The Marauders: Year 1

"You killed my iguana!" James hissed at Lily.

"Yea, well you broke my desk!"

"Your desk was a giant kimono dragon trying to eat me!" he retorted angrily.

Lily shot James a glare that could knock out a dementor and settled down into her bed. In the last twenty minutes, James and Lily had hexed two reptiles, three teachers and each other. Neither reptile was left alive, the three teachers had quickly repaired the damage the weak spells had done to them, and James and Lily were both now housed in the Hospital Wing, covered in hexes and reptile bites. Even Madame Pomfrey had been speechless for a moment when they'd been dragged half conscious into her infirmary by Professor Nackle and Professor Binns after Professor McGonagall had taken one hundred points from her own house and walked away muttering about detentions until seventh year for both of them, carefully favoring the arm that had been bitten by the kimono dragon a few moments prior.

"I'm never talking to you again," Lily shot at James and rolled over in her bed to stare at the wall.

"Well good riddance." James settled back into his bed and groaned. That ridiculous dragon had nearly eaten off his entire foot and regrowing bones was dreadful business. I really should've listened to Remus, James thought. Then I wouldn't have been in this mess... and I'd have all my toes right now. He glared over at the lump with the messy red hair sticking out of the top. Then he picked up his wand and cast a simple spell to make the curtains close around his bed. When he put his wand back down, he noticed a book sitting on the little table and picked it up. Well, maybe this can keep my mind off of some of the pain, he thought as he began to page through Hogwarts: A History. About an hour into it, he heard the door open at the end of the ward and brisk steps.

"Ms. Evans," came the brisk voice of Professor McGonagall through the curtain, "May I ask you what on Earth you were thinking?"

"I suppose I wasn't, Professor," she replied meekly.

"Where in the name of Merlin did you get a kimono dragon?"

"I transfigured my desk," she said is a voice barely above a whisper.

"You transfigured your desk," McGonagall replied shrilly, in his mind James could already see the teacher raising from her chair and waving her arms a bit wildly. There was a moment of hesitation and then she repeated, in a voice filled with the slightest hint of awe, "You transfigured your desk?"

"Yes, ma'am," Lily replied. "Like the way you turned your desk into a pig on the first day of classes. I've been working on it for a few weeks straight and well... it finally worked tonight."

"That's advanced magic, Ms. Evans," Professor McGonagall said, at a loss for more words at the moment.

"Um, yes, Professor, I know..." she trailed off uncertainly. Then in a very quiet voice, "Do I... I mean... do I really have detention every day till seventh year?" She sounded near ready to cry.

"Not quite, no," the professor said. "But for the remainder of this year, yes. You will spend every evening in your dormitory unless otherwise specified by myself or another member of the faculty. Several of those evenings, you will help tutor other first years who are not as... advanced as yourself, in the Great Hall. Some you will spend cleaning various areas of the castle. I'm certain I will not see a repeat performance of what happened tonight again."

Lily nodded vigorously.

"Very well then, Ms. Evans, I expect to see you in the Great Hall tomorrow after supper, provided Madame Pomfrey had seen fit to discharge you by then."

James could hear her shoes clicking as they retreated from Lily's bed and headed toward his own, a moment later the curtain rustled.

"Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall addressed him.

"Professor," he replied, his eyebrows knitting together in worry.

"I'm sure you were able to overhear Ms. Evan's punishment."

"Yes ma'am."

"Yours is the same. Your first evening out of here, I expect you in the Great Hall, tutoring students. You're very talent, Mr. Potter, these pranks are a complete waste of said talent. One hundred points have been taken from Gryffindor for yours and Ms. Evan's actions this evening, it is highly unlikely we will win the House Cup now. Keep that in mind, Mr. Potter. You're capable of so much more than this." Then she turned on her heel and marched out of the infirmary, leaving Lily and James to contemplate the rest of the House's reaction tomorrow when they saw that they were now in last place for the House Cup.

~~*~~

The following day, James endured plenty of teasing from the other Marauder's, especially regarding the dragon bites which the other three took to calling "love bites". He was almost relieved to escape them for a few hours to go down to the Great Hall and tutor a few of the other First Years. Shortly after he left, the other three opened their textbooks and began working.

"This is absolutely useless," Sirius muttered. "Really now, in everyday wizarding life, how often do you need to understand the finer parts of a potion that makes writing wiggle. I ask you, is there a point to all this?" He looked at the other two.

"Wiggling writing?" Remus repeated and tapped his chin while a thoughtful look crossed his face. "Nope, not at all. Exist just to bother you, Seer."

"Just wanted verification on that point, thanks Remmy," Sirius replied as he dropped his head back into the book. A few moments later though, he gave up with a sigh of disgust. "That's it, I don't even understand all this."

"So go ask James to tutor you then," Peter snapped as he grabbed his History book. He was writing a very dull essay on vampire hunters of the twelfth century.

