As fourth year came around, I was a little bit wiser, but still just as clumsy. I was so sure I was never going to grow out of my awkward phase. I was still the bumbling fool who ran into walls at a simple hello from a girl. And yet, I felt somewhat better knowing I wasn't the only one. You see, fourth year, we all thought we were out of the woods from the little mishaps we had occurring in third year. We felt that we, were now men. Of course, we were far from it. But we were fourth years, half the school was younger than us. Plus, James and Sirius were starting to gain a certain reputation around the school. They had gotten more into pranking and were getting noticed for it.

It wasn't always good attention though. Towards the end of third year, James had started to grow rather fond of a one Miss Evans. Of course, Lily was definitely not too fond of him. She never forgave him for the snowball to the head in first year, or thinking he ruined her potion in second year, or the constant hexing of people who looked at him wrong, or the starting of the pranks in the end of third year, or his increasing self-confidence. She simply did not have a high impression of him.

Not only did the pranking put Lily at odds with James, but it also grabbed the attention of the staff at school. That was definitely negative attention that they didn't need. Soon it became if something odd or strange happened around the castle, you asked Sirius and James for their alibis. Of course, they normally had one, and I being the good friend vouched for them, even if I really had absolutely idea where they had been. Of course, I always felt bad about lying, but I was still worried that if I was not the friend they could go to and trust to help them out that they wouldn't want me to be their friend at all. No matter how old I got, I still had that need to be accepted. And with Sirius and James, that's what I got. Great friends who accepted me. I just didn't want to lose them.

I remember this one time a prank draw some definite negative attention. You see, James was never going to let Snape forget that he needed to get him back. But the thing is, Snape was never going to quit trying to get James back for what he did to achieve revenge. So it became an endless cycle of them trying to get revenge on each other for previous events. It was something that could simply be ended by one of them just becoming the bigger person and just stopping their attempt to get revenge on each other. But I knew that wasn't going to happen. Why? Because the two of them became so obsessed with finally beating the other one, that the reason why they even started fighting in the first place got lost. Gaining revenge was gone, and replaced with each others simple hatred for the other.

Anyways, James felt it was ultimately necessary to do something to Snape. After all, Snape was…well… Snape! In James's mind there was no other reason needed in order to make Snape's life a living hell. And this time, oh this time James had come up with something genius to do to him.

"Gentleman, I've got it!" James said with a smile as he walked into the common room. He normally did have a smile on his face, but this smile was different. I had come to learn his smiles. I know it sounds odd, but he really only had four. One when he was trying to be polite and was being charming such as when he was getting him and Sirius out of trouble, one when he was enjoying something and was happy, one that he only had on his face when Lily was around, and this one. His smile that simply said that he was up to no good.

"Well, out with it James," Sirius said, also knowing something was up due to James's expression. "What have you got?" he asked sitting up straight in his seat. I could tell how eager Sirius was to hear what James had to say. Sirius was the kind of guy who slouched in his seat, or lounged around casually, but when he sat up, he was paying attention and anxious for something to be said.

Even I was a bit anxious as to what James was up to. "Yes James, tell us already. You have our attention," I said, putting down my book.

James just smiled brightly as he sat down in his usual spot, the armchair by the couch that both Sirius and I had been sitting on. "I have planned the perfect prank to get Snivellus with," he said confidently.

Sirius smiled at him. "Ooh, really? What is it? Huh? Huh? Huh?" he asked excitedly, bouncing excitedly in his seat.

"Dude, calm down," James said with a laugh. "But seriously, this has to be my most brilliant plan. I was in the library, studying…"

"You mean watching Evans studying when you say that right?" Sirius interjected with a mischievous smirk across his lips.

"Shut it, I'm telling you something every important. And, there is no need to involve the lovely Miss Evans in this," James said, smiling still. He let out a slight sigh, obviously sidetracked.

I got up and waved a hand in front of his eyes, "James, earth to James." I snapped my fingers a couple of times, finally getting him out of his trance. James looked at me for a moment. "Hey, welcome back to the land of the living," I said with a smile.

"What? Oh, right," James said nodding his head. "Now, what was I talking about?"

