A/N: Lol, I can't believe I finally finished this! It was the first fic I ever wrote, and I posted it on a different site, never finished it, and abandoned that site in favour of this one. About three years later and I'm finally done!

Personally this has always been one of my fav fics, so I hope you feel the same way, and do tell me. It's a four chapter story, plus an epilogue, and it's complete, so I'll probably post a chapter every few days.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise, and if anyone finds my mind in there, I'd be grateful, I seem to have lost it ;-)

Green hair, red faces, and yet another Sirius Black joke

Remus rolled over under his covers, slowly opening his eyes to stare at his bedside clock. As usual it read 7.30. Remus never needed an alarm clock. His three best friends, however, were another matter. He looked around for them, as he sat up. He could just see Peter's dirty blond hair sticking up from a nest of blankets. On the other side of the room, James and Sirius could also barely be seen under their covers, however, what part of them was on view was looking a little odd this morning........

James sat up groggily, awoken by the sound of hysterical laughter. Looking around he saw Remus rolling around on his bed, clutching his sides.

"Moony?" James blinked, placing his glasses on his nose, "What's going on?"

The young prefect was trying, and failing, to calm down. Unable to speak, he pointed over to the now stirring mass of Sirius. James looked over, still blinking, and let out a snort of laughter. In place of Sirius' usual jet black hair was a head of green locks, streaked through with silver. The Slytherin colours. James rolled over, helpless with laughter, just as Sirius sat up.

Half asleep, Sirius' eyes focused on the still laughing Remus. "Moony......what the..?" He blinked. Laughing harder still, he was sure to break a rib, Remus pointed at James, who failed to notice. Sirius let out his distinctive bark of laughter at the sight of James, also sporting green and silver hair.

All the noise finally woke Peter, who sat up, glanced around, looking confused, before joining in the laughter. This continued for several seconds before something clicked for James and Sirius.

James sat up, stifling his chuckles, "Ah, Padfoot, what are you laughing at?"

"What are you laughing at?" replied a sobering Sirius.

Silently James picked up a mirror from his bedside table and handed it to his friend, "Nice hair-do, Pads" he grinned, not unkindly.

Sirius stared t the mirror for a moment, looking shocked, before a grin, the twin of James', spread across his face, as he handed back the looking glass, "I could say the same for you, mate"

James glanced in the mirror, and froze. His face was confused for a second, "But Moony...." James and Sirius both turned to look at their friend, who was now helpless with laughter, clutching his sides with tears in his eyes. The two boys looked at Remus for a moment, before grinning mischievously at eachother and jumping off their beds, onto Remus'.

"Oh!" cried Sirius, pinning Remus down, "So Moony thinks it's so funny, does he? Maybe he'd like us to change his hair colour too, eh, Prongs?"

"Yeah, Padfoot. Maybe Moony would like orange and purple hair, would you Moony?" laughed James, pointing his wand at the pinned boy.

"Mercy, mercy!" laughed Remus, trying and failing to fight them off, "I'll do anything"

"Well" pondered Sirius, as he let go of his friend, "Maybe if you returned our beautiful hair to it's normal colour, we might be inclined to forgive you"

"Okay, okay" Remus sat up, calming down and looking critically at the two boys, "I presume it's a simple colouring charm of some kind. A counter charm for undoing should fix it" he reached over for his wand, "Hold still" The two boys closed their eyes as the young man muttered "Solvos Ingumus" Nothing happened.

"Did it work?" quizzed Sirius, putting a hand to his hair.

"No" frowned Remus, thinking hard. He knew several counter charms, but only one for this sort of spell, which had just failed.

"Well, how are we going to fix it?" asked James, who was finding this less amusing by the second, "Padfoot and I have a Quidditch match tomorrow – against Slytherin! We can't turn up like this!"

"Never mind tomorrow" cut in Sirius, "We can't go to class like this – it'd be totally against our principles"

"Well, I don't know a counter charm for it, so we'll have to go to Flitwick" Remus informed them.

