Chapter Two: The Greatest Prank
Hermione followed Harry as he walked down the corridors to the Gryffindor common room. She tried to keep up with him, but was having difficulty. Harry might have shorter than average legs, but he made up for it with his rapid pace. It didn't help that Hermione was carrying more books than he was.
"Harry, wait!" she panted.
Harry stopped and waited for her to catch up.
"You still didn't answer my question, you know."
"Which one?"
"What does `prank the population' mean?"
"Exactly what it says."
"You mean one of the things you want to do before you die is pull a prank?"
Harry turned to her, seriousness written across his face. "Not just any prank, Hermione. I want to pull the biggest, crudest, most outlandish prank that Hogwarts has ever seen. Better than anything Fred and George have done, better than anything the Marauders ever did. Heck, I don't even care if I get punished for it. And I want to do it on the entire population of Hogwarts."
He stopped, waiting for her answer. Hermione realized she may have gotten herself more than she bargained for by agreeing to help Harry. Now was the moment of truth, was she going to try and dissuade him from doing this, or was she going to help him?
Aw, to heck with it. A promise was a promise.
*
Dobby the house elf was surprised, to say the least.
Harry and Hermione had come into the kitchen about an hour ago. They had with them several buckets, charmed with a Bottomless Pit charm, and demanded all the chocolate syrup, honey, molasses, sugar, chicken feathers, flour, water, and icing that the kitchens could supply.
Which turned out to be quite a large amount.
The two teenagers left with their buckets, smiling and giggling like two naughty schoolchildren with a secret.
Which is, of course, exactly what they were.
*
The stage was set.
Hermione had used her influence as a prefect to keep stragglers away from the Great Hall that night. They had chosen the time carefully, after dinner, and after the house elves had finished cleaning up for the next morning. Harry had slipped inside the Great Hall, under his invisibility cloak, while Hermione remained outside, warding off any couples looking to fulfill the latest challenge by snogging at the teacher's table.
Harry remained inside for well over an hour, setting up whatever prank he was planning. Hermione wasn't sure exactly what it was, only that it was going to be very messy (Harry had advised her to be ready to cast a repelling charm the next morning) and had also told her that she could expect not to see him first thing at breakfast tomorrow.
Aside from the buckets, he also had a large bag full of products from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. Hermione had looked askance at the bag when she first saw it, but decided not to press Harry for explanations.
When he finally emerged from the Great Hall, it was well past midnight, and Hermione was more than ready to go to sleep. Harry draped the cloak over both of them, and they began the walk back to Gryffindor Tower. Their bodies were pressed very close together as this was the only way that the cloak would cover them now that they had grown so much since first year.
"Thank you." Harry whispered in her ear as they walked.
"What for?"
"For helping me, for not trying to stop me, for understanding why I need to do this, for being my friend, the list goes on." he answered.
"Well," she yawned. "As long as this prank doesn't involve anything dangerous, I don't suppose I have a reason to argue, and, after all, I did promise to help you. But I never got to asking you what those other cryptic things on your list mean."
"You mean, `Crash Potions,' `Go Home,' `L.L. I. W. D.' and `F.L,' right?"
"Mm- hmm." she answered sleepily.
Harry winked at her. "You'll just have to wait and see. Though I should probably tell you, you may want to sit near the teachers' table tomorrow, so you don't miss out on the piece de resistance ."
"And what might that be?"
Harry winked at her again. "You'll see."
*
The next morning Hermione walked down to the Great Hall for breakfast. True to his word, Hermione had not seen Harry all morning. She arrived early, expecting to see the Great Hall in an uproar, and was disappointed when everything looked normal. Thinking that maybe Harry had decided not to go through with it, she took her place near the teachers' table, deciding that if Harry was waiting until the Hall was full to pull the prank, she should follow his instructions. She had cast a Repelling Charm on herself before leaving the dormitory, and now waited expectantly for something to happen.
