The April Fool's Prank
The next morning, the four boys woke up early, they had to of course if there was any chance of them seeing the student's reaction to their perfectly planned out prank.
They slowly got up and got dressed as quickly as they could and quietly tip-toed out of bed and down out of the common room, careful not to wake anyone up and ruin the surprise they had in store for them.
As they began their walk down to the Great Hall, James couldn't stop noticing Sirius eyeing him every couple of seconds with a grin on his face, which only pissed James off more. He wished he didn't tell Sirius about what he was going through, hell, why did he even think to believe Sirius wouldn't laugh at him?
Suddenly, Peeves came flying around the corner. "AH, my favorite people in the castle!" He cackled. "Today is your day!"
"Peeves, quiet down!" Remus whispered-yelled to him, "You're going to get us caught!"
Peeves quickly slapped his hands over his mouth, "Oh Peevesie never wants to get you in trouble." So the boys continued on, but Peeves kept following them. "Is there anything I can dooo?"
Remus thought. "Yes actually. If you could distract Filch, that'd be great."
Peter nodded, "Yeah, we have detentions that he's gonna give us, but that's only if he catches us!"
Peeves laughed happily. "I love to mess with Filch any day. Getting under his skin is my favorite pastime." And he happily flew off chanting.
Sirius looked over at James. "I bet James would love to get into Filch's skin."
Remus and Peter curiously looked over at James, who was growing angrily red by the minute as he stared at Sirius.
"You keep your fucking mouth shut." He barked, pointing a finger in his face.
Sirius threw up his hands innocently and happily skipped along, smiling like a maniac.
The three other boys watched Sirius skip away from them and Remus turned to red-faced James, "So what was that all about?"
"Nothing," James quickly replied and stormed off.
Remus and Peter looked at each other cluelessly and walked down the corridor and walked into the Great Hall where they met up with a happy Sirius and an angry James.
Remus and Peter awkwardly took their seats and tried to diffuse the tension. "So, the students should be starting to come down here soon," Remus began, "I think it'll be quite the sight to see."
Peter nodded alongside him, "Yes, very funny indeed."
James shook away his problems and tried to put on his best-smiling face, "Agreed. This prank will forever go down in Hogwarts history - and we will be legends."
Sirius grinned wickedly. "That's the spirit prongs!"
The four boys took their unofficial (but very official) seats at the Gryffindor table and sat in silence for a few minutes before they heard the sound of Hogwarts students running down the stairs for breakfast.
The students all filed into the entrance before the Great Hall but stopped right at the doors when they said the four boys already sitting at their table. Everyone quickly realized it was April 4th.
No one wanted to move.
Who could blame them?
No one knew what to expect.
If someone took a step into the Great Hall anything could happen. Someone could lose an arm, get caught on fire, fall to the ground, get a love spell put on them, or get hung upside from the ceiling.
Knowing the Marauders, anything could be possible.
The four boys looked over at everyone standing in the doorway, frozen in place, no one wanting to be the first person to step inside the hall. They smiled to themselves.
Even a few of the professors were standing with the students, none of them brave enough to see what they had in store.
Severus Snape suddenly pushed his way to the front of the group, with a confused and disgusted look on his face. "You are all worried about what these four idiots can you? Please, whatever it is, it won't be anything amazing." And with that, he lifted his leg to take a step into the Great Hall.
The students and a handful of professors held their breaths.
The four boys looked over at Snape with wicked grins on their faces.
And as Severus Snape stepped into the hall, so many things happened at once.
As soon as he stepped in, the floor tiles outside the Great Hall started moving, pushing everyone inside, which started a chain reaction of fireworks in the ceiling, confetti poppers coming from the cups on the house tables, red, green, yellow, and blue smoke bombs over each of the students depending on which house they were in. The floors turned slippery, causing everyone to fall and trip over each other. Pots and pans started flying in from the kitchen, banging together in no particular tempo. Platters filled with food rose up from the tables and started launching whatever was on that platter at unsuspecting students, who could barely see with the smoke and fireworks.
Students started screaming, trying to yell as many spells as they could to try and get everything to stop.
