Saturday, May 21, 1972.
James and the others headed to the Great Hall for breakfast. The fivesome had dark circles under their eyes, yet their expressions hid excitement. They wanted to see the reactions of the entire school when they appreciated their work.
James had several croissants for breakfast with pumpkin juice and an apple, "Look, there are very few professors..." said Lupin in a low tone, looking at the professors' table.
Normally, there would be most of the professors eat breakfast alongside the students, but now only two professors can be seen, Professor Sprout and professor James don't know.
"Have they noticed by now...?" asked Sirius with a slight smile.
"Maybe... they must be trying to fix it before the match starts," replied James. As he took a sip of the pumpkin game.
"Will they be able to fix it...? If they manage it, we'll have been working all last night for nothing," commented Peter doubtfully.
"The potion must be doing its job, let's hope..." replied James.
The group had breakfast conversing in low tones, wondering what expression the professors must have put on their faces when they saw the message and the grass in such a condition.
The other tables were noisier than usual, as it was the day when the Quidditch championship would be decided. Many older Gryffindor students tried to cheer on Ravenclaw and even got flags to cheer them on today.
When it was twenty minutes before eleven o'clock and the match was about to start, the poltergeist Peeves entered the dining hall with a wicked and mischievous grin as usual.
Peeves is the most famous and troublesome poltergeist at Hogwarts. He drives Filch and many students crazy, as he is always causing chaos and practical jokes.
He is a small, black-eyed man with a wide, evil face. He wears a green coat, bow tie, and blue pants, "Shit, it's Peeves!" warned Sirius. Whenever the poltergeist appeared in the Great Hall, it was always to create chaos and start a food war or something.
Everyone at the tables eyed Peeves warily ready to take cover before he threw a plate, dungbombs, or whatever he had planned.
"Attention, little brats! Rumors run wild! The quidditch pitch has been desecrated!" said Peeves in a booming, laughing voice.
"The quidditch pitch?" asked a Slytherin student.
"Desecrated?"
"Who's he calling a brat?"
Many questions began to be asked at all the tables confused. It was the first time Peeves had acted this way.
Many began to worry about such news, especially at the Slytherin table. They didn't want the last quidditch match to be canceled when they were so close to the title.
"If you want to know, go see for yourselves, you lazy bastards!" shouted Peeves as he began bombarding everyone with water-filled balloons. Peeves didn't discriminate between houses. He just targeted people at random.
"Aeromanteo!" exclaimed James, managing to deflect a balloon that was heading straight for his face.
The balloon that James deflected went straight into Sirius' face which exploded and drenched him in water, "Don't deflect it at me!" complained Sirius.
"Sorry..." said James, trying to hold in his laughter, "Let's get out of here, quick," he added as he fled the great hall. All the students began to flee, heading towards the quidditch pitch.
James proficiently used Aeromanteo to deflect Peeves' water balloons. At one point, he noticed that he had a person behind him, close behind him. Thanks to her striking red hair, he knew it was Lily Evans.
James said nothing and allowed Lily to stay close to him. This way the redhead was saved from being doused from head to toe by Peeves. Lily knew that when the shelling started the best thing to do was to get closer to James. She had seen him in the duel against Rabastan deflecting attacks easily.
As for her, she didn't have much real practice in defensive charms, so she had little choice.
As they left the dining hall Peeves kept chasing them, until they were heading out of the castle towards the quidditch pitch.
"Thanks...'" said Lily a little embarrassed for using James to protect herself.
"It's nothing. You can use me as a shield anytime you want," joked James. He thought Lily would frown at the joke, but she didn't.
"Mm... I'll take you up on your offer. You'd better not regret it in the future," Lily said with a slight smile.
As for the marauders, only James and Lupin were spared, "Let me dry you," said James, looking at Sirius, Peter, and Toby.
"Dessicatum," said James, flicking his wand. From the end of the wand came a jet of hot air directed at Sirius. His hair and robes dried after a few seconds.
He then did the same for Toby and Peter, who thanked James, "Where did you learn that spell from?" asked Lupin. He knew James was interested in spells that were useful for a duel.
"My mother uses it to dry clothes, and she taught it to me," James answered honestly.
"James... Can you use the charm on me?" asked a voice that belonged to Jasmine. Lily's friend who didn't have the idea to use James as a shield.
"Me too... please," said Khanna, a little embarrassed.
"Yeah, sure," nodded James, and within seconds he dried Jasmine and Khanna.
"Thanks," said Jasmine and Khanna as they touched their hair which was completely dry.
"What a convenient charm," said Lily, who had analyzed James' wand movement.