Sirius broke out into a wide grin, "Smashing idea, lads." He grabbed up his books and headed for the portrait hole before the others even realized what had happened.

"Oi vey, poor James," Remus said with a grin.

"Poor everyone trying to get anything done in the Great Hall," Peter corrected and then leaned back in the overstuffed armchair he was sitting in. "I don't think I can do any more of this tonight. It's putting me right to sleep."

"I sympathize," Remus said, gesturing at his own History book. "Just wait till you start the Herbology homework."

Peter groaned.

Suddenly, Remus sat up straight. "I have an idea. Want to see a passage way I found while you were in the hospital?"

"A secret one?" Peter asked, his eyes shining.

"Yup, I told the others, but we never actually went to explore it. What do you say, acromantula survivors unite, then?" Remus grinned.

"Sounds like a plan, let's go," Peter jumped up.

"Grab your wand, mate, I have no idea where this passage winds up. For all I know, I found a secret exit out of Azkaban," Remus said, looking quite serious. His eyes narrowed in thought for a moment, "Come to think of it, Pete, maybe we ought to wait for the others, who knows what will be at the other end."

Peter made a face at Remus.

"There's just safety in numbers, you know that."

"Well, Azkaban's quite a bit away, what if we just walked into it for a while and see what happens. I'm sure we'll be fine, the worst I can see happening is it emptying into Nackle or Filch's office," Peter said as he reached for his wand and headed for the door. "Come on Remus," he whined. "Whatever happened to acromantula survivors unite?" he asked as he gestured towards Remus's hand, which had a nasty scar going across it and his own neck where the wounds were still bright red around all the scars.

Remus sighed and then grinned, "Alright, I double even Dumbledore would allow a passage straight to Azkaban."

The two walked out of the Common Room and headed towards the third floor corridor.

"I don't remember what side it was on," Remus said. "You look on that side and I'll look on this side. It's a statue of a witch with a really ugly hump."

"Lovely," Peter murmured. "Keep an eye out for Filch, Remus." He started down the corridor.

"And that bloody cat," Remus added before moving more towards the wall.

The two slowly made their way down the long corridor, after nearly ten minutes Remus made an 'ah-ha' sound, but before he could even call out to Peter he heard the ominous soft sound of a cat's meow.

"Bloody hell," he muttered as the cat shot off down the hall. "Oi, Pete," he said louder. "Over here and hurry up, the cat found us and I think it's still mad about the whole hair thing."

Peter ran over to Remus. He looked and Remus and then the statue. "Well, what do we do now?"

Remus took out his wand and tapped the witch's hump. "Dissendium." The witch's hump parted and Peter gasped. "Watch out now, it's like a slide sort of thing." There was a distant meow. "Go, Pete. No time to double think this now!" Peter jumped through the hole in the statue, quickly followed by Remus. A moment later the gap in the statue closed and the boys were sliding briefly though the dark.

"Oi," Peter yelled when he hit the ground, a moment later Remus landed on top of him.

"Sorry Pete."

"There's no lights, how are we supposed to see where to go?" Peter asked.

"I told you to bring your wand," Remus commented as he pulled his out of his robes. "Lumos." As he said it, his wand began to glow at the end, casting a faint light into the tunnel.

A moment later, Peter muttered the same word and the two headed down the dark corridor.

~~*~~

"Peter, how long have we been walking?" Remus asked after what seemed like hours of walking along the narrow, stone lines passageway.

"I don't know..." Peter hesitated. "Exactly how far away is Azkaban?"

"It's an island Pete. We'd need to cross water somehow and I don't think we're far enough intro the ground to be below the water. Anyway, I was just..." he was cut off as he tripped over a set of steps and smashed into a wall. "Ow! Pete, help."

Peter reached over and helped Remus untangle his legs from the steps, handing him back the wand he'd dropped.

"Are you alright, Remus?" Peter asked with a very worried expression on his face.

"Son of a sea dragon," Remus swore and shoved his hand into his mouth. While breaking his fall, he'd cut open his hand in the same spot where it was scarred from the acromantula.

"Here," Peter shoved his handkerchief towards Remus. "It's clean."

"Thanks." Remus wrapped the cloth around his hand tightly. "Restraintus." As he muttered the charm, a few wispy ropes shot out of his wand and tied the cloth to his injured hand. "Wherever we are, it'd better be good."

The two both looked around and saw that the steps Remus had tripped over led up to a panel in the ceiling. They both walked up the five steps together and paused.

"Well then, shall we?" Remus asked quietly, bracing a hand against the panel.

"Right," Peter murmured quietly and both pushed the panel out of the way.

"Wait," Remus said suddenly. "Nox." He waited a second, looking at Peter. "Oi, Pete, put out your wand for a second."

"Oh, right, right then," Peter repeated the incantation. "Now?"

