Disclamer: I don't own any of the Marauders, even though i'd like to! Oh sad sad world...
Dedictaion: Dedicated to you for reading it. Yes, i'm feeling unimaginative today.
Impromptu inspection
"Marauders! Emergency! Evacuate now!" shouted James, flying up the staircase and into the boy's 7th year dormitory.
He wasn't looking where he was going, and ran straight into Remus, who was opening the door. As he picked himself up off of his werewolf friend, he started to shout again.
"Hide it! Hide everything! Quick! Before she comes!"
"If you're talking about Lily, I've borrowed your porn magazines, and they are now under my own bed," stated Sirius with a yawn.
"No! Not Lily! Wait. What porn magazines?" James asked, turning to face his best friend.
"Never mind," Sirius said quickly.
"What's the big emergency?" asked Remus, after picking himself up off of the floor.
"She's coming! She'll find it! She'll find everything!"
"If you could just stop talking in gibberish for a moment, and tell us who 'she' is…" trailed Peter.
"McGonagall! She's performing an impromptu dorm inspection! I only found out because she told Lily and me!"
The dorm went quiet.
"What's impromptu?" asked Sirius from his position on his bed.
"The adverb 'impromptu' means 'without advance preparation,'" stated Remus.
"A big thank you to out walking, talking dictionary and encyclopaedia," James said, bowing to Remus. "Now. PANIC!"
The four Marauders scurried to action, pulling illegal items, and forbidden artefacts from little hiding places around the room. Once everything was in a big pile, they began to think of better places to hide them.
"Stuff the fanged Frisbees in Sirius's washing pile! No one would look there! Not even fearless McGonagall!"
"Hey!" said Sirius, looking over from where he was transfiguring his 'magazines' into daily profit issues and chucking them up into his bed hangings and out of site.
"Quick James, where's your invisibility cloak?" asked Remus. "We can chuck it over some of this stuff!"
James threw his invisibility cloak over to Peter, who chucked it to Remus, who chucked it over a huge pile of… objects.
Suddenly there was a loud tapping at the window. Sirius let out a shriek and disappeared underneath his bed, he emerged a second later, coughing and gagging for air.
James ran over to let the owl in. Just as he took the letter off his leg Peter ran over and tied documents labelled 'highly secretive and dangerous' to the disgruntled bird's leg.
"Take those and keep them for a while, then deliver them to James Potter!" he shouted and shoved the owl out the window. The owl plummeted to the ground, weighed down by the documents, but regained its stabilisation and flew to the forbidden forest.
"Why to me?" asked James.
Peter shrugged "Spur of the moment."
James, feeling disgruntled, opened the letter.
James
I know by now that you and your Marauders are probably running around like chickens with their head's cut off to hide all of your illegal stuff (you thought I didn't know about that didn't you!) But I just thought I'd let you know that McGonagall has just done the first to third year's dorms already, and she checks everything.
Only wishing you luck because I love you
Lily.
Oh crap. That was the one thought passing through James's brain as he scurried over to help his friends hide a cauldron of polyjuce potion (for special reasons of course) under a loose floorboard.
Once everything was well stashed away they all adopted casual positions around the room, admiring the effect of cleanliness.
"It almost looks as if we're going home for the year," said Sirius, reading a book upside down.
"Almost," stated Remus, reading a book the right way up.
There was a knock at the door and the boys froze. The moment had come.
"Come in," said Sirius in a seductive voice. James promptly threw his a pillow at him. This revealed the Marauders Map and many love letters to Lily that James had not quite yet finished that were stashed under his pillow. He let out a squeak and sat on them as McGonagall opened the door.
"Good morning boys. I'm here to conduct a dorm inspection. And you are the last dorm. I hope you live up to the Gryffindor standards."
Sirius gave a snigger, but was reprimanded by a stern look by McGonagall.
Remus suddenly remembered they had not cleaned up the bathroom. Uh oh. But then again it was taken up by many of Sirius's 'beauty' products.
"Not the bathroom, not the bathroom, not the bathroom," Remus muttered under his breath.
"Right, I think I'll start with the bathroom!" said McGonagall and strode over to the closed door.