Dumbledore entered with the rest of the teachers from a door behind the teachers' table. The teachers didn't sit down until Dumbledore made to do so, and as they did, several loud, wet and disgusting farts, belches and other less savory sounds came from their chairs.
The students looked up at the table and laughed. Some of the newer teachers looked embarrassed, the more experienced ones merely shook their heads, and Dumbledore chuckled as he sat on his chair and it let loose with a fart that started in like a foghorn and ended in a high-pitched whistle.
Hermione giggled, but was disappointed. Wonderful Whoopee Cushions were funny, but hardly constituted the biggest prank Hogwarts had ever seen.
At the precise moment she thought this, every male at the Slytherin table sat up with a jolt, as if something sharp had poked them in the bottom, and instantly found their trousers down around their ankles. The laughter was louder this time, as everyone else in the Great Hall (especially the females) enjoyed the Slytherin boys' predicament of trying to get their trousers back up where they belonged. Hermione especially enjoyed the fact that Malfoy had spilled pumpkin juice on his underpants in the process.
No sooner had the Slytherin boys sat down, when all the goblets at the Ravenclaw table started spouting flame. Several people drinking from them at the time dropped their goblets in haste as the flames rose higher, toward the ceiling. The Ravenclaws all rose and tried to scramble away from the heat, but fell down almost immediately. All their shoelaces had been tied together. Meanwhile, the flames spread over the entire table, until a waterfall fell from the ceiling, dousing both the flames and the Ravenclaws.
Hermione carefully lifted her feet as the tidal wave ran under the table. If this pattern continued, the Gryffindor table would be next. She was not disappointed, as all the pieces of bacon on the table raised themselves into the air, shaping themselves into little piglets, who turned to the people eating them and started crying "how could you?" many of the Gryffindors looked horrified, some were laughing. Hermione thanked the fates she had not chosen bacon that morning.
The Hufflepuffs were looking around nervously, wondering what the prankster had in store for them. At first, nothing happened, and a few people started laughing nervously, thinking that whoever had done this must have been a Hufflepuff. They were proven wrong, however, as all the food platters on the table rose up and started doing a huge `wave' which quickly turned into a fight between the scrambled eggs and the pancakes. The Hufflepuffs raised their arms to block the flying food, and everyone was so busy watching them, that they did not notice what was happening to the ceiling.
The buckets of sticky substances that Harry and Hermione had commandeered from the kitchen were floating near the ceiling, hidden by Disillusionment charms. As though on a signal, they all started to tip. Snape looked up to see where the chocolate syrup dripping into his hair was coming from, and received a face full of molasses. All over the hall, students were screaming in disgust and shock as cascades of syrup, molasses, icing and honey poured onto their heads. Even those people not directly beneath the buckets got some, as the floor received a goodly amount of the mess too, and people, blinded by the substance in their eyes, thrashed around, running into each other as they looked for something to wipe the mess off.
Hermione's charm had worked, and she was left standing on the bench, repressing a shudder as she imagined what it would have been like to try and wash molasses out of her hair.
But Harry wasn't done yet. With a bang, the doors of the Great Hall blew open, and in flew a mess of sugar, flour, and chicken feathers, which adhered immediately to the sticky mess coating the students. Hermione laughed aloud as Neville blundered past her, looking like a giant chocolate covered chicken, while being chased by a bacon piglet that was yelling "you heartless jerk!"
