The War
Sirius’s mother, it appears, while hating to provide most people with gossip about their family, can’t resist a howler every now and again, and Sirius thinks he rather deserves one, after managing to break thousands of years of tradition and then, on top of that, get a detention on his fist day.
The stark red envelope arrives the next morning; dropped off by a disgruntled but sophisticated bird that Sirius instantly recognises as Devoir, the family owl.
“Oh no,” whispers Peter, always the first to notice anything wrong.
“That’s from your family?” says James, in a tone of disbelief.
The girls fall silent as Remus taps on Sirius’s shoulder. “Wha-”
“Sirius, Orion Black,” the voice is cold and unforgiving. Sirius refuses to flinch.
“How very dare you. You have brought shame and dishonour to the entire family. Do not expect to hear from either me or your mother, who has been almost drawn to tears because of your behaviour, for the rest of term, and do not think you will be able to stay at school to continue this behaviour- “James and Mary gasp and Sirius’s stomach coils itself into knots. They wouldn’t, surely-
“During the Christmas holidays. I do not want to see or hear from you or your teachers until then. There will be consequences.”
The letter explodes into a shower of flames, causing students nearby to shriek and duck to avoid being hit by burning pieces of paper, and Sirius lets out a sigh of relief.
It was nowhere near as bad as he thought it would be. He gets back to his breakfast.
However, his friends, and most of the Hall, in fact, are staring at him.
“They would really send a Howler just because you broke one rule,” James gapes.
Sirius laughs. “Of course! Can’t have me ruining the family image, can we?”
And with that, he throws a grape into his mouth, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling in his gut. Surely, it’s normal for parents to tell their kids off like that, right?
The days that follow are quite possibly the best times of Sirius’s life. He goes to lessons; barely learns anything; gets in even more trouble, and stays up late at night with Remus, as they listen to the turntable together, watching the shining black records spin round and round, neither of them ever getting tired of listening to the same songs over again.
The record player belongs to Fabian and Gideon, who are a couple of years older than the boys, and was given to them by their sister’s husband, Arthur, after he had charmed it so that the electricity would still work in Hogwarts. The man was obsessed with muggles.
The older boys often let Sirius and Remus use it, after the two had been caught staring at it on their second day, but what Sirius wants most is for the turntable to be their own.
“Wouldn’t it be great though, Remus? We could tell everyone that we have our own music! We’d be a beacon of Hogwarts society!” he says, while Remus rolls his eyes and tells him he’s being dramatic.
Still, Sirius needs that record player, and that’s where it begins. The war.
Fab and Gid, as most people know them, are renowned throughout the school as pranksters. Apparently, at Hallowe’en last year, they charmed pumpkins to spurt fake blood at whoever walked past them and hid so many in the walls and desks of classrooms, that it took the staff the entire day to find them all.
As soon as Sirius and James hear about this, of course, they hound the older boys with questions until Gideon, laughing, says, “Alright boys, shut it. Unless you can do any better, I don’t want to hear another word about pranks. We have a charms test coming up, so beat it.”
This doesn’t have quite the effect he was probably aiming for, though, because James immediately puffs out his chest, looking indignant. “Recon we could do better than that, actually,” he says, making Fabian grin widely.
“Alright then, sure. If you three can pull off a prank, better than anything we’ve seen so far, you,” he points and Sirius, “can have the turntable. Merlin knows you spend half your time in our dorm, playing it, anyway.”
Sirius can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You really mean it!?” he gapes, “you’d give it to us! And all we have to do is beat you in a prank war? Easy.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly say war,” Fab smirks, a twinkle in his eyes that sends a strange shiver of excitement down Sirius’s spine, “but if you want.”
Sirius narrows his eyes. “Oh, you’re going down.”
***
The next few days are filled with talk of the prank.
Sirius, James and Peter throw themselves into planning, as does Remus, after he finds out about the prize, and he actually discovers he rather enjoys the excitement and bravado of it all.
Sirius uses James’s owl to put in an order for dung bombs, “Just to keep them occupied while we come up with the real thing, of course,” and Peter is tasked with collecting books from the library for Remus to scan through, to look for any good jinxes.
