The Lost

Relaxing Time

Two days before the start of the Christmas holidays, the twins, the trio, Lee and Dean launched their enormous prank. It began with lunch in the Great Hall, as each person who entered without saying the appropriate password had their hair turned either red or green. It was specifically designed so that Ravenclaws and Slytherins got red hair, whilst Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs got green hair, which had taken quite a bit of clever spellwork. 

The tables, meanwhile, had been charmed to break out into loud, off-key Christmas carols each time someone said the word 'Christmas'. They had enchanted the Christmas trees to applaud whenever anyone mentioned Professor McGonagall, or else to boo and heckle whenever someone mentioned Professor Snape.

That alone would have merited recognition as the prank of the decade, and certainly produced a fair amount of merry uproar amongst the student body, along with a good bit of annoyance amongst the teachers. Lee and Dean were both more than satisfied with the accomplishment, and determined to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labors. But the twins and the trio were equally determined not to be outclassed by each other, and kept pushing the boundaries of what was possible. All day Sunday, fireworks exploded in the corridors, gargoyles sang and students' hair kept changing color. Harry enchanted the suits of Armour to insult the students in English, the teachers in Latin and the Headmaster in classical Arabic, whilst Fred and George adorned every portrait in the school with artfully arranged and festively colored toilet paper. 

The crowning achievement came late Sunday night, when Harry and Theo managed to Stupefy Mrs Norris, sneak into the Slytherin Common Room with the Invisibility Cloak and Spellotape the wicked old cat to the chandelier. When they reported their success to the twins on the train the next day, the Weasley boys reluctantly acknowledged that they had finally met their match. 

".....I'll still have plenty of time to trounce you at Quidditch" James said as they made their way into the cottage. 

"Dream on, old man," Harry retorted, making his way up to his room.

Sirius came in followed by Remus latter that day after Harry and them got settled in for the holidays, "Who's up for a game of Exploding Snap?'

Harry, as it turned out, had a marvelous Christmas. Evangeline had a silent war going on which Harry was beyond excited with that and secretly so was James.  Sadly though Harry was dragged over to dinner at Dumbledore's castle with the whole Order of something. Harry has yet to gleam it from his father. It did turn out to be oaky in Harry's expectations, they didn't really talk to him except for the twins. 

It was latter that night when they were all sitting around in a sitting room Spero chose that moment to reveal her self to the room and  release an odd, snakey sort of yawn thing, that Harry had honestly no idea about, but it revealed her razor sharp teeth and sent Ron to the other side of the room. Sirius, on catching sight of the snake, had leapt to his feet as if to bolt if the time came again. 

"I didn't think you brought that thing with you." He yelped, eyeing Spero carefully and Harry rolled his eyes. 

"Spero goes with me everywhere." 

"Who's Spero?" Mrs. Weasley asked curiously as Sirius shuddered both James and  Remus chuckled. Harry held up his arm to show them his snake. 

#Say hello, beautiful# Harry hissed and she reared up and gave her tail a wave. 

#Hello human people# 

Harry grinned. "She said hi." 

The rest of the room, looked at Harry completely stunned. "You are a Parselmouth." Moody stated, his voice obviously shocked. "How is - but that should - your not..."