The door to the Gryffindor boys' dorm banged open, allowing two boys around sixteen years old to waltz in. One of them, James Potter, was stretched and scrawny, with black hair so messy that one wouldn't be able to tame it with less than seventeen bottles of hairspray (and he would know; he'd tried). The other, Sirius Black, was a few inches shorter, though he was slightly more solidly built, and had long, silky dark hair that was vaguely reminiscent of the ears of a puppy. It was probably for the best that they were retiring to their dorm for the evening, as both boys had just come from Quidditch practice and smelled rather ripe. The other two occupants of the dorm were still missing, most likely due to the pungent odor.

"Sirius!" James said, flopping down onto his four-poster bed and picking up a blank sheet of parchment resting there, ignoring the sweat that had soaked through all of his clothes. "I need your help!"

"Of course you do," Sirius said consolingly, sitting down on his own bed. "Let me guess: dating advice? Finally realized you need to ask the master on how to woo the lovely Miss Evans? You've come to the right place. I'd say we need to start with look; girls don't really dig the whole 'scrawny' look you've got going-"

"Padfoot! I am not scrawny!" James spluttered indignantly.

"Sorry, mate, but you kind of are," Sirius said sympathetically.

"I'm not," James insisted, subtly peeking at his biceps for reassurance that never came. "And anyways, that's not what I need help with."

Sirius deflated somewhat. "Oh," he said sadly, shaking his head. "Well, another time then. What's the problem?"

"I need you to eat my homework."

Sirius blinked. "Are you batty?"

James looked like he'd singlehandedly discovered the cure to lycanthropy while simultaneously winning the Quidditch World Cup for England. "Hardly," he said dreamily. "I think this is the best idea I've ever had, at least since the Dungbomb epidemic last month."

"No," Sirius said, shaking his head vigorously. "That, my dear Marauder, was pure, unadulterated genius. This is not genius. This is- actually, I don't even know what you want me to do."

James got up from his bed and crouched down in front of his friend. "I want you," he said, poking a finger into Sirius' chest, "to eat my homework."

"Okay, sure, I get that," Sirius said impatiently. "Why? And do I do it right now, or-"

"No, no, no," James said. "Tomorrow morning, in the Great Hall. During breakfast. It has to be public, and dramatic."

"Oh. Well, of course," Sirius said solemnly. "Drama is always essential. But why am I eating your homework?"

James sighed and leaned back on his heels before losing his balance and crashing backwards onto the floor. "Ouch," he complained. "Look, Pads, I forgot to finish McGonagall's essay on Animagi."

Sirius choked. "The Animagi essay? Prongs, you do realize exactly how sad that is, right? We are literally unregistered Animagi and you can't write a twelve-inch essay?"

"I know, I know!" James hissed testily, glancing around the room. "Keep it down, will you?"

"Why?" Sirius chortled. "Afraid the walls'll hear?"

"Shut it," James said sourly, his lips puckering. "Fine, if you won't help-"

"Now hold on," Sirius protested, swinging his feet onto the bed. "I never said I wouldn't help. You want me to transform into Padfoot and trot into the Great Hall, am I right?"

James nodded. "Yes, and then you have to eat my homework."

"Got it."

"So you'll do it?" James asked hopefully.

Sirius put a hand on James' shoulder. "Mate," he said soberly, "we as Marauders have a code to always help each other when in a bind, unless the results of that bind will be funny, in which case we never help each other in a bind."

"So you don't think my not finishing my homework will be funny, then?"

Sirius sighed deeply. "Prongs, if you, the Transfiguration prodigy and McGonagall's personal favorite, were to turn in an incomplete homework assignment, the resulting eruption would shake the earth all the way to Tokyo. Trust me, whatever pleasure I might get out of seeing you squirm would be both short-lived and painful when the eyebrow comes."

James shuddered. He might be an incorrigible troublemaker, a hopeless flirt, and an incurable pest, but the eyebrow that Professor McGonagall occasionally utilized was equally terrifying, if not more so, than the most fearsome of Hagrid's pets.

"I do, however, require some compensation," Sirius said after James had ruminated for a moment.

"What kind of compensation?" James asked suspiciously.

