Mischief Managed Y2 Part 2: The Truth of the Tournament

Chapter Thirty-Four: Maapallo Krieger Ochrona

.................................................

Sirius was in a foul mood after talking to his dumb brother and didn't think anything would cheer him up, but that was before he re-remembered the plans that the Marauders had for tonight.

"Come on, Sirius, hurry up!" James called happily as soon as the heir had stepped back into the dorm after moping around for a bit. He blinked in surprise at his three friends already dressed and ready for an adventure.

"He tells us we better not forget and then he goes and forgets," Peter teased with a laugh. Remus gave Sirius a warm smile that made him feel inexplicably better. He loved his mates.

"I was just giving you guys some extra time since in the past you all took so long. I would never forget such an important operation. Now, look alive men, we have to figure out what the second task is going to be to help Gideon win. For Hogwarts!" Sirius cheered, letting himself get caught up in the excitement, pulling his thoughts far away from his rotten family.

"For Hogwarts!" Remus, James, and Peter shouted in unison, so off the Marauders went. They hung out with each other as if they hadn't all been doing their own thing for a while now. Peter tried to dominate the conversation by talking about the subjects he had been catching up and improving in but only Remus seemed genuinely interested and pleased about that. So after patiently waiting a whole two minutes Sirius interrupted loudly and changed the conversation to pranks, which was something they could all talk about, even if Remus still pretended he wasn't interested from time to time. Soon the conversation was steered by James who presented the three ideas he and Sirius had narrowed down for the grand finale prank before the end of the school year as they walked. They were making their way through the newest secret passageway, speaking loudly with the confidence of explorers who knew their recently discovered hidden location had not been comproimised.

It was thanks to Peter that they had found the passageway leading right to the Quidditch pitch which had resulted in him being proclaimed the Most Amazing Marauder for several days. As far as Sirius could tell no one ever had even heard of such a passage which could be accessed by crouching behind a large tapestry of the Hogwarts emblem off the third floor. Sirius hadn't quite believed Peter had found such a passageway, even with James' assistance. The chaser had been using it to get some more sleep before practice. But now Sirius found himself walking down the creaky wooden steps that he was pretty sure were making it sound like some ghoul was living in the walls of Hogwarts. Black had to admit that Pettigrew had a knack for finding secret passages. Peter had found the most out of all of them with Sirius coming in second place. But it's not like it was a competition or anything...

"For the last time, we can't transfigure the Slytherins into a herd of geese," Remus laughed as James started throwing out random suggestions.

"I say we just use good old stink bombs. It was effective last year," Peter piped in, flinching as Sirius gave him an incredulous look.

"You mean when we got caught by that mental professor?" Sirius asked in amusement and Peter blushed.

"Well, it did bother the Slytherins," James pointed out affably, causing Peter to grin.

"Where's the creativity? The ingenuity? If we fall back on our old tricks we will never progress. No, we can do better than that, mates!" Sirius exclaimed, rallying the troops who all grinned with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

"Let's just stick with operation Slytherins are Slimy Evil Dicks," James decided.

"Subtle," Remus huffed sarcastically as Peter stopped walking and crouched down, moving a panel to the side, revealing they were directly beneath familiar steps.