Chapter Five: Rivals

The next day at breakfast, they received their schedules and found they had double Defense Against the Dark Arts with Ravenclaw first thing. That made Peter pretty happy because Professor Carter was one of the nicest teachers at Hogwarts, and Lily would be in class with the Marauders. Not only was she fun to have around, but she had single-handedly gotten Peter through his finals last year, and he was sure he'd need her help again. Potions class was with the Slytherins after lunch, and Peter wasn't sure how that would go. Luckily, it was also the only class Gryffindor and Slytherin second years shared. He was desperately longing to avoid any contact with Snape and his group; their hatred of James, Sirius, Remus and (now) Peter had only grown since Peter had gone back to his real friends and would increase tenfold if the Slytherins knew the four boys were the Marauders. They had pulled several tricks on the Slytherins in their first year, the most memorable being the floating, dripping animal hearts that decorated the Slytherin common room on Valentine's Day. Snape had been very angry about this, but he hadn't succeeded in finding out who the culprits were.

"Peter?" Remus spoke gently, drawing Peter from his thoughts. "It's time to go to class."

Peter smiled and nodded, picking up his books. Lily joined the boys and they headed for Professor Carter's classroom, where they were among the first there. Professor Carter smiled at them as they took seats near the front.

"Hello," he said warmly. "Good to see you all again. Did you do your summer reading?"

All five of them nodded and pulled out their second year textbooks. They chatted with Professor Carter while the rest of the class wandered in. Carter cleared his throat and said to the class, "Welcome back to your second year at Hogwarts and your second year of Defense Against the Dark Arts. This year we will be getting into much more exciting things, scarier monsters and even some dueling."

An excited murmur passed through the class and Peter perked up as well. 'Dueling would be really fun,' he thought, 'if I would be any good at it.' Carter smiled and said, "Settle down, that won't be for a few weeks." Peter felt a bit relieved; he would have time to read up on dueling before the class learned it.

"We will be starting our next class with boggarts," Professor Carter went on. "So please read chapter 3 of your books before we meet again. Today will be spent reviewing last year's lessons." The class groaned, but Carter grinned good-naturedly and opened his book.

The double class passed pleasantly, but by the time lunch rolled around Peter was famished. Then came the class he was dreading the most, Potions. Reluctantly, Peter went with his friends to the dungeon where Professor Turpin taught his class. He quickly sat down next to Remus in the front of the room, not daring to look for Snape and his friends. Before too long, he could feel their eyes boring into the back of his head and he struggled to keep his eyes fixed straight ahead. Remus noticed this and whispered, "Peter, are you ok? I thought I was the one who had a problem with potions." He smiled, but his eyes held real concern for his friend.

Amazed that the reason for his fear wasn't obvious to his friend, Peter silently shook his head, hoping to keep Remus in the dark. Remus looked at Peter curiously then glanced around the room before saying, "Ah. Worried about a run in with the Slytherins? I don't think Snape has the brains to figure out we're the Marauders."

Peter grinned gratefully at his friend and nodded as Professor Turpin began the lesson. Once the class was busy making one of last year's easier potions, Turpin walked over to Peter and Remus' table and asked quietly, "How is your owl doing, Mr. Pettigrew?"

He stared at the blond professor for a moment before replying, "Oh, she's just fine, Professor, thanks for remembering."

Professor Turpin nodded and moved on to another table as Peter and Remus dissolved into giggles. They both knew that Peter didn't have a pet owl, he had concocted the tale of his sick owl only to stall Professor Turpin for a prank the Marauders were pulling last year. James and Sirius looked at their two friends strangely from the next table over, so they pulled themselves together and finished their potion. They were both surprised to find that it actually worked, since neither of them had much luck with potions in general.

History of Magic came next and Peter could tell it would be a pain to have right before dinner all year long because the class seemed even longer and more boring than it had last year. Professor Binns had no word of welcome for the students, he merely took attendance and began lecturing from History of Magic. Eyes heavy with the need for sleep by the time dinner rolled around, Peter packed up his things and walked down to the Great Hall with James. He smiled at Fletcher as he sat at the Gryffindor table, but didn't get a response from the first year. He didn't think much of it, but joined in good food and conversation with his friends. Despite their excitement of being together again, none of them resisted sleep long once they were in their room.

