Chapter 8

The Beginning of the Map

"What took you so long" Sirius complained as they ran out of the school.

"Stop being so impatient Si," James teased when they got up to him. Sirius just stuck his tongue out at him.

"Sirius did you even bring a parch met to draw the map on." Remus asked.

"Whoops, I suppose I should go get one huh." Remus sighed.

"I'll do it. I won't take as long." Remus ran back into the castle.

Sirius growled to himself, this was taking too long, he wanted to start already.

"Let's practice the charms we need to use while he getting the parchment." James said.

"Ok" Sirius and Peter agreed and they began to practice. Eventually Remus got back.

"Yay" They cheered. Remus laughed.

"Who is going to draw it?" Remus asked. They looked confused. "One of us has to draw it while the rest of us measure the building" They nodded in understanding then looked at each other. Peter was the first to vote.

"Sirius has the best handwriting."

"You have a point." They all agreed that Sirius would do it.

They quickly realized that it would be a bit harder than they thought. The measuring spell they found made a ruler that you could see though and walk though, but you still had to run the length of the school. The ruler just followed where ever you walked.

All in all Sirius was very glad they pick him to draw the map. They worked until night fell and by then they had most of the outside of the first floor completed. When they got back to their room they collapsed onto their beds. Well all of them but Sirius did.

"We're making progress guys. Does this prove that it can be mapped yet?" Sirius asked as he stared at the map in pride.

"Not yet. It still isn't a map, just some lines on a paper." He yawned and change into his pjs.

"Oh, oh well. We can do it, whether they agree or not." Sirius was very sure of himself. He laid the map on a desk in the corner of the room, put his pjs on, and went to bed.

Remus was the last to fall asleep; with the moon growing larger he grew more restless, and sick. He tried to hide how bad he felt, but sometimes he was sure they could see though his pretences. Running around outside today didn't help much either, but at least it made him tired, so he was able to get some sleep.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Their morning routine hadn't changed much from the first week of school. On the weekends it was like the very first day. Sirius was always the last one up, and Remus was the first one up. The only difference was they didn't have to hurry on the weekends like they did that first day. So Sirius usually sleeps in till ten. Then of course he spends four hours getting ready.

As soon as everyone was up and ready for the day, they decided to go work on the map again. Remus was worried that they would end up neglecting their homework over this. Luckily they didn't have much yet. James seemed as excited about getting the map done than Sirius, and Peter was just glad he was able to help make it. Sirius was still drawing it, though he offered to do some of the measuring. They were worried about messing it up. When they got the outside of the first floor done they had to stop and consider what they were going to do about the other floors and the towers. They couldn't see it as well from the ground.

"What if we used a broomstick?" Sirius asked. Remus sighed and James began to pace.

"We aren't allowed to use broomsticks until our third year." Remus reminded him.

"Oh, ya I forgot." Sirius sat down on the ground.

James stopped his pacing. "I got it! Why don't we just look at it from the top of the astronomy tower? It is one of the tallest towers. Than we can make a sketch of it and estimate the actual lengths."

"I think that will work. We will have to give up some of the accuracy, but I don't think we really have a choice." They went inside and headed for the astronomy tower. They were stopped by Professor McGonagall.

"And where are you boys heading off to?" They looked at each other wondering if they should tell her or keep it a secret between themselves for now. They left the decision up to Sirius, it was his idea anyway.

"Were going to the astronomy tower." Sirius answered without hesitation. He seemed to be willing to tell her anything.

James considered this as McGonagall answered. "And why are you going up there?" Most students avoided the astronomy tower in fear that the crazy teacher would be there.

"We need to be able to see the top of the school." He told her and ran past her before she could ask any more questions. James and the others followed. When they got up to the tower James completely forgot about the conversation with Professor McGonagall. The crazy teacher was no where in site and without her there the astronomy tower was awesome. It had the perfect view. You could see anyone and everyone that was outside. You could even almost see into the Forbidden Forest. He borrowed Remus' telescope that thankfully Remus had thought to bring, and spied on Snape and Evans by the lake.

"Umm James, mate, I know staring at your girlfriend is kinda important to you, but we would kinda like to get started." Sirius laughed startling James causing him to drop the telescope. Luckily Remus had really good reflexes. He caught it before it could fall off of the tower.

"What did you say?" James g laired at Sirius, causing Sirius to laugh even louder. "She is not my girlfriend!"

