A/N: Sorry for the long wait for an update... but I'm not even really convinced that many people are even following this story... Reviews would help me be sure of that, mind.

Chapter 4:

The Wheezing Marauders

"I think you ought to talk to Sirius," suggested John.

"I speak to him quite regularly," said Ben.

"Git," said John. "You know what I mean."

"Really?" asked Ben. Actually, he was pretty sure he did know what John meant, but the more he stalled like this, the more he could put off actually doing it.

"About Tiffany," said John.

Ben groaned. That was exactly what he had seen coming. Tiffany was a girl who Sirius started dating at the end of the summer before their fifth year. Tiffany had asked him out when she had seen him in Diagon Ally a week before school. At the time of the present conversation, however, it was a Friday afternoon in late November. Tiffany had dumped Sirius that morning, and he had been rather stand-offish ever since.

"Maybe he just needs time to get her out of his system on his own. I mean, they dated for three months, and nobody likes getting dumped. Can't we just give him his space for awhile?" asked Ben, knowing the answer.

"We could if there was any way we could pull this prank off without him," said John.

"Or we could just not pull the prank," said Ben.

"Are you feeling all right?" asked John, with what sounded almost exactly like genuine concern in his voice. "We can never just not pull a prank. It's against our nature. Besides, the Slytherins are prats, and there's no way the Hufflepuffs are going to respond effectively."

The Hufflepuffs had a match against Slytherin the next morning, and, as was traditional, there had been increased rivalry between the two houses during the week leading up to the match. However, a couple of seventh years from Slytherin had pulled a particularly nasty prank which had landed the captain of the Hufflepuff team in the hospital wing, and it was questionable whether she would be well enough to play in the match the next day. There was no question that this foul play – a sin against Quidditch-- needed to be avenged.

"Well then why don't you talk to him?" asked Ben.

"You're better at all the 'talking about your feelings' stuff. I think it's because you've always been more girly than me," joked John.

"Oh, really wise. You're asking me for a favor and insulting me," said Ben.

"No, I'm asking you to be a good friend and talk to Sirius. And it's not really fair to him to hold my being a prat against him. You really are better at that sort of talk," claimed John.

"Fine, I'll talk to him. Meanwhile, you think up a really good prank," Ben advised.

"No problem. I think he's up in the dorm-room sulking," John said.

Ben made his way up the stairs from the common room to the fifth-year boys' dorm.

He opened the door and glanced over at Sirius' bed. The curtains were closed, but there were shadows on them suggesting that someone was inside.

"Oy, Sirius!" called Ben. "Why're you sitting alone?"

"I'm doing homework," contended Sirius.

"No you're not, it's a Friday afternoon. It's not even possible to do homework on a Friday afternoon," Ben pointed out.

"It is when O.W.L.s are coming up. Your Aunt Hermione has almost assigned more homework so far this year than we did all of last year!" complained Sirius, who had pulled back the curtains on his bed to reveal that his Transfiguration book was in fact sitting open on his lap.

"Point taken... But you could work on homework in the Common Room. You're up here because of Tiffany, aren't you?" asked Ben.

"Maybe," admitted Sirius.

"Fair enough," said Ben.

"Girls are gits," contended Sirius.

"Well... Not all of them. Tiffany, yes. But not all of them," said Ben, trying to be reassuring.

"I heard in Potions this afternoon, apparently she's been seeing Rogers behind my back for months," pointed out Sirius.

"Months?" asked Ben, surprised. "You were only going out with her for three months yourself."

"Yes, I've done the math," said Sirius. "Sounds like she started seeing him a few weeks after we started dating."

"Geez. She is a git, then" said Ben.

"Rogers, too. Of course, he's a Slytherin, so you can't expect much else. What kind of Gryffindor dates a Slytherin, anyway?" asked Sirius.

Ben stayed silent for a moment, deciding that the obvious answer of "Tiffany" would be inappropriate.

"Look, I'm sure you'll find a better girl in no time flat," pointed out Ben.

"You're just saying that. If I can't hold Tiffany's interest for more than a couple weeks, what kind of a girl am I going to be able to hold onto?" asked Sirius.

