Forever Young

Chapter 2: The Marauders


For James and Sirius, being together was easy, necessary, and inevitable. It was impossible for one of the two to go anywhere without the other. Most nights, they nestled into the corner by the window in the Gryffindor common room every night and talked animatedly about their lives. Both were so loquacious and enthusiastic that it took very little time for them to learn much about each other. Sirius learned that James was an avid flier. James found that Sirius enjoyed reading fiction stories.

"…but textbooks?" Sirius laughed. "Never!"

James realized that Sirius's favorite dessert at Hogwarts was the pumpkin pie, so whenever he saw that Sirius was too quiet, he saved him a piece. And whenever Sirius got on his nerves, James made a point to get to dinner early and eat all the pumpkin pie at the table. Granted, this did give him terrible stomach aches, but it was worth it to see the frustrated look on his friend's face.

Talking with each other and spending so much time together allowed Sirius to finally become the person he was hoping Hogwarts would allow him to be. Quickly, he turned from an introverted observer to a loud, rambunctious entertainer. He and James were always the hoot of Transfiguration, but were usually the people who cost Gryffindor House the most points. In no time at all, the duo became known as troublemaking jokesters.

The boys were rather loud and obnoxious for first years; quite often they found upperclassmen in their spot by the window yelling at them to shut up. Unfazed, the two simply grinned and nodded, and then continued their talk without a change. Every once in a while, James would begin to talk about Lily Evans, and every time, Sirius would roll his eyes at him.

"What?" demanded James.

"You've seriously got to stop thinking about that girl."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he said indignantly. Sirius noted but remained quiet about the tinge of pink that was slowly creeping over James's face.

"I don't know." Sirius shrugged, his stormy gray eyes drifting across the room. "I'm just saying, you're kind of getting obsessed there, James."

"Wha…obsessed…what are you…obsessed…don't…don't be—ridiculous!" spluttered James. "She's just-just someone in our year…that's all!"

"Who is?" a voice behind him asked. Sirius looked up behind James to see Harley Potter, James's oldest brother. "That Lily girl?"

"How do you know who she is?" James demanded, turning around abruptly. "You're a sixth year!"

Harley let out a booming laugh, one strikingly similar to Mrs. Potter's. "You sent Mum a letter about her, and she told me to keep an eye out for you and your new crush."

Bright red, James turned back to Sirius, searching desperately for words to defend himself. "I…I don't like her! She's…she's horrible! I hate her! That's what I was writing Mum about." He turned back to Harley, "I don't know why she got confused by it, but that's what I was saying."

"Oh yeah?" Harley smirked. "Prove it. Prove that you don't have a crush on her." Turning his head, Harley glanced around the common room and spotted a small girl with dark red hair sitting by herself in the corner across from them, reading a book. "There she is. Hex her."

Both James and Sirius looked up at Harley, slightly taken aback. "H-Hex her?" stammered James. "Wh-How? I-I don't know any good hexes."

Harley snorted. "Yeah, right. I bet the first thing you did when you got your textbooks was look at the example hexes and learn to master them. I bet you have at least ten pranks you can choose from that are really beyond what a first year should know."

Casting his eyes down, James groaned inwardly at the truth of Harley's statement. He didn't want his brother and Sirius to think he had a…a crush on Lily Evans, but he also didn't want to hex her out of nowhere. Out of a faint hope that his brother was joking, James looked up again, but was sorely disappointed when all he saw was Harley's smirking, challenging face. Sighing to himself in defeat, James pulled out his wand.

"YEAH!" Harley cheered.

"Shh!" hissed James. "Keep it down, git. Everyone will know it was me."

Still laughing, Harley quieted. James ran through his thoughts to pick a hex that was not too cruel. He didn't want to outright hex her, so he tried to think of a spell that would affect her indirectly. Finally, he decided on one that would work, and flicked his wand at her chair, whispering the incantation. They watched, eyes wide, as Lily Evans's chair began to shake, and she realized it. Startled, she glanced around, with a look of panic in her green eyes. Suddenly, as he looked at her green eyes, James regretted it. He got so wrapped up in his regret that he forgot to put his wand away, and when she toppled and hit the ground, her narrowed eyes locked square onto his wand-bearing hand.

"Potter!" she screeched. "What is your problem?"

Part of the common room was laughing, another part was staring slightly stunned at James's magical skills, while the rest were gazing around absentmindedly, entirely unaware of the situation. Standing in the corner behind Sirius, Harley looked amused. Sirius, on the other hand, was taking in the situation with a wary eye. In all honesty, Sirius always found the best reactions to be those where the victim of the prank lost control, but he had rarely ever had the chance to see it happen. To James's utter shock, Lily drew her wand out of her pocket and pointed it directly at him, green eyes blazing.

"What in Merlin's name did I do to you?" she shrieked.

