Dear Remus,

Hey. Albus Dumbledore just very kindly asked me if I poisoned you, and I figured I'd clarify that I most certainly did not. Last time I ever try to be a nice person, eh?

Only joking,
Dav.

Remus put down the letter and frowned. "It's from Mr. Ragfarn, and he even did it on official Ministry stationery," he said. "And he signed it with his first name."

"Perhaps because he's trying to hide something," said Sirius. "I reckon he really is the person who poisoned you, mate."

James frowned. "No, I'm still pretty sure it was Louis."

"I don't think it was Professor Leek," said Remus. "But… I don't think it was Ragfarn, either. For whatever reason. I'm pretty sure it was just as Dumbledore said: a randomized attack."

"But that means there's another Death Eater at Hogwarts," said Peter.

Snape smiled grimly. "I reckon it's Snape."

"I reckon it's not," said Remus. "Look, the only thing we can do right now is try to keep out of trouble. I'm fine, right? All's well that ends well. And if there really is a Death Eater at Hogwarts, Dumbledore will find him—or her, I suppose. Everything will be fine as long as we stay out of trouble."

"Stay out of trouble?" echoed James. "Yeah, we can do that. So anyway—we're sneaking out after curfew again tonight to work on that map, aren't we? I finally mastered the Measuring Spell. And are we sneaking out before or after we hex Snape?"

Remus sighed. "Stay out of trouble," he murmured, but his friends were too busy planning their day of disobedience to hear him.

They snuck outside after curfew to work on the map, just as James had suggested.

As they were wandering down corridors and making measurements (James had indeed mastered the Measuring Spell), they came across Remus' least favorite thing/person/being/spirit to come across: Peeves.

"Ooh, look what we have here," Peeves sneered, tugging on James' earlobes. "Three naughty, naughty students out of bed!"

James poked Peeves in the eye with his wand, and Peeves gave a dramatic howl. "Shut it, Peeves," said James. "I'm trying to focus on this charm."

"Naughty Potty! Shall I tell Dumbledore you're going 'round poking the eyeballs of innocent, pleasant poltergeists?"

James sighed. "Moony, your dad's a spirituous apparition expert, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"So you know a bit about poltergeists."

"A fair bit."

"Well, in second year, you told us that annoying the poltergeist back, therefore beating it at his own game, would get rid of it. But I poked him in the eye and it didn't work, you liar."

"You're not annoying him, though," said Remus. "You're walking right into his trap. He wants you to get annoyed and retaliate, so you need to calm down and do something that'll really annoy him… because right now, he's just got more to tattle about."

"Oh, right. What would you recommend, then, Mssr. Moony?"

"I would recommend a simple jinx, Mssr. Prongs."

"Do your worst," said Peeves with a sneer, and Remus smiled and raised his wand. He didn't like hexing students who had done nothing wrong, but he very much liked hexing Peeves, who deserved a taste of his own medicine every now and again. Peeves was shouting at them, so Remus could cause him to lose his voice… yes, that would be a useful one. Or he could keep Peeves away from them by tying his legs together, or he could...

Just as Remus was about to do both at the same time, Sirius grabbed Remus' wand forcefully. "Wait," he said.

"Padfoot! Don't grab the end of someone's wand! That's just about the first rule of magic! I could have taken your hand off."

"Not unless you were about to do a blasting charm."

"Who said I wasn't?"

"Your annoyingly straight moral compass and thirst for order said so. Nah, you were probably going to do something lame. And nothing happened, anyway. But I don't think you should cast the spell."

"What do you mean? It'll get Peeves away from us!"

"But I don't think that's what we want right now."

Peeves was watching with interest, floating in the air with his head resting on his elbows. "Sounds like someone needs Peevesy's help," he said.

Remus rolled his eyes. "I hope you aren't really thinking about asking for Peeves' help with something," he told Sirius. "As the son of a spirituous apparition expert, I know for a fact that poltergeists cannot be trusted."

"Spirituous apparitions," mocked Sirius. "You sound like a swot."

"Doesn't matter. I'm still right. Peeves is a poltergeist, and he can't be trusted."

"Oh, so I can't be trusted because of my species?" Peeves said, waggling his eyebrows in an infuriating sort of way.

