The Marauders: Year 1

"I'm pleased to see you've arrived back safely," Professor Dumbledore said from his seat behind his desk.

"Can we go back next Saturday, Professor?" James asked eagerly.

"If you'd like," he responded. Then he grinned widely, the twinkle in his eye very apparent. "But for now, perhaps you'd like to visit Mr. Lupin. I was over in the Hospital Wing about an hour ago and he was puzzling over the ingredients to the Swelling Solution. Mumbling something about Mr. Black's handwriting I do believe."

This took a moment to sink in when Sirius suddenly jumped as though he'd been goosed, "He's awake?!?!"

"And he's already doing homework..." James mused. "Well, it's nice to know this incident hasn't changed him."

"Yes, I suppose you'd both like to go visit him. I know he was worried about Mr. Pettigrew as well." Professor Dumbledore gestured to the door. "It's not polite to keep one waiting."

James and Sirius dashed out the door and down the step, across the corridor and wound their way through the hallways until they burst through the infirmary door. They heard giggling and a mildly agitated groan from behind Remus's curtain as they burst through. The two stopped short at the sight in front of them.

Frank Longbottom was mimicking the girl's impression of what they said about boys in a ridiculously funny one man show and Lily, Rebecca and Melissa were sitting at the foot of Remus's bed laughing hysterically. Remus himself was chuckling. Then he looked up and noticed James and Sirius. He fell silent.

"I'm so sorry we weren't here when you woke up..." James began, but Remus waved him off.

"How's Pete?" he asked in a worried tone.

Sirius paused, contemplating how to answer, "Well, he's seen better days."

Remus nodded and shifted his hand slightly, causing him to wince, "I can imagine."

"We heard you were doing homework," James said with a grin as he flopped into the open seat next to Remus's bed. Sirius perched himself on the armrest.

"I was until these gits showed up," he said with a grin. "They've been telling me about what I missed. Although Lily did try to decode some of your handwriting Sirius, but we gave up pretty quickly."

"Gee, thanks pal," Sirius muttered and then, despite himself, grinned widely. James reasoned that whatever had happened between them earlier in the week was not forgotten.

"Well, we've got to be going," Rebecca said as she stood up. "We told Tessa and Alice that we'd meet them in the library to study." Melissa and Lily also got up off of Remus's bed, but before they left, Lily leaned over and gave Remus a careful hug.

"I'm glad you're alright," she said. Then she whispered in his ear, "I checked under the bed... no boggarts." She smiled sweetly and disappeared behind the curtain.

"You know, Frank," James began. "They did mention Alice would be there." He put on his most innocent face. Sirius and Remus tried to control their laughter and force on similar innocent looks.

"So?" he asked, refusing to look any of them in the eye.

"Oh, so nothing," Sirius said, they sat in silence for a moment.

"You know, Becca's been having some trouble in Potions. Maybe I'd best go check and see if any of them need help," Frank said, turning slightly red.

"You do that, Frank," Remus said, smiling.

"Later, guys," he replied and made a beeline for the door.

"Ten galleons says they're engaged by the time we graduate Hogwarts," James said to Sirius.

"You're on."

"You're an idiot," Remus piped up. "James is going to win that one. By the way, could one of you do me a favor and get my books. I'm going nuts with just these notes."

"I'll go get them now, Remmy," James said and headed towards the door.

Sirius turned to him, quiet for a moment, "Speaking of engaged, ten galleons you and Lily are by the time we graduate."

"Oh we won't be, but I'll bet you ten she and James are," Remus replied.

"Yeah right. They just barely don't hate one another anymore."

"We've got six and a half years before we graduate, Sirius. I'm telling you, this is one bet I'll win. Especially since I don't ever plan on even dating Lily." They both looked at one another for a second.

"Listen, about your mom... I'm sorry she's sick," Sirius said quietly.

"Yea well... me too," Remus said. "But I'll take that as a general apology."

