The fourth of March in 1952 was a very important day. It wasn't important because of the fact that the beginning of March meant that the O.W.L.S. were creeping nearer and nearer but it was actually the fact that Saturday the fourth of March 1952 was Fleamont Charlus Potter's sixteenth birthday.

The day started with a rather suspicious situation occurring. At around six o'clock in the morning, the Fat Lady was woken up in her portrait to the sound of a whispered password from someone...who wasn't actually there. Obligingly, she swung forward with a confused expression and the invisible student stepped into the Gryffindor common room.

"Wow, I am so glad that I'm a Hufflepuff. This room is incredibly unsightly," Florean Fortescue muttered underneath his breath as he pulled the filched invisibility cloak off, the very same that Alastor had managed to nick from underneath Charlus' bed the previous day, in preparation for the boy's birthday surprise.

"Why'd we have to meet so early?" as if summoned by Florean's mental mention, Alastor appeared behind Florean on the foot of the staircase, yawning widely and stretching his arms out so that his pyjama sleeves showed some of his rather toned arm beneath. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and scowled at his mate, who had a beaming smile stretched across his face.

"Because otherwise other people would be awake and they would disrupt our surprise. Besides, some loser would probably report me for trespassing in the wrong common room and then I'd be expelled, gone from your life. Imagine that...a world without Florean..." he placed his hand on his chest with a sad, wide-eyed expression.

"A world without Florean would mean I'd get to sleep in on a goddamn Saturday morning," Alastor grumbled and Florean glared playfully at him, looking wounded before he clapped his hands and pulled his backpack off his shoulders, zipping it open and digging through it for a few seconds, eventually finding a roll of banners.

"I can't believe we're actually doing this," Alastor chuckled, catching the roll of banners that Florean threw at him, unravelling the shiny fabric and waving his wand so that the streamers wrapped their way around every banister, portrait and windowsill in the common room, the massive drop-down banner in the middle of the streamers finding its place right over the top of the portrait of Godric Gryffindor.

The drop-down banner was emblazoned with sparkly pink letters saying Sweet Sixteen with the number '16' dotted around the border of the banner, the inner circle of each number six being replaced by a rather unflattering picture of Charlus' face that Lyall had sneakily taken when the boy had been having a nap.

Florean snorted and waved his wand again, fixing it so that all of the streamers read Congratulations on being born sixteen years ago today, Flea, darling xo with bright pink letters, that flashed different shades of pink every few seconds so that anyone looking at it for too long would be able to feel their eyes hurting immensely.

"Is the 'darling' really necessary?" Alastor snorted, amusement and scepticism written all over his face as he glanced around the heavily decorated room, that hadn't even been finished yet. "The 'darling' is always necessary, Al," Florean replied in a flat tone that insinuated heavily that Alastor was slightly dim. In fact, not slightly dim - extremely stupid.

"Now for the pranks. We're in charge of the one here - the girls, Lyall, Brutus and Filius plus practically half of the S.S.E.A.W are setting up the other ones as we speak," Florean continued, clapping his hands and he dug into his bag once more, whispering to Alastor what exactly he wanted him to do.

