After much arguing, that is, debate, here is chapter two! I hope you enjoy; please review!
Chapter Two: The Five W's of Pranking. Section One: The Who
Transfiguration was never about the class to the Marauders. Although Peter struggled to keep up, the other three breezed though it, earning perfect marks on just about everything. Of course, it didn't hurt that in studying to become animagi, they had learned a good portion of highly advanced magic that, of course, no one in their year could possibly accomplish. After that, anything else in Transfiguration was really no big deal, even Remus who hadn't actually done it. He had read up on the theory, but Remus was bright enough already, even with his monthly trips to the hospital wing.
So instead of paying attention, the four passed notes back and forth, trying to come up with a good subject for the second chapter of their book.
What about examples of pranks?
James scrawled the note in his big, messy handwriting and prodded the parchment with his wand. The parchment folded itself up into a paper crane (what James liked to think was his own personal touch) and fluttered onto Sirius's desk. Sirius opened the note, wrote a reply, and sent it back. Instead of folding up like a crane like James's, it only folded up into a little square and flapped over to James's desk.
Nah, too many to list.
That's why they'd be examples
One of our commandments is never to pull the same prank twice, remember? What if the next generation steals our ideas?
Well, do you have any better ideas?
Sirius looked up to scowl at James, who only smirked confidently.
"Potter, Black!" interrupted McGonagall, snapping them to attention.
"Yes Professor?" asked James innocently. He ruffled up his hair, which seemed to work on teachers as well as girls. He also threw in an innocent grin for good measure.
McGonagall pursed her lips. "Could you, perhaps, enlighten the class to the proper incantation for changing one's facial features? And Mr. Black, if you would please demonstrate."
"Certainly, Professor." James recited the spell flawlessly, and Sirius preformed it, lengthening his nose and face until he resembled Snape. He also lengthened his hair with a different spell. The class noticed this and nearly everyone laughed. Peter was gasping for breath and looked about to wet himself, but Lily just scowled and faced the front of the room, eyes fixed on McGonagall.
"Very well," said McGonagall. "There will be a quiz on this, so I expect your full attention." McGonagall returned to her lecture on proper self-transformation etiquette and James returned to smirking at Sirius.
We've been over this, Prongs. You have to at least look like you're paying attention.
Remus's note stopped at James's desk and he stopped smirking long enough to read the small, neat handwriting and reply.
Well if you're so smart, Moony, do you have any ideas for chapter two?
Remus replied to this by keeping his focus on McGonagall, appearing as though pondering her words and taking notes on them. Then he turned his wand sideways from where it lie on the desk and gently prodded the note. It folded itself up very small, fluttered to the floor and crawled over to James. Then it floated upwards and sat on James's desk. Remus continued to listen to McGonagall, still taking down a note every so often. She noticed this and nodded at him approvingly. Scowling at this uncharacteristic showing-off behavior of Remus's, James opened the note.
As a matter of fact, I do. The basic principles of pranking – the five W's. The who, what, why, when, where, and how if you want.
James shrugged and mouthed 'I guess' at Remus. Then he sent the note over to Sirius, who gave it a thumbs-up. Sirius sent it to Peter who grinned and nodded enthusiastically. He tried to send a note of his approval back to James, but when he poked the parchment, instead of folding up, it burst into flames.
Peter fell backwards in his chair, causing snickers from those who turned to look. They noticed the fire and moved away from it all at once. One of the girls shrieked and tripped over an abandoned chair.
"Really now, you'd think this was a class of Muggles," said McGonagall as Lily strode forward and deftly put out the flames. "Very good, Miss Evans," she added. "Pettigrew, detention. Stay after class so we can arrange it. You need to think about what you're doing." She paused to resettle her spectacles, then addressed the class. "Settle down, everyone back to your seats. We still have a few more pages to cover before we're finished."
Faced with an empty block of time before lunch and no homework they actually desired to do, the Marauders (minus Peter, who was still with McGonagall) took up residence in an abandoned corner of the library to work on chapter two.
"So this is what the library looks like," commented James as he looked around. "Funny, I always thought it was on the next floor."
"That's because you always have your head in the clouds and your arse on a broomstick," Sirius pointed out.
Remus's mouth, however, had fallen open in shock. "You've been here nearly six years, and you've never been to the library?" He paused to reconsider. "No, actually, that doesn't surprise me. You just copy off of me."
James just shrugged. "Why ruin a system that's proved itself perfectly faithful?"
Remus rolled his eyes. He was about to respond when a crash caught all of their attentions. They looked up to see Peter sprawled out on the floor, books piled around him. Madam Pince swooped down on him where he sat, shouting at him to be more careful. He had, apparently, not been paying attention to where he was going and hit a bookshelf, spilling books from Madam Pince's painfully organized shelves. Peter nodded at everything she said in between almost inaudible apologies while his bottom lip trembled.