Sirius grinned sheepishly. Remus just shrugged his shoulders and winced when it caused his hand to move.

"So how is Peter?" Remus asked.

Sirius shook his head slowly. "Bad. Worse than you were..."

"Oi."

"Yea, oi about sums it up."

At that moment, James came back with Remus's books and his own, along with Sirius's. The three spent the rest of the afternoon and evening doing their homework and tutoring Remus on what he'd missed.

~~*~~

Monday afternoon, James and Sirius walked into Potions and took their usual seat in the back. James, with a silly grin on his face, walked up to the professor and turned in a week's worth of Remus's homework that he'd completed over the last two days.

He sat back down next to Sirius and began to copy the list of ingredients and the steps to create the Deflating Potion. The work was going smoothly until Sirius got up to retrieve some gillyweed from the front of the room. On his way back, Malfoy stuck out his foot and sent Sirius flying. He knocked over two cauldrons and wound up dropping the entire vial of gillyweed into his and James's cauldron.

"Black!" Professor Nackle bellowed.

"But Malfoy tripped me, Professor!" Sirius yelled in protest.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor. You and Mr. Potter may give me a vial of your potion now and leave," he said nastily.

James and Sirius thought they were getting a reprieve until they looked down at their potion. Rather than the thick brown color, it was light pink and bubbling, like a carbonated beverage. The two just shook their heads sadly, stoppered vials of the strange concoction, and left.

"That's it James. I've been thinking about this for a while. It's time to get back at Malfoy." Sirius was walking very fast out of the dungeons and towards the Great Hall, rather than entering though, they went around by the Transfiguration and Charms classrooms and slipped into a stairwell that was hidden behind a painting of a hippogriff and a large, talking rock. They followed the stairway up to the hallway leading to the astronomy tower and then turned at the last second, and tapped the eyes of a bust of an old headmaster. This made the pedestal the bust was on contort into a large hole, which Sirius and James both climbed into. They followed the dimly lit passage until they pushed a wall at the end slightly sideways, leaving them in the Healing Potions section of the library.

~~*~~

"So what are we doing here, Seer?" James asked, tossing his book bag on a nearby table.

"Uh uh," Sirius said, grabbing James's book bag and handing it back to him. "I need a big distraction. Like ten dungbombs sized. Give me a minute to get into place though, I'll give you some sort of signal. Then right back here and I'll meet you in the passage... if you don't get caught. If you do..."

"I'll meet you up in the Common Room after Madame Pince gives me detention. This better be good, Sirius," James said, rummaging through his bag for some dungbombs. He also pulled out a few wet start fireworks and grinned. "Well, go."

Sirius walked away and James followed at a discreet distance. Sirius peered around a corner and James realized that he was scoping out the Restricted Section. Oh, this will be good, James thought. He saw Sirius dart out his arm and gesture him to make a scene. James happily obliged, setting off more than a dozen dungbombs and three different kinds of wet start fireworks. For a few seconds the library was in mass chaos, the smoke from the dungbombs obscured everyone's eyes, the smell made them gag and the fireworks created a ton of noise. James turned to head for the Healing Potions section when he felt a thin hand warp around his arm.

"James Potter, what have you done to my library?" shrieked Madame Pince. James stalled for a second and then saw Sirius slip around the corner to the Potions section, grinning madly.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I was just trying a small fire spell and my book bag caught fire and everything in it went off!" James tried to look apologetic and worried.

"What would possess you to carry such items around with you? Go to Mr. Filch. Now. Now, Potter!" she roughly pushed him towards the main entrance of the library. James grabbed his book bag and ran for the door.

Once outside the library, he headed for Filch's office, a place he was convinced he could probably find even if someone used one of Nackle's strongest memory removal potions on him. He knocked on the door and then pushed if open.

"Madame Pince sent me to see you, sir," James said while standing in the doorway.

