Sirius Black stormed into the boy’s dormitory, furious. He threw his wand at his bed; it hit the wall instead and rolled underneath the musty duvet. With a growl of frustration he ripped off his robe and tossed it on a nearby trunk, then kneeled and groped under the bed for his wand. His hand came out empty, covered in dust. He shook it off with another growl and pushed the bed out of his way.
His wand was lodged against the outer wall of the tower. As he reached to pick it up he noticed a series of letters carved into the stone. He ran his fingers over them; there must have been dozens, filling an entire stone square of wall down to the floor, where his eye was drawn to a small knot in the hardwood: it was marked with the Gryffindor crest.
“No way,” he said softly to himself. “Couldn’t be.” He forgot what he had been so angry about as he got caught up in the excitement of something new and mysterious. He wished James wasn’t in detention, or Remus on prefect duty. Peter would certainly caution him against pulling up the floor, so Sirius decided to leave him studying in the common room. Unconsciously holding his breath, he pulled on the knot as hard as he could.
Nothing happened.
The wood plank remained stuck fast. Sirius swore. He had a gut feeling something good was under there and now he had to find out what it was, or he certainly wouldn’t be able to sleep over it every night.
Narrowing his eyes at the Gryffindor crest, he picked up his wand and tried several easy spells. Still nothing. He took a deep breath and tried a few more, including sixth and seventh-year spells he technically shouldn’t have known. He was just about to blow it open with a Blasting Curse when he remembered one more.
It worked: the small length of wood slid effortlessly aside to reveal a dark opening. Fearless with anticipation, Sirius plunged his hand in and pulled out a large vial of clear liquid with a parchment scroll attached to the neck. He unrolled it carefully, almost bursting with excitement, and began to read.
A Gryffindor Tradition
Greetings, fellow Gryffindor! You have stumbled upon the legendary Gryffindor Color Change Potion, refined over the years to an almost undetectable clear liquid that with just a few drops will gift the entire school with heads of red, green, blue, and colors not yet invented. Simply steal into the kitchens “ instructions not included “ and place several drops into the juice of the day and you are guaranteed a show like no other, complete with screaming classmates, infuriated professors, and perhaps in the end a bit of applause for your Gryffindor bravery and daring.
Siruis whooped with glee: he’d just been handed a prank for free “ a Gryffindor tradition, if he read it right. He thought about keeping it to himself and trying it out on James, Remus, and Peter, but quickly decided the entire school needed to experience it “ he had to continue the tradition, after all. He continued reading.
Once you have used the potion, be sure to replace it here and leave your initials on the wall. Should you run out of liquid, use the following recipe to brew more so that the vial remains full for your fellow Gryffindors. Then seal the compartment so future generations can continue the tradition.
Sirius leapt up. He had to show James, detention or not. He couldn’t keep something like this to himself for long, especially with April Fool’s Day just around the corner. He sealed the compartment with the same spell that had opened it and pushed his bed back to its original position. With the potion and the parchment tucked into a pocket, he ran out, ready to once again wreak havoc on Hogwarts. . .
* * *
“Psst!” Fred Weasley ducked his head around the corner of the stairway and motioned to his twin. George came ambling over, Ron trailing behind.
“Bug off, pipsqueak,” said Fred.
“Must be top secret, bro,” added George, ruffling Ron’s hair with a wink. He followed Fred up to their dormitory as Ron went back to his friends, grumbling about always being left out of the fun.
“What’s up?” asked George, throwing himself onto the bed and throwing a ball in the air. “You look like it’s Christmas again.”
“Not Christmas “ our birthday,” grinned Fred, tossing him an old bit of parchment. George caught the paper and raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Read it, “ his brother replied. “It’s our new April Fool’s Day prank.” He started whistling innocently.
George unrolled the parchment and began to read, his eyes growing wider with each line. He felt the laughter building in his chest until finally he let out a whoop. “Wicked!” he crowed.
“I know!” laughed Fred, and handed him a clear vial of liquid. “And they even left us some. It couldn’t be easier.”
“Who? Where?” asked George; it was too good to be true.
