A/N: I own nothing but the sarcasm in my head.
Here's a short fic dedicated to my wonderful beta, Tawny Spitfyre, who issued an April Fool's challenge. Oddly enough, even though this ficlet is dedicated to her, it hasn't been beta'ed by her, since she already working on 18,000 words I cobbled together into sentences. Thus, any errors in grammar and spelling are my own (and that of Microsoft Word).
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"Do you know what next week is?"
I looked up from my breakfast to regard my best friend. He had that rather manic glint in his eyes, the one that usually ended up with us fleeing from Mrs. Norris in the dead of night, and I was instantly wary. I stole a quick glance over at my other best friend to see if she noticed it as well. Hermione seemed to have come to the same conclusion, for her response was a simple disapproving shake of her head and to snap her Daily Prophet back up.
Which, of course, left it to me to respond. "Uh…next week?" It was too early for Easter holidays, we were in-between Quidditch matches, and I couldn't think of any projects that were due. I shrugged. "April?"
Ron shook his head, obviously disappointed with me. "No!" he said rather vigorously, causing me to involuntarily lean back a little. "It's April 1st!"
Well, that cleared it right up then. "Ah, of course. Y'know, it usually comes by this time of the year."
"Yes, it's strange that way," Hermione chimed in from my side. I turned to look at her, and I noticed her wearing a mischievous smile. "It's almost as if there's some sort of cyclical pattern, like time has somehow been separated into twelve groupings that repeat over and over."
I suppressed a chuckle. "Yeah…and if only there was some way or some thing that kept track of it all," I said.
Hermione suddenly turned to me, her eyes wide in mock excitement. "You mean…like a calendar?"
I gripped her melodramatically by the arms. "Yes! That's exactly it! We. Must. Find. One!"
We both turned to look at Ron, who's face had soured considerably. Of course, seeing that destroyed any resolve to be serious we may have had, and Hermione and I broke down into fits of laughter. After a moment, I managed to regain my breath. Still chuckling a bit, I asked Ron, "All right, what's so important about next week?"
But Ron tilted his chin in the air and looked off to the side. "Nothing, never mind." I would have felt bad if not for the clump of scrambled eggs that hung from his chin. As I was already vulnerable to laughter, I couldn't help but laugh again, and Hermione quickly followed suite.
After another moment I gathered my wits, such as they are, though my chest hurt a little from laughing so much. "Okay okay, I'm sorry for teasing."
"Yes, I am too," Hermione said. He looked at us dubiously. "Really, we are. Honest."
"So, what's next week? What so special about April 1st?" I asked, hoping to get him back on track.
Ron gave us a final glare before that glint returned to his eyes. "C'mon! I would have thought you two, of all people, would know! I mean, Hermione's a Muggleborn, and you were raised by Muggles! April 1st? April Fool's Day? Ring a bell?"
Hermione sighed and returned to her paper, obviously able to predict what Ron had in mind. I, on the other hand, did my best to mask a grimace. Yes, April Fool's Day, how could I forget? Growing up with the Dursleys, I always played the 'Fool' in Dudley's pranks. Dudley, not being the brightest Lumos on the wand, usually had pranks that went:
'Hey Potter. I won't hit you today,' he would say.
Then I would say, 'Thanks!'
Wham!
'April Fool's Day!' and he would laugh manically, repeating the same complicated trick throughout the day.
Ah…memories. Anyways, I guess I must've spent too much time tumbling painfully down memory lane, because I was a little startled when Ron spoke up: "Right Harry? Harry?"
I looked up. "Huh?"
Ron shook his head in exasperation. "I said, 'right Harry?'"
"Uh, sure. Right, Ron," I replied absently. Though I didn't actually know to what I was agreeing, I could tell by Ron's triumphant face and Hermione's slightly downcast one that I had inadvertently taken his side in one of their many arguments. I wasn't too concerned about what I had done, though, since those two fight all the time about the smallest things. No doubt it had something to do April Fool's Day.
"So, what do you think we should do?" Ron asked excitedly.
I shrugged. I imagined copying Dudley's idea and slugging Malfoy, but that probably wasn't a smart idea. A fun idea, but not a smart idea. "Dung bombs in Snape's office?"
