Nikeia was sitting in Transfiguration, the hand under her chin stopping it from dropping to her chest. The NEWT students were supposed to be studying for the surprise test tomorrow, but Nikeia was too tired. Half of her was back in Montana, the sensation of jet lag quite strong. Nikeia assumed that all the spinning through fireplaces didn’t help any. Her head reeled, and she didn't dwell on it too long.
Someone behind her cleared their throat. Nikeia squealed and jumped in her seat.
"I believe, Miss Strathmore, that you and your classmates are supposed to be studying," commented Professor McGonagall from over Nikeia’s shoulder. "You would be-" Her words were cut off as she yawned, cursing her body for taking that moment to do so, "-right, professor."
"I know that. Please, stop daydreaming and start studying."
"Yes, Professor McGonagall."
The teacher straightened and look to the young man sitting next to Nikeia. She raised an eyebrow, and flicked her wand.
Sirius shouted very loudly as the chair in which he was lounging Vanished and he crashed to the floor. The rest of the class gasped, and turned to face the loud crash.
"Mr. Black. As I was just saying to Miss Strathmore, I believe that you should be studying. Why are you not doing so?"
"I'm tired," whined Sirius, rising slowly to his feet, a hand to his backside.
"I can see that. Start studying."
"Can I at least have my chair back?" asked Sirius.
McGonagall’s lip thinned and eyes narrowed. "What class are you in, Mr. Black?"
"Uh... Transfigu”oh. I get it." With a dejected sigh, Sirius pulled out his own wand, pointed it at a piece of parchment, and changed it into a plain wooden stool. He plopped down on it, propped his elbows on the table and flipped open his book.
"Mm-hmm," murmured McGonagall with a nod. She looked around to the rest of the class; they immediately turned around and got back to studying. Nikeia sighed, shared a look with Sirius, and then reluctantly got back to work.
That Saturday turned out to be "perfectly beautiful" as Nikeia claimed. The Marauders, Marauderettes, and friends left the castle and walked down to the lake. While the water was still be a too cold to swim in, they didn't waste any time before getting their feet wet.
It was peaceful (despite Lily putting most of her attention into a thick book she had open on her lap) until a football flew past James's head and landed in the water. James spun around, and found that four young men”three Gryffindors, one of them Sam, and a Hufflepuff”were covering their mouths, stifling laughter. One shouted out an apology.
"Play a match, and I'll accept," challenged James. The other boys laughed but nodded. James, Sirius, Frank, Peter, and Antoine retrieved their shoes, put them on and then ran off to play a game of football, sometimes called soccer.
They only had nine players, so Remus was talked into joining in the game. He sighed affably, but ran over.
With the girls finally alone, Lily turned to the others and shared the idea that had been rolling around in the back of her mind.
"Girls, you know how James got me in trouble the week before Easter break?" Lily asked. The other girls looked at each other; they were rather frightened.
There was a look in Lily's eyes that was quite unlike her; it looked quite Potterish. The four girls nodded slowly.
“Well, he didn’t really get you in trouble,” started Alice.
“He didn’t take the blame for that prank as he should have,” said Lily firmly. “That’s enough for me.”
Alice ceded the argument. “Very well. What of it, then?”
"I've been thinking..."
"I've had experience; that's something dangerous," stated Josey. The others chuckled. Lily glared playfully.
"Thanks... but, I think you guys will like this. I'm thinking about..."
If any of the men had looked over at that moment, or at another during the course of their game, they would've noticed that their five girls were leaning in to each other, looking rather suspicious.
In fact, Remus looked over once, saw their huddle and gulped. He had a strange feeling that he was having a type of "out-of-body" experience: the five girls looked like how he would think he and the other three Marauders looked when they were planning a prank. He suddenly was wary. But, before he could think about it too much, the football came sailing towards him and James shouted.
About a half hour before dinner, the five girls got up and started walking back towards the school. When James called out to them, asking where they were going, they just waved over their shoulders and continued to walk. James was affronted at first, then apprehensive for a brief moment. Figuring that they were just deep in conversation, he returned to the game, just soon enough to stop the football before it hit his head.
"Alice! Hurry up! We've got to get back upstairs!" whispered Monica loudly, looking back to see Alice's mouth moving silently. The brunette moved her wand back and forth as she stood beneath the archway into the Great Hall. Monica smirked, knowing just what was going on.
Alice finished muttering under her breath and tucked her wand back into her pocket. She shared another smirk with Monica, and then both girls ran back up to the Gryffindor dormitories, laughing all the way.
