The First Year

The next morning, the four boys in the gryffindor dorm woke up excited. There was a mad scramble for robes and clothes before they hurried out of their dorm and down to the common room. James and Orion, the most adventurous of the four immediately set off to the Great Hall. Between the two, they eventually managed to get to breakfast. Breakfast was great and all three boys were surprised but excited when the mail arrived, each of them receiving a letter.

James' was from his family telling him how proud they were that he had been sorted into gryffindor. Albus had wanted to know exactly what happened when you were sorted, and his parents wanted to hear about his first classes, new classmates, and friends he and Teddy were sure to have made by the end of the week. He was already composing a letter to Al in his head about battling a troll to find out what house you were in.

Orion's letter was full of questions from his parents and a congratulations from his grandmum who had finally revealed to him that she had been a gryffindor herself and was very proud. They also wanted plenty of details by the end of the week.

Teddy's letter from his grandmother had been nice, telling him how proud his father would have been. She told him to keep up with his studying from the beginning and not to get behind. She also told him to try and make a good impression with the potions professor Slughorn who was one of the oldest professors in the school and had therefore had his parents. Needless to say he hadn't liked either of them as they were both horrendous at potions.

Murphy's letter had been brief and distracted from his father. His father was proud of him for being in his old house and had told him to write his grandmum Finnigan and tell her all about it too.

Toward the end of breakfast, Professor Longbottom began going down the row passing out schedules. When he came to the four boys James smiled. "Hey Neville!"

"It's Professor Longbottom now, James," he answered back with a stern smile. "Looks like I'll see you this afternoon and here are your schedules."

The boys smiled picking up their schedules. Teddy groaned. "Double Potions all morning! Grandmum just warned me about Slughorn and my clumsiness. AND it's with Slytherin."

"Won't be that bad Teddy, we can sit in the back if we get there early," said James.

"We don't know where it is," said Orion.

"How about we follow that prefect who is leading those students?" said Murphy pointing to a herd of Slytherin first years. The four boys abandoned their breakfast and grabbed their heavy bags.

"I'm just now realizing how stupid it was to put every single book in our bags since we didn't know what class we would have first," said James. Orion laughed loudly as they followed the group to the dungeons.

Upon arriving, the four boys took seats at a back table and set out their books and some note taking material. James smiled at Orion when they saw Elaine and her chapped lipped friend sitting at a table in the front near the supply closet. The first years chatted for a while and James realized that there were only ten gryffindors this year. His cousin Victoire Weasley was sitting with Elaine. He smirked, she was so fun to prank.

When Slughorn arrived the students weren't very surprised that he was a bit old, but obviously knew what he was talking about. He opened the class with attendance. As predicted he mumbled something about klutzes when he called off Teddy's name, and he was quite excited when he came across James.

"Potter!" he exclaimed. James raised his hand. "You look just like your father, except the eyes. You look more like your grandfather James. How appropriate!" he laughed to himself there. "Oh, well hopefully you'll take after them, all wonderful in potions, your grandmum too."

The first day they only took notes and discussed a few things, but it was very obvious that Professor Slughorn, head of Slytherin, favored his house.

A free period and lunch followed the potions period and the boys had fun getting back to the great hall. They only got lost four times, but Teddy thought this was probably because Murphy had decided to lead them. They then had to go back to the gryffindor tower, which also took a long time because Orion and James got into a fight with a crazy portrait of a knight. Eventually Teddy led them back and they got their History of Magic and Herbology books.

History of Magic was extremely boring. Even the Ravenclaws that they shared the class with had a hard time paying attention. Teddy noticed that he and Elaine Dridel were the only gryffindors paying attention and taking actual notes. James and Orion, who had been hitting it off very well were passing notes the entire period. Teddy rolled his eyes at his good friend but was secretly worried that Orion would soon be closer to James than he would. Murphy slept the entire class later claiming it was the time difference between Ireland and England and that he had "floo-lag".

Herbology was actually pretty fun. Neville-Professor Longbottom, was a fun teacher. Being the gryffindor Head of House, James had been hoping that he would favor them like Professor Slughorn did his house. However, he was disappointed as the very first class Professor Longbottom deducted points from him for talking during attendance. After class however, Professor Longbottom called him up to ask him and his new friends to tea with Hagrid on Wednesday afternoon after Herbology. They had a free period because their fourth class that day was Astronomy which took place at midnight with Professor Sinistra.

