The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Popcorn

"Lily!" Oliver cried.

Liam covered his mouth. "Oh no."

Wally jumped into the popcorn like he was an Olympic swimmer and Oliver cried out in surprise as Dexter just kept muttering "whoaaa... whoaaa... whhhoooooaaa" over and over. Wally waded through the popcorn, which was quickly getting deeper and deeper, nearly up to his ickle first year chest by now, and he found the place Lily Evans had gone under the kernels and felt about 'til he'd found her and pulled her up by her hand. She came up covered in butter and popcorn grease, her red hair hanging all funny and glistening.

"Thanks," she said.

Wally nodded and stuffed a few more kernels in his mouth, "It's good popcorn. Tastes like the movies."

"Yeah, well it's gonna taste like detention," she muttered, glaring up the stairs.

Somebody had gone and gotten McGonagall. The portrait hole swung open and she stood there in the frame of it, her jaw dropped as she looked about the quickly filling common room - the popcorn was now beginning to slope up around the edges and was even climbing the girls' dormitory steps and Wally was nearly up to his shoulders, the popcorn up to Lily's chest... Liam, Dexter, and Oliver were balancing on the back of the couch and running out of places to climb before it would start to take over them.

McGonagall's jaw dropped and she looked about and finally waved her arms, "FINITE INCANTANTUM!" she cried... and the popcorn kernels in the air fell to the floor, but they didn't duplicate like they had been. Her face was red - either from horror or humor, Lily couldn't tell. Perhaps a mixture of both.

Lily started, "Professor, I think it's the work of --"

"Oh I know perfectly well whose done the work, Miss Evans," Professor McGonagall answered, and she waved her wand, clearing a path through the popcorn for herself, pushing it aside, headed for the stairs. The fist years and Lily watched as McGonagall made her way up the steps toward the boys' dormitories... She got to the Marauders' door - saw the etching Sirius had done across the wood and stared at it in horror a moment, then, shaking her head, pushed it open.

So. Much. Popcorn. It was a wall of popcorn. There was no moving for all of the popcorn.

"Mr. Potter!" she called into the wall of kernels, "Mr. Black - Mr. Pettigrew - Mr. Lupin!" There were muffled replies from somewhere in the depths of all of the popcorn. "You are all serving detention. Tomorrow. Now, you will kindly clear all of this mess up."

More muffled replies that sounded something like they didn't know the spell.

McGonagall said dryly, "Perhaps you should eat your way out."

Suddenly Peter's head poked out of the wall of popcorn. "Even I'm not that hungry, Professor."

Loud laughter echoed from beneath the kernels. Sirius Black.

McGonagall cleared her throat. "Apagar pipoca," she declared and waved her wand about... slowly the popcorns started popping in reverse, it seemed. They'd pop and disappear and soon Sirius, Remus, and James's heads all appeared over the kernels.

"Fancy a snack, Professor Minnie?" Sirius asked. "We've got plenty."

"Clear it up, Master Black," Professor McGonagall said sternly, and then she turned and left the room.

Sirius grinned, "Did you see her lips twitching? She was trying soooo blooody haaaard not to laugh!"

However, Professor McGonagall left the common room and hurried down the hallway to the stairwell, down to the fifth floor and over to the gargoyles... She could barely wheeze out the password to the statues... When she got onto the moving staircase, she bit onto her knuckles and waited, holding it back...