It was going to be a great fourth of March.

~~~

Charlus Potter woke up on the day of his birthday to complete and utter silence.

He hesitated on getting out of bed for a second, as previous years had led him to fall on the extremely slippy floor or become a victim to buckets of maple syrup being poured on him from above, along with feathers that stuck to him or hard boiled sweets that bounced off his head. Yes, Charlus' friends were extremely kind when it came to his birthday.

However, nothing seemed to have occurred as of yet and Charlus had been awake for a good five minutes, meaning that he deemed the space outside of his four-poster bed curtains relatively safe. He stepped out and quickly got changed, constantly paranoid, and, just as he took a deep breath and came to the conclusion that perhaps his friends had matured this year, the bathroom door burst open and practically flew off its hinges.

"GOOD MORNING FLEAMONT!" Florean bellowed, holding his arms out widely for a hug as Charlus stared at him in complete and utter disbelief. Alastor and Lyall were both stood behind him, the latter looking rather flustered and the former smirking mischievously at the dumbstruck Charlus.

"Flo...why are you here? You're not allowed!" Charlus scolded his friend, secretly pleased that Florean was here, though he knew there would probably be a bad reason for it. Florean smiled at him indulgently, "I'm a Gryffindor now, bitch," he announced, pointing to his Gryffindor robes and tie.

Indeed, his previously yellow-lined silk robes had been changed to maroon and gold and he had also set a charm on his tie so that it matched the rest of the Gryffindors. Florean didn't half look weird in a Gryffindor uniform though and he knew it because he frowned down at his attire, "Yeah, maroon and gold isn't really my colour, is it?"

Charlus laughed before he turned to Alastor and Lyall expectantly, "So, why is he here? What have you got planned?" he asked them with a grin, only to be met with blank expressions from his friends, who exchanged extremely confused looks.

"What are you on about? Flo just wanted to join Gryffindor, he felt excluded. Didn't you, Flo?" Lyall smacked Florean, who had been observing his new robes in the mirror, and the boy jumped to attention, blinking in surprise before quickly saying, "Yep, extremely excluded," he stuck out his bottom lip.

Charlus raised his eyebrow, waiting for the catch but it seemed like his mates had actually completely forgotten about his birthday, which kind of made an upset feeling settle in his stomach. They didn't even seem like they were joking and Charlus felt the grin slide off his face.

It was fair enough - they were all busy with studying for exams and everything that was happening at that moment but he would've just liked a few words to show him that they hadn't completely forgotten about his special day.

"Come on, let's go to breakfast," Alastor announced and he clapped Charlus on the back, prompting him to go out of the door first, stepping back slightly with Lyall and Florean as Charlus walked forward, still rather dejected due to the fact that none of his friends had wished him a happy birthday yet.

If Charlus hadn't have been so buried in his thoughts, he probably would've spotted the simple, childish prank that had been planted but he didn't and the door creaked open, tipping the bucket that was balancing on the top of the doorway and Charlus was suddenly doused in a mixture of cream and flour, so that he resembled a rather creamy ghost.

The explosion of laughter behind him caused a grin to come to Charlus' face as he recovered from the flour-coating, cream dripping down his robes as he wiped some of the flour from his eyes. "I knew you hadn't forgotten," he laughed, relief filling him before he sighed slightly, "Though I could do with cleaning up before breakfast."

"Wait a second," Lyall held up his hand, still bent double from creasing up with laughter as Alastor wiped actual tears of mirth from his blue eyes. Lyall picked up his little magical camera, snapping a picture of the flour-coated, cream-covered Charlus Potter.

"Mate, I know just where you can clean up, though," Florean stepped forward, skirting around the pool of cream and flour that had fallen from the bucket above the Gryffindor fifth-year boys' dormitory.

Florean still looked strange in his disguised uniform but he winked and placed his hand on Charlus' chest and shoved him slightly to the top of the staircase that led into the common room.

Charlus stumbled because the cream on the flour didn't particularly make for a very secure footing, his entire body still covered in a mixture of flour and cream, which was soon gone because, as soon as he placed his foot atop of the first step, water gushed down from above and Charlus was entirely soaked, from head to toe.

This time, Charlus gasped loudly as the water was exceedingly freezing and it chilled him to the bone but at least all of the cream and flour was gone. Now, he just stood there, shivering and completely covered in water as his robes dripped droplets onto the carpet beneath him.

Alastor let out a bark of laughter, "Happy Birthday, mate," he said through his chuckles and Charlus stuck up his middle finger at the blonde, shaking the water from his hair in a way that would make a wet dog jealous.

"It's not over yet," Lyall commented, "You know how you're sixteen, right? Just keep that number in mind," he grinned at Charlus before beckoning for him to follow them down the staircase, a staircase that Florean practically bounded down in his excitement.

