This is my favourite chapter so far, I hope it's yours.

It's also the longest chapter yet... :)))

Part One
III

James Potter was a weird fellow, Sirius concluded after he had the heart attack of a lifetime.

He had been innocently reading his favourite book ever called The Catcher in the Rye, which had been given to him by his uncle Alphard. Reading a familiar book in a comforting and peaceful setting had lulled him into the book's world and thus the ignorance of anything going on around him. Perhaps this was what made it so easy for James to scare the soul out of Sirius.

He had been getting to one of the many good-good parts of the book when he heard words from a language he didn't recognise. What was worse was that the words sounded ominous and heart-breakingly scary, like Sirius was being cursed and threatened in whatever the language was.

Sirius's hand had shot up into his hair, the other clutching blindly for his wand as the book fell shut in his lap. 'Hello?' he had breathed in a voice much braver than he had felt at that time.

'Jeeby weevy ... desty pesty ... shoot you in your chesty chesty ... er ... avena bandena, wash wosh welp chelp-'

Sirius looked desperately around him, his heart all but leaping out of his irrational chest and his naive eyes watering as they searched for the ghost or spirit that was taunting him.

This was it; the moment he was going to die.

He shut his large eyes as tightly as he could and braced himself for the inevitable blow when:

James threw off his cloak and fell to his knees as he laughed boundlessly. Tears fell from his eyes and his mouth was wide open in a bellowing roar. 'Oh Merlin,' he panted, struggling to catch his breath. 'Your - face - Merlin - y-you seemed - like - you - were g-going - to - choke-'

Sirius flung his book at James and watched as it smacked his friend in the face. 'That wasn't funny,' he whispered. 'I almost had a heart attack-'

'I thought you did have a heart attack.'

The silver-eyed boy paused for a moment and stared at the supple, flawless sheet of cloth in his friend's hands. It was like water, as each glint of light bouncing off the cloak brought with it an awe vibrancy and beauty. Suddenly he felt like he was placed in a world where everything was within easy grasp; where he could achieve what he wanted and could do what he wanted. Unlimited.

Boundless.

'Is that an Invisibility Cloak?'

'The finest there is. Passed down for generations into my eager-'

'-soiled-'

'-and trustworthy hands from my father.'

Sirius laughed hysterically and then composed his face. 'That's brilliant. I'm almost as excited as you are. Imagine everything we could achieve-'

'-for the Halloween Feast-'

'-and the remaining seven years.' Sirius finished for him. He held out his hands, silent question on his face, and carefully examined the cloak. 'So is it a Hogwarts-coming-of-age present?' he asked.

James shrugged and said, 'Pretty much. My father enclosed a letter with the gift, telling me three things: not to mention this to my mother, not to get too carried away and to remember not to mention this to my mother.' They laughed jovially together and played with it; concealing their hands and feet whilst plotting what prank to pull with the cloak.

So far the only prank they had pulled off together had been when they unceremoniously threw dungbombs into the cauldrons of Snape, Avery and Macnair. Whilst Avery and Macnair could afford good cauldrons, and thus did not have to borrow or buy a new one, Snape's was clearly very cheap and poorly made (probably from Knockturn, Sirius thought with a sneer) because it erupted alongside the potion and bomb.

'Are you going to tell your mother?'

James shrugged. 'Probably will sometime in the summer or one of the holidays whilst I'm telling her about all the crazy stuff we'll get up to with it, but I hope I don't. All my mum will do is tell me off for an hour and then bake cookies.'

'Your mother sounds very nice.'

James laughed and threw the cloak over his body. 'Well of course she is. Aren't all mothers supposed to be nice?'

'Supposed to be, yeah,' Sirius said very quietly. Whether James heard or not, he changed the topic and asked Sirius if he wanted to join him under the cloak and terrorise some Slytherins. And despite his reluctance to wind up the Slytherins too much, considering that half the house mates were family members, Sirius nodded and slipped under the smooth cloak.