“I found it under my bed,” replied Fred. “In a”“
“What were you doing under”“ George began to ask.
“Don’t ask. Anyway, it was in a locked compartment under the floor.” He showed George the opening. “And here are the initials.”
George ran his fingers almost reverently over the letters carved in stone. “A.P.W.B.D.?” he asked curiously. “Do you think that was one person or a group?”
“I don’t know,” shrugged Fred. “It’s an awfully long name for one person, that’s for sure. Look at the bottom.”
The last initials etched in stone were M,W,P,P. George glanced up at his brother. “You don’t think”“
“Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?” Fred grinned. “Our mentors.”
George nodded fondly. “We owe them once again. Although, this sounds like it’s been done several times already, so are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“You mean, that if we add some boomslang skin we’ll get some polka dots, stripes, and hearts?” replied Fred.
“Definitely more exciting than plain old red, green, and blue,” George agreed. “And if we can add an Everlasting Elixir it ”“
“”might last for twenty-four hours!” finished Fred. “Perfect! Come Friday morning we’ll just head down to the kitchens before breakfast, slip a few drops into the morning juice, and sit back and watch the fun “ all day long.”
George jumped up and clapped his twin on the shoulder. “Brother, you’re a genius! Let’s go nick some boomslang skin right now, shall we? It’s time to uphold the tradition!”
Fred bowed. “After you, brother!”
* * *
Albus Potter nodded, and his cousin Rose hurried around the corner to join him in the dark corridor beneath the Great Hall. In front of them was a large painting of a fruit bowl.
He raised his eyebrows in a silent question and Rose nodded. That was the painting Uncle George had described. She took a deep breath, leaned forward, and tickled the pear. The painting slid open to reveal the bustling kitchens beyond.
The room was dark and warm, and dozens”if not hundreds”of house elves were scurrying about preparing the first meal of the day. They hardly seemed to notice as Albus and Rose nervously made their way toward the large cauldrons of pumpkin juice. They were finally stopped as Albus raised his hand toward a ladle hanging nearby.
“Students!” squeaked a small elf, his ears twitching and his eyes narrowing as he studied Albus and Rose. “But not just any students.” The elf turned to the rest of the kitchen. “We’ve got a Potter AND a Weasley this year!” he shouted. The entire kitchen stopped, looked at them, and seemed to offer a collective shrug before turning back to their work.
Albus almost dropped the vial of potion he had tucked into his sleeve; Rose looked ready to run. He shook his head to reassure her, and lowered his hand. “We just wanted a bit of early breakfast,” he offered, trying to keep his voice steady.
The house elf snorted and turned around. “Three drops should do it,” he tossed over his shoulder, and sent a bowl of fruit up through the ceiling to the Great Hall.
Rose gasped as Albus sighed. “Apparently they are on to the tradition,” he grumbled. ”I suppose they would have figured it out after several hundred years.” He dutifully emptied three drops into the cauldron of pumpkin juice, and then added three more to be sure. “Come on, let’s go. And be sure to drink it or everyone will wonder why we’re the only ones not affected.”
They left the kitchens and headed to the Great Hall, where breakfast was just beginning. Students slowly drifted in from the four houses and made their way to their tables, unaware of what was in store for their day. Albus and Rose joined their classmates at the Gryffindor table, trying to remain calm, but practically bursting with excitement and nerves.
At the High Table, Headmistress McGonagall was just serving herself a strawberry tart and some juice. Rose grabbed Albus’s arm and choked on her oatmeal. He smacked her on the back and followed her shaking arm. “The professors are drinking it,” she managed to gasp out.
Albus rolled his eyes as he returned to his own breakfast. “Of course they are. They are human too, mostly.”
Rose leaned close and whispered conspiratorially, ”That means they will be affected!”
“Of course they will,” Albus repeated, frowning as he studied her suddenly frightened face.
Rose looked almost sick. “We’ll be expelled for sure!” she squeaked.
“Not unless you give it away,” he hissed under his breath and moved down the bench away from her. Around him, the first affects of the potion were being felt as one by one the breakfasting students drank their pumpkin juice and were instantly rewarded with a brilliant shade of red, green, or purple hair. Across the aisle at the Ravenclaw table a third-year jumped up with a shriek, green and white stripes now coloring her formerly blond locks. Albus felt a small smile on his face, and forced himself to calmly drink his own juice as he looked around the Hall, growing louder every moment.
