Disclaimer: all the characters and places belong to the great J.K. Rowling
A/N: Has it really been that long since my last update? Time sure flies by…well I could list a bunch of reasons that most of you are probably not interested in about why I haven't updated, but I won't.. So I'm really sorry, but I do plan on finishing their first year before book 6 comes out, so you will be seeing more frequent updates. Well, on with the story.
James stood in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room warming up his hands. The four of them had been so bored in History of Magic that they had decided a quick stroll outside would wake them all up.
The cold air had done its job a bit too well and now they were trying to get some feeling back into their hands and feet.
"So I think we should start planning our next prank tonight," James said leaning a bit closer toward the flames, "We still need to teach the Slytherins that…"
"I can't," Sirius said shortly looking away quickly to the left as if the curtains were suddenly a great interest to him.
"Why can't you?" James asked a bit suspiciously. He desperately hoped it wasn't because the Slytherins were their planned target. Sirius had stated how much he hated them, but they were his family and it was always possible he could suddenly change his mind. And Sirius had been very moody and withdrawn ever since he had returned from the sudden visit to Dumbledore's office.
"I have detention…"
"Detention?"
"So we can just do it another night," Sirius finished.
"How can you have detention?" James asked.
"Well simple really, a teacher caught me doing something against the rules…"
"No I mean you've been with us most of the time and I don't remember you being given detention in any of our classes."
"We didn't exactly get away with our last prank," Sirius explained after a minute of silence.
James motioned for Sirius to continue.
"Dumbledore found out and I took the blame for it all."
"How did he find out?" Peter asked.
Sirius glared at Peter, "Well someone dropped a piece of paper with the Black letterhead on it."
Peter turned bright red, "I-I-I-I tried to tell you I dropped it, but you wouldn't listen."
"Doesn't matter," James said waving his hand, "Why didn't you tell Dumbledore we were involved too?"
"I think he knows you were. And what's the point of us all being in detention?"
"Because we did it too," James said, "And it isn't fair to you."
"If the fact that you aren't being punished bothered me so much, I would have turned you all in, right?"
"I could just turn myself in," James said matter-of-factly.
"And what exactly would that accomplish?" Sirius asked hotly, "Look I had to take the blame for it all."
"Come on James, it's really no big deal," Remus said quietly.
"That's it, you had to?"
"I had my reasons."
"Reasons? Why are you so secretive all the time? It seems the only person in this room who doesn't have any secrets is Peter. And that's including you, Lupin."
"Me?" Remus said looking surprised, but his face and manner tensed.
"None of us really believe you visit your sick mother every month."
"It's the truth. I don't care if you believe it or not," Remus said his voice rising too.
Their argument began to attract some attention and two prefects were eyeing them from afar.
James was about to retort when Miss Evans walked toward them. She looked angry.
"Could you please keep your voices down?" she pointed to a corner in the room where a table was covered with papers, "I'm trying to get some work done."
"It's a free country we can talk where we want," James said crossing his arms.
"If you want silence go to the library," Sirius added. James nodded at him to acknowledge he was sorry about before.
"And you agree with this Lupin? You surely understand the importance of study. I know some people could care less."
Remus glanced at James and Sirius who were now giving Lily the same look of annoyance.
"Well we weren't being that loud."
"Hmpf!" she turned away and went back to her corner of books.
James sighed, "So can we plan tomorrow night for the prank? No one has any detentions or visits to any sick mothers then?"
"I'm free," Sirius said smiling and Remus and Peter nodded.
Though no one really mentioned his mess up on the last prank, Peter sensed a distancing between him and the other three. He had to prove his worth as a friend. If they weren't his friends he'd be all alone. There was Cory, but he always with the girls and they scared him more than anything. Sirius would be hard to please, but he knew he could easily win over James.
They had been trying for a few days to come up with some great plot against the Slytherins, but they hadn't gotten very far. Their main problem was lack of supplies.
James had a bunch of dung bombs, but they didn't want to do something boring like letting them off by the entrance to the Slytherin Common room. A month barely went by without someone letting some of those off.
James was attempting to ask older students to buy him other supplies when they went to Hogsmeade, but so far no one had come through.
If he could come up with some great elaborate plan then it would impress them all. But Peter was never good at being creative when it came to things like that.
So he was now alone walking the hall during his three hour break between classes.
Peter had left James in the Common Room about twenty minutes ago. James was angry and Peter did not want to be used as an outlet.
You see, Snape had gotten James into trouble again.
Peter couldn't understand what was going on between those two, but it sometimes seemed that the two of them couldn't breathe the same air without something catastrophic happening.
Such as today in class, if he had been sitting in his usual seat he would be in the hospital wing in place of Audrey Harris.
McGonagall had spoken to both James and Snape alone after class. Like dutiful friends, the three of them had waited for him. James came out steaming because McGonagall had told him she was writing home and his parents had threatened that they wouldn't buy him a new broomstick over the summer if they received another disciplinary notice. Apparently to add to his bad mood, McGonagall was also threatening James that he wouldn't be allowed to attend the next quidditch game if he kept acting up.
