A Flash of Green

James Potter froze. He could have sworn he had heard heavy footsteps echoing down the supposedly empty hallway. He strained to hear more, but an instant later the three bodies slamming into him drowned out any sound.

"Peter," Remus hissed, "that was my foot."

"Remus," Peter whispered back, "that was my arse." Sirius muffled a laugh as they quickly shifted away from each other, moving as far as they could under the delicate fabric of the invisibility cloak.

"James." Sirius poked him in the back of his head. James ignored him. He was listening intently. The whispering and rustling of the roused portraits made it almost impossible to discern any background noise. "James," Sirius repeated, louder this time, "why did you stop?"

"Quiet, Sirius," he whispered and automatically held up a hand although he knew none of them could see it. There, he thought, everyone must have heard that. James smiled as, in silent unison, they all pressed themselves against the wall; they were the perfect team.

Apollyon Pringle, an aged caretaker, stomped along the stone corridor, holding a lantern above his hunched form and staring darkly into the shadows created by its flickering light. "Damn brats," he muttered to himself. James had to stifle a giggle. "Got to be around here somewhere, I can feel it." He moved slowly past the place where they stood, his head tilted as if he was trying to sniff them out.

Suddenly, he whipped the lantern around, illuminating an ancient painting of a witch high up on the wall. She had a Hogwarts crest sewn onto her robes, James noticed as she lifted a hand to cover her smile; she must have been a student here. "Well?" Pringle barked at her. "Have you seen any students out of bounds?"

"No." She giggled. "I haven't seen anybody but you all night."

"And put that light out" growled the portrait of Gaerwn Vaughan, the head of Ravenclaw from 1391 to 1462 if his plaque was to be trusted. "In my day young people were more respectful, why, if I could still use a wand..." Pringle quickly covered his lamp and looked around viciously before moving on.

"Ah." Sirius threw off the cloak and stretched noisily when they were sure Pringle was gone. "Jamie-my-boy," he sighed again, "I appreciate the cloak as much as the next man but it's starting to get crowded under there."

"Well, maybe if you hadn't gotten so tall-" James began as he shrugged out from under it himself, but Sirius cut him off.

"Maybe if Peter hadn't eaten so much over the summer..."

"Shut up, Sirius. You eat more than the rest of us put together." James could hear Peter's voice emerging from the apparently empty space by the wall. "And get back under here, someone's going to see you."

The portrait of the young witch giggled again, and James looked up to see her, high on the wall.

"Relax, Peter." James shrugged it off. "He's got to be all the way past that statue of Hildegard the Horrible on the third floor."

"No," Remus argued, stepping out from under the cloak himself, "I bet that he went down to the kitchens; that's where we hit last time."

"Come on." James rolled his eyes. "Even he knows that we never hit the same place twice in a row."

"I still say that he went to the kitchens," Remus insisted.

"Galleon says he didn't." James grinned at Remus and reached into his pocket. The other boy blinked at him before smiling.

"You're on."

Peter, James noticed, had let the cloak slip down to around his shoulders and was watching the scene with interest. "How are you going to find out who is right?"

"I don't know," Remus answered first. "Summoning Charm of some sort, what do you think?"

"He would notice that for sure," James objected. "How about a Tracking Charm?"

"You can't cast that," said Sirius as he gave James a withering look, "you've got to have a direct line of sight to cast that charm."

"Well, have you got a better idea?" James asked, slightly miffed at Sirius' condescending attitude. "And don't say," James continued as Sirius opened his mouth to reply, "that you'll follow him. He'd notice you for sure and you'd never get back to the Great Hall."

"Excuse me?" said a clear voice from high above them. "I think that I might be able to help you."

"Who..." Sirius began and then glanced upwards to see the pretty witch waving at him. "Oh, I see, well, milady, if you think that you can settle these two imbeciles and let us get on with the Halloween Prank, then I'd be much obliged." He winked at her and swept a florid bow.

She giggled again; James was beginning to suspect that she was a victim of a Cheering Charm gone awry. Or, rather, he would have if half the girls in their year hadn't suddenly begun to giggle whenever they spoke to them. Girls were profoundly weird, he had decided. Most of them were not worth the effort.

"It shouldn't be too much trouble," she answered, bringing him back to the present. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

The four boys waited in silence for a while. Finally, after glancing at his watch for what seemed like the hundredth time, James spoke up. "If we don't get a move on, we're never going to get this done in time."

"Afraid you're going to lose, Potter?" Remus shot James a challenging look that didn't even come close to disguising his amusement.

James decided to play along. "Attempting to sully the Potter honour, are you?" he asked in mock affront.

