Chapter 13: The Attack of the Jokers

Albus awoke next morning as usual and changed into his robes and quickly did the last of his Herbology homework (Professor Longbottom was going extra hard on the class), and headed for the Great Hall for breakfast, Andrew joined him on the way.
At breakfast, Naomi was already there, James across from her. Albus sat next to Naomi, and Andrew sat as well. Naomi seemed extra happy this morning, her hair not anymore droopy like when she was sad and her eyes were very bright indeed.
James smiled. "It's the day, Al!"
"What day?" Albus asked.
"The day we get back on Malfoy," James whispered, "I've got it planned. After Dinner, when Malfoy is heading for the dormitories, we'll play the trick. After dinner, okay, and meet me at the very top of the dormitory stairs. Don't forget, now, Al."
Albus nodded.
Then, the owls poured in at the Great Hall, dropping off letters to whom they belong. Borthwick had returned with another letter from Albus's father:
Heard you made it into the Quidditch team... as seeker. Nice job, Al, keep it up!
Regards,
Dad.
Albus sent Borthwick off again after writing a reply on the back of the parchment:
Thanks for the message, Dad. I really appreciated it. 
Then, he thought about everything that had happened over the days at Hogwarts. The return, everything, then wrote,
everything is fine.
Regards,
Albus.

Finally, Albus found himself at Dinner after a long, long day. His hard work on Herbology homework had resulted to a disappointing D, and Professor Longbottom had decided that it would do for Albus and a few other classmates extra classes that Saturday.
Albus had also been waiting and waiting for the first Quidditch practice for Gryffindor, but it never came. He asked Caspar Lee, the captain, about this, and Lee simply sighed and closed the book about Gargoyles he'd been reading. "Slytherin keeps getting the field whenever I book it for Gryffindor. I'll try again today, Albus, I'm sure Slytherin doesn't need this much practice."
Then, Defense Against Dark Arts had been once again in company of Professor Scipio, who had presented the class with an extra long lecture about the varieties of Patronuses until they could state the whole chapter on Patronuses exactly from the Defense Against Dark Arts textbook in their sleep.
Then, Professor Pippa Popplewell was getting too sweet, letting kids not turn in homework without consequences, going as far as letting Malfoy and his friends be excused for purposefully ruining Isabella Littledale's homework page by ripping it apart.
Then, Potions had been terrible, for Slughorn had not let the class make a potion, instead simply lectured about such potions as the forgetfulness potion, the Lucky Potion named Felix Felicis that'll make one extremely lucky, and so on.
Finally, Albus breathed, it was time to finally spend some time relaxing by watching Scorpius Malfoy, Snow Chang, and Lyon Crabbe bear some serious payback and crossed his fingers, praying for it to be good.
James sure showed that it would be good, smiling and eating his dinner staring straight at Malfoy trying seriously hard not to show a single sign of wanting to laugh at him.
Malfoy would keep shooting back this questioning look, wondering why James would look at him so.
Finally, James made a particularly goofy face towards Malfoy on accident, and, realizing his mistake, whipped around back to the tables.
Finally, dinner was done and Naomi, Andrew, James and Alfie Poe headed for the top of the dormitory stairs. Albus wanted this payback to be extra good.
James explained briefly that Archie Wyatt was not there because he was part of the plan, then continued leading them up the several flights of endless stairs.
Finally at the top, everyone waited. Then, they could see Malfoy, Chang and Crabbe.
"Getting ready, let them be in position." James said.
Malfoy, Chang and Goyle finally stopped in the perfect place. Then in came Archie Wyatt, who put a toe in front of Malfoy while he was walking and Malfoy tripped, then got up and started shouting at Archie to never do that again, catching everybody's attention.
"The audience has come," James smiled, "now comes our new and improved Stinksnap 2000."
Out of nowhere, the gooey, extremely smelly Stinksnap 2000 liquid dumped on to Malfoy, Chang, and Crabbe. They all stood there, absolutely frozen.
"Laughs from all who saw," Alfie Poe continued.
Sure enough, everyone laughed, pointed, and some even clapped, including Jodi Brown, Abigail Hilburn, and Isabella Littledale, who laughed extremely hard.
It was wonderful.
Naomi, Andrew, and Albus laughed as well.
"But that's not where it ends, because here comes the dungbombs 5000's, new and improved and invisible so nobody knows where one is." James smiled.
An explosion. Dung soon covered the Malfoy trio as well, each coated extra gooey, smelly, and terribly gross. Everyone clipped their noses with fingers but still laughed.
"Now," Alfie said, "what about a small coating of sprinkles?"
Sprinkles fell from the ceiling onto the trio. Malfoy looked ridiculous.
"Let's be fair, now," James laughed, "and give it a WASH."
Water dumped on Malfoy and the crowd continued to clap, laugh, and even Slytherins joined.
"Finally, the bows." Alfie smiled.
Confetti erupted and filled the room, hoots and hollers from the watching crowd, and Malfoy, Crabbe, and Chang all dashed past the students, raging, and headed straight to the bathrooms to wash out, throwing shouts at the crowd, who were laughing to their best.
Albus laughed and gave James a deserved high-five.
"Brilliant!" Albus, Naomi, and Andrew laughed.
"Proud for the comments," James smiled.
"And that," Alfie said,
"is," James continued.
"The show,"
everyone turned to see Archie Wyatt. Andrew high fived Archie hard and gave him a thumbs up.
It was a wonderful day.