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Sirius’s Plan


Two days after the Order of the Phoenix meeting, Sirius was laying on his back in the dormitory, staring at the spot where the very last remnant of his and James’s sticking spells remained - one leg of one of the desk chairs, permanently adhered to the ceiling.

The other three were off at their classes - or maybe by that time they were at lunch, who knew, there had been too many questions being raised by Remus skipping meals, so despite Remus’s reluctance to be apart from Sirius, he’d had to join them even at lunch. Peter was supposed to be in charge of feeding and watering their pet Sirius, as James had referred to it, and he’d be making a run to the kitchens after they ate, before heading to their afternoon classes.

Consequently, Sirius Black had been alone all day by the time they’d finished their classes and gotten back to the dormitory. And, as anyone who knows Sirius Black knows, leaving Sirius Black alone was never the best idea… especially when Sirius Black is bored.

Especially on 31 March.

Sirius was grinning when the others returned late in the afternoon, laying there on his bed surrounded by empty pumpkin juice bottles, ripped-off sandwich crusts, and several chocolate frog wrappers.

“What’re you smiling about?” James asked, seeing him as he yanked the Gryffindor tie from ‘round his neck. He chucked it down on the bed. “Like the Cheshire Cat. Look at him!”

Remus looked over, “Oh bloody hell, he’s plotted something.”

Peter said, “Uh-oh.”

Sirius sat up and swiveled to look at them, “Gentlemen, I have come up with a plan.”

“Here we go,” Remus muttered.

“A brilliant plan. The best plan that may ever have existed in the history of Hogwarts. The Founders themselves would be jealous of this plan. At least Gryffindor would have, that bloke strikes me as one that would enjoy pranks.”

“Pranks?” Peter squeaked.

“Pranks,” Sirius nodded.

Remus rubbed his forehead, “Sirius --- you can’t go pranking when you aren’t even supposed to be here at all and ---”

“Don’t you understand, Rey? That’s the beauty of it. The majesty of it! I’m not even here. And yet I’m still going to help pull off the most bloody brilliant prank that the school has ever seen! Guys --” Sirius looked about at them very solemnly, “This is even better than the time we turned everybody blue.”

“Better?” James sounded in awe.

“Way better.”

“Is it better than the swamp in Slytherin common room?!” he asked.

Sirius nodded. “Yes, Potter.”

James looked eager, “Go on, King of Pranks.”

Sirius pointed to the chair leg on the ceiling. “Tomorrow is April Fools, and I’ve been thinking - thinking about the castle…”

The boys all looked up at the chair leg. James’s eyes twinkled with knowing. “FINALLY!”
Peter pouted (it was his chair that was missing a leg, after all).

Remus looked back at Sirius, appalled. “No.”

“Yessss, Remus,” said Sirius, “Yes. It’s brilliant.”

Peter looked confused, “What is?”

“The entire castle?” James breathed. “It’ll take forever.”

“What’ll take forever?” Peter asked, looking ‘round at them.

“Not if we split up and all four of us do a quarter of the castle. The dungeons are empty anyway. We’d only need to do the main rooms, really…”

“Do what to the main rooms?!” Peter squealed. Remus pointed at the leg of the chair on the ceiling and after a pause for thinking, Peter’s eyes widened, “You want to stick all the furniture on the ceilings?! In the whole castle!?”

Sirius’s eyes glowed with amusement.

James looked ecstatic at the idea that Sirius was going to come up with a way to make it happen for real. Would the wonders of Sirius Black’s plotting brain never cease?

“You’re mad,” said Remus.




“We’re mad,” said Remus.

They were in the corridor outside the Gryffindor Common Room. It was after midnight and the four of them were clustered about. James was holding the Marauder’s Map. He handed it to Remus, “Here. You take the map.”

“Why’s he get the map?” Peter asked, staring aa James handed it past his nose.

“Because he’ll need it to get past Filch,” James said.

“Then I want the cloak,” Peter whined.

“I need the cloak, git, I’m not supposed to be here at all,” Sirius’s voice came from the air beside Remus.

“Well how am I supposed to get by Filch?” Peter panicked.

“Turn into a rat,” said James. “You can go from room to room as a rat, change back, do the spell, then rat-it-up again!”

Peter shivered, “What if he catches me as a rat and tries to kill me?!”

