It was the first day of school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for our four young wizards.

Okay, so it was the first day for the seventh time. James Potter, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew were all about to begin their seventh year at Hogwarts.

Each felt differently about this.

Remus was happy: he liked school. Why, no one knows.

Sirius was ecstatic. He did not share Remus's love of lessons; however, he welcomed the opportunity to escape from the dark and gloomy house of Black. Toujours pur my butt.

Peter was, predictably, nervous about returning to school. This was evident in the way that he was twitching violently and wiggling his butt for lack of a tail. Fortunately for him, the little bastard knew he could count on the protection of his friends.

James was happy to return because he would get to see Lily. Pathetic, really, but he couldn't help it.

Peter was the first to wake up that first day of school. He skittered over to James' bedside and said falteringly, "Hey…hey, James…it's…time to get up…"

James charmingly replied with a slurred "Gawperimtrynasep. Nurnoyng." Translated, this means, "Go away, Peter. I'm trying to sleep. You're annoying."

However, Peter's long list of talents did not include translating the speech of half-awake morons, so he continued talking at James.

You should understand that James Potter in the morning is something you never want to see unless you are suicidal, or unless you know a good shock therapist. Let me give you a little idea: His hair was extremely messy. And I don't mean messy like he just got off of a broomstick.

No.

James' morning hair looked like James had, immediately following a wrestling match with Severus Snape, stuck a fork in an electrical outlet, and then walked into a tornado. After walking into the tornado, James had run around attacking former MI6 agents at zoos and getting tasered. Finally he had entered the small cage of a starving tiger with anger management problems. Metaphorically, of course.

…And this was just the hair.

Now let us move on to James' face, which was scrunched up into a tight little ball, causing Peter to wonder why James had been replaced by a fat Chinese man. This was because, as I hope has been successfully conveyed, James was not a morning person. Repeat: NOT a morning person.

Clearly this was not a pretty sight. So when James finally detached his face from the bed, Peter gasped, wiggled his butt, and shrieked. Then he ran as hastily as his short legs could take him (not actually that fast).

Remus awoke at this commotion. He yawned and said, "Bloody hell—what are you doing? Peter, James, what—AAAUGH! JAMES! I mean, James, why, hello, you look…er…interesting this morning…heh…"

James sent him a nasty look, but you couldn't actually tell.

Remus grinned and told Peter to wake Sirius. Peter tried, but Sirius merely yelled "GIVE ME BACK MY PANTS" and rolled over.

Peter obliged. Just kidding—Sirius wasn't wearing pants in the first place.

Quickly growing weary of the nonsense (and influenced mightily by his growling stomach), Remus said curtly, "Come on, Peter, just jump on him if you must."

Taking Remus at his word, as ever, Peter pounced, truly catlike, if you have a cat that makes a running start for the bed and then flies off the other side and gets a concussion. This did wake Sirius, so it was worth whatever brain trauma may have resulted.

After several minutes more of extracting themselves from their respective beds (no man-on-man action in this fic, sorry), the Marauders four walked nonchalantly down the stairs. They would have, anyway, had there not been Vaseline smeared thickly on every step.

Laughter floated up from the common room as they careened haplessly toward it. Their arrival there was less than graceful: Remus, Peter, and James tripped into basins that had been conveniently placed at the bottom of the stairs, but Sirius kept going and flew straight into a girl who had been inconveniently placed in his path.

He started to apologize, but then realized who it was and stopped. "Ha!" he exclaimed, laughing, and helped her up. "I'm NOT sorry!"

The girl, a fellow Gryffindor, fell into laughter with him. "You're just jealous because we won this round," she teased.

"Just wait until next time," he replied merrily.

"Are you OK?" a second girl asked her.

"You're fine, look, we got a picture!" piped up a third happily.

"Right when Sirius and you collided," chuckled the fourth.

I believe some introductions are necessary. These four girls were, in the true Gryffindor tradition, good students with a seriously mischievous streak. They are also close freidns of the Marauders and four of the main characters of the story. Now for various expository details:

Mary, the first girl, was blonde, and the most athletic of her four friends. She had been a member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team since her third year, and prided herself on the fact that she was one of the only female Beaters to have played at Hogwarts. Her attention span could occasionally be lacking, but her friends understood and endearingly made fun of her. She wanted to be an Auror.

Liz, the second girl, was also blonde, but she was rather more musically inclined than Mary was. She led the school Glee Club and wanted to teach, but not before traveling to China and studying gnome populations there. Her leadership position certainly did not prevent her from running round the school at 2:45 a.m. planting Dungbombs in corridors.

The third girl's name was Christian. She was, like Liz, a dedicated musician, and she competed for the top spot in Herbology with one Frank Longbottom. (Currently she was winning; she had been for some time now, in the end Frank just didn't understand plants like she did.) She read more books than Levar Burton, and still managed to find plenty of time for organizing and executing practical jokes with her friends.

Allison, the fourth, was, like two of her friends, a talented musician. (I guess Mary is just a loser.) She liked to read too, and she had pretty much decided that after graduation she wanted to travel round the world to study ancient runes, maybe write some books, definitely publish her research papers. Allison was the dedicated secretary of the school Charms Club.

SO………………………

You may have been able to deduce this yourself (congratulations, smarty pants), but the lovely ladies were fully engaged in a prank war of sorts with their Marauding friends. At the moment they were on their way to the Great Hall with the boys, naturally discussing that prank which had taken place five minutes ago.

"Vaseline is so primitive, though," Sirius expounded. "I mean, it's not magical at all."

"Which is precisely why the idea to use it was so ingenious," Allison said. "We think outside the box."

The argument continued all the way down the corridor and into the Great Hall.