Role Played by: Remus Lupin (old one), James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew

((Please bear in mind, Peter was late, Remus never came back and we got a new one, and the spelling was from people all over the world, namely the US, Canada, and Britain.))

The portrait of the fat lady swung on its hinges. James emerged from the whole in the wall quietly, to find the Common Room empty. Most Gryffindors were busy at this time of day, he supposed.

James sat down on a nearby couch, just as Remus walked in.

"Hey, watch it there - OW!" Rubbing his nose, one Master Remus Lupin pushed the portrait away hastily, looking slightly perturbed.

"Er, hello, Prongs," greeted Moony, still rubbing his poor snout tenderly. "Good - it's evening, right?"

Sirius strode into the room, looking quite pleased with himself. He caught Remus' question and chuckled, drawing their attention to him.

"Most certainly is," he said happily, and then frowned slightly. "We really have to get you out more. You spend way too much of your time in those books. What about our next masterpiece of a prank? I haven't a clue how to levitate those pens, Rem."

"Oh sorry Remus!" James said with sympathy for his best friend. That had happened to him many times before and it didn't feel good, well neither did that Cruciatus curse.

Sirius grinned. "Hey Jamie, where were you? I noticed that Ms. Lily Evans was also missing from the Common Room earlier...." He grinned again, nudging James. "Come on, Jamie, what happened? You can tell me." He pasted a completely false but quite sincere-looking expression on his face, the one that fooled all the teachers, and the same one his friends knew not to trust.

"Yeah, what are we going to pull as our next prank?" James said in attempt to avoid the question, Sirius had no idea what he'd been through and that's the way things were going to stay for now. James didn't want Sirius going off of Snape.

He gestured towards two chairs next to him for his friends to sit in. Remus shook his head and continued to the dorm, followed by the other boys' curious glances. They shrugged and returned to their conversation.

"I don't know, I was thinking maybe we could steal all the Slytherins' socks? Something annoying like that, but we've hung Snivellus' underwear in the Hall too many times, it's nothing new, and we need it to be new and exciting... " He lapsed into a semi-contemplative mood as he sat on the chair backwards and tipped himself off it to lie flat on his back, hands comfortably behind his head. "We could... hook the toilets up to spray the flusher, dye the girls' hair green, or the Slytherins' hair red and gold... help me out here, Jamie, ol' chum?" He waited hopefully for a reply, still lying on the floor.

James let out a mental sigh of relief; Sirius hadn't pursued the question of where he'd been. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm up for some good, old-fashioned defacing. Let's see here. Going off of your idea, it would be fun to paint the Slytherin Common Room gold and red. Everything is going to be so easy this year with me being the head boy!"

This was true, every time a professor made a query of why he wasn't in bed he only needed to say 3 words, "I'm on patrol."

"True, true, we could do so much, and it is our last year here..." He grinned evilly. "All right, should we do stripes, or wall-to-wall colouring? Or just do a concealing charm and paint everything in the room gold and red? Hair too, though you have to do Snivellus', I'm not touching that greasy mop.

"Timeframe… perhaps nighttime? Would have to be, I guess. And we'll have to pull some strings to make sure it isn't cleaned up, maybe Peter could, he loves letting the House-elves dote on him, and they love him for it." He frowned. "Where're we going to get the paint? Hogsmeade might not have any."

"Oh, and for Christmas? Mistletoe EVERYWHERE. Please? Please? It'll be fun, give us an excuse to snog every girl in the school? Peter's good with Herbology, he could help us with the growing. We all know what happened to the last plant I owned. Though it was Remus' fault for knocking it into that nose hair potion."

James was once again astonished at his best friend's plotting abilities. "Yes, for our last year here we need to make a big splash as a farewell party. Stripes sound good to me, and I think I can pull a few strings in getting us some indelible paint." James gave a mischievous grin at this. "And mistletoe at Christmas sounds excellent. Let's see, we should probably start growing it now. How long does it take to fully mature? And I was thinking that we could make it float above everyone's heads as well as placing it over every inch of this castle."

James relaxed in the large, overstuffed chair, staring into the fire. Life was good; he was back at Hogwarts plotting mischief with his friends.

The portrait of the fat lady swung open, and Peter ambled in, constantly rubbing his eyes. He grinned, spotting his friends. "'Lo everyone," he stated with a grin, sitting down on the chair. He noticed the mischievous looks on their faces and was immediately was alert. "What did I miss?"

Sirius rolled over and kicked the chair across the room. "Not much, Petey. What do you know 'bout mistletoe? We need to coat the school in it before Christmas break. Are you staying at the school and keeping me company? And getting me lots of gifts? Please? I've been a… well, I suppose a relatively... All right, so I wasn't a saint this year, but I couldn't have sent Snivellus to the Infirmary more than 8 times this year, that's sort of better than last year..."

Peter chuckled at Sirius's words. "Mistletoe? Yeah, I know about it, know where it grows and stuff." He shrugged modestly, grinning lightly. "Yeah, staying at school this year, my parents are apparently going to Paris for their Christmas gift or somethin'. Huh, and I wasn't even invited."

"Me too, I have so much more fun here with you than at home," James gave another mischievous grin, "Plus, it's a good time to plant pranks so when everyone comes back we'll be prepared... So, when are we going to pull this magnificent prank on the Slytherins? It'll take me about a week to get the paint."

"I don't want to wait a week, Jamesie..." Sirius whined at him. "Can't we glue the girls' toilet seats or something with that new invisible cement stuff that that new store, what's it called, Zonko's came out with? Well, maybe we'll warn Lily, she might kill me otherwise. You too, but I want to do something..." He looked pleadingly up at James. Sirius swiped his hand through his hair again.

"We could charm Snivellus' pen to draw 'naughty' pictures over and over, I don't know, I'm so bored. Besides, you know you have to give in, James, I'm not going to shut up until you do." He grinned at James and waited patiently.

Peter laughed, a smirk appearing on his face. "Hmm… that could get old Snivellus into a fair spot of trouble. But how?" He puzzled through this, his blond hair falling into his face as he slouched over, obviously not the best at spells. "Well… we'll leave that to Moony," he finally stated after about five minutes of thinking.

"Hmm… " James said, apparently in deep concentration. "I chose last time, it's your turn, Sirius," he complained. James felt a twinge of guilt at pranking the Slytherins; he was the Head Boy. But, that hadn't stopped him before and it certainly wouldn't now.

Sirius yawned in apparent boredom. "Fine, we'll do that, and can we please glue the toilet seats? Please?

"Oh, and I can charm Sniv- Severus' pen, no problem, I'll just look it up, but where is Moony when you need him?" he asked, slightly rhetorically.

"So…when's a good time? We'd have to get set up with him as a partner or use the Cloak and a silencing spell... Why don't you take care of that, Prongs? Snivellus already suspects me too much, he's going to have his eye on me, you might escape his notice though."

Sirius lapsed back into contemplative thought. He wanted Remus to come back and join them, he was so bored, and a bored Sirius was something everyone should be very afraid of.