The summer holidays.

Those magic words hit the Marauders like a boxing glove as soon as they emerged from Platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross Station. Awaiting them were Mr. and Mrs. Potter. James ran over to them, followed by Peter, Remus and Sirius.

Mrs. Potter embraced James and then turned to the other three and greeted them too.

"You're all looking fabulous!" she said. "Come on, let's get home and give you something to eat!"

--

Back at the Potter household, the four friends tucked into an enormous feast prepared by Mrs. Potter while she and Mr. Potter asked the four about how their year had gone. James was careful not to mention Lily until he found out more about her feelings for him.

When their bellies were full to the brim, they got up, hauled themselves up the stairs and collapsed on the beds that had been set up in James's bedroom.

All was quiet that night, the Marauders were too tired to even set of a Dungbomb. The silence only broke when Remus rolled over under his blanket and whispered,

"What shall we do tomorrow?"

"I've got the ultimate plan…" Sirius said. "You'll hear it tomorrow."

--

"Happy birthday, Remus!"

A shower of sparks filled the room with flashing lights. Remus opened one bleary eye to see James, Sirius and Peter standing in the doorway, along with Mr. and Mrs. Potter. James was supporting an enormous pile of presents, Sirius was carrying a breakfast tray and Peter was grasping a bundle of balloons, which he released into the room to float around the ceiling.

Feeling enormously satisfied at being seventeen at last and being able to use magic before Sirius and Peter, neither of whom were seventeen yet, he grabbed his wand from the bedside table, waved it and said,

"Aguamenti."

A spurt of water hit Sirius full in the face – his long brown hair was suddenly dripping wet.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Remus said and as water droplets fell from his hair they rose like eagles and flew around the room in different formations.

"Show off," Sirius said, grinning as Mr. Potter dried his hair with a wand flick.

"Happy seventeenth, Moony!" James said, throwing the bundle of presents at him with a wave of his own wand. James had been seventeen since March and so was able to use magic outside school.

Remus stopped the presents in mid-air with his wand and then set them down beside his bed.

"Breakfast first," he said, waving his wand. The breakfast tray soared smoothly out of Peter's hands and landed on Remus's lap.

"See Remus," Sirius said to Mr. and Mrs. Potter. "He's got the grasp of it all already. Just the other day he turned my head orange and then transferred it to the top of a tree in the Forbidden Forest."

"Really?" asked Mrs. Potter interestedly.

"No," Sirius said, as the others roared with laughter. "Well, the orange bit's true…"

"No it's not Padfoot," Remus said, as he tucked into his scrambled eggs. "You know perfectly well it was Lucius Malfoy who did that to humiliate you when you were caught smuggling Doxy eggs into your bedside cabinet by the Gryffindor."

"No need to remind me, Moony," Sirius said.

"Forgive me, Padfoot," said Remus as he finished his breakfast. "Right, presents…"

The others sat down on James's bed, while Remus picked up the first parcel and unwrapped it.

Inside was a shining copper telescope with a ring of silver round its middle. Remus turned it over, fascinated, but that was a bad move. A hatch opened on the end of the contraption and out popped a big red boxing glove on a spring, which caught Remus in the face, causing him to topple backwards.

The others roared with laughter as Remus sat up, healed his black eye and then stared around with a mix of disbelief and amusement.

"Who's present was this?" he asked, trying not to burst out laughing.

"I was in a devilish mood when I spent my Galleons, Moony," James said, grinning from ear to ear. Beside him, Sirius gave him a high-five. "Nice one Prongs!"

Sirius had given Remus an enchanted bag of Dungbombs that instantly refilled when you used all the bombs inside.

Peter had given him a book entitled,

The Devilish Book of Spells (For Sneaks) that had superb descriptions of the best hexes and jinxes you could imagine. Remus thanked Peter by turning his head into a teapot and then swapping his arms with legs and vice versa. The very confused young wizard stumbled around the room, knocking his china head on the walls and spouting steam whenever he tried to say something.

--

After lunch, the four friends stepped outside into the bright morning sunshine. There were hardly any clouds in the sky and no wind to speak of.

They meandered along the street, finally stopping in an alleyway between two houses. Only then did Sirius make any reference to his plan.

"Wait for it…" he muttered, peering out of the alley opening while the others hid behind dustbins.

After about two minutes, a tall and handsome young lad of about their age could be spotted, walking up the street. Sirius turned to Remus – the most experienced spell caster of the four – and muttered something in his ear. Remus grinned, pointed his wand at Peter and muttered something.

At once Peter began to transform, but not into a rat. His hair turned a shining black and lengthened, his hips widened, his legs thinned…

After a matter of seconds, it was not Peter Pettigrew who stood before them, but a stunningly gorgeous girl with dark eyebrows and shining lips. Sirius grinned and pushed Peter towards the entrance to the alleyway, where the boy was still walking. Peter stepped out onto the road – the boy noticed 'her' and came over.

"Hey, good-looking!" he said, beaming.

