"I think that we can officially say that this has been a great day" Sirius announced as the Marauders were lying on sofas by the fire later that evening "Those enchanted water guns and chasing nets in dungeon hide and seek were inspired"
"You're welcome" James grinned proudly "I don't mean to brag but stupid ideas are kind of my speciality"
Peter shifted onto his side uncomfortably in his still damp shirt "I didn't really like the idea when I was surrounded" he muttered.
"Yeah but like I said, Wormy, if you're going to be terrible at dungeon hide and seek, you deserve to be soaked!" Sirius pointed out as Peter moaned.
"I'm pretty sure you guys are talking right now but I can't hear a word of it" Remus shouted, banging the side of his head "I think getting sprayed in the ear was pretty bad"
Sirius and Peter watched in amusement as James and Remus took turns bashing him in the head until he could actually hear again.
"It's times like this when I seriously appreciate you guys" Sirius chuckled "There's nobody out there as stupid as you"
"I don't know if that's offensive or not, but thanks Pads, I think you're stupid too" Remus smiled lazily as he rubbed his head and flopped back down onto the sofa.
"I get what you mean" James said thoughtfully "You've just been all round amazing pranking buddies, shoulders to cry on, and you've been there every time Lily's turned me down"
"And that was a lot of times" Sirius pointed out, narrowly avoiding the pillow James chucked at his head.
"Do you think we'll know each other when we're, like, thirty?" Remus asked, trying to picture a balding Sirius and James with an actually serious job.
"Of course we will, what's going to stop us" James said certainly "And if we're not so help me I'm going to track you all down and force you to be friends with me"
"Because that's not sad at all" Sirius coughed "When I'm ultra rich Prongs I can't have you cramping my style"
"Pfft, I'd be the only thing close to style you'd have, although I do picture you with a pretty kick ass beard" James laughed as Sirius pulled remus' head to his chin so he could pretend to have a beard.
"Yes! I'm set on a beard now" Sirius resolved "Imagine hair as luscious as this in three hundred and sixty degrees!"
"I do feel seriously sorry for your kids..." Remus muttered, raising his eyebrows.
"I resent that!" Sirius looked offended "Imagine how many girls mini Sirius will get with all of my dating tips"
"Oh yes, the famed 'Sirius dating advice' which got James a girlfriend in the short time of six years!" Remus pointed out, laughing at Sirius' offended face.
"I put that entirely down to him being a complete bumbling idiot" he argued, looking over to James.
"I mean, I have no argument for this, remember when I was getting desperate and told her she had the prettiest knees I'd ever seen?" He squirmed at the memory.
"Oh I think he all do" Remus chuckled at the thought "I will never forget the look on Lily's face as she backed away like you were a psychopath.
"Yeah actually I think you'd be a pretty dangerous dad, you'd have him riding a broom and training him to be a chaser before he could walk" Peter pointed out.
"I think you'll find I shall be the best dad ever" James said heroically, putting his hand on his chest.
"And then I'll swoop in as the best Godfather ever and we'll prank you constantly, I'll essentially turn him into my apprentice. I mean, I'd like to see these two nitwits live up to that. No offense Mooners but I will be a superior Godfather"
"Well I don't want you as a Godfather to my son then either!" Remus argued "James will be better then you anyway" James stuck his tongue out at Sirius who went in a sulk.
"Not feeling left out or anything" Peter muttered.
"Ok then Wormy, if we're turning into girls for a bit and having this conversation you're involved too, what are you going to do? Remus still needs to be a godfather"
"Uh… well… I don't really kn… I could always… I just… I don't think anyone would ever want to marry me. I'll just be a loner, I'm sure I'll find something to dedicate my life to instead" Peter stuttered.
"Don't be silly, Wormers, there'll be some girl will the low enough standards, you'll see" Sirius laughed, playfully throwing a pillow at him.
"Yeah, haha" He scorned turning over on the chair.