Aside from Snape, the teachers had all managed to cast Repelling charms, and they looked around cautiously while trying to restore order. Flitwick was trying to hand Snape a towel to wipe his eyes, when a pair of hands materialized out of thin air, pointer fingers dripping wet with ice water, and dug themselves into the tiny Professors' ears. Flitwick jumped at the shock of the `wet willie' and fell back into Professor Trelawney, who tripped over the hem of her overlarge shawl, landing face first in a vat of applesauce. Professor McGonagall stepped forward to help her, when a loud bang went off at her elbow, and several dragon fireworks shot out of her fork and flew around the Hall. Professor Sprout started doing a spirited version of Riverdance on the tabletop, controlled by her shoes, stepping in platters of food all the while. Snape had almost gotten the mess out of his eyes, when his robes suddenly transformed from their usual black to a long green dress, a hat topped with a vulture, a fox-fur scarf, and a red handbag swinging from his arm. Enchanted cameras flew around the hall, taking pictures of the carnage: students covered from head to foot in muck, Professor Sprout dancing, McGonagall trying to stop the fireworks, Snape in his ridiculous outfit, the look of shock on Flitwick's face, and Malfoy being chased around the hall by a blank-eyed Millicent Bulstrode, who was calling after him, "I just want to hold you!" Crabbe and Goyle were too busy to help him, as their bags were hitting them repeatedly over the head and shoulders. As Hermione watched, Marietta Edgecombe over at the Ravenclaw table clapped her hands to her face, as enormous purple and green pustules erupted across it, pus running down her face in rivulets.
Several other students got special attention from Harry too. The entire Slytherin team dashed around the hall, being chased by Bludgers, undoubtedly stolen from the Quidditch Pitch, and whacked over the heads with their own broomsticks, which had flown in after the feathers and flour settled. Hermione couldn't help but notice that the former members of the D.A, with the exception of Marietta, had managed to remain cleaner than almost everyone else. Looking over at the Hufflepuff table, Hermione noticed Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot, and Justin Finch-Fletchley grouped together under a large umbrella that had materialized over them, trying to keep out of the way of the mess still falling from the ceiling.
Another waterfall poured down from the rafters, too large for an umbrella to block, and the doors swung shut as the hall filled up like a swimming pool. People scrambled onto the tables, benches, even bowls, anything that would float. The water rose rapidly, until Hermione, crouching on her floating bench with Ginny, could clearly see the fishing line attached to the Disillusioned buckets. With a sound like a drain plug being pulled, the windows of the Great Hall opened, releasing the water. Most of the gooey mess washed out with it, and Hermione noticed a silver platter, being rowed by a group of bacon piglets with spoons, all singing "This little piggy went to market" flow out one of the windows.
The tables settled back on the floor, after the water below window level had flowed out of the now open doors and down onto the grounds. Hermione climbed down off the table, laughing so hard she could hardly breathe. This had to be the greatest prank she had ever seen!
But Harry still hadn't finished.
Professor Dumbledore raised his wand, presumably to clean up the remainder of the mess, when it gave a loud squeal and turned into a pig with white feathery wings, which flew around his head, alternately chirping and squealing. A pair of metal gauntlets and a helmet from a suit of armor darted around Snape's head, the gauntlets curling into fists and challenging the vulture on Snape's hat to a boxing match with cries of "Put `em up, you overgrown canary!" When the vulture didn't answer, the gloves and helmet lowered themselves to Snape's eye level, chanting "What about you, ya girly man? Wanna try your luck?" By that time, most of the staff was laughing too. A sopping Professor McGonagall was grasping the back of her chair, pointing at Snape with tears of mirth streaming down her cheeks, delighted at the chance to have a laugh at the dour Professor. Sprout was still dancing, but she was no longer alone; Flitwick had levitated himself to her level, and they stood shoulder to shoulder, step-dancing like there was no tomorrow, Flitwick's feet flying through the air as he shouted, "That's the way to do it, Sprout m'gel!" Professor Trelawney was left looking utterly scandalized after a clear glass pitcher filled itself up with smoke and floated before her, saying "I foresee loads of fog tonight. Beware!"
But perhaps the highlight of the evening was when Harry himself appeared, behind Dumbledore's chair. The cameras flew towards him, and he caught them all in a sack. Harry stepped up onto the table and a huge spotlight appeared, shining down on him. He was wearing a neon-orange t-shirt with the words `IT WASN'T ME!' written across it in huge black letters. Smiling at the entire flabbergasted population of Hogwarts, He tipped a huge rear admiral's hat, turned right and left to his shocked Professors, bowed, and said,
"Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen; you've been a wonderful audience."
AN: I have no idea where I got the idea for most of those pranks, but it works.
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