Remus wandered to the Great Hall the next day around ten am, as promised, and found Miles sitting with Peter.

"Miles!" said Remus, surprised. "How are you? Did you sleep well?"

Miles shook his head.

"No?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Well, er," said Peter, turning a bit red, "I woke up last night and you weren't there, and I may have panicked a bit…."

"I was only taking a walk."

"Yeah, well, I didn't know that," Peter snapped. "I thought you'd been kidnapped or killed or something of the sort. Someone tried to poison you this year! Twice! I'd say you're definitely a target! So, when I woke up and you were gone… of course I was worried!"

Remus sighed. "Okay. I see your point."

"Anyway, I woke up Miles and he, er…"

"Fetched him a handkerchief when he cried," said Miles helpfully.

Peter scowled at him. "I wasn't crying," he said. "I couldn't go back to sleep, though, so Miles and I stayed up and played chess. He's very good at chess; did you know?"

"That's really cool," said Remus sincerely. "I'm sorry for disappearing. I just… needed a moment."

Miles smiled. "It's all right. I think a little terror was just what I needed—I feel much better now, and I really got to know Peter. Could we do something later today, actually? I'm sick of the dormitory. I've barely left since I got here."

"Yeah, that sounds great," said Remus. "And… I have just the thing."

Peter took one look at Remus' face and groaned. "Oh, no," he said. "That's Remus' mischief face—and when Remus is causing mischief, then you know it's serious."

"Have you been acquainted with Peeves?" Remus asked Miles as the three of them wandered down the corridor. It felt strange being three instead of four, and it felt even stranger when one of the three wasn't a Marauder, but Remus was trying his best to get used to change.

"Unfortunately," Miles sighed. "He used to pelt me with shrimp sometimes at meals."

"That sounds like something he would do. Anyway, my father's an expert in spiritous apparitions, which includes poltergeists, so I know quite a bit about them. We even had a poltergeist flying around our house for a bit, though I don't remember it—I was too young. Dad says that the best way to control a poltergeist, according to his studies, is to beat them at their own game. That means that, in order to get Peeves to quit tormenting us, we have to torment him."

"That seems like it would make it worse," said Miles with a frown.

"Counterintuitively, it helps; I promise. Peeves hasn't bothered me a whole lot recently. He was knocking on the door of our dormitory and then disappearing all day yesterday, though; remember?"

Miles' mouth dropped open. "That was him?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure."

"How do you know? Did you catch him doing it?"

"No, but," Remus said, and then he stopped. He'd known that it was some sort of spirit, because whatever had been knocking at the door hadn't had a scent, footsteps, or breathing patterns. And, since mere ghosts couldn't knock on doors, it had to have been Peeves. Poltergeists were one of the only types of spiritous apparitions that could touch things. But... of course he couldn't tell Miles that any of that.

"Yeah, actually," he said. "I caught him flying away as I left the dormitory. I didn't see his face, but it was pretty obvious who he was. Anyway, in order to stop him from annoying us all the time, we need to beat him at his own game."

Peter frowned. "How are we going to do that? We can't knock on Peeves' dormitory door. Peeves doesn't have a dormitory."

"Perhaps not, but he must sleep somewhere. Ghosts don't have to sleep, but Peeves does. He has a physical form. He doesn't have to eat, but he has to sleep."

"That's weird."

"Magic doesn't always make sense. But that's the only thing keeping him from tormenting students all night, so we should be thankful for it. You're not up all night due to his shenanigans, are you?"

"No."

"So he has to sleep somewhere, and I think I know where."

With a grin, Remus pointed to a portrait of Uric the Oddball near the bottom of the staircase. It was in a dark corner, tucked away from the foot traffic that inevitably occurred in the area between classes and meals, but still in plain sight. "It's something to do with this portrait; I'm sure of it."

"How do you know?" asked Miles.