"One who's less fickle, for starters," suggested Ben.

Sirius laughed a bit in spite of himself. "Okay, point granted. But still. Rejection just sucks."

"Indeed it does," agreed Ben, who had already been turned down once that year. But he knew that Sirius, at least, was better off than he realized. Three days after Sirius and Tiffany had started dating, Kathy had confided in Ben that she had feelings for Sirius.

Ben's and Kathy's families had been having dinner together that night. Kathy's family had dinner with Ben's family once a month, provoked by Hermione's feeling bad that Percy's siblings hardly ever seemed to spend much time with him.

Anyway, at this particular dinner, Ben, who had a tendency of noticing such things, noticed that Kathy was less talkative than usual. So, after the meal, when Jake, Andrea, and Christine were having a conversation of their own, and the adults were having some wine, Ben went to seek out Kathy.

Her door was closed, but he decided to give knocking a try anyway.

"Who is it?" asked Kathy from inside.

"It's Ben. Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked. He purposefully tried to make it sound like it was him who needed to talk, instead of that he thought she needed some comforting. He figured that if she thought he was coming to comfort her, she might get defensive and claim she didn't need help. It'd be much less likely that she'd refuse to talk to him if she thought he needed help.

"Er, yeah. Hold on a sec," she said. A moment later, she came to the door, which she had apparently locked by the muggle method, being too young to practice magic out of school. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Ben had not really planned this far ahead, but quickly racked his head for a fake concern that could get them far enough into a conversation so that he'd be able to come up with a tactful way to turn the conversation around to her. "Er... I'm kind of worried about O.W.L.s coming up this year," he said, realizing as he said it that this wasn't exactly a lie.

"Hmm..." said Kathy, as she sat back down on her bed, patting a spot beside her to invite him to sit down as well. "Well, I must admit that I don't envy your position this year. I mean, so much of your future depends-- But I'm sure you've already thought of that, eh?"

"Yeah, that's kind of the problem," said Ben.

"What is it that you're thinking of doing, anyway?" she asked.

"I was hoping to be a curse-breaker, like my father," he said.

"Ew... that could be tough, then. You've got to pass Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes would look good on your application, too, besides the usual requirements like Transfiguration, potions, and D.A.D.A." she said.

"I know," he affirmed. He was actually starting to get more nervous about the prospect of O.W.L.s than he had been originally. "I mean, Sirius is taking Arithmancy, too, so we can always study together, but I'm the only one from Gryffindor in Ancient Runes..."

He had, however, noticed an odd expression flicker across Kathy's face when he said Sirius' name. This could be precisely the segue he was looking for.

"Hey, is something wrong?" he asked cautiously. "When I said 'Sirius,' you frowned really weird."

"Did I?" asked Kathy, but she wasn't able to pull off sounding surprised too well.

"Look, I noticed something was wrong at dinner, and now I know something's going on for sure. Don't lie to me... Come on, I've got to be one of your... top five favorite cousins!" he joked.

"Haha... I'll give you top five, I guess... But do I have to tell you what's bugging me?" she asked.

"I suppose not, but if not I think we ought to figure out how I'm going to pass all my O.W.L.s this year," he said.

Kathy sighed, "All right, well... I'm going to need some time to think about that, so I guess I'll tell you what's bothering me. I guess talking about it couldn't hurt, anyway. Just, you've got to promise never to tell anyone, without my getting my permission first."

"No problem," said Ben. "What are cousins for, if not keeping secrets?"

"I assumed they were for practicing Quidditch against," opined Kathy.

"Well... that too, of course," he agreed.

"All right, well, anyway... Speaking of Quidditch, do you remember that day at the beach-house a few weeks ago, when we played our first large-scale Quidditch match this summer?" she asked. There had been a couple more such Quiddtich games since then.

"Yeah," said Ben, not sure where exactly this was going.

"Well, that day, I kind of developed a crush on Sirius," she said quickly, starting to blush.

Ben nodded, trying to relieve her embarrassment. "I kind of figured that's what it was... Especially when you made me promise not to tell anyone."

