Four To The End (prev Shifting Lines) Book Three (Marauders Era)

The plans to do Project Cluck You changed ever so slightly on Friday morning. In History of Magic, Remus was given a note that asked if animals that had been transfigured from inanimate objects needed to eat. Remus replied back, pointing out that James's best class was Transfiguration and didn't he already know? Didn't he remember?

Humor me, James replied.

Knock knock, Remus responded.

WHAT?

You said to humor you. Knock knock.

Who's there?

Your bloody Os in Transfiguration, that's who.

James glowered at Remus, who simply raised his eyebrows in return. James gave him the middle finger which caused some of the other students who were still awake to giggle. Binns noticed the slight disturbance and that Remus was turned towards James, so he asked 'Lawlin' if anything was wrong. Remus twisted back to face him. He was half-tempted to ask if Binns was going to give them a surprise quiz, just to make James mad; but he didn't want the rest of the class mad at him so he simply asked Binns to repeat the last thing he said.

DO ANIMALS TRANSFIGURED FROM INANIMATE OBJECTS NEED TO EAT? Remus received once Binns began lecturing again. All the words were underlined multiple times and there was an angry face in each 'o'. Remus replied that it depended, and James let out an audible groan.

"I'm going to murder you, Lawlin," he hissed out, leaning far over his desk to get as close to Remus as he could.

It depends on the talent and ability of the person doing the transfiguration, and how realistic they wish the animal to be, Remus wrote down, lobbing it as hard as he could at James's face. Unfortunately he caught it without any trouble, due to his stupid Quidditch reflexes.

What if we did the transfiguring? was the next question.

No, any animal we transfigure would not need to eat unless we were randomly possessed by Merlin and suddenly became as good as McGonagall, Remus answered. Why?

tell u later, was James's next and final note.

Their next period was free, and Remus found out why James needed the answer. He took the Marauders directly to the Room of Thrice; it opened into the room they were using to store the eggs, however there was a new addition: a pile of quills fenced off with chicken wire. Remus knew immediately what was going on.

"You want to transfigure the chickens today?"

"It'd be easiest, I think," James replied, cracking his knuckles. "Sirius's idea, really. No matter where we do it, we'll have to transport loads of chickens and eggs to the Ravenclaw common room. If we do it tomorrow we'll have to really get our transfigurations done as fast as possible." He gestured to the chicken wire. "This way we can get that part over and done with without needing to rush. Pete, can you go get my record player and some albums to play?"

Peter's face fell a little. "Yeah..." He trudged out of the room, obviously not happy about being the errand boy.

James, Sirius, and Remus sat in the section fenced off and began transfiguring the quills. Or rather, trying to. Chicken transfiguration was something they had only recently learned in class. Remus hated to admit that James was right in starting this part of the prank now, but he was the first one to get a chicken and after a couple of minutes he knew they'd need all day.

By the time Peter returned there were only three chickens running around; two normal-sized ones and a slightly small one from Sirius.

"Is that it?"