guys are up to something." Lily continued, after turning away from Remus, "James Potter and Sirius Black never study.”
“Well, we certainly don’t have to.” James grinned high fiving Sirius. Remus and Lily exchanged a look and Peter sighed loudly.
"Look-" Lily started, but before she could say anything a tall second year Gryffindor, walked over to them, "Sorry to interrupt- have you lot seen Alchemy Ancient Art and Science anywhere near here?" He scratched his head, "It used to be on that shelf over there but now its gone." A second boy, Remus also recognized as second-year came towards them and joined him. Both of them had orange hair that gleamed red in the light of the library, and they had this air about them, similar to Sirius's and James's like they were trying really hard not to look suspicious.
"Yeah it's right here," Said Sirius handing them a book that was laying on a pile on their desk, "we don't need it anymore."
The tall one that had spoken reached forward and grabbed it. "Thanks, mate." He had to almost bend down just to reach it from Sirius's grip, as he was almost as tall as the fourth years.
"What do you two want with that book?" Lily said haughtily, "It only has suspicious things in it...It really should be in the restricted section."
The taller one didn't answer but just shrugged and walked off like it was none of their business but the shorter one lingered for a moment and gave them a cheeky grin before turning and walking after his brother.
Remus felt something odd in his stomach.
As the boy walked after his brother something small and dark blue fell out of his pocket. Remus hesitated for a moment then jumped forward and grabbed it, stumbling after the boy, feeling the sudden urge to talk to him.
"Wait-"
The shorter twin turned around, and looked at him with bright mischievous eyes as if he knew something that Remus didn't.
"You dropped this." Remus said handing him back what he had dropped, which happened to be a small, smooth, dice, with little gold stars printed on its glossy blue surface instead of black points on white like usual.
"Thanks." The boy started to turn around again, to leave. Remus stepped forward. The boy had long eyelashes and elegant eyebrows.
"I'm Remus....Uh, Lupin. " Remus said, desperately. "In case you were wondering." The boy turned back towards him. His cheeks were round and pink and he smiled again, almost wisely.
"I'm Gideon Prewett." He had soft brown hair, that curled around his ears in delicate round curls, and sat about an inch above his shoulders.
"Nice to meet you," Remus said stupidly. He found it hard to concentrate when looking into Gideon's clear blue eyes.
Gideon smiled again. He had dimples.
"See you around Remus Lupin."
And then he left.
- - - -
As Halloween approached life around the four boys seemed to grow more colorful, yet also darker and colder than it had been before. The days seemed to grow shorter and lessons seemed to be giddier with excitement as Halloween approached. Though no one was as giddy or excited as James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus.
“I won’t be able to do it.” Peter said as the four of them made their way to the last class of the day, Transfigurations.
“Sure you will, Pete.” James said easily.
“I won't! I’m telling you!”
“Come on Pete, of course you can.” Sirius replied, absently.
“Why does no one believe me?” Peter whined frustratingly. “First McGonagall expects me to be able to turn a toothpick into a paperclip and now Remus expects me to be able to explode Pumpkins!”
“Shhh! Quiet Pete!” Sirius yelped, looking around.
“We’ll all be there helping you.” Remus explained calmly.
“Yeah sure, unless you vanish to visit your mum again!” Peter complained. Remus stopped short in his tracks and stared at the ground blushing furiously. James and Sirius glared at Peter.
“Why would I-?” For a split second of pure fear Remus thought he had forgotten about the full moon, before realising that Peter obviously didn’t mean the full moon and just thought that Remus chose dates to visit his mum randomly.
“Oi Pete, how about we let people visit their ill parents without complaining, eh?” James asked, nudging Peter with his elbow.
Peter frowned, "I didn't mean-"
“Come on we’ll be late for Transfigurations.” Remus interrupted, walking past the other three boys not wanting them to see his reaction to what Peter had said.
And as it turned out they were in fact late.
The door burst open and Sirius and James waltzed in with a blushing Remus and a panting Peter awkwardly hiding behind them. Remus, who could practically feel the steam wafting off of his face stood rooted at the spot as he watched Peter quietly make his way to his seat in the back of the room dropping his things on the ground loudly and making a show of taking his wand out of his pocket really slowly and setting it on his desk precisely so as to not make a sound. Everyone in the classroom, including the Professor herself were all watching them in silent disbelief. James grinned at all the attention and did a small bow while Sirius struck some sort of a dance pose.
