Well, after two and a half months of using the excuse 'thinking about the next chapter,' I figure it's probably time to update.

I figure if I owned Harry Potter I woulda' gotten a check or something by now, so I guess I don't. Can't you just see the dreams going down the drain?

That counts as a disclaimer, by the way. Well, perhaps not legally, but who ever worries about that nowdays?

A/N: No slash.

Chapter Two: Always Drink Upstream From the Herd

James was half-hidden behind a packing crate, sniffing suspiciously. The packing crate groaned, wondering how it ever became so unfortunate as to be used to store pranking paraphernalia. Children, it decided, became more insane and uncontrollable every decade.

"Sirius, have you been using my dungbombs?" James peered over the top of his glasses.

Sirius jerked his head out of The Bag and stared dumbly across the room. "Of course not— when I'm out I always use Peter's," he stated bluntly.

"It's just that I'm somehow down to half the amount that I had yesterday, and I was in detention till midnight after that Hufflepuff got frightened by your predictions. It's suspicious, that's all."

"I think Sirius dungbombs in his sleep; I swear I've heard him leaving the room at night…and smelt him when he comes back…" Remus had been reading in the common room the last time James had been down there, but seemed to have migrated upstairs and sprawled onto his bed. He spoke between a facefull of mattress.

"Says we should add two spoonfuls of butterbeer after the firewhiskey starts to smolder," Sirius yapped happily, stirring the bubbling cauldron and ignoring the flames spurting from the pewter depths.

The alcoholic beverage—properties unknown—was being created straight from Sirius's broad imagination. He was hoping it would be useful in The Prank. The Prank, as of yet, was still in The Bag, but it was yearning for its release. Soon.

Remus stretched out, smelling—figuratively for the most part—the awakening of something that he was quite certain he would not like. That included most of what was cooked up—also, usually figuratively speaking—by the mind or equivalent thereof that was contained between the ears of Sirius Black.

"Are we supposed to be planning a prank, or something?" Peter said nervously, from his corner of the bedroom. After Sirius's belongings had captured his bed he'd been forced to take up residence in the nook across from James's four-poster. He thought it was comfortable enough, but only because being bitter seemed to take up too much energy.

Sirius perked up. "Prank? Are we planning another prank? I'm in!"

Peter tried heroically to gobble his fleeing words as Remus glared holes through his back.

"I just thought…er, that is, I was thinking that, well…" Peter turned to look desperately at Remus. The werewolf pulled out a beater's bat and stood towering over Sirius, grinning darkly.

It wasn't that James didn't like his friends. But he had a serious case of missing dungbombs and no one seemed to care. He decided to make his presence known.

"If you all don't spit up seven boxes of dungbombs there won't be any pranking at all, I swear," He stated dramatically.

Sirius toppled over unconscious, narrowly missing a painful encounter with a boiling cauldron. Remus's grin became more manic than ever.

James despaired for the continuation of Marauder's Inc…. obviously, they were seriously lacking in discipline. And in self-control.

Sirius drooled on the carpet as a lovely purple bruise bloomed on his left temple.

Mostly in self-control.

He'd been thinking about getting angry at Remus for a few minutes when a distraction came bursting in the room.

It was loud, red-haired, and extremely scary distraction. He felt his face go red and hoped their dirty clothes pile hadn't taken on sentience yet, or anything embarrassing like that.

Lily Evans had come, and she smelled distressingly of dungbombs.

Her eyes glowed green, and her ears seemed to be emitting smoke. She stepped on Sirius and shoved Remus into the empty wastebasket as she wove a path of destruction to his corner of the universe.

James made a running dive for the window as she caught up with him. Somehow, getting to go flying once more—quite a vertical flight downwards, but still—sounded a lot better then the alternative disembowelment.

Lily Evans snorted and shoved some of the socks off his bed, which she promptly collapsed on.

And James, upon hitting the floor, fainted.

Or perhaps he was knocked out. When the details were being related to school officials at a later date, no one in the dorm seemed to be able to remember. (Which was unfortunate, as this was only the beginning of The Prank. Actually, it was the pre-beginning, as the beginning could not begin while Sirius Black remained out of action.)

Perhaps the inability to recall this portion of events was because the only sane ones were, respectfully, stuck in a garbage pail and the indirect cause of the sudden attack of unconsciousness.

Names were going to be changed to protect the innocent; only no one seemed to be able to determine just who the innocent was.

When James reclaimed consciousness, he discovered himself to be, of all places, lying face down on the floor of the sixth-year boys dormitory, staring into the face of a rather fragrant Lily Evans.

"Lookin' good, love," he said, trying to smile charmingly. He failed…landing in a pile of one's own dirty socks can achieve that end nine times out of ten.

"And smelling even better," Sirius chirped from near Peter's nook. He was nursing a purple bruise with a box of Popsicles, pressed firmly against his temple. A melted grape path was weaving itself down the side of his face.

"Has anyone seen Peter recently?" Remus was poking random piles, evidently hoping that one of them held a cleverly disguised sixth year.

