A/N: All right, so…I'm finally updating Dear Prongs! Lovely, isn't it? I started this a long time ago without really knowing what kind of a response I'd get (and I got a pretty darn good one, if I do say so myself) and then abandoned it for a while, but now I'm ready to begin it fresh. Essentially, what I've done is I've taken the original chapters I'd already posted up, edited them to make them less naïve and flow better (since I now have a clue about where this is going - hehe!), and then reposted them. I would have deleted the story altogether to repost, but I already had people on the alert and favorites lists, so I decided to just do it this way. :) Hope you guys like this new version, and please don't forget to review!!

Attention All Gryffindors!

It's me, your favorite Marauder, Prongs! Now, we know that you are all looking for a personal way to talk to us, and we refuse to tell you who we really are, so I believe that we have come up with a decent solution to this problem. Moony has insisted that I begin an advice system; all you guys have to do is send me a letter in the Drop Off Box in the common room and I will answer them at my own leisure. Pick them up in the Pick Up Box, which is right next to the first box, and hopefully, my opinions will be of some help to you. But please, keep it Gryffindors only; I don't want to have to sympathize with some slimy Slytherin git, you know what I mean?

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Prongs

Overnight, this sign – which had been blown up to a fairly colossal size with lots of bright colors – had found its place on the bulletin board on the wall of the Gryffindor Common Room thanks to Sirius Black, and inevitably, there was already an enormous throng of people positioned in front of it at eleven o'clock in the morning. Pleased with his anonymous effort, Sirius himself was still there, admiring his handiwork with the rest of the Marauders. Remus and Peter were quite enthusiastic, but James's energy level was, as expected, slightly lower than the other three's.

"I still can't believe that you're making me do that lame advice idea," James grumbled under his breath as they all pretended to be very interested even though they knew exactly what was written on it. "I don't have the time to give people advice! I can hardly get my homework done as it is, and McGonagall's going to roast me over a fire if I forget my Transfiguration homework again."

"If it was Lily, would you give her advice?" Sirius asked with a grin, looking over at Lily, who was rolling her eyes at the letter.

"Of course," James said at once. "But she's not going to want to open up to Prongs, is she? She hates the Marauders as much as she hates me." There was a certain bitterness to his tone as he stated this reality – he had never quite gotten over the fact that Lily Evans couldn't stand the sight of him, even though he was in the middle of his sixth year and had been given plenty of time to accept it.

"Maybe, but you never know," Sirius said mysteriously. Sirius, for reasons best known only to him, was always cryptic on his opinion about his best friend and his crush – it made him feel clever, and out of kindness, James allowed him to say what he liked.

"This is a good idea, guys," Remus insisted from in front of them. "You're highly opinionated, James, and people listen to the things you say. You'd be helping out; isn't that what you want?"

"Yeah, but I don't know how to advise people on their melodramas – I have enough of my own already," James said.

"I guess you do," Sirius said. "You lead such an exciting double life." He checked to make sure no one was listening before saying, "I mean, really – first you're James Potter, Quidditch player and chick magnet extraordinaire, and then you're Prongs, smooth-talking prankster the next. It's fascinating."

To anyone else, this would have sounded like a compliment, but James knew his friend well enough to be able to say, "Gee, thanks."

"Stop bickering," Remus objected.

"We're not bickering – we're just having a friendly sarcastic face-off, and you're ruining it," Sirius said.

James snickered, but said, "I suppose we should humor him, Black."

"Fine," Sirius complained.

Remus smiled sardonically. "Thank you, Sirius. It means the world to me."

"So it should." Satisfied, Sirius craned his neck to catch a glimpse of his precious poster to keep up his charade, though no one was paying him much attention anyway. James, however, was no longer trying to look at the sign – he was looking through the crowd of people and the few still sitting around on the sofas, seeking someone out. Sirius, of course, noticed this in a matter of seconds while Remus did not, and said, "Oy, Potter – the sign is here, not there."

"I know, I know," said James. "But I want to look for Lily – do you know where she is? She's not up here gawking like we are."

"You're pathetic when it comes to that chick, mate," Sirius said nonchalantly. "But it's okay, I'll forgive you."

"Gee, thanks," James said sarcastically. "Now, why on earth would I be pathetic when you go to bed with Alyssa Brahms, your current conquest, almost every night?"

"Hey, she's a good kisser, and I don't actually go to bed with her; she comes to bed with me," Sirius said, grinning.

"You like going to bed with Alyssa Brahms?" Remus chimed in suddenly, revolted.

"Where's Peter?" Sirius asked swiftly, looking around for him as he ignored Remus's question.

"It's just after breakfast; I'll bet you he's still in the Great Hall," said James, snickering. "That boy…his eating habits need to change."

Sirius laughed. "Definitely." Then, he lowered his voice, and asked, "Hey, should I distract everyone and you can steal the Pick Up Box and see what's in there?"

"No, not yet," said James, his tone equally quiet. "We need to give them some time to submit letters to our lovely Prongsie, right?"

"True, true," Sirius agreed. "When, then?"

"I'd say tonight," Remus proposed, randomly joining the conversation again – he always did this. "Every night, we'll pick it up and answer whatever's in it. Prongs is a popular Hogwarts figure; he would attract many letters a day."

