Pranks, Pranks and More Pranks
James was so excited to be finally going to Hogwarts; he had been waiting for this since he was old enough to understand what Hogwarts was. Not to mention for his eleventh birthday a month ago, his father had given him the invisibility cloak that had been passed down through their family for generations.
James was basically bouncing with joy as he stood at the platform with his mum and dad, looking around with awe.
Owls swooped overhead, so that you could hear low hooting below all the chatter. There were people saying goodbye to family members and hello to friends they haven't seen over the summer holidays. Cats made their way through the crowd weaving through people's legs, looking for owners.
Parked at the station was a scarlet steam train, which had 'Hogwarts Express' wrote on the side in fancy gold writing. People were hanging out the windows, waving frantically and shouting across the platform, to people lost in the crowd.
"Oh, Jamie, I'm going to miss you so much" his mum suddenly sobbed and pulled James in a bone crushing hug.
"Mum, mum, I need to go now, mum let me go" James pleaded, trying to break free from his mother's tight hold.
"Come on, Grace" his dad chuckled, gently pulling his wife away from his son and wrapping a comforting arm around her as she sniffled.
"I'll write to you every day" James promised his mum, before rushing off to find a compartment.
After searching for five minutes he finally found a compartment with only one boy in it, he seemed to be the same age as him, so James quickly pulled open the door, and the boy looked up as he did.
He had silky black hair that fell to his ears, aristocratic features, high cheekbones and strong jaw, and striking grey eyes.
"Do you mind if I sit here?" James asked, before sitting down without waiting for an answer.
"Oh no, come, sit" The boy said teasingly and James grinned, he was sure he was going to like him.
James opened his eyes to be met with the familiar blur of red, before he reached over to shove his glasses on his face and the red bed hangings above him came into focus.
James quickly leapt out of bed and went to the bathroom to have a shower and brush his teeth. He was excited for today. They had been up until three in the morning last night setting up for their prank, and luckily only Remus was caught, but he used being a prefect as an excuse, Dumbledore was off his rocker making a marauder a prefect. However, they would get to see the results of the prank this morning, he was sure that McGonagall would call them to her office once she realised what was happening, after all, there were no other pranksters in the school since Fabian and Gideon Prewett graduated.
James quickly pulled on his uniform before standing in the middle of the dorms. His friends were so lazy, honestly, they needed to get up!
He decided to wake Sirius first. He took off at a run and jumped atop of his friend and began to jump up and down in order to jar him.
"Come on, Padfoot, time to wake up!" James called happily.
Sirius groaned beneath him and blearily awakening, glaring up at him with annoyance shining in his grey eyes, but James didn't pay any mind to that, he could count on one hand the number of times and he and Sirius had been genuinely annoyed at each other. Well actually two fingers, the first was when Sirius had accidentally used the term Mudblood and the second was when James hexed Sirius' cousin Narcissa, as despite what he said James knew Sirius cared for his family.
"You know Prongs, there's such a thing called beauty sleep" Sirius groaned as he sat up, rubbing his eyes.
"I know, and trust me, you need it mate" James teased, making Sirius faux glare at him.
Before has a chance to process he was suddenly knocked to the ground by a huge grim-like dog, and James laughed as a wet tongue made its way across his cheek.
James quickly shifted into his own animagus form and began to chase Padfoot around the room, snorting a stags version of a laugh, as Padfoot barked and ignoring the crashes as they knocked Remus' wardrobe to the ground and broke Peter's bedside table.
"You guys, not in the dorm!" Remus' voice suddenly shouted angrily, but James could hear the underlying amusement in his voice as he moved to pick up his wardrobe and Peter used his wand to repair his bedside table.
James and Sirius were both laughing, lying in a tangle of limbs, when they changed back.
After breakfast James was making his way to the Divination tower with Sirius, Remus and Peter having Astronomy instead, James and Sirius both laughed as they saw a first year pick up one of the gnomes they planted and disappear.
James could say with certainty that he hated Divination, he and Sirius only picked it because they figured it would be easy, he spent the majority of the time making things up, mostly competing with Sirius to see who can come up with the most ridiculous prediction.
James took Sirius' tea cup from him and looked at the dregs at the bottom.