Remus lifted the corner of the-bed-which-had-formerly-been-Peter's, gave a muffled 'oomph' and disappeared from view.

James turned back to what seemed to be the biggest threat in the room. With the exception, of course, of Sirius's mushroom collection, which was seething.

"So, what brings you to, err…." He decided, all things considered, that sweet-talk would not save him now, any better than it had after the mysterious outbreak of '74. Which hadn't been his fault. Sirius's, perhaps, but not his; at least not directly.

No one had died though. He supposed that was fortunate…for some reason the teacher's seemed to care when Slytherin appendages started falling off randomly. Odd.

Lily ignored him and glanced over at Sirius, who was wiggling his eyebrows fetchingly at James's Comet 180. "Is he always that odd?" She asked, glancing briefly back at a flustered James.

Here she was, actually speaking to him—sitting on his bed even (which, now that he thought about it, was rather embarrassing considering the week-old fries on the nightstand)—and she did nothing but stare at Sirius, who was making a right fool of himself.

"Not when he's actually present, no. In the mental sense, I mean," James said grudgingly.

Lily's brow tilted, gracefully for someone who smelled like a pen used for keeping cattle—before Hercules diverted rivers in the pursuit of cleanliness—and she glanced briefly at him. Again.

He was beginning to find it most annoying.

Mutterings of the vaguely cynical sort were coming from the directions of the storage pile that was, in a past life, Peter's bed. Words like 'desperate' and 'preventive' coupled with strange phrases like 'insurance policies' and 'go to McGonagall' seemed to be uttered by what looked remarkably like a rubbish-covered mattress. James elected to ignore this for the time being.

"Is there something we should do for him then? I mean, speaking from someone who's seen normal people—well, not for a while, but I can remember meeting some—head injuries like this usually can't be cured by Popsicles," Lily tilted her head to meet her eyebrow. "At least, not that I know of."

"It's okay, he'll be himself again in no time." If that's any consolation. James drug himself across the floor, still not trusting his addled perception of normality in the universe not to fail him in the gravitational sense should he try to stand. He reached Sirius, pried the gooey box of what had been a delicious summertime snack away, and poked the purple-tinted bruise on Sirius's forehead.

His best friend glared balefully at him, which James took to be a good sign. James rolled over to give Lily a thumbs-up, vertebrae creaking in protest as he rolled directly across several hard arm-braces and a protesting miniature Quidditch player from the Cannons.

A sudden cry of "Now!" rang through the room and several dust-covered blurs who could only have been Peter and Remus thundered through the room towards the door, stopping only to pick themselves off the floor when they quite forgot the door had been locked. Which was odd, as it had been ajar a minute ago, but then, Sirius always was handy with a wand, no matter what dimension his brain was currently visiting. His magic had a way of knowing, and telling his limbs and mouth, whenever there was a chance that someone was going to tell McGonagall something he'd rather her not know. It was a gift.

"Why'd you let them go? We're gonna have to think of a cover story now. I hope you've got one, cause I'm fresh out," He kicked randomly towards Sirius, hitting a year-old box of biscuits and a ball of yarn, which rolled across the floor and under Sirius's bed. Never to be seen again.

"Wait, what have you all done wrong? I'm allowed to be in here, I looked it up in Hogwarts, A—" She was abruptly cut off when Sirius sprang to life.

"It's not what we've done now, Evans…It's what we're probably going to do. Besides, just letting McGonagall come in here and not think something is seriously up when she leaves would be in bad form. Wouldn't it, Prongs?"

James was as nonplussed by Sirius's abrupt change in levels of consciousness as always. Turning his head, which seemed a greater expenditure of energy than normal, to look at Lily, he asked the question that had been burning on his mind for, say, a few minutes at least.

"What exactly are you doing here? And no lies this time!" He shifted uncomfortably as the angry beater he was currently squishing like a mammoth sack of flour poked him sharply with his miniscule bat.

Lily scoffed at this, or would have if she hadn't been glancing through the pictures under James's pillow. He took immediate worry to this, as he wasn't eager for her to see how many she featured in. He muttered an accio charm, and as the pictured sailed to land next to him he hoped she would think she'd only dropped them. Though most dropped objects do not land in neat little piles. He cursed his excessive perfection in methods of acquisition. He shouldhave known it would ruin him some day.

"I didn't lie to you the first time, you haven't even gotten around to asking me yet. And as for that, I was just wanting to ask a question," She watched him squirm for a while, before admitting defeat to the Quidditch figurine and pulling himself into a sitting position. It took him a full eight minutes and he had a sudden premonition about Quidditch practice that evening. Or rather, what it was going to make him feel like. Probably like the cow Lily smelled so strongly of, only after it had been run over.

"Well why don't you just ask it already?" He grumbled. "It's not a problem, really, but if you can't tell we aren't at our best right now. It would probably help if you weren't here."

Sirius stuck his head through the crack in the door that led to the bathroom, looking confused. "How would it help, exactly?"