The next day the boys had double Transfiguration in the morning with Professor Prewitt, the Hufflepuff head, and the Ravenclaws. This was immediately James' favorite class as he was the only one to successfully transfigure his matches to needles on the first try earning himself fifteen house points.

That afternoon they had double Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Jones and the slytherins. That was immediately Orion's favorite class and at the end of class he proclaimed he would be an aurour. A slytherin from the other side of the room laughed. Orion had merely frowned and wrote down a description of the boy, short brown hair and wire framed glasses. The next time they pulled a prank he said- target numero uno.

Wednesday they had practical astronomy in the morning with the Hufflepuffs. They then had their first charms class with Professor Flitwick and the Hufflepuffs. That had been an interesting class too. Wednesday afternoon was Herbology and their tea with Hagrid and Neville. James and their four friends learned two major lessons that day. One, do not eat anything Hagrid cooks. Two, do not let Professor Neville perform advanced repairing charms on anything, it may lead to fires or explosions or both.

The next day the midnight Astronomy class the night before had left the boys more tired than usual. This was unfortunate as the boys had transfiguration and potions again in the morning with defense and herbology in the afternoon. Friday the boys were just happy to have made it through the week and barely made it through their history of magic and astronomy lessons in the morning and double charms in the afternoon.

In all it was a long week with lots of homework: three essays, four chapters of assigned reading, the start of a project, two worksheets, some practice assignments, and two quizzes. The boys got lost for a total time of four hours and fifty three minutes, and were late for five classes. This is why on Friday afternoon after their last class, the four boys could be found under a large beach tree by the lake resting. Well all of them but Teddy who was scratching something on a piece of parchment.

"It's official, we have spent four hours and fifty three minutes of our first week of Hogwarts lost in this maze of a castle," he announced as he finished the math problem with a flourish.

"You would have counted," said Orion with a laugh.

"That's ridiculous!" exclaimed James. "We really need to figure out our way around the castle. I say we spend the entire weekend exploring the castle and learning it's every nook and cranny starting in the dungeons up!"

"I bet it takes years to know this place, not only that, but it's constantly changing with it's moving stairs and such," said Teddy dejectedly.

"Besides," said Murphy. "Even if we explore it all weekend, who says we will remember everything we explored. I have one of the worst memories, and get lost easily. I was the one that made us nearly miss dinner on Tuesday."

"What about a map?" suggested Orion.

"A map! It's perfect! James, you're a great artist, so you can draw it, and we can explore it until we know all sorts of ways to every class!" exclaimed Teddy.

"My dad mentioned that there are lots of secret passages and such too! We can look for those and put them on our map!" added James.

"That sounds like a lot of fun! When will we start making it?" asked Murphy.

"This will be our first mission as a group, and we will start tonight- after hours!" exclaimed James with a grin.

"Why tonight? Can't we just do it during the day?" asked Murphy nervously as Orion smiled happily. Teddy looked a little concerned, but you could tell he wanted to go.

"We have to go out at night because then we are breaking the rules. Things are much more fun when you break rules," stated Orion as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

During the time between the first week of school and Halloween, the boys went out every night that they didn't have too many assignments to map out the school. Orion and James, who studied and worked the least often went out without Murphy, who had a harder time with all of the work, and Teddy who was a bit of an overachiever and had to work harder for his grades. It was soon evident that James and Orion didn't have to try, but got top marks while Teddy got the same as they did with a bit more work. By Halloween the boys had mapped out the way to all of their classes but the castle wasn't in much detail yet.

The day before Halloween the four boys sat in the Great Hall eating breakfast when James had an idea. As far as ideas went, he was the one to come up with them most of the time. When they had made ShiShi Yang's ink explode all over her in charms the week before, it had been James' idea. When they had charmed Rachel Davies' blond hair bright red in transfiguration, well, that had been James' idea also. Generally any idea that the boys came up with was devised by either Orion or James. That is why on October 30th when James stated he had an idea, Teddy got a little nervous.

Halloween was on a Saturday this year, so the third years and older would be going to Hogsmead during the day, with a feast in the evening. The fact that the first and second years would be left alone in the school for the day was what had inspired James to begin with.

"Tomorrow, when the older students are gone, we need to go to the library," he said mischievously.

