Gryffindor Common Room – 8:42 p.m., Two Days After the Boggart Incident
It began with toothpaste.
To be clear, not cursed toothpaste. Not poison toothpaste. Just... cursed-adjacent toothpaste. Specifically, Ron's.
The packaging looked normal enough: Muggle-style tube with a wizard sticker slapped on that said "Enchanted Mint – For Magical Freshness!" which sounded like someone had run out of marketing ideas halfway through.
Everything seemed fine.
Until he started brushing.
First, the foam came out lavender. Weird, but survivable. Then, it started producing bubbles. Big ones. Silvery and floating gently, like soap orbs at a toddler's birthday party.
Except they didn't pop.
They multiplied.
They hummed.
And then they started lifting Ron off the floor.
"Uhhh," he managed, eyes wide, "guys?"
Harry looked up from his homework, blinked, and calmly said, "Ron, you're... ascending."
"I KNOW I'M ASCENDING," Ron snapped, flailing mid-air, toothbrush still jammed in his mouth.
One bubble latched onto his ear and vibrated. Another circled his ankle like a predatory balloon. By the third, Ron was nearly horizontal, floating above the rug like a depressed parade float.
"Is he—" Dean started.
"Yep," said Seamus. "Bubble-levitation. Classic."
"CLASSIC?!" Ron shouted, upside down now. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN CLASSIC?!"
Seamus snorted. "Well, I may have read something about it once… In a joke book. Or possibly a cursed diary. Hard to say."
"GET ME DOWN!"
Harry, for his part, was torn between laughing and helping, but the laughter was winning.
Hermione, however, stood, rolled up her sleeves, and muttered a few choice counter-charms under her breath. Her wand glowed a warm gold as she jabbed it at Ron with precision.
Nothing happened.
Ron continued to float.
"Well, that's not supposed to happen," she said, squinting.
Ron gave her a Look. "You think!?"
She jabbed again. Ron rotated 180 degrees. His legs now pointed directly at the ceiling. A bubble gently booped his nose.
Dean was red in the face from holding in laughter.
"It's like he's trapped in a muggle lava lamp," he choked out.
Finally, after a long string of wand flicks, one sharp word from Hermione sent Ron dropping like a sack of potatoes. He hit the couch with a WHOMP, bounced once, and landed in a heap of limbs and foam.
Silence.
Then a very long, very bubble-filled burp escaped him.
Everyone burst out laughing.
Everyone except Ron.
"I'm gonna hex someone's ancestors," he muttered, spitting out foam.
"Did you eat some of it?" Hermione asked, mildly horrified.
"I panicked!"
"Did it taste like mint?"
"No. It tasted like betrayal."
Seamus, now wheezing in a nearby beanbag, threw a pillow at Ron. "Well, I'm just saying, it wasn't me."
"Then who was it?" Ron grumbled, glaring around the room. "Because someone clearly put a spell on my toothpaste. I don't just spontaneously turn into a sentient bubble."
Ginny strolled in just then with a piece of toast in her mouth and blinked. "Ron, are you foaming at the mouth or are you in the middle of a rabies cosplay?"
He pointed wordlessly at the tube of toothpaste, which was now leaking glitter.
Ginny nodded, finished her toast, and said, "Y'know, it's usually Seamus."
"Oi!" Seamus said. "That's libel!"
"You literally enchanted our toilet to hum 'God Save the Queen' last week."
"It was subtle! Artistic even!"
"You set the loo on fire."
"...Modern art?"
Common Room – Fifteen Minutes Later
The conversation turned suspiciously quiet. The toothpaste had been confiscated (by Hermione), the rug de-bubbled (by a fourth-year prefect), and Ron had officially declared revenge (with witnesses).
And yet—no one confessed.
And that was the real mistake.
Because now, it was personal.
Breakfast the Next Day – The Great Hall
The prank retaliation hit faster than a Bludger on espresso.
Dean was the first victim.
He'd just sat down at the Gryffindor table, barely awake, eyes still glazed over in that "just-survived-Potions-with-Snape" way. He reached for his scrambled eggs.
