Disclaimer: If Harry Potter etc. belonged to me, the Marauders would be hogtied and dragged forcibly to my house. Needless to say, this hasn't happened yet.

Pointless Dialogue from the Marauders

*

"Pinch me if I'm wrong," said Sirius Black on the third day of the Marauder's return to Hogwarts for their fifth year, "but I do believe that we haven't performed any pranks or received detention yet this year!"

"Shocking," agreed James absentmindedly.

"Oh dear lord, the world is going to end!" groaned Remus sarcastically, leaning back with his head on his hands. He added randomly, "Did you know most kids in the muggle world go back to school a week after we do?" Remus blushed when the others looked at him. Apparently he had been contemplating the idea for some time. "Well, they do!"

"I pity them," said James.

"Why?" asked Peter. "Are you saying you like going back to school earlier?"

"Think of it this way," said James complacently. "We get out of school earlier."

"You know Remus," said Sirius thoughtfully having ignored the mini conversation between Peter and James. "I do believe some of the kids in the colonies go back to school in the middle of August and then get a few weeks off in October to gather grain or something."

"Colonies?" inquired Remus who was a little more up to date on the geography of the world.

"You know, that place across the Atlantic with the thirteen colonies or something."

"Are you talking about the United States? Or maybe Canada?" asked Remus dubiously. Come to think of it, he wasn't all that up to date on geography either- he just liked to think he was.

"I suppose," Sirius scratched his chin thoughtfully. "One of those places."

"Oy!" sighed Remus in disgust.

"What were we talking about?" asked Peter who had been concentrating on something in his lap.

"I'm not sure, good question," said James. "What were we talking about?"

"How you have the biggest crush ever on nerdy Lily Evans," crowed Sirius. "You know, for like a couple minutes or maybe ALL SUMMER!"

"How many times do we have to go over this?" blushed James. "I do NOT have a crush on Lily Evans and she is NOT nerdy!"

"If you don't have a crush on her than why are you blushing?" asked Peter as he clicked his needles together. There was a ball of neon pink yarn in his lap. "And why do you keep denying that she is a nerd?"

"What is this, the third degree?"

"I think that Peter has a good point," said Sirius. "Except for the fact that he's KNITTING!"

"Hey!" defended Peter. "The shrink recommended it as a way to release stress. Although why I have so much stress when I hang out with you leads to some disturbing questions…"

"Are you trying to pin your issues on me?" gasped Sirius. "I'm the only sane person here!"

The three others stared at him in an awkward silence for a few minutes.

"What?" asked Sirius. "WHAT?"

"Try INsane," Remus finally muttered.

"I resent that," said Sirius five minutes later when the comment had sunk in.

"Take me now!" James moaned to the ceiling. He then discovered a brilliant retort for something Sirius had said twenty minutes earlier. Why do these things never come when they were needed? he thought. Oh well, James decided to use the insult anyway. "At least I never had a crush on NARCISSA!"

"Whoa, where did that come from?" exclaimed Peter as Sirius fell off the table he'd been lounging on top of looking for blood.

"My genius files," said James slowly as he backed away from a foaming Sirius. Funny how like a dog Sirius really was. "So what prank do we want to do tonight?" he asked as he thankfully watched Sirius' face clear at the thought. Except, of course, his horrendous acne was still there. "Does Chicken Pox have any ideas?"

"James," said Remus. "For someone rumored to be incredibly intelligent you can be incredibly stupid."

"Whoever told you I was smart?" James asked trying to buy time before Sirius strangled him to death. "Haven't you ever seen my report cards?"

"JAMES!" gasped a red headed girl standing in the doorway. "What exactly do you think you are doing?" She giggled a little bit. James looked down and was horrified to find 'Snape's Girlfriend' written across his chest in white chalk. It was clearly defined against the blackness of his robe. He glared at Sirius who smiled back smugly. James tried to rub it off when he turned back to Lily.

"Um… uh- I was trying to clean my broom," he stammered, pitifully aware that there were no brooms in sight. He heard his traitorous friends giggling together.

"Yeah, um, sure," Lily said. She couldn't see a broom in sight and wondered what these morons were up to. "Well Dumbledore wanted me to remind you that there is a meeting for all the new prefects at five o' clock tonight. He recommends you not to be late."

James nodded lost for words. How positively gorgeous Lily was! If he could only just keep her from finding out he was an idiot…

"Okay, well, bye James," Lily left down the hall thanking the fates that she barely ever saw James Potter and Sirius. What kind of person walked around with "Snape's Girlfriend" written on them? These boys were utterly beyond her.

"SIRIUS!" James yelled after Lily had gone. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?"

"Embarrassing you," Sirius answered not at all perturbed by James' temper. He had done a lot worse to his best bud.

"Next time I would recommend using Malfoy," Peter suggested. "Repeating things can get so boring."

"Peter!" James gasped. How dare Peter betray him! (Hmm, thoughts about this sentence?)

"Oh relax," Remus said. He was circling certain days on the calendar in silver ink. They seemed to be the ones with the full moons. "Lily already knows you're stupid, or at least she'll know soon considering you're prefects together."

"Yeah, we're prefects together…" James said dreamily. "HEY! I'm not stupid!"

Remus raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not!"

The conversation sounded remarkably similar to the one they had had earlier when Sirius had been saying he was the only sane person in the room. And we all know how that one turned out …

"Hmph!" James went off to sulk in the corner about the abandonment of his friends.

"So back to our first subject," Sirius said after a sufficient time of silence had passed for Peter to start snoring.

"What was that?" asked Remus being the only one in the room who was not asleep or not talking to Sirius.

"Pranks," Sirius answered. "Now I think that stringing half of the population of Slytherin's underclothing across the Great Hall for breakfast tomorrow would be a superb idea. We could enlarge Snape's to ten times their size and blow it up like a balloon. Maybe we could even write James' Girlfriend across the back!"

"Sounds good to me," Remus agreed. James had roused out of his self-pity just in time to hear the last part of the plan.

"No," he said.

"Do you hear anything," Sirius asked Remus.

"Maybe a fly buzzing," Remus said grinning.

"NO!" shouted James. "I refuse to let you do that! You won't be able to borrow my invisibility cloak, I won't let you…" his voice trailed off as he followed Remus and Sirius out of the room.

Peter just snorted and rolled over onto his knitting needles. "ZZZzzzzzzzz…"