Sirius was sitting in the comfy seats next to the warmly crackling fire, trying to finish his particularly difficult potions essay, when James bounded through the portrait hole, looking extremely pleased with himself.
"I've done it, Padfoot!" James exclaimed, grinning broadly.
"What, gone insane?" Sirius joked, looking at the highly proud expression on James' face.
"No," James rolled his eyes, "I've come up with the perfect plan to make Evans love me."
Now it was Sirius' turn to roll his eyes. James was always coming up with some crazy scheme to persuade Lily Evans, whom he was mad about, to love him back.
"Let's hear it then." Sirius sighed, leaning back in his chair.
"Okay, I put this spell on myself, which makes me really clever and intelligent, and Lily will be all impressed and she'll want to go out with me!" James announced, looking smug.
Sirius was taken aback at this plan. Normally describing them could take up to ten minutes, and they still made no sense. This, however, sounded as if it could work.
"So, what do you think?" James asked, looking at the surprised look on Sirius' face.
"Well, these spells are pretty complicated, it'll be tricky…" Sirius stated.
James ran his hand through his hair, making it messy, as he thought of a solution to this problem. The answer, however, walked over to them at that very moment.
"Hey, Moony." James and Sirius said in unison.
There was a slight pause, then…
"Moony!" James yelled, as if he hadn't seen him in years.
Sirius and Remus both jumped, startled at James' sudden outburst.
"What?" Remus spluttered.
"Can you do a spell to make me smarter?" James asked his face lit up in excitement, sitting on the very edge of his seat.
"I- I don't know…" Remus started, but seeing James' disappointed face, he added, "I'll try, though."
James grinned, and ran off to the library to get a book which contained the spell he needed.
Sirius turned to Remus, his face was half in shadow, the light from the fire making the scars on his face stand out more than usual, "Is this actually going to work?"
"Not a chance," Remus said, flicking through the pages of his book until he got to the correct one, "trying won't do any harm though."
After an hour, James returned, grinning broadly. Peter was shortly behind him, looking over at a group of giggling girls.
"Okay," James said, sitting down and pointing out the spell to Remus, "That one there!"
Remus peered at the book, a slightly curious expression on his face.
"Right, I think I can do that." He announced to a beaming James.
Sirius watched from his chair next to Remus, looking slightly bored. Peter was standing beside James, watching Remus almost as eagerly as James. Remus drew his wand and had a couple practice waves, then turned to James.
"Ready?" he asked, James nodded vigorously.
Remus uttered the incantation right at the same moment the group of girls moved, knocking Peter over. He feel right at James' feet at the spell hit him, hard in the face. He was blasted backwards, into James. His chair was knocked over backwards and they landed in a heap on the floor.
Remus jumped up and ran to where the two boys lay on the floor. Sirius was doubled up with fits of laughter. Swearing loudly, James stood up and picked up the armchair, aided by Remus.
Peter stood up, rubbing his back and complaining of a sore head.
"I say," Peter exclaimed, "that was an utter disaster!"
They all turned to look at him slowly, looking completely astonished.
"Anyway, Moony, it would never have worked," Peter scoffed, picking up the book Remus had been reading and flicking through the pages, "You did not pronounce the final syllable correctly, absolute dribble." Peter added, tossing the book on Remus' chair.
Remus, looking offended, picked up the book and stuffed it in his bag.
"Erm, Wormtail, are you okay?" Sirius asked, nervously.
"I'm perfectly fine, thank you." Peter said.
He took James' unoccupied seat, picked up Sirius' potions essay and a quill and began scribbling things out, muttering odd words like, "nonsense" or "incorrect!"
Still staring bewilderedly at Peter, the others began talking in low voices, so he couldn't hear.
"You'll need to do the counter curse!" Sirius whispered.
"Hey!" James muttered, annoyed, "You still have to cast that spell on me!"
"I am not trying that again!" Remus snapped, looking at the spell book, "plus, it has side effects…"
"What side effects?" James asked, interestedly, peering at the book.
"Extreme arrogance, nosiness and annoying interference" Remus read from the book, "Well, you don't need any more of those qualities, Prongs."
James threw Remus a filthy glare, but decided it was better not to have the spell cast upon him.
"What about the counter curse?" Sirius hissed, "We can't leave him like that, what would Professor McGonagall think?"
"There's nothing written here!" Remus exclaimed, turning the pages, looking through the entire book. "There's no counter curse!"
That night, before bed, Peter treated them to a rant on bacteria that live in beds and on toothbrushes. None of the others felt like getting into their beds much after this, Peter, however told them "You need at least eight hours of sleep to be able to perform at your optimum efficiency tomorrow." This didn't impress them much, as the next day was a Saturday.
To get him to shut up, they crawled into bed and pretended to sleep.
When they got up the next day, Peter was not in the dormitory. Nor was he in the common room or at breakfast or in the library.
They finally found him outside Professor Flitwick's classroom. Peter was talking happily about a mistake he had noticed in their last charms lesson. Professor Flitwick looked highly irritated, which was rare occurrence, as he was an exceptionally kind person normally. He also looked very pleased when they pulled Peter away from him.