Peter felt someone shove by him. He stumbled almost losing his balance, but whoever had done it was already gone without an apology. He hated that about himself most of all. People didn't seem to ever notice him or if they did it was in a negative way. Sirius and James were always noticed, it really wasn't fair.
Mulling over his thoughts he came upon two students who had stopped at a portrait of a fruit bowl. They were whispering loud enough for him to hear. The hallway was otherwise empty.
They apparently did not see him.
"You tickle the pear?" the girl asked looking at her friend like he was crazy.
"I swear behind that picture lies a hallway that takes you directly to the kitchens. The house elves will get you anything your heart desires."
"And you've been there before?"
"Yea with Jim and Michael."
"I don't know…aren't the kitchens out of bounds?"
"I'll show later on tonight when everyone's in bed. We can sneak out."
"You're such a bad influence on me," she said laughing and the couple headed down the hallway.
Pear?
Tickling?
Kitchen?
He walked over to the portrait slowly. He couldn't believe his luck. If what he heard was true then his plunder from before would be completely forgotten.
He touched the painting feeling the texture of it. He felt quite silly tickling the pear and he jumped back when the portrait opened. He tiptoed into the hallway and the picture swung back closing after him. He kept walking and then before him stood a substantial size room. House elves were running around everywhere. He'd never seen so many and in the middle of the room stood four tables identical to the setup of the four tables in the Great Hall.
"Sir, can we get you anything?" a small house-elf wearing a brightly colored tea-cloth.
"Err – some pumpkin juice please…"
"Right away, sir."
In a matter of seconds a cup of fresh pumpkin juice was in his hand. He grinned, "Thanks."
"We are here to serve you, sir."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Anything at all, sir."
"Do a lot of students come down here?"
"No sir. Not many at all."
Peter felt his grin begin to widen. This was an incredible find.
"Can I have some biscuits wrapped up?"
"Right away, sir."
Again just as quickly as the pumpkin juice had appeared, a small bundle of biscuits was handed to him. He waved goodbye and ran down the hall. He was so excited that he didn't even think to cautiously open the door to check if anyone was in the hallway.
No one was and he dashed back to the Gryffindor Tower. As he ascended the stairs, he heard laughter coming from their room.
Peter swung the door open and James greeted him cheerfully. It seemed he had already gotten over the trouble he'd been in before.
"Where have you been all this time?" Sirius asked eying the package he held in his hand.
"Wandering about…"
"No one bothered you, did they?" James asked. Peter knew he was referring to the Slytherins and he felt his face grow hot. Did they not think him capable of even walking the hallways alone?
"I was fine!" Peter decided right there to wait to tell them about the kitchen. He'd wait for an opportune moment.
It was Sirius who finally came up with a worthwhile plan to get revenge on the Slytherins.
It came to him when they were lounging in the Common room watching some third year girls making some sort of cards covered in red and gold glitter.
Sirius had already had many wild ideas the past week and so far none of them had been feasible, so James listened to his plan skeptically.
"We could hang sacks full of red and gold glitter on the ceiling of the Slytherin hallway. We could modify it a bit, so that it would be sticky and impossible to just wash off."
"I don't know…" James said. It sounded a bit boring to him.
"Hey I'm not finished yet. That would only be the beginning. At the same time we could have red and gold fireworks go off and then in the air we can have the words 'Gryffindor is the Greatest'."
"Or something like 'Slytherins are slimy' so the blame wouldn't be pointed directly at the Gryffindors."
"I thought that was the point to make sure they knew we had done it."
"Yea, but I thought we could be a bit more subtle. Well, I love the fireworks idea, but where would we get them?"
"I know someone I could ask…"
"One of your Slytherin cousins? Wouldn't that be a bit obvious?"
"You forgot, I happen to have a cousin in Ravenclaw. I was going to ask her."
"Ok…so where would we set this all. If we could get into their Common Room that would be awesome and with the cloak we might just have a chance."
"I think we could get the glitter supply right now," Sirius said nodding toward the girls.
James and Sirius agreed to approach the girls together, though neither would admit they were too scared to ask them alone.
"Er – hello," James began quite elegantly.
They both giggled and responded with the same greeting.
"Is there something we can help you with?" the bolder of the two girls asked.
"Yes, actually…we were wondering if you could spare a container of red and gold glitter."
"For what?"
"You'll see," Sirius said with a smirk.
The girl blushed, "Well I suppose…we are done making these cards, but you better be putting it to good use."
"Don't worry, we will," Sirius added and James nodded getting the container out of her hand extending hand. They quickly left the girls and headed toward their room.
The next step they decided was to follow one of the Slytherins from the Great Hall directly to the dungeons. Though James took the cloak with him, they decided to add more risk to the whole adventure by being seen. They found out from Evans that the dungeons and hallway area of the entrance to Slytherin Common Room was not out of bounds for them.
