News of the dungbomb incident spread like wildfire, and by breakfast, every student- whether they had been involved or not- had heard what happened at 8 o'clock on the third floor. The Marauders tried to act casual and maintain straight faces whenever they overheard someone speak of it. Most people seemed to find it hysterical (especially the fact that the majority of bombs had been placed in Mr Filch's office), however those who were unlucky enough to be caught in the danger zone when the dungbombs went off were less than happy, and could be seen trying to spray themselves with perfume, or begging teachers to let them off lessons so as they could go and shower. Again.

James, Remus, Sirius and Peter were still bathing in their glory as they walked to the library to study.

"Dammit," said James, beaming proudly. "We. Are. Evil."

"They don't realise this is just the beginning," said Sirius, sweeping his dark hair out of his eyes. "That was just a teaser as to what's to come!"

"Exactly. The way to go, is to ease into it gently," explained James. "We'll start off relatively tame, then as the days go on, we can try out some of our more…daring…ideas,"

"Relatively tame?" repeated Remus, speaking quietly as a couple of third years passed them. "You almost killed Filch with the amount of dungbombs you put in his office. I don't think that's very tame at all,"

"Almost killed him? Ha!" Sirius let out his usual bark like laugh. "He'll be fine, I mean look at him- he's used to smelling unpleasant, I'm sure he barely noticed!"

The four of them reached the library and entered. Madam Pince glared at them over her glasses as they passed her desk, as if daring one of them to start talking in a loud voice. The Marauders knew better, and simply avoided eye contact, trying to look studious as they headed over to a desk in the far corner and sat down.

"So-so guys, what's next on the list?" asked Peter, quietly, as they got out their books

"Hey, you're eager," observed James. "I left the list up in our dorm…but from what I can remember, we have a lot of options,"

"Hey I know!" said Sirius gleefully. "Let's do the one where we bewitch Professor Kettleburn's blackboard to read what an ugly old toad he is!"

Peter tittered annoyingly.

"Sirius!" Remus exclaimed, earning him an icy glare and a "SHH!" from Madam Pince. He lowered his voice. "You can't do that! What if you get caught?"

"Come off it, we won't get caught- we're the Marauders!" said James haughtily, puffing up his chest.

Remus decided it was pointless to argue with James' logic.

"I just think it's a bad idea," he concluded. "I don't think you should get yourselves into anymore trouble- you might get expelled this time!"

"You sound just like my mother," said James warmly.

Remus rolled his eyes and stood up, leaving the table to go and get a book.

"What's up with him lately?" asked Sirius, looking confused. "He used to be fine with us wreaking a bit of havoc- hell, he even used to join in!"

"Prefect syndrome," replied James sadly. "He'll get over it."

"SHHH!"

The Marauders looked over to see Madam Pince staring at them angrily from her desk, her lips pursed.

James gave the others a look of disbelief.

"I wasn't even talking that loud!" he hissed.

"How are we supposed to achieve a 'happy learning environment' if miserable old bats like her are always on at us to shut up?" whispered Sirius in reply, opening his book and pretending to read.

"Yeah, that wasn't fair at all, James," murmured Peter. "I really don't like Madam Pince,"

"Who does," grumbled James.

However, suddenly, he stopped pouting, and looked up from his work. A familiarly mischievous grin crossed over his face.

"Hang on," he said softly, as he reached inside his robes for his wand.

Sirius slowly looked up, and instantly knew his friend was up to something.

"James?" he asked, unable to stop himself smiling. "What are you…?"

James raised a hand to silence him.

"Watch this," he mouthed, wiggling his eyebrows.

With a quick flick of his wand in the direction of the shelves near Madam Pince's desk, a big red book from one of the top shelves suddenly, without warning, toppled out and fell to the ground. It made a decisive slapping sound as it met the cold stone floor, echoing throughout the silent library.

Madam Pince jumped, startled at the sudden noise, and peered over her desk at the book which had fallen. She reached for her wand and was just about to cast a spell to send the book back to where it came from, when James gave another subtle wave of his own wand, this time towards the Charms section, resulting in a selection of thin books on Levitation to come falling off the shelf in a papery flutter.