"So, you don't think it's weird?" asked Kathy.

"Why would it be weird?" asked Ben.

"I don't know..." said Kathy hesitantly.

"I think you're just overly self-conscious," said Ben.

"Well, yeah, there's that, and now there's the fact that he's got a girlfriend now," she said.

"Well, that doesn't make it weird that you still like him, you can't help he's got a girlfriend. Besides, Tiffany's kind of flaky anyway. I bet this won't last for more than three weeks. Then we can figure out a way to get you and Sirius together," Ben promised.

"You really think he'd go out with me?" she asked.

"From what he's told me about this Tiffany girl, he only said yes to her in the first place because she asked him. Now he's convinced himself that he actually likes her, but I think it's just that he's really open to suggestion. He said yes to her in the first place not to hurt her feelings, and now he thinks he likes her because that's what he wants to believe," said Ben. While it was true that Sirius had shown no interest in Tiffany before she asked him out, the bits about him being really open to suggestion and whatnot were mostly improvised on the spot, to make Kathy feel better. For all Ben knew, they could be true, though.

"So... you're saying that he'd go out with me because he has no standards?" asked Kathy.

Ben rolled his eyes, "No, I'm just saying that he wouldn't turn you down out of hand... And then you'd have a chance to show him how great you really are."

"Thanks, Ben," smiled Kathy. "Now let's figure out how we're going to solve your O.W.L. problem."

From what Ben remembered, thinking back on the conversation while he was talking to Sirius in the dorm room three months later, they never did really figure out how he would pass all his O.W.L.'s. But the more relevant point now, he thought, was the fact that Sirius' recent break-up might just give the perfect opportunity for a new relationship to begin.

At any rate, it seemed that knowing that Kathy had feelings for him would at least cheer Sirius up. Ben briefly cursed the fact that he still had to check with Kathy before telling Sirius. He was sure that she still felt the same way, though, as had been confirmed by a couple of conversations between Kathy and Ben since the year started.

"Anyway..." said Sirius hesitantly. "I kind of think I might like someone else already. Is that bad?"

"Aside from the fact that it makes you almost as fickle as Tiffany, I guess not. Depending on who the person is, anyway. I think I'm going to have to screen your dating decisions ahead of time now, so you don't pick someone like Tiffany again," he joked.

Sirius laughed slightly. "I'm not sure you're going to like this decision too much, anyway. Although she's nothing like Tiffany," he said.

Ben hoped he was talking about Kathy. "Try me," he said.

"Well... I guess I'd've told you before acting on it anyway, so... I think I like Kathy," he said.

"Really?" asked Ben, in a voice which he immediately realized must've sounded oddly excited. But he was glad that it looked like things were about to work out for his best friend and his cousin.

"Yeah," said Sirius, who did in fact seem surprised by Ben's reaction. "You mean, it's not weird that I want to date your cousin?" he asked.

"No, you're confused," said Ben. "It'd be weird if you wanted to date your cousin."

"Right, but... I spend so much time around you lot, sometimes I almost feel like I'm related to you and John... Which would, by extension, make me related to Kathy. Besides, if we ended up breaking up, wouldn't that make things awkward, with you guys having to choose sides?" he asked.

"Well... I don't figure you two would have a particularly nasty break-up. You're both pretty mellow people. And, no offense, but you've got to have Weasley blood to be a Weasley, so you're really not practically her cousin," said Ben.

"Well, I mean, I knew that," said Sirius. "Still, I was sure you and John would never go for me asking your cousin out. That's part of why I agreed to go out with Tiffany. Figured she'd get my mind off Kathy."

"Wait, you liked her that long ago?" asked Ben, surprised.

"Yeah. Do you remember that day we played Quidditch at the beach-house, and there was a thunderstorm?" he asked.

"Really?" asked Ben. "I mean... I was there that day, and I didn't think there was anything between you."

Sirius looked puzzled. "You seem to have thought about this before, though... Wait!"

"Oh no," said Ben, who hadn't thought about what he was saying and had inadvertently given Kathy's feelings away.

"D'you mean to tell me that--" said Sirius.

