TBAY: Prank and the (Second) Pensieve Four

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 77703

Down on the shore, Derranimer was in full flow, as Prank frolicked 
happily about in the sea.
"I *do,* however, have a problem believing that Peter would have 
looked to James Potter to resolve this particular problem. Does Peter 
have any reason to believe that James would try to stop Sirius? That 
James wouldn't just laugh and heartily concur with Sirius that it was 
a good joke? I'm not saying Peter exactly *told* Lily; he sort 
of 'slipped,' and mentioned something in front of her at dinner or in 
the Common Room, let's say. Peter does seem to have been regarded as 
an idiot by James and Sirius -- 'forgetting' and mentioning a thing 
like that might be exactly the sort of thing they'd *expect* Peter to 
do. And after all, 
he'd *seen* Lily go so far as to pull her wand on James when she 
thought he'd gone too far. He might easily have figured that she 
wouldn't be a bad person to tell."

Marina sat, apparently brooding, for a minute, then abruptly 
said: "Well, why didn't *Lily* go to a teacher? Why in the world 
would she have gone to *James*? Lily *hated* James, why would she 
have told him about the Prank?"
"Easy. Or -- er, well, possibly not. But Not That Hard, anyway. She 
didn't *tell* him about the Prank -- she *confronted* him about the 
Prank! She assumed he was in on it! So she told him how disgusting he 
was and then he protested that he didn't even know what she was 
talking about and then he found out about the Prank! And *then*" 
said Derannimer with relish, "James decides to go after Snape." 

There was a noise between a cough, a sneeze, a pop and a crack behind 
them. Derranimer and Marina looked round.
"Whoa! You frightened me!" said Derranimer to the person who had 
appeared on the shore.
"Sorry," said the newcomer in a muffled kind of way. She began to 
unwrap twenty-odd scarves from around her head, revealing herself as 
Kirstini. 
"Haven't we met before?" asked Derranimer, narrowing her eyes.
"Once, I think. In the George. I bored the pants off you about Rita 
Skeeter and Lucius Malfoy. I'm sorry about that. Anyway, it's about 
that Prank..."
However, Marina had shot up with a look of loathing on her 
face. "You! Last time I saw you, you made me very angry."
"Yerrrs, I'm sorry about that too." Kirstini said, through what was 
obviously a very blocked nose. "You might want to sit down, because I 
might be about to do it again. I'd just like to point out first of 
all that I am really rather ill, and if you hit me, it's murder."
"Yeah, yeah, get on with it." growled Marina.
"Right. What I was wondering was, have you proposed a timescale for 
all of this? Sirius brags to Wormtail about what he's done. Wormtail 
runs all the way back to (let's say for argument's sake) Gryffindor 
tower, from some unknown point where Sirius was when he told him. He 
then accidentally yet immediately manages to let slip to Lily that 
Sirius has told Snape that he'll be able to work out what MWPP are up 
to every full moon if he goes down to the Whomping Willow and presses 
a knot on the tree - and that he'll see Lupin, who is a werewolf and 
transforming right at the moment..."
"Yes, we know what the Prank is, thank you." said Derranimer.
"Yes, but did Lily? If she wasn't going out with James at this point? 
It's a lot of information to absorb in a relatively short period of 
time. Anyway, let's say, for convienience sake, that James is sitting 
in the armchair next to them at this point, and Lily can just turn 
around and confront him with what Sirius has done. James them makes a 
snap descision to run and save Snape, because he'll look a lot better 
in Lily's eyes if he does so, and runs out of Gryffindor tower, all 
the way down to the entrance hall, out into the grounds, to the 
Whomping Willow, where he finds a stick, presses the knot on the 
trunk, the tree opens, he goes inside and along the passageway. All 
this time, Snape has obviously been walking very, very slowly along 
the passageway, and has only just reached - not the Shrieking Shack, 
but a viewpoint from where he can see into the Shrieking Shack and 
the werewolf inside it. It takes too long. Snape would have been 
toast - slightly greasy toast, but toast nonetheless. But the thing 
is that as a theory it's still very persuasive, especially all that 
heraldic Gryffindor stuff. So, if we want to believe in it, we have 
to create more time. At this point I'd just like to remind YOU" - 
here she gestured at Marina - "that I was aboard the SAD DENIAL that 
night in a state of mourning too, I was just expressing it 
differently. I'm here because this nasty little suspicion popped into 
my head when I was listening in to what Derranimer was saying, and 
I'd like to be disabused of it, please." She paused, and took a deep 
breath.
"Sirius planned the Prank in advance. Not necessarily to any great 
degree, but he had had it in mind for a while, just toying it over in 
his mind - "yeah, wouldn't that greasy little slimeball like to know 
the *real* reason we disappear at full moon, heh heh heh...", 
something like that. However, at some point in his mind, it became a 
little more solid, and he mentioned it to Peter. Not James, because 
James, for all his Snivellus-cursing, actually had brains, and might 
well have pointed out all the spoil-sporty dangerous bits. For all 
that Sirius told Harry that he was acting too responsibly to be like 
his father after all, at some point over the last year at Hogwarts/ 
couple of years in the real world, James must have grown up enough to 
shoulder the responsibility of marriage and a family, and judging 
from Sirius' behaviour in the Gryffindor fire, Sirius wouldn't have 
liked this. I'm going to source this turn around as beginning 
slightly before the Prank, because (am I right in thinking?) James 
was already Head Boy at this point. So he mentions it to Peter, whose 
opinions don't really count, and who is stupid enough (Sirius thinks)
to think it a good idea. Peter, however, takes the idea a lot more 
seriously than Sirius thought he would - as we've seen from the 
werewolf question bit of the Memory, he has a history of doing this. 
Therefore, he's had a long time to play around in his head with the 
moral implications of the question - yes, I know that doesn't sound 
very Wormtail, but bear with me - before he actually overhears Sirius 
giving Snape the fatal piece of info. He's worked out that going to 
Lily would be a good bet, maybe he's even laid some groundwork 
towards approaching her. 
*Then*, events pan out as Derranimer suggested, and they change the 
entire dynamic of the group. James and Lily are thrown together, 
causing Sirius a lot of resentment, which he takes out on Wormtail. 
Wormtail, subconciously decides that his first experiment in moral 
behaviour hasn't really been a success, and it's back to the drawing 
board on that one. Lupin is probably appalled by Sirius' behaviour - 
it probably hits home to him a lot harder than to the others - and 
here's the beginning of the seed sown by which they both suspect each 
other and not Wormtail of being the spy. Sirius is isolated (this is 
why I don't think James can have known in advance) and resentful for 
some time, and instead of blaming it all on his own stupidity, 
cyrstallises it into loathing of Snape, which is how we get to the 
hospital scene in GoF and the kitchen confrontation in OotP. Sirius 
didn't *hate* Snape before hand - his life had just never really been 
of any consequence to him. Now he has a "valid" reason for all the 
hatred we see - it's more of a hatred of equals than of bully and 
victim. "
Kirstini stopped talking, finally, to scratch Prank lazily behind the 
ears.
"You call yourself a Siriophile!" Marina snorted indignantly. "All I 
ever catch you doing is abusing him."
Kirstini sneezed in agreement. "I know. But like I said,it occured to 
me, and I was kind of hoping you could disabuse me of it. I don't 
like all that premeditation, quite frankly. Please, take your time. I 
haven't got anything to do for a few days - no-one will buy anything 
from the Shack at the moment as they're afraid I'll give them the 
flu - and all these ideas are making me feel a bit dirty."
She sighed, and turned her six-bobblehatted head to the other two in 
a rather snotty gesture of appeal.