“How gracious of you four to finally make an appearance.” Professor McGonagall said, strolling up to them. Remus bent his head down with shame wishing he could move but feeling far too anxious.
“Yes well we figured you would miss us if we didn’t show up.” Sirius agreed, aristocratically.
“Perhaps you would be more useful if I transfigured you or Mr Potter here into a pocket watch. That way one of you might be on time.”
“Oh come on Minnie we got lost that’s all.” James said.
McGonagall just raised her eyebrows and gave them a pointed look, deciding to ignore their new nickname for her.
“Then perhaps a map. I trust you don’t need one to find your seats?”
Sirius grinned. “I don’t know Professor but I sure hope we can make it.”
Remus heard a small sound to his left, looked over and saw Marlene holding a hand over her mouth, obviously trying to stifle a laugh.
Remus turned back to face his professor.
“Mr Lupin? Is a map needed?”
A map....
“Mr Lupin?”
A map!
Remus felt his eyes widen and he shook his head quickly. His stomach knotted up and he rushed to his seat hoping that the other students couldn’t notice the sweat running down his neck. A map though. A map to show him the way to his seat. A map to show him the way to a classroom. Or maybe to any part of the school. A map could certainly come in handy sometimes....
“Hey Professor!” James called, “You know what we think?”
Professor McGonagall turned around, and Remus quickly used this distraction to scurry to his seat.
“We think you should write that down...You know for future references.” Sirius continued matter of factly.
“You see it was quite good.” James explained, “I really liked the part about needing a map to find our seats, you know? Very creative.”
“And intimidating!” Sirius added.
“Ah yes! Yes!” James nodded wisely pointing at Sirius as if he had just said something very profound.
But Remus wasn’t really paying attention. His mind was still hung up on the map idea. He wondered why none of the first years even had maps of the school in the first place. Remus turned around in his chair.
“Black! Oi, Black!” Remus whispered.
Sirius looked up, “What?”
“You know that things about the map-?”
“Mr Lupin?” Professor McGonagall's voice cut through what Remus was about to say.
“Sorry! Sorry…” Remus turned around in his chair to face the front.
“Now could I please start my lesson?” She asked bitterly, crossing her arms.
“Yes! Yes! Sorry…”
Sirius snickered in the background.
- - - -
The day of the Prank, every single one of the four boys in the first year dorm, were unexplainably quiet. They could explain it, but no one thought to ask them, since they wouldn't get a satisfying answer anyways. They’d probably get an answer like “Awe Evans, I didn’t know you were paying such close attention to me. Wanna meet me in a broom closet after class?” or “Merlin Meadows, you’d think you have better things to do than to examine my behavior all day. Reckon you could pay attention to professor Binns, and write my history essay for me?”
But both Lily and Dorcas knew something was up, when the four young boys walked into the great hall for breakfast on Halloween morning on time. No, not on time. Early.
Dorcas, who did indeed have a history essay to write, and was quite occupied by Marlene talking her ear off, couldn’t care less why the boys showed up early. She noticed, of course -everyone always noticed those four boys- but she didn’t care. Lily however, who had already written the history essay last night and was detached from the conversation, noticed, and could not stop thinking about the reason for their early arrival. They didn't do anything necessarily odd during breakfast.
Just the usual; Sirius declaring his undying love for McGonagall and Remus rolling his eyes without suppressing his laughter in the slightest, and Peter and James singing a musical wizard duet loudly over the hum of the great hall. But still. Something was up. Something was going to happen today, and it was killing Lily that she couldn’t figure out what...
- - - -
It was Remus's idea to come to breakfast early. He wanted to check out the territory before “The Prank”. Two days before when he had woken up early to finish some homework James had caught him and forced him to go on one of his mornings walks with him and now James viewed the two of them as so-called "morning mates." It had started on a Wednesday morning with James opening his drapes, messy black hair sticking in all directions, and his pajama shirt somehow put on inside out and backward.
“Remy!” He had whispered excitedly. “Rise and shine boy!”
“Hey James..." Remus said groggily, "what are you doing up so early?”
James had just shrugged and put on his glasses. “Early worm gets the bird.”
They blinked at each other.
“Isn’t it-” Remus started.
“Oh well. Why are you up so early, Remus?” James was now pulling long blue socks, with little yellow balls on them, over his feet.
