in the cards | marlene mckinnon

06. mischief

The students managed to reach April with little incident; only a broken arm which was mended by Madam Pomphrey quite quickly. James' birthday party had gotten a bit rowdy, more appropriately, Sirius had gotten a bit too rowdy at the party and fell off the table he was dancing on, breaking his fall with his left arm. 

Other than that, everything had been going great. Right up till April arrived. 

It was two days until the full moon would come, and Remus was in pain. It felt like his bones were trying to escape his body, his head nearly splitting open. The pain was so gut-wrenching that even the thought of attending class seemed unfathomable. 

His friends tried to help him, knowing how bad it was. But Remus refused, not wanting to be a bother. The only thing he allowed them to help with was bringing food from the kitchen. Preferably something with chocolate.

With Remus temporarily out of the picture, there was no one to stop the other boys from doing stupid shit. They were currently planning a few heinous pranks, most of them against Severus Snape, the Slytherins or someone they loathed. 

It was also a weekend, which meant that the boys had as much time as they wanted to plan and scheme. However, without the mastermind that is Remus Lupin, they were having trouble coming up with pranks that were both funny and actually doable. All the ideas they had were either hair-dye related, since that was a big fear for both James and Sirius, or they had something to do with fire.

Luckily for every person inside the walls of the school, the thought that maybe fire wouldn't be the best idea popped into Peter's mind. 

"I want to prank Snivellus," James all but whined, forehead on the table. "Why can't we come up with anything? Are we really that reliant on Moony?" 

"No," Sirius huffed, very incredulously. A blind man could see through his act. "We'll come up with something epic. A prank to put all former pranks to shame."

"Dying every Slytherin's hair pink?"

"It's not enough."

"Dye their hair pink and charm their robes to turn into ball gowns."

"Yes! This is why we're friends, Wormtail!" Sirius cheered, high fiving the boy who was significantly less enthusiastic about the prospect of prank. He had only ever gone along with them as the others seemed to enjoy it.

Without the assistance of Remus, the boys were damned to the worst of tasks. One which would scar Sirius, Peter didn't really seem to mind it as he had seized control of his brain cells for the day. James had gotten desensitized of the place in his endeavor of asking out his precious Lilyflower.

"Without Moony... we have to enter the library."

The words uttered made Sirius physically recoil, choking on the air in his lungs and starting to cough. "No! I refuse to be made to enter that hellhole! I would rather die, and I'm serious about that!"

"I think you mean you're Sirius about that," James snickered, trying to contain his laughter the best he could as Sirius pulled a face best described as pure and utter contempt. 

"I will hit you."

"Kinky."

"Not the time, Pete!" 

"Well clearly someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," Peter continued, lightheartedly teasing him as James watched amusedly from the sidelines, trying to contain his laughter so he wouldn't interrupt.

"I'm not above hitting you too!" Sirius threatened, nostrils flaring. "No, don't you dare say it," he continued as he saw the look on Peter's face.

"...Kinky."