"Are we supposed to be seeing something? Because all I'm getting is a bunch of fog."
"Probably means that there'll be fog tonight or something."
"I don't think that's how crystal balls work."
"Really? It's supposed to show the future, and it's showing us fog, so fog must be in the future."
"Well, I think that it-"
"Shh, she's coming over!"
The Marauders had been staring into the crystal ball they were sharing for the past five minutes, without much success.
Sirius looked to Remus triumphantly. "Watch as she tells me I'm right."
Scio had made her way to their table.
"What are you Seeing, Mr. Black?"
"A lot of fog tonight," Sirius said.
"Fog? My dear, there will be no fog tonight. If all you are seeing is fog, then you are not Seeing at all. Are the rest of you Seeing anything?"
James, Remus, and Peter shook their heads.
"That's alright. Often it takes years for Seers to train themselves to look into the Beyond. This is only your second month; it will take time," Scio said wisely, then turned to move on to another table.
"You were saying?" Remus prompted, looking to Sirius.
"Well, Scio foresaw that there wouldn't be fog, right? So maybe, I misread it, and it wasn't fog. Maybe it was mist." Sirius stared intently at the crystal ball for a minute before announcing, "It's mist, not fog, so technically-"
"Technically, mist and fog are the same thing."
"Are not!"
"Yes they are."
"No!"
"Yes."
"No!"
"Yes."
"N-"
"Mate," James interrupted, "the last time you had an argument like that, you lost. Quit while you're ahead."
"Why should I if I'm going to win?"
"Because you're not going to win, and if you quit while ahead, technically you're winning, and then if you're winning, Remus can't win, and then maybe we can save him from the fate of a large ego."
"Save me from the fate of a large ego?" Remus snorted. "I doubt that there's any room left in the dormitory for Peter and I to have any ego with the size of yours."
"My ego isn't that big!" James protested. "It's… reasonably sized."
"Whatever you say, James," Sirius said, nodding. "Well, I'm going to take his advice, so I win."
"If your forfeit, then I'm the only one left, which means I win," Remus said.
"That's not how it works! Right?"
James shrugged. "I forgot about the forfeiting thing. Remus wins, then."
"What? No! I call back in!"
"You forfeited, you can't get back in after that."
Sirius swore. "That's the last time I take your advice, James."
With the days begging to grow colder, Care of Magical Creatures was slowly growing to be less enjoyable. The last thing that the fourth years wanted to do was stand in the brisk wind taking notes.
A week or so into October, Kettleburn decided to make the lesson more enjoyable.
"Come on, this way!" He began the lesson by herding the students away from the castle and around the edge of the forest.
"He'd better not make us take notes on the different types of trees in the Forbidden Forest," James said.
"I don't think he will," Remus said. "We did that last week."
"I filled about a foot of parchment on that," Peter said. "I think that now I've got plenty of forest expertise."
James nodded. "I reckon you could start a tree farm with your forest expertise."
"A tree farm? Who would make a farm of trees?" Sirius asked.
"I don't know. The muggles do it."
"They do weird things all the time."
"True."
"Alright! Everyone gather around- slowly, we don't want to startle her!" Kettleburn called out. He had led them to a stone paddock, inside which was-
"What's that supposed to be?" Evan Rosier was unimpressed with the creature they beheld. "A turtle?"
"That, Evan, is a fire crab," Kettleburn said. "They're native to Fiji- bit of aways away."
"Definitely doesn't look English," Marlene McKinnon commented.
She was right- it looked a fair bit like an overly large, stone-gray tortoise. It probably could have passed for one, too, if not for its brightly colored jewel encrusted shell.
"We could buy out Zonko's with that," Sirius said, impressed. "That's got to be worth a lot."
"Quite right, Sirius. That's one of the reasons why they're a little harder to come by. They're often hunted for their shells- people like to turn them into cauldrons because of both their appearance and their durability." Kettleburn walked around to the paddock gate. "Can any of you tell me about their defense mechanism? Dorcas?"
"They shoot fire out of their… er, rear ends."
"Right! It makes them hard to sneak up on, but if you come from the front, they have time to turn and blast you. The best way to get near one is from the side, outside their range of vision, but out of their firing range. Watch me."
He climbed into the paddock.
The fire crab hadn't noticed; it was facing the other direction.
Kettleburn creeped around to its side quietly.
The fire crab turned, rear facing toward Kettleburn.
He backed up a little bit, then tried to step around.
The crab turned again, now facing Kettleburn.
Kettleburn turned around to the class. "See how she's seen me? If they catch sight of you, you need to back away. Otherwise, they feel threatened, and when they feel threatened-"
The crab had begun turning around.
"-they'll- ah!"
There was a jet of blue flames from the fire crab.
Kettleburn leapt out of the way, but not fast enough. His arm had been in the way of the flames and was smoldering. He calmly pulled his wand out, muttered an incantation, and the burn vanished. "That's what they'll do. Now, why don't you come a bit closer? It'll take her a minute or two to recharge."
The class took a few tentative steps towards the paddock.
"Can anyone tell me about their diet? Remus?"
Dinner that night went as it usually did. The Great Hall filled with conversation and Sirius filled his plate with chicken.
"So," Sirius said, carefully choosing a leg, "I was thinking that we'd better get on with pranking those Slytherins. Then we can get the rest of the school as soon as possible."
