The Marauders: Year 1

"His ears weren't smoking," Sirius said.

"Noticed that too, huh?" James replied.

"What on Earth are you two talking about?" Peter asked as they walked towards Professor McGonagall's class.

"Pepper-Up Potion makes you smoke at the ears for a few hours at least. If Remus took any, he's still have smoke coming out of his ears. Why won't he tell us what's wrong?" James said to the other two.

"Hmmm... a mystery," Sirius said with a sly glance towards the other two. James perked up immediately and grinned that crooked grin of his, that, by this time, Peter knew was a precursor to trouble. Peter just rolled his eyes.

"Hmmm... transfiguration first," Peter said and walked into the classroom.

"Right he is, Jamesy boy," Sirius said and followed Peter.

"Don't call me that. You know I hate that," James intoned as he followed the other two.

"Ahem... as I was saying," Professor McGonagall continued, shooting a withering glance at the three chatting boys who were yet again late to her class, "today we will be working in pairs to change these dice to plates. Now everybody pair up and one of you come up here and get your dice. Points will be deducted if your plates have a spotted pattern similar to the dots on the die. Off you go."

The three boys looked at one another. This was the first time they'd had to do a project in pairs with one of them missing. Peter gulped. He knew Sirius and James would claim each other and he's have to find someone else to work with, but to his surprise James spoke up first.

"Jamesy, eh? Come on, Pete. Let's go sit over there. I'll get the dice," and with that the decision was made. The tone he'd implied 'Jamesy, eh?' with was clearly all in good humor, so Sirius just shrugged and looked around the room. He'd noticed Rebecca Longbottom hadn't been in class either, which meant one of the girls in her usual group must not have a partner either. With that he walked over to a pretty girl with blonde hair, Alice and Alicia or something... he was so bad with some of their names.

"Hey, you want to work together?" he asked her.

She shook her head, "Sorry, Sirius, but Lily and I are working together. I don't think Trixie has a partner yet though." She looked over at the girl with the messy blonde hair, who was known for being unusually talkative. She even looked a bit sad to have to send him off to her.

"Yea, thanks anyway..." he thought for a second and decided to chance it, "Alice."

"No problem, maybe next time," she said and turned to Lily Evans, who had already retrieved their dice while Alice and Sirius had been talking.

Sirius walked over to Trixie, who usually sat right up front by her aunt's desk. She turned around and enthusiastically waved him over.

"Well," he thought, "it could be worse. She could be a Slytherin. And she's plenty nice even if she does never shut up." With that thought, he pulled up a chair next to her and said, "Do you want to get the dice or should I?"

* * * * *

A little over two hours later the three walked out of the classroom, all rather content with the work they'd just done.

"Dinner, then?" Sirius asked.

"Let's go check on Remus, see if he won't tell us what's really wrong with him," James said.

"Maybe he's just homesick or something. I mean, if I got homesick, I'd never want the two of you to know. I'm sure you'd just make fun and if he is, he probably feels horrible already," Peter said, looking a little unsure of himself. He often felt like his opinions were kind of stupid compared to the other three's.

"Nah, he's already been here for nearly two months, how could he still be homesick?" Sirius said.

"Yea, but Pete's right. He might not tell us if it was something important, especially if he thought we'd just make fun of him. I mean we all know we wouldn't if it was important, but nothing important has ever come up before... so maybe we don't know. Does that make any sense?" James rambled as they made their way to the Hospital Wing.

"Scarily enough, it does," Sirius said. They turned the corner into the last corridor and went into the infirmary area. Madame Pomfrey stopped them immediately.

"Remus isn't feeling well enough for visitors at the moment. You'll have to go now. He should be back to you all fine and in one piece tomorrow evening. Now, if you please," and she shut the door in their faces.

The three of them looked at one another rather shocked. Madame Pomfrey definitely was not overly fond of any of them, but she'd never slammed the door in their faces either.

"Definitely a mystery," Sirius said with a smirk.

"A mystery??!?! I just hope he's alright," Peter said. "You two are unbelievable sometimes." Then he stormed off towards the Great Hall.

"What's gotten into him?" Sirius asked James sincerely.