"I-I don't know…I…Are you okay?" he asked lamely.

"Okay? OKAY? First you insult my friend on the Hogwarts Express, then you prank me for no good reason, and then you have the nerve to ask if I'm 'okay?'" Her expression was livid, and James felt as though he should back down and apologize, but something drove him to push her further.

"Well," he said slyly, "there doesn't have to be a good reason for a prank. The good reason is just to have a laugh. And I've pretty much succeeded at that, haven't I?"

Indeed, a couple of onlookers were laughing, but the Gryffindor common room was far too noisy for their argument to make much of an impact. Lily sucked in a huge breath, her wand twitched, emitting a few small sparks, but she seemed to think better of it. Huffing loudly, she snatched up her book and stalked off to the girls' dormitory, giving James Potter a contemptuous glare over her shoulder.

With a burst of laughter, Harley clapped his younger brother on the shoulder. "Damn, James. That was really impressive magic! And, not to mention, a really impressive prank."

Surprised, James looked up at his brother. "Seriously? You're not going to tell me how I could've done it better?"

"Oh, of course I am," scoffed the older boy, throwing his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes.

Rolling his eyes, James looked back over at Sirius, and they both ignored Harley as he droned on about the different kinds of pranks he had played in the past.


It took a few practical jokes after that first one (that James always tried very hard not to speak of) before Sirius was able to openly accept his knack for making mischief. He and James particularly enjoyed pranking Slytherins, especially after one first year scoffed at Sirius and called him a "shame to his family." Both boys deeply itched to play a prank on Professor McGonagall, but neither had enough magical knowledge to carry out a worthy joke. Instead, they thrived on great, intricate schemes that sometimes involved huge amounts of liquid substance, NOT stolen, of course, and one that needed sneak—er—borrowing a cauldron from the dungeons.

After about a month of laughter and reckless behavior, James and Sirius noticed another boy in their dormitory. He was rather small and quiet, with light colored hair and a pale face. He must have been very studious, for he hadn't uttered a word to the loud pair for the many weeks they'd been in the same dorm, and he was rarely ever around. There was another boy in the dormitory as well whom James and Sirius had met and spoken to on a few occasions. His name was Peter Pettigrew, and one thing the boys deduced from him was that he was a great, nearly obsessed fan of Katherine Hepburn (James explained to Sirius that she was a famous movie star). Other than her, the only subject which he spoke of was schoolwork. Once, Pettigrew complimented a prank on the Slytherin first year Rookwood, and James and Sirius were surprised and pleased. That was the only time Peter ever spoke to the two directly without James and Sirius approaching him first.

One day, James and Sirius were sitting on James's bed, heads together, excitedly planning out their next prank.

"…yes, but mate, we need another person," James argued.

"No, of course not, James. Don't doubt us, we're capable of any sort of mischief," Sirius replied with a wide grin.

"It's really difficult magic, Sirius. We only just learned the spell in Charms, and we definitely can't do it to a person, yet. We need more than two people doing the charm at once."

"James, come on. It'll work, and it'll be great."

James, unconvinced, looked around to see their classmate sitting on his bed next to them reading. "Sirius," he whispered. "You think maybe he could help?"

"Well…" Sirius hesitated. He did not like including others in their schemes; he was very much fond of the idea of the names Potter and Black joined together as the best and the biggest mischief-makers in all of Hogwarts. "All right," he agreed reluctantly.

James, with a wide smile, walked up to the boy on the bed. "Hello, mate." The boy jumped.

"Oh…hello," he answered tentatively.

James was unfazed. "I'm James Potter."

"Yes…I know who you are…most of us do, actually," said the boy, and smiled a little.

"Yeah? Sirius, mate, did you hear that? We're famous already!" he beamed. Sirius's disappointed expression quickly changed into a vaunting, proud one.

"Well-deserved, too," Sirius said smugly. James redirected his attention to the boy.

"So? We've been in the same dormitory for the past month, and you haven't told us your name."

The boy flushed as much as his pale countenance would permit, and said in a barely audible voice, "Remus, Remus Lupin. Sorry, I don't know where my manners were."

James and Sirius guffawed. "Mate, with us, you don't need manners," Sirius said. "You should help us with this prank. It'll be excellent." Sirius's eyes twinkled.

James flashed Sirius a surprised look, then looked back at Remus to see if he agreed to work with them. Remus had a small smile on his face, and an almost shocked look behind his smooth features.

"Really?" asked Remus.

Nodding vigorously, James replied, "Oh yeah, we need a third person. Three people should do it, I think. Actually, why not four? Hey, Pettigrew!" With a glance over his shoulder, James called out towards the bed in the corner, where Peter Pettigrew was sitting and practicing his wandwork. The boy turned around to look at the trio with a thrilled look on his face.