When they made it into the common room, they met Lily coming out of the seemingly solid wall just inside the Portrait Hole, and saw Nikeia and Josey descending from the boys' dormitory.
"Is it all set up in the Great Hall?" asked the red-head, once they formed a close circle in the middle of the room. Alice and Monica nodded, with smirks.
"Ace. And in the dormitory?" asked Lily, turning to Nikeia.
"Yup; it's all set," informed Nikeia, smiling broadly.
"Lily, I must say that you are a genius," complimented Josey. Lily smiled, and curtseyed.
"Thank you. You're too kind, dahling!" She mimicked Josey’s favorite posh upper-class accent to perfection.
"Do you girls think it's going to work?" asked Alice. She had been skeptical from the beginning, but was not about to be left behind.
The other four girls looked at each other, and smiled. Nikeia winked at Alice, and nodded.
"It'll work," assured Lily. "Oh... It'll work."
The five women shared a cackle, and then returned downstairs to head into dinner.
They met the Marauders, Sam, Frank and Antoine when they came even with the Great Hall. Being chivalrous men, they allowed the women to enter first. The five women shared yet another Smirk as they entered the Great Hall. It was nearly full; it still amazed Lily at how quickly the Hall filled up at dinner time. She figured that since the meal couldn't start until nearly everyone was there, people thought that the quicker they got there, the quicker they'd eat. It was sound logic.
The girls started to walk over the threshold; Lily touched her wand that was concealed beneath her robes and muttered softly.
A loud bang sounded from behind them. The girls spun around, their smiles hidden under their “surprise”. The rest of the school turned towards the entrance with gasps. When they saw what had made the bang, the school started laughing.
The Marauders were covered in bright confetti. That wasn’t the worse part, though. They were also wearing bright, mismatched”horribly mismatched”clothing, and their hair looked as if it had ran afoul of a good static cling charm and then been dyed with neon colors. Their expressions made the whole ensemble even more hilarious. Especially since they were glaring over at the Slytherin table.
Lily wondered if there was even the slightest suspicion in their minds that it wasn’t the Slytherins, but the Marauderettes, who had done such a horrible thing. She Smirked again.
Dumbledore’s voice rose above the din, accented with a chuckle. “Marauders”and friends,” he said.
The school quieted down somewhat; snickers still could be heard throughout the room. The Slytherins were barely hiding their snorts.
“It would seem that someone has just pulled a prank. It would also seem that these people admire the Marauders a great deal, for I do believe that this is the same prank we saw at the beginning of the year…”
Dumbledore’s eyes were twinkling; Lily could see it even from where she stood at the doors to the Hall.
“As such, I feel we can rule out the Slytherins.” He stated pointedly at the Marauders, Sam, Frank and Antoine, who stared back. They, too, had seen that every Slytherin was laughing too hard to look cocky. Their minds immediately began thinking again.
“Misses Evans, Strathmore, Bretten, Walker and Terra… May I have an explanation, please?” Dumbledore was fixing them with a steady gaze and a faint smile.
The five aforementioned girls looked to each other, but weren’t quite surprised that Dumbledore knew. The rest of the school, however, reacted loudly: a collective gasp ran through the hall, and a few thumps sounded from people falling off the benches.
Sirius’s gasp was the loudest. He gave a frustrated squeak and stomped his foot. Remus was frowning, but he strangely didn’t look surprised. Peter was rubbing his left eye, trying to get a piece of confetti out of it, so he missed Dumbledore’s statement. Sam, Antoine, James and Frank just looked shocked. Lily stepped forward. “Headmaster, you are too wise. It was indeed us. We just felt that the Marauders needed to be… rewarded… for all the laughter they have given us over the past years. And what better way to do that than to reward them in their own way? Mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery, after all,” Lily said, her Smirk still in place.
Dumbledore’s lips turned up. He looked down at her over his glasses.
“I couldn’t agree with you more. The Marauders will be a missed addition to this school when they graduate. Given, of course, that they all do so.” He looked pointedly at Sirius.
“I get good grades!” he shouted back, raising his fist.
Dumbledore smiled indulgingly. “But, may I ask why Mr. Donnelly, Mr. Wood and Mr. Longbottom received the same reward?”
“Well, they walked in at the same time the Marauders did,” Lily said, as she shrugged. “There was no overlooking the fact, unfortunately. The charm was not selective.”
Nikeia’s snicker from beside Lily gave away the fact that the other four girls did not think it was so unfortunate.
“I see. And may I ask one more thing?”