"Hiya!" Peter said in the sweetest voice he could.

The boy's face lit up at Peter's attitude towards him.

"Oh, you're a delight!" he said. "You don't – er – have a boyfriend do you?"

"Er…no," said Peter, unsure about what was going to happen next.

"May I have the honour of being that special friend?" the boy asked, hopefully.

"Er…well…" Peter did not want to seem rude. "If you really want to, but…"

But Peter never got to finish his sentence. The boy strode forwards, wrapped his arms round Peter, pulled the poor Marauder as close to him as possible as though he was trying to squeeze the organs out and then clamped his mouth onto Peter's as though he was a Dementor.

The other three Marauders roared with laughter from behind the dustbins as Peter and the boy kissed fiercely, entwined as though they were one – or rather the boy kissed determinedly as though he was trying to eat Peter's face and Peter struggled, trying to get free but it seemed to the boy as though Peter was trying to embrace him even tighter. It lasted less than a minute, but it seemed to go on for months – for years…

When they finally broke apart, the boy let Peter go with a slap of the arse.

"See you later, my angel!"

He walked away, leaving Peter standing dumbfounded in the middle of the street. When he finally came to his senses, he staggered over to where the other three were crouched behind the dustbins. His features slowly turned back to normal as he reached them.

"Don't ever do that again!"

"Aww, c'mon it was hilarious!" Sirius said.

"You wouldn't have said that if you were me!" Peter said, indignantly. "He slapped me on the backside, for god's sake! And kissed me! And felt me up while he was kissing me, in some places more than others!"

Sirius guffawed.

"Well, sorry about that Wormtail, but you gotta admit it was a great prank!" Sirius said. "And old Moony managed the spell really well!"

Peter's face relaxed a little.

"OK, it was cool," he admitted. "But maybe ask first next time."

--

The summer holidays dragged on, with many interesting occurrences. Perhaps the most unforgettable was when Peter, as revenge for Sirius's idea to transform him into a snog-machine, persuaded Remus to cast a spell on Sirius and make him float around the town with nothing but boxer shorts on.

Remus pulled this off nicely with a fully charged Wingardium Leviosa spell, lying on the roof of the Potter's house where he had a good view of the town.

Sirius floated, bounced and twirled over the houses, while many confused Muggles watched from below, deciding that it was some undiscovered new form of technology.

Unfortunately, Sirius's boxer shorts were not done up very tightly, so when a gust of wind buffeted him, the result was not a pretty sight. It had done the trick though; Peter had got his revenge and was ecstatic about it.

--

The next day, the four friends had just left the house for some more Marauder fun, when they noticed the same boy that had snogged Peter walking up the road. They were just about to walk the other way down the road when they heard the boy talking. They turned round and stared.

From round the corner at the other end of the street strode a girl. But it was not any girl. She looked exactly like Peter had done when he had been transformed, as though time had gone backwards. There was not a single difference between them.

"I – I thought – I didn't know there was a resident that looked like that!" Sirius whispered. "The image just came into my mind…but now I think about it, I think…yes, I must've seen her in the street when we arrived!"

"Haha, nice one Padfoot!" Remus said, as the boy went over to the girl.

"Hey kitten, how's it going?" the boy asked and before the girl could do anything he had grasped her tightly and kissed her just as fiercely as he had done Peter. One hand began working down her spine towards her backside. The girl ferociously tore herself from the boy's grasp, stepped backwards and slapped him hard around the face.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU CREEP!" she screamed at him. She fled, leaving the boy totally stupefied.

"Oops," said Sirius. "Ah well, let's get out of here!"

--

Sirius's birthday arrived a couple of weeks before the start of term and Peter's came soon after that. Both celebrated by casting spells on Remus and James, giving them antlers and elephant's ears respectively in Sirius's case, or in the case of Peter, casting his spell wrong and giving himself fairy wings and a hippo's snout, much to the amusement of the other three.

The following day, the four celebrated the start of their new spell-casting life by playing tricks on each other all day long, sometimes with local residents involved.

They saw no more of the boy or the pretty girl, but they did manage to get one girl totally obsessed with Sirius and the two of them ended up snogging in an alleyway for minutes on end, while Remus and James took it in turns to transform Peter's nose into those of various animals, as revenge for the trick he played on them which caused them to become temporarily homosexual, which was a great achievement for Peter of all people.

--

Finally, the last week of the summer approached. Their letters arrived from Hogwarts with all of the details. James's letter was slightly heavier than the others.

Curiously, he turned it upside down and out slid two badges. He picked up the first one – it was a shining gold with a scarlet pattern upon and the words 'Gryffindor Quidditch Captain' engraved on it in dark blue letters.

"Yes!" James punched the air as he showed the badge to his friends. They cheered and clapped him on the back, as James laid the badge on his bedside table.

His attention then turned to the second badge. He picked it up, took a glance at it and then did a double take. Engraved on the smooth shiny surface were two dark blue words…