Sirius sniggered.

James looked pleased.

Madam Pince did not. In one swift move, she had stood up and swept around to the front of her desk, eyes darting frantically around the room.

The Marauders tried to look nonchalant as she glanced over in their direction.

Hiding behind his book, Sirius watched as Madam Pince ducked her head down one of the aisles to see if the culprit was in there. He nodded quickly at James to signal it was safe, and James this time pointed his wand at a large, thick, leather bound book in the Defence Against the Dark Arts area- he gave his wand a flick and the book promptly toppled off the shelf, and fell to the floor with a thud next to Remus, who gasped, looking thoroughly shocked. He spun around just as Madam Pince emerged, glaring at him, and the book which lay on the floor just along from him, open to a page about Grindylow plagues in Northern Ireland.

"I-I-I didn't, it wasn't me!" he stammered.

Madam Pince was about to reply when another large book slid off the shelf on Remus' other side. Pince's eyes flew to this newly fallen volume, her temper noticeably rising.

By this time, Sirius had his head buried in his textbook, his shoulders trembling with silent laughter, and Peter had gone bright red in the face, trying desperately not to burst into giggles.

Remus shot back to his seat as Madam Pince approached the bookshelf and examined it closely. Another few books tumbling out of the Potions section distracted her, and she whirled around to look, just as several fat Spells and Enchantments dictionaries flopped out of their places to her left, and no sooner had she turned to them; an enormous, ancient History of Magic book came plummeting down from where it stood atop a cupboard.

James knew he was getting help from someone now- and sure enough he saw that, through his desperate efforts to stop laughing, Sirius too had drawn his wand and was assisting him in the devious deed.

Madam Pince didn't seem to know where to head first. Random books were now falling off their shelves left, right and centre.

The Marauders weren't the only ones who were fighting the giggles- a group of second years were finding the mystery of the falling books to be very funny indeed, and there were even a couple of seventh years studying at a table that found seeing Madam Pince so flustered rather amusing.

Peter, by this time, had sank from his chair to the ground, in stitches. Even Remus pretended to be shuffling papers, in order to hide his smile.

After a very carefully sorted, pristine collection of Gilderoy Lockhart's novels came crashing off the shelf to the dusty floor, Madam Pince had clearly had enough. She gave an immensely frustrated sigh and stopped in front of the Herbology section.

"I would ask whoever is responsible for all of this to kindly step forward now, and if they can do so in a sensible, mature manner, then I am willing to-"

But no one ever found out what Madam Pince was willing to do, as the last of her words were drowned out as she was knocked off her feet by a waterfall of Herbal Encyclopaedias cascading off the shelf above her and onto her head.

This was too much for the students.

The two seventh years howled with laughter, falling forward on their desks, and the second years all burst into fits of hysterical giggles.

James and Sirius both grinned, and simultaneously complimented each other.

"Nice one, Prongs!"

"What do you mean?" asked James, puzzled. "I thought you did that,"

Sirius shrugged.

"Wasn't me," he said simply.

"Then who…?"

Remus grinned sheepishly and held up his own wand.

"I couldn't resist," he admitted. "I can't stand being told to shut up by her,"

Sirius and James looked at him in utter admiration for a second, then laughed.

"That's the spirit, Moony!" said James, happily.

The look on Madam Pince's face as she staggered to her feet was priceless. She was positively fuming, but seemed to be a little out of it, after being hit in the head with at least 10 hardcover titles- her eyes looked slightly crossed and she was having trouble standing upright. Her usually neat hair was tousled and her glasses sat askew on her thin, pointy nose.

"I demand to know who's responsible!" she said dizzily, tottering sideways a little. "No one leaves this library until the perpetrator is caught! Do you hear me??"

Ignoring the teary wails from the seventh years, clutching their sides, and the site of the second years falling out of their seats with laughter, Madam Pince desperately tried to regain her dignity by furiously attempting to stuff the books back in by hand- but to no avail, as she was once again battered by an assortment of paperbacks tumbling off the higher shelves. She gave a furious shriek, as she was swamped to the ground by the flood of falling books.