"The prank," Sirius said, sighing as he grew impatient. "You were about to tell us the greatest prank ever before you started daydreaming about Evans."

"Sorry about that. But anyway, the prank," James said smiling once more. "As I was saying gentleman, this is the best prank I have ever come up with."

"Yes, yes. You've said that three times now! So out with it!" Sirius said to him, not wanting to wait any longer.

James smirked and looked at Sirius. "Alright, fine. Well, I found an interesting little spell that bewitches a person's pants."

"Ooh, their pants?" Sirius asked excitedly. "Do tell more."

Even I had to nod in agreement. "Yeah James, you can't leave us hanging like that."

James flipped open the book he had brought in with him. He had a page bookmarked and smiled. "Well, you see, I found this lovely little incantation that makes it so that when the wearer stops walking that their pants fall down," he said with a smirk. "Ingenious if I say so myself," James said proudly.

Sirius stood up and clapped. "It's wonderful! The best prank ever!" he said with a bright smile.

"Yes, and I want you guys to help me pull this off," James said as he closed the book back up.

Sirius started to pretend to cry as he looked at James. "Serious? You want us to help you pull off the best prank in history?" He started to wipe his eyes, as if he was really moved and crying over this fact. "Oh James, I'm so touched! You are the best friend a guy could have."

I just rolled my eyes and laughed slightly. "Yeah, be telling him that when you're in detention together for this," I said to Sirius.

James turned and looked at me. "Remus, you aren't joining us?" he asked me. I just looked back at him. In all honesty, I hadn't really decided if I was going to be a part of this prank or not.

"Come on Remus, you have to join us," Sirius said to me. "It's going to be the greatest prank ever known to man, you have to be a part of it. That way one day when you're old and crazy like Dumbledore you can look back on this day and say, I was there," he said, making a sweeping gesture with his hand, ever dramatizing the entire situation, which he tended to do.

"I don't know guys," I said shaking my head. I was always a little hesitant on these sorts of things. Although, this prank did sound pretty funny to me…

"Remus, if you don't come on your own, I will personally make you come," James said looking right at me. "I went through this hard work on coming up with this great idea and I want you there to appreciate it and laugh your ass off at it," he said setting the book down on the table and crossing his arms.

I sighed and thought about it. I somehow knew I would be going along with them either way. "Fine, fine. I'll come."

Both James and Sirius smiled at me. "Great!" James said, feeling very proud of this prank already. "Now, since you're kind of edgy, Remus you get to be our look out."

"Fine, fine," I said with a nod. I was used to being made the look out man. It was what I did.

"Alright, now, let's go find Snivellus," Sirius said excitedly as he hopped about eagerly.

"We are going," James said as he picked up the book off the table. "Off we go!" he said making this gesture as if he was rather saying charge to an army going off into battle.

"Wait! Can I come?" a squeaky voice asked just as we were about to leave. We all turned around, almost in unison to see Peter there. See, Peter wasn't exactly a close friend at this point. He was more so the annoying guy who followed us around because he didn't have any other friends. So, we kind of took pity on him and let him trail behind us.

"Fine Peter, you can come, but you have to help Remus on look out duty," James said. Peter just nodded his head and followed behind us. The four of us off to do the greatest prank ever invented.

We spent nearly half an hour combing the castle looking around for Snape, all of us growing tired and the excitement about the prank wearing off.

"Where is he?" Sirius whined. "I wanna do the prank!" he complained, sounding like a five year old asking for a toy in some store. "James! Where is he!"

James sighed and looked at Sirius, obviously getting tired of his whining. "I don't know Sirius! If I knew where he was, why would I be walking around looking for him?"

I nodded my head, James made perfect sense. But in a way, Sirius was right too. This was ridiculous, just walking around looking for Snape. After all, Hogwarts castle is a huge place, plus there's the moving staircases and hidden passages. It could take forever to find a person in that place. "You know, there has to be an easier way. Too bad we didn't have, like, a map or something."

James looked at me. "Why do we need a map? We know all there is to know about this place pretty much," he said.

"Yeah, we just can't find anyone in it," Sirius pouted.

"No, I mean, like a map that tells you where people are," I said. I then smiled. "That's it!"