They awoke the next morning and heard quite a commotion from the other dorm rooms. Peter sat up sleepily as James and Sirius jumped out of bed and opened the door to see what was going on. They didn't go out it, though and so Peter asked, "Well, what is it?" Sirius simply opened the door all of the way and revealed a brick wall solidly blocking their doorway.

"Oh." Peter responded dumbly, staring at the wall. It sounded as if the other rooms in Gryffindor tower were experiencing the same problem.

"How will we get out?" he said.

"Who could have done this?" Sirius muttered at the same time.

Fletcher surprised them all by looking out the door and laughing.

James narrowed his eyes and demanded, "What, may I ask, is so funny, Fletcher?"

Their small roommate stopped laughing for a moment to answer, "The brick wall, James. It's genius. Sounds like the infamous Marauders to me." He was overwhelmed by laughter again, leaving James to raise his eyebrows at his friends. Peter shrugged, just as confused as James. It was the sort of prank they would pull- but they hadn't. That left a big question: who were the rival pranksters?

Sirius shrugged at James, too, and Peter watched in wonder as he pulled out his wand and made the wall disappear. He hurried over to the first year rooms and took care of their walls, too, much to the young wizards' relief. A group of eleven-year-olds surrounded Sirius, clamoring to know how he got rid of the wall and thanking him profusely. Peter noted he looked a bit bewildered, but was soon smiling and laughing with them.

Then, the common room door opened and Professor McGonagall entered, looking very angry. "Breakfast started ten minutes ago. Why are there no Gryffindors eating?" she demanded.

Speaking up to divert attention from Sirius and his new fan club, Peter said, "We were bricked into our rooms, Professor! We just now got out."

He watched the look on her face change from extreme anger to puzzlement. "Bricked in, Mr. Pettigrew?"

Nodding, he continued. "Yes, Professor. One of the rooms is still closed, come and see it."

The head of Gryffindor house reluctantly followed him up the stairs to a third year girls' room, the entrance to which was still covered with bricks. McGonagall gasped and quickly pulled out her wand and magicked the bricks away. Five girls rushed gratefully out and thanked the professor, who turned to Peter and said, "I must apologize for not quite believing you, Mr. Pettigrew, but I can still hardly believe it. That a Hogwarts student, most likely a Gryffindor at that, would do something like this..." She trailed off, walking briskly back to the common room where all of the students were gathered. He followed, somewhat bewildered, but not blaming McGonagall in the slightest.

"If anyone has any idea who may have done this," she addressed the students, "please do not hesitate to inform me or Professor Dumbledore. You may all go to breakfast now, but you are not to be late to your first lesson!" With that, she turned and left the tower, the students following, anxious to finish breakfast before class. The Marauders, however, waited and followed at a distance, to be able to talk amongst themselves privately.

They whispered frantically as they walked, but they were all equally clueless as to the identity of the pranksters. The idea of the Snape's group had entered each of their thoughts, but once spoken aloud was quickly dismissed. "They aren't clever enough to pull off such a complicated prank," Sirius scoffed.

Peter nodded, agreeing, but wondering whom else it could possibly be. He said, "Maybe there's an older group of Slytherins who've got it in for Gryffindors."

James nodded as they entered the Great Hall. "That's possible, I guess. We'll just have to keep our eyes open."

They sat at the now full Gryffindor table and Peter ignored the strange look Lily was giving them from the Ravenclaw table. He knew they didn't have time to explain what had happened and still get to Charms on time. Scarfing down his food in record time, he was ready to go to class when the hall started emptying, as were his friends. In Charms, the Hufflepuffs were crowded around all of the Gryffindors, wanting to know what had kept them all that morning. Peter was excited to be part of the center of attention for once, but by the end of the day, he was tired of telling the same, rather short, story. At dinner, he listened to Sirius embellish the story in telling it to some older students. The story they heard included bricks flying through the air, and a heroic rescue of dying first years by none other than Sirius Black. But by the next day, the excitement was over and the Marauders were stuck wondering who the perpetrators had been, having no evidence to go on.