Fiddlesticks. Remus couldn't tell Miles that, either. After James had bought Miles all those Zonko's products, Remus had smelled Dungbombs, Itching Powder, and other commodities behind that portrait. It was frighteningly obvious now that Hogwarts was so empty, gone of the smells and sounds of massive crowds that had once plagued the castle—in fact, it was so apparent that Remus had to marvel at the fact that Miles and Peter didn't notice it themselves. Well, Remus would just have to use the same excuse as last time.

"I saw him go into it," he said lamely. "When I was taking my walk last night. Anyway. That, for all intents and purposes… is Peeves' dormitory!"

"So we're going to knock on the door and annoy him right back?" asked Peter eagerly.

"No. We need to beat him at his own game, not even the score. We need to do something worse than merely knocking. Besides, Peeves isn't in there right now. No, we need to do something worse than knocking."

"But…" Miles frowned. "Won't that just escalate things? You'll do something worse, and then Peeves will do something worse, and you'll have to do something even worse—how long will it be until Peeves… I don't know. Murders someone or something?"

Remus shook his head. "No, poltergeists are sore losers and easy quitters. Besides, they're mostly stuck on one setting. Peeves can't do any worse than he's been doing, so he'll give up instead. Now, here's the plan: we're going to go into his room and set a Color-Changing Charm and a Muteness Jinx on it. Next time Peeves goes into his room, he'll be bright blue, and he won't be able to make a noise."

"So he lives… in the portrait?"

"I'm guessing it swings open. He lives behind it."

"How do we get in?"

Remus' grin faded, and he shrugged. "That, lads, is the tricky part."

"There must be a password," said Peter with a frown. "That's usually the solution to things like this."

"Have you… been in situations like this before?" asked Miles.

Peter grinned. "Oh, yeah. Loads of times. We figured out the password to a statue that led to Hogsmeade last year, and now we take Sirius with us since he couldn't get a permission form. And just last summer we got into a secret passageway because Remus was shivering and accidentally spoke Parseltongue."

"What?!"

"It doesn't matter," interrupted Remus before Peter could tell Miles all their secrets. There was one secret in particular that Remus most certainly did not want spilt, so he wasn't going to risk letting Peter talk. "I don't think it's a password, Peter. Can you imagine Peeves floating up to a portrait and saying a password? He'd not nearly orderly enough for that."

"True," said Peter, frowning. "But what else could it be?"

"Maybe it only opens for Peeves."

"How would we open it, then?"

"I don't know."

For a while, the three of them stared at Uric the Oddball, who was hopping a bit on one foot and crossing his eyes slightly. "Er, hello?" Remus said, hoping Uric would somehow respond. "May we come in?"

There was a long moment of silence, and then something flew past Uric's face.

"Woah!" cried Miles. "There's something else in the portrait!"

Remus took another step toward the portrait, albeit cautiously. He peered at Uric's face—the man was still crossing his eyes, but now he was also sticking out his tongue—and, before Remus' eyes, the flying thing came back.

It was Peeves.

"Merlin's beard," muttered Remus. "Peeves has a portrait of himself. Who would paint Peeves, of all the things in the world to paint?"

"You're not Peeves," said the Peeves in the portrait. "Nope. Can't come in. You've got to stay out there. Only Peevesy can enter."

"What if we ask politely?" Remus asked, and Peeves did naught but blow a raspberry at him. Remus shrugged. "Worth a try."

"Wait," said Miles, "you said that the only way to make a poltergeist cooperate was to beat it at its own game."

Slowly, a smile spread across Remus' face. "So I did," he said. "I see what you're saying."

He turned to the painting of Peeves and, mustering up all the confidence and audacity he possessed, said, "Well, you can't come out here, and it's a lot better out here than it is in there."

Peeves stuck his tongue out so far that Remus was afraid that it would fall out of his mouth. "Pish-posh," he said. "I'm having the time of my life in here."

"But there's food out here," said Miles. "Don't you want to try food?"

"Poltergeists don't eat."

