Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Harry Potter universe. As usual, it all belongs to JK Rowling.

Of Mice & Gryffindors

By Neurotica

It was a seemingly ordinary night in the fifth year boys' dormitory in Gryffindor Tower. James Potter and Sirius Black had just returned from the thirty-second detention from McGonagall that term – this one for hexing the Slytherin boys' shoes so that with every step they took, the laces would grow tighter and tighter until it would be nearly impossible to take the shoes off, and when they finally managed, painful boils would appear over every inch of skin on their feet.

Remus Lupin was lying on his bed, his feet towards the headboard, a book open in front of him as he studied something for Charms. Peter Pettigrew was on his own bed, reading some comic books James had given him. "Well, what did you have to do this time?" asked Remus dryly as his two friends limped in the room, looking as though they'd just gotten into and lost a fight with one of the branches of the Whomping Willow.

Sirius sat gingerly on his own bed, wincing in immense pain before flipping over to his stomach. His voice was rather muffled when he replied. "You know that portrait on the second floor, the one of the cross-dressing bloke wearing a tutu and lipstick?"

His eyebrows raised, Remus nodded, then realized that Sirius wasn't looking at him. "Yes," he said aloud. "What about it?"

"Put it this way," James said from the floor where he'd collapsed upon his entrance, "by the time we were done doing what we were, that portrait and every one around it was laughing their arses off at us."

Remus exchanged a look of amusement with Peter as they both tried not to laugh at their friends. "I've got some muscle-relaxing potions left over from last full moon." He quickly scrambled out of bed and dug through his bedside table. Peter joined him and after a few moments of stifled laughter, each of them took a vial of the potion to one of the fallen Marauders, and within ten minutes, both Sirius and James were mostly back to their regular selves and planning out their next misdeed against the Slytherins.

They'd just agreed that turning Snape's hair a different color every day would do nothing to improve his appearance when a shrill scream erupted from the common room. The four boys exchanged a look and bolted out of the room to see what the commotion was. To their immense amusement, Lily Evans, Mary McDonald, and two other girls whose names James couldn't recall were standing on the sofa and chairs, looking all around the floor for something.

"What happened?" Sirius managed to ask through his stifled laughter.

"Mouse," Lily groaned, jumping as she seemed to see something on the floor.

The four boys raised their eyebrows at one another, then three of them looked at Peter, before they all began to laugh.

"Don't just stand there looking stupid!" Lily yelled at them. "Get it!"

James shook his head as he controlled his laughter and stepped of the staircase. "Honestly, I thought you four were Gryffindors! You know, the house of bravery? And look how very brave you are right now." The patronizing tone in his voice would have normally been enough for Lily to hop off the sofa, run across the room, and slap him, but tonight, she settled for a very dangerous glare.

Sirius rolled his eyes, joining James. "You're witches," he announced as though he was talking to three-year-old children. "Use a charm and trap it or something."

"Yeah, then you can let it loose in the hallway and Mrs. Norris can have a go at it," James added lightly.

"You can't do that!" one of the other girls on the sofa said. "We don't want it to die!"

James and Sirius exchanged a look of exasperation.

Remus finally joined his friends. "We can get it out of the common room without killing it," he said patiently. "Peter, will you go get my…" He trailed off as he looked over his shoulder. Peter seemed to have taken off at the very mention of an attempt to lure out the mouse.

How is a rat afraid of a little mouse? he wanted to ask out loud. He stifled the question until the boys returned to the privacy of their own dormitory.

"All right, all right," Sirius said with the air of doing something incredibly chivalrous. "Where did the little bugger go?"

"Under the sofa," Mary announced, looking over the edge of said piece of furniture as though she expected the mouse to jump out and bite her nose.

The four girls huddled together as James went to one end of the sofa, Sirius to the other, and Remus to the back of the sofa. "Okay, we're going to block its way out," James told the girls. "When it runs out the front, cast a bubble charm to trap him, then we can take him outside and set him free in the forest. Okay?"

The girls nodded and faced the front of the sofa, removing their wands from their cloaks.

"On three, then," Remus said, pointing his own wand under the sofa, "Lumos should drive him out. One… Two… Three! LUMOS!" All three boys said the incantation at once, but Sirius let out a strangled yell, startling James and Remus so badly that they let go of the spell and backed up several feet from the sofa.

"What the hell, Sirius!" James yelled. "It's a bloody mouse!"

Remus stood, finding his friend had joined the witches on the sofa.