"AHH THE LIBRARY! THE HORROR!" cried Orion covering his eyes.

"As much as I've tried to convince you, the library isn't scary. It's actually a cool place," Teddy said rolling his eyes.

"No, we are going to the library, no questions."

"Okay then, why are we going?" asked Orion.

"We are going to be looking up some more advanced spells for our Halloween prank. We can't be very good pranksters if we don't have a great prank for Halloween. Plus if the spell is advanced enough, the teachers won't suspect us at all."

"Oh, like when you and Teddy went to the library and looked up the color switching spell for the Ravenclaw's hair," answered Orion.

"Yup, like that. Only this time I won't get detention. I had to clean the trophies with Filch for three nights, and Professor Prewitt took off fifteen house points," groaned James.

"Yea, well maybe if you hadn't been so obvious by practically screaming the spell you wouldn't have been caught," answered Teddy pointedly.

"Yes, that did lead to some problems. Her twin brother Ralph about killed me. Madame Strout had a fit when I came to her with that bloody nose, thought I ate one of Uncle George's nosebleed nougats again. Honestly, that was just one time where I didn't want to be in potions," said James wincing at the memory of Ralph Davies' fist to his nose. "At least the girls were impressed with my dashing black eye."

"Sure they were, what was it that was said again?" said Teddy laughing. "Oh yes, Ah-hem," began Teddy in an impersonation of James. He looked around quickly before morphing his hair black and his face into James'. "Hey Elaine, did you see my black eye, I got it in a fight. Aren't you impressed?"

Orion immediately jumped in a high toned impersonation of the dark haired girl. "Potter! The only thing I was impressed with was Professor Prewitt's ability to so severely punish her favorite and best student." Murphy, Teddy, and Orion were laughing hysterically as James scowled at the memory.

"She was impressed," he shot back. "I know it."

"Keep telling yourself that Potter, because I definitely wasn't," came the voice of the very girl being discussed from behind him. This succeeded in turning James' ears red and causing the other three boys to laugh even harder as Elaine and her friends Victoire Weasley, Sarah Albright, and ShiShi Yang walked away to History of Magic.

"Anyways," said James who was embarrassed. "Tomorrow, in the library, all day."

The next day, Murphy was sleeping on a pile of books including 101 Beauty Spellswhile the other three looked for pranking material. Orion was doing so half heartedly as he flipped through A Magical Dictionary of Hexes and Curses. Teddy was reading a book on potions that was background research for his potions essay that he didn't want James to realize he was secretly working on, so of course it was James who found it.

"AHA!" he cried, gaining an angry glance from the librarian and causing Murphy to fall out of his chair.

"Did you find something?" asked Orion excitedly in a hushed voice. James nodded and the four crowded their heads to look at the open page of the book. Teddy nodded as Orion grinned with a twinkle in his eye and Murphy laughed, the dimples in his cheeks appearing.

The four boys spent the rest of the day in an empty charms classroom practicing the simple spell James had found. By lunch time, all four of them had mastered the spell with Murphy only causing one explosion. The four boys happily played exploding snap and wizard's chess until dinner.

When dinner time came, the four boys acted according to plan and went down to dinner as normal. Anyone who was expecting someone to play a Halloween prank soon became disappointed however, because throughout the entire dinner nothing out of the ordinary had happened. While the main course had been eaten, no one had noticed when James Potter had surreptitiously pointed his wand at the Slytherin table and mumbled something. No one had noticed when Orion Black had charmed the Gryffindor table, Murphy Finnigan the Hufflepuff one, or Teddy Lupin the Ravenclaw table.

Finally the desserts arrived. This was the best part of the feast with tons of different types of desserts and candies appearing on the tables. Everyone was excited to see the sweets appear and all had been saving room for them. What no one had been expecting was for the sweets on the slytherin table to suddenly soar ten feet above the tables as soon as they appeared and then fly through the air at the other three tables. Around the hall, students were looking at the extra desserts or lack of desserts. Soon three out of four tables were laughing and even the teachers were laughing a bit.

A few of the slytherins chimed in until a couple of older slytherins traveled over to the other tables and began returning things to their table. As soon as the plate of sweets touched the table it was repelled and sent back to one of the other house tables. Soon the other three houses were hysterical as they watched the frantic slytherins try to get the sweets to stay on their table. Soon the professors were gathered around the slytherin house table and trying to figure out the charm on it. However, by the time that the charm had been discovered, the other three houses had finished the desserts and returned to their common rooms. No one noticed the four first years high fiving each other on the way back to the Gryffindor common room.

