Flying Fish Prank

In the **Flying Fish Prank** the Marauders stole a large amount of fish, gave them wings and let them loose in the Grand Staircase. The entire prank took place in Book Two's chapter 134: Go Fish!

## Plan

James and Sirius came up with the initial idea (it is implied Peter was also present, but he makes it clear he had no part in this). Earlier, they had learnt **a spell that made wings grow on things** (and used it to prank Remus), and now James and Sirius had thought of **nicking all the fish from the kitchens**, using the spell on them and **letting them loose somewhere**. They presented this idea to Remus at breakfast on Saturday, hoping he would skip detention in order to join the prank. Remus refused to skip detention, so they decided they could put it off until he was done.

But *where* would they release the fish? James would have preferred the Slytherin common room but doubted they could pull it off. Sirius suggested the library, an idea Remus immediately shut down. Peter said they should do it somewhere with a high ceiling, like the entrance hall. James suggested the Great Hall, but Remus pointed out they'd need to **hide them** somehow and James was strongly against Sirius' suggestion of wrapping the fish in the invisibility cloak. Suddenly Remus realized they could do it in the Grand Staircase, where the fish would drop in all sorts of places on multiple levels.

The Marauders decided they would make multiple trips into the kitchen, hiding under the cloak and using cauldrons to transport the fish.

Peter worried the fish would be a problem for Remus with his sense of smell, but Remus said he could use the smell blocking spell.

They didn't know when Remus would get out of detention, so they decided to meet in a secret passage near the Grand Staircase at noon.

## Preparation

James, Sirius and Peter stole the fish while Remus was in detention. (Remus actually finished at eleven, but didn't want to deal with the fish and took the surplus time to read and relax in another secret passage.) Remus did the spell on himself before entering the meeting space. The other Marauders were already there, as were the fish, and the others were wearing handkerchiefs on their faces.

They were ready to start enchanting when Remus realized they needed something to hold the fish so they didn't fly all over the passage. James ran to get two sheet. He and Peter held a sheet above a cauldron to catch the fish while Sirius and Remus enchanted them. There were so many fish that Remus had to engorgio the second sheet. The sheets were tied up at the corners, forming two very fishy balloons.

## Execution

After Sirius made sure the coast was clear, the Marauders dragged the sheets to the Grand Staircase and untied the corners. The winged fish zipped out and upwards, flying to all sorts of levels. Some fish flew to the top, some stayed on lower levels, and a few with broken wings fluttered on the first floor.

There were shrieks, and the Marauders hid in the passageway, abandoned the sheets, pocketed the handkerchiefs, left through the other side of the passage and washed their hands. After that they went to another floor to watch the chaos from behind some statues.

   The fish flapped around everywhere. Occasionally they would hit the wall or a painting and leave marks of glistening fish juice in their wake. Soon all the portraits were empty, their subjects having fled the scene.

Two Prefects appeared. One of them shot spells at the fish, and the single one they managed to hit lost its wings, fell two stories, hit a railing and fell behind a potted plant. The Prefects left, returning soon with Professors McGonagall and Flitwick. By this point several students on multiple floors had gathered to watch. First the Professors tried getting rid of the enchantments, but as that just sent fish falling everywhere, they switched to freezing them midair. It was difficult to freeze more than a few fish at a time with how large the Grand Staircase was and how scattered the fish were. They had to traipse up the stairs, chasing the fish. Remus started shooting reversal spells at some of the fish to cause some more mayhem.

The fish hunt lasted a long time, even after McGonagall got more Prefects as well as the Head Boy and Girl to help. Some of the fish were very good at evading the spells, and some even escaped into hallways. When most of the fish had either lost their wings (some on their own) or been frozen, McGonagall summoned an enormous fishnet and had the fish fly into it. After that the fishnet bundled up and disappeared, and the audience cheered. The Marauders made their escape, laughing and smacking each other.

## Aftermath

The Marauders were questioned on Saturday, and it was clear McGonagall suspected them. However, she had no evidence they had done it, as they had long gotten rid of the fishy sheets and cleaned out their cauldrons. That, however, didn't stop the entire school from blaming the Marauders.

Not all the fish had been caught, and over the weekend it became a game for students to find the rotting fish stuck in random places in the Grand Stairwells and the hallways that branched out of it. On Sunday, Peeves found a small pile of fish and triumphantly dumped them over McGonagall during supper. The fish smell was still very strong on Monday, and there were still paintings that needed to be cleaned, as well as fish juice on the walls. Some of the fish had still not been found, and James joked that someday their children would find a set of fish bones with wings flapping feebly down some hallway.

1. ↑ Book Two, Chapter 121: "Magic Is Part Of You"
2. ↑ Book Two, Chapter 135: "I Have Something Too"