Chapter 82

An Abundance of Frogs

"I think Moony's in heaven." Sirius said with a smirk on his face as they finally finished with all their classes and headed for the common room that afternoon.

James laughed in response while Moony just chuckled and with a half eaten chocolate frog hanging from his mouth.

"I can't believe he's gone through five of them already." Sirius shook his head as James told the fat lady the password and climbed up the stairs to their dorm.

"Well I'm just glad he likes chocolate that much, because fifty chocolate frogs is way too much for me." James teasingly elbowed Remus in the ribs, causing him to remove the tasty frog from his mouth to join in the conversation.

"I loved this prank so much."

"It's kinda annoying that only half of the frogs are still moving through." Sirius replied emptying his school bag of everything and loading it with his History book and notebook.

"Well fifty chocolate frogs are a little hard to control. Remember?" James said clearly teasing him.

"I thought we weren't going to mention that ever again." Sirius glared at James.

"I don't get why they stopped moving." Peter said interrupting their conversation, he poked one of the bags of chocolate frogs on Remus' bed, jumping in surprised when he realized it was one of the ones that was still moving.

"We tried to remove the spell from some of them, in an attempt to see how they work. We were able to use the same spell on the food at dinner that way. We altered the spell a little though. It wouldn't have caused enough mayhem as it was. Weren't you paying attention at all?" Sirius rolled his eyes at the soon-to-be rat, before opening his Transfiguration book and beginning the homework.

"I paid attention; I just didn't understand what you were doing."

"Didn't we tell you that already?"

"No."

"Oh." Sirius said awkwardly, looking up from his book. "Sorry, I thought we did."

"I think fifty was a little unnecessary though, not that I'm complaining." Remus said with a very happy smile.

"I was just going to get twenty, but they said they'd give me a discount if I bought fifty, so I was like, 'Hey why not'." James said adding a shrug to show how little he cared about how much money he was actually spending.

"James, sometimes I wonder just how much money you spend on the average shopping trip. And how many third world countries you could feed with the amount you spend in a week."

"Hey, everytime I buy something that money goes to someone else to help them with whatever they need. I support less wealthy families all the time. The truly cruel thing would be keep all the money for myself and never buy anything with it." James defended, not sure exactly why it was even an issue. He knew Remus' parents had little money, but James bought stuff for Remus all the time.

"Your logic is missing a few details, but I suppose there's no point in arguing it is there." Remus gave James an exasperated look before continuing to munch on his frog.

"And don't forget my willingness to spend lots of money just set you up with enough chocolate to last you a month..." James paused for a moment as Remus raised his eyebrows at him before adding, "hopefully."

Remus laughed though his chocolate frog and picked up the book Sirius had handed him earlier this morning, moving to sit on Sirius' bed. Remus found the page that explained the charm they were speaking about earlier and placed it beside Sirius' transfiguration book. Naturally, Sirius pushed the transfiguration book aside and reread the spell book.

"That doesn't seem too complicated." He said, tapping his Transfiguration book and muttering a spell that added a magical bookmark to the page he was on and closed the book. "James can you hand me four pieces of blank parchment?"

James, who had already begun to head towards the two 'puppies', stopped and grabbed the parchment as he was asked.

"Why four? Isn't that a bit much?" He asked handing them over.

"One for each of us, I would have used my own, but I've written on all of them." Sirius replied not looking up from the book to grab the paper from James.

He practiced the wand movements for about a minute while James and Peter read the spellbook, Peter understood very little it had to say, but James seemed irritated.

"Not overly complicated? I'm pretty sure this is at least a fifth year spell." James said quietly to Remus, not wanting to interrupt Sirius' practice.

"Yeah, so is vanishing, but he's been doing that since Halloween." Remus just shrugged.

"That's true."

"It's probably the only reason we haven't been suspected as being the Marauders." Remus added, watching Sirius work on the pronunciation of segreto. Though to him every attempt sounded the exact same. "Most of the spells or potions necessary to do what the Marauders do is far above our assumed skill level. They know we're above our average skill level but since the only really see us in class they don't really know how far above we are."

"Makes ego inflation really easy, doesn't it." James laughed.

They both jumped when one of Sirius' parchments exploded.

Sirius' small "Oops." was all James and Remus needed until they were nearly collapsed on each other curling up laughing so hard tears fell from their eyes.

"I'm surrounded by hyenas." Sirius watched him practically rolling around on his bed, highly amused when James fell off.

"I don't get what's so funny." Peter said edging away from the bed in case Remus fell off too.

"I'm not sure myself actually." Sirius turned from them and continued on the remaining three parchments, the charm now working perfectly. "Pete, can you hand me another parchment?" He asked and Peter complied.

By the time Remus and James had calmed themselves down Sirius was testing his handy work on each of the four pages.

On one page he wrote at the top left.

Sirius Black

On each of the the three other pages the words appeared just as he had written, though no pen touched their pages.

He continued to do so to each of the four pages. Putting each of their names across the top of the page each name on a different page and each name showing up on all the rest.

James couldn't help but be impressed.

"So when we're in different classes..." he trailed off.

"It'll be like we're right next to each other." Sirius finished obviously proud of himself.

"Mate, you're a genious."

"Thank you."

"It'll do." Remus nodded picking up the page Sirius had written Remus Lupin on.

"we could put our initial in front of what we write, it might help recognizing who is writing. I doubt Peter can recognize all of our handwriting." Sirius said, not really dissing Peter, simply stating a fact.

"Sorry." Peter said glumly.

"Don't worry about it, Peter. I still have trouble differentiating between you and Remus' handwriting." James said, smiling at his friend. Peter smiled in response.