James rolled his eyes, “Filch isn’t going to do much but swat at you with a broom like an old woman. You’ll be fine. There are loads of places for rats to hide in the castle anyways… and anyway, be glad your animagus is small enough to be of use! Without the Map and the Cloak and being a big ol’ stag when I change, I’m stuck without anything at all! I’ll have to use my superior instinct to keep me out of his path!” James said the last bit sarcastically. They all knew James was the lead observant person in all the world, basically. (”Porridge for brains!” as Sirius famously liked to say.) “I reckon adding another detention to my roster won’t be such a big deal -- it’s be like, what, the twenty millionth one I’ve served? They’ve all but erected a statue of me in McGonagall’s detention hall.” He laughed. “I reckon I’ll get a plaque in the trophy room. Most Detention Served or some bunk like that.”

“I swear you and I must be at least tied with Bilius Weasley by now,” Sirius’s voice said.

James laughed, “Probably.”

Remus shook his head, “The pair of you - I bloody swear… I dunno what to do with either of you - always in trouble, always scaring me to death…”

Sirius said, “You love my reckless behavior.”

“I love you,” Remus corrected, “Your reckless behavior I could quite do without.”

“But --” Sirius started to protest, but James cut in.

“Alright - let’s go before we lose all the night!” James said, anxious, “We don’t want anyone knowing what we’ve done ‘til morning.”

“And remember to mind Peeves, too,” Sirius added. “Where’s he at, Rey?”

“Peeves looks like he’s in the library,” said Remus. “Poor Madam Pince. She’s going to be furious...”

“Well that’s my area,” said Sirius. “Peeves bloody loves me. I won’t have any trouble with him.”

James grinned, “Ready you lot?” he stuck his hand out into the center of the circle of them.

Remus was next… then Sirius’s arm stuck out of the void - a disembodied wrist and hand… and Peter laid his on top, it was trembling slightly. “On three,” said James, “One… two… three --”

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” all four of them said at once in unison.

“Brilliant,” said Sirius.

The four of them turned headed for the staircase.

James waved his wand at a couple suits of armor as they walked, as practice, and the plinths and armor turned in midair, sticking to the ceiling in exactly the place they’d been just the moment before. Sirius snickered as the suits clanged into place. At the staircase, Peter went upstairs and the others started down.

“This is mad,” muttered Remus for about the hundredth time. “Absolutely mad. If we’re ever caught -- Moody’ll have our heads…”

“Dumbledore would’ve laughed,” said Sirius.

“Well Dumbledore isn’t here,” Remus said, “Moody is. And Moody -- I dunno what he’ll do.”

“Probably laugh,” said James.

“CONSTANT VIGILANCE,” said Sirius in a low roar. He laughed, “Maybe if he was constantly vigilant about the castle, he’d ruddy know what we were up to!”

At the fifth floor, Remus departed, off to go on his own way and James and Sirius continued on down. James laughed, “This is the best prank ever…”

“I know,” Sirius snickered.

“It’s going to go down in Hogwarts history.”

“Bilius would be proud.”

“He ruddy would! We ought take a photograph and send it to him so he can enjoy it, too. Maybe it’ll help him come ‘round down at Mungo’s,” James suggested.

“We’ll have to do,” Sirius agreed.

They walked onward and at the third floor Sirius said, “Good luck, Prongs.”

“Be on your worst behavior, Padfoot,” James answered, and he turned off down the corridor.

Sirius went all the way down to the entrance hall and started with the benches there - the case containing the house cup, the hour glasses of jewels that counted the points, the little turnip-looking tree by the door… the four house tables in the Great Hall, all the house tapestries… the staff table, Dumbledore’s podium, with it’s wide gold phoenix embellishment… Everything was sent to the ceiling and stuck on… The Great Hall took an especially special charm, as Sirius not only had to stick everything to the ceiling, but he had to make the floor look like the sky outside…

Floors above, Remus was peeking into the hospital wing to be sure nobody laid in any of the beds before he stuck them to the ceiling, clutching the map, carefully watching that nobody was coming. None of them were anywhere near anybody - Filch was in his office with Mrs. Norris, probably asleep (something rare for Filch).

Remus watched all the little silver tools on a silver tray adhere to a table on the ceiling and he hoped that this wouldn’t keep Pomfrey from helping anybody. Please don’t let anyone get seriously injured in the next few hours before we can right this, he thought. It would be horrid if something happened and Pomfrey couldn’t get her tools from the ceiling…

It took hours and hours, but soon the boys had all finished working their magic, the spells covering the castle - all the areas they could access… everything was flipped, all the furniture on the ceiling…

“I can’t wait to see the look on McGonagall’s face,” muttered Sirius, grinning as he lay across the bed that night.

“Yeah…” muttered Remus, less enthusiastic about it than Sirius was. But the exhilaration of a prank had Sirius’s heart beating quite loudly and Remus did enjoy the sound of Sirius’s heart as he pressed his ear to his chest… and he fell asleep listening to the thump, thump, thump of it, breathing in rhythm with it...