"The location of Remus' chocolate stash. I know you know where it is; you found it the day after he hid it from me."

"Under his bed," James answered promptly.

"I checked there!"

"It's enchanted to look like dirty laundry."

"I knew there was something odd about those boxers!"

James shot Sirius a confused look. "It looks like a Gryffindor sweatshirt, actually."

"Merlin's balls, no wonder those smelled so foul!"

"You smelled them?" asked James, looking disgusted. "Small wonder you're so messed up."

"Says the idiot who can't write an essay on Animagi."

OoOoOoOoOo

In the Great Hall the next morning, when all the students were gathered at the breakfast tables, an observer might have noted the unusual absence of one Sirius Black. If said observer looked a bit closer, he/she might have seen the odd behavior exhibited by another Marauder, but then, perhaps not, if the observer didn't consider increasingly frantic glances towards the enormous doors leading to the grounds outside odd. Honestly, the observer might just assume that James had upset Lily Evans once again and was waiting for some sort of retribution; the lovely Miss Evans was also conspicuously missing, though she was only off for her usual morning stroll, but our observer couldn't have known that.

Unless, of course, the observer happened to be our very own James Potter, who was something of a stalker. But of course, if our observer was James Potter, he would hardly be observing himself. Luckily for us, our observer is actually a plump, chubby-cheeked Hufflepuff fifth-year named Billy, who had developed a crush on the brunette girl who happened to be sitting next to James that day, and so had noticed when James had elbowed her in the face in his haste to see the door.

Suddenly a huge gust of wind blew the candles in the room out, creating a hush in the hall.

"What's going on?" the boy next to Billy whispered.

Billy shook his head. "I dunno," he muttered.

"It's a Blibbering Humdinger!" Xenophilius Lovegood exclaimed.

"Oh, do be quiet, Xeno," the boy said. "And what are you doing at the Hufflepuff table? You're a Ravenclaw!"

Before poor Xeno had a chance to answer, the giant doors leading outside swung open, banging loudly against the walls. A black silhouette appeared in the doorway, causing the people near Billy to gasp (Billy was preoccupied with the boy who had seized hold of his arm and was cutting off the circulation).

As the silhouette stepped into the hall, a yellow spotlight shined down on it, revealing a large black dog, who slowly moved towards the area where James Potter was seated.

"IT'S THE GRIM!" someone shouted from the Slytherin table.

The Hall erupted into cries and screams of, "The Grim!" and "We're all gonna die!"

"The Grim" ignored this and kept moving towards James, who had gotten up from the table with a piece of parchment clutched in his hand and a silly grin on his face.

"Oh great Grim!" he shouted, dropping to his knees in front of the creature. "I offer you a sacrifice if you will spare our lives- my Transfiguration essay!"

The Hall held its breath. Would the Grim accept the sacrifice and allow them to keep their lives?

"Now, hold on!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed.

"Minerva, we must satisfy the Grim," Professor Dumbledore said, his voice somber, though his blue eyes were twinkling fiercely. "It cannot be allowed to kill everyone in this hall."

The Grim sniffed the paper delicately before taking it gently into its mouth and slowly walking back outside again. Confetti sprayed from the ceiling as he walked, and a rendition of "Who Let The Dogs Out?" blared from hidden speakers. Billy stood up and cheered loudly, clapping as the black dog passed by him, and he was quickly joined by other students near him, one after another, until the entire hall was filled with students cheering at not being dead.

The doors slammed shut again and the candles relit themselves, and the Great Hall returned to their breakfasts. Still, no one was likely to forget their harrowing escape from the jaws of death, and so, in order to continuously appease the black creature, an order devoted to the worship of the Grim was created, of which Billy himself was high priest. Each student was required to set aside a portion of each meal and burn it in the sacrificial braziers that were set up in the hall by Dumbledore, at the High Priest's request, and monthly services were held, where the worshipers listened to tragic songs and the death stories of each of the Hogwarts ghosts. It should also be mentioned that Sirius Black frequented these gatherings, though his friends tended to avoid them, and would look like they were narrowly avoiding laughter every time the subject was brought up.

They shouldn't laugh, though, Billy thought, wiping his hands off on his ceremonial robes. Appeasing the Grim was serious business.