"What about these big open spaces to fly around in?" asked Remus.

"Got plenty of those; they're just in 2D."

Peter frowned. "…There are giant light fixtures that very easily unscrew," he said.

Peeves looked at Remus, and Remus knew that they were finally on the right track. "Big crowds of people," he said. "So many students, constantly exuding chaos and nervousness, and all in the same place. Easy targets. You could make fun of their names…."

"Spit in their ears," said Miles.

"Throw things at them," scowled Peter.

"And some of them are terrified first-years, away from home for the first time and terrified half to death," Remus finished. "Think of all the massive disturbances that you could cause if you were just out here with us. What's in there that's so special?"

Peeves frowned, and Remus could tell he was thinking very hard (well, as hard as a painting of a creature that was never really alive to begin with could think). "Fine," he said. "How do I get out?"

"You can't," said Remus. "You never can. You'll just have to stay in there forever. There's no escape."

"Well, you can't come in here," said Peeves, but his tone was getting progressively less convincing.

"That's fine with us," said Miles. "Now that we think about it, it's way better out here."

"Yeah," added Peter. "We have so much that you don't. I bet it's not even that good in there."

"We might as well leave," said Remus with a shrug. "Have fun in that boring place."

Just as soon as Remus had taken the first step away from the portrait, painting-Peeves called, "Wait!"

Score.

"Yes?" Remus asked.

"Fine. You can come in. You're just about as much of a trickster as Peeves is, apparently, so I don't see why not."

"Thank you," said Remus, but he only got a bit of a scowl in return.

The portrait swung open, and Peter rushed to enter first—Miles went next, and then Remus cast a Cushioning Charm between the portrait and the wall. "That way, he can't lock us in," Remus explained. "That seems like a Peevesish thing to do."

The three of them looked around the Peeves' room, wands out and on their guard. It was rather small. There was a cozy-looking hammock hanging from the ceiling, and there was a very large pile of Zonko's supplies. "Merlin's beard," Remus muttered. "How much did Prongs buy him?"

"Should we take the joke supplies?" Peter asked.

"No, we had a deal."

Miles, understandably, had no idea what "deal" Remus was talking about, but Remus thought it best not to explain, so he quickly changed the subject before Miles could ask. "First, I think we should draw up a map of the room," he said. "James is definitely going to want it for later."

"Why?" Miles asked.

"Er." Remus didn't really want to mention Arithmancy in front of Miles. Not yet. "School project. He's drawing up a map of the school."

"Oh. Neat."

"Yeah. I'll do that, and you can start… ooh, Peter, could you put that Itching Powder on Peeves' hammock? And start casting the charms."

"Sure," said Peter, and Miles (even though he was only a first-year and didn't know many spells), cast every jinx he could think of on Peeves' room as well.

Thirty minutes later, Remus had a beautifully meticulous, measured, and labelled map drawn up… and Peeves' room was hexed within an inch of its life. Remus caught the far-off scent of someone approaching. "We should go," he said, and he started climbing out of the portrait-hole, where the painted Peeves was still glaring rudely. "Careful not to set off any of the jinxes."

And so the Makeshift Not-Marauders Trio each escaped, removed the Cushioning Charm, shut the door behind them, and then scampered back to the dormitory, where they collapsed onto their beds and laughed hysterically (out of both hilarity and nervous energy) for the next five minutes or so.

"Thank you," said Miles. "I feel a lot more like myself again."

And so did Remus.

The Makeshift Not-Marauders Trio (which both Remus and Peter had officially started calling the three of them) ate breakfast together the next day. Remus learned a lot about Miles: he had a summer birthday, he was afraid of turtles, his favorite color was pale blue, and he was allergic to pineapple.

"You're afraid of turtles?" Peter asked incredulously. "Like, the things with the shells that swim?"

"Yes. I found one in a lake one time, and it hissed at me. I was terrified. Mum said that…."