"Now," Remus said and they pushed the panel out of the way. "I'll go first," he whispered to Peter.

"Okay," Peter said with an anxious edge to his voice.

A moment later Remus had hauled himself up onto the floor of the unknown house. "Come on, Pete," he hissed a moment later.

Peter grabbed both sides of the hole and hoisted himself through. "Where are we?"

"I don't know. Keep your wand out. I'm going to shine some light..." Remus sounded very nervous. "Lumos."

Both boys gasped collectively as their heads began to swivel around the basement they were standing in.

"Great Merlin's trousers..." Peter whispered in an awed tone of voice.

"Honeydukes," Remus said, bursting into a wide grin.

~~*~~

"Where are those gits?" Sirius muttered to James a few hours later.

"You get both of us kicked out of the Great Hall, when I'm already there serving a detention and you have the nerve to call them gits," James snarled at him while chucking the first object he could grab, a bottle of ink, at Sirius's head.

"Still on about that, are you?" Sirius said in a chipper tone as he ducked, causing the ink bottle to smash on the Common Room wall behind him.

"Oi, what's this now?" Melissa asked as she crossed the room over to where the boys were. James crossed his arms and glared at her. "You can be as angry as you like with Lily Evan, James, but you had better not bridge that out to include me. I certainly don't possess the skill to turn a desk into a dragon, nor the imagination to even suggest it."

"It was not a real dragon, it was a tiny little kimono dragon. Doesn't take much skill to do that," James said as he grabbed up his books and headed for the boys dormitory. "No skill at all."

"What a git," Melissa mumbled as she took out her wand. For one wild moment, Sirius thought she was going to hex him. "Reparo." The shards of glass from the ink jar jumped back together onto the desk. "Scourgify." The ink running down the wall and pooling onto the floor disappeared.

"Thanks Melissa," Sirius said, gesturing to the now vacant seat James had left in his wake. "Want to sit?"

"No," she said, starting back over towards her friends. "Speaking of gits, Lily has threatened to disown us if we dare to socialize with any of you Marauders. Bit of a hypocritical rule if you ask me, as she keeps on talking to Remus... still, at the moment I find it wiser to stick with her. Wouldn't want a six foot kimono dragon showing up in my bed while I'm sleeping, or some such nonsense, now would I?" She tossed Sirius a wicked grin and departed.

He chuckled and took a deck of cards out to build a card house, hoping he could at least get three layers on before it would blow up. On his sixth attempt, the portrait creaked open and he looked over to see Peter and Remus scurrying into the Common Room looking beside themselves with delight.

"And what have you two gents been up to this evening?" Sirius ventured casually, tilting his chair back on the last two legs and running his hand through his hair, flattening it. The two exchanged a glance. "What's this?" Sirius shot his chair forward and leaned in towards them. "Come on now, lads. Be mates and do tell."

Remus reached into his pocket and dumped a few Fizzing Whizbees onto the table. Peter reached into his own robes and drew out two Sugar Quills. Sirius reached for them.

"Leave one for James," Peter said.

"I thought you were out of Fizzing Whizbee's," Sirius commented to Remus as he popped one in his mouth.

Remus grinned widely. "I was. I definitely was."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Admittedly, sugar is something worth getting excited over, but this is a bit much, lads. Now, what are you two so excited about."

"Because we'll never be out of sugar again," Peter said in a hushed voice as he dropped into the chair James had vacated and leaned forward.

"Oh, how do you figure?" Sirius asked, leaning in forward.

Remus stepped forward and sat down; perched on the arm of the chair Peter was sitting in. Then he leaned forward until both of his elbows touched the table. "Because, we've just come back from Hogsmeade."

"Right, and I'm the Tooth Fairy. Just let me run upstairs and grab my spare set of wings, the House Elves are washing my usual pair," Sirius said with an annoyed look on his face. "Will you two please tell me what you've been up to? I've been bored out of my mind all evening."

"We went to Hogsmeade, you dolt," Remus reiterated. "The passage in the third floor corridor goes to Honeydukes!"

Sirius looked into both of their faces, searching for any sign that they were having at him. Seeing none he leaned back on the two legs of the chair again and stared vacantly out a window for a moment before returning to the table.

"Honestly? On your mother's wands?"

"Should both of them be hexed until they croak like frogs," Peter said solemnly.

"Sweet Merlin..." Sirius said.

"You can say that again," Remus said beaming.

"We've got to tell James. This just might make up for this evening," Sirius said, jumping up and sweeping the Sugar Quills and Fizzing Whizbees into his hand.

"This evening? What happened thing evening?" Peter asked cautiously.

"Only the usual..." Sirius began running towards the steps to the boys dormitory. "Murder, mayhem, mystery..."

"Oh, well if that's all," Remus said and the three Marauders ran off grinning and laughing like only carefree First Years can.

