"I never thought I'd be so happy to be back on the Hogwarts Express!"

"Mate, you're always happy to be back on the Hogwarts Express."

"It's a figure of speech."

It seemed we'd had a very long summer, but school had arrived all too quickly. Luckily, we had not had a single odd incident since Sirius destroyed his door. Everything had been as normal as possible in our house.

Which is to say: not normal at all.

But we were going back to Hogwarts, to a year I had been slightly dreading for two reasons: the Battle of Hogsmeade and our OWLs. Of course, Padfoot had plans to, as he said, make it the best year ever.

"Okay, here's my idea," he told us when everyone arrived. "We're going to prank everyone single teacher in the school. And every student. One prank a day for the whole year!"

"No way, Sirius Black!" Lily exclaimed shrilly. "I am not letting you five do that!"

"Lily, Lily, don't worry," said Severus kindly. "I won't let them do it either-"

"Aw, Sev, you're no-"

"-not without my help, of course," completed Snape. Lily groaned and leaned her head against the seat in exasperation. "Who's the future potions master here? Certainly not any of you."

"We got Snape on board!" exclaimed Sirius gleefully, jumping up and putting his hands in the air, only to hit his fists on the ceiling of the compartment. He pulled them down immediately and started rubbing them. "Ow. That's never happened before."

"You're not the same height as you were last year," Remus pointed out.

Sirius then blinked, grinned, grabbed Lily by the shoulders, and stood her up. His grin widened. "YES! I'm finally taller than Evans!"

Lily rolled her eyes and sat back down next to me, and I put my arm over her shoulders. "Okay, Pads, please don't manhandle my girlfriend."

Sirius let out a barking laugh. "Sorry, Prongsie."

"Why do you want to do a prank a day this year?" asked Peter curiously.

"'Cause it's fun?" offered Regulus, floating upside down above us.

"Well, yeah," said Sirius. "But I figured, if I'm gonna die this year-"

"Sirius!"

"-then I want it to be the best year ever!" he continued, as if I hadn't spoken at all. "And I have a whole big to-do list as well, but there's no way James is going to let me do any of them."

"You're probably right," I agreed. "Just down blow up any more doors."

Sirius turned red, and everyone who wasn't there raised an eyebrow at him. "It was an accident!"

"Like the peanut butter exploding," added Regulus.

"Oh, shut it, both of you," he muttered.

"So," said Lily. "What did you all do all summer?"

"My family went on a vacation to France," said Remus cheerfully. "It was nice, and we got to go to the beach."

"I sat at home all summer listening to my sister go on and on about her Muggle friends," said Peter, pouting. "She's so boring. But Eric Atherton (from Hufflepuff, remember?) moved in across the street so we worked on our summer work together."

"Cool," I said. "Atherton's a nice guy."

"I invented a few spells over the summer," drawled Snape, pulling a notebook out of his robes. He handed it to me, and I smiled to recognise Levicorpus and Libracorpus.

"I remember these," I said. "Did Lily tell you or did you make them up on your own again?"

"On my own," said Snape.

"Wicked," I said.

"Looks like some things are meant to happen," chuckled Lily, and I handed Snape back his notebook. "Keep inventing spells, Sev. You could be an Unspeakable or something!"

"I'd like to be a Potions Master or even a teacher," mused Severus. "Of course, I'm not sure I could handle all those dunderhead first years."

"Put that in a speech at the beginning of the year," Remus suggested.

Severus chuckled and assumed a serious expression, flipping through his notebook for a second. "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

We all burst into laughter. Snape smiled wickedly.

"Oh," said Lily. "I forgot! I'm a prefect this year!"

"Me too," said Remus.

"Great job, you two," I congratulated.

"We have to go, though," said Remus, looking vaguely disappointed. "There's a prefect's meeting up front."

"You guys have fun," said Peter. "We'll get you some candy."

Lily smiled. "Thanks guys! Bye!"

The quickly left the compartment, leaving the five boys alone.

"So..." said Sirius awkwardly.

"Who wants to see pictures of Padfoot in a dress?" I offered cheerfully, pulling said pictures out of my jeans pocket and straightening them. The rest of the boys crowded around me to look.

Sirius turned very red. "I thought we agreed to keep that to ourselves!"

"You agreed," I grinned cheekily. "I agreed to nothing."

Sirius groaned.

"I feel bad for these ickle firsties," mused Sirius at the feast. "They have no idea what they're getting into."

"Sirius, no one at Hogwarts ever 'gets into' anything but us," I said. "The only weird things that happen have to do with us- the strangest thing last year was probably when you came back to school with white hair."

"True point," said Sirius after a moment. "At least they've finally quit bugging me about-"

"'Scuse me," said a first year, tugging at Sirius's sleeves. Sirius stared down at the boy. "Why's your hair all white?"

Sirius groaned and I laughed, but Regulus (shockingly) was the one to give the standard explanation: "Because he's a brave idiot."

"Literally standing on the line between stupidity and courage," I said. "Leaning slightly towards the stupidity side."

Sirius rolled his eyes, used to our jabs by now.

The first year seemed content with this answer and left to go tell his little friends what he'd just learned.

"When do we set off the fireworks?" asked Peter quietly.

"Soon as Dumbles gets up for his speech," said Sirius.

"No, no," said Regulus. "Right after the evil laugh! The lights go off when Dumbledore stands up!"

Remus, meanwhile, was busy fiddling with the controller to the projection thingamajig (he based it on some sort of Muggle technology; I have no idea). Severus had apparently anticipated a beginning-of-the-year prank, and had made a large supply of glow-in-the-dark potion that he'd had the house elves put in everyone's drinks. Sirius, Peter, and Regulus were in charge of fireworks, and I was in charge of plunging the entire hall into complete darkness and supplying pre-recorded sound effects (according to Sirius, I have an exceptional evil laugh).