James gave him a glance that could clearly be read as 'how-stupid-are-you', "Apparently, Peter is crazy enough to be worried when one of our best friends is so sick we can't even see him. I guess he finds that to be a little more important than a "mystery". Crazy him, huh?" James's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"Well it's not like I don't care about Remus. Just he didn't look all that sick. I think something's up. I'm worried too, okay? I'm sure he'll be fine. We'll just ask him tomorrow night," Sirius said. "Let's go find Peter, he's probably stuffing his face already down in the Great Hall."

* * * * *

Later that evening, in the Common Room...

"Alright, at first I just thought McGonagall was a bit demanding, but now, I'm rather convinced she's the reincarnation of evil itself. Four feet of parchment on basic transfiguration charms? It can't be done," Sirius ranted as he dramatically draped his hand across his brow and fell onto the couch in front of the fire. James jumped up from his homework with a mock look of horror upon his face.

"Oh no, Peter, the horrors, the horrors," he said theatrically, joining in on his friend's fun. "Whatever will we do?" By this time the three boys had quite a few overworked students looking up from their homework, a few looking rather annoyed, but more than a few with wry smiles upon their faces.

Peter calmly looked up from the astronomy chart he was working on, seemed to ponder what to do, then lowered his head back to his chart, lifted his wand, pointed it at his 'unconscious' friend, muttered "Aquato" and went back to his work as a small stream of rather cold water arched itself from his wand right onto Sirius's face.

Sirius jumped up and James, along with several others in the room, burst into laughter. Slowly the laughter quieted down and Sirius picked up his quill.

He paused before jotting down his thoughts on his parchment, "Pete, when did you learn that charm?"

"Last week when you set my shoes on fire for the fourth time," he replied, rolling up his astronomy chart and grabbing his parchment of flobberworm observations.

James chuckled and began gathering up his stuff, "Well, I'm heading off to bed... double Potions first thing in the morning is not something I want to be half asleep for." With that he headed up towards the staircase to the boys dormitory.

"You know, Seer, if you hadn't spent those hours in the library looking up hexes to set me on fire and whatnot, you'd already be done with that transfiguration essay," Peter said as he began to gather up his books.

"You git, that was definitely time well spent. Did you see everyone's faces when I turned McGonagall's hair bright purple?"

"You git, didn't you see your own face when she took 20 points from Gryffindor and gave you detention for a week?"

Sirius leaned back on his elbows, "Admittedly, an unforeseen complication. However, it was well worth it. Next time though, I'm aiming for Filch."

"Now that would be worth the points and detention."

"I'm well aware... but I think I'll come up with something better for him."

"Such as...?"

"Merlin knows. But it'll be good. Maybe Peeves will help you?"

Peter chuckled, "Peeves, help you? Yea, right, even a crazy marauder like yourself couldn't get Peeves to work with you."

"Marauder, eh? That's a good one Pete," he said, with a rare thoughtful look crossing his face. "You're aware of the definition of the work, I'm sure? Because if you looked into Filch's files, it would only confirm that I am not the only marauder. I believe your file is more extensive than the average First Years."

"Mine?" Peter said. "For Merlin's sake, by the time we graduate, you and James'll have a drawer all to yourselves."

"Well then buddy, I hate to break it to you, but that makes all three of us marauders," Sirius replied. "You know, I actually think it's an honor. Marauder... you know, that's not such a bad name for us."

"We need a name?" Peter asked, puzzled. "I have a name, Peter. I rather like it, thank you."

"No, no. A collective name, for James and me and you, all clubs have a name, it creates a bond sort of thing. And we are a good bunch of marauders."

"McGonagall will hate it."

"Perfect."

* * * * *

"I really can't believe Remus missed all those classes. Do you guys think he'll be in Herbology?" Peter asked as the three Marauders strolled across the grass towards Greenhouse Two.

James perked his head up, he and Sirius had been planning something by the looks on their faces; Peter could only hope the results wouldn't be directed at him. "Yea, I bet he will be."

"You thought he'd be in double Potions this morning too, and then Care of Magical Creatures, but he wasn't. This is the second time he's been sick already since we got to Hogwarts." Peter looked concerned.

"He just has a cruddy immune system," Sirius quipped at him. "Last one to the greenhouse is a smelly old sock. And I mean that literally, I've been working on this new curse..." His words trailed off as he took off at a run, James and Peter quickly following him.

Fortunately for Peter, who had come in last, when the three burst in the door they saw Remus standing over by their usual corner. The distraction saved him from Sirius's new curse.