"Who said I was talking about Evans." With that James tackled Sirius to the floor. Sirius laughing though the punches.

"Will you guys stop it? I would like to be out of the tower before nightfall." Remus sighed. He couldn't even imagine still being up here after the sun went down. The moon is almost full; it would be scary enough just to be outside when it came out. Let alone this high off of the ground. Even with the sun up he felt way to close to the moon.

James stood up, Sirius had finally stopped laughing so he decided Black had enough punishment for today, and they started working on the map. It bugged them that they couldn't be positive about the measurements, Sirius complained about it almost the whole time. By the time they had decided to stop for the day James and Sirius had completely forgotten about their little argument and were planning a prank for Snape again.

Life continued on like this for quite a while. They continued with the outside of the school until they had completely drawn every nook and cranny on their map. Remus had left Friday around noon. He was getting too sick to stay as long as he had last month, last month had been an easy month, and it wasn't hard to tell that it wouldn't be the same this month. He also had to stay in bed much longer the next day. He spent almost the whole day in bed.

Also, to James, Remus, and Peter's great re leaf, they managed to build their reputations as troublemakers without getting caught. Actually they had never gotten a detention. Sirius was the only one who got in trouble, and that was usually only because he was either goofing around and didn't bother to try to keep from getting caught or because he decided to turn himself in. Their first detention was of course Peter's fault.

They were working on a report for History of Magic class when the idea first popped into James' head. They were doing their report on the history of Halloween, since it was coming up in just a week, when Remus came across a very interesting fact. Godric Gryffindor's birthday was just two days away. As Gryffindors James felt it was their job to celebrate such a monumental 'holiday'. Of course the first thought that came into Sirius' head was to celebrate it by pranking the Slytherins. Typical Sirius.

"I highly doubt that Gryffindor would approve of that, he wasn't as mean as you guys are." Remus joked.

"He has a point, and I'm not mean. Those Slytherins deserve whatever we dish out."

"I've got it!" James stood up. "We won't prank them." Sirius looked at him in shock.

"Who are you, and what have you done with my friend?"

"I'm an alien from Mars. That's not what I meant Si, it isn't considered a prank really. No one is going to be embarrassed by it, or anything." Sirius looked skeptical while Peter laughed at the alien joke. "Here's what we are going to do!" James was smirking like crazy, there was no doubt in his mind that they would help him with his plan. "We're going to do a little redecorating. The Slytherin colors are so boring, I mean come on green and silver. They don't even go together that well. So we are going to do them a little favor." Sirius was catching on quickly now.

"Gryffindor would like that, us helping those poor styleless Slytherins. We would be doing them an honor." Sirius had an evil glint in his eye. "Of course we would use Gryffindor's favorite colors."

"Red, and gold" All four of them said at the same time. James and Sirius gave each other a high five, and Remus laughed at the brilliance of the plan, not that all of them weren't brilliant, this one was defiantly the best. Peter of course was freaking out, he really didn't want to go back into the Slytherin common room. Once was enough for him, but everyone was used to his freaking by now and just ignored him.

They would of course do it around midnight, it was the only time they wouldn't be caught. Remus found a couple of books that told them how to change the color of any object, of course they had the 'wonderful' idea of practicing with the tables and ended up getting kicked out. They should have known better, they've been kicked out of the library even Remus couldn't keep track of it.

All the others went to sleep till midnight, while Sirius stayed up and put some extra detail on the map. He wanted to make sure that everyone woke up on time, and flatly whenever he got bored he would work on the map. He was really proud of how far they had gotten, by now they were absolutely sure that it was possible to finish the map. They weren't sure if they could do it by the end of the year, but they knew they could do it. They had the entire outside of the castle completed, they even had Hagrid's hut on there. Remus had decided that they needed to take a little break from it, they were starting to get behind on their homework.

Sirius smiled at how Remus had changed in just this short amount of time. At the beginning of the year, he hardly ever spoke. He would never interrupt any of them, or tell them what to do. He was shy and scared to death of losing the only friends he had. Remus had never actually told them that he didn't have any other friends, but it wasn't hard to tell. He still didn't interrupt or try to tell them what to do, but now it was more out of politeness than fear. Well he didn't most of the time, he would tell them when they were going too far with a prank or if they started to neglect their school work. Once James and Sirius had gotten so far behind because of their little escapades that Remus literally dragged them over too the desk in the common room and stood over them until they got all of their homework done.

