Title: The Usual

Theme: Breaking the rules

year: 4th

"What are we doing tonight?"

Moony looked up from his book he had been completely absorbed in. "Hm?"

"What are we doing tonight?" Padfoot asked again. Well, it was more of a demand.

Prongs shrugged, flipping a galleon. "Probably what we usually do."

"That's boring!" Padfoot whined, frowning like a five year old kid.

"We could play exploding snap," Moony said, closing his book. He knew he would not get any reading done with Padfoot in this mood.

Padfoot shook his head.

"How bout we go exploring?" Wormtail said, thinking for once.

"Nah."

"Sirius," Prongs said, laughing to himself, "what do you want to do?"

Now it was his turn to shrug. "I dunno."

The other three sighed, exasperated with their best friend. Would he just say what's on his mind?

"How's Lily, James?" The said best friend asked, turning to look at him from the couch.

Prongs stiffened reasonably.

"Oh. Something you don't want to talk about?" He received no answer. "I thought she liked yesterday."

Prongs let out a low sign, rolling his eyes. "Evidently, like most girls I suppose, she doesn't seem to like having her hair change everytime she says 'potter'."

"Really?" Padfoot asked, sounding surprised. "Hm. I think she should have stopped after the third time. That was a beautiful pink. It went great with her necklace."

"Eh, I don't think so, Sirius," Moony said, contemplating something. "Near the end, that emerald one was looking pretty good."

"Ah of course! I forgot about that one." Padfoot turned back to Prongs. "The emerald one really brought out her eyes, mate."

"What about that time it was yellow?" Wormtail piped up.

"I don't think so, Peter," Moony said.

"I thought it looked nice."

"Yeah well, you don't know anything." Padfoot said, ruffling Wormtail's hair.

"HEY!" Prongs suddenly shouted, putting his hands in his face. "Can we stop talking about this? Honestly, let's just find something to do."

"James is right." Moony said, looking bored for once. "Let's go pull a prank or something."

The other Marauders gasped.

"Well then." Prongs said, surprised. "You've never wanted to pull a prank. We always have to rope you into it."

"Maybe I'm just in a mood or something."

"So it's like a good time of the month?" Padfoot asked, smirking.

"Shut it."

"So what are we doing?" Prongs said, sitting in a thinking pose.

"Something with the Slytherins of course." Padfoot said, nodding.

"Naturally."

"Well," Moony said, searching through the back of his mind, "we could do the banner one we've been thinking about."

"I thought we were saving that for later." Padfoot said, alarmed.

"Yeah, well desperate times calls for desperate measures."

One hour later, the marauders were standing in the great hall, looking up at their work with much amusement.

"How well do you think it will work?" Wormtail asked, nervous.

"If everything goes according to plan, all the slytherins should be wearing gryffindor colours and have pink hair twenty four hours after responding to this," Moony said in one long breath, actually smiling at his work.

They had made a giant banner that read All Slytherins still have teddy bears and suck their thumbs!

Immature? Yes. Essential? Also a yes.

"What do you think you're doing?" A raspy voice said behind them.

Slowly, the marauders turned on their heels, they're gaze landing on Argus Filch, an evil caretaker. Before the Marauders, he was a nice enough man, occasionally catching people and barely ever giving detentions. But when they started causing havoc, he lost all sanity and became crazed with stopping troublemaking.

"Breaking the rules, mud on your feet-"

"-how did that even happen-?" Padfoot mumbled to Prongs, surprised.

"-illegal banner, out at night, and caught by the caretaker. What did you think you were doing?" Filch added, glaring at them.

"Oh, you know." Moony said, shrugging.

Padfoot smiled. "The usual."

I'm feeling proud of myself. Would anyone who has this in their favorites and reads it please review? It will make me want to update even much more. Also, anyone want to beta for this story? I dunno, it'd be nice.

~ExP