Suddenly, Miles trailed off and started blinking hard. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's just hard sometimes. You know. Talking about Mum."

"We'll listen if you want to talk about it," said Remus.

"No, I don't want to talk. Not really. It's just… hard to believe that it's only been a few months—it feels like it's been forever and hardly any time at all, both at the same time."

Remus fell silent. He knew how that was. It was April already, and Questus had died on June twelfth. It was coming up, and Remus dreaded the day… had it really been almost a year since he'd seen Questus for the very last time? That had been April thirtieth, and now it was already the twelfth… exactly one month away from Questus' death, and eighteen days away from the last time Remus had ever seen him, nonchalantly bidding goodbye from Remus' mother's car at King's Cross. It had been nearly a whole year. Remus' chest hurt.

"Easter is in two days," said Remus, and Miles mouthed a silent and miserable thank you in his direction. Remus nodded and smiled, though he hadn't changed the subject for Miles; he'd done it for himself. "I don't believe I've ever had an Easter at Hogwarts. I went home in first year and second year. So did you, Peter, right?"

"Well, I went to Greece in my second year, but right," Peter confirmed. "I wonder if they do anything special for Easter around here."

"I'm sure they do something." Remus was eyeing Dumbledore's beard, which had tiny daisies strewn into it. "If anyone knows how to throw a party, it's Hogwarts."

"Correction," said Peter. "If anyone knows how to throw a party… it's Peeves."

Remus turned to face where Peter was looking. Sure enough, a very upset Peeves was floating into the room—his ghostly skin was speckled with awful, multicolored streaks of neon, he was miserably scratching all over, there were rabbit ears sprouting from his head, his eyes were glowing green, and he had long hair that reached the tips of his pointed shoes. His eyes landed on the Three Makeshift Not-Marauders, and he grimaced. Remus winked.

Students laughed, and Peeves scowled and stuck his tongue out. With that, he flew away—he bumped into the door frame once, probably because of the large variety of jinxes, hexes, and joke products that were still affecting his every sense, but he managed to get out of the doorway on the third try. Laughter erupted all over the Great Hall.

Remus looked at Professor McGonagall, who had one finger held up. A thin smile was gracing her lips, and she broke it for a moment to mouth the word one (Remus was slightly better at lip-reading now after his brief encounter with total hearing loss). Remus couldn't help it—he felt his face break into a broad grin as he mouthed thank you, and then Professor McGonagall smiled one more time before looking away and speaking to Professor Dumbledore.

Back in Remus' first year, Professor McGonagall had been uncomfortable around him. Remus had understood why, of course: she'd grown up in a wizarding home, and she'd been taught to fear werewolves from a very early age. But she'd wanted to overcome that for Remus, especially since Remus had found himself entirely unable to act normally around his professors that year, as well (as a social hermit who wanted nothing but to please everyone).

And so the Competition had begun. Every time either Remus or McGonagall caught the other acting normally, rather than terrified and on-edge, they granted them a point. As time went on and they became fully comfortable around each other, the Competition had strayed from its original intent: rather, it had descended into the random giving of points for anything mildly impressive or praiseworthy.

As it turned out, the Competition had returned, and now Remus was one point wealthier. Were they keeping track of the points? No. Did they winner get anything? Of course not. But it was fun, at least, and Remus had never been so happy to receive a totally fake, worthless point from a teacher, especially when he got to show off his penchant for mischief in return.

"Everything all right, Remus?" asked Miles, who had probably spotted the odd (but happy) look on Remus' face.

"Perfect," said Remus sincerely. "And you? Everything all right with you?"

"Absolutely," said Peter.

Miles paused for a little bit longer before answering, but then, finally, he said, "Hasn't been this good in a long time."

"Excelent point," said Remus quietly, observing the trail of glowing blue slime that Peeves had left in his wake. "It really hasn't."

AN: Trying to be consistent posting, but my health has been a bit wonky. I'll still get chapters out semi-frequently, so bear with me!