Reggo My Eggo

Chapter 30

With the holidays right around the corner, Hogwarts was filled with stressed students as they struggled with the last stretch of assignments and end-of-unit tests worth a large portion of their grades. Day by day, the school was being decorated more and more for Yule, giving students a bit of joy and relief from their stressful days.

"Once school's out, we'll have the whole school to set up our pranks."

James, Sirius, and Remus were all lounging on Remus' bed doing a bit of their prank-planning. Peter had gone to bed an hour earlier and was now fast asleep, not being able to join the trio's discussion.

"We should set up the banners near the end of the holidays," said Remus. They had been spending every night for the past two weeks plotting ideas for their ultimate prank week, which they planned for the same week that people returned from the holidays.

They managed to come up with a large variety of pranks, including a different principle prank for each house and larger pranks for the whole school that'll take place each day. The week would start at the returning feast, where a large banner would be set to fall at the set time. The banner would have a message written in large print, ending with: "Sincerely the marauders."

They were ecstatic about their plans to take action. James and Sirius had planned all their ridiculous plans while Remus used correct calculations and studies to make their fantasies come to life.

Peter had been there for a few nights to help plan the pranks, but as the nights went on, Peter was too busy to help, but it wasn't necessarily his fault. He wasn't exactly invited either. 

"Padfoot, your brother's heading home for the holidays, right?" James asked. Yes, he had already told Regulus so himself, but he was hoping that Regulus had changed his mind, in hopes of being able to speak with him alone. 

"Yeah, once Walburga and Orion asked him, there was no changing his mind," Sirius shrugged. 

"Aren't you ever worried about him returning home?" James questioned. 

"Always but he can manage, he's grown up now," Sirius by now had accepted that Regulus will always turn back to going home. After spending his first Christmas at James' with him, Regulus had since then returned to the Black manor at the end of the years and most holidays although he did spend third year Christmas as well as a portion of forth year break at James', telling his parents that he was staying at Bartys' house. 

"You know, we should totally break back into your house and kidnap tiny you," James thought out loud. 

"Yes, because last time we were in the Black manor that turned out so well," Remus stated sarcastically. 

"Oh come on, we could one hundred percent survive a few more minutes in the manor, all we have to do is grab Reggo and leave," James insisted. 

"Regulus would likely kill us if we did," Sirius knew he had to give his brother a bit of space every once in a while for his sanity but at the same time, but truthfully, he didn't want to. 

"Or your parent," Remus mumbled, Remus being Remus knew this was a bad idea after the events of the gala. 

"That too, either way, we're going to die," 

"We won't die, besides, do you want your brother to have to suffer through the pain that your parent cause him? He could be in danger," James was insisting they'd go. After seeing the shape the Black manor was in when they had visited, he became worried, Regulus was still living there and was still being hurt. What kind of person was he if he didn't help the younger boy? He wasn't safe at home.

"I don't want him to suffer at all. I'm scared for his safety but if he needed help he'd come to me," Sirius went quiet. Instead, he took a glance at the planning list. 

"We can talk about this later, James, can you get started on writing out the message on the banner?" Remus asked. 

On the floor laid a long piece of parchment with books on either end to keep the parchment from rolling closed. James scooted off of the bed, onto the floor to start on the banner. 

Next to the parchment sat a pot of red ink which was going to be used to write out the message. "Watch your back," James wrote out in large, bold, red letters. 

All he had to do now is write - "Sincerely the marauders!"  - and then the banner would be finished and ready to set it up in the great hall, using an enchantment to make the banner camouflage into the cement building. 

As Sirius was putting together the prank to be held on the Hufflepuffs, Remus was attempting to come up with the perfect potions formula for a different prank that they were hoping to use on the Slytherins. 

"Have you finished, Prongs?" Asked Remus, peering over onto the floor to look at the banner which was currently drying. 

"Yep, finished," James said, proudly. 

"Prongs... I think you miss spelt a word on there," Remus pointed out while looking at the banner with a concerned look on his face. 

"What do you me- oh" James took a good look at the banner, taking time to check the spelling of each word. His gaze fell upon the final word on the banner. 

Sirius looked up from where he was seated on Remus' bed and glanced at the words written in red on the parchment.

"Watch your back, Sincerely the marauders!" Sirius read off the page. What's wrong there? Sirius was confused. At first glance, the banner seemed fine. 

"Read again Padfoot, it says, "Watch your back, Sincerely the murderers!" Prongs, MURDERERS, you called us the MURDERERS?!" Remus stared at his friend in disbelief. They had used up the last of their parchment to make this large banner to be hung across the great hall, they couldn't hang this. 

"Oh," Sirius said, looking at the posted with wide eyes. 

"Oops, I can now see that I may have made a mistake," 

"You think? If we hung this up the whole school would think that there were killers on the loose!" Remus exclaimed. 

"Maybe we could rename ourselves..." James offered. 

"No, we shall not rename ourselves the 'Murderers'"