"Guess who?" James shielded Lily's eyes with his hands as she sat doing work in the library.
"Well, considering the last ten times this has happened it's been James, it's only obvious who it is. Hi Sirius" Lily laughed, pulling him round to face her by the hand "What brings you to the place you avoid like the plague?"
"Ok first of all, offensive, I'll have you know I came in here in, like, second year to drop a water bomb on Moony" James ignored the Lily's exasperated sigh "Secondly, I've come to take you on, what may be, the best date of your entire life"
"I seriously doubt you can beat my Madam Puddifoot's experience of fifth year" Lily half laughed half grimaced.
"I'll try my best" He grinned, taking her by the hand and pulling her away as she rushed to shove her stuff into her bag under the table. After swerving through the corridors and up stairs whilst James refused to say anything, they finally arrived in the Gryffindor common room.
"Oh wow James! It's Beautiful!" Lily remarked, putting her hands on her cheeks and staring open mouthed at everything sarcastically.
"Ok, ok, give me a minute" James pushed her back and peered around the common room making sure everyone was in the Great Hall eating "I need you to slide that sofa to the right"
"Ah, feng-shui, my favourite date activity" Lily laughed, shoving the sofa across whilst James pushed a painting aside and peeled a key off the wall behind it.
"The outcome will be brilliant I swear" He reassured, swinging open a small door "Go on"
"Haha, brilliant joke, let's go have lunch" Lily turned to leave before James whirled her back around, looking at her with pleading eyes.
"It involves annoying Sirius!"
"I'm on it" Lily's eyes lit up until James picked up a sack of water bombs from behind another sofa "Ok this isn't what I signed up for"
"Somebody should have read the fine print" James grinned, pecking her on the cheek before jumping through the door.
"Oh yeah there it is, 'My boyfriend will act like a six year old', how did I not know?" She retorted, tugging at her jumper before hesitantly crawling into the tunnel "Where on earth are we anyway?"
"Have you ever wondered how the house elves move around the school without us seeing?"
"Apparating?"
"Because that's not dangerous at all with food, no, welcome to the elf tunnels" James called over his shoulder, attempting to wave his arm around to show the wonder.
"I'd ask what on earth we're doing in the elf tunnels but I want to plan escape routes first" Lily scooched around a dropped slice of pizza.
"Well, I'd say you'll find out soon but I may have slightly misjudged how far away the Great Hall is so you need to bare with me" Lily had to crawl with nothing but James' terrible jokes to keep her occupied until they finally came to an opening that looked out over the great hall.
"Now" James was alive at in anticipation "Here we'll be using the key Marauder philosophy of random acts of stupidity"
"I'm amazed by the detail that goes into this kind of thing" Lily laughed as James filled her arms with balloons "Although this does totally explain every time I've thought you're in with the ghosts whenever I've been hit in the head with something"
"Pfft, I doubt that was us" James awkwardly excused, emptying the rest of the balloons onto the floor in front of him.
"Of course, it must have been the other James Potter chucking parchment with marriage proposals at my head" She remarked, raising her eyebrows.
"Ok, let's move on from 'accusing James' and get onto the humiliation. I'm thinking start off slowly to really confuse them, then hit them with the balloon storm" Without waiting for a reply James was levitating a balloon to directly above where Kara, Sasha, Peter, Remus, and Sirius were sat at the end of the Gryffindor table. After releasing it he ducked down, peering over the edge to see Sirius squealing at his wet hair.
"Oh no, his hair!" Lily giggled, releasing two of hers directly onto Remus and Sasha.
"Quick, quick quick" James rushed as people started rushing away from the table. They speedily sent the rest of the balloons over the edge, no longer hitting the gang but luckily managed to pelt a Bellatrix and Regulus as they shuffled out of the hall confused.
Collapsing onto the floor laughing, James grabbed Lily's hand and turned to face her "Better then Puddifoot's?"
