Sirius bemoaned the loss of Lucy Elaine for the rest of the week, stopping his mourning only when Remus left for the Hospital Wing at the end of the month.
"We need to keep working on that thing to help with Remus' furry little problem," James said, watching him go.
"Yeah. And we need a better name for it than 'that thing to help with Remus' furry little problem,'" Sirius agreed.
"What about Operation That Thing To Help With Remus' Furry Little Problem?"
"No. That doesn't sound cool. And it's not discreet. It should be something like Operation Screw The Moon."
"That's not very discreet either," Peter pointed out.
"It sounds cool!" Sirius protested.
"It doesn't sound cool," James said.
"Peter thinks it sounds cool, right?" He looked to Peter.
Peter shook his head. "It doesn't sound that cool."
"Traitor. You're a traitor, too, James."
"No, you're just bad at coming up with Operation names and you don't want to admit it," James said.
Sirius gasped, pretending to be offended. "You have hurt me, James! I am great at coming up with Operation names! How could you think otherwise?"
"Because it's the truth."
"I am wounded, James! Wounded! Wounded!" With that, Sirius collapsed dramatically.
"Sure. Now get up, we have stuff to do."
Sirius didn't move.
"Come on, mate, we have to come up with a better Operation name." James sighed when Sirius still stayed on the ground. "We'll go to the kitchens."
"Brilliant," Sirius said, popping up. "I could go for some of Minnie's biscuits."
The house elves were more than happy to fulfill Sirius' request of a platter of McGonagall's biscuits, which were brought back up to the boys' dormitory.
"So," Peter said. "Were we coming up with an Operation name?"
"We already have one," James and Sirius said at the same time.
"Operation That Thing To Help With Remus' Furry Little Problem," James said, while Sirius said, "Operation Screw The Moon."
"Those are both terrible," Peter said.
"Hear that, Sirius?" James said triumphantly. "Your Operation name is terrible."
"Yours is terrible too!" Sirius argued, grabbing a biscuit.
"Well, yeah, but it's better than yours!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"N-"
"What about Operation Hypothetical?" Peter suggested.
"Operation Hypothetical?" James asked. "Where'd you get that from?"
"Well, remember that first one after we found out, and we ran into Minnie-"
"We should call it Operation Minnie, then," James said.
"No, Operation Minnie is my second proposal to Minnie since Evans ruined the first one. We can't call it Operation Minnie, that would be too confusing," Sirius said.
"I didn't even know you had an Operation for that."
"Well, I do. And it'll succeed."
"Sure, mate. Good luck with that."
"Thanks, but it'll be a few months. I was thinking Valentines Day would be great. Or the same day as when I tried to propose in second year."
"You should do it on Valentines Day, then we can do a joint proposal- you to Minnie, and me to Evans."
"No, it's not as romantic that way."
"Really? I thought it would be more romantic."
Sirius shook his head. "I don't think so. Anyway, I think Operation Hypothetical sounds good."
"Alright then," James said. "Operation Hypothetical is on."
Sirius nodded. "And so is Operation Minnie. But that's secondary. Operation Hypothetical comes first."
"Brilliant. Who had the book over the summer?"
"That was you," Peter said.
"Oh yeah, right." James hopped off his bed, then began rummaging through his trunk. "Rocks, a spare quill… color-changing dye-"
"We should use that for something," Sirius commented. "And why so you have rocks in there?" he added as an afterthought. "I mean, who carries rocks in their trunk?"
James ignored him and continued, "-list of spells from Transfiguration, an old star chart… a scarf… aha! Here it is." James held up the leather bound book. "And…" he opened to halfway through the book. "It still has all our notes. Which are still in order."
"Good. I don't want to have to sort those again," Sirius said. "That took more than an hour."
"It's your fault for deciding to throw them at me," James shrugged.
"I wouldn't have thrown them at you if you hadn't called suggested that I make friends with Snivellus."
"Fair point. But still." James took a biscuit off the platter.
"Oi! Those aren't yours!" Sirius complained.
"We've been sharing socks since first year. I am perfectly entitled to your biscuits as well."
"The biscuits are off limits!"
James grabbed another and grinned at Sirius.
Sirius glared at him. "You, James Potter, are a terrible person."
"Whatever you say. Now how about we start figuring out what we need for Operation Hypothetical?"
Operation Hypothetical was slow moving, mainly due to the complexity of the process, the rarity of the ingredients needed, and the increase in homework the teachers decided was appropriate for fourth year students.
Shortly after Remus had returned, Quidditch was also added to the mix.
"Everyone's staying on the team, no one graduated last year," James said. "Hallie wants to start practicing early to get ahead of everyone else, they still haven't had tryouts."
"When's practice?" Sirius asked.
"Monday, right after dinner."
"Bugger! We're going to have to reschedule the plan!"
"We can always do it right after. We have the cloak."
"What plan?" Remus said, glancing up from his book suspiciously.
"Exploring," James and Sirius said.
"They want to try and find another secret passage," Peter said.
"How do you think you're going to find one? They're not that obvious," Remus said.
"With your help," James said.
"And Peter's," Sirius added.
Remus sighed. "I didn't volunteer to-"
"Well, too bad, because you're coming," Sirius said. "It's a full Marauders family expedition."
"We'll start by stopping in the kitchens," James said. "So we can get snacks."
"You can grab chocolate," Sirius suggested. "As long as you share it with me."
"You can get your own chocolate when we get there," Remus said, shaking his head.
"Brilliant, he's coming!"
After dinner on Monday, James made his way out to the Quidditch Pitch, broom in hand.
