"Sirius, you can't do that! You're going to get us both arrested!"
"Arrested, Wormtail?" Sirius paused, shooting Peter an incredulous look, "I hardly think so."
"Alright, maybe not arrested. But you are going to get us in trouble with Dumbledore if we get caught," Peter replied.
"Relax, Wormtail," James said casually. "If you want to run with the Marauders, you can't be such a worry wart." He rolled his eyes at Sirius and Remus.
The four friends were on another of their adventures, this time sneaking out of Hogwarts Castle through one of the secret passages they discovered (a tunnel behind the statue of the one-eyed witch) and going into the wizarding village of Hogsmeade. While this wasn't illegal, as James pointed out, it could get them expelled from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry if they got caught by their headmaster Professor Dumbledore, as students were only allowed to venture to Hogsmeade on approved days, and definitely not by sneaking out through a secret passage.
But it was a Friday night and the four sixteen year old students, who were in their sixth year of school, had long since grown weary of spending evenings in the Gryffindor house common room playing Exploding Snap or Wizard's Chess. And they definitely didn't want to be doing their piles of homework either.
James's invisibility cloak came in very handy on times like this. It allowed them to pass unseen through the castle. The map (aptly named The Marauder's Map) they had made a few years back was also extremely useful: it was enchanted to show the location of every person in the castle: where they were, what they were doing, every hour, of every day.
Luckily for them, everyone remaining in the common room this late at night, was too busy playing games or laughing with their friends to see the portrait hole that was the exit out of the common room seemingly open up on its own as the four boys sneaked out. It was a tight squeeze underneath the cloak for all four of them to fit, especially since Remus and Sirius were quite tall, but they always managed to squeeze together tightly and shuffle their way unseen down the corridors.
Sirius pulled out the Marauder's Map as soon as they exited through the portrait hole to make sure that no one was lurking around, especially Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker, and his cat Mrs. Norris, who always seemed to be able to locate mischief.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," Sirius whispered while tapping the map with his wand to reveal its hidden contents. He unfolded the map and started scanning the way to the one-eyed witch corridor to make sure that the coast was clear. "Right mates, let's go. Mischief managed," he said while tapping the map with his wand again making all of the writing disappear so it only looked like a blank sheet of parchment. Because it took much longer to get there undetected under the invisibility cloak, they paused halfway there to check the map again. This time they saw something they wished wasn't there.
"Its Filch!" hissed Sirius. "He's around the next corner coming down the corridor straight for us."
"Quick! Let's move over here into the alcove," Remus said quickly.
The four shuffled over to the alcove and hoped that Filch wouldn't come too close to them. They watched him coming down the corridor; with his mangy-looking cat Mrs. Norris walking alongside him swinging her tail. They all held their breath as he drew closer; the invisibility cloak made you invisible to the eyes but you could still be heard and touched. Filch stopped directly in front of them and spoke in his scratchy voice, "Do you see anything m'dear?"
Mrs. Norris mewed in reply. "Nothing? I was sure I smelled trouble on the prowl," he answered her and continued on his way, Mrs. Norris not far behind. The boys didn't wait in the alcove any longer, as soon as Filch was gone, they hurried as quick as they could to the statue and said the secret password, "Dissendium," and leapt into the tunnel.
James ripped off the invisibility cloak while Peter whimpered, "That was close!"
"Did you wet yourself, Wormtail?" Sirius enquired, chuckling. Peter had a tendency to annoy him even though they were friends.
Peter just looked down at his feet and shook his head. "I'm only joking, mate. Right. Let's get going," Sirius said while starting off down the tunnel that led right to the cellar of Honeydukes Sweet Shop in Hogsmeade. When they reached the end of the tunnel, James pushed aside the wooden door that was actually part of the floor in the cellar. He hoisted himself up and waited by the staircase for Sirius, Remus, and Peter to heave themselves out. They crept up the wooden staircase, avoiding the step which they knew squeaked, and emerged into the shop itself, which at this hour was deserted and closed. Remus got to the door first and used the "Alohomora!" spell to unlock it so they could exit. He graciously held it open for first Peter, then James, and finally Sirius who had grabbed a handful of Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans from one of the bins.
