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“Severus, we are holding an emergency Order meeting to discuss new information I have uncovered. Please report to Headquarters as soon as you receive this message.”
Professor Snape scowled as he watched Lupin’s wolf patronus fade. He had found it lurking in his quarters, waiting to pounce on him the moment he stumbled in. How typically Lupin of it.
Who does he think he is, pretending we are anywhere close to being on a first-name basis? Snape thought with a sneer, storming across his cold, tiled floor to the calendar he had stuck to the wall.
He wanted to know just how late he would have to stay up tonight and just how early he would have to be up in the morning. If he had to— on top of sitting through the Order meeting he had found waiting for him the moment he had gotten through a Death Eater meeting— also stay up well into the night roaming the halls of Hogwarts in search of exasperating little nuisances out past their bedtime, he would… well, he would do his very best to ensure that everyone else at the Order meeting was as irritated and annoyed with him as he was with his lot in life.
Snape squinted at his calendar. What day was it? The third of November? He didn’t appear to be on patrolling the corridors tonight… Wait a minute. Snape’s eyes fixated on the date. Lupin calls a sudden emergency meeting at Headquarters on the third of November. Coincidence? I think not. Lupin is trying to pull a classic Marauders’ prank on me once again. Well, I am not falling for it this time.
Teeth gritted, Snape spun around with a dramatic swish of his cloak and slammed open the doors of a nearby cabinet. Grabbing a bottle of firewhisky in white knuckle grip, Snape started his long walk to the apparition spot Headmaster Dumbledore had designated for the teachers.
~ ~ ~
Snape rapped on Grimmauld Place’s door impatiently. Finally, the door swung open to reveal the face of none other than the night’s culprit.
Lupin greeted him with one of his fake little smiles and opened up the door a little wider, revealing Mr. Weasley standing behind him, wand held cautiously. Snape didn’t know whether to be impressed with their safety measures or irritated. With the Fidelius Charm in place, the odds of Death Eaters showing up on the door step, much less knocking, were ridiculously low— non-existent one could say. Although Snape supposed one could say he was technically a Death Eater. No doubt Lupin and Black would definitely say so, Black to his face and Lupin behind his back.
“Severus, it’s good to see you. Unfortunately, you did not make it in time to hear me give my report,” Lupin said, his tone dripping with fake politeness. Snape gritted his teeth at the familiarity of his address. “Right now, we are all having drinks and updating each other on our respective tasks. Why don’t you join us, and, on the way, I can fill you in on what I shared …” Lupin blinked, eyes falling on what Snape was holding in front of him like a shield. “You brought firewhisky?”
“You can drop the act now, Lupin!” Snape spat, shoving past Lupin into the decrepit entryway. He faced the two-faced wolf with his chin raised defiantly. Lupin didn’t even have the grace to look abashed, instead raising his eyebrows in mock confusion.
“You thought I wouldn’t catch on to your little plan, didn’t you?” Snape continued on bitterly. “You thought it would be a good laugh to invite me here along with everyone else, just so you could all shake your heads with mocking disapproval when I stuck out like a sore thumb! You thought I would come clueless and unprepared, the perfectly set up punchline for your mutt of a friend, but the joke is on you, Lupin, because despite your deliberate dissimulation, I brought a present.” He tapped the firewhisky with a smug smirk.
He expected Lupin to drop the charade at that point, but instead both Lupin and Mr. Weasley stared at him as though he had gone barmy.
“Severus,” Remus said cautiously, as though trying to calm a rabid dog, “what are you talking about?”
“Don’t feign innocence now!” Snape snapped, feeling a little disconcerted by their rather convincingly confounded stares. “Do you really expect me to believe you actually needed to call an emergency meeting today of all days?”
Lupin frowned, shoulders stiffening a bit defensively. “Perhaps you think you’re the only spy worth holding a meeting for, but—”
“Oh, give it up, Lupin!” Snape interrupted angrily. “This so-called ‘Order meeting’ is clearly just a surprise party for Sirius Black!”
The reaction he got was not at all the one he had expected. Instead of Lupin admitting defeat and owning up to his attempted prank, his face drained of color and he stared at Snape in horror, mouth gaping.
“It’s Sirius’s birthday!” Mr. Weasley exclaimed, slapping a hand against his forehead in self-remonstration. “I didn’t even remember to wish him a happy birthday!”
