Hey! I know it's been a while, and this chapter isn't very long, but I decided you guys waited enough for the next chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

I tried to give this a bit more action comedy to it, and give it a bit more energy. Hopefully it has more!

Special thanks to those who reviewed!

(disclaimer: i don't own HP)

CHAPTER FOUR: weekend trouble

"LOOKOUT BELOW!!" James yelled as he dropped a water balloon off of the Astronomy tower. Instantly, they raced behind the door as the balloon dropped onto an unsuspecting seventh year boy.

"YES! We have a hit, Jamie!" he exclaimed, grinning.

"Yeah we do!" James agreed, high-fiving Sirius and laughing.

James filled up another balloon, and gave it to Sirius. "Okay, your turn,"

"Great!! Okay, I'm gonna do it!" Focusing on the same guy, he threw the balloon over the edge of the Astronomy tower. Giggling maniacally, he immediately raced back into the classroom (where the teacher was conveniently not there) and high-fived James.

"Okay, let's see the damage we did so far," James said, grabbing his cloak, threw it on himself and Sirius.

Their primary target was dripping wet (for some reason he hadn't left when he'd first been soaked).

"Awesome," he said, giddily jumping up and down.

"Relax, buddy! We still have plenty left!" James said, happy his friend liked pranking so much and sharing his friends' excitement. Hey, it was contagious!

Sirius picked up another water balloon. "Okay, I'm gonna get- ooh! There's Bella! I'm gonna get her so bad, she won't even know what the hell hit her!!"

Aiming at her, he threw the balloon at her, HARD! Jumping up and down in eagerness, he saw it get her right on the head! SPLAT!!

"Get down, you idiot! She'll see you!" James whispered, behind the doors of the classroom. Realizing his mistake with a jolt, he quickly threw himself down on the floor, praying Bella wouldn't recognize him- if she HAD spotted him- in that split second where he had forgotten to duck and cover. Slowly and carefully, he slid himself across the floor and into the safety of the classroom.

"That was close! Do you think anyone spotted me?" he asked James, breathlessly.

"We'll find out, I suppose. Okay, it's MY TURN now!" James grinned.

James- under the protection of the cloak this time- walked out onto the balcony. Cleverly shifting the cloak so he could have a good shot and still not be seen, he threw the balloon on top of a boy's head! Smirking, James went back inside and gave the cloak to Sirius.

"This is just too good!" James laughed.

"I know! It's a REALLY good thing you decided to pick up the water balloons at the store!" Sirius agreed, grinning at him.

"Actually, my Uncle- let's just say he's very in-depth with Muggles- sent me these yesterday after Peter told me about them; they're a Muggle thing, ya know?"

"Yeah- sometimes Muggles come up with great stuff! Like water balloons!" For emphasis, he threw one at James- which got him right in the chest!

"Oh, you're gonna pay for that one, Black!" James said, grabbing a balloon out of the bucket and throwing it at him.

"I don't think so!" he sung at him.

"And why not?"

"Because I'm gonna kick your butt!"

"You wish!"

James grabbed another one and threw it at him. Sirius ducked under a table, but it hit him on his left shoe.

"Ooohhh, you hit my foot, James! I'm terrified!"

"You should be," Raising his arm to throw one, he realized it wasn't James who had said that.

It was Professor McGonagall.

"Bust-ed," James muttered.

"Big time," he added.

"Drop that balloon," McGonagall ordered, looking at him in a way that would've made the evilest man on earth shudder in pure terror.

Sirius obediently let the balloon go, sending it to the ground with a fierce vengeance.

"Come with me you two," she said, sternly walking over to them. Grabbing Sirius' left arm and James' right, McGonagall yanked those up in the air- hard, earning her,

"Ow!" and

"What was that for?! We weren't bothering you!"

McGonagall merely stared at each of them individually with another "death stare" before dragging them out of the Astronomy Tower, down the stairs, down hallways, and into her office, where she basically threw them into it.