"Actually, I think that you're doing a good job of that yourself." There was a pause as Remus twisted up his mouth before letting out a snort of laughter.

Inevitably, Sirius was unable to resist adding his own opinion on the matter. "Besides, everybody knows that the Potters have no honour. Muggle lovers! Blood traitors!" He did look eerie standing there in the darkened corridor, the pale light of his wand washing away all colour from his face. His lips were pulled back and his teeth were bared as he imitated his mother's screechy tones.

Then he dropped his hand and laughed, and the spell was broken. Peter, who had met Mrs. Black on numerous social occasions, was in hysterics. Even Remus chuckled, having heard more than enough stories to sympathize with Sirius.

"That's it!" James declared suddenly. "I cannot just sit back and listen to this, especially from the worst prefect Gryffindor Tower has ever seen!"

"And I got appointed over you, so what does that say?" James was saved from replying by a loud laugh on Peter's part.

"Five points to Gryffindor," Remus choked out before all four of them burst out laughing, as much at Peter's laugh as at anything. "Besides." Remus smirked after a couple moments. "I enforce all the important rules."

"The important rules, Moony?" Sirius asked in mock curiosity. "Please enlighten us."

"Ones like, oh, no hexing teachers, or younger students-"

"Except Slytherins," Sirius cut in.

Remus sighed. "Sirius, you're not giving them any reason to turn away from their house, or from the Death Eaters."

"Oh," answered Sirius flippantly, "it's too late for most of them; you've never lived with all that pure blood supremacy shit. Most of them firmly believe that they are so far above everyone else that normal rules don't apply to them. I honestly don't think that most of them acknowledge the humanity of those with, less than pure blood."

"Besides, Moony, we do leave the younger ones alone. The older ones are just asking for it, especially Snivellus." James played casually with his wand, turning it around and around in his hand. He was perfectly aware that most other students found the action intimidating, but just the thought of Snape made him itch to use it.

"Oh good, you're still here." The pretty witch smiled down at them from her frame. "You were both wrong, you know," she laughed. "He went up to the Astronomy Tower."

"He did?" James was surprised. Why would we bother to prank the Astronomy Tower? he wondered, there wouldn't be anyone to see it.

Peter laughed again. "I guess he though we were out for a snog."

Sirius apparently didn't know whether to be horrified or amused. James watched his face contort for a moment before he said, "Peter, that's a mental image that I definitely didn't need."

The pretty witch in the portrait broke into their laughter politely. "Excuse me."

"Yes?" Sirius asked her, as the others were still laughing a bit too hard.

"I just though you might like to know that the Bloody Baron is heading this way, up from the dungeons."

James stopped laughing immediately and extinguished the light from his wand. He gestured for Peter to pick up the invisibility cloak as Remus and Sirius both extinguished their wands. In a matter of moments the hallway was plunged back into darkness. The faint glow from the remaining sickle of moon illuminated the now empty hallway, shining off the gilt frames of the portraits of long dead witches and wizards. But if someone had been listening very carefully they would have heard the soft beat of four sets of feet against the well-worn stone floor.

When they reached the Great Hall James threw off the cloak with a flourish and climbed up on the staff table, staring down at his friends dramatically. "Fellow Marauders," he began in a mock serious voice, "your attention please. It was on this spot, five years ago that we first found our noble calling. Little did we then realize the heights which we would aspire to, the challenges that we would overcome, not only for our own honour but for the glory of Hogwarts."

"Hear! Hear!" Sirius broke in, rocking up onto the balls of his feet and beaming up a James. He looked at the other two, as if expecting them to add something.

James fluttered his hand towards Sirius as he made a low bow in what he felt was a suitably melodramatic manner. "Tonight we will continue a noble Marauder tradition, integral to the continued excellence of pranking at Hogwarts."

Sirius whooped at this last statement and clapped, completely ignoring the look that passed between Remus and Peter. James decided to ignore it as well and continued on. "Keeping in mind our duty to uphold the honour of the Marauders and to keep the rest of the school entertained, preferably at the expense of the Slytherins- I now officially declare the Annual Halloween Prank... begun!" He flung his arms outwards at the last word.

Sirius applauded a trifle too loudly when he was done, wiping invisible tears from his eyes. "You were beautiful James, beautiful." Remus and Peter clapped politely as well, but, as James noted sadly, they didn't seem nearly as enthusiastic as Sirius did. He saw Remus lean over to Peter and whisper that if James had brought the entire school down on them that they would just blame it on James and Sirius.

"Come on," Sirius insisted, "there's lots of work to do, and I'd like to get some sleep before breakfast."

"Right then," James said briskly, "Peter you help Sirius with the pumpkins and Moony and I will work on the Professors' table."

