We bring you Chapter Three! You'll find out how James and Sirius' first prank went . . . and the detentions that follow. This chapter is in Sirius' POV and was therefor written by Abby. Hope you enjoy and don't forget to tell us what you think.

Disclaimer: Nope. We haven't suddenly morphed into J.K. Rowling and our bank accounts still remain the same.

Year 1:

Definitely Foolproof...

Sirius' POV

Despite popular opinion, James and I weren't expert pranksters at first. Quite far from that, actually. Our first prank, as I recall, was disastrous.

It was definitely a boring day for two eleven year old boys. The weather was rainy, it was a Sunday, and we were bored. We sat alone in the Gryffindor common room, thumbing through our Chocolate Frog Cards and staring at our Potions essays. The castle was quiet and dreary on this inclement October Sunday, which just so happened to be the perfect atmosphere to plan a prank.

"-and first years never make it. It's almost unheard of." I learned to zone out when James would begin to talk about Quidditch. Of course I was excited for him, who wouldn't be? But his obsession was, to be completely honest, just that; an obsession. It got old very quickly, and it being so shortly after the news of making the team, his excitement was at its peak.

"I know, James, you tell me that every day," I snapped at him. He barely noticed, just kept rambling about the history of the quaffle. "We should do something," I whine, cutting him off mid-sentence.

"Please, elaborate on your ideas of what to do. As I was saying, Finnidellus Snipp was the last wizard to modify the quaffle to the one that we play with now."

"We should not do this, how about that?" I roll my eyes.

"I thought you were excited for Quidditch season."

"I am, I'm just not obsessed."

"Mate, you haven't even seen me close to obsessed."

"Really? I'm pretty sure your main topics of discussion are Quidditch, Quidditch, Quidditch, and the girl from the train. Lily Evans, I think her name was."

"They are not," he said, undignified.

"Pretty sure they are."

"Whatever. Back to what we are going to do."

"Right, well, I was thinking something like-"

"We should pull a prank!"

"Sorry?" I didn't know what he had in mind, but getting detention wasn't on my to-do list.

"Yeah, get back at Snape." He looked devious, his pranking gears turning.

"What has he done to us, exactly?"

"He... he's just a twat. Do we really need much of a reason?" I shrugged. I hated Snape just as much as the next guy, but I was still reluctant.

"How do you propose that we carry out said 'prank'?" I began to become more and more interested by the second. This prank thing was growing on me already.

"Hmm... something to embarrass him. Let him know who's boss."

"We should do it at breakfast. Then he'll have to live with it for the rest of the day." My eyes lit up, and my mind was going a mile a minute. It seemed as if I had found my knack.

"Great, but what exactly are we going to do?"

"Put something in his drink," I replied quickly, I had an idea. "Like a potion, to... sprout warts all over his face!" We laughed. This was going to be good.

"We can get it out of Slughorn's supply after he's gone off to bed tonight. Then tomorrow at breakfast we slip it in his pumpkin juice!" Our faces were alight with joy at our ingenious prank. We were sure to humiliate Slimeball Snape with this. It was foolproof.

The next morning, James and I were on top of the world. After successfully swiping the potion from Slughorn and fine tuning our mischievous plot, we felt as if nothing could stop the magnificent Potter and Black. We practically ran to the Great Hall, giddy with anticipation. Upon entering, we found the familiar sight of the red-headed girl saying "see you later" to her greasy friend. I think it nearly killed James to keep his excitement in. He kept glancing from Snape to me, then smiling like an idiot.

"Okay, James, you have to stop that if we're going to pull this off."

"What? Oh, sorry." He began tapping the table as he suppressed his grin. The meal went on as usual; us making trivial conversation while the two blonde boys, Lupin and. . . Robert (I think? Maybe something like Pete?) listened. My heart started to thump harder as breakfast began to wind down.

"Sirius, we have to go now," James said in a very obviously suspicious tone.

"Where are you going?" the chubbier boy asked.

"Nowhere, just, uh. . . going to say hello to our favorite Slytherin." James winked at me.

"Right, we'll be seeing you two later." James and I bounced across the Great Hall, dimming our excitement only when we neared the Slytherin table.

"Hey, Snape!" James called out, sounding genuinely happy to see the little git.

"What are you two doing?" Snivelly sneered, looking at us with critical eyes.

"Nothing, really, just stopping by to say hello. How've you been lately?" James says, making conversation with the snake as if they were best friends. For a second, I was almost jealous. Snape just stared at him. "Alright, not very talkative today, are we?"

