Chapter 1
3 months into his 6th year and James was already losing his mind. Not because of the work, he was actually doing pretty well in most of his classes, it was because of the pranks.
Now usually James was extremely fond of pranks as he himself was a prankster. The Marauders were well known in Hogwarts for their elaborate pranks and honestly it was one of his favorite things to do. But lately they’ve had competition.
Large scale pranks have been happening throughout the castle since the start of the school year and the Marauders were baffled. All the food at the Start-of term Feast had crushed up hiccough sweets sprinkled throughout, resulting in almost every student and staff member having hiccups the rest of the night. A few weeks after that between class periods every hallway in the castle had been filled with extremely large, and extremely sticky webs, it took hours to not only remove the webs but also get a bunch of students free.
Both pranks resulted in the Marauders getting multiple days of detention despite their frequent protest that they had nothing to do with them. No one believed them and instead of planning their own pranks, most of their free time has been taken up with investigating who the actual culprits are.
“Wait but how do we know it’s multiple people and not just one?” Peter asked from his bed.
It was late Sunday night and they had classes in the morning but they had stayed up to debate the possible identities of their new nemeses.
“Did you not see the amount of webbing throughout the castle, Pete? There’s no way only one person would be able to cover that much ground in such a small time” Sirius retorted from Remus’s bed where he and Remus were lying.
“Do you think it’s Slytherins?” James thought out loud, mindlessly releasing and catching a practice snitch.
“That’s a possibility,” Remus said without looking away from his book. Then to Sirius, “Do you think Regulus knows who they are?”
Sirius simply shrugged. “No clue, but I can ask him tomorrow before breakfast.”
And as the conversation moved on to other topics, James’s mind stayed on the thought of Regulus Black. See, last year during winter break, James and his parents had been sitting in their living room one evening, winding down after a day spent decorating the house, when a distraught Regulus had stumbled through the floo supporting a barely conscious Sirius. The rest of the night had been a bit of a blur but it ended with Sirius and Regulus staying with the Potters indefinitely.
While James wasn’t happy about the Black family homelife, he was actually very happy about the brothers moving in. He got to live with his best friend and finally get to know said best friend’s little brother.
The only problem with this was over last summer James did get to know Regulus and it unfortunately led to him developing feelings for the Slytherin. Romantic feelings.
He wasn’t sure when it had happened exactly. After a while Regulus had grown more comfortable around the Potters, allowing his walls to gradually lower. He would smile more, talk more adamantly about subjects he enjoyed, and most striking to James, he would laugh.
Sirius, Regulus, and James had been sitting in the living room late one evening, the three boys talking contently when Sirius had made a joke and Regulus had thrown his head back and laughed the most beautiful laugh James had ever heard. He remembered thinking that he would do anything to hear that laugh again, followed quickly by realization of his feelings. He quickly made up an excuse about being tired and raced off towards his room where he could panic in private.
James’s thoughts were quickly interrupted when a pillow came flying and smacked him in the face.
“Earth to Prongs, you good mate?” Sirius teased from across the room.
“Yeah yeah,” James shook his head a little to clear thoughts of his best mate’s younger brother from his mind. “Just thinking about who the other pranksters are.”
“Well we can think about it more later,” Remus said as he placed a bookmark between the pages and set his book down beside his bed. “I think it’s time we go to sleep, it’s late and we have classes tomorrow.”
“Yeah I guess,” Peter said with a yawn. “Goodnight guys.”
The four boys exchanged goodnights before turning the lights off and pulling the curtains around their beds.
James eventually closed his eyes, and as he had for the past few months, fell asleep thinking of Regulus’s laugh.
The next morning, James and the other Marauders were about to head out to go down to breakfast when they heard a commotion out in the common room.
“Merlin,” Peter groaned, “What now?”
The boys rushed out of the dorm room and were greeted with the sight of chaos.
Every piece of furniture in the Gryffindor common room was now on the ceiling. People were trying to reverse whatever sticking charms were used but nothing was working. Everyone was looking around completely baffled. And that was when Lily saw them.
“James Potter! Undo this now!” She fumed as she stomped her way over to them.
James held his hands up as a show of innocence. “It wasn’t us, Lily! We promise!”
That was when Marlene McKinnon made her way over to the group, a piece of parchment in her hand. “They’re telling the truth, Lily. We found this stuck to the wall, it was the only thing we could get down.
She handed the paper to Lily who quickly skimmed it and let out the sigh of someone rapidly gaining a headache. She then gave the paper to James, only saying, “Don’t do anything stupid.” And then stalked off.
James looked down at the parchment, the other Marauders crowding to read over his shoulder.
“Dear Marauders,
We are waiting for your move.
Love, The Pantheon”
Sirius then asked what they had all been thinking, “Who the fuck is the Pantheon?”