First-year students looked as though they wanted to cry.
And in the midst of all the chaos, the Marauders laughed at the piece of art they had created.
"I so wish I had a camera right now!" Sirius yelled over the noise of everything.
"Take a picture with your mind!" Remus shouted back.
"Boring!" Sirius complained.
Peter and James had stood up on the bench to get a better view of everything. Peter started pointing out certain students that got unlucky with food getting thrown at them.
James watched everything with a smile. He scanned the hall, estimating that most of the students were down there to witness it. But through the smoke, fireworks, confetti, and food, James caught a glimpse of Filch standing in a corner looking furious. His throat tightened and his hands started sweating.
He couldn't take his eyes off of him, no matter how entertaining everything around him was.
He only stopped looking when he watched Dumbledore walk through the mess over to Filch and ask him something, which resulted in him Filch starting to walk over to the four of them.
James quickly turned around to Sirius, Remus, and Peter, who were laughing brightly. "Hey, not to ruin anyone's time, but we should try to blend in with everyone!"
Sirius's smile dropped. "Whyyyy?" He complained.
"Filch is on his way over to us."
Peter didn't need to be told twice. He quickly hopped off the table and scurried into the crowd of students trying not to fall from the slippery floors.
Remus soon followed suit and blended his way into the students. But Sirius was sure Filch was going to find him quickly since he towered over everyone.
"I didn't think you wanted to get away from him!" Sirius called as they jumped down off the bench and nearly slipped on the floor.
James looked pissed. "Do you want me to blast your head off with a firework? Cause I'll bloody do it."
Sirius grinned and was about to walk away, but a hand was placed on both of their shoulders. They turned around to see Filch standing right there, his cold, boney hand grabbing tightly to each of their shoulders.
James tensed up in a way he didn't know he could.
Sirius tried to hide his red face from trying not to laugh.
"Get your two other friends right now or I'll have all four of you expelled tonight," Filch whispered in their ears and dragged them along through the students as everything started to calm down and everyone was trying to gather themselves.
"Is this your dream scenario Prongs?" Sirius asked as Filch dragged them along as they tried to look for Peter or Remus.
James looked like he wanted to punch Sirius so hard, but a strange feeling lingered as Filch held onto his shoulder. "Not quite there," was the only thing he could spit out at the moment, which made Sirius nearly piss himself.
"There's Moo-Remus!" Sirius shouted and ripped himself free of Filch's grasp and ran over to Remus, leaving James alone with Filch.
"So Mr. Potter, shall I bring you to my office alone then?" Filch asked and James nearly choked on air.
"W-what?" James asked in a confused daze.
"I asked you where's your last friend?" Filch asked again and James wanted to die of embarrassment.
"Oh, yeah yeah. I knew you asked me that." And then James began to ramble. "Sorry. I just don't really know where Peter is because he's so small and can blend into any group of people and he hates getting in trouble so he probably doesn't even want to be found so I shouldn't even bother looking for him if you just want to give us our punishments and be done with everything." His hands started sweating and he could feel the back of his neck starting to burn up.
Filch crossed his arms. "Mr. Potter. Where is Mr. Pettigrew?"
James stared at Filch for much longer than he would've liked to. He analyzed his face. His colorless eyes had so much meaning to him. The way his lips curled into a smile when he realized he had caught the four boys. His hair had been washed recently. James knew that because he could tell by the way his hair sat on his shoulders his a bouncy way. There was cat hair on one of his shoulders, letting him know that Mrs. Norris probably slept close to him last night. James liked that he knew this kind of stuff about Filch. It was like his own way of being close to him.
Sirius was suddenly at his side, pulling him out of his trance. Remus and Peter were trailing behind him. "We're all here sir!" Sirius said in a saluting voice and stood up straight, making James chuckle at the stupidness of his best friend.
"Very good," Filch replied in a very cold voice. "Follow me to my office and there we can discuss your punishments."
The four boys nodded and left the Great Hall, leaving the mess and chaos they created behind, to let the students figure out how they were going to clean up and eat breakfast and get to class in time.
a/n: yes I am back by popular demand