I own Mary, Christian, Liz, Allison, and a few gnomes. Other than that I own nothing.

Breakfast was uneventful, except that Sirius traumatized a first year by making a giant pancake leap to and fro around her. But hey, there are more upsetting things in life (such as James in the morning, and George Bush winning the election).

After that, the eight of them went to their first class for the day, Herbology, unfortunately with the Slytherins. That day, Professor Sprout taught them about Spoutweed, which was a mildly harmful weed commonly found in wizard's gardens. If certain spots on the plant were touched, the weed spewed copious amounts of sulfurous-smelling liquid everywhere. The Gryffindor class got a laugh when Lucius Malfoy carelessly poked one and received a load of the smelly juice for his trouble.

After that was Transfiguration. The students were learning a spell to change a flowerpot into a snail. Of the four Marauders, Remus was the only one to get it completely right, though Peter was close. The only imperfection with his was the fact that the snail's shell was made of dried clay, like the pot. James' turned out looking like an armadillo, but with eyes like a snail's. All Sirius managed to do was make his explode. The girls fared well: better than Sirius, at least.

Then came Divination with Hufflepuff. Sitting on giant pillows in the heavily perfumed room made it very hard to concentrate. James was drifting off…Oh well, he thought lazily. It doesn't matter…all we're talking about is…is…zzzzzz…

"Ja-aaames," someone said in a sing-songey voice, startling him out of sleep. "James. JAMES!"

"Whadappd!! Wadadoo!" James responded.

Again, I will translate the language of half-awake morons. James' garbled phrase means, "What happened? What'd I do this time!"

"James," Professor Dianra (for Trelawney was not yet employed at Hogwarts) said, "do you have any idea what we are talking about?"

"Um… divination?"

At this there was a bit of laughter throughout the room. However, it stopped immediately when Dianra gave the class the death stare that James and Sirius got so frequently.

"James," Sirius whispered. "We're talking about clouds, James… clouds…"

"Clouds," James said loudly.

"And may I ask how you know that, Mr. Potter?" Dianra hissed. "When you were snoring so loudly?"

"Well—I—was, er…divining," James improvised wildly.

"Really," Dianra said skeptically. "And what—"

"It's called—eh—sleep divination, Professor," Christian piped up.

"Well—" began Dianra.

"Surely you, as a divination teacher of—how many years?—would have heard of it," insisted Liz.

"But—but of course—" Dianra sputtered unconvincingly.

"Well then," said Mary, "Perhaps we should continue with the lesson, then?"

"Yes, yes—the lesson," Dianra said. Her wide, bugged out eyes traveled over everyone in the classroom, resting on James for just a few seconds longer.

All of the students got an assignment to foretell what was in their future by looking at the clouds. This had to be done every day for one month.

"What!" James said. "On the first day of school! Why, she's insane! Dianra's completely nuts! What is wrong with that woman?"

Sirius replied with a grin, "Well, James, maybe if you asked her, she'd tell you, seeing as she's right behind you."

James jumped and turned around, but Dianra was across the room helping a student with a passage in Clouds: A Poof of Magic. James grinned and pushed Sirius off his pouf, knocking over Mary in the process. She grinned and threw a pillow at him.

A full-out pillow fight, however, was prevented by an annoyed Hufflepuff, probably Zach Smith's dad or something.

"Excuse me," he said. "Some of us are trying to learn, here!"

"Turn around before I turn you into a girl," Sirius threatened.

The Hufflepoofter rolled his eyes. "Please. Hardly a punishment—easily reversible!"

"All right, we'll make it a punishment, a PMSing girl."

"You can't do that!" the Hufflepuff gasped, blanching.

"Bet me," Sirius said.

"Just—be quiet!" the Hufflepuff snapped, still pale, and he turned around.

"What?" James said, laughing. "Do you really know a spell for that, Padfoot?"

"Yeah. It really wasn't that hard. You know Christian, Mary, Liz, and Allison are all girls."

"Yes. I am aware of that."

"And they're all pretty smart."

"Yes. I am aware of that too. Your point…?"

"Well, since they're girls—"

"Yes, Sirius. They are."

"—and smart—"

"Yes, Sirius. By Merlin's saggy left…earlobe, GET TO THE POINT!"

"OK. They figured out an incantation. To do that."

"Are you serious? What's the spell?" James inquired incredulously.

""The spell," Sirius said, straightening up, "is Mentrigliosa."

"Sounds like a disease."

"It practically is one."

"Are you sure it works?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Let's just say, I now know why girls are so bloody awful every month. Cramps suck."

"They tested the spell on you!"

"Yeah! And it was hilarious!" said Liz.

"It wasn't that bad," said Sirius. "Anyway, being male is worse."

"Yeah, and how would you know, Sirius?"

"Hey!"

"Just kidding. Ha."

"You seriously think that being a guy is worse?" Christian asked. Liz whispered something to Mary, who whispered it to Christian, who whispered it to Allison.

"Fine then, we'd like to challenge you to a little bet," said Allison.

"All four of you," added Liz.

"We —" Mary gestured to Allison, Liz, Christian and herself—"think that being female is much more difficult than being male. So we want to switch genders for a day. This Saturday. And it has to be for the whole day, unlike the four minutes it took last time for you to start crying and begging us to turn you back."

Remus, James and Peter raised their eyebrows at Sirius.

"Hey, I was PMSing!" said Sirius, turning red.

Christian cut in, "And Peter, please stop wiggling your butt around. It scars me emotionally."

"It's all right, we all beg each other to turn us into guys when we're PMSing. So it's settled, then. Meet us in the trophy room on the third floor on Saturday. 10 o' clock sharp!"