When an hour later Slughorn came down to the Slytherin common room to see what all the commotion was about, the two young boys from Dormitory Two of the Gryffindor House sat behind one of the sofas, draped in invisibility and hands covering their mouths to muffle their giggles. Many of the first and second year girls were almost in tears with fear whilst 'silly twats' (reference to James's earlier rant about silly twats and any consequent twatish tenancies) like Snape, Antonin from fourth year and Dolohov from sixth year, brandished their wands and threatened to kill any ghost they saw.

xo

Remus sat with Peter in their dormitory, books spread on the chubby boy's bed and a bar of Honeydukes' finest set out beside them.

Remus was going through some Transfiguration homework with the other boy when the dormitory door creaked open. They hardly noticed though, internally attributing the door opening to the draft that the half-open window must have sent in.

'... essentially everything you need to talk about in the mini essay.'

'But it's an essay! Why can't McGonagall be kind and set us something easy like "read this chapter" and "answer these questions in one sentence".'

Remus laughed. 'Because she's McGonagall.' He reached down to break off some more chocolate and pop the beautiful brown block of heaven into his mouth. 'This is good chocolate Peter.'

'It's this new and exclusive brand they're making for Halloween. I'm trying to persuade my mum to send me a year's worth because it's so good but she says she can't get away with that, which sucks. I also have to make this bar last for the rest of today which I'm not sure I can do-' his cheeks coloured a particularly amusing shade of fuchsia.

'For the rest of today?' The other blond asked with wide golden brown eyes, disbelief riddled on his chocolate-induced-pleasure-riddled face. 'I think I'd have a hard time trying to make it last an hour.'

'Who knew pumpkin seeds and cinnamon would be such a good combination?' Peter said softly as he reached for the chocolate bar that had been resting beside him. His hands came back empty. 'Can I have the chocolate Remus?'

'It's not here,' Remus replied, looking around his body for the glint of orange foil and peeping brown chocolate. He lifted his books and scrolls of parchment, but the chocolate was not there. He and Peter spent a minute looking for it, surprised that it had disappeared when it had been right between them. 'Are you ...' Remus turned a little pink and said even more quietly whilst checking under his pillow, 'Are you sure you didn't eat all of it?'

The chubby boy opened and closed his mouth for a moment before he said (with more indignation than he had ever before displayed) 'I did not!'

'Sorry Peter, I didn't mean to insult you.'

'Are you sure you didn't eat all of it,' Peter said with a touch of offence in his voice.

'I'm not even sure-'

'Hey!' Peter cried as the window slammed shut with more force than a mere gust of wind could exert.

Remus grabbed his wand. He knew one defensive spell but the question was whether he would use it if he had to.

'R-Remus, what's h-happening?'

'I don't know,' he said dismissively, eyes searching for whatever the apparition or spell work was. Whether a poltergeist, a ghost or simply an enchantment, Remus had no idea. He just knew that he was scared.

The scrolls of parchment on the bed started hovering and circling the heads of the two blond boys.

And then the humming began, and it was terrifying. Peter cried aloud and jumped behind Remus on the bed, cowering away from where the noise was coming from.

'Stupefy-' Remus shouted, and whilst the spell didn't have the desired effect, light did explode from the end of his wand.

There was a ripple in the air, like time and space had been interrupted by the spell. Something that could not have possibly happened, most certainly under the effects of a poorly cast Stupefy Charm.

'Stupefy-' he cried and out under a veil of invisibility and deception rolled the lean body of Sirius Black, chocolate in his hand and an expression of pure happiness on his face.

'Brilliant,' they both said at the same time.

James threw off his cloak and asked indignantly, 'What's brilliant?'

'His spell-'

'The cloak-'

'My chocolate!' Peter cried, pulling the bar of chocolate off the distracted hands of Sirius.

'What was that ball of light that you threw at me and Sirius?' James was shouting now so his voice could be heard of Peter's whining.

'The Stunning Spell,' Sirius answered for Remus with a half-smile. 'A spell that we are not going to learn for another two years.' Then, rather impatiently, he turned back to Remus. 'How did you learn the spell?'

'My father taught me a few days before I left for Hogwarts. He said he didn't like the idea of me being defenceless in such a big, dangerous school.'

