I Solemnly Swear: Book 1

A Happy Halloween

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Remus looked between Sirius, James, and me.

I was absolutely ecstatic, "I'm positive it will, I've learned all the spells necessary and you've brewed the potions. James and Sirius will be the distractions and Peter will enchant the food, it's all planned out and perfect."

' Remus still looked nervous while James and Sirius were going back and forth, practicing what they were going to do and say, I had absolute confidence in their abilities to cause a commotion.

"James and Sirius, are you ready for this?" I looked towards them.

Sirius did a little hop with unkempt excitement, "Yes! This is going to be brilliant!"

We heard the sounds of music starting, knowing that the dance had started and that it was time to begin the plan.

I looked towards the boys and they all nodded, though Remus was hesitant, so we all got into our positions.

Sirius and James ran at the door and burst through it, looking for all the world as if they were actually fighting and I heard McGonagall exclaim, "Oh heavens!"

Bingo. Remus, Peter, and I ran for the doors and got into the ball no problem. Peter made his way towards the food as Remus and I went towards the back of the Great Hall, behind some extremely large pumpkins.

The ball really was quite beautiful, the couples danced merrily across the floor, clad in all sorts of costumes, making the dance floor look like a wonderful collage of colors swirling round and round. The food was set up on a long table, all of it themed with the holiday and large bowls of candies sat in between every few dishes. The tables surrounding the dance floor were decked out in black and orange, a thin black smoke swirling around the ground making the Halloween feel increase tenfold. The floating candles had been colored black and projected off a dimmer yellow light than usual and well-known Halloween songs played from a record player that had been magicked to be much louder than normal. I loved it and wished desperately for the day that I could come here and actually participate, but today was not that day.

By this point, a lot of attention was turned towards the 'fighting' boys in the front of the Great Hall, giving us a wonderful opportunity to enact the prank.

"Remus, now!" Remus tipped over the cauldron of the potion, causing the thin veil of smoke at the bottom of the floor to increase tenfold.

I stood up and quickly said the spell before ducking back down, it began to rain. Thick droplets of red invisible ink began to splatter on the ground, causing people to give a start in surprise. By the food table, I saw pumpkins beginning to float off the ground and suspend in the air above the dance floor, making them look rather intimidating from the students' viewpoint. All of a sudden, Peeves the troublesome ghost, popped into the room and smiled before shouting a resounding "BOO!". This caused people to shriek again.

I quickly unpacked the fireworks in my bag and Remus and I lit them and watched them sparkle like bright stars in the night sky, the fireworks read "Happy Halloween".

Seeing as this was the end of our prank, I quickly undid the raining spell, and Remus and I ran out of the Great Hall, grabbing Peter on our way out. We caught our breath in the hallway when we heard people start clapping. With the teachers distracted, we peeked back in to see people laughing and clapping at our prank; I felt proud. We caught the eyes of James and Sirius and they were laughing, giving us a discrete thumbs up.

Tugging on the other boys' sleeves, we ran towards the common room, laughing and talking about the success of our prank and hoping that James and Sirius wouldn't get too many detentions. The Fat Lady looked at us suspiciously as we quickly said the password and stumbled into the common room.

We all came to a sudden stop as we saw Lily standing there, arms crossed with a rather upset look on her face. Taking in the state of us, drenched from the rain and out of breath, she seemed to get even angrier.

"Where have you been?!" She yelled, coming up to us, "And what have you done?!"

I smiled sheepishly, pushing the boys towards their stairs hoping that I could take the blame for them. She didn't notice, her gaze set upon me and Remus and Peter ran up the stairs towards their dorm.

With them out of the way, I turned back towards Lily's intense stare, "Well, you see Lils, um-"

I was cut off as McGonagall came bursting through the door with Sirius and James in tow, my eyes widened.

"I know that you two were a part of that and I can't believe you would do this, you're first years! This is so inappropriate-" She stopped mid-rant and seeing my drenched look she grew even more furious.

"Mrs. Pratt! You helped them? Ten points from Gryffindor for each of your wrongdoings and three detentions this week, from Tuesday to Thursday." I cringed as Sirius and James looked at me sheepishly.

I nodded quickly and McGonagall turned and walked out of the room mumbling with a shake of her head, "And they're only first years."

Sirius and James burst out laughing as soon as she was gone, Sirius came and put an arm around my shoulder as James went up to fetch Remus and Peter.

"I can't believe we pulled that off," Sirius exclaimed with a slight shake of his head, his long hair sticking to the sides of his face from the downpour.

"It was quite brilliant wasn't it and we got a standing ovation!" I replied just as excitedly and sat down on the couch beside Sirius.

I heard someone stomping up some stairs and realized that Lily must've gotten fed up with our behavior. I got up and got five cups of tea for all of us, seeing as the other boys were coming down the stairs. I handed out the mugs amongst a mosh of mumbled thank yous and huffs as the boys sat down. We were all squashed on the couch, happily sipping tea and recounting the prank. James sat at the end with Sirius next to him and me, Sirius had an arm above my seat on the couch. Remus sat to my right, with Peter on the end, all of us just enjoying each other's company and conversation.

Eventually, we all dozed off to the crackling of the fireplace and the warmth of each other on the couch and didn't wake up until the next morning.