CHAPTER 05

In the days that followed, once the sun fell behind the Highland hills and the girls' dormitory was illuminated only by the glow of candlelight, conversations between the seventh years drew less surface-level and deeper than the fathom rumored to be hidden beneath the Blake Lake. The homey little dormitory wasn't an uncomfortable place by any means, though it wasn't the seventh years' usual choice for lounging—by by their third night spent lying across the girls' beds or swinging around to their records, James had proclaimed the boys would be staying, and of course his disciples bade his every word, and so the boys stayed.

"Remus," Piper said without so much as looking back at him, keeping her eyes angled down to the game on the floor, "you know by now you ought not to smoke in here."

He glared at her back, the tip of his wand less than an inch away from his cigarette when she'd stopped him. He tucked the fag into the back pocket of his trousers and lumbered over to join the staggered circle of seventh years.

Their layout was usual and comfortable by then: Piper and Marlene kept to the former's bed, Marlene's arm hooked around the bedpost and Piper sitting on the edge with her knees drawn to her chest. At their feet was Mary, in the same spot on the floor where she could usually be spotted bent over her homework. Across the circle from Piper was Lily's bed, hosting Sirius, James, and Lily herself in a neat little row. Remus took the open spot on Piper's bed, and Peter joined Mary on the floor.

Altogether, it was an uneven little ring of mates, sitting in an imperfect circle around an unfair game of Exploding Snaps. The match was between Mary and Peter, and a rather tense one at that—hexes had been threatened, mothers had been cursed, friendships had begun to waver. Piper was losing faith, by this point, that the Marauders could ever continue on together if Peter lost the battle raging on.

And the dramatics had begun even without the help of a bottle of Firewhiskey. Those were reserved for post-Quidditch—be it practice or matches. Other than the special occasions, alcohol was not imbibed by the seventh years, contrary to their carousal reputation. Really, it was the Hufflepuffs that spent the majority of their evenings hosting parties and such.

Hours had passed before the game of Exploding Snap came to any sort of head, and the sun was long gone by then. Piper had initially been uninterested in the match, but once the theatrics had begun, she'd grown fonder.

"Oh, get on it," she moaned of Peter after a particularly nasty play. "Mary, that was your chance."

"If you don't win this, Pete," Sirius threatened, peering over Peter's head at the board, "you've got to sleep in the common room tonight."

"That's harsh," Piper said nicely. "But, Mary, if you don't win, same goes."

"Somebody's sleeping in the common room tonight," Marlene sang, and though Piper had only minutes ago told Remus not to smoke, she drew a long suck from her own cigarette. "Won't be me, though."

"I wouldn't speak so soon," Lily said, eyeing the smoke exhaled from Marlene's mouth with an expression of utmost distaste.

"This is getting boring," announced James, flopping backwards onto Lily's bed. Piper ignored a biting sense of heat that blossomed in her cheeks at the movement, instead lowering her eyes to the game once again. But of course James went on anyways, unperturbed. "I don't give a damn about who wins this match. We should be doing something else with our time."

"And what would you have us do, Prongs?" Remus drawled, his blank face communicating his overall disinterest in James's reply before he even gave it.

James tossed up a hand with a scoff. "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps a prank or two to round off the week. Squid pro quo?"

The effect of his words was strong and instantaneous: Sirius perked his head up immediately like a dog whose favourite word was 'prank', and he looked to James with a growing grin. Peter abandoned the Exploding Snaps round and beamed up at James.

Mary curled her lip, glancing up from her game. "I think it's quid pro quo, James."

"Nah," said Remus, and even his interest had been piqued. He arched an eyebrow. "You don't say, James, you want to—?"

James's face appeared from the other side of the bed, though the rest of his body stayed limp. He grinned. "Are you with me, then, lads? 'Cause, ladies, we have already got this idea, if you'll all gather 'round and listen—"

And with a discarding toss of the Exploding Snap board, the game was forgotten, and once again the seventh year Gryffindors were kneeling in a circle around James as though he were a primary school teacher giving his young pupils a story time. He went on about his plan with the same theatrics, too; waving his hands about, narrowing his eyes, lowering his tone to match the steps of the prank.

It consisted of (if Piper understood correctly) a charm that Peter had stumbled across in his readings. The basis of the prank was something along the lines of spelling the giant squid that lived in the Black Lake to break into song at random intervals of the day—any song, any time. The appeal of such an outlandish idea was the location of the Black Lake being optimal to affecting the Slytherin House above anyone else—their common room was underwater and therefore closest anyone could get to the giant squid without swimming along next to it.

"Of course," James clarified in a pompous sort of voice, as the group of seventh years somehow found themselves following him out of the girls' dormitory and through the candlelit halls of Hogwarts, "everyone will be able to hear it. Just the Slytherins will have to put up with it when they're trying to get some sleep. It truly is a genius plan, and all thanks to Pete here being our resident bookworm—"

"James, you should really lower your voice," Piper said quietly, picking up her pace slightly so she could keep up with his long strides and stay at the front of the pack. She couldn't stop herself from glancing around every corner and jumping at every misstep—if the professors found a gaggle of students out of their dorm so long past curfew, and no less headed by the Head Boy and Girl, then she was positive they would just string herself and James up by their toes. "I really don't want to get caught."