The rest of the Gryffindor Team was already at the pitch.
"Good, you're here," Hallie said as James made it to the center of the pitch. "Alright, team. This year, no one had to leave, so we don't need to do tryouts. You're all experienced fliers, so we'll be moving on to some more difficult, unusual techniques. That's why we need an early start; to make sure that we can have these techniques as solid as possible, which will give us an edge over Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw. Any questions?"
"What types of techniques?" Mitchel, one of the Beaters asked. "Professional, semi-professional, street-"
"It'll be a combination of street and professional," Hallie said.
Andrew gave her a confused look. "McGonagall wouldn't let us do anything from street," he said.
"We have permission, as long as we don't use the parts of them that include magic," Hallie said. "Anyone else? Brilliant. Let's get started. We're going to do variation for warm up. Mitchel, Justin, bludgers at the chasers. Maria, just the left set of hoops. Andrew, I'll let the snitch loose in a moment, we'll stop when you catch it. James, Lucas, we'll be trying to score on Maria and not get pummeled by Mitchel and Justin."
The team nodded.
"Alright, let's go, I'm letting out the snitch and bludgers…."
James came back to the Common Room to find Sirius already holding the cloak.
"Come on, hurry up!" he said. "We've got to get going!"
"It's not like we need to be back before curfew," James said.
"Still, the sooner we go, the more time we have to find a secret passage."
"Good point."
Ten minutes later, they were outside Gryffindor Tower, arguing over which way to go.
"Let's go left," Sirius said.
"No, we should go right," James said.
"We went right last time."
"Well, yeah, but-"
Remus shushed them. "It's after hours, in case you've forgotten."
"Sorry, Moony, James here is just being-"
"Shhh, someone's coming!"
Someone was humming loudly to the right of them, around the corner of the corridor.
"What's that supposed to be?" James asked.
"It's probably Peeves," Remus said. "Odds are he's out of tune on purpose."
"Definitely Peeves," Peter agreed.
"Let's not run into him," James said.
"Left," Sirius whispered.
This time, no one argued.
They moved quietly as they could. It would be a bad idea for Peeves to find out they were out of bed and breaking curfew.
Once they couldn't hear Peeves anymore, they began whispering again.
"So, do either of you two have any idea how to find a secret passage? Or are we just wandering around blindly hoping to find one?" Remus asked.
"We're just wandering around," Sirius said, "but we'll definitely find one."
"How?"
"By wandering around and poking at stuff and all that. We've already found one, and the Room of Requirement-"
"You only found the Room of Requirement because we were standing outside it and you decided that you didn't want to listen to the history behind that tapestry-"
"We still found it," Sirius argued. "And even if you don't think it counts, I found the one to Hogsmeade-"
"Didn't you follow some seventh years to it?" Peter said.
"Well, yeah, but-"
The sound of a shoe and wood hitting the ground reached their ears.
"Moody," James said.
"Let's go, Moody can see through boxes- I'm sure he'll be able to see through the cloak," Remus said.
"Peeves is back there," James said. "I doubt Moody-"
The steps were growing louder.
"Come on, we can take the stairs around the corner and head to the fifth floor-"
The steps were right around the corner.
"He'll probably see us anyway," James said, but they hurried around the corner and down the stairs.
The Marauders made it to the fifth floor, where they wandered for a while without an exact idea of what they should be looking for.
"What about behind that suit of armor?" Sirius said.
They checked and found nothing.
"What about the next one?"
They checked the whole left side of the corridor, then James said, "We should check the other side, just in case."
Remus and Peter shared a look.
"Do you really think that we should check the whole-"
"Yes," James said.
It was early the next morning when they returned to Gryffindor Tower. They hadn't found any secret passages, though they had found two sixth years snogging in an empty classroom.
James headed straight for his bed after they got back. "'Night."
"You realize that we only have about two hours until we have to get up?" Remus said.
"That's two hours I can sleep, Quidditch was exhausting," he mumbled into his pillow.
The Marauders were still partially asleep when they went to breakfast, except for Sirius. He seemed more awake than usual.
"I know you lot are tired, but you'd better not walk any slower, otherwise we'll miss breakfast," Sirius said, walking ahead of them.
"That's why we know where the kitchens are," James said.
"Then we'll miss Transfiguration," Sirius said.
"Would that be so bad?"
"No, but Minnie always loves to see us, especially me. Why would we disappoint her?"
"Because I'm tired, and Peter looks tired, and Remus looks tired."
"You can nap during History of Magic. Anyway, we've stayed up for longer than this."
"Yeah, but I didn't have Quidditch then."
They managed to stay awake through breakfast and Transfiguration. The moment they made it to History of Magic, James laid himself down on his desk. Five minutes later, he was asleep.
"Quidditch can't be that exhausting, can it?" Sirius asked, turning to Remus and Peter.
"It looks really hard," Peter said. "And their practice was long."
"What do you think, Remus?"
Remus was taking notes, glancing up at Binns every so often.
"Remus. Remus, I'm talking to you-"
"We have a test next week, this will be on it," Remus said.
"We have a test?" Sirius said.
"Yeah, Binns mentioned it yesterday…."
"You won't get expelled if you fail a test. Anyway, did you have an answer?"
"About what?"
"About whether Quidditch is so exhausting that it's forcing James to sleep."
"I'm sure it is. Now can I listen?"
"Fine, but it's probably unhealthy to pay so much attention to Binns. If you listen to him too much, you'll probably die of boredom and turn into a ghost, too."
Remus rolled his eyes and continued taking notes.