James gave him The Eye. It had been perfected by Lily, naturally, but he fancied himself a bit of an expert on receiving it, and so copying it was a mere retaliation of facial muscles and such. Only he didn't really have the eye color for it. After all, deer are rarely the most malevolent of creatures, unless one, or one's vehicle, manages to insult them.

"Because then I could lie on my bed and let my back recover. It'll probably take months after all the abuse it's suffered today, and lying on the floor makes it worse. We should probably add a day of recovery time for every minute I spend down here."

He thought that gleam in Lily's eye held an evil glint to it, and didn't care for it at all.

Not at all.

"So, Evans, if you don't mind me asking, whodunit?" Sirius's face was currently hidden behind a towel, which James considered an improvement. No need poisoning Lily's mind with chiseled cheekbones, even if they were covered in stubborn purple goop.

"What did you say, Black? I'm not sure I heard you past The Muppet's," She pointed to the technicolor representation of Miss Piggy and Kermit gracing the front of Sirius's towel. It was Remus's, actually, though how he had come by it was a tale left a little hazy, as far as James was concerned.

"I think he was inquiring as to how you managed to end up smelling worse than Zonko's best, if you don't mind me asking," Remus stuck his head in the door. He was Peter-less at the moment, though he did leave the door suspiciously wide-open. As if he was expecting a carthorse.

Or a teacher.

Lily was nudging the cauldron with her foot. It was hovering a few inches off the ground now, seemingly of its own accord. James had another fleeting vision as to the future—this one included a cauldron of dubiously-acquired mixed-drink, likely poisoned, coming fully to life and emptying itself upon his Head of House.

He began to feel ill, and wished he could move, if only to use his limp body as a dead weight on the rising cauldron.

Fortunately, he turned out to be almost dead wrong about his prediction for the future. McGonagall did come storming up the stairs and entered the room with far more of a din than should have been required. It was perhaps because Peter, who had been directly behind her, chose this time to crash into what seemed to be thin air and fall down the stairs.

The silence was rather catacomb-like as Peter echoed down the stairs, evidently hitting every bit of thin air he could on his way down and cursing at the lot of it.

"Hi, Professor!" Sirius jumped up happily, which was what he usually did when he saw McGonagall, though this was one of the few times he actually had a right to be, as he was seemingly innocent of any wrong doing recently. Not including the cauldron. Or The Bag.

But they were minor details. Until the cauldron gave a roaring leap, startling Lily who landed with a sound thump and clatter in a pyramid of used cans. She groaned as James gave what he hoped would be the last running leap of his life, managing to ground the cauldron and sloshing only minimal amounts of beverage over the sides. Remus sat in opened mouth horror; Peter picked himself off the common room floor and hoped nothing interesting was happening upstairs. McGonagall wondered if her retirement fund was sufficient yet. And Sirius began to hum.

As he pulled the drawstring on The Bag.

And he began to rummage through it, still humming, and thought about the possibilities of things like de-housing one's school of the house-elf speciesand, especially, avenging Lily Evans.

It seemed like a good idea.

And Sirius lived for a good idea.

Well, that was, er, different than I expected. Probably I have been reading a bit too much Terry Pratchett recently. Yes, I do believe so.

For those just jumping in, remember that titles hold little or no importance to the story, or even relation to the plot. They can be found on though.

A warm, fuzzy pre-thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far. Let's see…

To Rhya Stormbringer…thanks! Making Peter loveable, er, sort of, is my specialty. I think.

To Miss Piratess…Thank you! Not sure about this chapter at all, I'm in sort of an odd mood…..

To brickabrack…I haven't thought about it, but Madame Snuffles should make a guest appearance later. I don't know when, but later. Thanks!

To woodchip…Have siblings, will decipher. Haha…yes, and here is where we find all the closet-Peter lovers. All those who say, 'HEY! He couldn't have betrayed them!' Yes, I am one. And thank you for the review.

To Serious Fan…thanks for the review. I sincerely hope that understanding my stories is considered optional when enjoying them, else no one may get this chapter.

To brennQT…Oh, I think he was a goofball in the books, he just didn't show it. Besides, it's easier to see him like this then like, say, a bully, or a playboy. And I think this more fits the personality of the man who skipped through his own house singing 'God rest ye merry hippogriffs.' Gotta love that man. And miss him. Sigh. Anyway, thanks for the review!

To Queen Red Rum…Thanks! Insanity is lovely this time of year, or so I'm told.

To Freja Lercke Falkenborg…Not so sure about this chapter. Oh well. You have a very long pen name, by the way. I'm finding myself curious about it's pronunciation. My updating, even if it is pure lunacy, means that you need to write fanfic too. You can do it! Anyway, thanks!

To Jakkat…Thanks! Hope this one was okay…..

To Padfoot Snogger…Thanks so much for all the reviews! It really helped me write faster, I think. Anyway, this chapter is a little longer, I think, but its been so long since I updated I don't think I can help it…..Thank you!

And, in the immortal words of Porky Pig,

"TH-th-Tha-That's all Folks!"

For now, at least.

For now.