"It's very useful. You should learn it," commented James. The group of five boys and three girls started walking towards the quidditch pitch. James was explaining to Lily how to learn the charm, the wand movement, and the correct pronunciation.
Arriving at the stadium, there was a lot of bustling and murmuring. Usually, it is always like that, but this time it was different than usual. The marauders looked at each other with complicity and went to the stands where all of Gryffindor was.
The bleachers were at a good height that allowed them to see the whole pitch and the six hoops. James upon reaching the stands, could see the 'work of art' they had created yesterday.
Much of the manicured turf was torn up. The dirt formed large letters. The main message was in the center and read as follows:
[THE MARAUDERS]
Underneath this title was drawn in dirt two spheres and some strange brown flowers. Finally, there was a message in a letter not as large as the first message. It read as follows:
[SLYTHERIN SUCKS!]
"The quidditch pitch is ruined!" exclaimed a voice indignant at such an occurrence.
"Who are the marauders?" asked a Hufflepuff girl curiously.
"They're not from Slytherin..."
All kinds of questions were being asked in all the stands of different houses. Many are curious about the identity of this group of pranksters. Others are indignant and complaining that they had to be caught and punished, and others laughing at the prank.
The Gryffindor tier began to shout and hurl taunting comments at the Slytherin tier, reminding them of the dungbomb attack on their common room. A shouting war began between the two rival houses, one of who was shouting and throwing acid comments was Sirius along with the Prewett brothers.
"It was them, those damned Black and Potter!" cursed Mulciber and looked at Rabastan, who was silent and sitting comfortably.
"It's true. At first, I didn't think they could sneak into our common room, but seeing Potter's abilities..." said Avery, but quickly shut up as he noticed Rabastan's furious glare at him.
"I told them countless times, but they wouldn't believe me, you idiots," muttered Rabastan in a cold tone.
"Silence, please!" said a calm voice that incredibly was heard by the whole stadium even though its tone was low. It was Albus Dumbledore. The headmaster of Hogwarts, who was sitting in the middle stands along with the other professors.
The hubbub and verbal warfare between the Gryffindor and Slytherin stands gradually died down, "Thank you, dear students. I can see your enthusiasm for today's match. As you may notice there is a great message written on the quidditch pitch..." commented Dumbledore in a peculiar tone.
"Unfortunately, this group of pranksters were very prepared and poured a potion that protects their particular message, so we have no choice but to play the match with the pitch in this condition," said Dumbledore, and the whole Gryffindor stand exploded in applause, and happy shouts as if they had won a match.
"Calm down, calm down... without further ado, let's start with the exciting match we have ahead of us," added Dumbledore, and a few seconds later the Slytherin and Ravenclaw teams entered the pitch.
The Slytherin players, as they stepped on the letters written by James and the others had furious looks on their faces. Never had one group screwed them over so much in a single year. First, the flower pranks that hurt the first-year male students. Second, the 100 dungbombs that were thrown in the common room hurt all the years, and finally this insulting message towards their noble house on such a special day when they would lift the prestigious quidditch cup.
The match began. The Prewett brothers started chanting, "Long live the Marauders! Slytherin sucks!" all of Gryffindor joined in, even the Marauders themselves.
Sirius had a grin from ear to ear. He loved them cheering for his group this song made the Slytherin team furious causing them to make a lot of mistakes they normally wouldn't make. Plus, they were seeing the same message written on the grass.
Unfortunately, the Ravenclaw team was very bad and Slytherin managed to score 60 points, and then their seeker got the snitch without much trouble, winning the match by: 210 to 50.
With this result, Slytherin was crowned champion with 580 points, leaving Gryffindor in second place with 570.
The Slytherin stands were wild with joy. However, the Gryffindor crowd was not silenced and kept chanting the same thing trying to ruin the award ceremony which was only a few meters away from where the message was.
James could see Alex leaving the Quidditch pitch with a long face. As he was about to go after him, someone stopped him by the shoulder.
"Don't do it..." said William as he pointed to a girl who started to follow Alex.
James nodded. No one else wanted to see the Slytherin team lift the cup, so they began their walk back into the castle.
"Tsch, Ravenclaw sucks. They were the last champions and they didn't even win a match. They fall apart," Sirius said in annoyance.
"Yeah. At least they would have tackled someone or something," nodded James, who was slumped. He didn't like seeing Slytherin raise the cup at all and seeing the team members with sad expressions.
This was Alex's last year, and he didn't make it. How Alex personally trained him to improve as a seeker. He considered him a sort of teacher and friend at the same time.
"Let's get to studying and forget about this," said Peter, trying to change the depressing atmosphere. They all nodded, unbelievably only by studying something super boring like the history of magic could they forget about this.