"Well, is it bad? Is it Moony? Is it Wormtail? It's me isn't it, I knew it, the handsome always die young" Sirius cried in mock panic, pretending to sob making James force himself to stay serious.
"You're right, you are going to die. You were visiting your friend Moony when all of a sudden, Wormtail swooped in, riding a hippogriff, with a stampede of giants, the Grim will rise from the shadows, and your death will be horrific and painful and you will leave all your belongs do your beloved friend prongs" James said dramatically, imitating the breath voice of their teacher, Sybil Trelawney.
"I guess my beauty was just not meant to walk this earth for long" Sirius sighed doing his best to look dejected "alas, I am cursed to be the devilishly handsome boy that died before his time"
James snorted in laughter.
"Keep telling yourself that, Pads" James laughed "But seriously though, all I can see is a load of soggy brown stuff."
"No there's more than that" Sirius said with a straight face and James raised a brow, wondering where his best friend was going with this "See this bit" Sirius said, pointing to a certain part of the dregs in James cup "This bits black"
James laughed, but smothered it when Trelawney looked there way, her eyes huge behind her glasses.
"My dear" Trelawney suddenly said dramatically, swopping over to James, and he raised his brows, not quite sure what to expect "you were clearly born under the baleful influence of Saturn"
James stared at her in confusion, before looking towards Sirius, who shrugged, looking just as bewildered as he was.
"Born under – what?" James asked.
"Saturn, dear, the planet Saturn" Trelawney said, sounding irritated that he didn't seem to be in awe at her revelation "Saturn was surely in a position of power in the heavens at the moment of your birth…your dark hair…your skinny figure…I think I am right in saying, my dear, that you were born in mid-winter."
"No, I was born in July" James started, his lips twitching in amusement as Sirius snickered beside him.
Trelawney seemed to look rather embarrassed that her prediction was wrong and bustled away to help Mary MacDonald read Dorcas Meadow's tea.
"Where'd she get off, skinny figure, I'm all muscle me" James said arrogant, puffing out his chest and showing off the muscles on his arm.
"Oh, please, a butterfly could knock you over" Sirius said teasingly and James faux glared at him.
Almost immediately after descending the ladder from Divination, McGonagall stormed up to him and Sirius and grabbed their ears, dragging them off towards her office, both of them exclaiming "Ow, ow, ow" the whole way. When they got to the office, Remus and Peter were already there.
"Merlin, Minnie, you could have just asked us to follow you" James grumbled, rubbing his sore ear.
"It's Professor McGonagall to you Potter" McGonagall said, her lips pressed together in a tight line.
James resisted the urge to laugh as he noticed that McGonagall looked distinctly frazzled, and her tight bun was messier than usual.
"You four- I have never in all my years- this has gone beyond all of the immature pranks you have ever pulled!" McGonagall shouted, stumbling over her wording in her anger.
"Why, thank you Minnie" James said, but he shared a grin with Sirius when he realised that he had said it at the same time.
Maybe Remus was right with the whole acting like a twin thing, but as far as James was concerned that was who Sirius was. He was a Potter in all but blood.
"This has gone too far this time, unauthorized portkeys; I have been having students popping in here all day." McGonagall said sternly "Fifty points from Gryffindor and two months' worth of detentions. And Mr Lupin, I thought more of you; you are a Prefect after all"
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Remus look down to his feet in shame, but James instantly knew he was faking it, even before he saw his friend's lips twitching in an effort ot to smile.
"You are dismissed" McGonagall said finally.
As soon as McGonagall's door closed behind them James and his fellow marauders burst into fits of laughter.
"D-did you s-s-see her face?" Peter choked out between laughs.
"Did you see her hair? I reckon she must have been pulling at it" Remus laughed, and James had to lean against Sirius as he gripped his stomach, his stomach hurting from laughing so much.
James sighed as he lay on the settee in the common room after classes, Sirius absentmindedly running his fingers through his messy hair when he rested his head on his best friend's lap.
"Are you bored?" James asked Sirius, looking up at him.
"Yep" Sirius said shortly, before looking down at James, the boredom clear in his silver eyes "are you?"
"Yep" James repeated with another sigh.