"But what are we going to do?" Peter asked.
"I don't know, but we'll come up with something. Didn't we already have a plan?"
"No," James said, "so it's of the utmost importance that we make one."
They sat thinking for a few minutes.
"What if we filled their common room with snakes?" Sirius suggested, grinning maniacally. "Poisonous snakes. Like… what kind of snakes are poisonous?"
"Snakes aren't poisonous, they're venomous," Remus said exasperatedly. "But it doesn't matter which snakes are venomous, because we aren't putting snakes in their common room."
"Why not?"
"We already put a snake in Umbridge's office the one time, that's too similar," James reminded him, "And anyway, isn't Regulus in Slytherin? I don't think he'd be thrilled if one of his mates was bitten by a cobra."
"Good point. But would it really be a waste if Snivellus was bitten by a snake?"
"No, we'd be doing them all a favor. Maybe for Snivellus we should make an exception."
"We're not making any exceptions," Remus said. "Any ideas that aren't mad?"
"We could fill their common room with bowtruckles," Sirius offered. "Or fire crabs. Or hinkypunks. Or chimeras. Or-"
"No."
"Come on! Those are good ideas!"
"Debatable."
"That isn't debatable! Peter doesn't think so! Right, Peter?"
Peter hesitated. "Well…."
"You two have lost your sense of humor," Sirius said. "At least James is with me."
"Actually, I was thinking that we could do something else," James said.
"What?"
"I thought the bowtruckles were more of a Minnie thing," James said.
"Oh, that makes sense. Minnie does have a thing for magical creatures."
"Since when?" Peter said.
"She approved of the ashwinders."
"That wasn't in her office."
"She still approved of them."
"What about changing their password? To get into their dorms?" James said.
"Brilliant!"
"We don't know how to get into their dorm," Remus said.
"The Room of Requirement," James and Sirius said.
"It can take us to the dorm while they're all in classes," Sirius said.
"And then," James continued, "we can leave through the door, figure out where it is, then come back and change the password. It's foolproof."
"Their common room is probably spelled to keep people from getting in that way," Remus said.
"We got into our dorm with the room, didn't we?" Sirius said. "Like James said, it's foolproof."
"If we were to do this… what would their new password be?"
"'Courtesy of the Marauders,' of course," James said. "Then they're stuck until they realize it was us."
"And then, with that being the password, we'll have claimed it," Sirius said.
"And then the Hufflepuffs are no longer immune," James continued.
"We can call it Operation Lockout," finished Sirius.
"Well," Remus said, barely containing a grin, "we should do the research on how to change the password before we do anything else."
"Hypothetically," Peter said.
"Yes, of course this is hypothetical," James said, nodding. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"Library after dinner, then?" Sirius grabbed another piece of chicken.
"Did you just suggest going to the library?" Remus looked at him carefully. "Are you sure that you're Sirius Black and not some imposter?"
"Who else would I be? Evans? Desperate times call for desperate measures, like the library," Sirius shrugged.
"Because pranking the Slytherins is, without a doubt, desperate."
"Exactly. Glad you understand, Moony. So, are we doing it?"
"What else are we supposed to do?" James said.
"We could fill the Charms room with bubbles," Peter said.
"That's not a bad idea," Sirius said, "but the Slytherins are coming first. We've been letting them off far too easy."
Dinner ended, and the Marauders left quickly to head to the library.
They found a table in a back corner. Once they had settled, Remus, Sirius, and James headed off to find books while Peter saved them the table.
While the three of them were off, a small group of Ravenclaw second years selected a table not far away from the one Peter was at, intending to study for some sort of test. Then they noticed Peter.
When one saw the Marauders in the library, they knew that they were planning something. Something that likely involved explosions, mischief, and absolute chaos.
This was only one of them, though.
They would be fine. Hopefully.
Then, not ten minutes later, the rest of them appeared, each carrying a small stack of books.
They began whispering amongst themselves.
One of the Marauders looked up.
"It's not for you lot, you're immune anyway!" Sirius said.
"Hufflepuff is immune, not Ravenclaw," James said.
"Oh. Well, point is, it's not for you."
The Ravenclaws turned back to their books, still whispering.
"First years," Sirius muttered.
"I think they're second years," James said.
"Same difference. Remus, I nominate you to go through the history stuff about Hogwarts. Peter, you get to read about Slytherin. James and I'll look at spells."
They got to work quickly.
They made it through two books before Madame Prince kicked them out.
"You're being far too loud! This is a library!" she hissed at them.
"We're being quieter than them!" Sirius protested, pointing at the Ravenclaws. "Aren't you going to ki-"
"Shhh! Out! You're disrupting this environment!"
"But-"
"Shhhh!"
"You know what," James said once they were out, "We haven't pranked Prince since first year."
"What did we do in first year?" Peter said.
"We made a bunch of books fly around. She wasn't all that happy."
"Oh, that."
"We'll put her on the list," Sirius decided. "Right after the Slytherins."
"We have a list?"
"Yeah," James said. "It's like the Marauder hit list, only it has a priority order from one to ten, with names and the plan."
"I've never seen that list," Remus commented.
"It's in the cover of my History of Magic book," Sirius said. "I'll show it to you two later."