"That's what?" Sirius asked, looking at me like I had officially gone crazy.

"We could make a map! One that tells you where people are, that way we don't have to spend hours looking for someone," I said, growing excited at the idea.

"Yeah!" James nodded. "Plus, if we knew where everyone was in the castle, we wouldn't have to worry about look outs either!"

Sirius smiled. "Great idea Remus!"

Peter looked at us three as we celebrated what was a break through to us. "But, um, wouldn't you guys get in trouble if it was found out that you had that?"

I looked over at him, then frowned. Peter was right. If we did make something like that, we would probably get it taken away and get in trouble. Or worse, other people finding out about it and wanting one for themselves.

"Well, what if we put some sort of spell on it? That way only we could see it," James suggested.

"You mean, like invisible ink?" I asked.

"No, anyone can read that if they know the right spell to reveal it. It needs, like, a secret code word or something," Sirius said.

I nodded. "Yeah, but, look, there's Snape up there. Let's worry about the map idea later guys," I whispered. After all, we didn't want Snape to see us. But, thanks to a long search for him, we had the foundations laid out for one of our greatest ideas ever. Only thing was, we didn't realize how great our idea was at the time.

James saw Snape and smirked as he flipped open the book. He looked at the page as he pulled out his wand. "Pardus successio," he muttered as he flicked his wand towards Snape. At first nothing was happening, but that was because Snape was walking.

Sirius sighed, he wanted to see the prank work. "Hey! Snivellus!" he shouted. Sure enough, Snape stopped walking and looked at us. And of course, James's spell worked and as soon as he stopped, down came his trousers.

Snape looked down, not having an explanation for what just occurred. The four of us just exploded in laughter.

"What's wrong Snivellus? Problem with your pants?" James cried out through his laughter.

"Trouble with your trousers?" Sirius said, leaning on James for support because he was laughing so hard.

Even I couldn't resist on getting in with the action. "Situation with your slacks?" I finally got out. I was laughing so hard myself my face was red and I had trouble breathing.

Snape just looked at us furious. He went to pull them up, but they wouldn't budge from his ankles. So, in defeat, he went to walk away, only to have his pants shoot right back up to their original spot. We only laughed even more. Snape looked completely perplexed, as he kept stopping and walking again, finally figuring out what was wrong with his pants. Not being able to stop, he simply turned on his heels and left the corridor where we were still laughing like there was no tomorrow.

"Oh Merlin James! You were right!" Sirius said after we had finally started to calm down. "That was the best prank ever!"

"Yeah James, it really was," I said with a nod. And for a long time, that was the greatest prank. After all, it was a whole day before it finally dawned on Snape that if he just changed pants he would be fine. Still makes me laugh just thinking about it now. Of course, now that I'm grown up, I can't help but feel that what we did to him was a little wrong. But, at the time I was just a 14 year old kid, I thought it was hilarious!

I guess that's just part of growing up, you start to get this thing called a conscious. You know, that little voice in your head that occasionally pops up telling you something is wrong. Well, I guess ours just developed a little later than other people's did.

Speaking of developing, fourth year was the idea that we started expanding our thoughts on my ingenious idea to create that map. We were surprisingly in the library a lot that year. Of course, never doing schoolwork. James, Sirius, and Peter were busy doing work on studying to become animagi, which is extremely difficult work, where as I was busy researching up ideas for our map. After all, I didn't have to do studying on becoming an animagus, I was already a werewolf.

But, by the end of the year, James and Sirius were doing a great job with their animagus training. Plus, they were giving Peter all the help they could give. We also had a great prototype of what we wanted from the map. James said he would be spending his summer drawing it up on some parchment. After all, he was the more artistic of us four.

Fourth year really was a great year. We were starting to come into our own, the foundation was being laid for what would become the most infamous group of students ever to attend Hogwarts, and we didn't even know it. After all, who were we to know that one day people would be interested in our story and what we had to say. It just makes me feel so awful that I'm the only one around to tell it. But, it will be told, our story will live on. And to think, I've only made it through fourth year, we're only half way done with one of the greatest saga's Hogwarts has ever seen.