"I've got two Neptune's here" Peter said suddenly, looking up from the star chart he and Remus were working on.
"That can't be right" Remus frowned, before turning to him and Sirius "can it?"
"Aaahhhh…" Sirius said, imitating Professor Trelawney's mystical whisper "When two Neptune's appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget with blonde hair is being born, Wormtail"
James sniggered loudly.
"I think I found something useful from our terrible Astronomy work" Remus announced suddenly.
"What?" James asked in amusement.
"This" Remus started, before he picked up his Astronomy book and hit him and Sirius over the head with it.
"Merlin Moony, aren't we crabby. Is it your time of the month?" Sirius asked in faux sympathy and James couldn't help but laugh when a few of the fourth year Gryffindors turned to look at Remus weirdly, making Remus glare.
"Ha ha, very funny" Remus stated dryly.
"It was very funny, I was basically howling with laughter" James chuckled, making Sirius laugh.
"We're never going to get this and it's due tomorrow!" Peter exclaimed suddenly, allowing his head to drop onto the star chart.
"Will you two just go and cause trouble somewhere else?" Remus asked.
"Fine, I can see where we're not wanted" James said, giving a pretend sniff "Come on, Padfoot" he added, pulling Sirius up and leaving the common room.
He and Sirius spent a lot of time wandering, almost getting detention from Filch for no other reason than standing in the hall way, until they finally found themselves in the forbidden forest in their animagi forms.
Padfoot sighed in contentment as he rolled onto his back, rubbing his black fur against the dirt and allowing the sun to warm his stomach.
He and James were in the place they had found last year when they first became animagi. It was almost in the centre of the forest, where a clearing had been made with a clear blue stream running through it. No other creatures came here, apart from the occasional thestrals, but James couldn't see them so Sirius didn't point them out, not wanting to be questioned on why he could see the black leathery creatures.
Padfoot cracked open an eye when he heard rustling and gave a bark of laughter. Prongs was shaking his head furiously, he had gotten his antlers stuck in a nearby bush…again.
He felt tingles explode over his body when he changed back to his human form, before going over to Prongs and helping him untangle his antlers from the bush, laughing as he did. When Prongs was finally out of the bush he quickly shifted back and Sirius laughed again when he saw he had leaves in his hair, and carefully removed them from the messy black locks.
Sirius sighed and lied back down on the forest flaw, allowing his fingers to skim the stop of the river as James plopped down next to him.
Sirius groaned when his stomach rumbled, maybe he and James should go to the kitchens soon.
"Ugh, I'm starving" Sirius moaned, looking up at the sky.
"Same here, even the clouds are starting to look like food that one looks like Jelly" James said in agreement, pointing to a cloud, which did in fact resemble what James said it did.
Sirius abruptly sat up in sync with James.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Sirius asked his friend with a smirk.
"Always" James nodded an identical look of mischief in his eyes that was in Sirius'.
Two hours and one prank later, found James and Sirius once again standing in McGonagall's office, doing their best to smother their laughs.
"I have never known two students get into as much trouble as you have" Professor McGonagall said.
Despite the look of disapproval on her face, James felt his chest swell with pride that he and Sirius had managed to become the most mischievous students. Back in first ear their pranks weren't nearly as good and Fabian and Gideon Prewett were their idols.
"And what exactly is it we've done?" James asked, donning a innocently confused expression.
If it were possible, Professor McGonagall's lips thinned further.
"You filled Professor Flitwick's classroom with jelly" Professor McGonagall said sternly "while he was teaching a class of third years I might add"
"How did you know it was us?" Sirius asked from beside him, the grin finally breaking through his serious façade and James immediately felt his own lips turn up into a grin as well.
"Yeah, we didn't leave a trace of evidence" James nodded in agreement.
"It didn't matter if you didn't leave any evidence, a portrait saw you leaving the kitchens with heaps of Jelly" Professor McGonagall told them.
"I bet it was that painting of the old witch, she never liked us" James grumbled and saw Sirius nod in agreement beside them.
"Detention Mr Potter, Mr Black, for one week" Professor McGonagall sighed, before closing her eyes and rubbing her temples.
James shared a grin with his best friend as they left.