"None of us quite fancy it, believe it or not," Remus answered from behind her, hands deep in his pockets as he strolled along next to Sirius.

None of the Marauders had employed James's invisibility cloak for the harrowing task on the basis of there not being  enough room for everyone to fit under it, but Piper was of the firm belief that it would have been better for some of them to be caught than all of them. But Sirius had fought back with the Three Musketeers logic—all for one and one for all.

As it happened—truly, Piper thought, by the grace of Merlin and all pranksters of Hogwarts that came before the Marauders—they made it through the castle unperturbed. Piper was able to loosen her shoulders by the time she stepped foot in the chilly midnight air, satisfied by the fact that professors only patrolled the corridors at night and not the entire Hogwarts grounds. With the relaxation came the ability, too, for Piper to truly appreciate the prank that was about to be played out before her.

She and James were still at the front of the group, and by a good gap or so—Peter, the closest follower behind them, had stopped to inspect a stray mushroom that caught his attention, slowing down Sirius and Remus, who then blocked Marlene, Mary, and Lily from going on any further. Or that was how Piper had thought it happened—from the hushed shouts of indignation and for Peter to pick up his pace, she gathered that she had had it correct.

Either way, she was alone with James, more or less. For some reason, she didn't feel the same choking sensation she usually did when she was alone with him these days—the pressure to say something that reminded him how funny she was, or how much he used to enjoy her company. These stolen times between the pair of them, she always viewed as her Make It or Break It moments; say something poor, and James will truly be over her; or say something witty, and he'd be reminded of how much he enjoyed being around her.

Tonight, though, Piper felt no such pressure. She inhaled through her nose the crisp night air, feeling remarkably grounded, for some odd reason. Not that she was complaining—she was growing sick of having every word that left her lips be something to impress James.

"If this goes according to plan," she said, her voice carrying down the hill she and James were descending, "what song would you have the squid sing? Have you thought about it?"

"Have I thought about it," he scoffed in response, shooting her a sideways glance that told her he thought it a silly question. "Of bloody course I have. We've been sitting on this one for a long time now. Sirius, he'd have it sing Seven Seas of Rhye by this Muggle band he fancies. Remus says he thinks Come Sail Away is a good one."

"Are they all sea jokes?" Piper asked, raising her eyebrows. "I'd've thought you lot were better than that."

James exhaled a laugh and lifted his shoulders like he was innocent in this equation. "Well, only those two made the bad puns. Peter wants the squid to sing some song by the Wicked Sisters to his little Hufflepuff girlfriend."

"Of course," Piper ceded with a nod, a smile playing at her lips. "And you?"

If it had been just a tad brighter out—if the moon hadn't been behind a cloud, if it was just a few hours earlier or later, if Piper hadn't almost missed a step and glanced down to catch her balance—she could have caught James's coy, tight-lipped smile, and how his eyes darted over to watch her.

After a moment too long, she looked over to him, catching his eyes. "Well?"

He seemed to come out of some sort of daze, blinking, his smile only growing. "Yeah. Er, mine would be... Well, do you remember that song we performed for our parents?"

Piper's eyes glittered with humour and she let out a little laugh at the memory that had been buried so deep for so long. "I think I do. Something by that band the Beatles, right? We had a whole performance with choreography and costume changes and everything, and they didn't let us get so far as a minute in. I was so upset."

"Oh, I'd actually forgotten about that one," he laughed. Then he sucked his teeth like the memory was awkward. "Well, actually, I looked into that, and it turns out that song was about the war that was going on in the Muggle world at the time. Makes sense why Mum and Dad didn't want us singing along to it. Anyway, that wasn't the one I meant."

"Which, then?"

"Oh, I forget the name," he said offishly, waving a hand as if to dismiss the whole idea—but the glint in his eye and the slight upturn of his lips told Piper he wasn't being entirely truthful. "Anyway, I realized that was a corny choice, but it was originally my idea. Look, we're here!"

Piper smiled to herself, shaking her head in disbelief at the thought of what the inside of James Potter's brain must have looked like—just billions of ideas and thoughts floating around in their own little Quidditch match. She imagined there was at least one up there that was still about her.

The rest of the Marauders were the front runners for the rest of the prank, in order to carry it out. None of the girls complained at the layout, either; they stayed a few steps back from the boys and watched as, standing in a straight line on the shore of the Black Lake, they raised their wands. Marlene murmured a question of how on earth they knew where the squid was, in such a big lake, but her thought was answered when James lifted his wand further in the air and suspended about ten feet above the surface of the lake was the giant squid itself.

Peter and Sirius did the spell together to make it last and to make it strong, and Remus followed up with an Impervius charm so all their hard work didn't wash off in the enchanted waters of the Black Lake. James lowered his wand and the squid delicately plopped back into the frigid water. A few ripples on the lake's surface were all that was left as evidence of the ploy that had been laid out, and other than that, nobody could have even told that the Marauders had been there. (Well, Marauders et al.)

