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“No,” Remus whispered to himself. “That’s not possible...”
“Remus?” Sirius asks as he and James turn to look at their friend. “What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing,” Remus smiles. “I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“It’s really nothing,” Remus laughs. “I had an idea but… It just wouldn’t work.”
“And idea? For what, Rem?”
“Just a prank,” Remus said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s nothing big but no one would be able to pull it off anyway.”
James and Sirius shared a look with each other. They were the best prankers in Hogwarts, if anyone could pull off a prank, they would be the ones.
“Well now you have to tell us!” Sirius exclaims in excitement. “We could pull it off!”
“I mean, you guys are good,” Remus said with a nod, “but… I think this would just be too big for the two of you and it would have to be done tomorrow.”
“Come on,” James whined. “Tell us!”
“If you insist,” Remus smirked.
Everything goes according to plan, he thought to himself.
“Okay,” James whispers behind the school doors. “Pads? Do you have the stuff?”
“I got it,” Sirius smirks. “No one will see us?”
“Everyone is in class and Remus and Lily are with Mrs McGonagall so she should be distracted by talking to them.”
“Then let’s go, Prongs,” Sirius laughed. “We only have 10 minutes before we need to get back!”
“Lily, Remus,” Mrs McGonagall greeted with a smile. “I’m glad you two could come for tea this afternoon.”
“Us too,” Lily smiles. “We had a free period anyways.”
“Remus, my dear?”
“Sorry, Mrs McGonagall,” Remus quickly replies, tearing his eyes from the window. “What were you saying?”
“You seem to be distracted,” came the reply. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes,” Remus laughs. “However, could we sit in front of the window? Everything is so green and I just love that the weather is getting nice again.”
“That sounds like a lovely idea,” Mrs McGonagall smiles as she and her two students take their seats in front of the window. “So, how have you both been doing?”
“I’ve been good,” Lily answers first. “My grades are still up and I’ve been getting more hours at The Order which is good.”
“Me too,” Remus agrees. “I have more hours at work and Gramps is teaching me more latte art skills which are really fun. My grades are also still up. How are you, Mrs McGonagall?”
“I am good,” she laughs. “The school year is coming to a close which will be nice.”
“Oh!” Remus exclaims, reaching into his bag and pulling out a book. “This is the book I was talking about on Tuesday.”
“They Both Die at the End,” Minerva says to herself as she takes the book from Remus. “It sounds sad, why did you choose this one to read this week?”
“I heard about it online and honestly it was so good. Lily ordered a copy from the library that she says she’s going to read this weekend.”
“It sounded good,” Lily nodded. “Heartbreaking, but good.”
“I will look forward to reading it this weekend,” Mrs McGonagall nodded, placing the book on her desk. “What book are you starting next?”
“It’s called ‘We Were Liars,’” Remus explains. “It also sounds really good but apparently it’s as heartbreaking as ‘They Both Die at the End.’ No one expects the ending but I’m really looking forward to it.”
“You’ll let us know how it is?”
“Of course,” Remus laughs. “Hey, speaking of liars...”
“Rem?” Lily asks in confusion as she and Mrs McGonagall follow his gaze out the window. “What...”
“What are those two doing? Do they have a free period?”
“I don’ think so,” Remus replied as he pulled his phone out of his pocket to take photos. “Now I may be wrong, but I believe they might have lied to their teachers about going to the washroom.”
“The Potter brothers will be the death of me,” Mrs McGonagall sighs, standing up from her chair. “My dears, I’m sorry to end our tea time early, but I must go do my job. Remus? May I speak to you for a moment?”
“No worries,” Lily smiles, pulling her backpack on. “Rem? I’ll meet you in the library.”
“Mrs McGonagall?” Remus asked once Lily had left.
“As good of an actor as you try to be, you weren’t completely shocked by seeing your friends on the field,” Mrs McGonagall explains with a raised eyebrow. “Did you have something to do with this?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Remus replied with a small smirk and a twinkle in his eye that Mrs McGonagall hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Of course,” Mrs McGonagall replies with a small smile. “You are nothing but a good influence on those boys.”
“Exactly! Their grades prove it.”
“However,” the vice-principal continues. “I happen to remember those three friends from the hospital who said otherwise.”
