Mischief Managed!

6.

Artemis Scamander II was a desperately good-looking seventeen-year-old boy, with blonde curls and wonderfully deep brown eyes. On many occasions, the Marauders had been known to laugh about Scamander's "muddy" eyes, but Lily believed that they, and particularly James Potter, were jealous of Art's handsomeness. In fact, the only student in the school who surpassed Art in attractiveness was Sirius Black himself, and as Sirius Black was arrogant and vain, this did not count for much. Not to mention the fact that Sirius never had time for girls, unless it was convenient for him. He was much too busy causing mischief with his friends. Art on the other hand was a true lady's man. He was warm and generous and considerate… so much so that in their sixth year, Lily had fallen deeply in like with him.

"Good morning, Beautiful," Art smiled winningly, kissing Lily on the cheek as she sat down beside him.

"Art," Lily said slowly, gazing up at the teacher's table. "Is that what I think it is?"

She heard Art sniff behind her. "I'm afraid so, Flower. How distasteful. Some of us are trying to eat, you know!"

He had raised his voice, so that the last sentence drifted across the hall to the Gryffindor table, making four seventh year boys laugh even harder.

For above the teacher's table, in the place of the usual Hogwarts banner, was an enlarged wizarding photograph of the Seventh year Slytherin, Severus Snape, picking his nose.

Lily turned back to Art, preferring to look at him rather than the hideous photograph.

This was not the first time this week that something strange had happened. In fact, in the weeks after Mrs Norris had been found in the Astronomy Tower, there had been a marked increase in Marauder-like pranks. Only the morning before, everybody in the Ravenclaw tower had awoken to discover the word "swot" scrawled across their foreheads. Thankfully for Art, he had managed to hide his with his fringe.

Now, Lily hadn't found the "swot" joke particularly humorous for several reasons: namely, that Sirius Black had called her a swot many times, and secondly because her boyfriend's ego had taken a massive blow that morning. However, she could not help but find Snape's photograph slightly amusing, a fact that her boyfriend did not approve of.

"What are you smiling about?" he demanded grumpily, as she gazed back to the Head table, where Dumbledore, McGonagall and Slughorn were now deep in discussion, staring up at the towering monstrosity with mixed reactions. Dumbledore seemed mildly impressed, while Slughorn was rather concerned and McGonagall was seething.

Lily bit her lip, unwilling to provoke Art's touchy mood further. He never had been a morning person, after all.

"Nothing," she murmured absently, unable to stop herself from gazing over to the Gryffindor table.

James Potter caught her eye, and his laugh froze mid-way across his lips in shock. Lily quirked her eyebrows at him, which was code for: nice photo, Potter, glad to see such a wonderful display of maturity and integrity from the Head Boy. This made James shrug simply in reply, as if to say:Glad you thought so.

Art was talking to her again, Lily realised. Tearing herself away from James' eyes, she smiled politely and turned back to her boyfriend.

"I couldn't believe my luck when I walked into the bathroom!" Sirius was boasting for the fifth time that morning. "There was Snivelly peering into the mirror with a finger jabbed up his snoz! He didn't see me, well of course he didn't, I was invisible… so anyway I went over and stuck the camera in front of him. You should have seen him jump at the flash!"

Lily massaged her temples. It had been a mistake sitting near the Marauders in Charms; she knew that now. Not only was she forced to listen to Black's boasting, but she could feel Potter's eyes boring into the back of her head, apparently hopeful of a continuance of their staring contest.

Finally snapping, Lily turned.

"Yes, yes, Black, you're very clever, congratulations and all that… but can you please pay attention now?"

Without waiting for a reply, she turned back to the front of the room to find Emmy looking at her curiously. Lily shrugged, and as she did so, she heard the unmistakeable slap of a high five.

"She liked our prank!" James voice rang out across the room, a little louder than he had perhaps intended.

"Mr Potter!" Professor Flitwick's voice rang out even louder. The teacher looked halfway between amusement and dismay. "Let me assume that you did not just confess to the unfortunate display in the Great Hall this morning, and shall we proceed with the lesson?"