The Marauders and the Year it All Began

Chapter Six: Revelation

Ever since their talk with Daisy, the Marauders could not help but think of the many different kinds of pranks they could play on the Hufflepuff house. After the grandiose prank they planned for the Ravenclaws, and the numerous pranks they had directed at the Slytherins, they knew the Hufflepuff scheme had to be perfect. They had some different plans in the works, fragments of ideas, pieces of a plan, but for this particular prank, they figured it should start at the drawing board.

And so they did, hours upon hours were spent labouring over each detail of the plan. It wasn't until Monday that the whole plan was complete, and on Tuesday they began to set things into motion. The Gryffindor boys were all sitting under a stairwell talking over the plans when things stopped falling into place.

"Listen the hallway is exactly two meters long, so if we are going to be in the hallway we need to..." James' sentence was cut off by an exasperated sigh from Sirius.

"Wait! I swear the hallway was two point zero five meters long, which would change things."

"No, the hallway is definitely only two meters," James stated clearly.

Sirius shuffled through his sketches and notes laid out on the floor until he picked up a sketched floor plan of the corridor. "See right here" Sirius gestured at the paper, which read 2.05 meters.

"Wait, was this written before or after the staircases moved? Because the end of the corridor might be slightly narrower now." Remus asked.

"Maybe we should go and remeasure to double-check" Peter piped in quietly.

"Good idea, Pete" James agreed. "Let's go now to make sure nothing goes wrong tomorrow."

Scooping up the papers on the floor the boys made their way to the kitchen corridor. While down there they were happened across by Severus Snape and Malcolm Mulciber– another Slytherin boy in their year.

"What are you four doing down here" Severus sneered.

"We could ask you the same thing, Snivellus," James said staring dead into Snape's cold near-black eyes.

"I won't have you making another mockery of Slytherin with your idiotic pranks" he snapped moving closer to James.

"Oh yeah, and what are you gonna do to stop us?" Sirius said standing up taller and walking next to James.

"Shut up you filthy little blood traitor, your parents don't even-" Snape could not even finish his sentence before James punched him. Reeling back, Snape stumbled falling backwards with not even a moment to spare before James was on top of him, a few more punches connected before Snape finally processed what was going on enough to fight back.

"Mors stimulus" Snape shouted, jumping back from the shock of the hex, James quickly regained his balance and grabbed his wand.

"Expelliarmus" James shouted, sending Severus' wand across the room. With Snape weaponless, James reverted back to physical fighting, launching himself onto the other and yelling, "Don't you dare talk badly about Sirius."

"BOYS!" Professor Sprout shouted in her shrill voice. "Break it up!" After a few seconds of the boys not listening, she started again, "Petrificus Totalus Duo," Falling like boards on the floor, the boys were frozen, the only exception being their eyes which moved about wildly.

"I don't know who started this fight, but it's over! You both have detention this weekend" Professor Sprout lectured before turning to Malcolm, Remus, Sirius, and Peter, "Now I don't know why none of you boys would have tried to stop this, but I am very disappointed" she sighed shaking her head. "50 points will be taken from both Slytherin and Gryffindor." She turned to leave, muttering the counter curse for James and Severus before walking up the stairs.