He was terrified of losing his friends, but if he had to risk making them mad at him to help him, he would not hesitate. He was a great friend. Sirius chuckled, if his mother ever knew he thought that way about a half-blood she would freak.

His mind switched to the topic of his mother, and what he would have to go home to when it was time to get the guys up. For once it was pretty easy to get Peter out of bed, strangely this time it was Remus that he had trouble with. Remus rarely ever slept well, and Sirius hated waking him in the rare occurrences that he did, but he knew Remus would be upset if they didn't get him up.

They were halfway to the common room before any of them spoke.

"This is going to be so much fun." James whispered

"I know, I'm so glad you though of this." Sirius gave James another high five.

"What if we get caught?"

"Peter stop worrying" James whispered sternly.

"But..."

"Shush." Both Sirius and James whispered when they neared the Slytherin common room for the second time. Sirius gave the password and was glad that they only changed once a year.

James peeked in as the wall turned into a passage way. "Clear" he said and walked in. They followed. Sirius and James worked on changing the furniture, while Remus did the decorations and fireplace. They decided to do the walls, ceiling , and floor tie-dieish.

When they were done they admired their handiwork before they headed back to the common room. They were halfway there when Peter could no longer hold it in and burst out laughing. Just the sight of the Slytherin common room all dressed up in red and gold was too much, he had tried to hold it in but couldn't. Unfortunately it was Lucius Malfoy that caught them. The glare Malfoy gave them was nothing compared to the glare Sirius gave Peter when they were forced to follow Malfoy to McGonagall's office. (Malfoy's a prefect)

McGonagall was furious. She sent Malfoy out, but not before he could shoot Sirius a smirk, successfully making Sirius angry. Thankfully for once he was able to hold it in.

"What do you think you were doing? Out after curfew, and no where near you common room no less! Probably trying to pull of another one of your jokes! I would expect this kind of behavior out of Black, after the way he has acted so far this year, but not from the rest of you! Your parents would be ashamed! Do you have any idea what your parents would do if the found out about this Potter! And you!" She turned to Remus. "If it weren't for Dumbledore you probably wouldn't even be here!" Remus paled. Sirius looked at him with questioning eyes, but he didn't return the gaze. Sirius seemed to be the only one that was even listening anymore. Peter looked like he wanted to run away screaming, and James almost looked like he was going to cry.

Sirius rolled his eyes. Amateurs.

They were all given a detention to be served out the next day, and she would call their parents as well as 30 points off Gryffindor each. When Professor McGonagall noticed that none of the punishments seemed to faze Black she realized that she would have to start getting as creative in her punishments as he was getting in his jokes. She sighed, it was rather hard to punish him for his little pranks when most of the time she just wanted to laugh at them herself.

As the boys walked back to the common room they were very silent. Sirius wanted to say something to cheer them up, but he knew nothing he said would help. To him, it was the worst feeling in the world. Their reactions surprised him a little, he tried to think back to the first time he got in trouble with someone besides his mother to see if maybe he had acted that way the first time too. He couldn't even remember the first time.

"How can that not bother you any?" James asked, it was one of the few things that he didn't understand about Sirius.

"I dunno, probably because I've been in trouble almost all my life. Or maybe just because I'm better at it than you." Sirius smirked hoping James would laugh.

"It's probably because you're a Black." Remus decided to add, what little color he had still hadn't come back. "No offence, but you've sorta been raised to be in trouble. Isn't that what they do?" Sirius thought about this for a second.

"You've got a point. It's probably a mix between those three reasons. Mostly the I'm better than you guys reason." James smiled and Peter laughed. He was halfway to his goal.

"But wouldn't that make you worse than us. If you don't mind being in trouble than your a bad kid. Thus we are better than you." Remus gave a smirk of his own. Sirius had to think about it for a second to understand what Remus had said, causing all of them to laugh. Even after thinking about it the best answer he could think of was "I know you are but what am I" causing them to laugh even more. He didn't realize that he had just agreed to them until they were halfway down the hall.

A/N I'm giving Sirius really good drawing skills and fancy handwriting. His family seems really uptight and stuff so I though it would make sense for his parents to teach him good penmanship.

Still want ideas. Thanks for reading ^_^