By the end of that week, Peter was back in the swing of things at school. In fact, he hardly remembered he had just returned from summer holidays, he was so immersed in his school life. Part of being back at school was starting off another year of beautiful pranks, which he had not forgotten, nor had James and Sirius. Their first weekend back at school, they had started planning. They decided to release a group of Cornish pixies that Professor Carter had on hand for the first years into the Great Hall during breakfast on Monday.

"It'll be mass confusion," Peter said in awe after hearing the plan.

James nodded gleefully. "Exactly. Maybe we'll even get to miss our first lesson if the teachers are all busy catching the little buggers."

Everyone's eyes lit up at this. 'It would be an accomplishment if we could cancel lessons with our pranks,' Peter thought excitedly.

It was decided that Peter would be the one to get the pixies out of Carter's classroom, since he would seem less likely to be up to something if caught. He, along with the others, woke up extra early on Monday morning and snuck quietly out of their room, not wanting to wake Fletcher. The others stopped halfway between the Great Hall and Carter's room while Peter continued on. He waited, hidden, until Professor Carter emerged from his room for breakfast. As soon as he had turned the corner, Peter quietly went into his room and found the cage of pixies. When he came out of the room, the door closed with a loud bang, causing him to jump. Luckily, no one else seemed to have heard and he breathed a sigh of relief. He tried to walk casually down the hall with the cage, repeating his excuse to himself ("Professor Carter asked me to bring these to him for a lesson he's planning.") in case he met a teacher on the way.

"Did you get them?" James' voice hissed.

Peter held up the cage proudly. "Yep, and no one saw me."

James nodded. "Great. Now we need to set them behind that statue right inside the Hall and 'Alohomora!' we've got pixies everywhere!"

It proved to be as easy as James made it sound. While the other students filed in, nobody noticed Sirius place the cage of pixies out of sight. Once the food appeared and the entire school was digging in, James pulled out his wand, and under the table, pointed it at the obscured cage and muttered, "Alohomora!"

Immediately, several blue blurs shot out from behind the statue and began flying around the hall. Pandemonium ensued as the pixies flew around, throwing food, books, wands and anything else they could find. Students screamed and Peter scrambled under his house table to watch their rampage without being part of it. The other Marauders soon joined him and they gleefully watched students run around while Dumbledore stood and asked everyone to remain calm. He was, of course, ignored until he began shouting, "ALL STUDENTS LEAVE THE HALL IMMEDIATELY!" The Marauders waited until the stampede for the doors had calmed down a bit, then emerged from under the Gryffindor table and joined the remaining crowd at the entrance.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin and Mr. Pettigrew, I'd like to see you in my office, if you don't mind," Dumbledore said from behind them. "I think Professors Carter and McGonagall can deal with the pixies very shortly by themselves." At the moment, they were busy shooting Freezing Spells at the pixies.

Peter felt scared; the coldness in Dumbledore's voice was unnerving, but James looked collected and answered, "Of course, Professor."

The walk to Dumbledore's office was long and silent. Peter wondered what would happen to them; he certainly didn't relish the idea of having detention with Pringle or losing points for Gryffindor. He knew he had precious little chance of earning house points back, and detention was a dangerous experience with Apollyan Pringle. Finally, they were in Dumbledore's office.

"I think it is fair of me to assume that the Marauders are responsible for the pixies at breakfast?" Dumbledore said, questioningly. All four boys nodded. "And the brick walls in your tower the other day?" he continued.

"That wasn't us, sir," Remus said quietly.

Dumbledore looked surprised. "It wasn't?"

Peter shook his head as Dumbledore looked at each of them closely.

"You're sure?" He asked.

James couldn't help but laugh. "I think we'd know if we'd done it, sir."

The Headmaster nodded without replying. Then he said quietly, as if to himself, "If it wasn't them, was it...? No, it can't be. Could it?" Then he shook his head, seeming to come out of a daydream. "You boys may go to class now."

They were all surprised, none more than Peter, who was expecting the worst, but they all left without comment. "Why'd he let us go?" Sirius whispered as soon as they were out of the office.

James shook his head. "I have no idea, but something big must be going on for him to let us go without even a warning."

The group was silent on their way to Defense Against the Dark Arts, each boy wondering what was going on at Hogwarts.