Getting back to the castle was uneventful, if you don't count Peter tripping over a rock and sending his wand flying. They took a five-minute detour to search for it in the grass. Once it was found, the eight of them meandered back through the stone doorway and into dark castle, once again wandering the halls past curfew. Piper's walls shot back up immediately.

"You don't have to worry," James told her, swaggering down the corridor like it was nobody's business. His hair was a proper mess from the sharp winds of the Highland hills at night, but Piper only thought it was endearing. His glasses were crooked. "We've done this hundreds of times, and only been caught about forty."

"Forty," Piper repeated dryly, glancing around the corner ahead of them to make sure there were no approaching teachers. "Forty times, you've been caught out past curfew. How you ever got promoted to Head Boy is beyond me, really."

"It's because I'm a man of the people," he claimed with a grin, spreading his arms. "I get done what they ask of me. They love me!"

"You're funny," she agreed in a tone that sounded quite a bit like she didn't really agree. "Look, we should take a shortcut back to the common room instead of going through the main halls. I don't think it's wise to go this way. You know there's always a professor down the south corridor."

James frowned, slowing to a stop, and suddenly Piper was very frustrated with herself for trying to "doubt" James's leadership skills.

"James, please don't be difficult right now," she said before he could open his mouth. "We need to go before someone catches us."

But his arms were crossed and his feet were planted and he looked rather offended, even if it was in that dramatic James Potter way. "You think I don't know how to navigate these halls at night."

"I never said that," she said with a sigh, glancing over her shoulder, positive that a professor would be stumbling upon them at any moment. "Just come on, James—"

"What's going on?" Remus asked, the other six pausing in the middle of the hallway. Piper fought the urge to scream.

"Finn thinks I don't know what I'm doing."

"I don't think that!" she said, exasperated, though somehow able to keep her tone quiet enough to not echo. "Please, keep your voice down, all of you—"

"Oh, is someone afraid of getting caught?" Marlene said, laughing, curving around James's stubborn stance. She tapped Piper on the nose. "Somebody's never been in trouble before."

"You lot are going to kill me," Lily decided. She sidestepped the scene and headed off on her own. "I'm going back to the dorm."

"Coming, Lils," Mary said, catching up on light feet.

Marlene and Remus were just behind her, Peter hesitating between the two sides, and Sirius standing still beside James.

Piper seethed for a moment, glaring at the three of them—but mostly James. "You're really going to stand here until I apologise? Are you serious?"

"That's me," Sirius confirmed with a sharp nod.

Peter's airy voice came from a little down the corridor. "You know you could leave them, Piper."

But he knew she wouldn't. Of course he did. She wanted to yell at him to get on with it and return to his dorm—she would be here with James, like always.

"Fine," she said firmly, gritting her teeth. "I am sorry, James. I never meant to question your authority when it comes to carrying out pranks. Can we go now?"

James switched back to himself in the blink of an eye, pleased. He and Sirius took up on either side of Piper. The both of them seemed entirely too smug with how easily an apology had left Piper's lips.

"You're both complete pricks, you know," she murmured, craning her head around the upcoming corner. "I ought to delegate a detention to both of you as Head Girl."

"Actually," came a sharp voice from behind the three of them, curling on a Scottish accent that made Piper freeze in her tracks, "I think it's fair that all three of you receive a detention."

They stopped dead in their steps, an overwhelming sense of dread coming down on all of them like a blanket of snow. James and Piper exchanged a glance. They spun to face Professor Mcgonagall, clad in her bed robes, her hair pinned up in tight curlers. She didn't look to be enjoying her night out.

"If the three of you will follow me back to my office, please."

Piper got the feeling she wasn't really asking.

"You mad?" James whispered to her, as they began their walk of death—they followed Mcgonagall's wand, the tip of it illuminated with a ball of white light to guide them.

"Why would I be mad?" Piper whispered in response, keeping her eyes on the burning tip of Mcgonagall's wand.

"Probably 'cause it's James's fault we got caught," Sirius butted in, his voice a too-loud whisper. "That's probably a good reason to be mad."

"Piss off, Pads," James shot across Piper. Then he shot her a glance, and his tone softened. "I'm sorry, Finn. Usually around this time of night she's all the way over in the east wing—I thought we had more time."

Piper didn't mean to, but she eased off at his true apology—he did seem to mean it, after all. And of course he knew what he was talking about when it came to navigating the corridors at night, safely out of the way of professors—forty out of a hundred times were pretty decent odds.

But James didn't need to know that. Piper kept her eyes forward and didn't say anything else as they followed Mcgonagall to her office.

Via Chatter

The song eight-year-old Piper and James sang for their parents was Back In The U.S.S.R. by the Beatles so you can imagine why two wizard (half- and pure-blood) families would have been alarmed at their children singing about communism and sympathies for the iron curtain

Silly little chapter... on the surface....... this will come back
I never write filler chapters just to be filler chapters they always serve a purpose