Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter books. I don't even own the idea for this fic. It's a challenge.
No one knew when it began. Maybe Hermione would say it was 3rd year, when she noticed Harry wasn't sleeping. Ron would probably say 4th, when Harry spent so many nights silent, but so many others screaming. Neville might say 5th, when no one could ever find Harry when he didn't want to be found.
No one would think 1st though, when Harry started traversing the halls to the Library, where he stayed up half the night reading up on whatever book caught his interest.
What everyone could, and would, tell you that started during 6th year though, was the Prankster.
All anyone could say was that it was one person, and not even the Weasley twins would accept the...blame, for this.
First, it was innocent.
Filch would be in his office doing something, then suddenly open the door, and he'd be rained on by a bucket of marbles and water, then the bucket and string would disappear, and as soon as he hit the floor, the marbles would follow. No one bragged about it. No one said it was them. There was a porn magazine on Snape's desk, there were students who spoke random languages, and there was the normal changing of random things colour.
It got slightly worse though, and suddenly there was a letter for Professor Sprout from Snape, declaring his undying love. In his handwriting, on his parchment, and with his ink. She mentioned it to McGonagall, who got her own letter of love from Remus Lupin, who mentioned he got his courage to profess his deep love, from the potions master. The letters were written precisely like they would be if they were real, and the reactions were real- and often made closer to public- however they weren't.
No one would admit to that. It was suicide.
Things got worse though, when suddenly letters were flying, teacher's hair was changing colour like the wind, everything happened. Not a day went by without some form of pranks. Never Harry, but everyone else was pranked.
Professor Snape had seen more then one class where he would start his class with his greasy black hair, then it would go pink, blue, green, red, brown, purple, orange, and end up a multicolored afro that no one could get rid of, until every single student had seen it.
This Prankster gained a lot of attention, and was inventing new spells, or rediscovering old ones, like crazy.
Then it happened. The pranking stopped.
People lived in fear more because the pranking was no longer happening, then when it was.
Teachers reassured their students, while frightened themselves. What does it mean, that the most successful pranker to ever reach Hogwarts Halls, suddenly stopped. No one knew who the Prankster was, how they did it, why they did it, or anything. But they knew that it couldn't be over.
The only one who was never afraid was Harry, who had been the target of pranks from everyone else, since he was exempt from the Prankster. Speculation ran wild, that it could be him. But they knew from the various talks he'd had with Ron or Hermione, or basically anyone else, that there were several possibilities.
He could be the Prankster, but that would mean he's stupid to leave himself open like that.
The Prankster could want to blame him, which allows for the possibility of it being one of his enemies.
The Prankster could be someone he knows, and leave him out of it so that he doesn't tell who it was.
Whatever the case may be, Harry proved to be nearly unnaturally adept at avoiding pranks.
And as the case may easily be, after a month of no pranking, when tension was as high as it would ever be, the Prankster came back. Full force.
Of course, the first prank was a life sized Voldemort doll in a prom dress, tied to a fountain.
Well, apparently it wasn't just a doll. But it was still the funniest thing most people had seen in a long time.
And everyone was much to worried trying to avoid the new pranks set up. The biggest complainer was Peeves though. The new guy was making him look bad, because everyone was happier to be pranked by him, but no one cared.
A/N, This fic might turn into a longer story, but it's not something that's a high priority. We started it, but the person writing it stopped and is no longer writing anything. Sorry. That said, we will attempt to get the story written, and we have a few extremely different prankster fic currently being written. Thanks for positive responses, but I can't promise anything right now.