James and Sirius, their minds now on walking around school with green hair, jumped off Remus' bed and grabbed their robes.

"Come on, Moony, Wormtail" urged James, also grabbing his invisibility cloak, so the boys could walk to Flitwick's office unseen by any early risers.

Remus and Peter groaned as they pulled on their own robes, opposed to being dragged around the castle by their pranked friends.

Two minutes later, the Marauders, with James and Sirius under the cloak, were hurrying down the charms corridor. James pulled off the cloak, just as Remus knocked on Flitwick's door. It opened, revealing the tiny Professor peering up at them.

"Boys, it's very early for you. What is it I can do – ah, Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, what's happened to you?"

"We're going to find out, Professor, trust me" James' voice held a hint of menace, "But can you help, sir?"

Prof. Flitwick looked at the two boys. Mischief makers they might be, but they always had a smile and he had a bit of a soft spot for them. Really most of the teachers did. "Of course, boys, come in" the short man turned back into his office, speaking to some one out of sight, "Miss Evans, we can continue this conversation tomorrow, if you don't mind. I have a bit of a charms emergency, I'm afraid"

As the Marauders entered the office, to James' horror, a very pretty, red-haired girl stood up from a chair in front of the desk. "Of course, Professor" she said, looking up, "I'll…......." She looked at the four boys. Remus was dutifully trying not to laugh, as James attempted, unsuccessfully, to hide himself behind Sirius. Rather then registering shock, however, Lily merely smiled, "Nice hair-dos, Potter, Black – suits you" With that she swept past them, still smiling. James let out a pained groan.

Sirius looked put out, "Evans better not say anything. We don't need this getting out"

"Don't worry" answered a now composed Remus, "Lily might not like you, but she isn't spiteful"

Flitwick had been looking on in amusement. Now he clapped his hands together, "So, boys, how about we clean this little mess up, eh?" Sirius and James nodded enthusiastically.

Just a couple of minutes later, the four boys were walking back down the charms corridor, James and Sirius' hair mercifully returned to black.

"We might as well go down to breakfast at this rate" said Remus, looking at his watch, not bothering to stifle a yawn.

"Never mind breakfast" James scowled, "We need to get onto more pressing items, such as who the hell charmed our hair green and silver!"

"Well, it had to be a Slytherin" reasoned Sirius, "Personally, I'm all for just pranking the whole house and being done with it"

"No" replied James. His friends could tell this had been a blow to his ego, "I want to get whoever did this personally. It won't take long to get the information we need"

Just at this moment, as the Marauders walked across the entrance hall, the Slytherin Quidditch team walked in from outside. They were returning from an early morning practice in anticipation of the upcoming match. Among them was Sirius' younger brother, Regulus. He played Seeker; Sirius himself played Beater.

As they passed, each party glaring at the other, Regulus addressed his brother, "Sure you're beating for the right team, bro? Black looks so much better with green and silver" His comment drew laughs from his team mates. Sirius, however, did not respond. He stopped abruptly, staring, somewhat stunned, at the retreating back of his brother. James was mimicking his actions.

"You don't think......" started Remus.

"Of course!" Sirius half shouted, "This is exactly the kind of thing they'd do, right before a big match - try to psych us out. Well, two can play at that game, right Prongs?"

"Right" confirmed James. As they finally sat down to breakfast, they all put their heads together to begin forming a plan.

Their continued plotting resulted in the four boys being even less attentive in classes then they usually were, (well, Remus was usually attentive, but today he got dragged into the conversation too much to take notes) They gained several reprimands and lost 30 points for Gryffindor, but by lunch time they had masterminded the perfect revenge prank.

"Okay" James organised, "Moony, Wormtail, you put phase one into operation this afternoon, while Padfoot and I are at Quidditch practise. We'll all meet up afterwards"

Everyone nodded, as the bell for afternoon classes rang out.

A/N: So? Do you guys like it? It's probably a little different to how I write now, as this is one of the original chapters, that was written a good while ago. But do drop me a line, good or bad, I live for feedback!