A/N: This chapter was originally written on Monday but I could not post it until today. I apologise. Also, I'm really not sure if I can finish this by my deadline (Monday 25th February.) I'm going to try my best. This chapter takes us to the end of march/beginning of april. The school year finishes June/July time. So basically, that's 3 and a bit months to write. In one week (remember I wrote this on Monday). Sigh. Here's to trying, eh.

-CONVERSATION OF THE DAY-

ME: Hi Marlene!

MARLENE: Hello!

ME: How are you today?

MARLENE: I'm great and you?

ME: I'm fine. So, how are you feeling about the first year Quidditch match?

MARLENE: A little bit nervous.

ME: You'll be fine. Great even!

MARLENE: I don't know…

ME: You will be. I promise. You still have around 3 months to prepare.

MARLENE: I suppose.

ME: You see? I'm right. I'm always right.

MARLENE: Okay…

ME: Well you better be going… some… plans need to be made.

MARLENE: Okay… bye.

ME: Bye!

*Marlene disappears*

ME: Well people of the world (or fan fiction world) here is the 30th chapter. I never would have thought there would be that many chapters! I expected there to be only about 15-17. Who would have thought, huh? Not me. Anyway, ON WITH THE STORY!

30

It was now 27th of March. A week had passed since they had received the news of the first year Quidditch match from Madam Egg. They had managed to get one practice in that week (The proper Quidditch teams from all 4 houses had to use the Quidditch pitch. Meaning, there was little time when the Quidditch pitch wasn't being used.)

Moving on from Quidditch, today was March the 27th.

Which meant…

'IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!' James shouted.

'We know!' Remus, Peter and Sirius groaned.

James had reminded them of that fact 375 times (if Sirius's calculations were correct) since this morning.

It was now lunch.

'IT'S MY-'

'WE KNOW!' Sirius, Remus and Peter yelled.

'Good.' James said simply and poured himself a drink of pumpkin juice.

'Hey guys.' Gracie came over and sat down next to Remus.

'Hey Gracie. IT'S MY-'

'I know. Which is why I came over,' Gracie admitted. 'The party's about to start.'

James, who had just taken a gulp of his pumpkin juice, spat it all out onto Sirius after he heard this.

Gracie was the first to start laughing.

In the end she died from laughing.

R.I.P.

Joke.

'Ha- your- ha- ha- fa- ha- face- ha!' she stuttered out between laughter.

Every one began to laugh along with her.

The only person who didn't seem to be laughing was…

Sirius.

'What the bloody hell was that for?' he shrieked (James had taken quite a big gulp of pumpkin juice).

'Opps.' James smiled weakly.

'You'll dry off.' Gracie said, waving her hand dismissively.

'I'm- I'm- drenched!' Sirius protested.

'You'll dry off,' she repeated. 'Or just get changed later. The party's in your dorm anyway.'

Gracie stood up and began walking away.

'Are you coming or not then?' She called over her shoulder when she didn't see them following her.

They scrambled up from the benches and hurried to catch up with her.

'What did you say about a party again?' James asked her excitedly as they climbed up the marble staircase.

Gracie rolled her eyes.

'Don't you roll your eyes at me.' James sassed jokingly.

'I think I'm rubbing off on you.' Gracie mumbled.

'So?' James whined.

'So what?' Gracie said.

'Why are we having a party in the middle of the day?' James asked.

'Because Evans found out and demanded us to have it at lunch because it's a school night.' Sirius grumbled.

'You knew about this?' James asked surprised.

'Of course,' Sirius grinned. 'It was my idea in the first place.'

'Yes, it was your idea Sirius.' Remus said.

'I know. And what a great idea it was.' Sirius beamed as they passed the Charms classroom.

'I thought it was-' Peter frowned.

'No- shut up Peter.' Sirius whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

'Anyway, so we're basically just going to skip next lesson-'

'Hey, hey, hey. Wait one second. Did I hear that right? This is the first I've heard of that idea Gracie Prewett.' Remus said sternly.

'Live a little Remus. It's one lesson.' Sirius replied.

'Yeah one lesson that Professor McGonagall teaches.' Remus muttered to himself.

No one seemed to hear him.

And if they did, they didn't show it.

