Musical Notes

CHAPTER ONE

Tuesday, October 5

-Moony, I've lost count again. How many giant wars were there in 1897 again?

-There were three, Wormtail.

-Good God, Moony, how can you stay awake through this class, let alone take so many bloody notes?! Eventually, Binns will bore himself to death!

-I listen, Padfoot. You don't exactly seem to be straining yourself, I see. How many games of hangman have you lost now?

-He's lost to me exactly twenty-one times during this class.

-Prongs, you git! I've only lost twenty games.

-Oh sorry, I lost count.

-But that's only one fewer than what you said at first, isn't it?

-Very good Peter! You've finally learned how to count!

Peter was saved the need to reply by the bell clanging loudly, signaling the end of class. The four boys grabbed their quills and parchment, shoved their possessions unceremoniously into bookbags, and scrambled towards the door.

As the four friends reached the threshold, James stopped abruptly, causing something of a holdup.

"What's James goggling at?" asked Remus impatiently, having just walked right into the motionless James.

Sirius, who appeared to be torn between utter disgust and amusement replied, "Evans just dropped her quill."

Still rubbing his forehead, Remus leaned around James to see what Sirius was talking about. He was met with quite an unusual sight. James' head was tilted slightly to the right as he observed Lily Evans bending over to retrieve her quill.

After quickly turning away in aversion, Remus gave James a slight shove. This seemed to jump-start his friend's senses, and soon they were treading the familiar path to the Divination tower.

"What was that all about?" squeaked Peter. Peter, the shortest member of the friends, had undoubtedly spent the entire episode at the History of Magic doorway staring at Remus' shoulder blades.

"Prongs," Sirius began, glaring at James, "is a hormonal prat."

"Who is?" questioned James vaguely, staring avidly at Lily's back. Lily, however, didn't seem to notice James' eyes following her. Instead, she was having an intense discussion with her good friends, Demeter and Medea.

Remus rolled his eyes and grinned as Peter and Sirius began to chuckle. James was still clueless.

"What'd I say?"

At this point, the boys and the other fifth year students had arrived at the trapdoor that led to the Divination classroom. The four boys climbed haphazardly up the magical ladder, Peter only achieving this feat with Remus' help.

The Divination room was a rather bizarre sight. The fifth years were currently studying dreams, which explained the many dream catchers floating mysteriously around the room. The students had been assigned to make these Native American muggle magic imitators at the start of the year. What the professor hadn't noticed was that a handful of students had enchanted the dream catchers so that the middle web-part of the devices spelled out rude phrases every once in a while.

The floating ornaments added to the mysterious feel of the room. Many candles sat on the numerous round tables, where they gave off a faint, flickering light. It was with this insubstantial light that the students and the professor had to navigate their paths around the room.

The four boys picked a table near the back at which to sit. At each place, a large book entitled "The Dream Oracle" lay waiting to be read. The friends exchanged dark glances; the prospect of spending another hour researching topics in "The Dream Oracle" wasn't appealing.

With a soft rustling noise, Professor Delphi emerged from her office at the far end of the room. Professor Delphi was a tall witch with short, white hair that always seemed to shine in the dimly-lit room. She wore oval reading glasses on her nose and was never seen without several golden chains hanging loosely from her neck. Because of the great number of these sparkling trinkets, a slight jingling sound was heard whenever Professor Delphi moved.

"Good afternoon, class," Professor Delphi whispered to the students, staring directly at each student in turn. Most of the students squirmed uncomfortably in their seats, not used to being stared at by a teacher. Remus, James, and Sirius, on the other hand, attempted to stifle back laughter. Peter looked like he might faint on the spot.

"Today, we will be continuing to interpret the dreams you have recorded in your dream journals," the Professor went on. "You may begin."

On the pretext of grabbing their dream journals, the boys slipped out the paper on which they had been writing notes during History of Magic. Sirius was the first to snatch the piece of parchment and begin scribbling on it.

-You'd think the old bat would give us something better to do. We've been doing this since school started!

-Be grateful Padfoot; at least it's not reading tea leaves.

-Yes, what the old hag said about you was rather tactless, wasn't it?

-"Rather tactless"? Prongs, she might as well have come right out and told the whole bloody class what I am!

-Moony, it wasn't that bad. No one could've made anything of what she said.

-What part of "You will turn unrecognizable during the next phase of the moon" would they not understand? The class may be morons, but they're not idiots, Prongs!

-Moony, take a deep breath, and read what you just wrote.

-Oh.

-Relax Moony. No one's going to find out. Anyways, Prongs do you-

-Hey guys, what does it mean if I dreamed about being a groundhog?

-It means you will be eaten by your dirty laundry, Wormtail. And don't snatch the parchment away from me while I'm writing.

-What?

-Padfoot, when are you going to learn that you can't use sarcasm with Peter? It's too advanced for him.

-Huh?

-Never mind Peter. Never mind.

-Prongs, do you have that last ingredient for Snape's potion?

-I told you yesterday Padfoot! I got it yesterday while everyone was chasing after that knarl that went mad during Professor Rabble's class.

-Oh yeah, I remember.

-Got what?

-"Got what"?! Wormtail, we've only been talking about this for the past month!

-We needed a bit of hair from the person whom we're trying to Silence. Otherwise, the Ralbah Potion won't work. You know that!

-Oh right, now I remember! When do we need to add the hairs?

-We need to add them on Thursday night while the new moon is rising.

-Won't that be during dinner?

-Is all you think about food, Wormtail?

-No, but is it really necessary that we do this during dinner?