Down the table his brother James was laughing with Teddy Lupin; both now sported blinking polka dots flashing from their flaming red hair. Albus wondered what his own hair was doing, and then burst into gales of laughter himself when he saw Rose: her long hair was now lurid pink and filled with blue hearts, and he could only imagine how ridiculous he looked if his own new style was half as bad.
Rose, however, started moaning. “Oh no, oh no,” she whispered under her breath, shaking her head and rocking back and forth. “We shouldn’t have done it, we shouldn’t have done it.”
“It’s a Gryffindor tradition,” Albus said under his breath, still grinning as he looked around the Hall at the chaos growing around them. It was colorful and laced with much laughter so he did not feel as bad as Rose. Besides, he had finally outdone his brother, even if no one knew about it. “You wouldn’t want to let the House down, would you?”
“But what if Headmistress McGonagall finds out?” she fretted, looking up at the High Table. Headmistress McGonagall was calmly watching the scene with her own gray bun untouched. Albus frowned, and to his horror, she winked at him. He realized none of the professors had been affected by the potion, though they all had juice in their cups.
Albus felt his insides drop: they knew. After so many years, so many pranks, so many initials on the wall, of course they had figured it out, just as the house elves had. They had even prepared for it.
Even worse, McGonagall knew it was him. He suddenly understood the panic his cousin had been feeling; he lost his appetite and began to wonder why they had bothered with the potion in the first place.
“Maybe you were right,” he murmured to Rose, who looked at him aghast.
“Little late for that, isn’t it?” she hissed, her face pale.
“Come on, let’s go,” he said in a low voice. He stood up and ducked his head down as he hurried toward the doors.
“Nice hair, Al!” crowed James, still laughing with his friends.
“Thanks,” Albus muttered, his stomach in knots. He just wanted to get out of there, away from McGonagall, who somehow knew what they had done. . .
“Hello there, Albus,” said a voice above him. In his rush to leave, he had run straight into Professor Longbottom. His honorary uncle no longer had mousy brown hair but had gone start white, with red stripes that made him look like a hideous mockery of a zebra.
Albus glanced up into his professor’s eyes and saw him smile, but did not feel any better. He mumbled something under his breath about not feeling well and tried to hurry past. Rose was positively pasty and seemed ready to run again.
“Well, at least you remembered to drink it yourself,” Professor Longbottom remarked conversationally as they hurried away. “Your uncles forgot about that and ended up in detention for a week.”
Albus and Rose froze. Together they turned around and stared at the professor, mouths hanging open.
“But seeing as you two are sporting some spectacular results yourself, I’m sure no one will figure it out “ although your names do work against you.” He chuckled to himself. “I just wish the rest of the staff had shared the antidote. Ah well, I guess that’s what happens to the new guy. I’m sure Fred is laughing on the other side of the veil.”
“Uncle Neville, we didn’t”“ Rose began, slipping into their familiar name for the professor, but Albus stepped on her foot to stop any confession.
Professor Longbottom raised his eyebrows. “Of course you did. It’s practically a family tradition. I’ll have to send an owl to George and see if he has anything up his sleeve for next year. See you in class.” He winked and continued into the hall, where a loud uproar followed by a burst of applause told them that the rest of the school had seen the professor’s hair.
Albus sat down on the stairs and put his head in his hands. “I don’t know how Uncle George and Uncle Fred could stand it - the stress of it is unbearable!”
Rose nodded slowly, still staring at the doors to the Great Hall. “I think I’ve had my fill of pranks, Albus.”
“I agree,” Albus replied. “But at least we continued the Gryffindor tradition. Uncle Fred would be proud.”
* * *
A Gryffindor Tradition by Gmariam
Story Notes:
All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of J.K Rowling. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you so much to Snape’s Talon for beta reading this story! She not only checked my Potterwords, but made some great suggestions for little bits here and there, including adding A.P.W.B.D. to the initials on the wall.