'So, as I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted,' Gracie threw a glare. 'We miss next lesson. We'll make some excuse up… I don't know… Peter's pet pig died or something-'

'Pig?' Peter echoed.

The 4 of them exchanged glances.

'Yes Peter. Your pet pig. Harry Plotter or something… (A/N: If any of you have seen the Simpson's movie. You should totally understand this. If you haven't seen the movie, GO WATCH IT NOW! 'Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does; can he swing from a web? No he can't, he's a pig, look out, here's a Spider pig!'...

'He's not spider pig anymore Marge! He's Harry Plotter!' *Cue pig with glasses and a lightening scar*)

'Hey that's offensive!' James announced unhappily.

'I know. Look we're here now. Be quiet.' Gracie hissed.

They stopped in front of the portrait of the fat lady.

'IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!' He told the portrait. Then as an after though, he muttered to himself, 'People shouldn't be allowed to be mean to someone on their birthday.'

'Squirrel Nutty.' Remus said the password firmly.

'James is nutty…' Gracie mused.

'Hey!'

'What are you all doing here? Lessons are about to start.'

As if on cue, the bell signally the end of lunch and the start of next lesson rang.

'Well, you see,' Gracie face suddenly turned sad, so they copied her. 'Peter's just received the news that his pet pig, Harry Plotter just died. He just wanted to send a letter to his mum about it. We came with him for support.'

For added affect, James stood on Peter's toes.

Hard.

Peter managed to keep his mouth closed, but his eyes began to water.

The effect James wanted.

The Fat Lady looked sympathetic as she saw Peter's face.

'I'm so sorry dear,' she said softly. 'Of course you can go in. be quickly though.'

She swung open and they climbed through.

'Ow James.' Peter rubbed his foot as the portrait swung behind them.

'Sorry Peter. It needed to be done though.' He admitted.

'Well that was easier than expect.' Gracie clapped.

Remus shook his head.

'I can't believe she brought that.'

Sirius shrugged and began leading the way to the boy's dormitory.

They reached the room and the door was pushed open.

Banners, ribbons, balloons and other decorations hung all around the room. It coated the walls, best posts and the floor. Glitter and sparkles seemed to be thrown everywhere, presents were piled in a corner and there was a table full of drinks and snacks. The thing that stood out though, was the huge cake. It was a massive, massive, massive snitch shaped cake. It, if James had to guess, was about 10,000 times bigger than a real snitch. It even had wings that fluttered.

'Awesome!'

James opened all of his presents. To his delight, his mother and father had sent him some new Quidditch gear and also, a new broom. Along with the money, prank items, sweets, chocolate and many other things he received from friends and family, James was proud of his 'haul' this year.

'I can't believe your parents got you this!' Sirius held the broom and stared at in awe. 'The Slytherin's will never be able to beat us now!'

Sirius seemed happy for him, but James could also see a hint of sadness and jealously in Sirius's eyes.

Sirius's parents would probably never get him a new broom like this.

Gracie seemed to see this as well, as she hastily changed the topic.

'So guys, Easter's coming up-'

'Oh! Chocolate!' Peter said.

'Mm. Chocolate.' Remus said dreamily. 'What? I like chocolate.' He said to their questioning glances.

'Okay…' Gracie said slowly. 'Easter's great and all, but that's not what I wanted to talk about…'

'What then?' James questioned.

'Oh you've probably never heard of it… it's just a day of course… April the 1st…' she said.

'April the 1st! April fool's day!'

'And Mr Peter Pettigrew's got it in one!' Gracie cheered.

'April fools! How could I- we forget?' Sirius asked.

'I don't know! Oh, April fool's! How I love that day. Whoever evented this day is my hero!' James beamed.

'It is a good holiday.' Remus agreed.

'But this means… we need a prank.' Sirius decided.

'I reckon we go for something simple. We have to at short notice.' James admitted.

He received nods in agreement.

'Smoke and goo. That's pretty simple and basic.' Sirius suggested.

'We could get everyone to sing at random times.'

'Nice idea Remus.' James nodded.

'Who are we going to target?' Peter asked.

'Slytherins.' Remus said without a moment hesitation.

'Or the whole school?' Sirius added.

'Slytherins.' Peter said.