"I didn't mean to tell you anything," said Ben. "And my lips are now officially closed for business on the topic. However. That Rogers troll who Tiffany was cheating on you with is the Keeper for the Slytherin Quidditch team, isn't he?"

Sirius seemed intrigued enough by where this line of questioning seemed to be going that he allowed himself to be distracted from the Kathy question for a moment. "Yeah, why?" he asked.

"Well... We kind of owe the Slytherin house a prank on behalf of Hufflepuff, and I can't think of any better way to kill to birds with one stone, here," said Ben.

"Excellent," said Sirius.

Pranking was pretty much the favorite past-time of Sirius, Ben, and John. In fact, it had been a particularly fantastic prank which had, in effect, acted as Ben's initiation into what Sirius, Ben, and John thought of as the "Wheezing Marauders," since they thought of themselves as the successors to both the Marauders and the creators of Weasley Wizards Wheezes.

It had been in their third year, when Charlie, who was a first year at the time, was being particularly harassed by Malfoy and his cronies, who were in the same year as Sirius, Ben, and John.

At the time, Ben didn't hang out nearly as much with Sirius and John as the two hung out with each other, but they were all still friends. However, after hearing what they'd heard about Ben's father, Percy, Sirius and John had not yet been quite sure that Ben was the type of person they wanted to be too close with. It seemed that his father had a tendency to turn on people unexpectedly, and they weren't sure if that trait could be carried through generations. At least, that was what Ben suspected the problem was. He had been looking for an opportunity to earn more trust from them.

Charlie, however, had run into Ben in an empty corridor, and he had been particularly upset by the nearly constant harassment he was earning from Malfoy. After glancing around the hall to make sure no one else was around, he said, "Ben, Malfoy and his friends are being bloody gits. And... In case you're curious, the password to the Slytherin common-room is 'Parsel-tongue basilisk.' And this," he reached into his book-bag and handed him a rolled up bit of parchment, "is the Marauders' Map. I suppose you've heard how to use it?"

Ben grinned widely, "Yeah, your Dad told me a story about it once. He actually gave this to you?"

"Yeah. He said it came in so useful when he was a kid, he thought I should have it. Anyway, you can borrow it if you promise to do something nasty to Malfoy and his friends."

"Will do. I'm sure John and Sirius will be up to the task, too," he said.

Charlie gave a small smile. "Thanks, Ben."

Ben was right to think that Sirius and John would be up for it. When he told them he knew the Slytherin password, their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

"We've got a mission, though," Ben cautioned.

"We'll do it, just so long as we get to prank some Slytherins. Actually, we've just found this spell we're dying to test out. And sleeping Slytherins would be the optimal test-group," said John excitedly.

"Malfoy and his friends have been giving Charlie a really hard time, and he wants us to try to make it stop," said Ben.

"Oh, if this spell works, I'm sure they'll do whatever they can to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Sirius.

"If you're in on this, you know you can kiss your chances of being a prefect good-bye if we're caught, right?" asked John.

"I never really wanted to be a prefect anyway," said Ben with a grin.

That night, at 1:00 in the morning, when the Marauders' Map showed them that the last Slytherin had gone to bed, Ben, Sirius, and John broke into the Slytherin commonroom, and from there made their way to Malfoy's dorm, where he and his two best friends were sleeping.

Each Ben, Sirius, and John chose one of their victims and cast a spell on them which would put them into a deeper sleep, so that neither of the next two spells they were going to perform would wake them up.

The next spell had the incantation "Hermaphrodito" and was a spell that, put quite simply, gave the three boys rather generous breasts. The next spell they performed was one that would prevent the previous spell from being reversed by Finite Incantatem.

"You know, if you two put this kind of effort into your classes, you'd get the highest marks in our year," said Ben.

"Yeah, but then Ms. Malfoy would still be flat-chested. And that would just be a pity," said John.

"Too true," agreed Sirius.

They then took all of the boys' outer clothes and hid them in the Great Hall so that they'd have no way to cover up before going down to Madame Pomfrey's office to get healed. Ben, Sirius, and John would make sure there'd be quite an audience to watch the scene, too.