"See Pete, I told you he'd be fine. Stop being such a ninny," Sirius sat down next to Remus and dumped his stuff all around him. James sat across from Sirius and Peter took the spot opposite Remus. Professor Sprout walked in and began the lesson on Venomous Algaphobes who were, quite oddly, not the least bit venomous. Shortly after her lecture the entire glass was wearing long, thick gloves and rooting through various aquariums full of water to try and discern Venomous Algaphobes from plain old algae.

Peter leaned over to Remus, "Are you sure you're ok? You still look pale and you're kinda scratched up."

"The whole turnip antidote had a bad effect," he replied quickly. "Guess I was allergic or something. And I tripped on my way out to the greenhouse."

Peter's face cleared up and he readily accepted this explanation. Sirius, however, had also overheard it and found it odd that last month Remus had had a reaction to an antidote also, causing him to spend the evening in the Hospital Wing... if his memory served him correctly, he had then claimed he had fallen on his way to Defense Against the Dark Arts the next day, leaving him all scratched up. He looked over at James who merely raised an eyebrow and shoved his hands deeper into the aquarium.

* * * * *

"Why are they grinning like that?" Remus asked Peter as they climbed through the portrait hole. The two had just returned from the Hospital Wing, since Madame Pomfrey had requested that Remus check in with her after dinner. After leaving the Great Hall, James and Sirius had headed off to the Common Room, with Remus and Peter agreeing to meet them there in just a bit.

"I usually feel that when I don't know from the start, it's best not to know at all," Peter sighed. James and Sirius were sitting in their usual corner by the fire with their school work surrounding them. Remus was always amazed at the two of them. Upon meeting them and getting to know them a bit, he was absolutely certain they would both be the kind of students who never tried, never did homework, never studied, but always managed to get by. Instead, he came to learn that the two of them were neck in neck for top boys of the class in every class except for Herbology and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Even with Professor Nackle hating them both, they managed to receive top marks in Potions... provided they didn't cause any trouble and get kicked out of the class before homework was turned in. He glanced at his two friends and realized that this was one of the many things that all the other students didn't see. The rest of Hogwarts saw them as some crazy little group of First Years that loved to cause trouble. They never saw James quietly tutor Peter in Transfiguration or Sirius look over James's Care of Magical Creatures essays. The other students never saw the four of them at two in the morning quizzing one another for a History of Magic test. Suddenly Remus realized that he really was a part of the group. For some odd reason, this concept had eluded him since the first day he had met the other three, but he comprehended now that he'd been part of the group since that very first day. Not quite sure how to deal with this revelation, he sat down at the table James and Sirius had procured with a very dopey grin on his face and spread out his things.

James looked up and smirked that strange smile of his, "What're you smiling at, Remus?"

"Strange twists of fate..." he trailed off, still smiling a bit. "Want me to look over that essay of yours for DADA? You said the other day you weren't sure if you'd gotten everything."

"Yea, thanks Remmy. It's over there," he pointed to a pile of parchment. "Notes from the last few classes too."

Remus smiled. He was once again struck by this concept of friendship. The entire table was covered in parchments from all four of them, but Remus knew immediately which were James. His notes would be the orderly ones, with weird little arrows connecting things and the messy handwriting. They would be incredibly detailed, filled with things that would never appear on any test, most likely, but -just in case- James always tried to write down everything the teacher said. Right next to them was another copy of notes from the same class, these scrolls were covered in absolutely abysmal handwriting, always printed letters, never cursive, and there were lots of illustrations... the majority of the notes would actually make no sense to anyone but the lunatic that had written them- Sirius Black. Not too far away from those would be Peter's. The handwriting would be neat and the notes somewhat complete, but things were probably missing, nothing big or of vast importance, but some little side note. In the corner there were probably doodles of quidditch players or the view from wherever Peter had been sitting. Remus had been surprised to find that Peter was actually a phenomenal artist. Remus's own notes had their own flair to them too, of course. They were neat and orderly, with no doodles (of his own anyway, occasionally on any of their notes, there might be a little message written by the bored Marauder at the desk next to them up in a corner margin), close to perfect Palmer script in meticulous order. So meticulous that if they were too messy at the end of class, Remus was in the habit of recopying them so they were neat and orderly. All the while Remus had been contemplating this, his eyes had been scanning James's essay on lycanthropes. He had almost laughed out loud when the professor had announced they'd be studying dark beasts this term. He was startled back to reality when he saw James produce a small canister from his bag.