After Halloween, the boys began spending more time in the library between their escapades exploring the castle. They would look up spells for pranks or just to know them. The boys were becoming closer than ever, and were having tons of fun together. It soon became apparent that James and Orion were the ringleaders, and whatever one of them did, the other did too. Teddy kept them grounded and stopped them from getting into too much trouble. Murphy had actually become more useful to the group as time progressed. He wasn't sleeping so much and he was the one that was sure to make the other boys laugh with a funny joke told in his funny Irish accent. James and Orion were the smartest of the group naturally, but didn't necessarily apply themselves in the classroom. They were at the top of their classes, even above the Ravenclaws most of the time. Murphy was the slowest of the group when it came to schoolwork and often made things explode, especially in charms and potions. He said he got this from his dad. Teddy was book smart, but it didn't come as naturally and he had to work harder in classes to get the spells and such right. As predicted he was abhorrent in potions due to the clumsiness he had inherited from his parents. This was especially bad when he and Murphy paired off together.

For the Christmas holidays, all four boys would be going home, Murphy to Ireland, Orion to his parents in Southern England, Teddy to London with his grandmother, and James to Grimwald Place. On the train ride home, the four boys sat with the some maps of the first three floors of Hogwarts and the dungeons. They had made them in as much detail as possible and had discovered both the slytherin common room entrance and the Hufflepuff common room and entrance along with the kitchens. Since discovering the kitchens the boys had been sneaking down to the kitchens too. Of all the boys, James was the most worried about going home. He was pretty sure that the headmistress had owled his father due to his many detentions. Forty-three to be exact. Orion had thirty-nine, Teddy a mere twenty, and Murphy thirty-two. James hadn't meant to be caught so many times, but it had just happened. Punishment for being out past curfew was detention and he had been caught no less than twenty three times, the rest of the detentions came from pranks mostly. Considering that James went out every time someone snuck out so he could draw the map he was caught the most. Lets just say that James Sirius Potter didn't think that his father Harry Potter hero and all around good guy of the wizarding world would be happy about his son's troublemaking.

When the boys stepped off the train and said their final goodbyes for the holidays they promised to write each other. Teddy and James were going to see each other, but they were the only ones. Orion went to his parents when stepping off the train, while Murphy ran to his dad who was waiting on the platform. Teddy and James went together to James' family and Teddy's grandmum.

Ginny Potter started crying at the sight of her son and hugged him as he let out a "MUM! YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME!". Harry smiled, and Albus took the opportunity to shout "JAMES POTTER IS A MAMAS BOY!" At this Ginny let go and scolded her middle child with a look that could have melted his glasses.

"Hey slytherin, how are you doing?" asked James noticing his brother's green shirt. At this Albus started wailing to his mum about how he wouldn't be in slytherin and wanted her to put a color changing charm on his shirt. James rolled his eyes as his mother told Albus no. He decided that he would take one last opportunity to perform magic before he left the platform and it wasn't allowed. With a wave of his wand, Albus's shirt turned gryffindor red.

"Brill! Thanks James!" said Albus looking down at his shirt before smiling at his brother. James shrugged knowing how advanced color changing charms were. He had practiced a lot by changing the first year gryffindor girls' hair.

"JAMES SIRIUS POTTER! NO MAGIC OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL! When we get home you are going directly to your room and staying there until you realize the severity of your actions," said a very angry Ginny.

"Aww, Mum, we're allowed to do magic on the platform. It was just one last charm. Besides, it was harmless. He wanted it done, I just did it for him. Come on mum, I haven't been home in ages!"

"Well, what do you think Harry?"

"I think that was a very good color changing charm, quite advanced. Besides Ginny, he's allowed to do magic on the platform. Come one, lets get to the car, goodbye Mrs. Tonks, Teddy."

James let out a sigh of relief, the first thing he wanted to do when he got home was play quidditch, not stay in his room all afternoon. On the way home, Albus marveled over how great the color changing charm had been, and how much magic James must have learned at school. Lily, the youngest was pretty quiet, but she wanted to play quidditch when they got home.