"Listen, Sniv- eh . . . Severus, we're sorry if we got off on the wrong foot, and we wanted to. . . apologize," I glanced at James, who gave me a small nod, "for if we came off as jerks." I stuck my hand out for him to shake. He cautiously took it, keeping a close eye on the both of us. Then, just on cue, a tall Slytherin girl walked past the group. James stumbled and fell, knocking Snape and I to the ground.

"She pushed me!" James yelled, pointing at the girl. She simply shrugged and walked away.

"I'm so sorry about that, Snape," James said as he scrambled off of us. As he got up, he smoothly took out the flask of Instanti Verrucas, the wart potion. While I helped Snivelly up, James poured some into his goblet of pumpkin juice. Luckily, Snape didn't have friends, so no one paid any notice to our actions. Once Snape was seated again, we said farewell and began to walk back to the Gryffindor table. Halfway down the Slytherin table, we heard an exclamation.

"Potter, Black!" We whirled around, hearts thumping. Snivelly was not, as we were anticipating, covered in blemishes and boils, but was standing in the aisle, holding his goblet out from his body. Unfortunately, at that point, McGonagall (a relatively young professor) detected the disturbance. With a sweep of her robes, she briskly walked from the head table to Snape. "Those two put Instanti Verrucas in my drink!" he said, pointing to us, now frozen in our tracks. How the bloody hell did he know what potion we put in? He must be some kind of potions wizard!

"Mister Potter, Mister Black, is this true?" McGonagall said, staring us down with her piercing eyes.

"We, eh, were just-"

"Save it, Potter. Come with me." All of our excitement turned to dread as we followed McGonagall, Snivelly's black eyes following us out of the Great Hall. She led us up three flights of steps and into her office. The space reflected her personality perfectly. Adorned with nothing but the necessary items, the cold space gave off a feeling of punishment and hard rule. She sat us in two hard wood chairs across from her desk. She, however, stayed standing.

"What," she paused, looking at each of us in turn, "were you two thinking? Trying to poison another student's drink. I could probably expel you two for this. It's only three months into the school year, could you not think of a better pastime? Do not answer that. And you, Mister Potter, just made the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, per special request. I could very easily take that privilege away from you." At this, James stiffened. "Seeing as you two are first years, however, I will be kind." We let out a sigh of relief. "One week of detention, I think, will suffice."

"Professor!" we cried in unison.

"Or should I take away quidditch after all?"

"Detention is fine! Thank you Professor!" James yelled back. I stifled a laugh.

"Alright. You two are free to go. Come back here tomorrow night at seven!"

Although we were dreading facing McGonagall yet again for detention, she was definitely beginning to grow on us. After spending a week with her, albeit for disciplinary purposes, we had become slightly fond of her, and we were pretty sure we weren't on the bottom of her list of students. As we opened the door to her classroom, we faced the familiar sight of a blackboard with the same line of text written in cursive covering it. That night, "Brewing potions outside of class can get me expelled," was the chosen message. Previously, things like "Bullying will get me nowhere in life," or "Severus Snape has never hurt me in any way," have been the daily lesson.

"Good evening, boys," McGonagall greeted us as we grudgingly took out our quills and parchment.

"Good evening, Professor," we said in turn.

"You know the drill," she said, returning to the stack of essays that she had been grading.

The first bit of the hour passed uneventfully, but when James' hand began to cramp and he became restless, he stood up and began stretching.

"Mister Potter, what are you doing?" McGonagall asked.

"Nothing, just stretching," he replied, bending over to touch his toes.

"Sit back down, Potter."

"Just a second."

"Now."

"But my hand is cramping!"

"This is your punishment for putting Instanti Verrucas in another student's pumpkin juice, James." At this, James grumbled and sat in his seat again, but picked up his quill and began drawing on his paper.

"What is that?" I asked him, being careful to whisper.

"Lighten up, Sirius, it's the last night. What could McGonagall do?"

"I don't know, more detention?" He scoffed at my warning and began writing lines again ruefully, shaking his hand out and sighing more frequently than actually necessary. When the hour was up, I had written four and a half pages of the line, my handwriting getting sloppier and sloppier as time went on.

"Professor, time's up," I said. I had been checking the clock plenty for the last ten minutes or so.

"I suppose it is," McGonagall sighed and walked over to us, examining our lines. She paused as she came to James' doodle, which was a crudely drawn golden snitch, and glared at him over her glasses. He shrugged and she continued her examination. When she found our work sufficient, she gave us our papers. "Keep these; they might motivate you two to behave."

"Thank you, Professor," we said in unison. As I pulled the door open to leave, I glanced back and noticed her watching us with a small, tight smile.

"I'll see you in class, Mister Black," she said.

"See you." I ran out the door after James and we returned to the common room to throw our papers in the dying fire.