"Oh what now?" he asked and looked up, noticing Peter had temporarily disappeared.

"Nothing, Remmy, nothing at all... you just keep proofreading," Sirius said quietly, reaching for the small container Peter kept of saw dust to sprinkle on wet ink, causing it to dry quicker on the parchment.

Quick as a flash Remus had grabbed the canister from James. Neither James nor Sirius had expected such a reaction, both looked surprised but said nothing. Remus flipped the canister over and read the label- Parmesan Cheese. He could see where this was going and, at the moment, he was sick of being sensible, 'think quick and get the others out of trouble' Remus. He grabbed Peter's saw dust container and quickly emptied it into his own. By this point, James and Sirius had both grabbed their quills and gone back to their work, attempting to look as innocent as possible, which, oddly enough, they always seemed to manage to accomplish. He popped open the container of cheese and poured it in place of the saw dust, finishing off by placing it right back where Peter had left it, with the top partially screwed off. At that moment he heard footsteps and crammed the container with the remaining cheese under the table, where he felt someone, probably James, take it from his grasp. He went back to pretending to read James's essay.

Several minutes passed and nothing happened. Finally, Peter put down his quill and grabbed what he thought was saw dust, spreading it all over his paper. Then he dumped the remains back into the jar and started work on his next essay. Three scrolls of parchment and two hours later, Peter looked up at the others.

"Do you smell that?" he asked.

"Smell what?" Sirius asked, nearly growled, as he was in the middle of a particularly dull essay about goblin rebellions and their effects on the wild boars of Tanzenia.

"That... smell."

James looked at Peter and made a face, "Hey, whoever smelt it, delt it."

Sirius and Remus chuckled at the old joke.

"That wasn't what I meant. It smells... well, it does smell cheesey... but I didn't have any cheese at dinner," Peter was beginning to look a little confused. He looked to Remus for confirmation.

Remus shook his head, putting on a bewildered face.

"No, seriously guys, it smells weird down here."

"Then go up to the dormitory. What do you want us to do? We don't know any banishing spells for phantom smells that only seem to affect you," Sirius said, grabbing one of the History of Magic textbooks, not necessarily his, and checking the index for a cross-reference between wild boars and goblins.

"Are you guys serious?" Peter asked.

"No, I'm Sirius. That's James and that's Remus," he said pointing to each of them in turn as he spoke and flipped pages at the same time.

"You know, that was old by the second time we heard it, Sirius," Remus said, returning to his own DADA essay on lycanthropes.

"You know, I heard that in the Muggle world, smelling weird smells is like a precursor to a seizure or something like that. You're the Muggle born, Pete, is it true?" James asked innocently.

"For old people, I'm young," Peter said, a slightly hysterical tone to his voice.

"Well, maybe you'd best just get some sleep. I'm sure the smell will go away when you leave the room," Remus told him as he tried to stack his books neatly in order. "Where did my History book go?"

Sirius tapped the cover of the book he was still paging through. "This might be it. It's definitely not mine, I spilled a potion on my book bag, all my books have got blue pages now. Remus just shook his head and grabbed a different copy of the History of Magic text off the table. By the time this exchange was over, Peter had packed up his stuff and was walking off towards the dormitory. As soon as he disappeared out of sight, the three boys burst into gales of laughter.

Suddenly, James heaved forward a bit as though he's been smacked in the back on the head, his expression changed from one of extreme mirth to one of shock and a bit pain. He reached behind him and picked up a Transfiguration book. "What the..." he trailed off.

Before he could even finish his sentence, a very angry red head was standing next to him with her hands on her hips. From her appearance, Remus would've guessed she wasn't all there. It was nearing midnight, and most people had left the Common Room except for his friends and the group of girls studying over in the corner. Remus immediately placed her as Lily Evans, an incredibly intelligent girl, who, despite her intelligence, Remus still thought was a bit daft. He'd never forgotten overhearing her mumbling incessantly to herself the night of the sorting. At the moment she looked almost crazed, her hair was standing up at odd angles, clearly from running her hands through it a few too many times and her reading glasses, which Remus noticed she tried to avoid wearing, had slipped most of the way down her nose. Her tie from her uniform had actually, somehow, worked it's way around her neck until it hung down her back and her eyes, usually a very pretty shade of green, now had something a bit scary lurking behind them.