"Thank you!" Sirius exclaimed, rubbing his arm.

"What did my elbow ever do to you?"

"Okay, this is your second warning. On your third, I will be forced to take you to Dumbledore, and send an owl to your parents. There will be twenty points EACH taken from Gryffindor for your actions today- and be thankful it's just that!" She added, when she saw the shocked looks of disbelief on the boys' faces.

"You will have detention every night this week starting tomorrow night. Show up at my office directly at seven o' clock- and no later, do you hear me?" McGonagall stated, firmly as ever. It looked like she didn't get out a lot. But that was just him.

"Detention with McGonagall for a week? It was harsh that one night!" James whispered into Sirius' ear.

"Tell me about it! You wouldn't believe how much gum is on the underside of ONE desk! And she made me scrape ALL of the gum offa each desk in the ENTIRE classroom WITHOUT magic!" he agreed, muttering into James' ear as inconspicuously as possible.

"Can we go now?" James asked, using a whiny voice.

"Yes- but don't even THINK of ditching detention, because punishment for that is even worse!" McGonagall threatened. Her mouth had formed a VERY thin line, and her dark eyes were narrowed with the silent promise they'd face her wrath if they were stupid enough to ditch. Which they obviously weren't.

"Leave. Go. Get out of my sight!" she burst out, staring at them with thunder in her eyes.

"Let's go, James!"

"Right behind you, Sirius!" James agreed, in a mad, panicked dash to get out of the classroom before McGonagall could do anything else to them- which she probably would if she got the chance.

Now that they were out of the Classroom Filled With Evil Things- as Sirius liked to call it, they both let out sighs of relief.

"We don't wanna mess with her temper," James said.

"No, really?"

"Let's get outta here! I don't even like being near her classroom!" James exclaimed, and making a run for it, they took off down some other corridor- as far away from her as they could get!

"Do you know where Remus is?"

"I dunno,"

"What do we do now?" Sirius asked.

"Um, I guess we could… sneak out to Hogsmeade! The first trip of the year was today, I think! No one'll notice!" James suggested.

"Sneak out to Hogsmeade? I've been to Hogsmeade before- it was really fun… but only if you SWEAR we won't get caught," Sirius agreed.

During this past summer, he had gone with 'Dromeda, Regulus, Bella, and Cissy. His aunt came with them to "supervise" but she really just came to get drunk at the Hogs Head. At least, she hadn't said that, but all of them had seen her "sneak" into the bar, and hadn't seen her come out until it was really, really, REALLY late.

He and 'Dromeda had snuck away from the rest and had had a blast going to Zonko's and visiting everything else there! He wondered vaguely if he and 'Dromeda would do that again sometime….

"Right now, I don't exactly want detention for the next month, because McGonagall would KILL us if she found out about it," Sirius stated.

"Yeah, I don't want her beady little eyes glaring at me every second of my life!"

"Okay, so are we gonna go? I don't think I know the exact way to Hogsmeade from school," Sirius asked.

"Yeah, let's go get my cloak from my trunk. And, all we really have to do is follow the other students out to Hogsmeade," James said, already heading towards the Gryffindor Tower. Sirius caught up to his side quickly.

"Do you think we'll get caught?"

"Nah, there's not much difference between a third year and a first year- there's quite a range of height in third years this year- so long as people don't ask many questions..." James trailed off, the look on his face a bit uncertain.

Finally arriving at the picture of the Fat Lady and saying the password, "Hippogriff," the two quickly dashed upstairs to their dorm and got the cloak out of James' trunk.

"Hey, look! Remus is asleep on his bed!" Sirius noticed out of the corner of his eye on their way out.

"He has seemed kinda tired lately. I wonder why…" James said, trailing off again.

"Whatever. Let's go!" Sirius said, getting tired of standing in the dorm looking at Remus sleeping.

