Mischief Managed Y2 Part 2: The Truth of the Tournament

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Living Evil

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"Sorry, Minnie, I sort of almost broke the desk cuz I was so excited," James grinned insolently. Everyone started laughing at the cause of the disruption. The spell on his fear broken, Remus pulled out a tile as his head of house scolded his incredible friend. He beheld the image of a phoenix with a breath of relief and stumbled back to his seat. Remus was pretty sure that McGonagall knew why James had done what he did because she didn't give him detention, just impatiently ushered them out of the room once everyone had their creature tile. They all followed along and James fell back to Remus' side, winking at him.

"Don't worry, mate. I've got you covered," James whispered, slipping his arm through Remus' who was truthfully still very dizzy, so he didn't fight it.

"Which creature did you get, Remus?" Lily asked kindly, falling in step beside them. James jerked slightly, perhaps surprised to find his crush so nearby. Remus didn't really care to be hooked to the unpredictable boy, so he slipped his arm out of James' grasp, not about to be swung around wildly when his two friends started their bickering.

"I got a phoenix. What about you, Lily?" the werewolf asked casually, figuring it best to ignore James' presence until the boy got a hold of himself. That way maybe, just maybe, the three of them could have a decent conversation while they followed the many older students to the Quidditch pitch.

"I got a hippogriff. I can't wait to take Care of Magical Creatures next year," she replied cheerfully, also coming to the conclusion ignoring James would be the most prudent course of action.

"You can't take that course!" James shouted in surprise. Remus knew his friend well enough to understand that his reasoning was along the lines that due to all the Marauders planning to take the course, the chaser would be at a major disadvantage with Lily there. James would either struggle to concentrate or be distracted by Sirius taking the mickey out of him over the redhead. But Lily knew none of this and, as always, seemed ready to leap at James verbally at the slightest provocation. Remus was very glad that he had demonstrated enough foresight to not be trapped by James, who was indeed gesturing wildly to defend himself.

Then, unbeknownst to the werewolf, who truly struggled to follow the back-and-forth snipping the two did at each other, the row turned into which one of their creatures was superior. Falling further away from the bickering children, Remus smiled at their antics, more able to fondly muse over the bizarre pair when he wasn't physically feeling very ill. With the stress of choosing the creature over, he was more excited than anything. Although he was still quite worried about Sirius and Peter who would be in danger if the group of mainly Abreasalts decided to make their move. Remus hoped the cascade of pranks on the group of thieves leading up to now, had served to throw them off their game.

Against Remus' better judgement with Sirius and Peter in their nearly a week of detention, he had been helping James continue casting mayhem on the older students, provided they stayed together and under the invisibility cloak. It was better than letting James cause trouble by himself and risk the lad getting badly hurt again. Remus figured he owed his friend that much. None of the last-minute pranks were particularly sophisticated. But Remus supposed that someone could only take being pelted with dung bombs, attacked by mutated winged bats, left stuck to the toilets, and other more nonsense boyish pranks he had folded and partook in, so long before it started wearing on them.

Then there was the way to orb which was apparently so firmly covered in bobby traps such as trip wires that would send a bucket of enchanted goo spilling onto heads, down to non-magical but still practical traps such as thumbtacks covered in rather shoddy invisibility spells. Provided James and Sirius stuck to the agreed-upon pranks nothing should be too dangerous. Unfortunately Remus wouldn't put it past them to have put up even nastier ones...