“No,” Remus said with a shake of his head. “My gang and I were innocent little angels, we did nothing out of line and we were the most innocent kids there.”
“Sure,” Mrs McGonagall replied with an eye roll. “Well since you had nothing to do with it, you can go.”
“Thank you,” Remus smiled as he made his way to the door.
“Remus?”
“Yes?”
“It’s good to see this side of you again,” Mrs McGonagall said quietly with a smile.
“Thanks for encouraging me,” Remus replies quietly. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
“See you soon, dear.”
( Remus / Lily / James / Sirius )
3:30 pm: What the hell were you two doing??
3:35 pm: Uh… nothing?
3:36 pm: James, we just watched Mrs McGonagall go fetch you from the field. Obviously you two were doing something.
3:37 pm: We thought of a prank and we may have gotten caught… In our defence, we didn’t have a lot of time to plan! It wasn’t a harmful prank, just glow in the dark plastic pebbles that break down into dandelion seeds when it rains and it’s supposed to rain this weekend!
3:38 pm: Let us guess, detention on Monday?
3:39 pm: … No?
3:39 pm: Nope?
3:40 pm: You guys are idiots.
3:41 pm: In our defence, Pete couldn’t help?
3:42 pm: You guys are still idiots.
3:43 pm: But you two haven’t given up on us yet so that has to mean something, right?
3:44 pm: The adoption papers haven’t gone through yet, us giving up on you two isn’t because of the lack of effort.
3:44 pm: No one wants to take you two and you would end up dead without us. Don’t get it wrong, we’ve tried to give up.
3:45 pm: ...hurtful!
3:45 pm: My heart! Your insults hurt!
3:46 pm: You’ll be fine *rolling eye emoji*.
3:46 pm: Oh no! I’ve insulted and hurt the great Sirius… whatever shall I do? Oh dear, I’m so upset…
3:47 pm: We need new friends, Padfoot…
3:48 pm: We really do… these ones are too sarcastic…
3:39 pm: Okay! I guess we can cancel the hang out at The Order tonight.
3:40 pm: Please take us back!!!
3:41 pm: We’re so sorry!!!
3:48 pm: Guys?...
3:49 pm: Remus?... Lily?...
4:50 pm: Please forgive us?...
4:55 pm: Friends??
4:56 pm: We’ll see you at The Order, drama queens.
( Remus / James / Sirius )
4:55 pm: I told you that no one could do it.
4:56 pm: We will be able to pull off the next one! We just… we didn’t have enough time!
4:57 pm: Mhmm… sure…
4:58 pm: We are the best pranksters in Hogwarts!
4:59 pm: Are you really the best if you got caught doing something so small? Maybe you need to go back to the basics…
5:00 pm: Remus! Take that back! We don’t need to go back to the basics!
5:00 pm: How dare you imply that we aren’t good pranksters!
5:01 pm: I call it as I see it.
5:02 pm: Give us another prank idea! A big one, we will prove that we can pull it off!
5:03 pm: Exactly, a big one!
5:04 pm: But you two couldn’t even pull off such a tiny one… I can give you another small one? How about we work our way up to the bigger ones?
5:05 pm: Nope! Big one!!!
5:06 pm: We insist! A big idea, we can pull it off!
5:07 pm: If you insist…
Remus rolled his eyes and put his phone back in his pocket.
“Everything good?” Lily laughs.
“Everything goes according to plan,” Remus replied.
“Here’s my question,” Lily began as they walked down their street. “How do you have so many prank ideas?”
“No idea,” Remus shrugged. “I guess they just come to me.”
They didn’t just come to him, he had pulled countless harmless pranks with his gang in the mental hospital and Lily didn’t know about the pranks or his gang and it was going to stay that way. The only one who knew about his gang was Mrs McGonagall and she encouraged this and for both of them, everything went according to plan. Remus never got punished or caught for the pranks and Mrs McGonagall got to see Remus open up and regain his spark of mischievous nature, everything was perfect and nowhere near the end. Remus still had countless prank ideas up his sleeves, ones where James and Sirius would get caught and some where they would get away with it so that they wouldn't catch onto Remus' plan. Everyone always thought Remus was the innocent one and the good influence in the Marauder's group, but they couldn't be any more wrong.