Toujours Pur | Euphemia Black

Chapter 79 | Flea-tastic

The fourth of March in 1952 was a very important day. It wasn't important because of the fact that the beginning of March meant that the O.W.L.S. were creeping nearer and nearer but it was actually the fact that Saturday the fourth of March 1952 was Fleamont Charlus Potter's sixteenth birthday.

The day started with a rather suspicious situation occurring. At around six o'clock in the morning, the Fat Lady was woken up in her portrait to the sound of a whispered password from someone...who wasn't actually there. Obligingly, she swung forward with a confused expression and the invisible student stepped into the Gryffindor common room.

"Wow, I am so glad that I'm a Hufflepuff. This room is incredibly unsightly," Florean Fortescue muttered underneath his breath as he pulled the filched invisibility cloak off, the very same that Alastor had managed to nick from underneath Charlus' bed the previous day, in preparation for the boy's birthday surprise.

"Why'd we have to meet so early?" as if summoned by Florean's mental mention, Alastor appeared behind Florean on the foot of the staircase, yawning widely and stretching his arms out so that his pyjama sleeves showed some of his rather toned arm beneath. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and scowled at his mate, who had a beaming smile stretched across his face.

"Because otherwise other people would be awake and they would disrupt our surprise. Besides, some loser would probably report me for trespassing in the wrong common room and then I'd be expelled, gone from your life. Imagine that...a world without Florean..." he placed his hand on his chest with a sad, wide-eyed expression.

"A world without Florean would mean I'd get to sleep in on a goddamn Saturday morning," Alastor grumbled and Florean glared playfully at him, looking wounded before he clapped his hands and pulled his backpack off his shoulders, zipping it open and digging through it for a few seconds, eventually finding a roll of banners.

"I can't believe we're actually doing this," Alastor chuckled, catching the roll of banners that Florean threw at him, unravelling the shiny fabric and waving his wand so that the streamers wrapped their way around every banister, portrait and windowsill in the common room, the massive drop-down banner in the middle of the streamers finding its place right over the top of the portrait of Godric Gryffindor.

The drop-down banner was emblazoned with sparkly pink letters saying Sweet Sixteen with the number '16' dotted around the border of the banner, the inner circle of each number six being replaced by a rather unflattering picture of Charlus' face that Lyall had sneakily taken when the boy had been having a nap.

Florean snorted and waved his wand again, fixing it so that all of the streamers read Congratulations on being born sixteen years ago today, Flea, darling xo with bright pink letters, that flashed different shades of pink every few seconds so that anyone looking at it for too long would be able to feel their eyes hurting immensely.

"Is the 'darling' really necessary?" Alastor snorted, amusement and scepticism written all over his face as he glanced around the heavily decorated room, that hadn't even been finished yet. "The 'darling' is always necessary, Al," Florean replied in a flat tone that insinuated heavily that Alastor was slightly dim. In fact, not slightly dim - extremely stupid.

"Now for the pranks. We're in charge of the one here - the girls, Lyall, Brutus and Filius plus practically half of the S.S.E.A.W are setting up the other ones as we speak," Florean continued, clapping his hands and he dug into his bag once more, whispering to Alastor what exactly he wanted him to do.

It was going to be a great fourth of March.

~~~

Charlus Potter woke up on the day of his birthday to complete and utter silence.