“Of course, it’s the third of November,” Lupin murmured numbly. “How could I have forgotten? I’m just about the worst friend a man could ask for.” He covered his face in his hands in despair.
“Wait, there is no surprise party? You actually forgot your best friend’s birthday?” Snape gaped at Lupin in disbelief. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so hard on him for forgetting his Wolfsbane potion if he is naturally this forgetful.
Lupin dropped his hands from his face, immediately defensive. “I spent twelve years trying to forget he existed, and last year he was in hiding! I doubt even he remembers it is his birthday if his behavior today was anything to go by!”
Lupin abruptly narrowed his eyes at Snape suspiciously. “How on earth did you remember it’s his birthday?”
“I am a naturally observant person,” Snape replied snootily. He hesitated, then added, “I also remember all the ridiculously extravagant activities you and your friends got up to on that date, in particular the giant golden and crimson cake during our third year.”
Snape remembered watching from across the Great Hall as they paraded in with the cake, their smiles stretching from cheek to cheek as they unabashedly sang a ridiculously off tune version of Happy Birthday. Snape had kept his expression full of disdain, but secretly his heart had been full of a strange, almost painful longing.
For a moment, he had wondered what it would be like to taste such a vibrant, cheerful flavor of friendship. Despite their obvious (at least in his eyes) shortcomings, they still managed to make such carefree camaraderie look as easy as breathing. Much easier than Lily and he had made it look, that was for sure.
For a moment, he had wished he had been one of the many clad in scarlet and gold, on his feet cheering next to Lily at Gryffindor’s table.
For a moment, he had wished to be a part of that tooth-rottingly sweet tableau.
Lupin’s eyes light up at the memory. “Oh, yes! It was glorious, at least before we…” His eyes abruptly flicked toward Snape, and his lips quirked upwards in an involuntary, amused smile just before a guilty expression settled on his face.
The next moment, Potter had whispered in Black’s ear, a devious smirk had stretched across Black’s face, and then they had taken Snape’s wish and thrown it in his face, both literally and physically.
“Before what?” Mr. Weasley questioned as he looked back and forth between Snape and Lupin curiously. At his question, Lupin’s guilty expression took on a more sincere quality.
“Before they levitated it into my face,” Snape answered drily, irritated when Mr. Weasley’s expression went through the same amused to sympathetic journey Lupin’s had.
“Even you had to see the humor of it,” Lupin tried.
Snape’s lips pressed into a thin, white line. “Hard to see anything with blood dripping down your face from a cake dowel stuck in your forehead.”
Lupin and Mr. Weasley both winced in unison.
“We were not exactly the most considerate people back then,” Lupin admitted.
“Back then?” Snape raised an eyebrow.
“People do change!” Lupin protested. “You still see Black and I as we were all those years ago to a ridiculous extent! For example, did you really think I planned a surprise party and tried to trick you into coming just for a laugh? Why would I ever trick you like that? Even as teenagers, I wouldn’t stoop that low.”
Snape stared at him. Maybe the reason Lupin thinks I could possibly let bygones be bygones with him is that he has the memory of a goldfish. “Three words,” Snape stated slowly. “Halloween costume party.”
Lupin stared at him blankly.
“First year,” Snape added, and remembrance dawned on Lupin’s face.
“Oh! Alright, I’ll give you that.” Lupin said with a poorly concealed smile.
“What?” Mr. Weasley asked, looking lost.
“I told Severus that he was invited to a Halloween costume party the students in our year were throwing in an abandoned classroom. He wasn’t invited, though, and it wasn’t a costume party,” Lupin explained. “Luckily, he came as Dracula, and no one really noticed. It was Mary Macdonald’s birthday, though, and he was the only one who didn’t bring a present.”
Snape still remembered exactly how it had felt to stand all by himself in the thick black robes Lucius had so helpfully transfigured his school robes into, trying to smooth down his blatantly high collar. Luckily, no one had really noticed the small bit of fake blood dripping down the corner of his cheek before he had wiped it off. Even if they had, they probably had just assumed he had gotten into a fight. Already, he had acquired a bit of a reputation for doing so.
The worst part hadn’t been the costume. It hadn’t even been hearing Mary loudly tell Potter that she had not invited him, and then having nothing to say when, despite his obviously empty hands, she still asked him in a disgusted tone if he had at least deigned to bring a present.