Sirius nodded, his beam growing larger and all the more brighter. 'I think the reason your spell didn't have the desired effect is because you didn't accentuate the difference between the soft stroke,' he flicked his wand up once softly, 'and the second stroke which is a lot harder,' his wand came crashing down.

'You know the spell?' Remus asked with the same pleased twinkle in his eye.

With only a brief wink directed at Remus and James, Sirius turned to face Peter who sat on his bed and was eating the chocolate. 'Stupefy,' he said, a soft stroke of his wand followed by a hard one. Peter collapsed backwards onto the bed, the bar of chocolate slipping between his dormant fingers.

'See,' Sirius said with a self-accomplished purse of his lips as he walked over to Peter and took the Honeydukes chocolate from under the blond boy's hand. 'Chocolate, anyone?'

'Incorrigible.'

James shrugged and broke off a piece, sitting on the edge of his bed and asking, 'So … anyone fancy teaching me that neat little stunning trick?'

xo

The Stunning Spell incident established quite a few things. For one it taught the four boys that they were now "the best of friends". By that, what they meant was that they realised how much more they could get on that they previously attempted. That was not to say that they did not like each other before; in fact, they got on very well. It was just that they didn't spend every waking minute together prior to the Stunning Spell incident.

Now they do.

In lessons, during lunch, before and after dinner and then for the rest of the evening (and night when it was a weekend).

Which brought them to the current situation.

Sirius, Remus, James and Peter were crammed under the huge expanse of the Invisibility Cloak, following the directions Remus gave them to the least popular prefect's bathroom. Rumour had it that the prefects' bathrooms were like huge swimming pools, with so many different charms and spells cast on the rooms.

Sirius, James and Peter had discovered that Remus was a lot more mischievous than teachers and other students knew him to be. An example of this would be the current situation at hand; he was the one who found out what the password was to the prefects' bathrooms and had let them in on the secret.

Not that the others hadn't supplied something. After Remus shared the secret with them, several contributions were made. James offered his cloak for use and his Quaffle to play with, Peter packed lots of Honeydukes chocolate for them to eat whilst swimming in the baths and Sirius offered to pay for all of them to get swimming attire using a fast-track owl from Wizard's Wonderful Wardrobe Warehouse, all of which arrived in the morning. Whilst the others protested, Sirius told them plainly that: 'I'm the only one who can get them to send us the trunks by tomorrow. I can afford to and my father has previously invested in the company.'

So it was with much excitement and happiness (and a bag full of chocolate) the boys hurried to the bathroom, giggling ecstatically. They wore the swimming trunks Sirius had paid for - all of which had Halloween designs because it was days before the holiday, and were therefore the cheapest ones Sirius could get on such short notice.

Luckily, they could all swim. Whilst Remus, James and Peter had learnt because of family and were eager to recount their tales on the way to the bathroom of how they learnt to swim, they all got the distinct feeling that Sirius didn't want to tell them how he learnt. Had he really forgotten, like he had said when asked how he learnt?

With a soft bite of his lip, Remus imagined a young Sirius being thrown into a river and forced to swim. He shook his head but laughed, albeit nervously, when it hit James's head. He forgot that space was so tight under the cloak.

'You're elbowing me in the bloody back Peter,' Sirius hissed, throwing his own elbow into Peter's stomach.

'Hey! I never meant to hurt you!' Peter mumbled indignantly. 'It was an accident.'

'Well make sure it doesn't happen again-'

'Shhh! Stop arguing!' Remus whispered impatiently. 'Can you hear that?' It was the sound of footsteps, the kind of slow and deliberate footsteps that struck fear into the heart of anyone listening.

The sound got closer and closer, yet the group of four were frozen to the spot, eyes moving from side to side. Then they could hear whistling; high-pitched, insanely atonal and rather disgusting, if a noise like whistling could ever be considered disgusting.

Maybe it's because all four boys instantaneously knew that the footsteps were from the shoes of one smelly Angus Filch. He was taking what appeared to be a casual stroll with his grey cat.

'…can see a nice house on th' sea side, when we can both retire from this rotten school and get away from these nasty kids … bloody Dumbledore-'

'Meow.'