The bell signalling the end of lesson sounded, and the other students left hurriedly, still laughing. The Marauders also stood up and exited as quickly as possible, James sending one final book to fall down on Madam Pince's head as they dashed out through the door.

"Peeves!!" they heard her howl. "If that's you, then I order you to stop this nonsense at once! PEEVES!!"

But alas, no one answered Madam Pince's angry screams, especially not Peeves. The guilty party were now haring off down the corridor, still laughing, their sides aching, and thinking to themselves, with delight, that the first day of April Foolery wasn't even over yet.

With two successful pranks down, and many to go, the Marauders felt they were somewhat on a roll. They spent lunch time sitting down by the lake as per usual, talking amongst themselves and trying to come up with some more ideas for jokes, but hastily changed the topic to favourite Quidditch teams each time someone passed by them. The four of them had a Theory lesson of Charms after lunch to study for upcoming exams, which, after all the excitement of the mornings events, seemed a bit of an anticlimax. It was about half way through the lesson that James and Sirius couldn't take it anymore- they were itching to do something, but didn't know what.

James (who had been absently trying to balance his quill on its nib for the past 5 minutes), waited for Professor Flitwick to turn his back on his quietly studying pupils, and leaned back in his chair to Sirius who was sitting at the desk behind him. He seemed equally bored, and was slumped forward at his desk, looking half asleep.

"Hey, Padfoot," James whispered. "What lesson have we got next?"

"Transfiguration," said Sirius gloomily. "Looks like that's gonna be dull as dishwater, too- I overheard Kettleburn saying he was going to substitute us, because McGonagall's away- we're going to be doing revision for stuff we learnt in second year, apparently!"

"Like what exactly? If its really easy stuff that we're already good at, maybe we could just not turn up?" proposed James.

"Well, I thought I heard him mention something about teacups…we're probably doing that one where we transfigure them into tortoises or something," replied Sirius.

"Oh, thrilling," said James sarcastically. "Unless we find some way to make it…fun…"

Sirius slowly began to smile.

"Wait…I have an idea," he said, and was about to tell James exactly what it was when the two of them were interrupted.

"Mr Potter and Mr Black!" said Flitwick suddenly. James and Sirius jumped, startled. "Would you kindly lower your voices and proceed with your own work?"

"Sorry, Professor- Sirius here was just explaining something to me," lied James. "About…er…Cheering Charms!"

"Very well- but please do so a little more quietly!" Flitwick pleaded.

James turned back to Sirius, who spoke to him very softly.

"Look, I'll explain in a minute- but we'll need to leave now, if we're going to do it. We need a reason to get out of here early,"

James thought for a moment. Then he grinned.

"I know," he said, and looked over to Remus, who was absorbed in his Charms text book, frowning slightly as he read. "Psst! Hey, Remus!"

Remus looked over and raised his eyebrows questioningly. James leaned over.

"We need to get out of here to…organise something. We'll tell you outside- we just need you to make an excuse to Flitwick so the four of us can leave!"

Remus looked puzzled.

"Me? What kind of excuse?" he asked warily.

"Tell him you're feeling ill," said Sirius. "And that we need to take you to the Hospital Wing. Yeah?"

Remus shook his head.

"I can't do that! Why can't one of you do it?"

"Oh come on Remus, because it'll sound convincing coming from you!" said James, being careful not to speak too loudly. "All the teachers know your 'situation'- they always let you leave when you're sick!"

"Maybe that's because they know I'm not faking it?" suggested Remus, lightly.

Sirius waved this aside.

"Flitwick'll believe you! You're an excellent liar! No offence," he added, quickly.

Remus sighed heavily.

"All right, I'll do it- but you have to back me up," he said, standing up.

James and Sirius both grinned, also standing up.

"Come on Peter," said James, hauling their other friend out of his seat. "We're going,"

Utterly bewildered, still holding his quill, Peter didn't ask questions, and instead, merely nodded obediently.