-If we don't do it then, the potion will be useless. And as we've been working on the potion for a whole month, I have a feeling that Prongs and Padfoot would be forced to kill you if they missed this opportunity because of your stomach.

-Look who's talking, Mister I-Can't-Join-You-Because-I-Have-Prefect-Duties.

-I didn't ask for it, alright? If you want to complain, talk to McGonagall.

-Yeah, we know Moony. Anyway, while we're on the subject, let's go through how we're going to do this.

-Good idea Prongs. So at 6:30, I'll be outside watching for the moon to rise, while you and the Hungry One here-

-Hey!

- -are in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, waiting for my signal.

-And after I see you show up in my mirror, I'll add the hairs.

-Perfect! Then on Friday, we'll enjoy the results of our latest prank!

-Yeah, seeing Snivellus try to explain to the Professors why he can't talk will be worth all of this work.

The boys exchanged wild grins as the bell chimed for the last time that day. They hastily returned their quills and parchment to their bookbags and joined the rush of students pushing their ways toward the trapdoor, eager for dinner.

James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were known throughout Hogwarts as the masterminds behind some of the finest pranks the school had seen in years. The members of the group called themselves the Marauders, and none of them was ever seen without at least one of the others close by. As a team, they had been known to bewitch statues to follow people around the castle; enchant the Slytherins' Quidditch robes so that they yelled phrases such as "Griffindors are the best!" during Quidditch matches; and curse their enemies into the middle of the following week (literally). In particular, the Marauders enjoyed pranking an unpopular Slytherin by the name of Severus "Snivellus" Snape.

Their mischief-making was not limited to playing pranks on people. After Sirius, James, and Peter found out that Remus was a werewolf, they came up with a plan to make their friend's transformations more bearable. They researched the process by which witches and wizards become Anamagi so that they would be able to keep Remus company during full moons. Now, three years after beginning research, they had achieved becoming Anamagi. They could transform into animals at will: Remus (in wolf form) as Moony; Peter (the rat) as Wormtail; Sirius (the dog) as Padfoot; and James (the stag) as Prongs. The friends continued to talk about their latest prank as they strolled to the Great Hall.

Once they had squeezed their ways into the Great Hall, the four boys took seats near the end of the long wooden table and served themselves the steaming food. They ate in silence for several minutes until Remus brought up a dreaded subject.

"So for homework tonight, we should probably get a start on that Potions essay for Professor Clunis."

Sirius groaned loudly. "Remus, lighten up. We've got forever to finish that essay!"

Remus opened his mouth to remind Sirius, yet again, that O.W.L's were that year, but James cut him off.

"Hey, where'd Peter go?"

He had a point; their corpulent friend had abandoned both his friends and his meal. Sirius, James, and Remus stood up and scanned the Great Hall, but Peter didn't seem to be among the many students roaming around the room.

As the boys turned back to their own table, they realized that Peter had returned to his seat, looking rather red in the face.

"Peter!" Sirius exclaimed, glaring indignantly at his friend. "Where the bloody hell were you?"

Peter replied in a small voice, "Nowhere," and continued to stare at his food. As he moved his food around the plate with his fork, the three other friends exchanged annoyed glances.

"C'mon Peter, you can tell us," said James, who had returned to his cold dinner.

After a moment of hesitation, Peter looked up at his friends. "You know that Louisa Midgen girl in Hufflepuff?" The others nodded, wondering what was going on. "Well," Peter mumbled, turning redder every second, "I, uh, I... Iaskedherout" he blurted out in a rush.

Several things happened in quick succession. James, who had been gulping pumpkin juice, spat the juice onto the person sitting directly across from him. This person, who happened to be Remus, received a large amount of pumpkin juice in his eyes. Remus shot up with a howl of pain ("AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGG!!!!"), inadvertently hitting a stunned Sirius off of the bench with a loud THWACK.

All chatter in the Great Hall had stopped by this time, and almost everyone had turned to face the four Griffindor boys. Several people (Slytherins, undoubtedly) began laughing hysterically as they witnessed the most popular boys in the school sprawled across the floor, hopping on one foot in anguish, or dabbing clumsily at the orange stains on the tablecloth, depending on what each of their personal disasters had been.

"Oh shove off," Remus snapped, rubbing his eyes furiously. "There's nothing to see here." Slowly, people began to return to their own meals, and the usual babble of the Great Hall started again.

Sirius, looking thoroughly disgruntled as he pushed himself up off of the floor, turned again to Peter. "So what'd she say?"

"She said no," Peter muttered gloomily, looking as though he'd like nothing better than to sink through the floor.

"I'm sorry, Peter," Sirius said, glancing in the direction where Lily Evans and her friends were sitting. "The best thing you can do is a situation like this," he continued looking back at a crestfallen Peter, "is to forget about the girl. If you don't, you end up doing a James and making a complete arse out of yourself."

"Shut it, Padfoot," James grumbled while he stared dreamily at Lily.

"Face it, mate, she thinks you're a big-headed prat. Get over it!" Sirius found himself explaining to his friend for the hundredth time.

"She won't feel that way forever," James said determinedly, setting down his knife and fork and pushing his plate away.

"Look," Remus interjected loudly so as to deter Sirius from arguing with James, "it's about time we head to the common room and at least start the potions essay, okay?" He looked at his friends, blinking frantically to remove any more drops of pumpkin juice from his eyes. James, Sirius, and Peter nodded, so the Marauders slung their bookbags over their backs and strolled to the Gryffindor common room, having had a very long day.