Remus did not appreciate the implication. "About as much as I can be trusted on the full moon," he said. "I'm not being biased or hypocritical; only accurate. Poltergeists aim to please no one. If we recruit you, you'll either betray us at the last minute, get your revenge sometime else, or call us names the whole time."

"Loony, loopy Lupin," sang Peeves. "What? No, I wouldn't."

"I see what Sirius is saying, though," said James. "We need to map some areas that are going to be really hard to get into. The teachers' bedrooms, for instance—"

"They have bedrooms?" asked Peter.

"Duh. Yeah. I think they're just attached to their offices."

"Madam Pomfrey sleeps in a room attached to her office," Remus offered. "So does Dumbledore."

"We can't break into those at night," said Sirius, "but it'll also be hard to do during the day, because the teachers spend so much time in their offices…."

"So we cause a disturbance to get them out of their offices," said James. "Or rather, Peeves does."

Peter frowned. "Can't we cause disturbances on our own? Why do we need Peeves?"

"There!" said Remus. "Good question. Why do we need Peeves? We're plenty capable of causing trouble on our own."

"Says the teacher's pet who is least likely to break any rules," said Sirius. "How many detentions have you had? Three?"

"Two," mumbled Remus, but that wasn't true, either. He'd actually only had one detention. The other had been fake (Dumbledore had only been giving him an excuse to escape his friends), but they didn't need to know that. "My point still stands. Why can't we just cast some spell to cause a disruption? We don't need the help of a poltergeist."

"Is that discrimination I hear?" Peeves teased. "Rich coming from you!"

"Argh! See? He's annoying!"

"If he's going to cause trouble anyway, we might as well twist it to our benefits," said James fairly. "Might be nice to have a poltergeist on our side."

Sirius nodded. "Poltergeists are stupid, anyway. Shouldn't be difficult for us to get him to do our bidding."

"They sure are," said Peeves, nodding. "Yep. Won't be hard at all."

"He's tricking you," mumbled Remus, but he figured there was no stopping his friends when their hearts were set on something like this. "Fine. Peeves, we would like you to tell us what time you plan to cause general chaos and who you plan to target. We want to be able to sneak into teachers' offices and bedrooms completely undetected. We would also like you to keep this to yourself. No tattling, okay?"

"I never tattle, Loopy Lupin," said Peeves, crossing his heart with a sly grin. "I must ask, though. What's in it for me?"

Remus looked at his friends and shrugged. "They can figure it out. I never wanted your help in the first place."

"Discrimination," sang Peeves. "Go on, then. Make me an offer I can't refuse, Naughty Potty."

"All right," said James, apparently thinking very hard. "Here's the thing, Peeves. My parents are pretty wealthy, and I would be happy to pick some things up at Zonko's for you…."

Peeves' eyes grew wide. "The noisemakers," he said immediately. "And those things that make glitter go everywhere. And the fake chickens that multiply when they're touched. And the fake wands."

"How do you know what they have at Zonko's?" Peter asked. "Surely you've never been?"

"Oh, please. I've been around for ages. I've seen joke products come and go, but no one ever lets Peeves have them…." Peeves cackled and rubbed his hands together. "I'll make a list for you, Potty. And if you promise to buy me everything on the list, I'll create some distractions for you… but only after you buy everything. I'll need some supplies to do your bidding."

"Of course," said James with a slight bow. "Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Peeves."

Peeves graced this response with a noisy raspberry, which Remus supposed was a polite gesture in the eyes of a poltergeist.

They walked away from Peeves and continued measuring the castle: James did the spells, Sirius wrote the measurements down, Peter supervised, and Remus reiterated again and again that doing business with Peeves was a very bad idea indeed.

Peeves snuck James a list over supper, and James let him have one of his turkey legs in return. "See, Remus?" James said self-righteously. "Trade and barter. Works with everyone. I give Peeves something, he gives me something. We're partners in crime now."

"Bad idea," said Remus for the hundredth time.

"You can train a dog, so you can train Peeves," said Sirius. "Easy as that."

"Not easy as that, mate. The difference is that dogs aren't creatures of unbridled chaos."

