The Marauders and the Year it All Began

Chapter Nine: In the Clouds

For the past two weeks now, the Marauders had been hard at work planning their next scheme. For a group of boys who avoided studying like it was the plague, they sure knew how to hunker down and get to work when they were planning something mischievous. Even Madame Pince was getting nervous about how often the boys were frequenting the library. On this particular day, the boys were searching for a specific book that they could not seem to find.

"Looking for something?" John Stebbins walked over to the Gryffindor boys. John was the only other person who seemed to visit the library as often as the boys had been, he was a Ravenclaw boy in their year and was studious to say the very least.

"Who's asking?" Sirius said, trying to sound intimidating.

"John Stebbins," he stuck his hand out for Sirius to shake. "Ravenclaw."

Accepting the handshake, Sirius spoke again. "Well, Stebbins, as a matter of fact, we are looking for a book on a few different topics." Remus handed over the list as Sirius said, "Think you might be able to help?"

"Sure! There are quite a few books that could help you out there," The Marauders all exchanged looks of relief, knowing that those books would be crucial to their plan.

"Great!" James said, "Lead the way."

"One condition," The boys paused waiting to hear what John had to say. "You have to leave Ravenclaw alone with whatever you're planning."

"Who says we're planning something," Remus said, trying to seem innocent.

"Oh please!" John laughed. "I've seen what you guys can do, pretty amazing, but after the flying books around the tower earlier this year, I'd rather not have my house be at the receiving end of your pranks. So, deal?"

"Deal!" James affirmed. Leading the boys down a few aisles, John finally stopped in front of a shelf and pulled out several books.

"This should be enough for what you're trying to do," John said, gesturing to the stack of books. Thanking the boys, all of them returned to their tables. After about half an hour, James sighed dramatically.

"Is this making sense to anybody else," He exclaimed. "Because I am completely lost."

"Nope," Sirius shut the book he was reading. "I've read nearly 40 pages and I haven't understood a single word."

"If I look at another diagram for levitation, I'll go mad," Remus added.

"Fine!" John said walking up to the table of Marauders. "I'll help you."

"Ha," Sirius scoffed. "There's no way you could understand any of this nonsense, I feel like I'm trying to decipher ancient runes."

Not even seeming taken aback by Sirius' blatant insult John grabbed the book from him. "This actually is an ancient rune and it means Partnership."

"I thought it meant 'defence'," Sirius said.

"No, you're thinking of Eihwaz," Stebbins said, "This is Ehwaz which means 'defence' but I'm sure just anyone would know that."

"You know, we could use someone like him," Remus whispered to the table. "He seems to know what he's doing"

"Alright, Stebbins," Sirius said. "We might need your help, but you can't be involved. How do we know you're not just going to snitch after we finish," Pulling up a chair John sat with the boys, knowing that whatever they were planning was bound to be good.

For the next few days in a row, the Marauders came every lunch and break to sit and draw out their plan, this prank was gonna be pretty big so they needed every detail to be perfect, and with the occasional help from John, they just might be able to pull it off. This is the longest they had taken to plan a singular prank without any teachers catching on. It was a Saturday, the day they were supposed to unfurl the prank so they were in crunch mode trying to figure out the last-minute details of their plan.