"If you idiotic dolts, would please shut up, we are trying to study for the Transfiguration exam on Monday. Some of us like to pass our classes," she snarled as she grabbed her book out of James bewildered clutch and stormed back off to her friends.

Remus looked over at the group. Lily sat back down and opened her book and her friend Melissa leaned back a bit too far from the bench she was sitting on, causing her to loose her balance and crash to the floor. The resulting crash made Rebecca Longbottom, Frank's twin sister, jump up, her head had been on the table and apparently she'd been asleep, since as she jumped up she yelled, "Don't pickle my toes! I need them!" in a rather terrified voice. Rebecca then shook her head said something to the rest of the table, grabbed her books and headed for the stairs to the girls dormitory. Remus found himself thinking that was a wise choice, and thought that maybe she should've dragged Lily with her. Lily had moved from yelling at James to telling Melissa off, apparently for daring to fall off the bench. Melissa just shook her head a bit and muttered something Remus couldn't quite hear to Lily, causing Cortessa Maris and Alice Smith to laugh and Lily to turn red and storm off in the direction Rebecca had just gone. Lily's reaction caused Tessa and Alice to stop laughing and shake their heads, but Melissa just shrugged and started gathering up her own things. Remus was surprised to see Melissa groggily make her way over to where the Marauders were sitting, James and Sirius still in a bit of shock over Lily's attack.

"Sorry about Lily, she's having a bit of trouble in the class and is completely spazzing over this silly little test. Bit of a perfectionist, she is. Consider yourselves lucky, at least she doesn't lecture you every time you do something fun," Melissa addressed the group in general with a cynical, albeit groggy, smile, her hair and uniform in a similar state of dishevelment as Lily's had been. However, unlike when Lily had come over and scared the ghosts out of the boys, Remus found Melissa to be quite pleasant and suddenly the phrase, easy on the eyes, popped into his head. From where, he had no idea, but he dismissed it as just being tired. "Anyway, just wanted to say sorry. I'm sure she'll feel like a git in the morning." She turned to leave and then turned back to James specifically, "Your head is alright, isn't it? She's got atrocious aim, but when she does land a blow if hurt's like bloody hell."

James looked very confused. Apparently dealing with two girls in the span of ten minutes, while rather sleepy, did not go over well with his brain. "I... fine. I'm fine. Didn't hurt a bit."

"Oh," Melissa said. "Good... Goodnight, then." She turned and left the room.

"Well, this has been an odd night. I think sleep would be a good next on the agenda," Sirius said. The three began to gather up quills, books and parchments, not even paying attention to whose was whose. Remus was somewhat amused to see James rubbing the back of his head lightly as the three walked up the steps to their dormitory.

When they opened the door, they could hear the tell tale signs of Frank's snoring. Remus tripped over Peter's school bag with all his books and parchments in it and swore quietly. Remus went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and when he got back to the room, James and Sirius were already in their beds, curtains drawn. Remus climbed into bed and pulled the curtains.

As he was settling back into his pillows a quiet voice broke through the silence.

"Guys, are you still awake?" It sounded a bit worried.

A grunt came from Sirius's direction, James managed a somewhat coherent 'uh-huh', while Remus muttered 'whattayawantPete' all as one long slurred word.

"I think I might be really sick. You guys might have been right." At the words really sick, Remus woke right up and he was pretty sure that behind all the curtains James and Sirius had too.

"Really sick? Are you alright, Pete?" Remus was halfway out of bed, and noticed the same stirring movements in the curtains from James and Sirius's beds before Peter replied.

"That smell... it followed me. I can still smell it up here."

Remus took one look at the bag containing all the cheese covered parchments

sitting at the end of Peter's bed and burst into laughter. A second later it hit the other two and the three climbed back into bed laughing madly, while Peter let out an agonized groan, followed by a couple of threatening comments.

"Welcome to the Marauders, Remus," Sirius muttered from his bed.

"Always wanted to raid and plunder," he replied very sleepily.

"Jolly good," James said thickly.

"Just you three wait until tomorrow," Peter grumbled quietly.

"Would you idiots please shut up? Some of us are trying to sleep here," Frank hissed from across the room.

A few minutes later all four Marauders were asleep.