"Yeah?"

"Help us out with this prank, would you?" James grinned. "We need that spell you're practicing."

Enthusiastically, Peter nodded. "Of course! Of course I'll help!"

The three boys then turned to Remus, all wearing hopeful smiles. Sirius raised his eyebrows. "Well?"

Remus looked at them sternly.

"You know, it's probably not a good idea to participate in the prank, or let you do it," he said. James's and Sirius's smiles faded a little, and Remus grinned widely. "So how are we planning it?"


Two weeks later, in the middle of Charms class, all hell broke loose. They were levitating glass bottles, practicing the Wingardium Leviosa spell. All over the room, glass was shattering, and the boys murmured several times that Professor Flitwick had made a terrible decision in choosing glass bottles for levitation practice. The only people who had managed to lift the bottle up were Lily Evans, but only for a moment, Remus managed it twice, and James and Sirius managed it three times and took that as a reason to stop. Professor Flitwick stood at the end of the room, shouting out useless words of encouragement and holding a shaking wand with one hand and a heavy textbook over his head with the other. Across from James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter was Severus Snape, who was glaring at his bottle, desperately willing it to rise into the air.

"Is it today, mate?" James asked Sirius quietly.

"Yeah," he replied. "But we'll see who."

They had mastered the charm they intended to use for their practical joke and marveled at the result that came from four people performing it at one time. Never before had they tried it on a person, however, and all four were nervous about the outcome. At least, James and Sirius were. Remus was more anxious about getting caught, and Peter was slightly oblivious to the entire scenario. All that was expected of him was to perform the charm at the right time. Now, they were before the obstacle of choosing a victim.

Snape looked up from his work and gave the boys a nasty sneer. "Perhaps if you didn't converse so much about your useless and petty, or so-called by yourselves 'clever' ideas, you might manage to actually produce a result." He looked over at Remus, who was trying hard to levitate his bottle higher than before, but was only managing about a centimeter or two off the desk, and continued, "Or perhaps not."

Sirius opened his mouth to retort angrily, but James stopped him with a look that Sirius understood and returned. They knew who. James flicked his wand at the other side of the room, and one of the glass bottles they were supposed to be levitating exploded loudly, causing many screams from the girls in the corner, one of whom happened to be Lily Evans. James smirked to himself.

"All right," Sirius whispered. "Now." With that, the four boys, eyes screwed up in concentration (they were only first years after all), pointed their wands under the table at Severus Snape and muttered the spell.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

The shriek was deafening.


By the next week, the laughter had died down, and although they sustained a severe telling-off from Lily Evans, the boys were now heroes regarded in much esteem by their peers. A detention and a few house points was a small price to pay for the respect the four had gained, some even from the upperclassmen. Charlie Benedict had approached James later to ask him if they really had levitated Severus Snape in Charms class, and swore under her breath at his affirmation, regretting fervently that she had been sick and absent from class that day. She then begged him, to no avail, to perform the prank again while she was watching. Once, James and Sirius had even walked by Harley and his friends to hear one of the older boys say, "Hey, mate, isn't that your brother? He levitated a person! That's bloody cool!" to which James smirked triumphantly at Harley's annoyed face. The four boys walked with a great swagger, especially James and Sirius. Almost immediately, everyone wanted to be James's and Sirius's friend. One would think Remus was being shunted to the side, but quite the contrary, after every compliment, either James or Sirius would laugh and say, "Remus was the brains," or "It was all Remus." If it was Sirius, he would add, "…and me," to the end of either phrase, earning a punch in the shoulder from Remus. And Peter, it seemed, was merely happy to be part of such a popular group.

One day in the common room, Remus was doing Potions homework, while James and Sirius were playing Exploding Snap on a nearby table, and Peter was struggling with a Transfiguration essay. "Mate," Sirius said to no one in particular. "It's time we hit again."

"Who's we?" Remus asked slightly absentmindedly.

Sirius looked surprised. "What d'you mean? You, me, James, and Peter, that's who's we."

"Hmm," Remus replied. "I didn't realize this was our primary function."

"English, mate," Sirius sighed. "Save that for the essay."

"I just thought we were only a group of friends. I didn't realize we were in the official business of pranking, that's all."

"No, no," defended Sirius, shaking his head. "Pranking is our thing. Isn't it, James?"

James looked contemplative for a moment. "Remus is onto something there."

Sirius looked at him incredulously. "What? Of course it is! We always have been in the 'business of pranking!' We—"

"Shut up for a minute Sirius," James said, waving his remark down. "I mean, yeah, we just did a prank for the fun of it, but if we're going to hit again…" He broke off, deep in thought. Even Remus had looked away from his paper.

Sirius clicked his tongue impatiently. "If we're going to hit again, what?"

James snapped his attention back. "We'll need a name," he said.