“Oh I just...I was going to study."
James scoffed loudly.
"-What are those yellow, winged balls on your socks?” Remus eagerly changed the subject.
“Oh these bad boys?” James wiggled his toes. “They’re snitches!” His cheeks were flushed in excitement.
“Ah, yes. Of course.” Remus said, trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about. James saw right through his cover but instead of teasing him he just grinned and started explaining, “Well there’s this wizard sport you see? Quidditch. It's the best wizarding sport there is, mind you. You fly around on brooms and you try to hit balls into hoops in the air. It’s really cool. One of the balls is a snitch. It’s this really fast, golden, flying thing and one of the guys on each team has to try and catch the snitch. Whoever catches it first wins 150 points to their team!”
“Oh...cool,” Remus said, “then why aren’t you trying out for the team? You seem to really like it.”
“I do! But first years can’t try out.” James ripped off his pajama shirt with no shame and started buttoning up his school uniform. Remus blushed and looked down at the ground.
“Eh, what do you say Lupin? Join me for my morning walk?”
Remus yawned, “Me? I don’t know, I’m not really great company.”
"Course you are!"
"No really! I would just make it more boring-"
“Sure thing lad, I’ll wait for you in the common room.”
“Wait but-”
James exited the room grinning, and flashing Remus a thumbs up.
Somehow because of the fact that Remus had woken up early once or twice, James assumed that that meant that Remus enjoyed mornings just as much as he did. Not that anyone really enjoyed mornings as much as James did. Not that anyone really enjoyed life as much as James did. In the few days that Remus had known James, he’d gained an impressive amount of respect towards the other boy. Remus had straight away noticed how confident James was but he had never noticed just how happy the boy was. Every morning he would wake up as early as possible as if he couldn’t wait for the day to start. Then he would check if Remus was awake, and if he wasn’t he would jump on the young werewolf grinning evilly. Every day when the two of them would walk around the grounds, in the morning mist, breathing in the fresh air and feeling the slight tickle of the warm sun above awaken, James would hum to himself, or rather hum to Remus. He would skip instead of walk, he would laugh loudly at Remus’s bad jokes and he would always smile and look up at the sky as if he couldn’t believe what a beautiful day it was. And Remus just couldn’t help liking James Potter. No matter how many times he told him he was boring or wasn’t fun to hang around with, James always stuck with him and laughed and told him, “But you’re my morning mate.”
The difficult part of this particular morning had been to drag Peter and Sirius along too. But now sitting at the table and listening to Sirius’s stupid confessions and James and Peter’s horrible singing Remus tried hard not to let anyone notice him observing the great hall in any unusual way. Remus wasn’t stupid though. He knew he had to be extra careful because sitting just a few seats away from his was Lily and she definitely knew something was up. Although Lily liked Remus the most out of all the boys in Gryffindor and maybe even all the girl’s in Gryffindor too, she also happened to hate everything to do with James and Sirius.
“Don’t do it Remus.”
Remus had just gotten up to follow the other boys out the hall when he turned around.
He tried to look innocent, “What?”
“Come on,” Lily said impatiently. “I know something is going on. And I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“I won’t!” Remus said truthfully. Or at least he hoped it was truthful.
“Remus,” Lily pleaded, “what if you lose house points?”
“Lily,” Remus put his hands on her shoulder and smiled.
“I won’t .”
_ _ _ _
The Halloween feast was spectacular. Music was playing, people were laughing and the food was displayed in a fancy decoration that made it look almost too pretty to eat. Almost . Remus thankfully, also spotted the most vital ingredient to their prank: the pumpkins. Of course Remus had already sent Sirius and Peter ahead of time to check if everything was in position, but it was still a relief to actually see them there in person.
“This is it lads,” James said excitedly, wrapping one arm around Peter and one arm around Sirius. “This is the day we begin our legacy…”
“What legacy?” Remus snorted, “Dropping pumpkins on people?”
“Silence, imbecile!” Sirius threw his hands up. “We will be known as...the…”
“-Troublemacers!” Peter yelled excitedly. “Only it will be spelled with a C instead of a K ‘cus that’s cooler! Trust me.”
“That’s not cool, that’s stupid,” Sirius said. Remus couldn't help but snicker a little and Sirius glanced at him, smiling.
“No it’s cool!”
