The first prank
Almost a month into the school year, Remus had disappeared for a couple of days.
Remus made the decision not to give an explanation beforehand to his roommates or Lily. He didn't think his roommates would really notice him missing, he was quiet and they didn't seem to pay attention to what he did.
Lily, however, would notice him not being at breakfast or classes, as she sat with him at breakfast and in classes that they didn't have with Slytherin. That would be a problem.
As he layed in the hospital bed, Pomfrey checking over his bandages, he thought of excuses in case she asked. He could say he had to go back home for personal reasons, but they had only been at school for a month. He could say he felt ill, and had to stay in the medical ward for a few days. But she might ask for more information, so he started to quiz himself on different illnesses that could cause him to have to stay in bed for a few days.
He thought of making a wizarding world illness up, Lily was a muggleborn so she wouldn't know. But he scrapped that idea when he remembered her best friend was a half blood, she could easily ask Snape about it and realise that Remus has lied.
He had settled on a migraine, not too severe but it would be believable as to why he couldn't rest in the dorms, she knew how noisy his roommates could be.
Lily did in fact buy the excuse. But, his roommates had, worriedly, realised he wasn't there.
"Where have you been? We were worried about you." James had asked, as he came back to the dorms after leaving the hospital wing.
Peter looked up as James started speaking, "We asked McGonagall where you were, but she wouldn't tell us anything."
Remus shrugged, walking over to the showers.
"Migraine", he said, not looking at them as he walked past.
Sirius turned to the other, "migraines take about half an hour to go away with the right potion."
James shrugged, "maybe they don't have any left, here."
"Wouldn't Slughorn just make more? I mean, they'd have all the ingredients in the Potions classroom and have a Potion master right here." Sirius questioned.
"Leave it, mate. He could be allergic to one of the ingredients in the potion of something." James said, chucking a bouncy ball in the air.
Peter nodded, "some medicines or potions work differently on people, so it might just not have worked as well on him."
Sirius shrugged, and took his mind off it by grabbing the bouncy ball off James, causing the two to start chasing each other around the dormitory.
As it got closer to Halloween, the air got colder and the grass started to frost.
Remus sat with his wand as a torch as he read through books on long-lasting charms.
It was the half-term now, and the students were given a week off from classes. And Remus had decided to celebrate with a small prank/charms practice.
A night before Halloween, Remus snuck out of the dormitory and made his way to the nearest staircase.
He sat down on the top step and unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket, he had previously written down all his notes onto the paper.
Remus studied the paper again, before tapping the stairs with his wand to try out his first theory.
•
"Psst James! James, wake up!" Sirius shouted.
James grumbled and opened his eyes, "What's wrong?"
Sirius pointed to Remus' empty bed.
"I saw him leave, he was grinning to himself. Wanna follow him?"
James looked over to the empty bed before sighing, "isn't that an invasion of privacy?"
"Maybe, aren't you curious? Come on, I can't sleep anyway."
James got out of bed, "Let's wake Peter up then."
Sirius shrugged and ran over to his bed, "Petey! Get up!"
Peter tried to hit him with his arm but Sirius just grinned and stepped out of the way.
"What do you want?" He grumbled.
James came over, a t-shirt over his head, "He wants to go follow Remus around the castle. Wanna come?"
Peter moaned and hugged his pillow one last time before getting up to the cheers of Sirius and James.
As they started to leave, James' eyes widened and he turned back to dig through his bags.
"James! He already has a head start on us!" Sirius whined.
James ignored him and continued looking through his things, he got up with a grin on his face and a cloak in his hands.
Sirius' eyes widened and he ran forwards to touch it.
"Is that a-"
"it is."
"Merlin. How did you-"
"Family heirloom."
"Are we going-"
"Of course."
Peter stepped over, "someone say what that is? It just looks like a cloak."
James grinned, "It's an invisibility cloak."
Peter gaped, "like those kid's stories?"
James nodded and wrapped the cloak around himself.
Sirius laughed, "You're just a floating head!"
James looked down and whooped, "Come on let's go."
He lifted the cloak up and over them all, the other two stared at it in awe.
They stepped down the stairs, as quietly as they could and out of the portrait.
As soon as they were out, they spotted Remus sitting on the staircase while muttering under his breath.
