Chapter 36 - Third Year and Halloween Prank - I

Holidays were now over and it was time for third year. I chose Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures as my Electives. It was compulsory otherwise I would have not taken any electives as it would eat up my free time. There was only one year left till Hogwarts became dangerous. So this year was very important to strengthen myself and after this year it was going to be a little difficult to sneak around Hogwarts with all the danger lurking around the corners. I wanted to be ready for the challenge.

The notable characters joining Hogwarts this year were Katie Bell and Cho Chang. There were also some other characters joining that were named in the canon but they were not too important.

My plans for this year were to reach NEWT level in Healing and Duelling. I also had to learn spells from the Auror preparatory school booklet which I found in my library. I don't know how it found its way there as neither of my parents were Aurors and I will never know but it contained a lot of useful information about Aurors and some of their internal laws.

Next step was Mastery studies and at the top of my list were Ancient Runes, Warding and Curse Breaking. They could be studied simultaneously and it would be very useful in the coming years.

I also had to improve my legilimency more by practising on 7th years who had good Occlumency shields. I had to practise being able to go through their shields without them noticing.

I had to find a way to cleanse the Ravenclaws Diadem of the Horcrux. Researching on Horcrux can be left for later years but this was more important. The Diadem was rumoured to increase processing speed of the brain and also provide eidetic memory. It was what I needed to speed up my mastery studies. Otherwise it would take me at least 2 years to complete mastery studies in a single subject according to my estimation. The Diadem would speed up my academic progress by many times.

Another thing to do was start practising Apparition and try to master it. I would be able to reach NEWT level in Healing in 3-4 months and that was enough for me to heal apparition accidents.

A few weeks passed quietly after the opening feast with not much disturbance. I was preparing for the Grand opening of my pranking days. I planned to use a lot of spells I personally crafted for the pranks.

Spell crafting a lot of knowledge in Ancient Runes and Arithmency. The spell was designed using Arithmency while the wand movement was created using the knowledge of Ancient Runes. The naming of the spell was just for young users to concentrate on the spell and was not too important for the spell itself. Wand movement which was designed to move our magic in a specific pattern and intent were the most important parts of a spell. One thing I noticed was that whenever I used the number 3 or 7 during the spell creation, the spell gave better results. So if I designed a prank spell to last 7 days then it would be much harder to remove it than I spell which was designed to last just one day. If the number of flicks with a wand during a spell casting was 3 or 7 then it was much stronger than other spells. This proved that 3 and 7 were strong magical numbers.

What mattered most to me while creating a spell was to make sure that the spells did not give out light like the accio and levitation charm. I did not want the origin of the spell to be seen by anyone. It took a lot of work to modify prank spells and make them cast without any light but it was worth it. I also designed spells in such a way that a simple 'finite' could not counter the effects.

<General POV>

There was a bang above the doors of the great hall and fumes of smoke suddenly appeared. The smoke cleared quickly and everyone was met with the sight of 4 howlers like letters each with a different design which resembled faces of animals. They were similar to the mascots of the 4 houses. There was a lion, a badger, a raven and a snake.

The Lion spoke first in a deep voice, "Hello everyone, I hope everyone is having a good time. You can call me Leo."

The Badger then spoke in a kind motherly voice, "I am Stripes."

The Raven spoke in a silky ladylike voice, "Raven."

The snake spoke, "You can call me Slyde."

Leo "We are the new Marauders."

The was a gasp from the professors while Snape's face looked red with anger. The Weasley twins started jumping with joy and doing crazy things.

Raven "It seems some of you people know about the original Marauders and their antics. Let me give you a history lesson about them for the sake of others. It was a group of 4 students who attended Hogwarts and were famous for their pranking skills. They attended the school at a time when He-who-must-not-be-named was had started the wizarding war and the dark side was rising. So there were lot of attacks on students in the name of bullying by some of the children of dark families. No punishment was given to the perpetrators and the other students started fearing these bullies. These 4 friends did not like what was happening in the school and decided to retaliate against the bullies using pranks. They repeatedly pranked the bullies until they gave up their attacks on the other weak students. They were heroes of the victims at a time when they had given up all hope since the professors did not do anything to help them."

I know the marauders were not the completely good side. They were bullies too but they bullied using too many pranks which instead of physically hurting their targets, humiliated them. Their favourite targets were the Slytherins who were coincidentally the bullies and this reduced the bullying even though this was not the main aim of the marauders. I am just using their name and praising then just for the effect it had on Snape. I could also help Harry in the future by using my Marauders.

Stripes "We have noticed that the bullying that the original marauders reduced in Hogwarts has increased once again. So we four have decided to continue their legacy to prank all the wicked including staff members who are encouraging the bullies."

Leo "Yes we are going to prank the hell out of the snakes."

Slyde "Shut up Leo. Some Lions are bullies too so we are going to prank them too. We are going to prank all the student who take their bullying to extreme harmful levels."