"You shouldn't have taken those, Padfoot," Peter said to Sirius after he stepped outside. Sirius ignored him and started walking down the cobblestone road to the Three Broomsticks pub, shovelling the sweets in his mouth. Upon entering, James said, "You lot go and find a table, and I'll get some Butterbeers." He headed for the bar where the proprietor, Madame Rosmerta was taking orders; James got four Butterbeers.
He turned around to look for his friends and didn't see them; however, it was rather crowded in the pub tonight because it was a Friday night and local witches and wizards were unwinding from the week. James started walking around looking at the tables when he heard, "Oy Prongs! Over here!" and looked to his left to see Sirius standing up madly waving his arms and pointing down at the table he was standing next to and Remus and Peter were sitting at.
He handed each his own Butterbeer, raised his up, and said, "To us: Moony," he glanced at Remus, "Wormtail," he turned to look at Peter, "Padfoot," he smiled at his best friend Sirius, "and Prongs," referring to himself.
"To us!" the other three chorused.
"What do you reckon Dumbledore'd do if he caught us in here right now?" Remus enquired of his friends.
"Expel us," Peter said grimly.
"You're such a pessimist," James said gruffly. "You know Dumbledore wouldn't do that. We keep him on his toes; he couldn't get rid of us!"
The others laughed. "He would if he knew we were Animagi," Peter said a little too loudly.
"Shh! Wormtail, keep your damn voice down!" Sirius hissed at him. "Do you want the whole world to hear?"
"No, I was just saying…" Peter trailed off.
"He wouldn't expel any of you. I'd be the one in trouble," Remus chimed in. "I'm the one that broke his trust; he let me into the school knowing that I was a werewolf. You lot only ever became Animagi to keep me company." Remus had been bitten by a werewolf as a child; Dumbledore knew this and let him into Hogwarts as a student anyway, even installing the Whomping Willow tree over a secret passageway that led to Hogsmeade so that he could have somewhere to go each full moon. His friends cared enough about him that they learned to become Animagi to keep him company each time. It wasn't illegal to be an Animagus as long as you were registered with the Ministry of Magic; however none of them were as they were all underage and weren't supposed to do it anyway.
"It'd be worth getting expelled over, mate," Sirius replied raising his bottle of butterbeer towards Remus. "Who's up for a game of Exploding Snap?"
"I thought the reason we sneaked out was to avoid doing something as mundane as that," James laughed.
"Ah, but it's so much more exciting to be playing it here instead of in front of the fire in our common room!" Sirius threw back at James.
They played a few rounds and went through another bottle of Butterbeer each when a foreboding site entered through the doorway of the Three Broomsticks: Professor McGonagall.
"I believe that is our cue to leave," Remus whispered and nodded towards the door. Peter gave a little yelp as James was already pulling out the invisibility cloak. "I reckon we won't need that in here if we sneak around the crowd that way," Remus explained, pointing on the opposite side of the pub.
Quickly snaking their way through the crowd, they made it to the door and all filed outside. James looked back once more before exiting and thought he saw McGonagall looking their way. He was right; she was staring straight at them. He made eye contact with her and winked, quickly disappearing through the door as she was getting up from her stool at the bar. "Run! She's seen us!"
Tearing down the road, all except Remus thought of transforming into their Animagus forms. Sirius and James thought better of turning into a big black dog and a stag since Remus couldn't change into a werewolf at will; he could only do it when there was a full moon. They didn't want him to be left in their dust on only two legs to their four and leave him to be caught by McGonagall. Peter however thought only of himself and transformed into a rat right before their eyes and scampered off. "That sneaky little rat!" Sirius yelled.
"Padfoot let's go! We can't worry about him right now. We need to get back into our common room before McGonagall gets back," James shouted backward at his friend who had stopped in the middle of the road.
"Prongs is right. You know that's where McGonagall is heading. She wouldn't try to catch up to us running; she'd never do it! She'll catch us by seeing we're not in our tower!" Remus yelled towards Sirius.
"Oh, alright. But he is going to get it the next time I see him…" Sirius started and resumed running down the road trying to catch up to Remus and James, who were at least 100 feet in front of him.