"I found an excellent charm for this," Remus whispered to James as they walked over to the high table. "It's a modification of the Time Delay Charm but it allows you to actually trigger the spell in a solid object, causing anyone touching it in the moment that we set it off to be affected by the spell."

"Hmm," James considered, "what about their robes? The spell would have to go through them, it'd be a disaster if just their robes transfigured. Can you imagine Slughorn naked? Or McGonagall?"

Remus shuddered theatrically, "There's a mental image I could've lived without. But the charm was originally invented as a defensive measure that would be triggered during an attack, so I don't think that it will be a problem."

James could feel a grin creeping slowly across his face. "Are you sure? They could have used the spell and just hoped that it would hit enough people to make a difference."

"I doubt it." Still, Remus looked at James, concidering. "I think, however, that maybe we should test it- just to make sure of course."

"Agreed." James saw the logic in this; they wanted the prank to go off smoothly tomorrow. "I'm assuming that once you cast it I just have to cast my spell over top of it?" When Remus nodded, he continued, "Then try it on the Gryffindor table and set it to go off in two minutes. I'm sure Sirius won't mind sacrificing his body to pranking."

"I'm sure he won't," Remus laughed. "Just don't turn him into anything too noisy."

"Spoilsport," James muttered, but grinned up at his friend anyway. "Do it."

Remus crept closer to the bench and smirked at his intended victim before biting his lip in concentration. James looked beyond him to where Sirius was humming tunelessly to himself as he enchanted the decorations, completely unaware of his friends. James genuinely hoped that the fact that Sirius was slightly tone deaf wouldn't affect the musical talent of the pumpkins he was charming.

Small clouds were scuttling across the ceiling above, giving the moonlight a mottled quality, reminding James of the shadows on the shoals where he used to dive with his father. That, combined with Sirius' slow, lazy movements gave James all the inspiration he needed.

"Your turn." Remus turned and winked broadly at James.

James lazily flicked his wand and murmured a spell. They both watched Sirius happily working his way down the Gryffindor table, enchanting every decoration in sight. Remus tapped his wand once and James though that for a second he could see the air ripple before it engulfed his best friend. Standing in his place a moment later was a very angry-looking manatee. James roared with laughter as he considered this for a moment- was it even possible for a manatee to look angry? Yes, he decided quickly as it came lumbering towards him, if that manatee was Sirius Black.

"A sea cow." Remus was laughing hysterically beside him. "You turned him into a sea cow?"

"Seemed appropriate," James gasped out, trying unsuccessfully to breathe through his laughter. He was wondering, however, whether it had really been wise to turn Sirius into such a large animal. Sure, manatees didn't look fierce, but he was willing to bet that anything that big could do some serious damage to him. Fortunately, it was impossible for Sirius to move quickly in that form. After another outburst of laughter as the two boys watched their friend charge them down at approximately the speed of a lame flobberworm, James, deciding that Sirius was getting a bit too close, turned to Remus and said, "I think I'll change him back before he gets any closer."

James quickly reversed the spell and in the next instant he was bowled over by his best friend running full steam right over him.

"What were you thinking, Potter?" Sirius snarled about three inches from his face.

"We needed to test the spell." James knew that his laughter was not helping the situation. He just couldn't help himself. A moment later it ceased to be a problem as all the air was forced out of his body with a well-aimed blow to the stomach.

James grunted and whipped his arm around to aim an awkward punch at the other boy's head. The best he could manage from that position was a glancing blow to Sirius' temple but it seemed to stun Sirius for a moment as James was able to roll out from under him.

"Sirius!" Remus yelled and grabbed Sirius' arm as he lunged for James again. "We've work to do; if you fight we'll just get caught." Since his words did not seem to have any effect Remus continued. "Do you want to finish this prank or not?" Sirius stopped. "Besides," Remus added wickedly, "I'll let you beat him up when we get back to the dormitories."

Sirius laughed and James grinned back. Seeing that Sirius' rather unpredictable temper was back in control, James nodded at him. "Right then, you'd better finish with the pumpkins, Remus and I will set the charm on the Professors' chairs."

"Ah no James, you go help Peter." He glared at Remus. "You two aren't to be trusted."

James laughed at him. "I think that you're forgetting something Sirius, I'm better at Transfiguration than you are."

"He's got a point," Remus added. "And you don't know the charm I'm using."

"I was thinking about that." Sirius answered. "Do you think that you could add a secondary levitation charm to that? It'll make it easier to see and we wouldn't want everyone to miss the fun."

"Easily," Remus answered, "now go finish up."

At about five in the morning on Halloween 1975 the four Gryffindor boys fell wearily into their beds for a few hours of sleep before their day would begin.