Before leaving the room, the three had written a note to the now more lady-like boys that cautioned them to stop picking on people so much if they wanted to make sure nothing like this happened again.

The next morning, the audience that gathered in the Slytherin dungeons was quite amused to see Malfoy and his cronies emerge wearing only their underwear and bras that they had somehow managed to acquire from their housemates. But, much as John, Ben, and Sirius had hoped, the Slytherins were clearly cold enough even to their housemates that they were perfectly content for them to be publicly humiliated rather than lend them their own robes.

And, according to Charlie, Malfoy didn't pick on much of anybody for the rest of that year, and even his own fellow Slytherins mocked him and his friends mercilessly for the humiliation.

Ben, John, and Sirius reminisced about that prank as they made their way through the halls on that Friday night in November of their fifth year. They were obliged to do this without the aid of the Marauders' Map, since they knew Charlie wouldn't loan it to him so that they could sabotage his own Quidditch team.

This was understandable, but still rather annoying.

At any rate, Sirius was able to predict where Rogers might be, since he knew all of Tiffany's favorite make-out spots.

And luckily, a quick glance into the second classroom Sirius had suggested showed them that Rogers was in fact there.

They positioned themselves strategically in the corridor leading from the classroom to the Slytherin common-room, knowing that Rogers would be coming alone down this corridor.

"Should we hide, in case a prefect comes along?" whispered Ben, somewhat nervously.

John, who was the Gryffindor boys' fifth year prefect, waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. The two prefects patrolling tonight are both from Hufflepuff. They're angrier about this prank of the Slytherins' than we are. If we just tell them what we're up to, we've got nothing to worry about."

"Brilliant," opined Sirius.

The three remained quiet until they heard footsteps coming down the corridor.

As Rogers came around the corner, actually whistling, Sirius trained his wand on him.

"Drink this, or we hex you," said Ben, offering him a small bottle with the letters Weasleys' Wizards' Wheezes logo on it.

"It's not going to hurt me, is it?" asked Rogers, nervously, trying to determine whether he'd be better off with the hex.

"Nah, it's just a potion that will make it so that you can't squeal on us for what we're about to do," said John, honestly. The potion was a product from Weasley Wizard's Wheezes, supplied to John, Ben, and Sirius by Fred's sons Phil and Andrew, who basically acted as Fred and George's pushers within the school.

"Oh, yeah, I've heard of that," said Rogers, who still drank the potion rather nervously. "What are you going to do to me?" he asked.

"Just going to politely remove you from the game tomorrow, like your lot tried to do to the poor Hufflepuff Captain. Although, I heard she's better already, so you being out could cost your side the game. Mind you, that's not really our problem," said John conversationally as Rogers was led at wand-point to the Room of Requirement.

Ben paced around in front of the room to get it to have what he needed, and when it opened, there was a chair equipped with magical chains.

"Have a seat, then," encouraged Sirius.

Rogers did so, knowing he had no other options.

"Well, have a good time, then," said John, mockingly. "You'll find you're able to get out of the chair once the Quidditch match is over."

"Hopefully this will encourage your House to play fair in the future," said Ben.

"And hopefully it'll encourage you not to snog other people's girlfriends," added Sirius. "Oh, one more thing." He took out a bottle of itching powder and sprinkled some on Rogers. This was Weasleys' itching powder, so it wouldn't come off without water, which Rogers would have no access to in the room.

"So," said Ben, moments later, as they were making their way back from the Room of Requirement to Gryffindor Tower, "D you really reckon that Hufflepuff has got a shot now?"

"Not with Charlie as Slytherin's Seeker, no," said John.

"Quidditch would be so much easier if he were in Gryffindor," agreed Sirius.

A/N: All right, kind of an odd way to end a chapter, but... It's a pretty long chapter at least. Hopefully you enjoyed it, and if you did, I certainly encourage you to review. Next chapter, I believe, ought to have Sirius as the main character... And I think we'll have another one with Charlie coming up after that. Oh... also... if you like parodies, I just put up the first chapter of a new one about the Marauders and Lily. Feel free to take a look.