Chapter 50

Trust

"You know when you look at him it doesn't really look like he's only had like four or five hours sleep in the past twenty four hours." James said watching Sirius bounce up and down in his seat.

"You sound surprised." Remus teased, though Sirius was too busy trying to calm himself down to notice. It would look a little suspicious if he was this excited for no apparent reason. He was very unsuccessful, but no one ever bothered to question Sirius' actions anymore. There really was no point.

"How are we planning to make sure everyone drinks it?" Peter asked. James, Sirius, and Remus stared at him for a moment. "What? I've been wondering for a while now." He said blushing under their gazes.

"And you just now decide to mention it?" Sirius asked incredulously. "Why didn't you ask before?"

"I figured you had a plan!"

"If we did we would have told you, Peter! Why would we leave you out of it?" James answered for Sirius. Sirius looked like he was going to make Peter drink some of the pumpkin juice.

"Um. I dunno."

"Peter."

"What?"

"When the food shows up I'm hitting you with mashed potatoes."

"I suppose it's a good thing I'm perfect then." Sirius said ignoring James' childish threat. "I know just how we're going to do it."

"We? Clearly it's going to take magic I don't know." James said trying to figure out how Sirius manages to think of solutions to prank problems so quickly. It was like the boy was born to make as many people's lives as miserable as possible, and yet also make as many people as happy as possible.

"Oh right, Ya I mean me."

"I'm waiting till after right? We probably should be a little more thorough with our planning." Remus told them.

"Yes, to both questions." James said. Suddenly the food appeared. "Yes! Food!"

"Peter, are you a complete idiot! Don't drink that!" Sirius had to remind Peter reaching over the table and smacking the blond in the head.

"Um, I knew that." Peter slowly put the goblet down. Sirius sighed, before waving his wand over his own goblet.

"I"m making the pumpkin juice attack people..." He started but James interrupted him.

"Where in Merlin did you learn that?"

"Last year's charms text book, it was a lesson Flitwick skipped. I told you I got really, really, really bored last summer. My text books were one of the few books I didn't have to leave my room to obtain." Sirius explained quickly. "Any way, I'm having it attack us too so it doesn't look suspicious, be careful to keep your mouth closed, especially you Remmy. You have to be calm when you address the students and staff."

"Wow you must have been on the verge of insanity to actually read your textbooks." James told him, Sirius just nodded. Remus chuckled.

"Even I don't do that."

"You've never met my mother. You'd want to spend as much time in your room as possible also." Was all Sirius said in response, before muttering a spell while pointing at his drink.

Suddenly James was soaked, completely covered in pumpkin juice, and it was still coming. There were screams of surprise. At least they hoped it was surprise, who would actually be afraid of pumpkin juice. He though was being very careful to keep his mouth shut.

It wasn't long before the screaming, well by this time it was mostly just complaining, died away. Meaning that everyone had ingested the potion in one form or another. Even Dumbledore was stiff in his seat, seeing things that weren't really there.

"This is so much fun." James said excitedly. He looked and saw Remus was turned away from them.

That's the problem with mortals...

They tend to let their imaginations run wild.

Happy Halloween

The Marauders

Remus had a huge smile on his face.

"You're really loving this. Aren't you?" Remus just nodded.

When the screaming started they realized they probably should be pretending they'd been though it too.

"Ouch! Not so tight Sirius." Remus complained when Sirius hugged him making it look like he was afraid Remus would die. James chuckled.

"Dog pile, Moony." He whispered.

"What?" Remus explained as James jumped over the table and hugged him too. Peter shrugged at Remus before doing the same thing. "Why me?"He said struggling to breath.

"Because it's easy to believe we'd be afraid of you dieing. You're never properly healthy looking." James said chuckling. Remus moaned.

"Look at Dumbledore's face." Sirius whispered. They did, he was drenched in sweat and breathing very heavily.

"Your brother's staring at you, Si." Peter said offhandedly. Sirius turned around and sure enough Regulus was looking in his direction. He didn't turn away either, he just kept staring. He had a confused look on his face, like he was trying to figure something out.

"This is a potion!" They heard Slughorn calling to the other teachers. "I recognize the smell. Seemed to be placed in our drinks.."

Remus looked worried but the others didn't seem to mind.

"What if..." He started, but Sirius interrupted.

"What if what? Why does it matter if the Marauders can use potions? It doesn't really matter, it just means that they can use magic, but that's already obvious."

"What if they start to suspect it's a student?"

"And? What in the world would connect them to us?"

"I don't know. What if someone else get's in trouble?"

James answered for Sirius this time.

"We've already told them we've seen them. If they have a suspect they'll show them to us and see if they're right. Innocent until proven guilty."

"I guess so."

"Plus, they have no reason to suspect it's even a student. Let alone us." Sirius added.

"I know, I'm just being overly paranoid."

"Trust me we aren't surprised." James said with a wink. Remus just stuck his tongue out at him.

"You know, you would think by now that they'd be expecting something like that."

"Si, even when you volunteered to drink it..."

"I didn't volunteer."

"Whatever... even when we forced you to drink it, you were surprised by it."

"I guess so. Still though..." He said, but didn't continue, as though that really was all he needed to say.

They finished the feast in peace. The Great Hall remained in an eerie silence for the rest of it. It was as if they thought that talking would bring the visions back.

When they got to their dorm there was much laughter about individual facial expressions, before they finally went to bed.

"Do any of you guys know what you'd see if you drank some of the potion?" Sirius asked them before they could fall asleep.

"I'm not really sure. Probably something similar to what you saw though." James answered. "What about you, Moony?"

"Myself, I don't really know what I look like as a wolf so probably won't be exact. Chances are it would include me biting someone, probably one, or more, of you guys."

"Wow, kinda scary when the person you're most afraid of is yourself." James said, thinking out loud.

"Who else is there to be afraid of? All fears originate from one place, yourself. You're afraid of problems you can't fix. If you could fix it, then there would be nothing to fear. I'm afraid of you guys dying, you would be dying because I can't do anything to help you. Remus is afraid of biting someone, he'd only bite someone if he couldn't control himself. Basicly, I'm afraid of being helpless, and Remus is afraid of being uncontrollable. There really is nothing to fear besides yourself." James and Remus popped their heads out of the curtains.

"Wow, Si. That was surprisingly deep. I didn't even know you could go that deep." James said, only half teasing.

"It's something I think about a lot."

"Why?"

"Because I'm tired of being afraid all the time."

"So are you saying if that you trusted yourself completely, then you would never be afraid of anything?" Remus asked.

"Ya, because you would always be able to make things work the way you wanted them too. Everything would go right in your life, because you would make them."

"Sirius."

"What?"

"Did it hurt to think that much?"

"Yes, very much." Sirius answered James' question, causing them to laugh.

What Sirius hadn't told them was that it didn't matter, it wasn't possible to completely trust in yourself. But what he realized, was that you didn't have to. It's okay to be afraid, he didn't mind being afraid anymore, because he had three great friends that would help him get though anything.

He may not be able to trust himself... but trusting them, that was the easiest thing he'd ever done in his entire life.

A/N) I really hated this prank, it was really stupid. My brain isn't coming up with decent prank ideas, STUPID BRAIN. I promise the story will continue to be much better than my stupid pranks.

Wow if I keep this up this story is going to be really really long, how is anyone going to bother reading a story that's on it's 50th chapter and hasn't even made it to Christmas of second year yet. I might as well be writing a series of books.