Although he admits the turntable is the one thing going to all this effort is worth for, Remus thinks that the first two weeks of school aren’t exactly the best times to have started a prank war.
The boys haven’t been taught any spells so far, aside from levitation and disarming, while Fab and Gid have years of experience, so the boys’ options are very limited, and they’ve been forced to turn to books for help.
“Here! This one!” Sirius suddenly cries. “It’s a spell that makes rubber ducks fly out of you wand! Just think about it, James. Wouldn’t that be hilarious!?”
James bounds over and Remus sighs. Ducks, really? Wizards are truly insane. Still, it’s not the worst idea he’s heard. If they can even figure out how to cast the spell, that is. And what would they do with the ducks once they had them?
It’s probably not going to work.
“Hey,” Peter says suddenly. “You were raised with muggles, right Remus?”
“Yeah,” Remus replies, confused.
“Soooo?” Peter prompts.
“What?”
“Do you know any good muggle pranks that we could do. Since we don’t know any magic, that is.”
Remus gapes. He would never have though Peter was capable of coming up with something like that, but the small boy is looking at him, expectantly, and James and Sirius have stopped their giggling about ducks to stare at him, as well.
“Um,” Remus says. “Well, I never really played any tricks on my mum.” He goes red.
“You’ve read lot of books, though.” Sirius persists. “Surely you’ve picked up some ideas from them?”
Remus digs through his brain, trying to recall anything at all that could be useful.
“I guess- well in this one book I read, some kids put a bucket on top of a door so that whoever walked through would get soaked.” He shrugs. James sighs.
“Not big enough. We need something-“
“WAIT!” Sirius shoots up from his position lying on the floor and points at Remus dramatically. “That might actually work.”
He starts pacing back and forth, watched by some confused fourth years, as he twists the ends of his hair in thought.
“Levitation is easy, right?” he says. “So all we have to do is get a huge bucket, fill it with water and put a bunch or rubber ducks in.”
Remus rolls his eyes. “So, we just get some people wet, then?”
Sirius sighs, exasperated. “No Remmykins,” James snorts, “What animals eat ducks?”
He turns to Peter for this, the group’s animal and plant expert, and Pete’s eyes widen.
“Oh, uh, Raccoons, I think, and maybe snakes as well?” Sirius shudders.
“Love raccoons but they’re American and snakes- just no.”
“Well foxes I reckon, and wolves. Just any dog sort of thing, really,” Peter says and Sirius snaps his fingers, almost vibrating with energy.
“Perfect!” he says, causing a sixth year to jump slightly and glare at the four of them. “I think it’s time to venture outside on this fine day, boys. We have some foxes to catch!”
Remus gapes, unsure of whether or not Sirius is being, well, serious, but before he can ask, James blurts out, “You’re joking, right?”
Apparently, though he was endlessly enthusiastic earlier, the prospect of trudging through the grounds on this exceedingly not fine day, is not exactly James’s cup of tea.
“I mean,” he says, trying to soften the blow a little, “maybe we could do this, later?”
Sirius groans and flops down next to Remus. “All right then,” he says.
“Also, what exactly are the foxes for?” asks James, putting into words what they’ve all been wondering.
“Oh yeah!” Sirius says, perking up a little. “They think the ducks are real, start chasing them, everyone panics, voila! Of course, the prefects and older years will make sure no one gets hurt.” He grins.
It’s a stupid plan, thinks Remus. Trust Sirius to come up with the least logical idea ever, but once again, it’s James to the rescue, as he says, “What about levitating pixies, instead?”
The next day is Saturday, meaning the boys have plenty of time to go pixie hunting. When asked how exactly they’re going to capture potentially dangerous creatures without getting bitten, Sirius stops in his tracks, until James says, simply, “Levitate them.”
And so, three of the boys walk, Sirius is skipping for some, unknown reason, down to the Forbidden Forest, which, as its name suggests, is forbidden.
Still, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of barrier around it, though what did he expect, honestly, Hogwarts has no regard for child safety whatsoever, so they check to make sure no one is watching, before ducking into the trees, shade instantly concealing them and the ground crunching under their feet, with the husks of Autumn leaves.
“Careful,” Sirius whispers, “Legend says there are ghouls in these woods!”
Remus groans, rolling his eyes. His is going to be a long day.