The Lights are on but…

The sun had set more than half an hour ago and the room was now almost completely dark.

Remus was sitting on the sofa, his nose seemingly stuck in his book, the pages lit from the small battery operated book light. Settled beside him was Sirius, squinting at his own book, a manual about motorbike engines that Remus couldn't even begin to comprehend. But Remus wasn't reading his own book; instead he was smirking across the room at Peter and trying not to burst out laughing at the behaviour of the other two marauders.

First there was Sirius, determined to prove that he could still see to read despite the growing dark and the lack of magic to light up the room. He was overcoming the problem of the lack of light by inching closer and closer to Remus, hoping that the light from Remus's book light would be sufficient to illuminate his own pages.

And across the other side of the room there was James, who was trying a different tactic. James had at least picked up enough information in Muggle Studies to realise that lights were turned on by a switch…he just didn't seem to know which one. So James was now crawling around the edges of the room, in the dark, randomly flicking each and every switch he could find. He was now on his third circuit of the room and still hadn't realised that he had passed the light switch twice already.

"Prongs!" yelled Peter after James had turned the television set off for the third time.

"Sorry," James apologised. "I'm just…er…"

"What?" Peter asked, wondering if James was about to finally admit what it was he was trying to do.

James waved his hand airily and mumbled 'nothing' as he continued on his circuit.

Peter snickered and winked at Remus. Remus smirked back before turning the page of his book and moving the book light to the opposite side…the side that was furthest away from Sirius.

Sirius responded to this action by inching so close he was practically in Remus's lap, thus earning him a sharp elbow in the ribs for his efforts.

"Why don't you just put the light on?" Remus asked with a pointed nod towards the overhead light.

Sirius mumbled something unintelligible and shut his book. "Think I'll turn in for the night," he said as he made a huge production out of yawning and stretching.

"Good idea," James commented as he crawled out from under a table, banging his head in the process.

"But it's still early," Remus stated innocently, trying his hardest not to smirk.

"Been a long day," James lied as he produced an equally fake yawn of his own.

With that final comment James and Sirius stumbled through the dark room towards the staircase.

A few minutes later the sound of a crash came from upstairs, followed by loud swearing. Remus and Peter laughed out loud, unable to hold it back any longer.

"You want the light on?" Peter chuckled. Remus nodded his reply since he was laughing too hard to speak. Peter stood up and walked over to the doorway. A flick of the switch later and the room was bathed in light.

"You'd have thought they might have noticed the light switch when we turned them on yesterday," Remus commented with a bemused shake of his head.

"They'll be taking more notice in the future," Peter said as he sat back down and continued watching his programme.

"They're going to be really stubborn about asking for help."

"All the more amusing for us then, isn't it?"

Remus grinned back at Peter. He couldn't agree more.

The next morning Peter was reading the muggle newspaper and eating a bowl of cereal when James appeared in the kitchen.

"Where's Remus?" he asked as he looked around the room cautiously.

"Still in bed," replied Peter, as though this was a rather obvious question. Surely after living in the same dorm for six years, James might have noticed that Remus was not exactly a morning person.

"Good," James said with a grin as he sat down opposite Peter. "I wanted a talk with you about this bet."

Peter raised a blond eyebrow and waited for James to elaborate.

"You don't really want to spend the last day of our week at a museum, do you?" James's casual question was a little too casual and Peter could tell immediately just where James was going to be taking their conversation.

"Why not? I'm going away with my parents these holidays too, and we always end up somewhere with a beach. I'd like to do something different and Remus made the museum sound really exciting."

"Remus gets excited about homework," James pointed out with a snort.

"No, he doesn't," Peter sighed. "He just likes to get it out of the way as soon as possible so he can enjoy himself without worrying about it."

"Yeah, well…" James shot a nervous glance back towards the door. "I didn't come in here to talk about Remus. I came to ask for your help. You help me and Padfoot win this bet and I'll…er…"

"You'll what?" Peter asked suspiciously.

"Me and Padfoot will…" James's voice trailed off as he frantically tried to find inspiration.

"Do my Defence homework for the whole of September?" Peter suggested.

"Deal!" James quickly agreed. "So you'll help us out a bit, give us a few tips and point us in the right direction?"

Peter shrugged agreeably. "Okay."

"So how about you tell me where the light switch is, ready for tonight?" James asked.

"Turning on the muggle lights isn't even on the list," Peter pointed out. "If you'd have asked last night, we'd have told you where it was."

"And have Remus smirking at us like we're stupid?"

"We were both doing that anyway."

"Good point," James conceded. "So where is it?"

Peter pointed to the wall near the door. "Over there."

"Of course!" James exclaimed as he rolled his eyes at his own denseness. "Next to doorways so that you can turn them on as soon as you come into a room, right?"

Peter chuckled. "That would be the idea."

"You won't regret helping us out," James promised. "You'll get such high marks in Defence in September it'll boost your average for the whole year."

Peter smiled and turned back to his cereal. He felt a twinge of guilt at taking sides against Remus by helping James and Sirius to win the bet, but he pushed the feelings aside as James began chatting about the list.

"He's going to help us," James crowed to Sirius an hour later after the rather vain animagus had finally emerged from the bathroom.

"How'd you talk him into it?" Sirius asked as he tried to flatten his flyaway hair into something resembling its normal style. "And how can I get my hair to look like it's supposed to without using magic."

"You've been claiming for years that it falls the way it does, naturally," James pointed out with a smirk.

Sirius flushed at being caught out in the lie. "I might give it a little help with a spell or two," he muttered. "Just on days when it's really bad."

"Like every day of the week?" James suggested as he pointed to the hairbrush on the dresser.

"So how did you talk him round?" Sirius asked once the crisis concerning his hair had passed.

"Bribery," James replied. "This is Wormtail we're talking about. You just have to know what buttons to push."

"And what's it going to cost us?" Sirius asked in a suspicious tone of voice.

"Just a month of doing his Defence homework when we're back at Hogwarts."

"That's all?"

"Yep!"

"Wow, you got him cheap." Sirius grinned and chuckled. "We'll teach Remus that we can do without magic!"

"Too right!"

Outside the door, Peter was listening intently. He'd only followed James up the stairs to see if Remus was awake yet. He'd planned on offering to make breakfast for the sleepy werewolf as a small way of making up for his betrayal. He'd not really intended to eavesdrop on his friends.

Cheap, was he? Peter fumed as he listened to James and Sirius laughing at how easily he'd been won over to their side. "We'll see about that," he muttered as he headed back down the stairs, all thoughts of Remus forgotten.

The list of muggle activities was still on the table and Peter scowled at it. Sirius and James had marked the various items with the day that they intended to tackle them on and Peter saw that ordering takeout by telephone had been marked for that night.

"Well, let's see how they manage without my help," Peter mused as he crept into the living room. Carefully, and with as little noise as possible, Peter pushed the sideboard out from the wall to reveal the telephone socket. James and Sirius might have finally remembered what a telephone was. They might even have remembered how to operate it. But he very much doubted they'd have a clue what to do if he were to unplug the phone from the wall. After a final glance towards the door, Peter pulled the connection out of the socket and pushed the sideboard back into place.

Then he turned back to the list once more, wondering what else he could do to teach James and Sirius a lesson.

A/N: Well at first I didn't see this story being any longer than three or four parts. However the more I write, the longer I think it might get. It won't be epic like Once in a Blue Moon or anything but it might be longer than I initially planned. If anyone wanting the fic to continue for a while has any ideas on muggle tasks for the boys feel free to let me know and I will try to include them if I can and, of course, credit anyone whose idea gets used.