The First Prank
Upon hearing the clatter of someone dropping a tray (and the “wayyyyy” that followed) Sirius turned his head to see Pete stood across the dining hall looking more pink than usual. If that wasn’t bad enough already, a group of fifth years, who he knew to be the friends of his manic cousin Bellatrix, were laughing at him. Sirius was not having this.
Except it wasn’t Sirius who stood up.
It wasn’t Sirius who marched across the dining hall.
It wasn’t Sirius who shouted at the fifth years who’d pushed Peter.
It wasn’t Sirius who stood there fuming while Peter cleaned up the food he’d dropped and went to replace it.
But it was Sirius who ran over to calm James down, leaving Remus to watch their food.
It wasn’t long before a teacher came to scold all of them and issue detentions to the fifth years and James.
That wasn’t fair, why would James get a detention for standing up for his friend? Did the teacher even see what happened? Sirius hated that teacher, and he didn’t even know her name.
By then, the dining hall had fallen silent. The three of them walked back over to Remus once Pete had replaced the food he dropped, but that was not the end of it. They would absolutely get their revenge.
“I reckon we push them around a bit, see how they feel.”
“That’s not going to work James, they’re all twice our size and they outnumber us. Once we do something to them they’ll get all their friends involved and make this whole ordeal so much worse.” Annoyingly, Remus was right, as always.
“Well, what do you then?” Sirius questioned. “We have to do something!”
“Obviously we’ll do something, but we need to think about how we do it. We can’t start a rivalry with fifth years and expect it to turn out well, I say we do something to them indirectly. If we do something to a large group of people including them, they won’t get as worked up about it, plus, we can establish that we aren’t afraid to make things right, meaning, in theory, people will leave Pete – and the rest of us – alone.”
The table fell silent. It was a good plan, admittedly, but James had already gotten a detention and they didn’t want to get into more trouble than they were already in.
“Well,” Peter piped up, “we could always do a prank on their house? I think all of them were Slytherins.”
Perfect.
~*~
“If we’re pranking the whole house, it needs to be in their dorm building. Any ideas?” Remus needed to see how far the others were prepared to go before suggesting his own ideas.
“We could pour confetti through the windows?” Sirius suggested.
“Nah, if we get caught doing that then we’ll have to clean it up. Plus, it needs to be tonight so the Slytherins know why.” James was clearly agitated that no good ideas were coming up.
“I’m with James on this one. Maybe another time, Sirius.”
“We could connect to the speakers in their dorms and blast music?”
This clearly annoyed Sirius. “James, what are the odds they leave all their speakers on?”
“I’m with Sirius. Plus, this is our first prank. It needs to be something bigger than waking them all up.” Remus was struggling to think of ideas himself, but knew the ones that had already been suggested weren’t enough.
“We could mess with all the clocks in the dorms so the prefects won’t wake everyone up?” Peter said “They might miss breakfast if it works?”
“That could work, but the prefect dorms have alarm clocks.” Remus was starting to get a headache before Sirius spoke.
“The Slytherin prefects are patrolling tonight, we have a couple hours before they’re back.” When the others looked at him with confusion, Sirius added, “My cousins are prefects and I overheard them complaining about it earlier. And, they made me memorise the code for the door over Summer because they assumed I’d be in Slytherin.”
With that, they had a plan.
Fifteen minutes later, they approached the locked door of the Slytherin dorm building. “We need to be quick,” Sirius said, “and go straight to the staircase. We can’t risk changing the clock in the common room. And be quiet. Anyone comes out of their rooms and we’re screwed.” With that, Sirius typed in the code and they all slipped in.
They quietly climbed the stairs before slowly opening the prefects’ dorm. Both boys who slept there wouldn’t be back for another hour or two, meaning people would question any noise coming from the room. As James turned off the alarm clock and hid it under a bed, Sirius set the clock back by a couple hours while Remus stood guard and Peter stole a couple textbooks for extra effect.
They then did the same in the girls’ dorm, except Peter, who placed the stolen textbooks in a drawer to make it seem as if the girls were at fault.
While it was their first time, and it was a good effort, they felt a little more was necessary. So, just for the sake of it, Remus turned on the shower in the girls’ room, just to use the hot water, and Sirius poured some perfume away and watered down the rest.
After that, they made their stealthy exit and ran back to their dorm once they were out. It was honestly a miracle they made it past the patrolling prefects. Once they’d made it back, they talked for hours about future pranks, and even a group name.
After many suggestions, it was Remus who came up with the best one.
From then on, they were the marauders.