"You'd know plenty about that, being one yourself?"

"Shhh! Dogs are friendly, domesticated creatures; both something that I am not. It's not the same, and 'friendly' and 'domesticated' doesn't describe Peeves, either."

"It could, though, with enough training," argued James.

Remus glanced over at Peeves, who was currently pelting James' turkey leg at a first-year and making obnoxious gobbling noises. He tsked at James, who shrugged.

"Anything is possible with a little faith," said James wisely, and then Remus (in true fashion of a friendly, domesticated werewolf) pulled a Peeves and threw Sirius' turkey leg at him.

The haul that James got from Zonko's was impressive: so impressive, in fact, that they had to take multiple trips to Hogsmeade to get it all.

"Why can't we just use a Shrinking Spell?" Remus moaned, carrying three heavy boxes up a hill.

James shrugged, which was a very impressive feat (he was carrying eight boxes, and they towered over his head perilously). "Don't want to mess with the magic of the objects," he said. "Shrinking Spells can interfere. And I don't know why you're complaining, Moony—the boxes I gave you aren't heavy at all."

"Maybe for you," huffed Remus. A bead of sweat dripped down his temple; he moved to wipe it away, and he dropped one of the boxes in the process. "Fiddlesticks," he said angrily.

"The boxes that I'm holding are probably four times the weight of yours," James boasted.

"Well, you're a Beater for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. I'm a chronically ill weakling who hasn't exercised a day in my life."

"Maybe we should change that."

"If you want me to end up in the Hospital Wing, then sure."

"You already do that pretty frequently, so what's the harm?"

Remus, who was currently trying to pick up the dropped box while still holding the other two, gave a frustrated sort of cry. "Well, someone's going to end up in the Hospital Wing," he grumbled, "but it won't be me. I can't believe we're actually doing business with Peeves. You realize he knows all our plans now, right? If he tells an adult, we'll immediately be shut down and monitored."

James' wand was in his teeth now; he waved it and muttered a garbled spell, and Remus' dropped box floated onto his own stack. "Nine boshes," he said, his voice still garbled by the wand. "Shee, 'Oony? It'sh not that hard."

"You're too skinny to be that strong," said Remus, more than a little jealous. "You look like a twig."

"A very shtrong twig."

"You never answered my question about Peeves."

"It wasn't a question; it was a complaint," said Sirius, "and it's one you've made many, many times before. You know where we stand. We like taking risks."

"I know." Remus sighed and moved next to Peter, who was carrying quite the assortment of boxes himself. "I'm just worried. Think of what Peeves could do with all this. He'll never leave us alone."

"He won't touch us," said Sirius.

"How do you know?"

James turned to Remus and grinned around the stack of boxes, his wand still firmly in his teeth. "Becaush he pinky-promished," he said.

Remus sighed again. "You're hopeless," he said, but he wasn't really as annoyed as he pretended to be.

For a long time, Remus had been devoid of hope. He'd grown up without hope for a cure, without hope for the future, and without hope for any sort of happiness. There was nothing to be done about his affliction, and he'd learned to accept the lack of a potential solution very early on. Indeed, Remus was used to hopelessness.

But in this particular situation, Remus liked hopeless things. He enjoyed the fact that there was no hope for his friends' sanity. He loved it, in fact—because in a lack of hope, there was also an abundance of security.

The world was a weird place, and both Remus' brain and arms were exceedingly exhausted.

The Marauders were standing behind a large statue in an empty corridor, and Peeves was floating nearby with a sneaky grin on his face. "All right, Peeves," James lectured, "we're doing Sprout first, okay? We need you to cause a distraction big enough so that nobody would dream going near her chambers or office for… oh, twenty minutes."

"You think it's in a greenhouse?" asked Peter.

Remus nodded. "I'm pretty certain it's in Greenhouse Eight. It's the biggest one, but no one's ever had any classes in it—and whenever I walk past it, I can smell hair supplies and the like."

"That's it, then," declared James. "I don't care what you do, Peeves. You have quite the assortment of supplies. You're just to make sure we're not bothered."

"Can do," said Peeves, rubbing his hands together. "They'll never know what hit them. Trust me, I'll make sure Sprout the Trout is needed in the castle at all times."