"Just don't say anything until we're out of this room," ordered Sirius as they followed Remus down the aisle to the front of the class.

Flitwick noticed them approaching.

"Can I help you, boys?" he asked.

James and Sirius looked at Remus encouragingly.

"Oh," said Remus, attempting as best he could to look 'under the weather'. "Er- its just- I'm not feeling very well, and was wondering if I could go to the Hospital Wing,"

"Not feeling well, Mr Lupin?" asked Flitwick, sympathetically, seeming to understand. "Oh, well, by all means- of course you may. Yes, go ahead, go and get a bit of rest,"

"C-can we go with him, Sir?" asked James gingerly, attempting as best he could to look 'angelic'.

Flitwick's expression hardened slightly.

"All three of you?" he squeaked, looking around at Sirius and Peter. "That's a little unnecessary, isn't it, Mr Potter?"

"Please, Professor?" Sirius begged. "In case he…er…faints, along the way, or-or like, throws up, or something!"

Remus threw Sirius a contemptuous glance.

"Oh, w-well, in that case," said Flitwick, looking a tad taken aback. "If you rather they accompanied you, Mr Lupin,"

"Oh, yes," Remus nodded. "That's fine,"

"Very well," said Flitwick. "Go on then, boys,"

"Thankyou, Professor,"

The four returned briefly to their desks to pack up, and then left the classroom with their bags as quickly as possible.

"See? That was easy!" said James. "Told you he'd believe it, coming from you,"

"Well, he couldn't really say no, not after Sirius told him I was liable to either pass out or vomit," said Remus, raising an eyebrow.

"Hey it worked, didn't it?" retorted Sirius. "And now we're free! Come on, we have to be quick!"

Peter, meanwhile, looked completely baffled.

"Quick?" he repeated. "What, to get to the Hospital Wing? Are you really that ill, Remus?"

James groaned.

"You great, gullible twit, Pete," he said, whacking him over the back of the head with his hand. "That was just a cover up to get us out of class!"

Peter rubbed the back of his head, wincing and pausing to think for a moment.

"Ohh!" he said in realisation. "So-so he isn't sick?"

Sirius slapped a hand to his forehead in exasperation.

"Its all right, Peter- I'm as fine as I ever am," said Remus tiredly.

"I don't know how you can have so much patience with him, honestly," said Sirius. "Come on- we haven't got much time,"

He fleetingly glanced up and down the hall.

"Follow me, lads," he said gallantly. "We're going to do some serious teacup tampering!"

Moments later, Remus, Peter and James were creeping stealthily into the empty Transfiguration classroom behind Sirius. Professor Kettleburn didn't seem to be about yet, but he had obviously been in- a large tray of teacups sat on the front desk, clearly for the 5th Years to use in their last lesson.

"Aha," said Sirius, crossing over to the cups, his wand drawn. "See? Just as I said,"

"Care to tell us what you're planning, Black?" asked James, watching him curiously.

Sirius selected a teacup at random and held it at arms length, examining it carefully.

"Well," he said. "It's a simple charm. My old Uncle Alphard did it once at a dinner party, years ago, when I was about 9…it was a tremendous laugh. Well, I thought so, anyway…the hosts didn't, for some reason,"

He pushed his hair out of his eyes and pointed his wand- he then gave the cup a gentle tap and spoke an incantation under his breath. A faint red glow pulsed around it for a moment or two, and then, before their very eyes- a horizontal crack began to form around its middle. Above it, the cup fashioned itself two beady black eyes, which blinked a few times, before the crack opened into a wide, uneven mouth, baring rows of sharp pointy teeth.

James, Remus and Peter stared, fascinated, watching the teacup hopping angrily around in the palm of his hand

Sirius turned to his awestruck friends, and said to them, in his best evil voice: "Its alive!"

"BRILLIANT, Padfoot!" James cried, looking beside himself. "Oh, Transfiguration is going to be a lot of fun today!"

