The following weekend, James had to break it to Peter that he wasn't on the Quidditch team, and Peter looked ready to cry. Even I felt bad, and I wasn't even the one breaking the news to him.

"Wormtail, it's not you..." said James. "You were great, other people were just... better."

"It's fine," said Peter quietly.

"Next year," said James. "Next year, you should go for Seeker. Marlene won't be there then."

"OK," said Peter.

"So... how about we all go to Hogsmeade, then?" said Sirius. "It's open for the first time this term today."

"Oh my god, Hogsmeade!" I cried, standing up.

"What!?" James said, alarmed.

"God, sorry... Lily's probably waiting for me... we were meant to meet the other prefects at eight..." I grabbed my clothes out of my trunk and rushed to the dormitory bathroom. It was eight-thirty in the morning and I was still in my pyjamas.

I got dressed at top speed and then sprinted out of the dormitory, then I went through the portrait hole of the common room so fast that even the painting of the fat lady made a comment on it, but I didn't hear what she said because I was already running towards the area where everyone would leave the castle to go to Hogsmeade.

The other prefects were all already there, checking the permission slips of the third years.

"God, sorry I'm late," I said, practically wheezing from the effort I'd just put into getting there.

Lily rolled her eyes, but then she said, "Better late than never."

"Hey, Remus," said Mary, and I had to blink a few times before I realised that I hadn't even noticed that she was a prefect before now.

"Oh, hi, Mary," I said casually, acting like I'd known that she was a prefect now for the entire two and a half weeks that we'd been back at school.

"Do you guys think it's stupid that we only check the permission slips of the third years?" Mary asked Lily, the boy prefect in her year from Gryffindor, and me.

"Yes!" said Lily. "God, I thought I was the only one... it really annoys me, to be honest. I bet half the people above the third year don't even have a permission slip... some of them probably aren't even allowed to go to Hogsmeade!"

"Yeah, but to be fair, why would someone's parents not let them go?" said Mary. "Like, it's just shops, nothing could really go wrong that couldn't happen at Hogwarts."

"Yeah, but people can apparate into Hogsmeade," I said.

"Oh my god, apparition!" Lily cried. "Are you ready for that, Remus? The lessons start next January for us!"

"Oh, god, really?" I said. I was excited and nervous at the same time. It would be great to be able to get myself wherever I needed whenever I wanted, but I was also worried about getting splinched.

Can't be worse than the cuts you already have, I thought to myself.

"Your dad's a wizard, isn't he?" Lily asked me.

"Yeah," I said.

"So you've side-on apparated!?" she cried.

"Yeah," I said.

"Lucky!" she and Mary cried in unison.

"Oh, yeah... you guys never would have even side-on apparated, would you?" I said, and they both shook their heads. I suppose having a parent who could easily take you anywhere within a few seconds was a privilege I didn't realise I had because I'd always taken it for granted.

Once all of the third years were in Hogsmeade, all of the prefects were free to go, and I quickly found the marauders in Zonko's.

"We haven't done a prank in a while," James said to me as soon as I stepped in. "We're looking at stuff for a mega prank on the whole school. Any ideas?"

"Er... I don't know," I said. "What have you come up with so far?"

"Well, nothing for the whole school, but I was thinking that we could jinx all the Slytherin Quidditch team's brooms," said James.

"Wouldn't you feel better if you won the game properly?" I asked.

"No, not in the game, it will be fair and square then," said James. "I mean when they're training."

"OK, sounds cool," I said. "How are you going to do that?"

"Just a little jinxing spell," said James, a smile toying on his face. "Everyone keeps their broomsticks in the changing room, it should be pretty easy to jinx them."

"Everyone? Really?" I said, raising my eyebrows. I knew for a fact that James kept his broom in the dormitory, right next to his four-poster bed. Sometimes I was sure he even slept with it.

"Yes," James muttered, his face going pink because I knew he knew that I knew about the broom in the dormitory. I mean, how would I not know? I'd slept in the same room as him for the past five years.

Sirius walked over to James and I from the other side of the store, holding ten dungbombs.

"What if we make all of these bigger and then set them all out around the school?" he said.

"It's good, but it's a little unoriginal, don't you think?"

"It seems more like what could be the foreplay of the prank," I said. Sirius made eye contact with me for a split second after that, and then the two of us burst into laughter. James let out an awkward laugh as well.

"Have you seen Peter recently?" James asked Sirius.

"He went to the bathroom I think," said Sirius. "So, should I get the dungbombs?"

"Yeah, why not," said James. "Come on, we'll think about this later, do you guys fancy a butterbeer?"

