ɪ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ɪ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴡʜᴇɴ ɪᴛ ʀᴀɪɴꜱ ☾ ʀᴇᴍᴜꜱ ʟᴜᴘɪɴ

Yuletide Gifts

It was all anyone was talking about by the time the next Hogsmeade visit rolled by. Sirius Black, stark naked, in a wild goose chase with all fourteen Hogwarts Professors at 09:58pm on a Tuesday night. At least 70% of the prefects caught a glimpse of — what people were calling, the missing grindylow — and that included both the head boy and girl, who were in on the chase.

Sheer, blinding, chaos. That's how people would choose to describe that night. Sure curfew was 10pm for older students but that didn't mean the common room would be any less crowded, so Sirius — with only his hands to cover the 'jewels' — had to run through it to get outside the portrait hole.

The Gryffindor common room had exploded into screams, seventh years running around to cover the younger student's eyes, girl's shrieking and diving into the settee pillows, Alice Fortescue had even set her robes on fire in pure shock. No one had ever heard the portraits make such a ruckus in the school, even the fat lady was in hysterics at the sight of the boy bounding down the corridor.

It was a laugh, Peter made sure to snap a photo of it and the moving image of Sirius dodging students — without any clothes on — was enlarged and hung on the bathroom door to remind them of Remus' justice that day. It didn't stop there, though, Jo and James had entrusted the prefects with their own cameras — heeding them no context — to capture Sirius running through the school after curfew.

Thus the album was created, prefects snapping away while simultaneously trying to catch Sirius. There were photos of Flitwick's reactions, sprinting down the hall and sending spells at Sirius. Sprout and Slughorn teaming together to berate him for doing something so unseemly, Hagrid being brought in and fainting of shock after catching a glimpse of Sirius darting past.

Finally, the creme de la creme of their revenge was Sirius running face first into McGonagall — who proceeded to turn him into several strange creatures out of sheer anger, her face bright red and steaming — collapsing onto the ground.

It was brilliant, and to top it off Sirius now had a month of detention with Filch — using no magic — and was banned from Hogsmeade trips until February. The boys praised Jo for her punishment, as Sirius was still stopped at least six times a day by jokes or comments, there were even charmed sketches illustrating the event that were being passed around school. Clearly due to their own distraught, the teachers believed it fitting for Sirius to put up with them since it was his choice to do something so filthy.

Remus was more than satisfied by the level of embarrassment Sirius faced daily, especially when it meant Jo came up to him after classes to whisper in his ear about the girl's gossiping about Sirius' relationships with them. The marauders uncovered many secrets that week — thanks to her — about what Sirius Black got up to with his number of snookums during their midnight meetings in school. He tried to put up an unbothered face but it was particularly hard when he couldn't even escape the teasing from his own friends. However Sirius knew he deserved it, and was glad if it meant his dearest friends stayed his found family.

𓇼

"What if I just sneak out?" Sirius groaned into his breakfast, still devastated that he was banned from Hogsmeade until after the holidays. "C'mon how am I supposed to get you guys Christmas presents."

"Order it via the Prophet, fat cat." Peter scoffed, sipping his extremely milky tea, already bundled in layers of scarfs.

"That's so boring though! Go on, lend me the cloak Prongs!" Sirius replied.

"Should've thought about that before you ran face first into McGonagall, butt naked." James chuckled, helping himself to more bacon as it reappeared on the trays.