WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU PUMPKINS , james potter

━ twelve. so... we're still doing this friendship thing, right?

CHAPTER TWELVE:
- so... we're still doing this
friendship thing, right? -
1977

OKAY SO... MAYBE PRANKING THE MARAUDERS wasn't the best idea. Sure, perhaps making Sirius Black go completely bald for two days straight or destroying Petigrew's latest comic book— both things the boys were notoriously obsessed with— wasn't the greatest of ideas, but Merlin, it was kind of (totally) worth it.

     To walk around the school knowing that you'd been the one to get away with pranking the Marauders, that was, conceivably, one of the greatest kinds of brilliance. Defying all odds and getting revenge? It was almost like a dream to Madeline.

Although Lupin singing out half of his Charms presentation had been a sure sight to see, Black sporting a muggle baseball cap during breakfast the next morning was the icing on the cake. Potter had been MIA, and rumor had it Madame Pomfrey had to air his head out every other hour for a week straight as a precaution. And let's just say Peter Pettigrew would have a red nose for the next couple of weeks.

     Karma was kind of a bitch that way though, wasn't it?

     Madeline had been on a glorious high. Never one to gloat (she preferred letting her abilities speak for themselves), the prank against the Marauders made it clear (if it hadn't already been before), Madeline was a force to be reckoned with.

     It was evident to nearly everyone of her contributions to the prank and somewhere along the way, she had adopted a weird sort of following. Someone had even gone as far as to anonymously (and mysteriously) leave a small teddy, much like the one she had forgotten receiving about a month ago after going into anaphylactic shock. This bear was black, though, graced with a tiny smile and a note attached in neat handwriting: congratulations with the marauders , that was hilarious! Madeline stashed it in her empty trunk along with the other bear— yes she kept it, sue her for having a soft spot for stuffed animals. Merlin, can a girl live?

All was well, if Madeline could say so herself. Asmara had become a little less annoying and a little more tolerable as she was suddenly the coolest first-year to grace planet Earth. Lily Evans had somehow managed to become her friend and Madeline found it wasn't so bad having a talkative, awkward ginger around who gave you the left over sweets sent by her mum. Somehow Madeline had even won over her housemates. It was subtle— the silent exchange of head nods, seats being saved for her, last minute invites to study groups— but it was there.

     For once, things seemed to be going not bad.

But then the first prank hit, and everything kind of (totally) went to shit.

Asmara had been the first victim. It made sense, she was the easiest target, the most susceptible to mischief and mayhem, and boy, did the Marauders have their fair share of that. Madeline had heard about it from Lily.

     "It was just terrible, God, you should've seen it, Madeline!" Lily exclaimed with a mouth full of cookie. "One minute everything is calm and the next, POOF! She's got no eyebrows!"

No one had seen Asmara since.

      Next, they got Thomas. He'd been sitting, quietly finishing his homework on the bleachers of the quidditch field (that'd been his first mistake)— his new favorite hanging spot— when he was cornered by James and Sirius. Madeline hadn't seen it with her own two eyes so she wasn't sure how much of it was true, but rumor had it the Gryffindor quidditch broomsticks (miraculously, all seven of them) had malfunctioned. This ended with Thomas fifteen meters in the air. Upside down. For thirty minutes. In the cold.