'Good kitty,' Filch breathed, mere centimetres from where James's face was. The young boy held his breath, conscious that if he even made a single noise or rapid movement under the tightly-packed cloak, they would be caught.

Filch murmured more nonsense to his cat as he walked slowly by the group of four. 'You recognise this song, kit?'

'Meow.'

He started whistling at the top of his grimy, infected lungs and even started to do a ridiculous jig as he stood exactly in front of Sirius and James. Both boys turned to face each other and slapped their hands on one another's mouths, instantly recognising that they would both collapse into laughter in mere seconds.

Their eyes started watering after a tense minute of watching Filch dance. It was James who cracked first, letting a high-pitched giggle escape when Filch attempted to click his heels together.

The caretaker's distorted body snapped upright, back straight as a ruler and his bottom lip quivering. His cat started meow-ing as it turned in a circle, trying to spot the noise-maker.

'Did you hear that kitty?'

'Meow.'

'I'm not going mad, am I?'

'Meow.'

It was Remus who breathed as quietly as humanly possible into their ears, 'Shuffle backwards as quietly as you can, or the cat will get us.'

The cat's head snapped up to them and it meowed very softly at first. The four boys began to walk faster, albeit the lack of co-ordination an increasing speed brought to them.

It trotted towards them and Sirius was almost tempted to kick the cat, when Filch shook his head.

'There's nothing there kitty darling, I bet it's just that rotten poltergeist Peeves. Don't worry my sweet, I'll send the Bloody Baron this way...' Filch muttered darkly, swooping down to sweep the cat into his arms as he hurried off down the corridor.

The group of boys waited a tense moment before sighing in relief and slumping a little together.

'Merlin's pants,' James said, 'I thought that was it. I thought that Filch would send the cloak back to my parents and have us put in detention for a month or something.'

'Same here,' Sirius said, 'only I imagined him feasting on all our chocolate too.'

'Stupid caretaker,' Peter murmured under his breath.

With a smile and a tug on the cloak, Remus said, 'Whilst we're safe now, we shouldn't gamble our safety. Let's just carry on ... the door's right there … Profunde Mundus!'

The huge door, stone and with intricately detailed carvings on the front, opened slowly. They waited until they were all inside and the door was locked before throwing the cloak off.

The bathroom was enormous.

There were different levels of deepness depending on the bath tubs, of which there were seven cavernous ones. In addition to this there were taps, baskets and instructions for spells covering the rim of the baths and the parts of the walls.

Their mouths were wide open as they struggled to take in the huge room as quickly as possible, heads twitching from side to side.

'This really is the stuff of legends,' James breathed in awe. He turned the knobs of some of the taps and watched as different coloured, flavoured and textured water shot out. The next row controlled the bubbles and the type of bubbles they were. Another row shot out some harmless water bombs, filled with perfume whereas the taps opposite controlled the temperature of the water.

'Guys,' Sirius said calmly after half an hour spent exploring the huge room and the different pools, 'aren't we supposed to be swimming?'

They played four matches of what could be considered one of the best games to have ever been created. It was Quidditch in water! It was also Quidditch with two players on each team, not seven, and the only ball used was the Quaffle. There were also no goal posts or nets which meant that the consideration over whether something counted as a goal or not was completely subjective and therefore not very fair at all.

Whoever could argue the best about whether an attempted goal was in fact an actual goal made Remus the highest scorer of the match, simply because Peter, James and Sirius couldn't be bothered to argue back to such a level-headed person like Remus.

'Give us some chocolate, Pete,' James said as he put his glasses back on and shook his head, further disgracing his already messy, dishevelled hair.

'Your hair is naturally curly,' Remus said, pulling on the soft lock of black hair of Sirius's.

The other boy shook his head whilst another conversation took place between Peter and James over what chocolate was the best, and why they believed that Honeydukes was getting better and better.

'It's curly but I usually just comb it until it's straight and use this Sleakeazy's Straightening Hair Potion my mother buys me.'

Remus touched the curls again; it was almost corkscrew tight and really was silky soft. 'I like your hair when it's curly.'