"Irritating the librarian again, eh Wormtail?" James smirked at Peter as the latter fell into a seat across from the former.
"It's no joke!" protested Peter. "She's scary." He gave an involuntary shudder.
Sirius, ignoring Peter's librarian fears, tore the corner off of the corner of the top sheet of parchment. He balled it up, flicked it at James, and said, "Can we get to the point, please?"
"Good idea," said Remus unconsciously. He paused to consider this. "That's twice in the same week. What is the world coming to?" He grinned at Sirius, who returned it with a scowl.
"I have plenty of good ideas!" He frowned and thought about it for a second. "Whose idea was it to become animagi?"
There was a moment of silence.
"Mine," said James blankly.
"Oh." Sirius's face fell. "Well…What about filling the Charms room with sand?"
"Mine again," James said.
Sirius's forehead wrinkled up in thought. Determined to find something to claim, he tried desperately, "What about the last group Defense essay? Whose idea was the topic for that, huh? Huh?"
"Actually," said James thoughtfully, "that one was Peter. It was a very Twilight Zone kind of day."
This comment earned James two raised eyebrows and Peter's scrunched up forehead (he hadn't quite mastered the single raised brow). "Muggle television show," explained James. The looks persisted, although Peter managed to relax his face a little, so instead of the lines across his forehead, he instead had two raised eyebrows, giving the illusion he was startled. "My mum hired a muggle babysitter when I was little. I used to go over her house and we'd watched old reruns. It was pretty cool…Paranormal stuff like aliens were on there a lot."
After another moment's silence, Remus said pointedly, "Okay, so, chapter two. The basic principles. Which W should go first?"
"How about who?" suggested Peter. "Who to prank and who not to prank."
"Is there really anyone we don't prank?" asked Sirius. Generally, the school was pretty evenly victimized by the four. They did, of course, know where to draw the line with certain people. For instance, Professor Flitwick was perfectly content with a roomful of sand. He vanished it in about a second and even awarded the boys House Points for a well executed charm. The same stunt with, say, McGonagall, would have resulted in a week of detentions. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. James and Sirius especially viewed detentions as an opportunity to further their mischief. And of course, with Sirius's two way mirrors, even separate detentions could be fun.
"Well, why don't we just start with people we definitely prank?" The other three nodded at Remus's suggestion, so Remus dipped his quill into the ink pot, pulled the pad of parchment toward him and wrote on the top sheet in large block letters, 'Chapter Two: The Basic Principles. Section One: The Who.' Underneath that, he wrote a Roman numeral one and the word 'prankable'.
"Slytherins," said James at once. "Especially Snivellus. And his descendents. Of course, he would have to get married first. Or at least find a girl who'd put up with his grease." James pulled a face as a thought came to him. "Oh, the mental images! I'm going to need therapy."
"You already needed therapy, Prongs," quipped Sirius. After a moment, he wrinkled up his nose, a thought of his own coming to him. "Ugh, now I have them! You'd better be paying for my therapy!"
"Not a chance. You brought it upon yourself. Karma said so."
"Karma can't say anything," said Remus, heading off the bickering match that was sure to follow. From experience he knew that the only person James bickered with more than Sirius was Lily. "Now, can we leave behind the images to get back to work?"
"Fine," relented Sirius. "But I'm scarred. Prongs better pay for my therapy."
"Fine, Padfoot," said Remus. He dipped the quill into the ink again and under what he'd written before, he wrote a regular one and 'Slytherins'.
"Don't forget Snivelly!" said James louder than he meant to, earning a very evil look from Madam Pince and a shiver from Peter. The other three rolled their eyes at him, but he just said, "She's scary." Remus wrote down the name (his given name, that was) and looked at the other three expectantly.
"Show-offy Ravenclaws," said Peter bitterly. This House had always been a source of resentment for Peter. He struggled through almost all of his classes (though he did, occasionally, have a peculiar knack for Herbology), and he hated the Ravenclaws that seemed to breeze through them with no trouble at all.
Remus nodded and complied, even though he was on the borderline of show-offy Ravenclaw himself. "Anything else?"
"Ooh, the firsties!" said Sirius. An evil sort of grin twisted his features and gave an odd glint in his eyes. "Gotta give them a proper welcoming."
"We were first years, too," Peter pointed out, and James gave an audible, "Really now?" Peter ignored him and continued, "And no one did that to us. Why should we do that to innocent first years we don't even know."