"If it was Padfoot, we'd have a box full of letters already," Sirius said, laughing nearly inaudibly. "Wouldn't we?"

"Nah," James said. "People look at you as an entertainer, and yes, I do mean that both ways."

Sirius beamed. "You're right! You and Moony are more advice-type than I am. Unless it comes to girls."

"Yeah, so why is it me that answers letters?" James inquired, pulling Remus aside to talk more freely. "Why isn't it you?"

"Because you're everyone's favorite Marauder," Remus explained. "Popularity helps with something like this. People trust you, James, whether or not you believe it."

"Yeah, well," James grumbled. "If this goes wrong though, you're the one to blame. And all three of you will have to read them and answer them with me."

"That sounds fair," Remus reasoned. "Is that okay with you, Sirius?"

"Yeah," he said, shrugging indifferently.

"Good," James said. "Peter had better be all right with this too, because I'm not doing this alone."

"What is Peter all right with?" All of a sudden, Peter himself walked into the common room and approached his friends, licking the salt off of his fingers.

"Peter!" James called to him jovially. When he ambled over, content after a heavy breakfast, James then said with a little more containment, "You are all right with the fact that you, Sirius, and Remus are going to be answering letters with me for this advice thing, aren't you; that's what we were discussing."

"Oh," Peter said. "Okay. I can do that."

"Good," James said again. He was about to say something else, too, but at that very moment, Lily Evans walked into the common room after eating her own breakfast, and James was instantly distracted. He watched her sit down on the chair in the corner, not even glancing at the commodity on the bulletin board, and said to the Marauders, "Hey, I'm going to go see if Evans knows about Prongs."

"You're so hopeless," Sirius remarked, laughing, as he watched his friend run off to talk to Lily at the other side of the room.

Disregarding Sirius's comment, James went straight up to his favorite red-haired girl and beamed at her. "Hello Evans," he said in his most mature voice, attempting to sound manly and polite. He'd been prone to doing that lately, hoping it would impress her in some way.

"Good-bye, Potter," Lily said irritably, turning away with a roll of her eyes. This was such a typical reaction of hers; one would think, at the age of sixteen, that she'd be over such childishness, but Lily had always been special that way – she only grew up for people that were not James.

"So…" he began, paying no attention to her less-than-warm greeting. "So Lil; what do you think of this new thing that the Marauders are doing?"

"I think that it's completely stupid," she announced, her voice radiating petulance. "The Marauders are about as deep as a Petri dish; they couldn't give advice if their lives depended on it."

"Aw, come on," James said, his tone playfully complaining. "Prongs can't that bad, can he?"

"Yes, he is," she said heatedly. "He is, perhaps, the worst of them; other than Padfoot, of course."

The irony of this statement was overwhelming; she thought the same way about James and his friends normally, and it was only with great difficulty that he held back his laughter.

"I think it's absolutely terrible that they are trying to brainwash the rest of Gryffindor House this way," Lily continued. "I wish that they'd just shut up and leave everyone alone."

"Are you going to send Prongs a letter then?" James inquired after semi-recovering.

"Of course not," she said. "Why would I do that?"

"Oh, I don't know; maybe to tell him what you think of this experiment and see what he says back?" James suggested, hoping to sound offhand.

"Maybe I will, but why do you care anyway?" she demanded.

"I think that the Marauders are great," he said. "Besides, your opinion matters to me." At this point, his eyelashes began to bat in a rather flirty manner semiconsciously (he'd have to learn how to control those), and this, of course, offended an already-touchy Lily.

"Well, I thank you for your concern, but I am currently not in the mood to be dealing with you," she said curtly, her eyes flashing murder. "I want to rest for a moment before starting my Potions essay; do you mind?"

James shrugged noncommittally, but he knew that this was probably not the time to test Lily; instead, he went back to his friends and looked at them mournfully.

"She hates me," he said, looking wistfully back at her.

"Thanks for stating the obvious," Sirius said, patting his shoulder.

"Oh Sirius," Remus said, looking annoyed. "James, you probably just go around her the wrong way. If you tried to be a little less flirtatious and treated her as more of a person, I'd bet that she may like you."

"Or Sirius could be right, and she does hate him all the way," Peter inserted. "I think that she loathes him, and they won't ever end up together."

"Pessimistic much?" James said, looking at him with a mixture of frustration and wretchedness. "But maybe you're right; maybe she won't marry me and our plans for the future would be ruined."

"What were those plans all about?" Remus asked, wrinkling his nose in confusion.

"Well," Sirius said, grinning. "We made this promise up in first year – I was going to marry a Muggle pop star, get all her money, and have eight kids together. James was going to marry Lily and have six kids, and my oldest daughter would marry his oldest son, so we'd be officially be related."

"We were also going to arrange a blind marriage for Peter, because no one else would marry him on their own free will," James added, gesturing to his friend.

"My only requirement is that she has to be pretty," Peter explained, completely shameless about this bewildering proposal.

Remus looked highly disturbed, but he said nothing more as he left to go upstairs to his dormitory – they were done faking interest in their own notice. James, Sirius, and Peter just laughed together, but went to join him anyway; they were bored, and taunting Remus about the homework he was probably going to do was sufficient enough entertainment.

But, despite that, they knew that once their newest scheme got going, the advice business would be their all-time favorite form of entertainment.