Sirius and I nodded, and as soon as Peter came back into Zonko's, the four of us walked over to the Three Broomsticks.

"Not long until I can have a firewhiskey," said Sirius, looking at the drinks menu as we sat down.

"Oh, yeah..." said James, just as Sirius pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. "Seriously, Padfoot? Here?"

"Yes, here," said Sirius, lighting the end of the cigarette, then pocketing his lighter. I wondered why he didn't just use his wand to like it.

"This is his new obsession since the summer," James said to Peter and me. "Because practically every muggle does it. Pads wants to be a muggle now."

"I don't want to be a muggle," said Sirius. "I just think a lot of the things they do are cool. Plus, it's not just muggles who do it. Look around."

James, Peter, and I all looked around the restaurant to see that multiple people were indeed smoking, but it wasn't nearly as many people as what I saw when I was in the muggle world.

"Doesn't it taste bad?" James asked, with a disapproving look on his face. "It sure smells horrible."

"God, Prongs, if you don't like it, don't do it," said Sirius.

James sighed. "The problem is I don't like smelling it. And it's also bad for you. I don't want you to die."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I will not die from smoking. I might just get a bit sick. Who cares if I get a little sick, though? It's cool."

James just sighed again. "Whatever you say, Padfoot..."

A waiter came to our table about a minute later, took our order of four butterbeers, then came back with the drinks about five minutes later.

But there was something wrong with the drinks. They were more yellow than usual, and I could have sworn I saw a clump of something in mine.

"Eugh, what's up with this?" said Sirius, sniffing his drink. "Ew, it smells like piss."

Peter went to take a sip from his glass, but James quickly snatched it off him.

"Woah, you good?" said Peter.

"Were you seriously about to drink that!?" James cried. "Do you remember what happened last time we drank suspicious butterbeer? We ended up all being drugged and captured by Death Eaters. I'll ask the bartender."

He grabbed all four of the glasses and took them up to the bar before Peter could say anything else to him, so he instead complained to Sirius and I.

"God, I'm sure they just did a sloppy job at making them," said Peter, rolling his eyes. "He doesn't need to go and complain about it."

"He's not complaining," said Sirius, spinning his cigarette around his fingers, causing the smoke to circulate around the table, "he's just trying to make sure we don't get drugged."

"We're not going to get drugged," said Peter.

"Probably not, but better safe than sorry," I said, and Peter just shrugged. God, he could be annoying sometimes.

James came back a couple of minutes later, holding four new butterbeers that looked like normal butterbeers.

"What did he say?" I asked as he sat down and handed us all a glass each.

"He apologised and said that he was glad I'd said something because what he'd given us was a potion that his wife had made, and he'd forgotten his glasses today and accidentally given us the potion and realised it was wrong after the waiter had taken it down to us," said James, taking a sip.

"Um, what?" said Sirius. "What sort of potion was it?"

"Nothing harmful, thankfully, but it was a potion that would change our voice to be really squeaky and high-pitched," said James. "But it got me thinking, what if we were to make that potion and slip it in all the teachers' morning coffees, then they'd all have squeaky voices while they taught us."

"It's a good idea, but we're all shit at Potion making," I said.

"I could try talking to Lily about helping me make it after class on Monday," said Sirius. "We have it in our last period."

"Yes, then give it to the teachers on Tuesday morning!" James cried.

"Marauders pranks at its finest," I said proudly.

The last period on Monday was a spare for James, Peter, and I, and while James and Peter went to the Quidditch pitch so James could teach Peter the basics of Quidditch to try and help him get into the team next year, I spent the time in the common room, punching through an Arithmancy essay I'd been assigned in the class I'd had that afternoon. It was better to just get it out of the way, in my opinion.

"Hey, Remus! Have you got a spare period as well?" said Marlene, who came running over to me.

"Yeah," I said.

"Cool," she said. "What classes are you doing this year, again?"

"All of them except Potions, History of Magic, Divination, Muggle Studies, and Care of Magical Creatures," I said. "How about you?"

"Everything except Transfiguration, Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Divination," said Marlene.

"Nice," I said. "What are you thinking of doing next year?"

"Dorcas and I are going to join the Order," she said. "We thought, what's the point of getting a job if there's a war to fight? I don't know about you, but I'd rather die in battle than... I dunno... just have my family get attacked or something and all of us die in our own house."

"Yeah, that's a good point," I said. "My friends and I... we all have our different careers we want to do, but we'll probably all come to the Order as well. I dunno, we haven't spoken about it."

"Yeah, well you still have two years," said Marlene. "But if you join the Order, you'll have us and we'll have you."