"Right, possessed teacups, now I've seen it all," said Remus. "I hope they're not too dangerous, Sirius,"

"Nah," said Sirius, looking at his teacup rather fondly. "They're no worse than those nose-biting ones you get in Zonko's. Same sort of thing, you know. Quite harmless, really,"

The little teacup emitted the sort of growl one would expect to hear from a tiny dog, or a particularly angry hamster, launched itself at Sirius' arm and sank its teeth into his robes.

"OW! Get off, you little-"

"Sirius, quickly! People are going to be here in a minute!" Peter said, looking nervously at the door behind them. "Do the rest of them before anyone gets here!"

"All right, all right, Wormtail. You can't rush a genius, you know," said Sirius, with an air of arrogance. He wrenched the grumbling cup off his arm by its delicate little handle and gave it to James to hold while he this time pointed his wand at the whole collection of cups, and repeated the process. Sure enough, they momentarily glowed red, then developed the same angry black eyes and cracked mouths as the first one had, and started growling amongst themselves, gnashing their tiny china teeth.

James placed the original cup back with its friends, careful not to get any of his fingers torn off in the process, and Sirius covered the lot with a black cloth lying on the desk.

"They calm down in the dark," he explained. "Its just when you start poking them with wands and picking them up that they get a little angry and start nipping,"

"How perfect," beamed James. "I hope one of them bites miserable old Kettleburn on the backside. That'll make my day,"

The four of them exited the classroom and stood around outside for a minute or two, acting natural, only going back into the classroom after the bell had rang, and other 5th years in their class began filing in. The four Marauders took their usual seats near the back of the class, and waited, in anticipation, for the fun to begin.

Kettleburn entered as well before long. He was a fairly elderly wizard, with wispy white hair and little round glasses so thick it was difficult to see his eyes at all. As per usual, he was sporting some sort of beast related injury, due to his Care of Magical Creatures teaching position- today it was an unusual gash on his cheek.

"Good afternoon, class," he said in a rather dull, wheezy voice. "Now, Professor McGonagall, as you may have heard, is on important business in London for the next week, and so I will be substituting this class until her return,"

Some of the students who didn't know this groaned softly. A week with Professor Kettleburn was bound to be boring.

He clearly didn't hear anything, and continued on.

"As I am no Transfiguration expert, and due to the upcoming exams, I have organised with your Professor for you to do some revision. For today's lesson, I have brought along some teacups…"

James tried had to try to pretend he was coughing to hide his laughter.

"Will you two stop grinning like that?" whispered Remus strictly. "You're going to give yourselves away!"

Sirius was fighting a losing battle, and had to half cover his face with his hands as Kettleburn reached over to the tray and whipped off the black cloth. The teacups seemed fairly still, but to the trained eye- or someone who knew something was up- they were quivering very slightly.

"I will hand out one of these to each of you," Kettleburn drawled, picking up the tray and taking out a cup one at a time, giving them to his students. "For you to practice some basic transformations- for instance- tortoises. If you have any trouble, I-"

The impending chaos began when Davey Gudgeon, a Hufflepuff student in the front row, gave an unexpected yelp of pain.

"Sir!" he wailed, standing up. "My t-teacup, sir! Its biting my finger, Sir!!"

Peter slumped forward into his desk, burying his head in his arms, giggling. James and Sirius exchanged the most fleeting of glances. The rest of the class, highly intrigued, stood up to get a look at Davey- sure enough, his floral teacup was growling viciously and gnawing on his finger. It wasn't long before a curly haired Ravenclaw, Ella Ackerly also gave a shriek, as both her and her neighbours cups latched themselves up onto two locks of her hair. Behind her, Brian Baddock- a rather daft Slytherin- fell off his chair in shock as his own teacup made a leap for his nose.

The other cups in the tray, sensing something was wrong, began chinking and tinkling amongst themselves

"What the devil-??" Kettleburn sounded frantic. "These ruddy cups are cursed! Right! That's the very last time I trust that Mundungus Fletcher to get me anything cheap!"