He heard James say, "Moony, the door's still unlocked. Hurry up!" Sirius had almost caught up to them again. The three made their way to the staircase inside Honeydukes again, Remus shouting the spell behind him to re-lock the front door, Sirius grabbing another handful of Every Flavour Beans as he went by the bin.
They ran down the stairs, not bothering to be quiet this time, and threw open the hatch in the floor of the cellar. James was the last one in and pulled the wooden door closed. They continued to run all the way to the end of the tunnel. Sirius was already pulling out the Marauder's Map and James the invisibility cloak.
"We haven't got time for that, Prongs!" Sirius said rather louder than he meant to.
"It's a risk," James replied, "not having it on."
"Since when are you afraid of taking a risk?" Sirius barked back at him, smiling. James didn't say anything but just smiled back.
"Is anyone around?" Remus asked.
"I don't see anyone, but it looks like Filch is still walking about. If we hurry, we should be okay. Let's go."
They opened up the passageway and sneaked into the corridor of Hogwarts, being careful not to make a sound. Then the three boys sprinted down the hallways getting to the portrait of the fat lady in record time, and luckily without running into anyone on the way. James said the password, "Hinkypunk," and they leapt into the common room. Luckily, there was no one in there as it was quite late now and everyone was probably in bed.
"Quickly! Get out the Wizard's Chess set over there," Remus said to James. He grabbed it and set the board out on the table. All three boys arranged the pieces around the board in a haphazard way, trying to make it look like the game had been ongoing for a while. Sirius was mumbling something under his breath.
"What'd you say Padfoot?" Remus asked.
"What? Oh, I said 'I'm going to get that sneaky little rat the next time I see him!' I can't believe he took off on us like that. Hopefully he lost his way..." Sirius trailed off.
"Now, be nice. He just didn't think."
"Don't protect him Moony! Prongs and I didn't transform did we?" Sirius angrily spat at Remus.
"I'm not protecting him. He just doesn't think sometimes. He assumed he could scamper away."
"Whatever…I just --"
"This is not the time to argue about this," James interrupted. "Moony, sit down across from me there. Padfoot, grab that chair and sit here." They both obliged. James had just put his hand on a knight when the portrait hole burst open, McGonagall walking through briskly, trying to catch her breath.
She looked at them sharply, looking slightly disapproving, and walked towards the table. "Playing a nice game boys?"
"Yes, Professor," Remus replied.
"Where is Pettigrew? You four are always like peas in a pod," she inquired.
No one said anything. Finally James piped up, "I think he's upstairs sleeping. He was tired." Sirius shot him a look that could kill. He wasn't happy that James was covering up for Peter. James felt that it was his responsibility though as Peter looked up to him in a way. James quite liked the attention and didn't want to risk losing it.
McGonagall remained silent for several minutes, looking from each boy to the chess board as Remus and James made very uncalculated moves with their chess pieces, really only moving them about and definitely not concentrating on the game. "Very well. Don't stay up much later boys. I do realize it is a Friday and you haven't any lessons tomorrow, but Potter, tomorrow is Quidditch and I expect us to win against Ravenclaw," and she turned and walked toward the doorway. Remus, Sirius, and James all looked at each other grinning. They had managed to escape being caught once again.
"Oh, and Lupin, Potter," McGonagall turned and said back to the boys, "you may want to brush up on your Wizard's Chess skills. It appears that you, Potter had Lupin's king checked about a dozen moves ago." And with that she winked at James and swept through the portrait hole, all three boys staring after her with their jaws hanging open.
"She knows! She knows it was us," James exclaimed. "I winked at her right before I ran out the door of the Three Broomsticks!"
"What!" Sirius gasped. "You winked at McGonagall!" he was laughing along with Remus now.
"I reckon we should get to bed now, before she comes back again," Remus sighed after several minutes of hysterical laughter. The three boys made their way up the staircase into their dormitory, where they found Peter already fast asleep in his four-poster bed.
"That sneaky rat. He must've sneaked in here when McGonagall opened the door and transformed himself once he got upstairs," Sirius sighed.
"Oh well. You can have it out with him tomorrow Padfoot," James whispered.
"Yeah, I suppose."
They all got into their own four-poster beds and just as Sirius was climbing into his and drawing the red velvet curtains shut, he looked at the bed next to his and said quietly, "Prongs, where are we going to go tomorrow night?"