The Beginning of the Marauders

So September came and passed, of that first year at Hogwarts for James, Arabella, Sirius and Lily. Before anyone knew it October had happened upon the grounds causing a frost to set in during the early morning hours and the leaves to fall from the many trees making a blanket of yellow, orange and red across the expansive lands that surrounded the castle. Mary Alice made the Quidditch team much to her excitement and James was almost as excited by the news as she was, although rather put out by the fact that she seemed to spend almost every minute outside of classes and meals at Quidditch practice.

Sturgis had made the team too, much to the annoyance of several upperclassmen who were absolutely beside themselves that the only open positions on the team had been given to two third years. In fact the first time James actually had a chance to sit down and talk to his sister was a week into October, nearly three and a half weeks after the Gryffindor Team's tryouts. James and Sirius were walking down the staircase from their room, their heads together.

The two had decided they really needed to give this Snape character something to whine about; so far their efforts had been unsuccessful. "Well we don't want to do just any old thing" Sirius said emphatically, "Its need to be something that will really make people stop and take a look. We don't want that greasy little git to just have a little blush about it, we need full on humiliation! We need to give people something to talk about!" James grinned mischievously, "Right you are Black! That is why we are going to talk to Mary Alice; she's a right genius when it comes to these things."

Sirius gulped nervously, "Er…your s-sister Mary Alice?" James turned back at him incredulously, "No, one of the other Mary Alice's running around Hogwarts, since there are so many. Come on quit being a tosser and hurry up." Sirius found himself with little choice but to follow James down the stairs, all he could do was secretly hope that Mary Alice was still busy at Quidditch practice.

As luck would have it Mary Alice was sitting in the middle of the common room surrounded by Sturgis, Emmeline and Alice. "Blimey, Fabian is a right dictator when it comes to Quidditch" muttered Sturgis as he massaged his sore calves. Mary Alice looked up at him and nodded, "So true. I always thought he was such a nice bloke too, I mean I've known him since I was in my nappy. Apparently he's gotten some sort of complex now that he has been made captain." Emmeline and Alice laughed. "Well I can't imagine he's that bad," Alice hypothesized.

"Oh shut up" Emmeline said, "You're only saying that because you think he's cute." Alice blushed but didn't deny it, "So what if I do?" Mary Alice rolled her eyes, "Dear lord Alice you think everyone is cute. Honestly that's probably the third boy I have heard you comment on in the last hour. You would date anyone. I mean you would probably even date that prefect Frank Longbottom who graduated last year. You know that shy, bookworm with the thick glasses?" Alice pursed her lips, "Give me a little credit! I'm not desperate you know."

"Could have fooled me," Emmeline said under her breath. "I heard that" snapped Alice. "Would you three shut up" complained Sturgis, "I have three and a half feet to write on Vampires, and I haven't even begun to think about my potions essay. Besides hate to break your heart Al, but Frank is dating that Ravenclaw in seventh year Alice Foster or something."

"Well at least you two have the same name" teased Mary Alice. Sturgis looked scathingly at her. "Sorry, sorry," Mary Alice cried good naturedly as she helped up her hands in mock defense. Sturgis managed to get absolutely no work done though because the next thing the four friends knew; two first year boys were bounding across the common room yelling Mary Alice' name at the top of their lungs.

Make that one first year boy, as the other was following silently, his eyes slightly downcast. As he was slightly embarrassed of the crush he had developed on his room mate's pretty older sister. James skidded to a halt in front of his sister and her friends, "Oi Mary Alice what are you doing?" Mary Alice smirked at her brother, "Having tea with the Queen James. What do you mean what am I doing? Obviously I am doing homework." "Well there is no need to be snippy," replied James frowning.

"Sorry James, I'm just completely exhausted from Quidditch. Prewett is a real slave driver if you know what I mean and I have a ridiculous amount of homework that is due tomorrow," sighed Mary Alice. James plopped down in a chair; Sirius followed his example and sat down silently on the floor next to him.

"So what's Prewett's problem? Is he trying to prove to the whole school that he is the most insane Quidditch captain to ever be in Hogwarts? I mean you have had four hour practices every day for the last four weeks!" Sturgis snorted back a laugh at James's comments, before adding "Yeah he's on about something. I don't know if he is just trying to weed out the weak ones or what but I am on my last thread I think." Mary Alice looked at Sturgis in horror, "W-what do you mean? Are you going to quit the team Sturgis?" Sturgis shrugged.

