Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling owns the property and rights to him and his world.

A/N: Okay, I got my first review, and I've been feeling impulsive to write lately. Firstly, I wanted to thank XxDragon Princess NikkixX for her wonderful review, and am therefore dedicating this chapter to her!

The Rise and Fall of a Marauder

Chapter Two: A Strange Discovery                  

            "Oh! I'm so glad you could make it!" Nearly Headless Nick was standing in front of him and James with a slightly-plastered on grin on his face. Probably his way of expressing that he's flustered, he thought. Wait a second….can ghosts be stressed when they're dead?

            "Oh, no problem Nick, we would have died—no pun intended—if we had to sit for a whole hour eating food and listening to the girls down the table talking about "how cute that unicorn they saw the other day was," James answered with a grin on his face. He was partially right really, except he left out the part where they had made a feast for all of the students who attended.

But he went to this instead, as he had never been to a ghost's Death-Day party before. James and he had made really good friends with Nearly Headless Nick, and when they were invited to this Death-Day party, the both of them almost immediately jumped at the chance at going.  Plus, it wasn't very often (if ever at all) that you could smell the dead fish on the refreshment table and get a fresh scent of what could have been "some great cod" at other parties.

            He and James had both been looking to this really. They had become the best of friends over the last month and a half—almost finishing each other's sentences. It was almost like—they were girls at a sleepover, giggling and playing together. The horror! They had giggled a lot like girls—he'd give you that any day, but they never had any sleepover-like activity, you know, with the playing with the hair, and the "who do you fancy?," the works.

            He had also made acquaintances with others. Like Remus Lupin, a boy who was slightly shorter than James and he, with a dirty-blonde and deep brown-eyed look to him. He had been nice enough, of course, but he was awfully shy.

But shy would be an understatement when it came to Peter Pettigrew, a glassy-eyed, stout boy who looked as if someone had put a Petrifying spell on his face, as it always had that same look of terror and worry. Sirius had once gotten the idea that if you were to feed him some hippogriff dung (he had seen lots and lots; his Uncle Alphard had a whole farm with them. And it wouldn't be very hard to feed Pettigrew some, it didn't look much different from the insides of a pumpkin pie), he would throw it up a few minutes later as a diamond.

            But this party was a trip only James and he would make together. They didn't really know the other boys, and they didn't think that they would be thrilled with the idea of going to a Death-Day party instead of a feast.

            For about twenty minutes they walked around, talking to various ghosts, checking out their surroundings (meaning that they studied the juicy-looking skeleton in the corner of the dungeon and took bets to see who would pull the head off without letting the ghosts see first), and playing "place the noose on the human's neck."

            "Hey, Sirius, look at this!" James was groping around in a bowl of earth worms. For one, what James was doing didn't look right, never mind the fact that he heard footsteps that didn't sound so ghostly very near the dungeon they were "mingling" with the ghosts.

Normally, Sirius would have been comfortable and quite happy with the situation he was in, but right now he felt some….he could quite place it….tinge of guilt. Since when did he, Sirius Orion Black, feel guilty? Maybe that cod or whatever it was at that table was getting to him. Or maybe the ghosts did something with his head. Or maybe even that sight of James and those worms….that'd take a while to get out of his head.

"Um, James….you do realize that someone's coming? I think it might be a little hard to explain that worm swill you have on your hands."

"Oh, right. Oy Sirius! What's wrong?" James had seen the look on his face. He then gasped a minute later as if he had just realized something. "Are you feeling guilty? Ha! Oh, fine we'll sod off before McGonagall catches us. But you're going to explain to Nick why we have to leave so early."

Well, Sirius wasn't actually feeling guilty; he just had a feeling that they would get caught if they didn't leave soon. He went to Nick, explained that he and James had to get back to the feast, and, just to flatter him, said that the cod's stench was excellent. They got out of there quick, and just to their misfortune, they were being followed by none other than Severus Snape. He didn't exactly see them, but he wasn't going to stick around to let him.

If there was one thing he wasn't going to do, it wasn't going to be answering to Snape why they were wandering in the dungeons when they could be at the feast. So, he grabbed James, and stuffed him in the closet with him.  

"Sirius, what the bloody—"Sirius shushed him with his mouth. Even though it was one of the lamest things to do in the world, it was the only thing he could do. James relaxed to the point where he understood, and a few minutes later, after all signs of a big nose and smelly hair (yes, the hair had an odor, and Sirius was sure it didn't smell like the cod) they were out of the closet.

"How did you do that? Are you—psychic?!"

"I seriously don't know. Let's just get to bed—I'm starved as it is, and I don't want to have to have the horror stories of Snape's hair in my head for the rest of the night, okay?"

"Fine, whatever. But think, with that ability we can…..prank Lily Evans!"

A/N: So, what do you think? And tell me if you think that Sirius is a little…OOC, as I'm not sure if he is, and that weird idea with the premonition thing just popped into my head and I made it so that he felt a little strange. Maybe it's James I need to work on, I don't know. *shrugs* And I'm not sure if Sirius's middle name is Orion, but if any of you know what it is, would you mind telling me? Anyhoo, I wanted to get this chapter out as fast as I could, and although I just got my homework done, swim practice is over, and I have free time, I took my opportunity. Well, hope you all enjoyed it!