"Better than Puddifoot's" She beamed in agreement, starting to lean in when a house elf appeared on the landing.
"Students!" She gasped, running in the other direction.
Face going back into serious mode James yanked Lily up "Ready for a speed crawl?"
Out of breath and panting, James and Lily practically fell into the kitchen ready for a burger feast to find Kara, Sasha, Sirius, Remus, and Peter sat cross armed with damp hair at the table.
"Been running?" Sirius glared, brushing a wet tendril of hair from his face for effect.
"Oh my Goodness. What has occurred here? I had no idea..." James couldn't stop himself from bursting out laughing "You're faces!"
"Prongs. Most people know me as a very level headed person" Even Remus snorted before returning to his poker face. "But turning on your own kind. That's low"
"We feel there's a certain degree of separation between you two and the rest of us" Kara said matter of factly, standing up and folding her arms.
"You know I thought that two, I just couldn't put my finger on why" Lily faked deep though, raising up her hand holding James' "Nope no idea"
"A prime example of how cocky you're getting" Remus pointed out.
"I'm scared about where this is going" James started to back away slowly, tugging Lily after him.
"Nothing to be worried about!" Sasha grinned mischieviously "No surPIEses here!"
Kara tugged Sasha towards her "We agreed on not using the terrible pun" She muttered as Sasha stood there looking extremely pleased with herself.
"I'm sorry if I sTARTled you" Sasha couldn't help chuckling at her own terrible pun "OK OK, just release the baked goods!"
Suddenly they were all armed with various pastries, grinning at James and Lily before they charged out of the kitchen screaming.
They ended up lying on the floor of the common room covered in apple and blackberry pie, strawberry jam tarts, lemon curd tarts, flans, and pasties.
"I mean it makes up for missing dinner" James looked on the brightside, shoving a tart he'd rescued into his mouth "I'll never be against food related attacks"
"I beg to differ" Lily argued, picking out a lump of apple from her hair and flicking it at Kara "Remind me never to go on a bloody prank fest with you again"
"Welcome back for the second term of this year" Dumbledore's voice boomed through the Great Hall "I hope you all had wonderful holidays, and you could all rest up for a new term of hard work. Now I know that a lot of things have happened during the Christmas break, and I'm going to be truthful to you as I know you're responsible enough and you have the right to know it."
"It's about the death eaters, isn't it?" Sasha asked the group and Lily nodded, frowning.
"You may have heard that it is too dangerous to go anywhere, and I can see that a lot of students haven't returned from the break. But I can assure you that Hogwarts is as safe as it gets, as long as you're here then no harm can come of you, unless it's brought on by yourself" Dumbledore glanced over at the Marauders as he said the next part "As long as you're putting yourself at risk there's no way that we can help you"
"He really knows everything, doesn't he?" Sirius murmured.
"I cannot stress enough to you how important it is to stay within school grounds, as every day dark magic attempts to infiltrate the castle. For that reason all Quidditch events are cancelled" The whole hall erupted in protests "I'm sorry, but there's nothing else I can do. Thank you" And he sat down.
"Great. That's all of my enjoyment gone" Sirius sighed "What else can I look forward to now?"
"There's always next year…" Remus attempted to make the situation.
"Yeah, well it's clearly only going to be worse next year, isn't it! We could all be dead!" He growled.
No-one knew what to say because it was true.
Authors note:
Hey look – it's not midnight! I'm going to have to say I've written this one a lot quicker because I've been trying to avoid the outdoors, and no-one can argue when you say you're writing because I've refused to tell anyone what I'm actually writing about. IT'S TOO HOT OVER HERE! The sun is making everything so uncomfortable, I've been sat in about fifty different positions until I finally just gave up and came to a hammock in the garden where I'm sat now. Sorry for bringing out my hatred for Peter again but I solely believe he's a git that was always prepared to betray them. Sorry, I tried, but I just hate him.
Cheer up this heat filled day with some comments - pleeaaaseee