"Wormtail, we're away to pull a prank on the Slytherins, want to come?" Sirius asked, hopefully.
"Pranks can be highly dangerous, if caught, you will get into trouble and loose the house points us Gryffindors have been striving hard to earn."
Sirius and James stopped in their tracks, looking as if they had been slapped in the face.
"I would much rather go to the library." Peter finished.
"I'll come too," Remus said, "I want to look for a counter curse." He added to James and Sirius.
After they had finished with their prank, James and Sirius went up to the Library. There they found Peter, not with Remus, but with Lily.
They were doing work, but Lily looked very flustered. It seemed that Peter had been showing his arrogance again. The moment Lily saw James and Sirius walking over to them, she jumped from her seat and grabbed bits of parchment and a quill and shoved them into her bag and left with a distinct "He's your problem now!"
On Sunday James, Sirius and Remus made a point of avoiding Peter. They were successful, but they had lessons with him the next day.
After irritating Professors Slughorn and Sprout, Peter only had one teacher left that day, Professor McGonagall. The others had been dreading this lesson all day. What was he going to say or do this time?
"For this kind of transfiguration," Professor McGonagall was saying, "it is best if you wave your wand like so,"
She waved her wand in a quick figure of eight.
"It- yes Mr Pettigrew?" as Peter had raised his hand.
"I think it is more effective if you wave your wand a bit slower."
James and Sirius exchanged shocked glances; Remus had head on the desk.
"Really, Pettigrew?" McGonagall's mouth had gone very thin, "Well, I think you'll find I'm teaching this class."
"Yes, and that might be the reason so many of us are failing." Peter said, heatedly.
"Excuse me?" McGonagall spluttered, astounded that out of all pupils, Peter had said something so rude and insulting, "You will not question the way I teach Pettigrew! I don't know what has gotten into you today; I have had complaints from other teachers about your recent behaviour! That will be thirty points from Gryffindor and a detention! Now, stand out in the corridor!"
Peter trudged out of the classroom, leaving the rest of the class utterly bemused.
After the lesson they went down to dinner, then back to the library to search for the counter curse.
"Ah ha!" Remus shouted, which got them thrown out of the library, but it didn't matter as they had found what they were searching for.
They ran back to the common room, where they found Peter, reading a book. People kept throwing him annoyed glances, a few were openly laughing. He must have tried to give the whole common room a lecture.
"Hey, Wormy!" James called, "We've got the counter curse!"
"We can put you back to normal!" Sirius added, smiling.
"Why would I want to do that?" Peter asked, not taking his eyes off his book.
"W-well, we thought," Remus stammered, taken aback at Peter's answer.
"You thought wrong." Peter said, closing the book with a sharp snap. "I'm finally far more intelligent than anyone in this school, why on earth would I give that up?"
"Look around you!" Sirius yelled, "You're being a huge prat, annoying everyone, even Professors, with your no-it-all rants!"
"Plus!" James started yelling, "this isn't even real intelligence, just magic making you seem smart!"
"You're all just jealous!" Peter screeched.
"No, we're really not Peter!" Remus shouted.
Peter actually drew his wand, his confidence boosted by the spell, he was sure he would be able to take on all three of them at once.
"Don't be stupid!" Sirius laughed, looking at Peter's wand, clutched in his chubby hand.
This was evidently the wrong thing to say. Peter screeched a curse at Sirius, it hit him squarely in the chest and he was blasted backwards, hitting the opposite wall, falling in a heap on the ground.
The common room was totally silent for a very long second. Everyone was looking from Peter to Sirius, totally confused and shocked at what had just happened.
James and Remus drew their wands, both furious at what Peter had done to Sirius. Peter showed no sign of fear, facing two wizards at once. The rest of the Gryffindors seemed to have stopped breathing, it was so quiet.
Remus yelled "Stupefy" and James fired a stinging hex, both of which Peter blocked with a shield charm. He then retaliated by sending a two stunning spell, which they dodged, but one hit a first year, who fell to the ground.
Remus had had enough. He sent a disarming charm at Peter, which was right on target, then screeched the counter curse to the spell that had caused all these problems. Peter was blasted backwards, knocking the same chair over again. They left him, though, and ran to Sirius.
"Just stunned." Remus murmured. "Enervate."
Sirius stirred, then sat up. For a moment he looked around, clearly confused. Then he drew his wand and jumped up.
"WHERE IS HE I'M GOING TO KILL HIM!" He shrieked, looking around for Peter.
"Calm down, Padfoot," Remus grabbed Sirius' wrist, pulling his wand arm back down. "We hit him with the counter curse."
Someone had revived the first year girl, and she ran to her dormitory, tears running down her cheeks. James and Remus watched her guiltily.
"Okay, let's make a deal." Remus said, "None of us are going to try and change our brains in any way using a spell, deal?"
"Deal" James and Sirius agreed in unison.
Thanks for reading this one-shot, I hope it wasn't too bad… I got the idea from an episode of Spongebob, because I'm that cool XD
Again, thanks for reading and please review!