"Sprout the Trout?" repeated Remus. "Your nicknames are getting worse…."

James hit Remus. "Be nice, Moony. He's helping us."

"Yeah, be nice, Loony," Peeves mocked.

With that, Peeves flew away, cackling and crowing all the while, and the Marauders went back to the dormitory to fetch the Invisibility Cloak and their mapmaking supplies.

Remus still thought that this was a very bad idea.

"I wonder what Peeves is doing," mused Peter as they snuck to the greenhouse under the Cloak. Their ankles were visible underneath the hem, but it was all right—no one was outdoors at the moment. The February weather was cold enough that everyone was indoors (presumably watching whatever spectacle Peeves had cooked up).

"Doesn't matter," said Sirius. "It'll be fine so long as we have enough time to scope out this greenhouse. Is this the one, Moony?"

Remus inhaled and caught the scent of hair care products and toiletries. "It has to be," he said. "Anyone else feeling a bit guilty about invading Sprout's personal space?"

"Nope," said Sirius.

"But… why do we even need to map this?"

"It's the principle of the thing."

"Won't you get in trouble when you turn in your Arithmancy assignment, Prongs?"

"I dunno. You never can tell with Louis. What's he gonna do, anyway? Poison me?" James laughed at his own joke. "Stop worrying so much, Moony."

Then he opened the door to the greenhouse, and Remus stepped inside with the rest of his friends.

He'd been right. It was indeed Sprout's chambers, and it was blatantly obvious. There was a plush bed, and there were vines growing all over it. Vines were also hanging from the ceiling, brushing against the tops of their heads as they walked (although they were all taller than the short and stocky Professor Sprout, so it probably didn't bother her much). Flowers sprouted from every surface imaginable, and every bedspread, rug, and blanket was decorated in stitched flowers. Pots containing houseplants hung from the ceiling, sat on the dresser, and adorned the floor. The drapes were nothing but hanging vines.

"Blimey," said Sirius under his breath. "This woman is a total plant fanatic."

"Wow, she does have a lot of hair care products," said James, examining a flower-covered ledge covered in multicolored bottles. "Look, there's Sleekeazy's Hair Potion. My dad invented that a few years before I was born."

"Are you surprised it's here? Pretty much everyone has it nowadays," said Sirius. "Except you, that is. Your hair looks like a rat's nest. Doesn't it, Wormy? You know all about rats."

"Just because my Patronus form is a mouse…"

"Rat, not a mouse."

"Hello?" said Remus anxiously. "I don't know how long Peeves is hold them off. Shouldn't we move a little bit quicker?"

James rolled his eyes good-naturedly and swung his arm over Remus' shoulders. "Relax, Moony. You're always so uptight. You can spare a few detentions—remember our agreement in first year? You have to get seven detentions this year, and you've only had two. So step it up, relax, and stop worrying."

So Remus tried his best to stop worrying. He watched Sirius sketch the shape of the room on a piece of parchment and made corrections when necessary. He relayed James' measurements of the room to Sirius, who wrote them down accordingly. He made measurements of the distance from the greenhouse to the Willow, the distance from the greenhouse the others, and the greenhouse to the castle. And he tried really, really hard not to worry.

"Left wall four meters," said James, "and bed one meter from the wall… and that's it. We're done."

"Thank goodness," said Remus. "I'm sick of measuring things. You're sure that's all we need?"

"Positive," said Sirius. "Now let's go see what Peeves has cooked up."

And so, together, they snuck back to the castle (and James checked Remus' measurements, because apparently he didn't trust him… which was probably a good thing, because Remus' measurements were about five meters off). When they arrived in the Great Hall, they were met with a terrifying sight indeed.

Sprout was attempting to wrangle a giant plant that was wrapping around the walls of the Great Hall, and students were running about, screaming. Peeves was flying above it all, laughing as Sprout dodged the plant's ropey tendrils. "Viciousness Powder from Zonko's!" he crowed. "Can turn any houseplant into a vicious monster!"

Remus looked at his friends, and then they quietly left the room and headed back to the dormitory.

"Mischief managed, Marauders," James announced, and Remus wasn't exactly sure how to feel about the whole thing.