'I would but it gets in the way a lot of the time. It's just easier to handle when it's straight.' He grinned in amusement, eyes flicking up to look at the other two boys before they began to follow the smiles chasing themselves across Remus's lips with fondness. 'What's so funny?'

Remus's lips shook a little before he laughed. 'Just that I never pictured you with curly hair. You suit it though.'

'I also look like I'm half my age.'

'No, you're way too tall to be five and a half.'

They chuckled together and reached over to steal some chocolate from Peter. 'I'm glad you think the only thing that sets me aside from a five and a half year old is my height. Not my intelligence, not my wit nor my devilish good looks-'

'Five year olds can be cute.'

'You just said it yourself!' Sirius said triumphantly, licking his lips. 'Five year olds can be cute. Not handsome or charming, only cute.'

'Oh shut up,' Remus said, snatching the piece of chocolate in Sirius's hands and throwing it into his mouth.

'Sirius-One,'

'Remus-Five-Thousand?'

Sirius stuck his tongue out and pushed Remus into the bath rub, only to be dragged down into it as well. Both boys then teamed up to drag Peter and James down and it really was one of the best weekends of Sirius's life, even if it did mean that he didn't sleep the following night to complete all his homework.

xo

When Halloween came, it was as if overnight the castle had transformed. Flanking the Entrance Hall doors were two bulbous pumpkins, exploding with juice and weight. They had expressions carved into their faces, and for everyone who walked past, were greeted with a screech of "Happy Halloween!"

Until one of the Seventh Years changed the Animation Enchantments on the pumpkins sometime between lunch and dinner, and they started shouting insults at one another.

'Fat, ugly ball!'

'Wart-face!'

'Fatty!'

'You're fatter than me!'

Whilst Sirius walked past, he laughed and murmured to the left-pumpkin, 'Your mum's fat.'

'WE HAVE THE SAME MUM YOU FOUL, SMELLY PLUMPKIN!'

'TAKE THAT BACK-'

The further into the hall the group of four got, the more distant the bellowing voices of the pumpkins grew.

And wasn't the Great Hall a sight?

Pumpkins adorned all of the tables, candles floated through the air and over the heads of all the students and swooping around in the air were flocks of bats, disappearing through the large Great Hall doors and reappearing minutes later. The knights were each dressed up in costumes of vampires and werewolves, trolls and seers. It was fantastic.

Even Professor Dumbledore was wearing a hat with skulls on it.

Remus's head followed any and everything for as long as it could; he spotted the fight going on near the Ravenclaw table between one of the pumpkins and an older student who brandished his wand threateningly at the fruit. Looking up at the enchanted ceiling, the moon was charmed to be full, and the stars were as vivid as ever.

'…didn't seem like the kind of guy to know his Astronomy all that well is all,' James said a little defensively when Sirius flicked his head.

'Well of course I have to know my Astronomy. Most of my family are named after constellations and stars, including me.'

'Bit arrogant of your family mate,' James said, earning a guffaw from Peter, who was snickering behind the scarce remains of his fourth wild berry muffin.

'I like my name,' Sirius said, sipping his juice. 'You see that star over there-' he pointed upwards, towards the moon.

'No I don't unfortunately. There are about a million up there-'

'Shut up. Try and find the brightest one you can. Go on.' The other boy encouraged, eyes glued to his namesake star.

'Are you talking about the one directly under the moon?' James asked.

Sirius nodded. 'The big bright one. That's Sirius, the dog star in the constellation of Canis Major.'

They paused and all stared up at the mesmerising sky, a collision of different hues and shades of midnight blue with splatters of silver and white; the stars and the moon.

'Is it meant to be that bright?'

The long-haired boy nodded. 'Yes. Sirius is the brightest star in the night's sky-'

'Oh of course you would be named after the brighest star. Your parents are about as conceited and pompous as humanly possible. They're the kind of people that would want to name their heir after the brightest star in the night's sky. What about "the spare" brother? Is your younger brother named after the second brightest star?'

The grey-eyed boy shrugged, pouring himself some more pumpkin juice and throwing a few of Bertie Bott's Halloween Treats into his mouth. 'I'm pretty sure the second brightest star is Canopus. My brother is named after the twentieth brightest star.'