When the family of five got home, they all went out to the backyard to play quidditch. Lily was very small to be playing, but she was a natural flier like her dad. When the Potters played quidditch, Harry and Albus played against everyone else. Harry would be keeper and defend the goal as much as he could, and Albus was the only seeker. Ginny, James, and Lily were chasers and tried to score as many points before Albus caught the snitch. This method worked fairly well as no one group dominated the other, however, this time the three chasers won, partially because Lily had improved so much while James was at Hogwarts. When the game was over, Ginny made a quick dinner while James got resettled in his room and answered the countless questions his younger siblings had about Hogwarts.

At dinner, the conversation was focused mainly on what had happened at home, but after dinner James knew it was coming. "Lily, Albus, help your mom with the dishes. James, why don't you come talk to me in the study."

James frowned apprehensively and followed his father into the cozy fire lit room lined with bookshelves full of books on magic. In the corner was a pensive and a cabinet filled with murky bottles. Harry went and sat behind his large mahogany desk and motioned for James to take a seat across from him. James sat as his father stared him down. After a minute or so of James fidgeting under his intense stare, Harry opened a desk drawer and pulled out a pile of letters. And a package wrapped in brown paper.

"How about we start with the letters from Professor Longbottom, your head of house?" asked Harry. James nodded and Harry pulled out the first letter he had received.

"Dear Harry,
Do you remember all the trouble we got into in school? Well, I'm sure you do, and won't be surprised when you hear your son takes after you. Hopefully your experiences will make you more understanding and such with James. I am writing to inform you that James has received ten detentions in this first month of school. A letter must be sent for every ten disciplinary detentions in a school year. While James is doing very well and exceeding in all of his classes, he is still getting into some troublesome activities. He has been caught out of the gryffindor house after hours eight times since school started, something that Filtch isn't too happy about. He has also hexed one fellow student, and caused another to have purple hair. That is all, I hope I don't have to write another of these soon.
Sincerely,
Neville Longbottom, Head of Gryffindor House"

"Yeah, well, about that dad," began James. "The first month of school it was very fun to explore the school. And Farley Greengrass deserved being hexed because he made fun of one of the girls in my year. He said her eyes were funny shaped."

"That was only the first letter I received, James. I heard all about the other times you were sneaking out after hours. While learning levitating charms in Flitwick's class you levitated a fellow student, Elaine Dridel. I also know that Professor Longbottom suspects you were behind the Halloween prank. He said that you were unable to be placed as the prankster because the magic was very advanced for a first year, and there was no evidence. He doesn't know how you did it, but knows that you must have. Did you do this?"

"Well," said James, knowing that he couldn't lie to his dad who had improved at Legilimency since his Hogwarts years. "My friends, Teddy, this boy named Orion, and another named Murphy Finnigan, you went to school with his dad, and I, we wanted to play a great Halloween prank. So we researched and practiced all day in the library and an old charms classroom to pull off a great prank. We made it so the desserts from the Slytherin table wouldn't stay on the table and we made so the other tables had attraction charms to the desserts. It was really funny dad, you should have seen their faces, and the whole hall was laughing. It was great, and we didn't even get caught. Harmless really dad."

"Hmm," said Harry, looking at his eleven year old son. "Well, I can't really punish you for telling me the truth about it. All I can say, is I don't want you doing that sort of thing, and I don't want any more detentions for the rest of the year. Especially for sneaking out after curfew. It's not fair to keep that cranky old caretaker up at night chasing after you."

"Okay dad, thanks for the talk, I think you really straightened me out."

"One more thing before you rush out of here," said Harry picking up the brown paper wrapped package. "This is an early Christmas present for you, and old family heirloom so to speak. I want you to open it once you get to school, and don't talk to your mum about it. Its probably better we kept this between the two of us. Take good care of it."

"Thanks dad," said James taking the package and hugging his father before running out of the room. Harry smiled as he opened a locked drawer in his desk taking out a large book and flipping it open. On the first page stood an eleven year old James Potter smiling up at the camera with his hazel eyes twinkling and his grin crooked. Yes, James Sirius Potter was going to be a lot like James Ignotus Potter.

The winter holidays at the Potter household passed fairly easily. James played a lot of quidditch, especially when the entire family, all of the Weasley side went to the Burrow and held a giant quidditch tournament. The Potter family won, beating George and Angelina's family plus Rose Weasley in the final match. With James, Lily, and Ginny as chasers, Albus as seeker, and Harry as keeper, they were unbeatable.

