The Grave Mistake of James Arsehole Potter
James Potterwas laying slouched on the comfortable, red couch in the Common Room when an idea struck him. A smile crept on his face as he started to imagine how this idea was going to work out.
'Oi Prongs, what are you up to?' a black haired boy asked him as he got up to retrieve his old cloak and the map from the boys dorms. James gave Sirius a mysterious look and shook his head before barging off, leaving his best friend clueless and frowning. If James remembered correctly, there should still be some polyjuice potion hidden in a cauldron, in the last stall from the boys bathroom on the third floor, where he and his friends had left it a few days ago after they had taken it for a prank that had gone terribly wrong. Both Sirius and James had gotten detention for the next few weeks after McGonagall had discovered they had changed themselves into Slytherins and were trying to get as many housepoints as possible taken from them. Peter - who had transformed into a sticky fourth year - had changed back just in time, but had still gotten some points taken for being at the scene, even though McGonagall didn't had the evidence that he had joined the prank. Him being friends with James and Sirius - or the Terrible Two as they were known among most teachers - was enough for her to punish him as well. Remus Lupin on the other hand - who under no circumstances would change himself into something - or rather someone - else, saying that he already did that enough for his own liking - got an enormous speech from McGonagall. She had hoped that he would keep the two of them under control - for as far as he could - and seemed to be very disappointed with him, this resulting in a number of arguments between the four friends. All by all, the prank hadn't worked out as they had planned - and had cost them more points then they had try to take from the Slytherins - and James now thought it was time to take it upon himself to prepare a proper prank.
He was still bearing a grudge for Remus, since he had betrayed him - at least in James' eyes - and he hoped to slap some sense into the boy with his prank, so he would stop being such a boring goody boy. The prefect badge was already bad enough, he certainly had not expected Remus to act like a prefect as well, but so he had done and the worst thing was that Sirius seemed to tone down with his pranks. The pranks Sirius came up with were less reckless, but that might have something to do with the mistake Sirius had made last year by putting both Remus and Severus in danger. The stupid git. He had almost ruined the Marauders and if it hadn't been for James, Remus would probably never have talked to the black haired boy.
James managed to sneak past Sirius without getting noticed - who was talking animatedly to Peter - and since Remus had to do prefect things - with Evans, the lucky bastard - he was able to get out of the Common Room and into the hall without any trouble whatsoever. Since it was already past nine and he wasn't allowed to be out anymore, he put on his invisibility cloak and unfolded the old piece of parchment.
'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,' he muttered and a detailed map of Hogwarts appeared in front of him. An excited feeling welled up in James' stomach. This is what he loved most about the pranks; the excitement of sneaking around and doing things they were absolutely not supposed to do and of course the laughing. He loved to laugh and especially when he had Sirius to laugh with. Sirius Black who was practically his brother. They even lived together, since Sirius' parents had disinherited Sirius in cold blood after a fight that had occurred at Grimmauld Place and Sirius had ran away. This time for good. James had been glad Sirius had gotten out of that place, it was getting his best mate down and he hated that he hadn't been able to do anything about it. Besides, he had been living with Sirius most of the past six years, so it didn't really make any different, except that their bond had grown even stronger, even though that seemed impossible.
As James had expected the cauldron with the left overs of polyjuice potion was still there. They hadn't had time to snatch it after they had been caught since they had spent most of their time in class, detention and Quidditch practice and since this toilet was broken and no one seemed to want to fix it, no other students had come in here. That was - of course - why they had used this stall to put the potion in, because they wouldn't be able to get into the Gryffindor Common Room after they had changed into Slytherins.
The thing making him decide on doing his prank had been one of Remus' hairs on James' robes. The idea came to him as he wanted to get rid of the hair which absolutely didn't belong to him or to Sirius, but since he and Remus had gotten into a "fight" - more James trying to wrestle with Remus and Remus telling him to stop acting like a toddler - earlier, it could only be his. With a malicious grin, James dropped the hair in the potion and watched it turn a shade of sand brown. It looked far better than the potion had looked when they had transformed into Slytherins, but it still looked disgusting. James let out a deep sigh and closed his nose before gulping down the disgusting potion. He shivered and staggered out of the empty stall. He was lucky it was after curfew so no one could possibly be out here - unless they were Marauders or wished to get into trouble. James took the sink between his fingers, but as he looked up into the mirror it was the face of Remus Lupin that stared back at him. Though of course he had known what he was doing, it still came as a right shock to him and het examined his face a bit closer in the mirror.
'So this is what it feels like to be Moony,' he said and he turned around looking at himself from all sides. An unRemus grin appeared on his face and he took the cloak he had thrown off from out of the stall and checked the map to see if the everything was clear. Very satisfied with how far he had come, he walked back to the Gryffindor Common Room. He pulled off the cloak and stepped into the room after having muttered the password to the Fat Lady. He almost ran into Lily Evans and when she didn't look at him in disgust - his heart almost jumped out of his chest - he realized he wasn't any longer the Quidditch player and trouble maker she so much disliked.
'Reem? Are you back already?' she asked and James nodded, trying to give himself a Remus like stance. His shoulders a bit slumped and his long fingers curled around the map and cloak in his hand.
'What do you have there?' Before Lily could snatch the map out of his hand, James got past her. For once in his life he was the one walking away from Evans and not the other way around, but as much as he wanted to stay - since it was a whole improvement that she didn't sneer at him and he rather enjoyed it, even though he wasn't himself - he had to go and pull the prank on his friends before he would change back.
'Later, Evans,' he said and he had to keep himself from winking, leaving a flustered Lily Evans behind. He hoped he hadn't asked too strange for Remus' doing, but as she got back to her homework, he supposed it was fine. Peter and Sirius were no where to be found and James decided he would go up to the dorms to check if they were there, hoping that he wouldn't run in to the realRemus Lupin before he even had the change to make prefect Remus do something utterly stupid. He threw open the door and two grey eyes found him, but before he could act he was slammed agains the wall and two lips were pressed on his. James froze and could do nothing but stare as his best friend kissed him full on the mouth. For a moment he was sure Sirius had someone found out about his plan and had decided to prank him back in a very strange way. Well, this was Sirius Black, so things like this could be expected from him, but this might be going a bit too far, even for Sirius' standards. Before James could respond in any way, Sirius let him go and he was being pulled in a hug. He felt Sirius lips in his neck, but he still wasn't able to do anything. This had to be a prank. There was no reason why else Sirius would jump on him - or rather Remus - like this.
It wasn't until Sirius mumbled, 'gods, Moony, missed you so much,' that he realized this had absolutely nothing to do with a prank whatsoever. James pushed Sirius away and stared at him with open mouth. Sirius cocked his head and looked at him, puzzled.
'W-What are you doing?' James finally managed to say. Sirius was... queer?
'Err... I kissed you? You know... that's what boyfriends do,' he said, warily and he got a hand through his black hair. If possible, James jaw dropped even further as he stared at his best friends.
'YOU AND MOONY ARE TOGETHER?!' He saw the realization hit Sirius and they stared at each other, mouths hanging open and unable to say anything.
'Oh my... JAMES? W-What... Why are you...?' All the color drained from his face when he realized he had just kissed his best mate and to make it even worse, at that moment, the real Remus Lupin came barging in and looked absolutely startled when he saw himself standing against the wall - gaping - and Sirius standing in front of him - gaping as well.
And this was how James Potter found out about his two best friends being gay and having a secret relationship. Of course he totally accepted it - after the shock had worn off and Peter - who had stumbled in after - was able to calm down both Sirius and Remus - but from that day he had decided to never ever touch polyjuice potion ever again.