“That seems a bit cruel,” Mr. Weasley said with a frown.
“It was Sirius’s idea, and I never thought he would actually come.” Lupin turned to Snape. “Why did you believe me, anyway?”
Snape looked away uncomfortably a second before Lupin abruptly grinned. “Oh, I remember! I told you that Lily had asked me to let you know about the party, and that she would be there, when in reality Lily was in detention for hitting James with a bat boogey hex.”
The worst part had been wandering through a crowd of people, who couldn’t seem to stand being within three feet of him, and failing to spot a familiar redhead whose presence could possibly make the entire fiasco worth it.
Lupin actually had the audacity to look proud of his past self. Snape wondered if he could get away with hitting him with a bat boogey hex. It was not like Headmaster Dumbledore could put Snape in detention for it anymore.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that!” Lupin teased. “It was an honest prank.”
“It was the exact opposite, actually,” Snape corrected with a scowl.
Lupin rolled his eyes. “It’s not as though you’re the paradigm of honesty.”
Snape’s lips twisted into a cold sneer. “True,” he conceded, eyes glittering with malice. “However, I have been working on my truth-telling recently— for example, when I told the truth about your ‘furry little problem’ to my students.”
Any trace of sympathy for Snape quickly disappeared from Mr. Weasley’s eyes, and Lupin’s carefree attitude— brought about by reminiscing about the ‘good’ old days, no doubt— was replaced with barely veiled disgust. “First you know Sirius’s birthday, and now it turns out you also remember all our little code phrases from twenty years ago. One could think you were a bit obsessed with us.”
Him obsessed with them? Snape’s hand clenched into a fist. “If I am somehow obsessed with your little band of miscreants because I remembered Sirius Black’s birthday, then James Potter is— was equally obsessed for knowing mine.”
Lupin let out a startled laugh. “You think James knew your birthday?” Lupin scoffed, voice thick with condescension.
“He did!” Snape noticed his voice had taken on a somewhat shrill quality and felt a surge of self-loathing. Here he was falling back into the same old behaviors that had rendered him such an amusing target for his peers’ pranks. “He did,” he repeated, lowering his voice to more composed tone.
“Whatever gave you that impression?” Lupin questioned, eyebrows raised in an utterly infuriating way.
“Does the date January 9th mean anything to you?” Snape asked, hating to give the odious man such information but not enough to stand the idea of letting Lupin think himself right.
Lupin’s brow furrowed, but no recognition shone in his eyes. “I assume that would be your birthday?” he asked with polite disinterest.
Snape mentally marveled at Lupin’s ridiculously poor memory. “Yes,” he answered flatly. “It also so happened to be the day Potter chose to throw his wedding.”
Lupin blinked. “How is it you would remember something like that?” he questioned crossly. “What makes you think that it wasn’t just a coincidence, or that it wasn’t Lily who chose that date? She and you were not on the most aimable of terms, in case you forgot.”
No, I hadn’t, actually. Snape thought, grinding his teeth. “I know it wasn’t a coincidence,” Snape began, each word bitingly sharp, “because Potter thoughtfully mailed me an invitation to his wedding with the prescript ‘Happy birthday in advance, Snivy!’ and the postscript ‘This is a joke. Don’t you dare even think about actually showing up, greasy git’.”
Lupin tried to smother an amused snort and Mr. Weasley stared, mouth gaping in disbelief. Lupin attempted to pull himself back together, no doubt for Mr. Weasley’s benefit. “I find it highly unlikely that James would do such a thing,” Lupin denied, but the evident nostalgia in his tone made it clear, at least to Snape, that he did not, in fact, find it at all unlikely.
“I still have the invitation,” Snape said, irritated. “I keep it in my ‘Proof that Potter was a Prat’ drawer. Would you like me to pull it out at the next Order meeting so that you can gush over the familiarity of his handwriting?”
“You seriously dedicated a drawer to him?” Lupin asked, wrinkling his nose.
Snape didn’t blush but it was a near thing. “I started it in third year, when I was gathering evidence to support him being expelled,” he explained, chin raised in self-defensive haughtiness.
“Tell me,” Lupin said, leaning in with a sharp smile, “do you have a different drawer dedicated to Harry, or did you just start labeling your evidence for him ‘Jr’?”