'Which is...?' Remus interfered, amusement written all over his face.

'Regulus.'

'Right, very normal names. Sirius and Regulus,' interjected Peter with a snicker, only partially supported by a half-smile from James.

'Shut up. At least my name isn't a ridiculously common name like Peter. I bet I could shout out Peter now and half the hall would look up.'

'Hush, Dumbledore's speaking...' the busybody voice of Lily Evans hissed from the other side of the table.

The group of boys looked up to face Professor Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard in the whole of Britain. He was a brilliant man and wizard, who carried neither stereotype nor any judgements of people he didn't know.

He could take a look at Sirius and deduce several things: his pure blood, his rich upbringing, the level of conditioning he had gone through when he was a lot younger and most importantly, how much he did not want to be the son his parents wanted and forced him to be.

Sirius felt like Dumbledore looked at him past his half-moon spectacles, and beneath the long, distractingly silver beard, he almost spotted a small smile.

'Happy Halloween, Hogwarts! I hope the elves have made you proud with their food and decorations,' there was a pause in which a few students (mostly the Mudbloods and a few half-bloods) applauded the elves. Dumbledore smiled patiently again and then said, 'Let us also thank Professor Sprout for producing the splendid pumpkins and Professor McGonagall for charming the splendid pumpkins. I'd also like to thank Mr Thomas Ebrey for turning the pumpkins into-'

'Animals, the lot of them,' shouted Sprout from the other side of the table. 'We'll have to roast them all, insufferable fruit.'

There was chuckling around the hall and Dumbledore allowed the students a few seconds to get out their excitement and focus on the words he was now saying.

'The first Hogsmeade weekend is next week. All students who have not got authorisation to attend may speak to their Heads of Houses and get letters sent home to receive the needed authorisation...'

James tapped Sirius on the shoulder and whispered into his ear, 'Want to play a prank?'

'Have you prepared any pranks?'

The messy-haired pureblood grinned and said softly, 'Those with natural talent don't need to plan anything. Come on, let's just go to the toilet.'

'Where are you both going?' Peter asked when they both stood up and attempted to make off together.

'Toilet, care to join us?'

Some girls beside Evans started whispering about how they now needed to go to the toilet.

Peter bit his lip and turned to face Remus. 'I need to go toilet now...'

James started grinning and elbowed Sirius to catch his attention; 'It's like clockwork-'

'What?' the other two dorm mates asked, thoroughly confused.

'Hush, will you?' Evans snapped impatiently, 'I can hardly hear what Dumbledore is saying.' The girls sitting beside her stood up and left to go to the toilet briskly. They were young girls who naturally felt shy standing in a huge and mostly unknown setting. More so with hundreds of boys, cute or not, their age or much older, around them.

'We're just going to the toilet Evans, I don't know why that's got you so riled up,' Sirius said as smoothly and haughtily as he could.

Her cheeks pinked slightly, a colour that went well with her head of scarlet hair. With squinted eyes and a scowl on her face, she turned to her friend Mary Macdonald. 'I didn't know boys flock together to the toilets like birds.'

Macdonald smiled softly and nodded, maybe just to be a good friend or maybe because she actually agreed with Evans.

'Have fun in the toilets, boys,' she said. Lily waved mockingly as James, Sirius and Peter glowered at her and made their slow and casual walk towards the Great Hall doors, flanked by the bulbous pumpkins.

'God,' she murmured under her breath, just loud enough for those in the immediate vicinity to hear. 'They're so childish.' She spotted Remus listening and turned a smile to him. 'Who knows what mischief they'll get up to. I don't know why you hang out with them Remus. You're so much smarter than them.'

'Er … they're my friends.'

'Well you should choose better friends. Like Bertram Aubrey in Dormitory One.'

In unison, the three eleven year olds turned to face Aubrey, sitting on the other side the huge Gryffindor table, near the fourth years Fabian and Gideon Prewett; the twins.

Remus shivered. Aubrey was a ridiculously obnoxious and rude boy, who had already been threatened with a dungbomb attack every morning from James after their first week at Hogwarts.