They took the cloak and started to walk over when suddenly the staircase started to move, with Remus sitting at the top of it.
Remus, however, didn't seem frightened at all. He grinned to himself and patted the bannister before standing up.
It stopped as it reached another staircase. He frowned at that, and bent down to write something on a sheet of paper. He took his wand and tapped it against a railing that prevented people from entering the staircase from its new place.
The railing slowly sank into the ground and disappeared, after a few seconds the staircase moved back to where it was before and the railing came back up from the other landing. Remus was grinning again, immensely happy with himself.
Once the staircase reached its usual place, Remus spotted his three roommates staring at him while seemingly frozen to the spot.
As he made eye contact with them, James seemed to unfreeze and ran forwards.
"Merlin! That was so cool! How'd you do that? Why did you do it? We should do it on the other stairs!"
Remus' eyes widened at the boy's energy and enthusiasm.
The other two finally came over, a little less full of energy but still full of awe.
Sirius spoke up, "Imagine if all the staircases move like that! We could get places so much quicker!"
"Although it'd also make it harder to get anywhere, the staircase could just move from where you're trying to go." Peter chimed in.
Sirius slung his arm around the boy, "ah that's half the fun!"
"Can we do it with you? If you teach us how to do it?" James asked Remus.
Remus frowned, and picked up his piece of paper, folding it back into his pocket.
"please?" Peter asked.
Sirius clasped his hands together, pleading, "we'll give you all the credit. And you could join our group. We have rules and codes but they aren't too bad."
"Don't you want to hang out with us? We really wanted to invite you to be one of us. It's really fun, and you'd be an invaluable member!" James added.
Remus frowned, "are you trying to get me to join a cult?"
Peter laughed, "probably."
Sirius snorted, "definitely."
James grinned, "absolutely."
Remus clicked his tongue, "I'll let you help me with the stairs. And I'll think about joining your 'gang'."
James cheered, "great!"
The group got to work on the stairs, after Remus showed them how. The others gave ideas of fine-tuning the prank, and a protection spell in case people fell. They managed to get all the stairs done by the morning.
"People will be going to breakfast soon. We should hide under the cloak to see their reaction", James said.
Remus' face contorted into confusion, "I think they'll see us hiding under a cloak."
"James show him", Sirius grinned.
James nodded and got the cloak out, "It's an invisibility cloak", James said as she wrapped it around his shoulders to show Remus.
Remus visibly jerked backwards as James' lower body disappeared.
"What the fuck is that?"
James looked horrified at the swear word, while Peter gasped and Sirius just looked confused.
"You can't say that!" James yelled.
Sirius groaned, "is that some kind of muggle word? what does it mean?"
"It's like saying the word hell but worse. And another word for… sex." Peter said, dropping to a whisper as he said sex.
Sirius tilted his head, "like boys and girls?"
This time Remus laughed, "do you not know what anything is?"
Sirius gasped, "I'm almost fluent in 5 languages, actually!"
James shook his head, "Sirius. Please stop telling everyone you speak 5 languages. I think every single person in the universe knows by now."
Sirius was about to retaliate when the gryffindor portrait started to open and chatter could be heard.
"Quick! Under the cloak!" James whisper-yelled.
They all scrambled under it just in time, stopping their arguing.
Students started to scramble around the castle, when the stairs suddenly started moving.
There were screams from students that were going down the stairs as it started moving. The bottom of the stairs stayed in the same place, so the students hurried off it. The staircase stopped, just as it had done before and students went down it in confusion.
The week went on, and as the students worked out the timings of the stairs, the teachers realised a lot less people were turning up late.
Dumbledore made an announcement that he intended to keep the moving staircases as it proved rather efficient, however the pranksters that had done this should just tell their head of house next time they had an idea to improve the school instead of marauding around at night.
As classes started up again after the short break, Remus found himself surrounded by his roommates in almost every class. Lily, who sat by Remus in classes they didn't share with Slytherin, was extremely irritated with this new arrangement.
"Potter. That's my textbook!" Lily scowled, as James started flicking through her book.
He looked up from the pages, "It's just a textbook. Do you have a problem with sharing?"
"I was using it!"
He lifted his hand in the air as she tried to grab it back, "you haven't even glanced at it in the last half hour. Liar."