Another few teacups snarled viciously and leapt for Kettleburn, who tumbled backwards, the tray slipping from his hands and the rest of the cups bouncing to freedom, their beady black eyes glistening with glee.

For the next 5 or so minutes, the Transfiguration room fell into absolute pandemonium. Students scrambled to get out of the way as a sea of biting teacups sank their porcelain teeth into ankles, elbows, and whatever else they could reach. Many of the girls were screaming, falling over desks and chairs trying to get away- and several people were howling in pain, with particularly nasty cups chewing on their ears or ripping into their hair. Teacups were flying thick through the air, as students forcefully detached them from their clothing, or skin, and hurled them out of the way- many of them smashing against desks or walls.

Amidst the cries and shrieks and sound of shattering china already filling the air, Emmeline Vance, a friend of Lily Evans, let out a particularly bloodcurdling scream as about 4 teacups attached themselves to her arms, and Hamish Nettles- who was always seen as one of the largest, strongest boys in the year- screamed even more hysterically than Emmeline had, as he went running past, a brutal china cup biting fiercely into his backside.

The Marauders hid behind their desks, in an attempt to avoid the bedlam.

"Oh, this is good," Sirius cried, narrowly avoiding a teacup that went flying past his head. "If only old Uncle Alphard could see this!"

"We could make a fortune out of these, selling them to students!" said James. "I can see it now! 'Entertain your friends at dinner and other social functions with our wide range of Ferocious Tableware!'"

"What, 'Buy now and get a free rabid tea kettle'?" asked Remus, sarcastically. "I don't think anyone in this room is ever going to want to see or use a cup again, James!"

Things above the desks were getting wild now. Some students were clambering atop cupboards and chairs in fear, others were still hollering madly, cups clamped on their noses.

Just at the point where things couldn't get any worse, who should come rushing into the room but Mr Filch and his cat, Scraggles. Filch took one look at the scene and couldn't seem to fathom what had happened. He saw Kettleburn past some screaming students, thrashing wildly about as several teacups sank their teeth into his legs.

"What in Merlin's name is going on in here??" asked Filch, his eyes wide.

"The flipping crockery's gone berserk!" bellowed Kettleburn unnecessarily.

Filch was about to answer when Scraggles let out an ear splitting howl- he looked down to see his poor cat under assault by a troupe of teacups. Bending down to help was certainly a big mistake. No sooner had he done that, 3 snarling cups flung themselves at Filch's long, lank hair, in a surprise attack, and brought him down to the ground.

"GET-OFF-OF-ME!" he yelled, one cup perched victoriously on his head. "BLOODY HOMICIDAL MUGS!"

James realised rather suddenly, that with the fact that they were the only four in the classroom not under attack, it was beginning to look a little suspicious.

"I think we'd better make a getaway!" he said to his friends. "I'm sure now that Mr. Filch is here, they'll be able to sort things out amongst themselves,"

Filch was still rolling around on the ground, clawing at his hair, trying to break the teacups grip.

"Er, g-good thinking, James," Peter agreed, backing out from under his desk. "I've sort of had enough biting crockery for one day,"

"Yes, come on," added Remus as Scraggles went haring past them with a teacup hanging on his tail. "This is getting a bit out of hand,"

The four friends paused at the door, taking one last look at the havoc they'd impressed on their Transfiguration class.

"Not bad, for the first day," reflected James, surveying the damage. "We set off some dungbombs, we annoyed Madam Pince, we skived off Charms and we set a torrent of biting teacups on our fellow students and teachers- don't know about you all but I'm fairly satisfied with all of that! Although…"

James paused to grin.

"I think we can do even better tomorrow,"

"Think?" repeated Sirius, unable to stop himself smiling deviously. "You think, James Potter? No, no, no… I know we can do even better tomorrow,"

"Have to agree with you there, Sirius," Remus chuckled, taking off his Prefect badge for the day. "After all, this sort of thing is only 'relatively tame' isn't it?"

And with one final grin at their handiwork, and at each other, the Marauders left the classroom, already preparing for the next day's events…