James woke up the next morning to the dark dormitory. He lie there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. Lily Evans flashed across his mind, but he quickly pushed her out of his head. Yawning, he stretched his arms above his head. He grabbed his glasses from beside his pillow and jammed them on, swinging his legs off the bed and hopping down onto the floor.

Immediately, James eyes went to the window over-looking the Hogwarts grounds, and he couldn't believe he was seeing-

"Snow!" exclaimed Peter, who had just gotten out of bed too, and was staring bewildered at the white snowflakes drifting from the sky. He ran over to the window, his face pressed against the window. "Amazing.."

James walked up beside Peter and sat down on the windowsill, watching a snowflake drift slowly down to the snow-covered ground. "Weird, ain't it?" he said.

Peter nodded, his eyes darting back and forth.

"..What's weird?" came a sleepy voice. James turned his head to see Sirius getting out of bed, his hand over his mouth as he stifled a yawn. He put his hand to his hair and ruffled it around, but he stopped in mid-air when his eyes became wide when he looked out the window.

"Bloody hell!" Sirius said, rushing over to James. "No way! Snow, in September?"

A grin spread across James' face. "You know what this means, Sirius."

Sirius' astonished expression slowly formed into a grin. "Snowball war."

"Count me in," Remus said, appearing beside Sirius. His eyes studied the snow.

"Usual teams?" James said. The others nodded, and then they all went to change and pull on their winter uniforms.

"Haha, missed!" Sirius shouted, as he ducked behind the wall of snow that him and Peter had made, the snowball whistling over his head. "Keep those snowballs comin'," he said to Peter. Peter nodded, as he was packing a big snowball in between his mittened-hands. He placed it on a large pile of snowballs, just as Sirius grabbed one from the pile, and peered cautiously over the snow wall.

About 30 feet away, Remus and James were behind their own protective wall, both of them with a snowball in their hand.

Sirius launched the snowball at Remus, which hit him on the arm. Sirius gave a triumphant yell, but it stopped when a snowball from James struck him in the chest.

"Who's laughing now?" called James. Sirius grinned, as he beckoned to Peter, and held his hand open. Peter placed the snowball in his hand, and then he grabbed a snowball himself and quickly appeared over the wall, threw the snowball, and ducked again.

"Arrrgh!" James moaned, as Peter's snowball smacked him in the head.

Sirius was about to retreat behind the wall when he felt cold slap him on the cheek, and the snowball exploded all over his face, immediately followed by roaring laughter from James.

"Oh, you little git," Sirius couldn't help but grin as he wiped snow away from his face. He raised his arm to throw another snowball, just as Peter launched his own and it narrowly missed Remus, but a sharp voice stopped him.

"That will be enough." Sirius let his arm drop as him and Peter turned their heads and saw McGonagall.

"Aw, we were just having some fun-" Sirius began, but McGonagall cut him off.

"Maybe you will have some fun in detention?" she said coolly. "20 points from Gryffindor. Don't let this happen again. But, as we all know, it probably will." McGonagall stalked off back towards the castle.

"Miserable old bat," Sirius mumbled. He sighed and got up, Peter quickly following him, as they went to join James and Remus, who both also looked put out.

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"Quidditch game? NEXT WEEK?" cried James, starring at the 7th grader Gryffindor Captain, Richard Marshall, in horror. Both of them were standing just outside James' classroom, where Richard had pulled James out of Potions to speak to him.

"Yes," Richard mumbled, not seeming too happy about the news himself. "We're playing against Slytherin, so that means we're going to be practicing every night until Friday."

"Right," James replied. He sighed deeply and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Got any idea why such a short notice?"

"No clue," Richard said. "But all I know is that we're going to be training hard, and I mean hard. We deserve that Cup again."

"The Slytherins will have to murder me before I let them have that Cup," James grinned.

"That's the way to think," Richard said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Well, gotta get goin', still have to tell the Chasers." He grimaced. "They won't like it one bit, I'll be surprised if they don't tear me to bits.."

"Good luck," James grinned.

Richard shook his head. "I'll need it. See you tonight."

"See you," James replied, as Richard went jogging down the hall, and James walked back into class.

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"Quidditch game next Friday, eh?" Remus said after James had told his friends the news. They were all sitting around the fire in the common room, except for Sirius, who was leaning against the fireplace mantle.

"Yeah," James replied huffily. "I'll be amazed if we don't get slaughtered. We've barely had any practice at all since the beginning of the year."

"Just make sure your doing your best, James," Remus replied, as he turned the page of his book.

Sirius snorted.

"Oh, what now?" Remus said, a tad of annoyance in his voice, as he looked up at Sirius from his book.

Sirius drew himself up, put on a high, girlish, mocking voice and recited, " "Just make sure you doing your best, James." "

Remus grabbed a cushion from the couch and threw it at Sirius, which hit him in the head, and sent James and Peter into laughter.

"What was that for?" Sirius said innocently, putting on a highly fake innocent face.

"Your thick-headed comments, that's what," Remus replied just as sweetly.

"You guys fight too much," Peter laughed.

"Sirius just needs to learn how to grow up," Remus said simply.

Sirius looked offended. "I'm just having fun, Remus, everything doesn't have to be serious, you know."

"You don't need to be immature to have fun," Remus snapped back.

"Oh yeah?" Sirius growled. "Oh yeah?" He apparently couldn't find anything else to say back, and he threw himself onto the couch, folded his arms and glared into the fire.

"Oh, wook at pouty-wouty Siwius," James said in his own childish voice. "Is widdle Siwius mad?"

"Put a cork in it, James," Sirius snarled, obviously now in a bad mood.

James pretended to look offended. "Sirius, that hurt a lot," he said in a serious voice.

Sirius couldn't help but let his face break into a grin. Without warning, he threw himself at James and wrestled him to the floor.

"What was that?" Sirius laughed, as he put James into a headlock and rubbed his knuckles vigorously over James' head.

James couldn't help but laugh himself as he tried breaking away from Sirius' hold, as Remus smiled in amusement and Peter just shared the laugh.