She kicked his shin and he yelped and dropped the notebook to hold his leg in pain. She picked it up, smugly and put it back in front of her.
"You're not even using it, now! You kicked me for no reason!"
"I kicked you because you stole my book!"
James folded his arms, "I didn't steal it. I borrowed it, I was going to give it back."
"You could have at least asked!"
"You would have said no!"
As their voices got louder and louder, Flitwick came over to their table.
"What seems to be the problem?"
"He stole my book!"
"She kicked me!"
Flitwick tutted, "Mr Potter, if you forgot your book you should've asked for a spare for this lesson."
The professor muttered a spell and doubled Lily's textbook before handing the spare to James.
"Please remember your book for class or next time I'll have to take points away. And Miss Evans, please refrain from using physical violence."
They both comically turned away from each other, with frowns on their faces.
"He's so conceited!" Lily whispered to Remus.
"She's so uptight!" James whispered to Sirius.
They're whispering wasn't quiet enough and they had heard each other, resulting in the two arguing again. Remus and Sirius looked at each other in amusement.
James pulled on Peter's sleeve, trying to persuade him to admit that Lily was uptight while Lily tried to get him to say that James was conceited.
"How did I get involved in this?" Peter groaned, covering his ears from their yelling.
As they left the class, Lily stayed with the group as she was going to the library with Remus before dinner. James and Lily's argument carried on, until they tried to pull Remus into it as well.
Remus rolled his eyes, "You both got a textbook. Why does this still matter?"
"It's the principle of it!" They both shouted.
The two carried on their argument the rest of the day and into the next. Until breakfast, when a loud interruption disrupted their arguing.
A sleek Black owl bit Sirius' finger and left a red envelope in his lap.
The boy picked it up and bolted out of the hall, purposely avoiding the eyes of the Slytherin table where his cousins and family members laughed at the scene.
James hurriedly ran after him, and found his friend in their dormitory.
As he opened the door, the loud voice of Walburga Black invaded his ears in a shriek.
James stared at Sirius, who sat by the open window watching the red letter tear itself apart.
"What was that?" James asked, walking into the room and sitting on his bed.
"My mother. It's my birthday today, apparently I need to do better in classes to get my birthday present… I don't care though, it'll just be some horrible heirloom. I don't want it anyway."
Sirius' eyes didn't leave the torn and burnt remains of the letter once.
James grabbed it all and dumped it in the rubbish bin.
"Well, that still sucks. She sounds horrible."
Sirius shrugged, "She's not so bad."
James grabbed Sirius' shoulders with a large grin on his face.
"It's your birthday?! We need to do something!"
Sirius laughed and brushed his hands away, "no thanks. I don't really like celebrating my birthday much."
"Oh come on! We can go looking for the kitchens and get you a chocolate cake and loads of other food, and come back here and have a midnight feast!"
Sirius grinned back, "that sounds fun!"
James nodded, "ok who do you want to invite? It shall be a very exclusive party that people will be dying to join."
Sirius tapped his finger against his chin in mock thinking, "You and Pete of course. And Remus. Oh Marlene, Mary and Lily!"
James sighed, "Lily? She'll ruin it!"
Sirius' smile grew wider, "She's fun, sometimes! And you always awkwardly stammer and look like an idiot around her, it's hilarious."
"I do not!" James got up and dragged Sirius to the floor.
"You do!" Sirius shouted back, rolling around the floor as they play-fought.
Peter entered the room at that moment, "Remus went to the library again, I was going to go with him to get him to help me with that transfiguration essay but Pince spotted me and refused to let me in. She's still not over the 'book tornado' incident, but one of the books I found in her library showed me how to do it; so it's technically her fault."
James and Sirius' heads popped up from the tangle of limbs. Sirius buttheaded James, who groaned in pain.
"Petey! You are absolutely correct, it was completely Pince's fault and we shall storm the castle in defiance!" Sirius said, slinging an arm around Peter's shoulder.
James got up with a grunt, kicking Sirius' shin in retaliation.
"Are you coming to make Pince more annoyed?" Peter asked James.
James nodded and ran out the dorm after them, "First we shall have justice for you, dear Peter. Then we shall celebrate the birth of Sirius."
Peter looked at Sirius in confusion, "It's your birthday? You didn't tell me!"
"He didn't tell me either… but alas, we shall have cake!"