Saturday day dawned on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy in an aray of sunshine and fluffy white clouds- something that rather conflicted with the fact that they were in a fully fledged war with what was turning out to be the greatest dark wizard that magical world had the misfortune to encounter. A sort of tension hung in the air outside the castle. Of course, it was filled with usual laughs and chattering of the students, but each and every one of them, in the back of their mind, were worried about the war. Each and every one of these students outwardly portrayed these emotions differently. One girl, for example, stayed to herself and refused to let anybody talk to her in a friendly manner to suffer less pain. Another boy preferred to act overly protective of his friends when even the lightest fight with anyone that he didn't consider a friend. James Potter, on the other hand, preferred to plan on his next prank with his best friends to try to keep his mind off the war.
And so, it was on this overly sunny day in the middle of September that found James Potter lounging on a thick branch of a tree, gazing down at his friends below him with an unusually large grin plastered across his face. "So," he said as he called down to them, "who do you reckon we should prank this time?" After all their good times and jokes at Hogwarts other the years, they had subsequently pranked nearly the entire student body at Hogwarts.
"Maybe... Lily Evans?" Peter said questioningly from where he was lying with his back against the tree, so that James had to crane his head to get a good look at him. This innocent-sounding question was followed with Sirius cuffing Peter around the ear.
"Are you daft, Wormtail? Everyone in this school knows that James fancies her!" Sirius said with a laugh, gazing upward at his partner-in-crime with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
"Oh," was all that Peter could manage, bowing his head in embarassment.
James rolled off his perch on the tree and landed extremly cat-like in front of them and sat down. "So? Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to play a joke on dear Lily."
Remus, who had otherwise been quite during this exchange, broke his silence with a laugh. "You couldn't succeed in playing a prank on Lily, even if you wanted to do James."
James cocked his head in confusion. "And why is that, Remus?" He asked, but instead of him answering it was Sirius. "Because we would be halfway finished with the prank and you would run like a little scared mouse and warn her about what you were going to do."
James puffed out his chest defiantly. "No, I wouldn't!" Which was followed by the snickering of his fellow Gryffindors.
"What? I wouldn't do that!" Yet another round of laughing arose, and Sirius reached over to clap James on the back. "You just keep telling yourself that, mate." Sirius, Remus, and Peter all stood up from their place amonst the tree, followed silently by a scowling James to the castle.
As they were walking up the stone front steps, a blinding flash of light appeared before them, causing all four of them to land comically on their bottoms. " What the...?" James heard Sirius question beside him as James looked ahead of him to see what had caused the light.
In front of them were three kids in Hogwarts robes, but they had never seen these people before. The oldest one was a boy who looked to be about the marauders age, sixteen, and he had unkempt brown hair accompanied with brown eyes that had a certain gleam to them that made James know right away that he was a prankster like the rest of them.
The other boy, who looked a few years youger than the first, looked so much like James that he actually had to blink a few times. Same facial features, same unkempt black hair, same... No, different green eyes.
The youngest of the bunch was a girl with long, slightly wavy red hair and warm brown eyes that were exactly the same color as the oldest one.
The red-haired girl turned on the brown-haired boy, obviously furious, as she had her arms crossed over her chest. "James! What did you just do?!"