Chapter 72

Nostalgia

Divination the next Monday was extremely awkward for Sirius. He felt like he should tell Lily that a few nights ago he murdered her in cold blood in his dreams, if only as a warning for her to stay as far away from him as she could. Not that he'd ever have the courage to actually tell her.

It was a testament to how quick he got out of that class that he managed to make it to dinner before the rest of the Marauders who had a free period that period. When he explained why he was there early James laughed.

"I told you you shouldn't have taken Div." James said as he sat down across the table.

"It had nothing to do with Divination, it was Evans, how would you feel it you had to sit facing the person you'd just murdered in your dreams a few nights ago?" Sirius explained rolling his eyes.

Remus spoke up beside him. "Doesn't get much more awkward than that."

"Evans is in Divination with you?" James asked more interested than he really should have been.

"Um.. ya. So?" Sirius answered not understanding why it really mattered to him.

"You never told me that." James voice held undeserved accusations.

"Why would I tell you? Do you need to know every little detail of my life when you're not around now?" Sirius answered. James looked nervous for a moment before thinking of a good cover.

"Sure, gotta make sure you're not cheating on me or anything." He said with a smirk, effectively getting his best friends mind away from his potential crush.

Sirius rolled his eyes, while Remus looked at James like the latter was insane.

"James, mate, I thought you were okay with me seeing others." Sirius replied playing along. Remus groaned and facepalmed.

"Shut up, you guys, you know how gossip is around here."

James rested his chin on his hand and looked at Remus. "You ruined the joke, mate."

Remus shrugged,

They finished eating quickly, the subject changed from Sirius' need to get out more to quidditch practice yesterday and beyond, ending with Remus trying to get them to tell him what they've been doing on full moons instead of sleeping as they walked through the portrait of the fat lady and up the stairs to the dorm.

"As I've told you every time you asked, we study." James answered plopping down on his bed in front of an already open Runes book. He'd been studying from it just before dinner and hadn't bothered to put it away when they left.

"I'm not stupid, James." Remus replied leaning against James' bedpost "You don't stay up all night to study."

"Sirius felt lonely." James shrugged, turning the page in his book and glaring at the picture there. "What does this even mean?" he asked lifting the book so Remus could see it.

"I don't know, I haven't started on the runes homework yet." Remus answered "Fine If you won't tell me the truth I'll ask someone who will." He turned from James and walked over to Peter's bed.

James stared at the page for a little longer before hopping up and heading over to Sirius' bed. Sirius was still unloading things from his bag as James plopped down.

"Sirius you read runes right? What does this say?" He asked, handing Sirius the book. Sirius looked at for a while, his mouth moving as he tried to read them silently.

"It says 'do you own homework, you lazy git." Sirius said smiling and handing the book back.

James gave him a look that all but dripped with irritation. "Cute, real cute, Si." He moved back to his bed and plopped back down on it.

"Hey, it ain't my fault if the ancient peoples of the world disapproved of cheating." Sirius shrugged.

"You copy my homework all the time." James countered.

"Not extremely difficult homework that I need in order to actually learn the skill I joined the class for." Sirius replied with a smirk.

"Ya well I..."

"Hey guys, look." Remus said unintentionally interrupting James.

"What?" Sirius put down the water bottle he'd pulled out of his backpack and was drinking from. Remus came over and plopped down beside James holding what looked like a blank piece of parchment. Peter came over too, but he didn't sit. James pushed himself up off his stomach as Sirius sat at the end of the bed.

"Wow, Remus, you found some parchment. Lucky you." James said, his irritation with Sirius finding it's way into his voice.

"James, you're an idiot. It's the parchment we wrote our plans for our first Halloween prank on. Remember we used one of Sirius' spells to hide it." Remus rolled his eyes at the eldest teen, before continuing as though he'd said nothing.

"Oh! I remember now, that had to be the best prank we've done." James said.

"Eh... I liked the one with the exploding snap cards better. Watching Slugbreath run out of the room like a little girl was priceless." Sirius disagreed, as he spoke his face developed an almost sinister smirk.

James laughed at the memory. "True, True. But there's nothing better than making an entire school think we're going to kill them all."

"Do you guys remember what the password was?" Remus asked laughing a little.

"Umm I remember the one to hide it was Mischief Managed..." James answered... or attempted to anyway.

"I swear I'm up to no good." Peter said rather quietly from where he stood by the bedpost.

"Yeah, that's it. I swear I'm up to no good. Nice job, Peter." James said smiling at his less than confident friend. Remus tapped his wand on the paper and repeated the phrase. Words appeared where his wand had hit the paper and began to move to their proper place on the page, showing what had been written over two years ago.

"I forgot how cool that looks." Sirius said after climbing over James to get a better look.

"Guys... I'm amazing." James said completely ignoring Sirius's obvious attempt to further annoy him.

"You're also extremely humble" Sirius responded now half sitting on James in an attempt to not sit on Remus.

"You'll love me when I tell you what I just figured out." James smirked, he moved to the side of the bed a little more causing Sirius to fall on his back, earning an irritated "Hey!" from the latter. "Especially you, Sirius."

Sirius raised an eyebrow giving him a disbelieving, and slightly curious look on his face. But he didn't say anything and just let James continue.

"I know how to hide the Map."

A/N) Hi everyone! So in light of the fact that I'm almost actually halfway done with this story... (ya, I'm scared too) I was wondering what are you guys' favorite pranks so far, as well as any pranks you'd like to see. ^_^ Yayzz.

BTW: My favorite prank is the same as James'