Emmeline looked up from her essay skeptically, "Well I think you could learn something from where Sturgis has his priorities Mary Alice. You seem to forget that school should come before Quidditch!" Mary Alice, James and Sirius all looked at Emmeline in horror. "Is she kidding?" whispered Sirius to James urgently. James just shook his head in disbelief. "No she is completely serious," Mary Alice whispered to the boys, "I don't know why I am friends with her sometimes." Emmeline narrowed her eyes at Mary Alice as Sirius declared loudly, "No I am!"

Everyone stopped laughing and starred at Sirius like he had lost his mind, aside from James none of them had actually heard him speak before. "Uh you're what?" Alice finally asked clearly confused. Sirius looked at Alice like she was insane, "I'm Sirius! Mary Alice just said that she was serious but she is wrong I am." No one said anything; rather they just exchanged confused glances. A small laugh came from behind James. Sirius and James whipped around to see who it was.

The pale, blonde haired boy in their room who spent most of his time reading was sitting on a couch behind them laughing. "That's funny you know," he said to Sirius. Sirius seemed to swell with pride at the fact that someone had understood his not terribly funny joke. James grinned at the boy, "I wouldn't go feeding his ego. I've only known him a few weeks but he already seems to have more then enough to go around."

Again the blonde haired laughed. Sirius and James couldn't help but be drawn to the boy. He had such a contagious laugh and warm smile. "Sorry I don't think I ever got your name" James said, feeling slightly guilty that he had been in the same room as this boy for over a month and couldn't recall what his name was. The boy waved his hand in an effort to dismiss James's worries, "its Remus, Remus Lupin."

Sirius stared at Remus with a frown trying to work out if he had ever heard the surname Lupin before. He certainly couldn't recall it, if he had. Judging by the shabby, patched jumpers that Remus usually wore whenever he was out of his school robes it didn't really take to much detective work on Sirius' part to figure out that Lupin didn't really come from the same social set as he and James did. Something else that would not doubt infuriate his parent's if they ever spent enough time trying to figure out who else was in the Gryffindor house. Unsure of what he thought about that he decided to reserve judgment for the time being and relish in the fact that this strange boy seemed to get his bad jokes.

Abandoning his conversation with Mary Alice and her friends James focused all his attention on Remus and the short, chubby boy he recognized as Peter Pettigrew also from their room, who was sitting next to Remus. Still feeling slightly guilty for going this long with out introducing himself to someone that he was bound to share his room with for the next six plus years he tried to think of something to talk about, unfortunately he was rather unsuccessful.

Peter looked up from the notes he was engrossed in and became aware of the fact that James Potter was observing him and Remus with an almost quizzical expression on his face. Up to this point Peter had only said hello to James in passing, but now it seemed as though James was looking for conversation. Leaning back into the couch he was sitting on he happily abandoned his notes, "So James," he began. James inwardly sighed with thanks at someone else taking the lead in the conversation that didn't seem to be going anywhere.

"Your sister is on the house team right?" Peter continued. Excited by the mention of Quidditch James stood up a little straighter with a silly grin on his face which caused Sirius to laugh at his predictable friend. "Well look now you have him all excited," Sirius joked, "Mention Quidditch and he won't talk about anything else for the next hour." James shot Sirius a look of slight contempt; it was only slight because he knew it was true. Remus chuckled under his breath.

"So do you know how to fly to then?" Peter asked James hopefully. "Of course I do. I've been flying since I was seven, don't tell me Mum though. I wasn't supposed to start until I was at least nine, but Mary Alice got her first broom then and she would always let me use it when Mum wasn't around," James recalled. Peter nodded, "So odd question, do you think you could show me how to do it then. I've never done it before and I didn't really fly all that well in our lessons last month."