"No one pranked us because we're brilliant. We got to them first, anyway, remember?" said James. He grinned broadly, remembering all too well the occasion when Lily Evans had ended up in the lake during the first boat trip to the school. He and Sirius had been in her boat (James thought she was cute and persuaded Sirius to move near her). They had ganged up on her and shoved her in. She was fine, of course. Hagrid managed to fish her out and once they reached the castle, McGonagall administered a quick drying spell so she wouldn't catch a chill. James figured that was the reason she hated him so much, but from then on, no one had been able to prank them. Oh sure, the past class clowns had tried, but the four always managed to stay at least one step ahead, and they countered with something better. Peter and Remus were unprankable by association. Remus was no doubt bright enough to avoid them on his own, but Peter depended on being seen with the other three to get through the day alive.
"Okay, the first years," said Remus reluctantly. He should have put a stop to any first year pranking as he saw it, but out of loyalty to his friends, he kept his mouth shut. "Anything else?"
"I know!" spoke up Sirius again. "But I want to write."
James rolled his eyes. "No one can read your handwriting."
"Uh huh!" He accepted the quill and parchment Remus passed to him and wrote 'Prefects' and 'Head Boy and Girl'. "Except for you, Moony," added Sirius quickly when he saw the indignant look Remus gave him. "You're a marauder; you don't count."
Remus shrugged. "I let you get away with too much to be a proper prefect anyway."
"That's the spirit, Moony," said James. "And it's my turn to write." He took the quill from Sirius and wrote a Roman numeral two and 'Possible'. Under that, he listed 'Teachers', 'Hufflepuffs', 'Girls', 'Family', and 'Upperclassmen'. Then he wrote 'Untouchable'. There was, of course, only one thing to list under this heading, and James wrote it out: 'Fellow Marauders (except for revenge)'.
The four marauders smiled down at the pad of parchment. "Old Snivelly and his descendents--" Sirius and James shuddered involuntarily -- "will never know what hit them," said Peter viciously. "Serves them right." He swore violently.
"Woah, Wormtail," said Remus, eyebrows raised at him in mild surprise. "We don't like Snape, but I don't think that was necessary."
"Let him say what he wants. I'm quite capable of taking it," interrupted an oily voice. He glared at the four of them. His greasy hair hung limp over his shoulders and its dark color made his skin look especially pale. The bright lighting of the library was a sharp contrast to the dark circles under his eyes. "What was that, Pettigrew? Want to repeat that to my face?"
Peter squeaked, but got to his feet. He repeated himself bravely, but his voice trembled, ruining the effect. Snape strode forward and drew his wand. His robes billowed out around him, and he pointed his wand between Peter's eyes.
"You'll want to put that away," said James, getting to his feet and drawing his own wand.
"We wouldn't want to do something we'll regret," warned Sirius, on his feet as well.
Remus remained seated. As a perfect, he should have stopped it. He should have pulled James and Sirius away from Snape and prevented anything further from happening. However, his loyalty to his friends won out, and he did nothing except say, "Guys, he's not worth it."
"Get out of here, Snivelly." James moved around the table, his wand at Snape's throat. James could see Snape try to control a wince. "I don't want to have to jinx you."
"Can't say the same for myself though," said Sirius, moving next to James. "You don't want to mess with Peter here. Then you have to deal with all of us."
Madam Pince, who happened to be rounding the corner at that moment, shrieked when she saw them, wands all out and pointed threateningly at each other. "OUT OUT OUT!" she screeched. Snape took it as an opportunity to dash off. The marauders scrambled to gather their belongings, and Madam Pince waved them all out the door and didn't stop yelling until they were far down the corridor.
All panting and short of breath (except for James, who was only slightly pink in the face), they turned a corner. They waited until they were out of sight of the library before they all collapsed into laughter.
"That's what he gets," said Sirius with a broad grin. "Looks like he's experienced with angering the librarian too, huh Wormtail?"
Peter grinned as well. He opened his mouth to speak but had to wait several moments before he could say anything while he got his breathing back down to a normal pace. Finally, while his face was still red and beads of sweat clung to his forehead, he said, "Yeah."
James chuckled at Peter's reaction. "Did you guys see the look on her face when she came around that corner?"
Remus had to laugh as well. The look was a memorable one. "Priceless. But do you really have to start fights with him all the time?"
"Aw, Moony, lighten up," said Sirius. "We weren't really going to hurt him. Besides, he started it. We had to stick up for Wormtail!"
"I know, Padfoot. But you should just walk away." Remus knew he wasn't going to get through to them. He sighed, and then changed the subject. "So…Any ideas for chapter three?"
Erg, so there's chapter two! Hope you enjoyed! Please review, and feel free to drop off book suggestions or suggestions for the story itself. I will consider all suggestions, so if there's something you want to happen, let me know!