Snape pursed his lips. Harry Potter had a cupboard assigned to him, but Lupin didn’t need to know that. “Here,” Snape said, determinedly changing the subject by shoving the firewhisky at Lupin. “There is no way in hell I am being the only one to give Sirius Black a present.”
Lupin looked down at the firewhisky, his face flooding with renewed guilt as he remembered his forgotten friend. “Thank you,” he said, and Snape was surprised to find he actually sounded sincere. Then Lupin abruptly shot Snape a suspicious glance. “It’s not poisoned, is it?”
“No. However,” Snape added with smirk, “I did have plans to inform him it was previously given to me by Lucius Malfoy just as he was mid-swallow.”
“Lucius Malfoy gave it to you?” Mr. Weasley questioned, eyes narrowed.
“He keeps forgetting I don’t drink,” Snape explained with a shrug. Glancing at Lupin, he couldn’t help but add, “he is almost as bad a friend as you are in that regard.”
Lupin for once didn’t bother to defend himself, instead groaning and burying his face in his hands. “I can’t believe I forgot. I should have called the Order here for a surprise party, not just to tell them about the recent dissent in the werewolf camps.”
Lupin abruptly straightened, dropping his hands away from his face. His eyes were wide with excitement. “What if it’s not too late?” he exclaimed. “Is there any way we could possibly distract Sirius for a long enough time to decorate the dining room and acquire some cake?”
Snape grimaced, but Mr. Weasley was immediately on board. “I’ll ask him to go show me Buckbeak!” He clapped his hands cheerfully. “When Kingsley asked last time, he told me Sirius talked on and on about his daily routine for over an hour. I’ll keep him distracted while you get everything ready!”
Lupin turned to Snape. “Would you Apparate to Hogsmeade and pick out a cake? I’ll pay you back.”
With what money? Snape considered giving Lupin’s raggedy robes a pointed, disdainful look, but his own past of poverty held him back. He supposed it would also be exceptionally in poor taste considering he had significantly contributed to Lupin’s current lack of occupation.
Remembering that moment of sweet revenge put him in a charitable mood. “Very well, I will get a cake,” Snape acquiesced in a begrudging tone. “However, that is all. I refuse to help with any gaudy, Gryffindor themed decorations.”
Lupin then had the gall to invade Snape’s personal space, putting a hand on his shoulder and making eye contact in a way that made even Snape, the master of unwavering stares, excruciatingly uncomfortable. “Thank you,” he said, and Snape, unnerved by the pure sincerity in what he considered the paradigm of fake niceties, batted his hand away.
“Don’t mention it,” he gruffly replied, but then hesitated before leaving. “Chocolate or vanilla?”
Lupin looked puzzled. “What— Oh, for the cake! Chocolate, definitely.”
Snape raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? I thought chocolate was poison to dogs.”
“Yes, I’m sure!” Lupin said with a huff, affecting a wounded expression. “You think I wouldn’t know such a basic fact about my best friend?”
Snape opened his mouth to give the obvious rejoinder, then thought, No, too easy. Turning on his heel, his cloak unfortunately just barely failing to slap Lupin in the face, he Apparated away.
~ ~ ~
Approximately twenty minutes later, Snape rapped on the door once again, trying to hold the cake out of view in case Mr. Weasley had failed at distraction and Black opened the door. Most of the time in search of cake had gone to waste mentally accepting the fact that asking to have Sirius Black iced onto the cake would be too conspicuous, and he would therefore have to look the owner in the eyes and ask her to ice Happy Birthday Padfoot! onto it.
He had managed it by telling himself that it wouldn’t be nearly as embarrassing as he was imagining it to be. Unfortunately, he had discovered that to be a lie. The mocking look that insufferable witch had given him… Snape ground his teeth, giving the door another firm knock.
When Lupin answered the door, Snape shoved the cake at him. “My job here is done,” he stated with a sneer and started to turn, trying to make his escape before Lupin saw the writing through the see-through cake cover.
“Nonsense! I still need to fill you in on what I learned of the other werewolves,” Lupin immediately protested, and Snape entered Grimmauld Place with a sigh.
When they entered the dining room, everyone instinctively paused in their decorating to make sure Black wasn’t with them. Snape internally cringed at the odd looks he was subject to. To think, I was so close to not ending up at a surprise party for Black! Snape thought bitterly. I should have just kept my mouth shut and left the firewhisky at home. I was always going to end up sticking out like a sore thumb anyway.