"We're screwed," muttered Remus under his breath.
The world seemed to stop as McGonagall disappeared inside, as all the Marauders hoped that by some miracle a gruesome death would not befall her.
"What the…" they heard here ask.
"They're not my hair curlers! I swear!" shouted Sirius as he scrambled over to the door.
"Excuse me?" asked McGonagall, appearing back out of the bathroom, holing up a dead rat.
"Never mind," muttered Sirius.
"Phew, for a few hours I thought that rat might have been Peter," Remus whispered to James, who had now stuffed the Marauder's Map and the love letters under his bed covers.
Peter, who had just noticed some illegalsweets they had overlooked, ran over and shoved them in his mouth, looking as innocent as a person who has just eaten a ton of sweets possible could.
"Mr. Pettigrew, what are you smirking at?" asked McGonagall, who had noticed his sudden dash across the room, and new strange expression.
"Mugh-fug-du," stated Peter desperately.
"Uh, he has a… condition. Urgh, that comes and goes?" ventured Remus, drawing her attention away.
"Quite," said McGonagall, walking over to Sirius's bed. She suddenly shrunk away.. "What is that awful stench?" she asked, gagging.
Peter took this distraction to run over to the window and spit the sweets out. There was a loud "ouch" as they collided with someone's head outside.
"That stench would be Sirius's washing pile Professor," said James, sliding off his bed and walking over. Un-be-known to McGonagall he was now standing right over the loose floorboard that the polyjuce potion was hiding under.
"Mr Black, I suggest you take your washing to the laundry," McGonagall said, slowly backing away.
"Don't move left, don't move left," muttered Remus, who had just remembered where he had thrown James's invisibility cloak over the 'objects'.
McGonagall took a fleeting step to the left, and collided with the invisible mountain.
"Damn it," muttered Remus, sincerely hoping she just thought she was going senile.
"What is this?" asked McGonagall, as a mirror slid out from underneath what seemed to be nothing.
Peter froze as he looked at the mirror. That was one of their communication methods. If McGonagall figured that out…
"That's mine!" said Sirius, bouncing over and taking it from her hands. "Because, James takes so long in the shower that none of us can use the bathroom. James just loves those hair curlers!"
James shot a look of fury at Sirius, who was only taunting him because he knew he couldn't move.
"Really? So where did it come from?" asked McGonagall, looking interested.
"Umm… I put an invisibility charm on it. You know, so the others wouldn't steal it because they couldn't get in the bathroom either…"Sirius trailed off, knowing that if this wasn't good enough, he was screwed.
"Ok then," said McGonagall, peering under Remus's bed. Sirius bounded back on to his own, and it rocked so hard that one of the 'profit' issues fell out from the hangings. This created a chain reaction and they all fell down. Sirius gulped.
"Mr. Black, what is the meaning of this?" asked McGonagall, after extracting her head from under Remus's bed.
"Umm…Remus has turned me into an avid reader?" Sirius ventured.
"Well since I daren't go any closer to your bed, I will let this slide," she said, as Sirius scurried around picking them all up again.
She wandered over to James's bed and picked up a piece of charms homework on the bedside table. James held his breath as she skimmed over it. He hoped she wouldn't discover that was only charmed to look like charms homework. He'd always liked that pun.
"Mr. Potter, silent does not have a 'c' after the 's'," she said, putting the parchment back down.
"Ah, professor, it's a silent 'c'," James threw hopefully, giving a wink for good measure.
"Well ok then. Surprisingly you seem to have passed the dorm inspection. I'll see you on Monday for transfiguration."
She gave s small smile and left the room.
The Marauders breathed a sigh of utter relief and collapsed onto their beds.
Suddenly there was a rumble and everything fell out of its hiding places.
'Well at least McGonagall didn't stay longer," said Peter, enjoying the look of normality that had come over the dorm again.
There was a tap at the window as the owl flew back. Sirius scurried over and took the documents from it.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door.
"Boys, there's one place I forgot to look!" called McGonagall from behind the door.
The Marauders exchanged fearful looks. "We're screwed," squeaked James as the door creaked open.
A/N: What do you think? Please Review!