"That was you, eh Potter?" Filch snarled at him from behind his desk. "Detention tonight and tomorrow then, in the library. You'll be cleaning up your mess." He gestured for James to get out of his office while beginning to mutter, "In my day... hang you right up by your socks in the dungeons... don't know what's gotten into the new headmasters..."

James walked out, thinking he'd gotten off pretty easily. He still had a few hours before he'd have to go back to the library, so he took off in the direction of Gryffindor Tower to find Sirius and see exactly what had gotten him two nights detention. He walked up to the portrait of the Fat Lady and gave the current password ("Fish and chips") and climbed through the hole. Sirius wasn't in the Common Room, so James climbed up to their dormitory and found all the curtains drawn on his bed. James poked his head through and faced Sirius pointing a wand at him.

"Would ya put that down? I'd rather not like my head hexed into next Thursday, thank you," James said as he climbed onto Sirius's bed. "Really now, who would come in here? Peter and Remus certainly won't be and Frank just shakes his head and walks away muttering whenever he sees one of us planning something."

Sirius just grunted and kept on listing things on a piece of parchment. "Did you get in much trouble?"

"Two days detention with Filch, cleaning up the library."

"Great, you can sneak this back in tonight then. I'm copying what we need out of it."

"What is it?" James said and lifted one side of the book to see the title Moste Potente Potions. "Oh what is this? Neither of us is very good at potions."

"Well, we'll just be more careful than when we're in Nackle's class. This potion actually matters."

"And which potion is that?"

"Polyjuice."

"Poly what?"

"Polly want a cracker?"

"I'm leaving." James got up from the bed, but Sirius grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

"No, no. Polyjuice. It'll turn our physical looks into someone else's for about an hour. I was thinking, we turn into Slytherins and we, ahem... rearrange... the First Year boys dormitory. We'll need to look up a few charms later on, but this take a month to brew anyway. We'll turn everything Gryffindor colors and perhaps nick a few of Malfoy and Snape's more personal items that they'd rather everyone not see..."

"Black," James began and then paused for effect, "you, my friend, are a genius."

"Yup," he grinned and pushed a piece of parchment at James, "We'll need to get these supplies from Nackle's personal supply closet. Then we'll need to find a place to brew this that no one uses."

"We can use the passageway from the library to the astronomy tower to brew it. But your risking your hide this time with Nackle, you create the distraction, I'll get the ingredients." James leaned back thoughtfully, "This isn't such a bad plan."

"I know," Sirius grinned wickedly and the two bent their heads together to work out the rest of the details. They planned out how to distract Nackle and got so into it that James was nearly late for his detention.

~~*~~

Instead of heading to the Great Hall for lunch on Friday, James Potter and Sirius Black could be seen taking off at break neck speed for the Hospital Wing. Towards the end of double Potions that morning, someone had knocked their cauldron of Swelling Solution over on Snape, causing him to enlarge to the size of a small hippopotamus. While the professor and the students around him hastened to deflate him to his normal size, someone had snuck into the private store rooms of the potions master and borrowed, so to speak, a few ingredients. Both James and Sirius were bursting to tell Remus this story.

"Well?" Remus asked, sitting up excitedly, he was doing much better.

"Got 'em," James said proudly, holding up several small jars. "We can start brewing the potion tonight."

"Any idea when you'll be getting out of here, Remmy?" Sirius asked, sitting down on the bed. "You look a lot better... well, actually your hand still looks positively disgusting, but all in all, you look a lot better."

"Thanks, Seer," Remus said dryly. "They said maybe by Wednesday."

"Really?" James looked up from the scroll he'd been reading. "That's great. Do you want us to wait for you to get out to start the potion?"

"Nah, it takes a month to brew, you guys should start it now. Those smarmy gits definitely deserve it."

"Actually, we should wait till Wednesday," Sirius said suddenly. "A month from then will be Easter Holiday, most of the school will be gone. If we all stay, then we could do it then far easier than now. Their Common Room will be as empty as ours."