The dining hall had been transformed into a glittering, golden and crimson horror. Someone had charmed the word SURPRISE! on the wall opposite the door, and someone else had transfigured random objects into Hippogriff-shaped balloons. Snape noticed Mrs. Weasley charming glowing paw prints onto the walls and along the floor while Kingsley Shacklebolt hurried in from wherever he had gone. He brought with him an assortment of wizarding sweets, which he quickly began distributing along the tabletop.
Luckily when Lupin showed everyone the cake, he took mercy on Snape, claiming he had preordered it and Snape had merely picked it up. He even forwent joining in on the decorating to discuss Order matters with Snape, instead of leaving him to lurk awkwardly in the corner of the room. Headmaster Dumbledore was currently in deep conversation with Alastor Moody, so Snape was forced to make do with just the werewolf for the next twenty minutes.
“Here he comes!” came Mr. Weasley’s stage whisper as he slipped into the room, and indeed a second later Black waltzed through the door. Snape was amused to see the utterly gob smacked look on the wizard’s face as everyone— except Snape, of course— broke out into song.
As the final notes of the happy birthday song echoed through the room, Black had to wipe an arm across his eyes. He let out a chuckle even as a determined tear escaped his sleeve. “I can’t believe you remembered!” he exclaimed, voice choked with emotion. He let out another chuckle. “I didn’t even remember.”
“Of course we did!” Lupin said chipperly. “How could we forget?” Once Black’s attention wandered, Lupin glanced over and, smiling, made eye contact with Snape. Against his will, the corner of Snape’s lips tugged upwards for a split second. It was strange, having an inside joke with Lupin. Not bad, surprisingly, just… strange.
As the group’s merriment gradually died down and everyone settled down to enjoy their various beverages and to converse, Snape sat in a chair nestled a bit behind the others—not close enough to make people feel compelled to include him, but also not too conspicuously removed. He itched to take his leave, but he was determined to wait until at least one other person had so as not to draw attention to himself. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to be quite free of alternate obligations.
“Snape, would you like a glass of firewhisky?”
Snape startled at the sound of Black’s voice directed at him. Black was holding up the regifted— twice over, come to think of it— bottle of firewhisky and raising an eyebrow at him. Looking around, it became clear that he had already offered his gift to everyone else.
“No, thank you,” Snape replied shortly, and Black’s brows lowered at his apparent ungratefulness.
“Come from a family of teetotalers?” Black questioned with a slight goading undertone.
“The opposite, actually,” Snape replied promptly, then paled in horror. No, no, no! Did I really just say that aloud? To Black, of all people?
Black blinked, clearly taken aback by his candor. He studied Snape, eyes narrowed, and Snape desperately tried to affect a nonchalant expression. He knew it was too late, however. Black had scented blood, and it was only a matter of time before he went for the kill. Snape dug his nails into his palms, bracing himself for a mocking remark or a ruthless follow-up question.
“Want some butterbeer?”
Snape’s eyes widened in surprise, and he eyed Black with scrutiny. The wizard was now holding up a bottle of butterbeer in the place of the firewhisky, and although Snape searched his expression thoroughly, he could find no trace of mocking in Black’s demeanor.
Slowly, Snape nodded. Without further comment, Black filled a glass and handed it to him, and the general chatter resumed.
Once he no longer felt like he was being dissected by passing glances, Snape stared into his glass of butterbeer.
What if I take a sip, and I start throwing up snakes? What if it turns my nose into an actual beak? What if it turns my hair pink?
Even he wouldn’t stoop that low.
The thoughts came unbidden, yet refused to leave.
You thought that when he dared you to follow Lupin through the tunnel under the Whomping Willow.
You’re being paranoid, like always. Just drink the damn butterbeer!
There’s a reason you’re always paranoid. Are you really going to fall for one of Black’s pranks yet again?
Snape took a sip of his butterbeer. It tasted fine. He waited. No urge to hurl up his guts appeared. He glanced around. No one was pointing at his potentially compromised hair and bursting into laughter. He glanced quickly at Black. He was trading jokes with Miss Tonks, no cruel smiles to be seen.
Snape took another sip of his butterbeer and wondered who would be the first to call it a night.
~ ~ ~
The moment Snape finished his glass of butterbeer, Dumbledore met his eyes with a smile, causing him to raise his eyebrows in confusion.