James got lots of great gifts for Christmas, especially some secret presents he received from his Uncle George via owl. Some new Weasley Wizarding Wheezes to try out at Hogwarts. He also received some presents from his friends. Teddy had sent him a book on transfiguration; Orion had sent him a book called 101 Hilarious Hexes; and Murphy had sent him some really good sweets from the Irish equivalent of Honeydukes. He was really interested in the candies called "lucky charms: magically delicious" which were different sugary sweets that placed different charms on the eater. One made you levitate above the ground for a few minutes, while one made you turn rainbow colored for a while.

James himself had sent Teddy a very nice leather book bag that made the contents lighter than what they actually were. He thought it would come in handy since Teddy carried about twenty books at a time. He had sent Orion a large supply of Weasley Wizarding Wheezes, and had sent Murphy a nice book about his favorite quidditch team the Kestrels.

Meanwhile, far from London No.12 Grimwald Place, in the Southern most region of England, Orion was having a great time with his family. His father had spent a lot of time at the ministry over the holidays because of the World Cup being hosted in England in four years, and so Orion had spent a lot of the holidays with his grandmum. She lived in a little guesthouse through their backyard which allowed her to remain independent with her family nearby.

"So have you made many friends? I was in gryffindor, and all my best friends were too," she said to him one afternoon over tea and biscuits.

"Yup, I have three of the best friends anyone could ask for!" he said around some bites of cookie.

"Oh, and who are they?" she asked mildly.

"Well, there's James, he's my best friend. He's just as crazy as me, and don't tell mum and dad or anything but we get into heaps of trouble. We're always out at night exploring the school and James likes to play pranks. We pulled this great one where we turned this girl in our grade's hair purple. We also had the best Halloween prank ever, and we didn't get caught. My other friend is James' dad's godson Teddy. His studies all the time and helps us with our pranks sometimes while other times he tries to stop us. He's got a funny sense of humor but he's really nice. Murphy is from Ireland and he's really funny. He loves quidditch, but doesn't get to play much. He likes to help us with pranks and stuff, but he's not as good at helping us pull them off. However, he's also really funny and good at cheering anyone up."

"Really," said his grandmother thoughtfully. "That all reminds me so much of when I was in school. My best friends and I had such good times together. Of course we didn't get into trouble, but there were others who did. Like you and your friends. I'm tired, why don't you come back tomorrow." The boy left, the grandmother watching him with his grey eyes and messy black hair. She reached under her coffee table and pulled out a photo album. She opened to a page where a much younger version of herself was smiling next to a boy that looked very similar to her grandson and smiled.

When the boys got back on the train, they had a lot of catching up to do. Everyone had gotten some very good presents, and they all couldn't wait to use their new WWW products. When they got back to Hogwarts after a long train ride full of wizarding chess and jokes, they had a delicious meal and went to their dorm. After they had all unpacked, Orion was sitting on his bed throwing a quaffle against the wall loudly while Teddy was showing off his Metamorphmagus, powers to Murphy. His grandmother had strictly forbid him from using his powers the entire first half of the year at the request of Professor Longbottom, but he was now using them to the fullest of his abilities, morphing his face, short light brown hair, and blue eyes into the strangest colors and shapes and styles he could think of. James took the longest unpacking as he was thinking of the brown wrapped package at the bottom of his bag. Finally he reached the bottom and took a deep breath.

"Mates," he said getting their attention. "My dad gave me a secret Christmas gift and he wanted me to open it at school. I think I'm ready to open it. It must be something really special." The three boys gathered around James as he reverently opened the brown paper package to reveal

James held up a silvery piece of material as it slid out of the packing. The boys gasped, all of them being raised in the wizarding world knew what it was. It was an invisibility cloak. This would be the key to fully exploring Hogwarts under the noses of their professors. The boys grinned and James slipped under it. The boys laughed as he disappeared.

"If we thought first semester was fun, then second semester is going to be even better guys!"

And it was, the boys mapped more of Hogwarts in their next three months of school than most of the seventh years could have. The boys found more secret passages and hidden aspects of the school than they could have imagined. They soon had mapped out all of the school that they knew and were constantly adding to it. It seemed as if every night they went out they added more to their maps. James had put the maps in a muggle sketchbook with a floor for each page. By mid March, the boys still hadn't received a detention for being out after curfew, only for pranks and mild class disruptions.