"OK," James stated, shrinking the cloak and putting it in his jeans pocket.

He and James left the dorm, but on their way out of the Common Room, they ran into Lily-what's-her-name and her group of friends- also on their way out. Sirius and James reached the exit first, but after each group stared at each other for a few minutes before Sirius finally said, "Uh, hi! I don't think we've officially met. I'm Sirius, and this is James,"

"Oh, we know who you are," Lily-what's-her-name said in a- did he imagine it?- cold tone.

"We saw why Gryffindor got forty points taken away from them today," a friend of Lily's spoke up. He didn't know her name yet….

"You know, when someone introduces themselves to you, it's polite to introduce yourselves back," Sirius stated, in a somewhat-fake polite attitude. Hey, if they wanted to be unreasonably hostile, so could he! Wait, where was James? Glancing at him, Sirius realized he was staring at Lily What's-her-name. AGAIN.

After a moment's hesitation, Lily finally spoke again, "I'm Lily Evans, this is Mary Nordolph," she gestured to the one with curly hair next to her. "This is Alice Devina," she pointed to a friendly looking girl- come to think of it, the ONLY friendly looking girl in Lily Evans group. "And finally, this is Lindsey Hall,"

"Funny, I've heard the name 'Hall' before," he said, looking at Lindsey thoughtfully.

Lindsey had wavy, shoulder-length blonde hair, blue eyes, looked about 4 "8" in height, and lightly tanned skin, and seemed to be the second-friendliest out of the group. She was wearing a loose black t-shirt that said, "ROCK ON" in blue spray paint, with short jean shorts, and flip flops.

Wait a second… Hall- that was a pureblood name! He vaguely remembered having a Hall family over for a few dinners one year. The family wasn't that nice, though come to think of it, most pureblood families weren't that nice anyways….

"It's also polite not to stare and to let Ladies go first," Lily said- and this time, the fake-politeness was obvious.

This one was too good to pass up. "Too bad you're not ladies," he smirked.

"Where are you going? To get Gryffindor in more trouble?" Mary asked, sarcastically.

"Where we go and what we do is none of your business," James burst out, suddenly.

"Exactly, so we'll leave you in peace now," Sirius added, moving closer to the exit- with James right behind him.

"They're going to get themselves into MORE trouble," Lindsey said, after they had left.

"Which is why we should follow them and see where they're going," Lily stated, staring at the exit.

"Please. All you want to know is why James Potter was staring at you," Alice teased, speaking up for the first timed.

"That's NOT true, and anyways, if we are going to follow them, we should probably get going so we won't lose track of them so quickly," Lindsey advised.

"OK, let's go," Mary said, and the four girls left the Common Room, hoping no one had overheard their conversation.

Lily was the first one to exit, so she was the first one to see that James and Sirius had vanished! Well, they weren't anywhere close to the picture of the Fat Lady, where they should've been if they'd left the Common Room when they had.

"How'd they do that?" Lily asked, her eyes wide with wonder. Whatever thoughts she was going to think next were interrupted when Lindsey said,

"Girl, move over!"

Jumping in surprise, Lily DID move. "Where are they? They can't be too far from the Common Room," Lindsey asked.

"That's what I was wondering myself- oh, you'd better get out of the way so Mary can come through," Lily told her.

"Where do you think they went?" Alice asked.

"I dunno. They just… weren't there when I came out," Lily replied, confused as ever.

"Now what do we do?" Mary questioned.

"What we were going to do before we ran into them," Lindsey suggested.

"Right. I'm going to go to the library to look up books for our homework. Does anyone want to come with me?" Lily asked, looking at her friends.

"I will," Mary agreed.

"I already finished it. I think I might go mingle," Lindsey said.

"We're not at a party," Alice pointed out.

"So? I'm just gonna go meet some new people and get the low-down on everyone here. Wanna come with me, Alice?" she asked.

"Sure!" Alice agreed, looking excited.