James reached over and poked Peter in the side causing Peter to squeak and lean away. James laughed at Peter's reaction only spurring on his need to continue. And before the others knew what was going on the poking turned into outright tickling with James chasing Peter around the room. Remus laughed before returning to his own bed and continuing to look though Sirius' book. Sirius watched until Peter ran out of the dorm with James still chasing before returning to his Transfig homework.

Eventually the two returned to the dorm, with lingering smiles on their faces. James finally unpacked his school bag and began on his homework.

An hour later James and Sirius were finished with everything.

And Remus was more than a little jealous, Peter was extremely jealous.

James finally grabbed his parchment from where it still lay on Sirius' bed and decided to test it out. Partially since he didn't want to disturb Remus and Peter, but mostly just because it was cool. Sirius didn't have to be told what James wanted to do, he knew the moment James grabbed his paper.

J: It's kinda like our mirror, isn't it? But four way instead of two way.

S: And a little more convenient.

J: Can't deny that. That mirror is kinda bulky.

S: Well it is about three hundred years old...

There was silence on the other side for a time.

J: Seri... er Solemnly? Hah, that sounds really stupid.

S: Seriously. And yes it does sound stupid, you should stop.

J: Where'd you get it. and Not a chance, it amuses me.

S: I told you, I got it from my uncle. It was a family heirloom.

J: Dude, they will kill you if they find out you gave it to me, is that really a good idea?

S: James, are you doubting my ability to hide things from them? I mean, really, I could hang the Gryffindor banner over my bed and they'd never even notice.

J: That would be the single coolest thing you have ever done. And I'm not even joking.

S: Where can I get ahold of a Gryffindor banner? Without stealing it from the Quidditch pitch?

J: Can you buy one?

S: Hmm, not sure really.

J: Just steal it from the Quidditch pitch then.

Remus looked up at Sirius when the latter started laughing for seemingly no reason. Shaking his head when he saw the parchment and the quill before returning to his Runes essay he'd started not long ago.

J: You know what this invention needs?

S: What?

J: The Marauder's Motto.

S: I solemnly swear that I am up to no good?

J: Mischief Managed

This time Remus jumped when Sirius quickly got off his bed and half ran grabbing the page almost from James' hands.

"Moony, I need yours too." Sirius ignored the irritated look Remus gave him for startling him and plopped down on his bed.

"Find some fatal flaw in your spell casting?" Remus said with a mocking smirk

"Me? Make a mistake? Of course not. James just had a marvellous idea." He defended, dramatically putting a hand over his heart as though he was gravely offended by the mere thought.

Remus rolled his eyes and stifled a laugh he pulled it out and read through their conversation as he moved to give it to Sirius.

Sirius put an additional charm on each of the pages, one that Remus recognized.

"You're putting a password on them?" He looked over Sirius' shoulder as the latter wrote 'Mischief Managed' on the last page.

"Sure, we might be talking about sensitive stuff when a teacher walks by or something, you of all people should see a reason for that, Moony." Sirius didn't look up from what he was doing until each page was blank.

"Sure I get the point, what surprises me is that it was James who came up with the idea." Remus teased.

"Well, everyone has their moment to shine," Sirius shrugged causing James to glare at the both of them.

"I'll have you know that I have the highest grades of anyone in this room." James defended with an overconfidence that made Sirius raise an eyebrow.

"Not for long you won't. And since when has grades made someone smart?"Sirius asked not looking away from. what he was working on.

"Since mine surpassed yours."

Sirius responded by banishing one of the parchments at James' face.

Remus laughed at the two of them and returned his, now blank, parchment back to his bed, ignoring James as he complained about his new paper cut.

"Besides," Sirius began, "Remus is smarter than all of us, and, not including Peter, of course, he has the worst grades of us all."

Remus quickly looked away, embarrassed by the complement.

"I suppose, though I can't really consider his grades to be low. You were in like the top five during last year's exams, weren't you? In everything but Potions and Runes?"

It took Remus a little while to realize James was looking for an answer. "Um, well, yeah." Remus flushed. "But you guys were higher than me in everything."

"Except Sirius' transfig score at least." James shrugged, not dissing his friend, simply stating a fact.

"Well, yeah." Remus said humbly

"I think I did pretty good on that exam." Sirius said pouting.

"Only thanks to all those detentions you got." James teased.

"You might just be the only person in the world who passed because of your detention streak." Remus pointed out, causing the others to chuckle.

"And it'll be the major point in my passing this year."

"You better be able to pass on your own next year, or we're going to have some problems." James said quietly, no longer joking. Remus gave him a confused look, neither he nor Sirius seemed to want to talk about it.

"I'll figure it out. I always do."

A/N) Whew, that was a long one. I'm not to sure how happy I am with this one. But I absolutely love this prank, it shows their growing talent really well i think that they were able to copy the spell from the chocolate frogs, modify it, and put it on the food. I mentioned that the prank would have something about chocolate frogs way back in chapter 73. ^_^ I'm kinda proud of myself for that.

Now for Top Ten Marauder Fanfic Pet Peeves. (I love Peeves! need to put him back in the story soon)

#10 Sirius using serious puns, or copious amounts of said puns

# 9. Marauder's falling in love with Lily's 'imaginary' friends

# 8. Any of the Marauders dating Lily

# 7. James dating anyone but Lily.

Okay this one is just personal preference. I like the idea of James doing everything he can to win her heart (even before he truly loves her) and in my opinion the very best way to turn a girl (as smart and self respecting as Lily Evans) away from you is to date a bunch of other girls. I mean I wouldn't want to date someone that has already proven he can't hold a steady girlfriend, and I'm not nearly as smart and stubborn as she is. And I think James is smart enough, despite being extremely over confident, to realize that she isn't going to want to date him when he just broke up with someone else. He was a prat, but he was a smart prat, and an honorable prat.