A small prank
Halloween night, 8:57 pm
James glanced at Sirius, who nodded. Prongs had three minutes to accomplish his job, or else their prank wouldn't work. The Marauders had been very docile in the past two months, with only one harmless prank on Snivellus.
Hogwarts' guard was down, and now was their time to strike. They had set this up carefully, planning for the past days on how to make it work.
James searched the crowd until his eyes rested on Wormtail, in the far right corner of the room.
"I'm going to go talk to Peter." He said to Regulus, before kissing his boyfriend's cheek.
Regulus nodded and headed to the food tables.
James pushed through the room, forcing himself to ignore that many people were steering clear of him since he arrived at the party with Regulus on his arm. He didn't really care about his reputation, and being with the younger Black brother made it all worth it, but the dirty looks thrown his way was going to take some getting used to.
When he finally reached Peter, who was standing in such a way that the corner of the room was hidden, James smiled and said:
"Heya Wormy, how'd it go?"
"Good! My mum didn't even notice me, she was too occupied by this huge orange cat who just arrived and causes mayhem through the whole store."
"How many did you get?"
"Four cages, like you guys asked."James grinned and ruffled the shorter boys hair.
"Thanks man, couldn't have done it without you. Do you have the cape?"
Peter blushed under the praise and handed Prongs his invisibility cloak.
With a quick glance around, James quickly pulled on the cape, hoping no one noticed him. He then stuck to the stone wall and crossed to the other side of the dimly lit room where the record huge record player sat, a disc of classical music sitting there, waiting to start the slow dance.
James smiled wickedly to himself. He looked around, making sure there was no one around. Filch was roaming through the crowd of students, probably menacing the students to behave. McGonagall and Dumbledore were talking next to the buffet table, and Flitwick was fixing a decoration that had been knocked over.
"Accio vinyl." He muttered under his breath.
James waited anxiously, eyes darting to the clock that ticked menacingly close to 9:00 pm.
Finally, a quick flying object caught his eye: it was the vinyl. No one seemed to notice it, which was to be expected with the low lighting and multiple other floating decorations.
James poked an arm out just enough to catch Sirius' disc and immediately jumped into action, removing the boring classic music disc and replacing it with the gleaming blue and red one.
He then whispered a quick mirage incantation in case Filch decided to take a closer look at the vinyl.
The time was 8:59.
He rushed to Moony at the other end of the room, trying not to run into anyone, and arriving just as the students were asked to clear the central space.
He sent the invisibility cloak to their dorm with a quick spell before turning to his friends.
The four Marauders grinned at each other.
"Everyone good?" James asked.
They all nodded, and Remus passed him ear plugs. The four boys made sure a minimal amount of noise passed through before staring at McGonagall who stood in the center of the room.
With the ear plugs on, Prongs couldn't really understand the speech she was giving, but he imagined it was something like the three other ones he heard the previous years.
Finally, after a few minutes, the professor gestured to Filch, who rushed to put the needle on the spinning disc. James smiled. The man didn't even glance at the vinyl.
After a few seconds of silence, the loud screeching of an electric guitar echoed through the room. The four boys grinned at each other as the first few notes of Cum on Feel the Noise resounded. Everyone rushed to cover their ears, including Filch, who was so close to the source of sound.
Perfect.
Already, James could see some students signing along, head banging to the rhythm. That was Sirius and Remus' cue to start jumping up and down, yelling the lyrics at the top of their lungs.
"So you think I got a feeble mind well I'll tell you honey..."
Even through the ear plugs, the music was loud.
Slowly, the rest of the students joined in. There were hundreds of people, jumping up and down, dancing to the muggle music.
"And I don't know why, and I don't know why..."
James spotted Regulus in the crowd, and suddenly felt bad about the prank. He knew Regulus hated loud noises, and this was louder than loud. and if Reg thought this hurt his ears, he din't know what was coming his way.
Prongs made a decision. Weaving through the crowd, he arrived to where Regulus was sulking on the side of the room.
He could see Evan and Barty in the middle of the room, screaming louder than any other student. Meadowes and Pandora seemed to have left as well. It was just Regulus, arms crossed, shooting daggers Prongs' way.
"You did this." Regulus said. Or at least, that's what James heard over his ears plugs and the loud screeching.
When he reached his boyfriend's side, he removed the plugs without second thought, his skull ringing with the music.
He then gently cupped Regulus' face, placing the plugs in his ears.
"Better?" he mouthed.
Regulus nodded, but he was still pouting. James rolled his eyes and took Re's hand, spinning him just as the chorus started.
"So cum feel the noise..."
Humming along, James held his lover, bouncing slightly on his toes to the melody. He admired Regulus, with his shiny wings, golden make up and eyes dimmer than the darkest pits of hell. So different from Sirius' stormy grey.
After a few seconds, Regulus started to relax, and James found himself admiring the boy's plum lips, light pink, smeared with golden glitter. He had the sudden urge to kiss him, so he did.
Regulus started before leaning in and kissing James back. When Prongs pulled away, Reg was smiling. It was quite a beautiful smile. It lit up his entire face, making him more innocent, more angelic, he looked suddenly younger, even healthier. James wondered why Regulus didn't smile more often.
The music abruptly stopped, causing cries of disappointment to shoot through the room.
"Now, now young lads," Dumbledore started, "There will be much time for such partying later. As for now, we must proceed to the traditional dance."
Begrudgingly, the students went back to lining the walls.
James and Regulus were joined by Evan and Barty, both with huge grins on their faces.
"Potter, did you guys set this up? that was amazing!" Evan shouted, throwing an arm over James' shoulders.
James quite liked Evan. He had a snarky sense of humor like Sirius' and he was quite the social butterfly, although he tended to offend people with his rather straight forward remarks.
"Oh, you've seen nothing yet." James said sheepishly.
"Lets see what the legendary Marauders have in store for us." Barty said, stealing Evan back and giving him a long kiss.
"Congrats on the relationship by the way." James said, before he took Regulus by the hand for the start of the slow dance-- or as he liked to call it, the start of pure chaos.