"What do you mean—" Charlus started to say before Alastor wrapped his arm around his shoulders and started to lure him down the staircase, "Ask us no questions and we'll tell you no lies, Flea," he smirked and Charlus glared at him, "Stop with the nickname, will you? My name is Charlus, not Flea."

Alastor blinked at him as if he didn't know what Charlus was talking about and a mock confused expression crept onto his face, "Really? Well, I think that the common room would disagree," he chuckled slightly as they reached the bottom of the staircase.

Before Charlus could ask what he meant again, there was a sudden burst of noise as applause and cheers filled the room and Charlus looked up, feeling a slightly resigned smile spread across his face whilst he sighed in exasperation at his friends, who were all grinning madly.

The majority of Gryffindor house was gathered in the common room - many looked rather reluctant and were sucking on lollipops which immediately gave the message that Florean had bribed them into being there but those closest to Charlus in age and ones who were in his year actually looked quite enthusiastic, amused or both.

A few girls that had dated Charlus in the past were looking especially eager but he ignored their flirtatious smiles and simply looked around the room, shaking his head. It was adorned entirely in pink, with the banners and streamers that Florean and Alastor had set up in the early hours of the morning and there were now balloons, that Lyall had conjured, decorating the walls.

"It's so...pink," Charlus chuckled as his eyes scanned the room, extremely amused and Florean beamed brightly at him, "We knew it was your favourite colour, that's why," whilst Alastor rolled his eyes and muttered underneath his breath that it was a, "Great observation of yours, Flea."

Charlus narrowed his eyes at his friend for the use of the nickname but everyone had already laughed and caught onto it, which caused Charlus to sigh in exasperation as he wiped some last droplets of water from his face before Minnie arrived from the portrait hole, mouthing something to Lyall as she entered, with Eugenia in tow who rolled her eyes and quickly dried Charlus with a heating spell, an act that gifted her an extremely grateful look from the boy in question.

"Happy Birthday, Potter," Minerva said to Charlus amiably as she escorted the boys out of the newly decorated common room, ignoring the slightly annoyed shouts of everyone behind them. "Hey! What are we supposed to do now? Just stand here? I'm bored!" a girl yelled from the front of the crowd in the common room and Florean span around on his heel and exclaimed, "Julie, your irrelevancy is bumming out my whole area. Go and be a party pooper somewhere else!"

"You're not even a Gryffindor!" Julie retorted back as everyone else laughed at Florean's sassy comment. Florean raised an eyebrow, "I am well aware of that. Did you seriously think I've attended this school for five years without knowing which house I belong to?" he asked her and the annoying fourth year was about to answer when Alastor grabbed hold of Florean's arm and tugged him out into the corridor, "Come on, stop fighting with lesser individuals or else you're going to miss the next prank."

Minnie led the crowd of Gryffindors (plus Florean) down the corridor and, whilst Alastor distracted Charlus with a story about why Florean had ended up staying in the dormitory, instead of escaping out of the portrait hole as they had originally planned, Eugenia discreetly slid her wand out from beneath her sleeve and, upon Lyall's nod, waved it in the direction of the end of the corridor, sending a bolt of purple down the hallway that carried a little message to whoever was there.

It started off rather quietly at first. Charlus, finally dried off and cleared from all traces of flour and cream, was whistling a little tune to himself and looking very happy because his friends had remembered his birthday and, by the looks of it, the day was going to be very fun. He had no idea what was in store for him though....but he was going go find out very soon.

"Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Flea-boy, happy birthday to you...." was what could be heard floating through the corridor as the majority of the group, with only the exception of Mia, Pomona and Filius, sauntered down to breakfast. At first, it sounded like someone was singing it underneath their breath but Charlus could see that none of his friends were singing and yet....the song followed them through the corridors, drifting into their ears and getting louder and louder until it was practically deafening.

It was only as Lyall started snickering at the utterly confused and bewildered expression on Charlus' face that the boy noticed that Lyall's eyes were flitting slightly near one of the suits of armour in the corridor, who's helmet mouth was parted slightly as the song drifted through the iron lips, much to Charlus' amusement and curiosity.

"Have the suits of armour been singing me Happy Birthday?" Charlus questioned, glancing at his friends curiously as they all tried to keep a straight face, shaking their heads simultaneously with the same gleam of mischief glinting in their eyes. "Wouldn't you like to know?" a voice suddenly came from behind the suit of armour that had been singing.

At first, Charlus thought the suit of armour had spoken but, when he span around he saw, his girlfriend, Euphemia, leaning out and hanging onto the arm of the knight as her feet were balanced precariously on the base of the suit of armour. She jumped down with a flourish as Charlus' grin grew and he gave her a massive hug as she laughed.