"That thing is not a mouse!" Sirius said, looking terrified. "It was bloody huge! And it's teeth… I've only seen teeth like that on…" One throat clearing and pointed look from James promptly shut Sirius' mouth. "Er… On a dragon…"

The girls looked at him oddly. Remus and James rolled their eyes at one another. "Another go?" Remus asked.

James nodded, throwing a look of disgust at Sirius for hiding from something as harmless as a mouse. Both boys got on the floor again, pointed their wands under the sofa, counted down, and cast their spell. Another strangled scream. Remus stood up, now finding James had hopped up between Mary and Lily. "Really?" Remus asked him in exasperation.

"It's evil-looking, Remus!" James claimed in panicked tones.

"You're both pathetic," Remus said dully to his friends. "Fine, I'll do it myself."

For the third time, Remus was on his belly, his wand aimed under the sofa. He didn't bother with a countdown this time as he muttered, "Lumos." Light filled the underside of the sofa which was littered with bits of food, broken chess pieces, lost quills, and other unimportant items. A tiny squeak brought Remus' attention to a corner of the sofa towards the front.

And now he saw it. It wasn't just a regular mouse. It was evil-looking with its bright red eyes, elongated front teeth that seemed to shimmer from the wandlight. Its ears were enormous and Remus was certain its whiskers were emitting steam.

And now it was running straight at Remus' face. He scrambled backwards, pushed himself off the floor and onto a chair just as the demon mouse retreated back into the darkness. "What do we do now?" he asked his fellow Gryffindors.

"Okay," Lily said, taking a few deep breaths. "Remus, can you jump over here?"

"Why?"

"Because that way when the damn thing comes out, it doesn't go straight for your toes."

"Good point." Very carefully, Remus scooted his chair closer to the sofa and when he was close enough that he wouldn't fall to the floor, he jumped. There was one perilous moment when he was sure he was going to fall to the carpet where the mouse would find him and eat him, but James and Sirius grabbed his arms and pulled over the sofa back. "Now what?"

Lily looked around for a moment before nodding decisively. "It's the only way," she muttered to herself. "I'm going to try to jump towards the stairs. That will draw the mouse out after me, and you lot can use a bubble charm on it."

After a few moments, everyone nodded. Remus was certain he, James, and Sirius had only agreed to the plan because they didn't want to see that thing's fury anymore. Mary helped Lily onto the arm of the sofa and the redhead very carefully calculated her jump before she landed right beside the bottom step. There was a series of loud squeaks, the girls jumped off the sofa, and Remus realized why a little late. The mouse was on the sofa cushions now, climbing its way onto the sofa back. James and Sirius tried to jump off the sofa, and Remus with them, but something was holding them in place.

"Say cheese, boys!"

The Marauders looked around stupidly as Lily pulled a camera from behind her back and very quickly snapped a few pictures.

"It's a bloody toy!" Sirius screamed, looking down at the evil mouse they'd been trying to lure away from beneath the sofa. He picked it up and indeed it was a rubber, toy mouse that Remus could now see had been charmed by the girls.

"So Lily," asked Mary as the four girls headed up the staircase, "how long d'you reckon it'll take before we can get copies of this to everyone in school?"

Lily looked over her shoulder at the three boys on the sofa, Sirius still holding the toy mouse and looking completely baffled. "Oh, shouldn't be longer than about ten minutes. Night, boys!" she called, sending a little wave over her shoulder as they turned a corner. They could hear the girls laughing until their dormitory door closed.

James growled as he yanked the toy mouse from Sirius' hand and threw it in the fire – the lingering charm caused painful squeaks to fill the common room for a few more minutes. "That was…" He was struggling to find a good enough word to describe what had just happened.

Sirius nodded. "Hey, where'd Wormtail run off to?"

"He took off the moment he heard the word mouse," Remus said dully, hopping off the sofa and leading the way up to their dorm.

"If we'd been smart," James said darkly, "we'd have done the same."

The moment they returned to their beds, after beating Peter over his entire body with pillows for nearly half an hour, the Marauders began plotting their revenge on the girls. But by morning, when they entered the Great Hall for breakfast and found everyone there holding the photo Lily had taken and laughing at them, they would realize that this battle was lost before it even began.

AN: The inspiration of this story hit this evening when I discovered a mouse in my apartment. My two cats failed to do anything about it, so I've been tiptoeing around all night, trying to figure out what to do next as well as asking myself whether I was a mouse or a Gryffindor. Okay, now you can laugh at me in a review. Thanks, as always, for reading. Pleasant evil-mouse-filled dreams to you.