"It sucks!"
“We should have a better name. That’s a dumb name.” James shook his head thoughtfully.
“The…” Remus started but he couldn’t think of anything.
“The...four… amigos.” Sirius started.
They all blinked at him.
"The...four...amis?" Sirius asked.
"What are you even saying?" Peter asked disappointedly.
Sirius argued, "It's French!"
"Bonjour!" Peter said teasingly.
Sirius looked outraged, "First of all that accent alone was a menace-"
“You know what screw the name!” James suddenly interrupted them waving his hands. “Who cares about names anyway!”
“What’s wrong with The Four Amigos ?” Sirius asked, looking hurt. "Or les quatre amis?"
“Nothing...except that it SUCKS!” Peter said.
“YOU suck!” Sirius yelled.
“As long as the prank is good it doesn’t matter what we’ll be called.” Remus reasoned.
The boys nodded in agreement. "But what will they remember us as then?" Peter asked after a moment.
"No one will want to remember us anyway." Remus laughed nervously.
"Well I don't know about you but I'll be remembered as a disappointment..." Sirius said uncharacteristically gravely.
"Well, we can hardly go around calling ourselves disappointments now can we?" James grinned. "The professors already do that for us!"
Peter laughed and after a while, Remus and Sirius laughed too, if only because of how ridiculous Peter sounded.
For a few more moments the boys tried to enjoy the Halloween feast, but the energy was running so high that they couldn't help themselves. "Let's do it now," James said, leaning in towards the others, "No one is supsecting anything and Evans is talking to McKinnon!"
Sirius and Peter nodded, turning their attention to Remus.
He took a deep breath, “...On my mark,” Next to him, James, Sirius, and Peter rapped their hands around their wands. Remus could feel the excitement pumping through his body. “...Get set, now !”
Peter fumbled with his hand and ended up being a few seconds behind but it didn’t seem to matter because at that moment after Remus had yelled “now” the other three boys had already levitated multiple pumpkins off the ground, watching them merrily bob and sway up into the sky whispering so faintly that only the four troublemakers knew what they were saying.
Everyone in the hall started quieting down until the pumpkins were the only ones saying anything at all. A few of the teachers slowly stood up holding their hands to their lips, except for Dumbledore who looked not only calm but was actually smiling and clapping his hands slightly.
"Knutter." James whispered but he seemed to be proud to make Dumebldore smile. Slowly, while the pumpkins were still getting louder and louder they started moving towards the far end of the hall where the Slytherins started murmuring amongst themselves pointing at the pumpkins and trying to inch away as if without being seen.
“Remus!” Lily’s voice cut through Remus’ trance and a few of the pumpkins wavered a bit before continuing on.
“Lily! What?”
“I know this is you guys. Stop it!”
“We’re not doing anything!”
“Oh, you aren’t? Then show me your wand hand!”
Remus hesitated. “Uh ....no. No. I don’t want to.”
“Remus. You are just proving my point.” Lily argued. She leaned back and crossed her arms. “I’m disappointed.”
Sirius suddenly turned around at that, “oh no! Lily Evans is disappointed! What are we gonna do?!” Then he, James, and Peter burst out laughing.
“Whatever,” Lily said. Remus turned around guiltily and tried to concentrate on his pumpkins. By now the chanting was loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Gryffindor! Gryffindor!”
The chants were now so loud a couple of the students were sitting with their hands clapped over their ears.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Then, the pumpkins started opening up and that’s when the Slytherins really started to panic moving as far away from the table as they could. And with one final earshattering chant the pumpkins released the big surprise.
Though it wasn’t bombs, or animals, or some sort of powder or gas, or anything dangerous at all.
It was confetti.
Small glittery red, and gold pieces of paper fluttered down from the pumpkins and gracefully dowsed the Slytherin table in Gryffindor colors. Everyone stayed silent for a moment before all the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws started laughing. Even some of the Hufflepuffs laughed slightly out of relief that no one was hurt. Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled but instead of saying anything he picked up his fork and resumed eating as if nothing had happened at all. Professor McGonagall on the other hand was scanning the great hall with her eyes trying to find someone guilty with their wands out. But the four (Amigos? They didn’t have a name yet…) had already turned around in their seats, their wands stuck up far in the folds of their pockets.
The only guilty thing about them, the huge grins that we’re now as wide as half-moons.