“I am sorry to say it is time for me to get back to Hogwarts,” Dumbledore stated loudly as he rose from his chair. “Severus, perhaps you would like to go with me?”
Snape nodded quickly, rising and following him out the door. They walked and Apparated in silence, but once they reached where their paths diverged, Dumbledore paused, placing a hand on Snape’s shoulder.
“I am proud of you, Severus,” he stated solemnly.
Snape blinked, unable to think of what had brought that on. Although Snape always felt he deserved an Order of Merlin, First Class for tolerating even a moment of Black’s presence, he had often felt that he and Dumbledore did not see eye-to-eye on that matter.
Before Snape could reply, though he knew not what his reply would have been, Dumbledore strolled away, quickly becoming a distant bubble of cozy, golden light floating into the darkness.
As Snape entered his quarters, he felt a small yet undeniable sense of warmth in his chest from Dumbledore’s words, words he had never expected to hear. As he crossed off the third of November on his calendar, a slight smile lingering at the edges of his mouth, he thought that perhaps the day had not gone quite as terribly as he had expected.
~ ~ ~
“Well, that was a pleasant end to the day,” Sirius remarked as he set down his empty glass. The dining hall was now empty of all except him and Remus. The vibrant decorations remained, however. Sirius supposed he would need to take them down before the next Order meeting, but he looked forward to keeping them up for the next couple days as a lovely reminder that there were still people out there that found his existence worth celebrating.
“Yes, quite enjoyable,” Remus agreed with a warm smile, leaning back in his chair. He was slowly rolling a chocolate wrapper into a ball between his fingers, and the familiar sight reminded Sirius of pleasant days long past.
“The party, or having an excuse to jibber-jabber with Nymphadora?” Sirius asked with a teasing grin.
“Sirius!” Remus protested, but his blush betrayed him. A small smile refused to remove itself from his lips. “I wouldn’t advise getting in the habit of calling her Nymphadora, I would have you know. When I slipped up, she made it clear to me that such a habit could ultimately bring about an untimely demise.”
“Noted,” Sirius said with a smile. His eyes fell on the playing cards still out from their last game, and he let out a sigh. “It was nice to interact with the others outside of Order matters. I wonder if we could make this a sort of regular thing after meetings.”
Sirius abruptly chuckled. “I bet Snape would not be too happy about that! He looked utterly miserable at having been roped into a surprise party for me, although to his credit he masked it well. If he had known it was my birthday, I doubt he would have come within a hundred yards of Grimmauld Place!”
“You would be surprised,” Remus replied quietly, and Sirius raised an eyebrow.
“How come?” he asked, leaning forward conspiratorially.
“He already knew it was your birthday,” Remus explained reluctantly, his brow furrowed. “I still don’t understand why he of all people remembers your birthday. I can’t imagine you bothering to remember his, for example.”
“January 9th,” Sirius replied immediately with a cocky grin.
Remus gaped at him. “What purpose could you possibly have for retaining that sort of information?” he exclaimed. Much to Sirius’s amusement, Remus looked supremely offended by Sirius’s superior memory.
“James chose it for his anniversary,” Sirius explained. “It was hilarious!”
“But how on earth did you both know?” Remus asked, exasperated. “Did Lily tell James just so that he could do that? That doesn’t sound like her.”
“No, Lily didn’t catch on about the dates,” Sirius said with an eye roll. “She is— was almost as bad as you are when it comes to remembering dates. I found out Snape’s birthday during seventh year, remember? Malfoy sent him a fancy pocket watch that I saw getting delivered in the Great Hall, and for the rest of the year we teased Snape by calling Malfoy his new stepfather.”
“… Merlin’s beard, we were terrible,” Remus muttered, resting his head on the table.
“Don’t get all morose on me now, Remus!” Remus remained morose, so Sirius gave him a comforting pat on the back. “Perhaps we could plan a surprise party for him this upcoming January as a sort of belated apology, hmm?”
Remus’s head shot up in alarm. “That’s a horrible idea, Sirius! He would be in a perpetual state of paranoia the entire party long! I think that would be more torturous for him than all your past pranks combined, even if you orchestrated it with the purest of intentions, which I highly doubt humanly possible for you.”
“But,” Sirius said, lifting a finger, “he would be surprised. That you must admit.”
Remus couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. “Yes, I daresay he would.”
~The End~