Remus and Sirius both nodded and grinned rather wickedly as they recalled Peter freefalling a good twenty feet to the ground after slipping off the end of his runaway broom, or the broom he had claimed to have been rouge while the flying Professor had been loudly chastising him before the class. But James wasn't even thinking of such things, as he had the expression of a boy who had just found out that Christmas was coming early that year upon his face. "Why Peter old boy," he cried, suddenly deciding that he liked this vertically challenged, rather round eleven year old quite a bit more then he had about five minutes prior, "Of course I will help you!"

Sirius shook his head at James but was smiling as well, "Listen Pettigrew we will all help you, well I don't know if Lupin here can fly but I now I sure can." Remus eyed Sirius was amusement, not one to bite at the obvious challenge the dark haired Black boy was laying before him, but not one to completely reject the notion of possible friendship either he pondered how to respond. "I might come along it's been awhile since I've been on a broom," he finally answered as if it made no difference to him one way or another.

Sirius smiled content with the response. James was looking around the room excitedly, "See here Peter lets go right now, all of us." Peter raised his eyebrows and looked at James with confusion. "Er James it's nearly nine o'clock, past curfew were not supposed to be out of the common room." James and Sirius exchanged a look and looked back at Peter, "Well it's only against the rules if you get caught you know," Sirius said with annoyance.

Peter glanced at Sirius with a look that clearly said he was out of his mind, but not being one to argue he shrugged. James and Sirius, followed shortly by Peter turned and made their way towards the portrait hole. "Coming Lupin?" Sirius enquired to Remus with a smirk as he observed the boy who was still sitting on the couch. Remus rolled his eyes as he saw Peter look at him pleadingly. He wasn't going to be getting any homework done tonight.

The rest of the events that transpired that night were never really recalled in complete detail by any of the four boys. Whenever they told the story in the year's that followed it always was told differently. Whoever was telling the story would get interrupted by one of the other three, who would say, "What? No, that isn't how it went at all. Were you even there? How can you forget our first adventure, despicable, unthinkable! You should be banned from any adventure we ever have again for poor display of friendship and the memories which it involves!"

Well to be far it was usually James or Sirius who would say that , as Peter and Remus were usually the ones who were delegating into telling the tale which there was no way they would ever tell correctly.

But yet whoever was telling the story and whoever disagreed, they would always agree on the main details of what happened, although how each occurred was widely disputed. Somehow the four boys had managed to steal away down to the Quidditch pitch, break into the broom shed, "borrow" four of the school's brooms and spend a good hour zooming around the pitch. Peter had a horrible time and never really did learn how to successfully pilot a broom. The poor boy never could really fly, he choose to stick to floo powder as a method of transportation for many year's to come.

When they were returning the brooms to the shed, Sirius managed to knock over a huge pile of old brooms sitting in a corner of the shed it had made a huge racket and had attracted the attention of Miss Norris, the horrid caretaker Argus Filch's cat. It was the four's first encounter with the notorious man, but by no means the last.

They had made a break back to castle and wound up hiding in the girl's bathroom on the fourth floor. Unfortunately once they realized they had found solace in of all places a girl's washroom they had found the entire episode so comical they had all broken into hysterical laughter and were subsequently apprehended by Professor McGonagall. This is also part of the story which there is much disagreement on, Sirius claimed for year's afterward that they were caught because McGonagall had saw Peter run into the girl's bathroom, well after the other three, due to his significantly heavier load, which he referred to as his wide load behind.

Peter would always say that it had been Sirius's constant crashes and bangs that had alerted the deputy head mistress of students out of bed. This explanation would always then be followed by Peter adding snippily, "Maybe I am a bit chubby Sirius, after all Mum says I haven't lost my baby fat yet. But I would give you a run for your money in grace any day; after all you can't even run in a straight bloody line." Remus would simply shake his head and say that it was his own fault for letting the other three lead him out that night and into a life of trickery, deceit and all around trouble. James would always just laugh.

The end of story however leaves little room for individual interpretation. The three boy's were lead into McGonagall's office where she criticized all of them quite loudly for the better part of a half an hour, before sending them on their way with detention, another first but clearly not last for the infamous foursome, and the Gryffindor house awoke the next morning finding themselves mysteriously minus forty points which had been there the day before.

Thus began the reign of the Marauder's, of course they didn't call themselves that yet. But for all general purposes it had begun.

Authors Note- This is a revised version of this chapter. Thanks to emuroo for letting me know about the errors!