"Let's go then!" Lindsey and Alice linked arms and headed outside cheerfully to talk with the other Gryffindors about who knows what.

"Did you see the looks on those girls' faces when they realized we weren't there?" Sirius asked James with a grin on his face.

"They were completely clueless!" James agreed- but they had to stop laughing because some students passed by them, and they were under their cloak on their way to Hogsmeade. So instead, they laughed silently, unable to control themselves.

"So how DO you know the way to Hogsmeade?" Sirius asked, curiously.

"Oh, uh, I don't,"

"You DON'T?! Then how are we gonna get there?!" he exploded- in a whisper. Fortunately for James, there were still people around to hear him scream.

"I was hoping you'd know," James said, shrugging sheepishly.

"Oh my God," Sirius muttered, slapping his hand on his forehead.

"Hey, look! Some fourth years- they might be going to Hogsmeade!" James pointed, looking at a couple.

"Fine, let's go see where they're headed," Sirius muttered, annoyed. This was SO not worth it!!

"We have to get this out of the way now, so when we do it again, we'll know where to go," James pointed out.

"Oh, sure. You choose now to be reasonable," he argued, sarcastically.

"Let's go! They're getting away!" James whispered, anxiously jumping up and down in anticipation.

"Have you ever actually been to Hogsmeade?" Sirius asked, curiously.

"Not really. I wanted to go with you because, well, I thought it'd be fun to go with you," James admitted, sheepishly.

"Fine, cut the sap and let's go," he grumbled, stalking over to the fourth years with James by his side.

"Where are we going to go first?" the girl was saying.

"I was thinking Zonko's, and then maybe we'll stop at someplace you want to go to, and get some butterbeer later," the boy answered, throwing his arm around the girl's waist.

"And after that?" the girl inquired.

"That's all up to you," the boy replied, beaming at her. The couple was heading outside, so he and James made their way towards the doors. Soon enough, they were outside in the warm autumn air, and Sirius noticed there was a cool breeze blowing.

"This is disgusting," he whispered.

"Tell me about it," James agreed, wrinkling his nose in disgust as they heard the two flirt with each other. But secretly, he thought James was lying and secretly taking notes to use it with that Lily girl later. He didn't say anything, though.

"Could this couple walk any slower?" James whined. "I'd like to get there before I turn a hundred,"

He nodded in silent agreement. Suddenly, he spotted something. "Hey, James, do you see that?"

"Yeah, I think it's Hogsmeade! Come on- let's leave 'em in the dust!" James exclaimed, breaking into a run. Which is hard to do in an Invisibility Cloak with two people in it without getting spotted.

"James, slow down! They'll see us!" Sirius warned, but in reality, he was enjoying the thrill of sneaking around as much as James was.

"Fine. We're almost there, anyways," James muttered, slowing down.

"Wow," he head James mutter. He supposed it was impressive the first time you saw it- not like Hogwarts, but it was still neat.

Hogsmeade had little shops everywhere, with a couple bars here and there. The shops had signs that had "SPECIAL FALL SALE" written on it, with little autumn and Halloween decorations on the front of their shop. There were a few houses, but they were on a separate road- not on the main road where everything else was.

What made it really amazing were the way people were in the streets, talking and laughing with their friends (with old people chasing kids off their lawn, yelling, "YOU ROTTEN KIDS" after them) - that just made it seem so… alive, so real. Kind of like Diagon Ally, but like in a different time, in a different world altogether.

"Are we just going to stand here all day and stare at it, or are we going to do something?" James prompted Sirius, giving him a little nudge towards Zonko's. "Honestly, you say you've been here before," James muttered under his breath- rolling his eyes in the process.

"What if someone recognizes us?" Sirius whispered, anxiously.

"They won't, trust me,"

They entered the prank store with a sense of eagerness that only true, real pranksters can feel. The shopkeeper glanced up as the door opened seemingly by itself, but shrugged, going back to his work. Sighing in relief that the shopkeeper hadn't looked twice at the door, they walked carefully down an aisle where no one else was nearby. Making sure no one was watching (and double checking), James threw the cloak off of them.