So that day they followed Snape without his knowledge all the way down. Snape seemed to be very preoccupied with something. Snape whispered the password very quietly, just out of hearing of Sirius and James.
So James called out, "Alright, Snape?"
"What are you doing down here?" he spat when he saw them.
"Taking a stroll," James said then he noticed a piece of paper lying on the floor a few feet from Snape.
James moved toward it and picked it up, "Looks like you dropped something…"
"Give me that!" Snape said clenching his fists.
James shook his head. The facts that Snape didn't want him to read the paper only made James want to read it more. He flipped it open and read silently
Dear Snapelous,
How is everything at Hogwarts? Making friends? I know you will come to love Hogwarts as your father and I did. I wanted to send you some chocolates, but your father felt I was coddling you too much, but I'll try to sneak some later on this week. I can't believe my little Snapelous has grown up so quickly
Love,
Mum
"Snapelous?" James asked turning to Sirius who was grinning.
"Are you homesick for mummy?" Sirius asked.
"At least my mother wants me!" Snape hissed. James saw Sirius pale slightly.
"Well your mum must have forgotten to teach about cleanliness. Do you ever wash that greasy hair of yours?"
"I think he likes it greasy, James. The shine helps hide the fact that his nose is so long and large."
Snape looked enraged and then an older student (James saw a prefect badge on his cloak) stuck his head out of the partly open door.
He looked at them very suspiciously, "No loitering around the hallway. Get on your way now! This is no place for Gryffindors unless they want trouble."
"We were just leaving anyway…" James said and handed the paper back to Snape who snatched it away.
"Catch you later, Snapelous," they both called out and erupted in laughter once again.
A/N: I'm not completely satisfied with this chapter, but some important things happened that you will later see the outcome off. I wanted to end the chapter in a different place, but I have no time and I needed to update, so though it may not be my best work, I hope it was still an enjoyable read.
Thanks for READING, now its time to review. I would like to thank all my readers new and old for all their reviews.
Katharina-B: Yea I hope this next prank they are planning will be even better…I'm happy you liked the conversation b/t Sirius and Bellatrix
EsScaper: Sirius is on his way to becoming a true Gyffindor . Yea Bellatrix and the rest of the Black family are all still hoping that this is 'a stage' Sirius is going through and he will go back to their side and that is why Bellatrix acted almost loyal to Sirius during scene at Dumbledores office…all the Blacks will be very upset when they realize that is not the case
Shadow929: thank you so much, I am glad you are enjoying the story
Jeanne2: I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter and its fun writing the Blacks (even though I don't like how they treat Sirius…but that's why its awesome he has three great friends) thanks for reading
BrennQT: lol, yea you do sort of feel bad for the professors having to teach in a school where its actually very easy for students to pull these sort of pranks
Dweem-angel: yea you really have to give Sirius credit for going against his family…there's a bit more pranking in this chapter (well pre-pranking at least)
Paige-rossi-black: I'm not sure how I come up with the pranks, it isn't easy, but sometimes an idea just pops into my head..thanks for reading and more pranks will be coming soon
Koriaena: Sirius is confused and its only going to get more confusing for him, but he'll have three great friends to help him through it
Tondo-the-half-elf: thanks for reading…I don't think anywhere I have called them Prongs, Padfoot, Wormtail and Moony in any of the chapters yet, but you might just be warning me not too make that mistake, I wasn't sure by your review, I'm not exactly sure how far I'm planning on writing either, but for now into second year so well see
Newsieduckling: thanks for reading, yea even though this fic is centered mostly on Sirius and James…its fun to write about Remus…and well even Peter sometimes even though we all hate him
Pixelfish: Its okay you haven't reviewed every chapter, I was actually surprised that you had started to do that. Yea it is great when you find a good story when it has already a lot of chapters because you don't have to wait for people to update. Well I think confessing in a way is tough at times and Sirius had to show Bella where his loyalties lie though the Blacks are still hoping he will go back to their side, there is some pre-pranking in this chapter and the full-blown prank will be in the next…I do try and update when I can and getting lots of reviews is always a great motivator, as well as getting added to peoples favorite lists, lol. And this will end in their first year, I will be writing summer of first year into second year…I haven't decided if I will just continue with this story, or write a separate sequel with a different title, etc. thank you so much for reading
Inferno Elf: its ok it took you so long to read because as you can see its taken me a long time to update again, but I do usually have long chapters..thank you,…and I know its over 200 yay I can't believe it
Happyherminchen: Sirius and James are the best! You just got to love them!
Moony391: Snape is mean…its funny though b/c I'm having a harder time writing confrontations between the MWPP and Snape because recently I've read stories/editorials from Snape sympathizers showing it from his point of view and how mean the mauraders were to him…well I think they are both at fault and no matter what I can't help but love the marauders, ok enough rambling thanks for reading