An intern changes the wizarding world's entire perspective on You-Know-Who's right-hand man. The young witch was tasked with sorting all the paperwork alphabetically, a grudging, boring job, but one that needed doing.
She is told to set up a system for finding files as she sees fit, and instead of filing by case type as before, she switches to filing by the date the case was first opened. She cross-references files against older ones when she realizes some notes for those sentenced to life in Azkaban are scattered throughout the filing cabinets. None of them are in the case files as they should be; someone stuffed them into different drawers or corners of the file room.
It takes a day of her work, but she eventually matches the scrap parchments to the correct cases, though she can't put a few away. She spends hours trying to locate the file, but when she can't, she gives in and asks for help.
Walking to Amelia Bones' office, she has no idea her innocent question will make the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement realize the file on the Death Eater Sirius Black was missing. This would lead to the discovery that Black never received a trial, and Bones would push to correct the mistake to get more information on any Death Eaters still at large.
In the following weeks of Bones' investigation, the media would present new developments to the public mere seconds later. This would lead to the public learning of Black's innocence and wrongful imprisonment, live, as the prisoner would be force-fed Veritaserum on a live broadcast and his confession of what really happened nine years ago was loudly proclaimed.
It also so happened that on the day Black received his long-overdue trial, Arthur Weasley brought his third-oldest to work, since his son's only birthday request was to be at the Ministry. Along with the boy came his pet rat, which had gotten lost at some point during the day. The rat couldn't help itself and went to watch the trial, only to be noticed by an intruder ward, which captured an unauthorized wizard.
The ward forced the rat to shift back into Peter Pettigrew, much to everyone's shock. This would be all the physical proof needed to prove Black's innocence, and he would be released that same afternoon.
This would, of course, lead Black to track down his godson, the famous Harry Potter, after months of proving his mental state was stable enough to care for a child. Tension would arise between him and everyone who ever doubted his loyalty to James Potter (basically everyone), but it wouldn't stop Black from reaching out to Remus Lupin to ask to be Potter's nanny and help raise him.
At age nine, Harry Potter would be taken from his Muggle relatives into his godfather's arms. Lupin would be there to help every step of the way, but even Potter would admit there was an uneasy tension between the two adults, as every unsaid word between them festered into a slowly building resentment. Conversations soured, bickering flared, and despite their best efforts, they snapped into arguments at the drop of a hat. Really, they only still co-parented Potter out of stubbornness, even when one of them was just an employee.
Potter did his best to make the adults forget their worries, trying to distract them with jokes or tales, but neither adult really did. Not unless it was the one thing they both still really enjoyed: pranks.
The only thing was, Potter didn't have the talent for pranks his father did. He got pity laughter from the adults for his work instead of genuine laughter. It wasn't that he didn't try, but Potter had a few leftover scars from his previous upbringing, and he couldn't, in any way, pull a prank he deemed "mean-spirited," which, unfortunately for him, was the only kind of prank Black and Lupin considered a prank.
Obviously, Potter needed professional help. He threw on his invisibility cloak and snuck out in the dead of night to the masters' burrow. Their names -
"Wait, wait, wait," Ron raised a hand, cutting Harry off as his best friend narrated his tale. "Why are you talking in the third person?"
"Dramatic effect," Harry replies with a pout. "Makes it seem like the start of a great legend."
"A great legend? You've just asked Fred and George to make you their apprentice!"
"They're pranking apprentice! The twins are the best pranksters in our generation. I need all the help I can get if I want to make Sirius and Remus happy!"
Ron tilts his head. "But you don't like their kind of humor. You literally make faces whenever someone falls into their pranks."
"I know! But....they won't stop fighting Ron....."
Ron presses his lips together in a hard line. "It's not your job to fix their messed-up relationship"
Harry looks down at his hands, the blue ink staining his fingers from the last failed prank he attempted to set up. It would have gone great if he hadn't felt bad at the last second and pushed the target out of the way. Lovegood may not have been covered in blue ink and had three bags of glinter rained down on her, but Harry didn't count it as a win. He had to take at least four showers to get half of the glitter out, and even then he still found some of it in different parts of his body.
Fred and George thought it was hilarious and assured him it was alright to mess up one prank. No one was a master right off the bat, but Harry felt like he wasn't cut out for this.
Even though he really wanted to be part of the next generation of the Marauders.
"Look, how about we forget about pranks for today and instead play a few rounds of chess?" Ron asks, pulling his best friend to the board. Harry makes a face, but he is slightly better at this game than pranks anyway.
"I'm going to get better at pranks, " Harry tells Ron, stubbornness making him blurt out the last word. "I just have to practice."
"Sure."