March 27th happened to be James Sirius Potter's birthday. On this date he and his fellow roommates could be found in the library pretending to be studying for their transfiguration exam.

"Do you remember Halloween?" asked James.

"Of course we remember Halloween. Stupid question," answered Orion.

"Well, April first is coming up. April Fools Day. The holiday of pranking," said James suggestively.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" asked Teddy curiously.

"SCHOOLWIDE PRANK!" exclaimed James and Orion together.

"YES!" shouted Murphy a little too loudly gaining the boys a glare from the crazy, old librarian.

"Ok, we better tone it down before she comes over here and yells at us," said Teddy, ever the one to avoid trouble.

"Whatever, she's practically deaf anyways. What are we going to do?" asked Orion excitedly.

"Why do you think we are in the library?" asked James as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He held up a few books. "I dog-eared some pages I thought might be helpful. This is what I was thinking…."

A few days later, four tired boys walked into the Great Hall for breakfast earlier than usual. They smiled at the few students already inside before stepping into the Hall and turning to laugh at each other. Each of them had bright red hair and skin. All of the Hufflepuffs at their table were bright yellow and the Ravenclaws were blue. The gryffindors, hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws for the most part looked amused. It was a funny prank that was quite harmless. A few girls appeared to be worried about their hair, but most looked as if they were taking it in good fun. The slytherings didn't look very happy. In fact, everyone else was laughing at them because their hair was not a bright green, or even silver. It was bright gryffindor red while their skin remained a horrid green. It was amusing. The teachers were also humorous. The spell had been specialized to show the house that the teacher was most suited to unless they were a head of house. Professor McGonagall's was red, as was Hagrid, and Professor Longbottom all of which looked very funny. By the end of breakfast the entire Great Hall was in an uproar and the teachers were looking a bit miffed at the prank. By the end of breakfast McGonagall had made an announcement for whoever had pulled the prank to come forward to avoid a more severe punishment when the found out who had done it and for anyone who knew about the prank to come foreword. James, Orion, Teddy, and Murphy just laughed, knowing that no one knew it was them or would suspect the innocent little first years. Especially because no one had figured out how someone had done such complicated magic and was continuing to do so with every new person that entered the Great Hall. Little did the professors suspect that they had placed the charm on the doors to the Great Hall and that the charm would wear off at midnight.

The rest of the year went smoothly for the boys. Each of them did fairly well on their end of the year exams. Orion and James didn't study at all and each received top marks in all of their subjects, while Teddy and Murphy studied dutifully for each exam. Teddy did very well in almost all of his subjects, except potions, and Murphy did very well in herbology, astronomy, and transfiguration while he almost failed charms and potions.

As the boys sat on the train for their ride home they discussed their year.

"Wasn't it the best when you levitated Dridel in charms and when she yelled at you to put her down you dropped her on those hufflepuffs?" asked Orion laughing at the memory.

"Yeah, that was pretty funny," answered James. "I thought the color changing prank was the best though. The teachers never did figure out we used the doors for that one."

"No, the magnetic desserts was the best!" exclaimed Murphy laughing. "They tasted the best too!"

As the boys laughed about their first year the gradually calmed and the train slowly pulled into the station. The four boys looked at each other somberly. Teddy was going to spend the summer at his grandmother's house, and James would be at No. 12 Grimwald place. Orion was going to visit his relatives in France and Murphy would be in Ireland.

"We'll all write. I have my owl Mercury and Orion has... owl. I'll send it around to everyone. We will keep in touch. Maybe we can get together for Murphy's birthday on July 30th or to get school supplies in Diagon Alley."

"I'm gonna miss you guys all summer long!" said Orion pulling the rest of the guys in for a hug. They all hugged, in a manly manner, before gruffly grabbing their trunks and heading off the train to their respective parents. "I'll send Owl to you guys with loads of letters." The boys smiled at how Orion still hadn't decided on a name for his owl yet.

"Maybe you'll name her by the end of the summer." James smiled sadly thinking of spending the entire summer without his friends. However, he smiled because he knew that they had had a wonderful first year. A historic first year. And he knew next year would be even better.

Reviews please! Ellie