Lily watched the marauders in disgust. They ran through the courtyard with their black school capes flying, screaming at the top of their lungs.

"That was amazing, prongs!"

"Yeah, did you see his face? I thought he was going to die of shame."

"I thought I was going to die of laughter."

They reminded Lily of the children in muggle playgrounds, pretending to be airplanes. They are acting like children, she thought. This is a school, not a playground. She knew, though, that it wasn't worth bothering to get up and deduct house points from them. The marauders didn't care, and they were Gryfindors just like Lily. It would be pointlessly taking away points from her own house, possibly giving Slytherin the advantage. They were gone as fast as they appeared anyways.

Lily returned to her astronomy homework. She had to finish this now if she wanted to go into Hogsmeade with her friends that afternoon.

The Marauders were lying on the bank of the lake, occasionally bursting out in sporadic gasps of laughter. The look on Snape's face had been priceless. The exploding fire-crackers had worked perfectly, going off just as Snape entered the bathroom. They'd had to run as fast as they could, of course, but it was well worth the effort.

"What are we going to do next year without Snape to test our pranks on?" The four boys were finally in their seventh and final year, as was Snape. It was Prongs who asked the question, more commonly know and James Potter. The other three were Sirius Black, or pad foot, Remus Lupin, or Moony, and last and least, Peter Petigrew, or wormtail. The four had been inseparable since first year, and had eventually taken on the name marauders, once James, Peter and Sirius became unregistered animagi.

It had all started because of Moony, who, as a young boy, had been bitten by a werewolf. From then on, he had never expected to be accepted to any school, and was startled when he received his Hogwarts letter. It was agreed with Dumbledor that, once a month, at the time of the full moon, Remus Lupin would be forced, out of family obligation, to "visit his poor dying sick aunt." He, of course, possessed no such aunt, but, since no one dared to enter the shrieking shack, where he hid during his transformation, it was never a problem. The other three marauders, being of the mischievous sort, naturally found out Lupin's secret, and, being true and loyal friends, set out to illegally turn themselves into animagi so they could follow their friend and contain him in his shack.

And so three of the four marauders were animagi; James became a Stag, hence his nickname, prongs; Sirius a large and threatening black dog, hence padfoot; peter a rat, wormtail; and Lupin was called moony. They kept their secrets hidden deep within the bonds of their friendship, and so had little contact with the others at Hogwarts. Dumbledor gave them relatively free reign of the castle, and by seventh year, they felt that they knew it better than he did, or even than Filch, the nasty caretaker of Hogwarts. All of this, of course, helped the marauders create their reputation as the pranksters of Hogwarts. It was only the second week of school now, and the four had already pulled of half a dozen pranks, most of them on Slytherins.

James looked at his muggle watch. His father, though a powerful wizard of old blood, was fond of anything of muggle origins. The watch had been a gift. "Time to go to Hogsmeade. Everyone ready?"