𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗼𝘆, sirius black

˗ˋ 21

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
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-: sixth year :-

── IN WHICH PLANS ARE 
CREATED

. . .

Nancy couldn't quite say she was surprised to learn very quickly that the target of the boys' pranks were majorly Slytherins. After mentioning it, she found that they had charmed their robes to flash different colours, dyed all of their hair the exact shade of Gryffindor red, rendered any Slytherin-used toilet useless and managed to lock them out of their dorms. That was just some of their pranks, and she didn't hesitate to believe them when they said that they had pulled many more over the years.

She was, however, most certainly surprised that the four of them legitimately wanted her help in this. Nancy was nowhere near as skilled in the nature of prank-pulling to do well in what they were asking, but none of them seemed much put off by her expressing it. 

"You have a certain... essence." Sirius informed her after hearing it, watching the frown that had spread across her face since the description of their previous attempts. 

"An essence?" Nancy repeated. She knew that there were things about her that didn't match up with others her age - she was considered sheltered in the best sense of the word; having spent majority of her life travelling around with no one but her elderly grandfather and their copious amounts of magical creatures, which led to her not having the most adequate social skills because she didn't need to know how to speak to others her age when all she really had to speak to a bowtruckle that liked to nest in her hair. 

"Yeah." Sirius nodded. "An essence. You're smart, you're pretty, and there's no way that McGonagall will suspect that you've been corrupted just yet."

"Corrupted?" Remus blinked. "Mate, you need to choose your words better." He muttered, easily dodging the punch Sirius sent to his arm. 

"Shut up." Came the quick reply, Sirius coming back to the conversation. "Nancy, you have an essence." He repeated. "We think that you would be perfect for it. Don't we?" 

"Yeah, I suppose we do." James agreed, although his eyes were fixated on Sirius the same way that Remus's has been - half freaked by his enthusiasm on the subject and the other half wondering how many odd word choices he might make. "But listen, Nance, if you don't want to do this and you've only come here because Sirius and his... varying moods have you convinced that you need to do this but if you don't want to it's completely fine."

"Yeah." Peter spoke up. Sirius's gaze flickered towards him. "I mean, if you want to it's not-"

"It's fine." Nancy spoke up before Sirius could even begin to defend himself. "I want to do it, I want to help out - but only if you think I would be able to. If not, then I don't want to hinder you." 

Remus, who had been writing something down for the past couple of minutes since he had spoke, put his quill down. "I've got two ideas that we could probably do." He said. "One idea that James had that wouldn't be hard for us to do, and one that probably would have been a little harder for us to do but way easier with Nancy here." 

"Go on." Sirius nodded.

"Which one?"

"Both, either."

"James, want the honours?"

"Yeah, go for it mate."

"Alright." James nodded, standing up straight and clapping his hands together like he was one of the professors. "I thought we could Confund the owls. It can be just for the Slytherins or for everyone, we Confund the owls and nobody gets the right mail for a week."

"So James wants the Great Mail Swap of 76, alternatively knowns as the Act of the Confunded Owls." Sirius hummed, semi-proud of himself for coming up with the titles. "That seems easy enough, but I think - seeing as it's Nance's first time and all - we should do something more exciting."

"So we save that for a rainy day." Remus nodded and wrote something down. "Sorry, James, mate."

"No problem." The Potter waved him away. 

"Great idea though." Peter added, which was again waved away by James, an act of gratitude seemingly, because Nancy watched as Peter grinned and shook his head, seemingly uaed to James not taking credit when it was due. "What's the other idea, Moony?"

"It's a bit of a larger scale thing." Remus's quill tickled the bottom of his chin as the tip traced the pattern of something engraved in the desk. "Which is why I thought we could maybe pull it off with Nancy here. I think, with the right preparation and testing, we could turn all the doorknobs in the school into Portkeys."

There was silence for a moment. Four sets of eyes stared at the Lupin. 

Then James laughed, shaking his head. "You've done it now, Moons, that is brilliant." He lean forward and clapped him on the shoulder. Similar reactions followed, Peter and Sirius feeling the same way. Like Remus had said, it was on a much larger scale than the owl one, considering they were all kept in one place, and it was somewhat crazy - but just enough for it to be plausible.

When they had calmed down, gazes turned to Nancy. 

"What do you think, Nance?" Sirius asked. "You ready to help us?"

Nancy smiled. "Yeah, I think so."

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a/n
james is a proper british
 lad idc