'I'm actually going to catch up with my mischievous, dumb friends. Nice to speak to you again Evans.'

'Remus,' she said, a hint of a smile colouring her lips. 'You're missing the announcements-'

She was mostly wrong, the announcements had finished now. In their place, Flitwick was arranging his choir on stage for a performance before everyone could tuck into the great feast, though some did try to inconspicuous have a mouthful of mash.

Remus followed very swiftly after his friends, and could almost pretend like his leg still wasn't hurting almost a week after the full moon.

It seemed the second one had not been much better than the first.

Pity.

'Guys, wait,' Remus called, his limp almost imperceptible. His three friends turned to face him and were restraining grins, James's perhaps the most botched attempt at indifference whilst Sirius was much more accomplished. 'What are we doing?'

'Going down in Hogwarts history...'

The Great Food Fight of 1971 was what would surely go down in history. What started off concealed under the confines of the cloak (a handful of mash potato to Snape's face) ended up involving every single student, prefect or not, with even the teachers joining in once accepting that the damage was done and the students were not going to be stopping any time soon.

Whilst the Invisibility Cloak remained a secret to the teachers, McGonagall had some how fantastically managed to induce that it was the group of Dormitory Two that had started the food fight. Sirius was adamant that Evans must have told McGonagall they left the hall minutes before the food fight started, as he described it: '…the fact that she's best friend's with the slimeball is incentive enough...'

McGonagall's lips quivered throughout her telling-off the group of four, calling them 'DISGRACES TO THE GRYFFINDOR HOUSE', threatening to 'SEND LETTERS HOME AND FLOO CALL PARENTS' and calling them 'MARAUDERING, MISCHIEVOUS TROUBLE MAKERS'.

Thus, the Marauders were named and they got their first ever group detentions cleaning up the Great Hall after the mess everyone made.

'It's hardly a punishment,' Sirius said after an hour of cleaning.

'You can say that again,' James murmured, brushing some more tart on the floor into a rubbish bag.

'No really, this has got to be the worst punishment ever. For one, it's only going to last a few hours because they can't have food smeared all of the hall for so long. They've also got an army of house-elves born to do what they're trying to make us do. House-elves who are probably eagerly waiting to finish up what we've started. Lastly of course is that there's still so much food left and I hardly got to eat anything in the first place. Who's here to stop us from just sitting around and eating?'

Peter had actually been sitting at the Slytherin table for the past ten minutes, eating some roast potatoes and beef and humming happily to himself.

'Yeah,' James interjected with more eagerness and spirit now, rubbish bag already on the floor at his feet. 'They probably don't even expect to notice a difference by the time someone comes back to pick us up. There's so much mess.'

Him and Sirius sat at the Hufflepuff table, closest to where they were and also with many meals untouched by the antics the food fight had inspired in the students. For a few minutes, the boys sat and ate greedily before they noticed that Remus had yet to sit down and partake.

'Remus?' asked James, voice a little more soft than when speaking to the other two.

Maybe, Remus's voice echoed in the cavern of his mind, James noticed how weak Remus was. Maybe he was a lot less forward with Remus, a lot more tentative around him because he thought Remus wasn't capable of the behaviour and tomfoolery that Sirius and Peter were capable of.

Had he found out about Remus's condition.

He shook his head and looked up with a slow smile at James. 'Yeah?'

'Why don't you eat something before they come?'

Peter nodded and pointed at his plate of orange pie. 'This is really good.'

'Maybe …' there was a pause and then; 'Maybe just a small plate of some of that pie.'

The second group detention the boys got was for 'Not complying to the explicit rules of which the previous detention had'. In post script, it then said in smaller writing; 'And for not even pretending to be cleaning'.

McGonagall has a wicked sense of humour, Remus thought as he enclosed the detention slip in his letter to his parents. Whilst he knew that they would not appreciate him messing about during school, he knew their appreciation for his happiness would outweigh any disdain. He knew that his mother would just be happy to know he was having fun because by Merlin, he deserved it.

Remus slipped into the warm and welcoming folds of his bed and fell asleep with a wide smile on his face.

He liked the name the Marauders.

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