But the most brilliant of all was that Lily was completely in the dark about it (no pun intended).

Soon, Dumbledore rose to his feet. "Good evening, students!"

Quickly, I cast the spell that put out every light in the Great Hall, leaving it in total darkness. Several students screamed, and a loud evil laugh echoed through the hall. That's when the fireworks went off and everybody lit up. Literally. It wasn't very bright, but everyone was glowing just enough. Remus hit another button on his controls.

Glowing words appeared above the staff table: "Welcome back, everyone! Get ready for the most exciting year yet, brought to you by your favourite pranksters: the Marauders!"

McGonagall gave us the worst death glare I think I've ever seen before, but that was nothing compared to the look on my dad's face (the man is a genius, by the way; he figured out how to bypass the curse on the DADA position). I couldn't tell if he was shocked or proud, but he was quite possibly a mix of both.

I stood and bowed, quickly followed by the Sirius, then Reg, then Snape, Peter, and Remus. Most of the hall burst into applause (even some Slytherins begrudgingly clapped since one of their own had helped). McGonagall opened her mouth. "MARA-"

"Excellent!" exclaimed Dumbledore, cutting her off and clapping his own hands. "Wonderful spell work and potion brewing, my boys! Ten points to each of you."

McGonagall's jaw dropped, and the applause from the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables got a bit louder. I grinned at Lily, who gave me an exasperated-but-amused look, before we all sat back down and let everything go back to normal. The Great Hall exploded with chatter once again.

"Okay," said Lily. "I'll admit. That one was pretty good."

"Just that one?" asked Sirius. "All of our pranks are super-duper fantabulous!"

Remus gave him a bemused look. "Super-duper fantabulous?"

Sirius reddened. "It sounded way better in my head."

"Go figure," snorted Regulus.

"So, Jamie," said Sirius, shoving great amounts of pork chop into his mouth. "What's the plan for this year? You know, besides all the pranking."

"I don't have a plan," I shrugged. "Was I supposed to?"

"Really?" asked Peter. "No elaborate plans? At all? No rushing off to save the world or sneaking out of the school or terrorizing Voldemort or anything like that?"

"Hey, I never planned any of those things!" I defended myself quickly.

"He's right," said Lily, and I smiled at her. "He rarely thinks anything through."

And that smile turned into a scowl.

"I do too!" I retorted. "I planned out the entire time travel thing!"

"How did that work out for you?" she quipped.

I pouted. "How was I supposed to anticipate all this crazy stuff happening? I thought everything would be relatively the same."

"Somehow you guys really messed things up," Regulus snickered.

"Things are just fine," said Lily. "Think of how boring it would have been otherwise!"

"True," I laughed. "Much less stressful, though. At least I wouldn't always be worried about some people getting themselves killed."

Sirius had the good grace to turn bright red.

"Hullo, Prongs!"

I knew I was dreaming when Sirius walked up to me and his hair was completely black. Vaguely, I figured this must be another one of those dreams where he visits me from the future or whatever.

"Pads!" I beamed. "Gah, you look so weird when you look normal!"

"Oi!" he exclaimed. "I don't look weird. Other me looks weird!"

"Suit yourself, Siri," I shrugged. "It's good to see you, mate."

"Meh, I figured you could use some encouragement and whatnot," he grinned. "Seeing as it is that year."

I frowned, my mood immediately dampened.

"James, while I'm not going to promise everything'll be alright, I think you can do this," said Sirius confidently. "At the very least, you'll be able to postpone my death a little."

"Thanks, that is so encouraging," I deadpanned.

"Yeah, that sounded better in my head," he blushed.

I snickered. "No, it was super-duper fantabulous."

He gave me a blank look, and I laughed aloud. "Sorry, something you- er, other you said earlier today."

Sirius face-palmed. "Goodness, James, what have you done to me?"

"Oh, shut it, you'd've said something similar even if I hadn't messed up the timeline," I smirked. Sirius reddened, before shaking his head.

"Oh, alright, you win this time, James," he said. "So, er... oh yeah! The other thing I came here for. Remember how other me blew down the door?"

"How can I forget?" I replied.

"There's more to it than you think," Sirius said. "Keep an eye on him, and if his eyes ever start glowing, I would suggested you either duck and cover or run for your life."

"What?" I asked, bewildered.

"Talk to the tiger lady- Evirah, right?- about it," Sirius continued, as if I'd never spoken. "She should be able to help a bit. I don't know if this has ever happened before, but I'm sure she'll have some idea. I can't tell you what happened (some stupid law). Oh, and keep polishing your elemental skills. Those'll come in handy."

I took note of everything he said, still slightly overwhelmed. "Any other cryptic advice you have to offer?"

"Nope, sorry," he laughed. "And, Prongs?"

"Hmm?"

"If you can't save me, don't beat yourself up about it," he said. "It wouldn't be your fault. Try to stay alive for me, kay?"

I swallowed hard, my eyes suddenly rather moist. "Alright, Sirius. I'll try."

Sirius beamed. "See you later, Prongs."

"Bye, Sirius," I said. And just like that, he was gone again.

A/N: Another chapter done! What does Sirius mean? Do I know? Yes! Will I tell you? Nope, sorry. By the way, I'm thinking of making my Twitter page (that I never use) my page for updates on what I'm working on and stuff (like telling you guys how far I am or posting random doodles and whatnot). What do you think? Is it a totally awful idea or do you guys like it? XDD Over 300 reviews! I love you guys! Anyway, thank you so much to my reviewers, sk8boards4ever, Lady Loophole, N. E. Person, jeremiah123, and Betty.S! Want some glow-in-the-dark potion? You can have a virtual version of it. XDDD

I still don't own HP!