~~*~~

Two weeks, four trips to Honeydukes and ten tutoring sessions later, James was walking back from the Great Hall. He'd spent his evening reviewing with three Hufflepuff's for their Transfiguration final coming up the following month. He reached the junction between the library and the corridor leading off to the Gryffindor Common Room. Rather than heading for his House, as he usually would, he turned into the library and pulled Calming Charms for the Claustrophobic off the shelf in the Healing Potions section and followed the hidden corridor to the Astronomy Tower. He made a quick glance of the room before stepping into it, happy to find it free of the usual hormone driven upperclassmen. He assumed that with the upcoming O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s that the Astronomy Tower was rather neglected these days.

One month left, he thought as he crossed the room and settled onto a ledge, looking out across the grounds. This time a year ago I was so worried that for some crazy reason, I wouldn't even be invited to Hogwarts. That, even though I showed some magical talent, it wouldn't be enough to get me admitted. He chuckled at the recollection of himself pacing his room, trying to levitate various objects or turn them colors with occasional success, yet still convinced that Hogwarts would overlook him. He laughed even harder when he remembered his mother bursting into his room and telling him off for breaking her third vase that he'd borrowed for 'practice'... he'd spent the rest of that evening de-gnoming the garden.

Suddenly, three faces floated through his mind and, if possible, he grinned even wider as his eyes slowly traveled up towards the sky. The Marauders. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I'd find friends like them. I mean, Sirius Black, whoever would've thought that I'd be best friends with the first Black to not be, well, evil. He shuddered at the thought of the rest of the Blacks, who were aptly put in Slytherin. Then he winced, remembering the Howler Sirius had received the day after they'd been sorted about being a failure... he imagined that Sirius would probably not have the best summer. I'll have to remember to invite Sirius over for a few weeks this summer... all of them actually. Peter still has a lot to learn about the magical world and Remus will probably collapse in ecstasy when he sees our library.

James shifted his legs a bit, shaking the left one, which had fallen asleep. He glanced up at the moon. Full tonight. He laughed remembering another childhood memory. I suppose Dad was right, it wasn't made of cheese. He glanced back at the moon again. It probably would've tasted really good though. I think it would've been cheddar like. He laughed at himself again. Amazing, all the things I used to think... amazing all the things I've learned this year. For Merlin's sake, I can transfigure tons of small objects now, even some of the larger ones... surprised McGonagall with that. If she thinks Evans is the only one who can... ugh, Evans. She gives the term witch a bad name. Well, I'll show them both, from next year on I'll have the top marks by far in that class. A desk into a kimono dragon...they haven't seen anything yet. He glared angrily at Mars. That stupid Lily Evans. He shook his head, trying to clear this thoughts.

Don't think about Evans, think about... Remus. He's sick again. Maybe Seer is right. No one gets as sick as that boy. I think he's allergic to himself from all the allergies he claims to have. James looked up at the full moon and smirked. The lad might as well be a werewolf for as often as he's sick. He chuckled a bit at the absurdity of the thought, a werewolf at Hogwarts. I should find him a book from the library or something that he can read while he's in the Hospital Wing. I swear, no one reads as much as him. He'll be Head Boy in our Seventh Year, I bet. Wow, Seventh Year... that seems so far away, but this year went so fast. Between learning all that news stuff and all the stunts we pulled and all the hours in detention and Peter and Remus... He winced at the memory of that particular Care of Magical Creatures class and the ensuing weeks. He remembered the fear that he'd felt running towards them, the cold feeling of emptiness that he'd felt upon waking each morning, knowing that any moment Professor Dumbledore or McGonagall might show up to tell him and Sirius that Peter or Remus had... He tried to shake the memory out of his head and swung his legs off the ledge and onto the classroom floor, making his way to the door.

Don't think about that, James, he chided himself. Think about... Honeydukes. Who on Earth would've expected Remus and Peter to come bursting into his room and jump onto his bed, babbling about a secret passage to Hogsmeade? He grinned again as he walked down the spiraling steps out of the tower. Well, I certainly didn't. I almost hexed them into next year thinking they were Sirius, back to bother me again. Four and a half weeks, is that really all that I have left here? It will be Seventh Year before I know it. His eyes widened as a thought crossed his mind. I can try out for the House Quidditch team next year. He unconsciously danced a slight little jig as he walked along, dreaming of flying high above the castle. I bet Sirius will try out too and we've both got a shot really, they're loosing four members this year. Four! That just about never happens. Both beaters, a chaser and the keeper... but I'm sure next year, with us on the team, we'll win the cup. Remus isn't too bad on a broom either, I bet he'd make a good keeper. Yes, that's just what'll happen next year. And James Potter, his head far above the Quidditch pitch, made his way back to the Gryffindor Common Room, daydreaming about the fantastic future that was headed his way.