A/N: The Christmas Season has encouraged me to write a Marauders Christmas fic, enjoy!
The Christmas Chronicles: The Marauders are FormedIt was Christmas Eve of their first year at Hogwarts and James Potter and his best friend Sirius Black stumbled into the Common Room laughing. They've only known each other since running into each other on the train on 1 September, but already, by December they were best friends and acted like brothers.
Sirius had received a letter from his parents asking him to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays, so James decided to write to his parents asking permission to stay as well. His parents reluctantly gave in, even though James had to say that he was going to "study". "Study making Slytherins' lives miserable once they get back, more like it," James had said to Sirius, causing them both to erupt into a fit of laughter.
Everybody at Hogwarts respected, feared, or hated the pair. They were respected for their talents, and they, along with Lily Evans, always had top marks in all of their classes. Most of the Slytherins hated and feared them, though none would admit to the latter, but fully expressed the former. One of which was Severus Snape, who had earned getting on their hit list on the first day of school when he accidentally slipped in Potions and spilled their brew.
Somehow, four out of the six Gryffindor boys had managed to stay behind at Hogwarts, the elusive Remus Lupin and the quiet and odd Peter Pettigrew. Remus was on the couch with his head immersed in a large book, he sat back a little further into the large arm chair at the entry of the two loud boys.
"Lupin," Sirius began, "do you do anything other than read and visit your sick relatives?"
"Yes," Remus replied a bit uncomfortably.
"How'd you get stuck here?" Sirius began, "parents don't like you either. Don't worry, it's the same with me. Or is it too likely that you'll catch some unearthly incurable disease like the rest of your family?"
"No," Remus answered, "I just didn't feel like going home."
"I would have thought your sick relatives would want to see you," James said, joining Sirius in the fun.
"Or do they enjoy winter alone?" Sirius asked.
"No," Remus answered blankly.
"You really need to have some fun, you're coming with us tonight," James decided after a moment of silence.
"James!" Sirius protested, "should we really risk that?" he whispered.
"Why not?" James said, "it's not during real school, so we shouldn't get in too much trouble if he squeals. He's too quiet to squeal, anyway."
"Do you enjoy talking about people as if they're not there?" Remus said coldly.
"Yes, actually we do," Sirius answered.
"See?" James began, "he could be one of us, with training of course."
"What do you plan on doing?" Remus asked, mildly more interested.
"Are you any good at Transfiguring?" Sirius asked with an evil grin.
"Somewhat, why?"
"Let us teach you something," James said with a grin that match Sirius's.
And so for the next hour they taught Remus how to transfigure cloth into coal. Luckily, Remus caught on quickly, and they were done sooner than either James or Sirius had thought.
"No First-Year should be able to do this," Remus said to them, once he had mastered it.
"Well, we're not any First-Years, now are we?" Sirius answered, forcing himself to sit up straighter. James poked his side and Sirius fell forward laughing.
"We'll leave at midnight," Sirius said. "If you're asleep, we'll wake you up, but you're coming with us."
They ate dinner as normal, only this time Remus sat with Sirius and James instead of by himself. Peter was still alienated at the Gryffindor table. Only a few Slytherins remained, Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy, a Fifth-Year, his girlfriend, Narcissa Black, Sirius's cousin and a Fourth-Year, and Malfoy's goons, Crabbe and Goyle, who were both Fifth-Years as well. A few scattered Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs stayed as well, but they were of little importance to the pranksters. The Hufflepuffs had always been nice to them, and the Ravenclaws were always helpful, and they stayed out of the way.
After going to bed, James and Sirius waited up until each of their synchronised watches read 12:00 midnight. They sat up at the same time, looking like each boy was the mirror of the other. Sirius went to Lupin's bed to try to awake the sleeping boy. He shook Remus gently and whispered, "Come on, wake up!"
"What?" came from the other side of the room. It was Peter Pettigrew. "What are you guys doing?"
"If we let you tag along, promise you'll never tell anyone?" James asked.
"Yes, I promise," the boy answered.
"Do you swear on pain of death?" Sirius added.
"I swear!" he exclaimed.
"Okay, come along then," Sirius said reluctantly.
They made their way unseen through the halls and down the stairs and to the dungeons. At the bottom of the stairwell, Sirius whispered to James, seeing as the other boys were slightly behind, "Just invite all of Gryffindor, why don't you?"
"If they squeal, we'll just point out that we're first years, and we can't do that stuff yet, anyways, it's Christmas Eve, and they had nothing better to do," James pointed out.
"Fine. If they screw up, we're totally never inviting them to tag along again." Sirius tapped on the wall to find the hollow spot and then counted ten bricks from the bottom, and ten from the right of a portrait hanging on the wall. He knocked on that brick three times, and the wall opened up. James and Sirius entered, beckoning the other two boys forward. They climbed down even lower and stopped in front of a wall.
"Say 'hullo' to the Slytherin boys' dormitory," James said before pushing the wall open. He went to the door marked First Years and opened it up.
"Pettigrew, you stay on the lookout. Knock on the door if anybody comes and hide yourself," James whispered to Peter.
"Lupin, we're going to find little Snapey's bed, and make use of that charm on his drapes," Sirius whispered to Remus.
The three boys with their wands out went found Snape's bed and took over the task of transfiguring the hangings on his bed to blocks of coal.
They silently crept up the stairs to the Common Room of the Slytherins.
"Woah," Peter said, "whose are all these?" he said, referring to a large pile of presents.
"I don't know, let's check," James said, picking up one of the packages. In sparkling gold lettering it read Lucius Malfoy.
"There's got to be a lot of nice stuff here. His family's extravagantly rich, I'm sure he wouldn't mind of some of it was missing," Sirius said with a cruel grin.
"That's stealing!" Remus pointed out.
"Borrowing," James corrected, "we'll give it back, it just may end up looking slightly different."
They each carefully unwrapped two small presents and took the contents for themselves. Sirius put all of the wrapper into the fire and left in to burn, urging the other three boys out of the dormitory.
They made it out of the dungeons, but were unexpectedly met on the staircase by Professor Dumbledore.
"Good morning, boys," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. "You wouldn't be out marauding this early on Christmas, would you?" he asked suspiciously.
"Of course not, sir," Sirius said with a bright smile. "We just wanted to stretch, since we're so used to getting up to see what Santa has brought us at our homes."
"Of course," Dumbledore said. "Well, run up to your dormitories, we've got a nice Christmas feast tomorrow, wouldn't want you boys too tired to properly enjoy it."
"Yes, sir," James said, leading the boys dashing up the staircase, trying to repress his laughter. Once inside the portrait hole, Sirius and James collapsed on the floor in fits of laughter and Remus and Peter couldn't help to join in.
"Think he knew?" Remus asked worriedly.
"Yeah, I think, when he said," James trailed off in thought, "wait, that's it! That's it! We are now, officially, The Marauders. From now on, we shall prank together."
Sirius grinned, "Happy Christmas, fellow Marauders, now we've got to figure what to do with Malfoy's gifts!" They all erupted into laughter once more, before hiding their treasure and retreating to their dormitories.
THE END!