Ron actually looked disgusted by my suggestion. "Are you kidding me? This is our last year! Our last chance to pull a grand prank, better than anything Fred or George have ever done! And all you want to do is set off a couple of lousy dung bombs!? What are you, a Hufflepuff?"
I raised my palms in surrender. "All right, all right. We'll think of something 'grand.'" Though, I personally doubted that we'd be able to top Fred and George's dramatic broom flight to safety, their portable swamp, or the firecrackers they set loose throughout the castle.
We bandied about ideas for around ten minutes until we hit upon a pretty good one. It took another ten minutes until we had a full-fledged prank in mind. Now we faced a different kind of problem. "So," I said, "how are we going to actually carry out the plan?"
Ron's previously excited face deflated a bit. "Well…" And we both sat stumped in silence. Our brainstorming had dwindled into passing sprinkles.
"I'm sure there must be a way," Hermione said rather suddenly from beside me. I actually jumped a little; in all the excitement of devising the prank, I had forgotten that she was still sitting there as she hadn't spoken a word the whole time.
"What way?" Ron asked eagerly.
"Well, I don't know-"
"Humph! Great help you are-"
"-but I'm sure I know a place where we can find a solution," Hermione continued loudly, speaking over Ron's interruption.
I grinned at her. "And does this place contain large amounts of books and will likely require a clandestine visit to the restricted area?"
Her only response was a small smile and her own glint in her eyes. Leave to Hermione to get a glint from thinking about the library.
******
Alas, what started with such great promise of fun quickly deteriorated into boredom; I should have know involving Hermione would significantly lower the fun quotient. But even as the three of us spent our Saturday afternoon inside the library, I didn't mind so much. Hermione rarely comes out with us, at least not unless one of us (and by us, I really mean me) is considering doing something stupid and dangerous. But ever since Voldemort met his sticky end - I stabbed him with a pointy stick - she hadn't had as much reason to join us in all the rule-breaking fun. So it was nice being able to play with Hermione, even if it was in the library. Oh, and it helped that it was raining outside.
Ron, however, was having less of a good time. He slammed shut the book he was looking through and growled in frustration, causing Hermione to look sharply up at him and huff in annoyance. And wonder of wonders, this caused another fight between the two:
"I still don't understand why we have to look through all these book!" Ron whined.
"You wanted a 'grand' prank, didn't you?" Hermione countered. "Grand pranks take careful planning and execution!"
"Pranks are supposed to be fun Hermione. I wouldn't call what we're doing fun at all!"
"Do you think Fred and George just woke up one morning and thought, 'gee, let's make a swamp today?' Of course not! They had to research and put some hard work into it, something you know nothing about!"
"What? I know about hard work! Just because I'm not like you and…"
At this point, I stopped paying attention and tuned them out. From prior experience, I knew this would go on and on and on and on until one of them finally has enough, runs out of things to say, and just leaves. Besides, my neck was starting to hurt - it was a bit like watching a Muggle game of tennis, back and forth and back and forth. Honestly, sometimes I can't understand why those two are still friends, the way they fight. It was like fire and ice, they were such opposites. No, wait. Fire and ice cancel each other out, so I need an example where they explode…something like cats and dogs, or newt eyes and…and…man, I should've paid attention more in Potions. What the heck explodes when it touches newt eyes? Starts with an 'L'…lavender? Maybe if Snape was a better teacher I'd actually learn something; as it is, half the time I'm too busy glaring at him to pay attention. Stupid Snape. Wonder how he'd like it if I -
"Harry?"
I jumped a little, startled out of my thoughts. "Huh?"
"I said, you can go too if you like," Hermione said a bit stiffly.
Only then did I notice that Ron wasn't at the table anymore. He must've taken off while I was deep in thought, revising Potions. For a second I considered escaping as well, but it only took one look at Hermione's frown to convince me to stay. "No, I think I'll stay," I said, giving her a smile. She gave me a half-hearted smile in return and nodded before turning back to her book. With a silent sigh, I returned to mine. We spent the hours leading up to dinner looking through various books. And while a part of me rebelled at the thought of spending that much time in the library on a weekend, strangely enough I still had fun.