Except… they weren't eggs.
They were small, glossy beans.
He frowned. "Did I—wait, is this... are these jellybeans?"
Seamus leaned over. "That's a weird-looking one," he said, pointing to a bean shaped like a piglet.
Dean picked it up.
It oinked.
Loudly.
In Latin.
"Oporculus sum!" it squealed, doing a somersault and landing in Dean's juice.
Everyone stared.
Another bean began vibrating.
"Mate," said Ron, already scooting away, "your breakfast's got a better vocabulary than Crabbe."
Before Dean could respond, all the beans erupted in sound—tiny piggy voices shouting war chants in dead languages, leaping from his plate and charging across the table like sugar-fueled berserkers.
One climbed onto Harry's toast and declared itself king.
"Porcus primus!" it shouted. "Regem fabarum!"
It then exploded into glitter.
Even Hermione laughed.
And that was mistake number two.
Because now, the Gryffindors were united.
Two Days Later – Unrest in the Castle
By midweek, it was an all-out prank war. No one was safe. Not even the house-elves.
Someone (probably Seamus) had enchanted every portrait in the Gryffindor stairwell to sing showtunes. Loudly. Off-key. Constantly.
Sir Cadogan was now belting "Defying Gravity" with zero shame and negative pitch accuracy.
Meanwhile, Neville opened his Herbology notes to find every word replaced with the phrase "botanical betrayal."
"Why does it say that 427 times?!" he cried.
"Maybe it's a metaphor," said Harry, trying very hard not to laugh.
Even the staircases got in on it. They started rerouting everyone directly into suits of armor. Ginny got stuck for ten whole minutes inside one that politely refused to open again.
"You're not wearing the correct socks," it said in a snooty voice.
"I'm wearing socks at all, you tin kettle!"
"Unacceptable."
The Pygmy Puff Disaster
No one was ready for what came next.
It started with a box. Unmarked. Left in the Prefect's Bathroom. Some say it was charmed by Peeves. Others whisper it was Fred and George's doing, long-distance.
Either way, it hatched.
Hundreds of pygmy puffs. Squeaking. Spinning. Yelling in perfect French.
One rolled down the corridor singing the French national anthem. Another tackled a Hufflepuff and yelled "la révolution est arrivée!"
They swarmed like pastel tribbles on fire.
Draco Malfoy walked out of the Slytherin common room and was IMMEDIATELY buried in pink fluff. When he emerged, he looked like he'd fought a cotton candy dragon and lost.
"WHO DID THIS!?" he screeched, hair full of puff fuzz.
A pygmy puff on his shoulder squeaked, "Je suis vengeance!"
It bit him.
Malfoy fainted.
No one helped.
The Truce that Wasn't
By Friday, things had escalated to include:
Butterbeer that turned your hair green for six hours.
Quills that whispered dramatic compliments.
Textbooks that moaned when opened ("Ohhh yes, turn my pages—" "NOPE." snap shut)
A full-on sentient pudding army.
The pudding was the final straw.
At dinner, every table had been set with what looked like normal dessert. Innocent. Gooey. Deceptively peaceful.
But when the spoons hit the bowls…
"OH YEAHHHH!"
The puddings spoke.
They flexed.
One did a flip and shouted "YEET!" directly into a Slytherin's face.
Another grew arms and started doing the worm across the table.
Even Dumbledore clapped.
"This is truly... inspired," he said, reaching over to high-five his pudding.
McGonagall was done.
"I will NOT tolerate talking desserts," she muttered, rubbing her temples.
But it was too late. Hogwarts had been consumed by prank madness. Students were swapping theories, alliances were forming, and somehow, despite the madness, everyone was having more fun than they'd had all year.
Even Hermione, who tried to act above it all, secretly left a note in the library that made all Slytherin textbooks whisper "your eyeliner's uneven" in ominous tones.
No one admitted anything.
No points were lost.
But the message was clear.
Mess with Gryffindor… and you get the glittery beans.
...
Working my ass of to give you guys another chapter, so repay me with stones.