Bearing in mind the fact that Mia hadn't been sleeping because of the stress of the upcoming wedding; the partially secret relationship with Charlus that hardly any of her family knew about (yet) and the O.W.L.S. that were looming closer and closer, she was looking rather happy and content. Or perhaps that was just because Euphemia didn't want to spoil her boyfriend's birthday....

"Can you guys stop being so lovey-dovey? It's making me feel depressingly single," Eugenia complained and Alastor sent Lyall a meaningful glance, who simply blushed and didn't say anything which led Alastor to roll his eyes at his friend. "Sorry, Eugenia," Mia laughed as Charlus wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his side affectionally.

"Did you like my little prank then?" Euphemia asked with a smile as the two of them hung back behind the rest of the group. Charlus' face reflected his utter surprise, "That was you? That's very clever, Ms Black," he told her with a teasing lilt imbedded into his tone, nudging her playfully and she beamed at him, flicking her hair in a mockingly conceited manner, "I know, I'm the female version of Einstein."

"Did you enjoy your flour and cream dusting this morning?" Mia then inquired, sounding extremely amused and suspiciously knowledgable about the pranks in the earlier hours of that day, which caused Charlus to frown slightly. "How'd you know about tha—" Euphemia shushed him by placing a finger on his lips, "I'm exceedingly intelligent, remember? Either that, or I'm a Seer. You choose."

Hm. Charlus narrowed his eyes at his girlfriend suspiciously as she flashed an innocent smile at him, making him wonder whether all of these birthday pranks were linked to one another and whether all of his friends knew about them and were plotting against him. Which, of course, was entirely right because pranksters always work together and seeing as Charlus was a prankster through and through, he knew how they operated.

That turned out to be rather ironic, actually, because you would've thought that, being a troublemaker himself and also the victim of at least four pranks that morning already (and it was only nine o'clock!), Charlus would've been more circumspect upon entering the Great Hall and perhaps seen the fact that Mia gave Minnie the thumbs up just before Charlus walked through the doorway. But he didn't...

You see, there was a crack that had always been there in the stone floor on the border between the Entrance Hall and the Great Hall and, pretty much every morning since first year, Fleamont Charlus Potter tripped up over the crack, never learning his lesson because he would be too busy chatting whilst entering the Great Hall.

Now, earlier that week, Filius had placed a bet with Pomona that he would, yet again, trip up over the cracked stone and fall flat on his face. If Charlus tripped up on his birthday, it would trigger Pomona and Filius' prank that they had set up by themselves whilst everyone else was planning or creating the other pranks. All that needed to happen now was the daily, classic, clumsy act of Charlus Potter's.

As expected, whilst everyone who was involved in the prank watched the sixteen year old cross over the threshold into the Great Hall with baited breath, Charlus tripped over the crack and reached out for Euphemia, who smirked and stepped aside as her boyfriend staggered about for a second before regaining his composure and taking a huge breath.

There was a moment of silence before the cracked stone suddenly rose up and lifted Charlus along with it, almost like he was an animal ready to be sacrificed to the gods and he was lurched forward so that he landed on the floor, sprawled at the feet of a giggling Clover, who had just been about to sit down next to Daphne Meadowes at the Ravenclaw table.

As soon as his body made contact with the flagstones, an alarm sounded and the noise was so high-pitched that many of the students sat inside of the Great Hall clapped their hands over their ears. At first, it seemed like just a whining alarm noise but it soon became clear to Charlus that there was a voice cutting through the sound, saying, "IDIOT ALERT! IDIOT ALERT! DON'T FALL - IT GETS YOU DOWN, FLEA! ANYONE WOULD THINK YOU'D KNOW HOW TO WALK AT SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE BUT APPARENTLY YOU'RE INCAPABLE. IDIOT ALERT!"

The sound of applause after the alarm cut off made Charlus look up from where he was on the floor and the birthday boy glanced up to see Filius clapping his hands in delight as Pomona offered a hand to help him up, which he took gratefully with a smile directed at her, one that quickly slipped as the girl in question clapped him on the back and proclaimed, "That was just Flea-tastic!" before cracking up.

It looked like a lot of things were going to be 'Flea-tastic' that day and, in a weird way, Charlus was strangely excited to see how his sixteenth birthday was going to pan out.

I'm back :) My exams are finally over -Physics was the last one today and I've done all my shows and I'm now just in rehearsals for Christmas showcases, dance shows and the Shakespeare play, King Lear, that we're doing at school. But I'll still be here to update and hopefully more frequently now (because I feel terrible for leaving you all for so long).

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! There is more to come with the pranks - if you have any ideas, feel free to comment them. If you spot any of your ideas in either this chapter or next chapter then congratulations, you're a prank genius <3