“Of course, Headmaster.”
“What exactly is their price?” asked Dumbledore.
Lily sighed. “Unfortunately, Headmaster, we five were not able to duplicate the Marauders’ original prank. They will only have to walk around like this for a week.”
“It is still a mighty feat. Congratulations on a charm well cast.” He inclined his head.
The five girls smiled back. Lily noticed Gamekeeper Hagrid attempting to hide a large grin behind an equally large hand. She grinned as well.
“However,” continued Dumbledore, “I can not let you off without a punishment.”
“But we rewarded them,” stated Monica, loudly. “Why should we get punished?”
The other four girls looked down at Monica with surprise on their faces. She swallowed self-consciously.
Dumbledore chuckled. “You’re quite right, Miss Terra. Is there anyone here who would mind seeing these five girls go away without punishment for this prank against the Marauders and their three friends?”
Naturally, most of the Slytherins”who loved to see any Gryffindor get punished”raised their hands. However, that wasn’t enough to override the fact that no one in the other three Houses lifted their hands.
James spluttered, gesturing wildly. “That’s not fair!”
“Yeah! Are you serious, Headmaster? They’re get to get off without punishment?” shouted Sirius, his fluffy purple hair wobbling outrageously. The five girls snorted in laughter.
“Mr. Black, I do believe that you are Sirius. I am Albus.”
Sirius opened his mouth to speak against what he thought Dumbledore was going to say, but then he realized just what Dumbledore actually said. His mouth shut and he glared at his Headmaster. “I wasn’t trying to make a joke,” he said when the laughter died down.
“No, you’re right, because that was a statement, not a joke.”
The school laughed again.
Sirius let out his breath in a frustrated way, giving up.
“Ladies, I will take five points from your House for keeping us from our dinner, which I can almost smell. Please, take your seats. The same goes towards those Slytherins that are rolling on the floor.”
Those Slytherins rose quickly from the floor and attempted to regain their dignity.
The Marauders, Sam, Antoine and Frank sighed and walked over to the Gryffindor table. Sirius and James had begun to strut, making the best of the situation. Lily and Nikeia looked over at each other and smiled. “I love them,” Lily sighed happily. Nikeia laughed and nodded.
“Indeed. Come on, let’s eat.”
Dinner was a happy affair at the Gryffindor table. James and Sirius played off their costumes spectacularly. Peter got into it after he got the piece of confetti from his eye, though not as much as Antoine did. Remus raised his eyebrow at Lily with a pleading look. She shrugged, Smirked and turned back to her boyfriend. Remus sighed, and shook his head, resigned.
When the men returned to their dormitories, they found that all their clothing had been changed to outrageous colors; they weren’t exactly surprised.
James walked out from his room into the common room where Lily was studying. “Lily… do you really admire us Marauders as much as you made Dumbledore believe?”
“Of course I do,” Lily said, preoccupied with an old star chart. James noticed that she had gotten an eleven-out-of-ten.
He sighed. “Liar.”
“Liar yourself.” Lily turned away from her work and looked up at the man standing next to her. “I do admire the way you, Sirius, Peter and Antoine were able to brush off the fact that you had strangely-colored hair and act as if nothing was different. That and I love how your pink robes bring out your eyes.”
James Smirked, and knelt down. “Do they?” he asked before kissing her. She sighed against him, and kissed him back. James pulled her closer, and continued the kiss. However, Lily broke away slowly.
“James, I have to study. I haven’t seen this chart in years; I’ve forgotten quite a bit.”
“I highly doubt that. You’ve been studying since dinner.”
“That’s not true, I did my homework first.”
James narrowed his eyes. “My point is that you’ve been leaning over this table too long. Come outside; let’s go for a broom ride.”
“A broom ride? James, that’s against school rules.”
“Exactly,” James smirked, before standing, pulling Lily up after him and Accio-ing his broomstick and his Invisibility Cloak. Allowing Lily a moment or two to goggle over the Cloak, James opened the window in their room. He straddled the broom and gestured Lily over. She glared at him (perhaps only for principle’s sake) and sat on the broom, wrapping her arms tightly around him. He expanded the Cloak with the incantation from the book Remus had given him at Christmas, and threw it over them both, putting the edges into Lily’s hands. He felt her sigh behind him, and he smirked before taking off through the window.
Once they were outside in the beautiful night air, he turned and bent slightly so as to kiss her. Lily returned the kiss briefly, then nudged his head with her own so he would face forward and keep both eyes on the sky.
He laughed, and continued to fly around the school.