"Now, let's buy some supplies!" James grinned, and began riffling through the things on the shelves. It was actually unorganized, with stuff thrown all over the place- but that was what made it so cool!

"I could be here all day!" he head James mutter excitedly to himself.

Rolling his eyes, he began looking through the stuff he'd want to try out. Sirius recognized a few things, like dungbombs, and he saw a laser. OOH, a laser! Sirius snatched it up eagerly- before James could get his hands on it.

"Any luck, Sirius?" James asked him.

"Yeah! You?" he replied, glancing over at James. He immediately wished he hadn't, though. James had armfuls of pranking supplies- he must've cleared out a lot of shelves!

"Do you really have the money to pay for all that?"

"You sound like my mother. YES, I do, mummy," James teased. It was hard to see his face because of the stuff he was carrying, so he couldn't read his expression that well.

"I need a bag," James muttered, walking along the floor- amazingly searching for MORE stuff to add to his collection.

"I don't know about you, but I'm going to go get some butterbeer. Wanna come?" he asked. He already had a bunch of stuff, and he WAS trying to save money at the moment… he couldn't wait to use that laser, though!

"No thanks, I'm gonna look around some more- you never know what you might find in here!" James replied, glancing at him briefly before returning back to his "supply hunting" as James liked to call it.

So, after Sirius paid for the stuff- luckily, the shopkeeper didn't notice anything about his age, and if he did, he didn't say anything- he made sure no teachers were around, and left the store as inconspicuously as possible. Well, he was good at sneaking and looking invisible (not causing too much attention and not getting many people to notice you're in the same room with them). At least he was when he wanted to be!

Coming up to a candy shop, Sirius thought he might go in there for a bit and snack on some candy while he ate his butterbeer. He wondered what cookies tasted like when they're dipped in butterbeer, so he decided to buy a couple of cookies and a lollipop.

Leaving the store, Sirius decided to hum to the Muggle song (don't ask him where he heard it, because he honestly didn't know) I Love Rock n Roll by Queen- although he honestly didn't know how they came up with that band name. Muggles have really strange band names, he thought to himself.

In five minutes, Sirius was sitting in a booth dipping his cookies in butterbeer, singing I Love Rock n Roll in his head and swinging his legs under the table. Yummmm, this was definitely a good match! Suddenly, something caught his eye. It was a person- a girl- but a girl that was too young to be in Hogsmeade… well, he supposed he shouldn't be the one talking, but still, it made Sirius curious as to who he thought she was.

Leaving his halfway empty beer cup, Sirius moved closer to the girl- and yes- it was her- Andromeda! What was she doing here? He didn't see any other Slytherins she might be with- including his devil cousins Bella and Cissy. Oh, how he hated Bella! Sirius could go on and on and on and on and on about how evil Bella was.

Cissy was okay if you were alone with her and she wasn't pressured into being a complete "Muggle-hater snob" like she was whenever other Slytherins were around. Sirius was sure that would change as she got older, though. You never stayed nice in Slytherin for long (Except if you're 'Dromeda), no matter how old you get.

"Psst! 'Dromeda!" he whispered, not wanting to attract that much attention, because if it hadn't sunk in already, NEITHER OF THEM WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE! And James, who was probably going insane at Zonko's right now. He pitied that shopkeeper.

'Dromeda looked over at him, and looking surprised (in the good way) she carefully stepped around some people in her way, and in no time at all, was in right front of him.

"Hi!" she said, smiling at Sirius.

"Hey," They both stared at each other for a few seconds before they both blurted out simultaneously,

"What are you doing here?!"

Sorry about that cliffie, but it really was the best place to end it without going ON and ON and ON, if you know what I mean, lol!!

Again, remember to R&R please!