"I hadn't even thought of that," James said, nodding slightly. "Right then, we'll wait till Wednesday."

The group settled in and started chatting about other things. Abruptly, James's face lit up.

"Hey Remmy," James started. "The night you guys... well, you know. We all met up in the astronomy tower and the girls put on this little show for us."

"James, that sounds so wrong. 'The girls put on a little show for us'? They'd kill you if they heard you word it like that," Sirius said chuckling.

James turned red, "That was not what I meant. What I meant was you came up and one of the girls said you liked Melissa and Sirius and I couldn't figure out whether she was joking or she meant it."

Remus blushed, "I don't like her like that. She's just a friend, like Lily."

"Ah," Sirius said, making a triangle with his fingers and resting his chin on the tripod, "the girls also seem to think that Lily has a thing for you."

"She denied it though," James said.

Remus shrugged.

"Ah, Lily Evans. You know, I suspect some day she may be a looker," Sirius commented, as though he'd put a lot of thought into it.

"Oh really?" James commented wryly. "With that hair? I don't think she'll ever really turn heads, if that's what you mean."

"Well she's only eleven, you can't really judge by that," Remus added.

"No, no. I've spent a considerable amount of time debating what will become of the Gryffindor five," Sirius replied.

"Gryffindor five?" Remus looked at him questioningly.

"That's what I think of them as," he added calmly. "There are five of them, are there not? And they're in Gryffindor."

"You're an idiot. If it wouldn't hurt my hand, I'd hit you with my pillow," Remus told him.

"Won't hurt mine, sit up Remus," James said and proceeded to smack Sirius with the pillow.

"Hey, hey," Sirius said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "It's merely that some day we're going to want to date these girls and they're gonna remember how we treated them before puberty caught up with them."

James and Remus continued to look at him as though he'd just escaped from St. Mungo's.

"Alright then, give us your appraisals of the 'Gryffindor five', as you call them," Remus said slowly.

Sirius smiled broadly, "Do you have a preference for who's first?"

"Well, you've already mentioned Lily," James offered.

"Ah, yes. Lily. She's going to be a knock out. You made fun of her hair now because she doesn't have the confidence to pull it off yet, nor the skill to really tame it either. When she figures out those two, she'll definitely have Hogwarts begging for more," Sirius said sagely. "Then there's Melissa, who I think will always be a little odd, but she may wind up pretty. However, I think the part of Melissa that will draw the boys will be Melissa. She doesn't seem to play all those stupid mind games the other girls do and she can appreciate a practical joke like few women I've ever met. There will be plenty of boys after her."

"Cortessa?" James inquired.

"Ah, Tessa. For Merlin's sake, she's already a bit of a looker, isn't she? Never really analyzed her much since I'd already like to sneak up to the Astronomy Tower with her. And, of course, there's Rebecca, who will probably be pretty fit. She's rather sporty, isn't she? I was talking with her the other day. She can't wait to try out for the house Quidditch team next year. Chaser, I think she said. That'll draw plenty of men, if that's what they go for."

"And Alice?" Remus posed.

"Alice didn't get analyzed," Sirius replied.

"Why not?" James looked bewildered. "She's not an ogre."

Remus chuckled, "Oh that's nice James."

James gave him a puzzled look. "I wasn't insulting her," he said sincerely.

"I know that, and you know that and basically, any guy would know that. But she's hex you into the next week if she heard you refer to her like that."

James just looked at him for a moment and then muttered, "Girls." Then he looked over to Sirius, "Well then, why didn't Alice get analyzed."

"Because she's going to wind up with Frank, and as I'm rather fond of Longbottom, I'd rather not analyze his girl. Although I do suspect she will turn out quite charming."

Remus nodded, "I was thinking that, too."

James looked completely confused. "I never noticed this. When did this happen?"

"Jamesy boy," Sirius said. "I worry about you sometimes."

"Oh shut up," James mumbled and launched the pillow at his head again.