'I must agree.' James admitted.

'Do we say anything?' Sirius said.

'What do you mean?' Remus demanded.

'Do we say that it was us?'

'NO!' Remus said loudly. He cleared his throat. 'No, because we would be stuck in detention for the rest of our lives, or worst expelled. Plus, no one would probably believe us anyway.'

'Yeah, we're just first years.' Sirius shrugged.

'Well if we're going to do more pranks after this one, we can sort of build-up mystery and reputation. Then when we're a bit older, we reveal it had been us all along.' James said.

'I think that's a good idea. You've been staying a bit quiet Gracie. What do you think?' Remus mentioned.

Gracie looked up startled from where she had been picking her nails.

'Hmm?'

'What do you think?'

'Oh erm-,' she began awkwardly.

She shuffled uncomfortably.

'That's great and all. Brilliant really. But, I think I should leave the pranking to you 4.'

'What?' Sirius asked astounded.

'It's just that I think it's best.'

'So you're just scared?' James asked seriously.

'NO!' Gracie looked horrified at the idea of her being scared of pranking. 'I'm not saying I don't want to be involved. Of course I'll help and give you 4 ideas. You know you can come to me and ask for almost anything and I'll get it for you. I'll help you set up and all. I do want to be part of the pranking and everything. It's just hard to explain. It doesn't feel right for me to be completely involved in this. I'll just be involved in half or most of it. If that makes sense?'

'Not really.' James answered, still trying to digest this information.

Gracie sighed.

'Let's just leave it as this, I'll help you with the pranks, set them up, get you the things you need and all that stuff, but when you 'reveal' who's behind the pranks, just don't include me.'

The 4 of them blinked at her.

'So, I'll get you the singing potion, goo and smoke stuff by April fool's day. I'll split the cost between 5. Each of us can pay a bit.' Gracie said quietly.

They nodded, still a little shocked and hurt by what Gracie had said before.

'It's hard to explain. I'm not ditching you all I swear. I'll I don't know, tell you more in the future or something. I don't know. It's hard to explain and I'm confusing myself. Let's just leave it at that. Does anyone want some cake?'

(A/N: So… Gracie's not 'joined' the group, which sadly means, that as I said in my Author's Note at the start of the very first chapter, she will NOT be a Marauder. As Gracie said, this was very hard and confusing for me to explain. More may revealed in the future. No promises!*

'Alright.' James stood up and made his way over to the large cake.

The rest of them stood up and stood behind him as he picked up a sharp knife.

He pressed the knife down on to the cake, to cut it when-

BOOM!

The cake exploded and it burst all over James.

He turned around fake glaring to see Sirius, Remus and Peter also covered in cake.

'Well, Sirius,' Gracie beamed as she crawled out from underneath Remus's bed, cake on her. 'You asked me to make something explode and I did.'

'I didn't mean the cake though!' Sirius protested.

Then in one swift motion, he grabbed a lump of cake off him and threw it at Gracie.

It landed smack in her face

She wipped it off her face to reveal her narrowed eyes.

'It's on Sirius Black!' she screamed.

As fast as lightening, she dodged them all and grabbed a pie and smacked it in Sirius's face.

He spluttered as it some of it landed in his mouth.

James was watching this all happen amused.

That was until he noticed Gracie had picked up a can of whipped cream from the snack table and was aiming it at his face.

She squirted it.

'Gracie Prewett!' James fumed and picked up some custard.

He hit Peter instead.

Remus not wanting to be left out, smashed some trifle in his face.

They stared at him stupidly.

'What? I wasn't going to be left out, was I?' he shrugged.

And so, James Potter's birthday food fight carried on.

Sirius and Gracie decided to have a sword fight 10 minutes later (the floor was now covered in food and drinks).

They rescued the wings off the snitch cake and took one each, battling it out.

They smashed the wings against each other as if in a sword fight (this was quite hard to do, the wings kept fluttering and didn't seem to want to stop).

They decided to stop when Sirius fell on the floor and Gracie landed on top of him.

Awkward.

Both stood up blushing and ditched the wings.

'What are you laughing at James Potter?' Gracie smirked and threw something unrecognisable at him.

In the end, they missed next lesson after that.

And maybe the one after that.