.x. what was meant to be .x.

[Prongs™]

[OMG, Prongs' first roleplay! -flops- Must... make... it... awesome... >< <- that eesh what I look like when I'm constipated]

Frost carpeted the grass of the grounds of Hogwarts, and a slight chill hung in the air as the clouds blanketed the weak winter sun. The lake had long since frozen, and this was where James Potter was to be found, walking aimlessly round it, clouds of silver surrounding him with every breath.

Pulling his black robes about himself, he munched on a peice of well-done (well, blackened) toast. There were no lessons to be had for a while yet; it was the Christmas holiday, and a time where he and Sirius, the only friend of his who had stayed, could cause as much mischeif as the others could possibly handle.

Still, Sirius was in bed. James would've called him lazy, but there was no point; it wouldn't wake him up. There wasn't much that could during the holidays.
Allowing himself a small grin, he made sure no-one was looking, pressed the knot of bark on the Whomping Willow to keep it from whacking him until he was sore all over and leaned against it, hoping that his friend would show his face sometime soon. It was getting a little lonely out here, as well as slightly boring.

He wondered for a moment how Remus and Peter were doing. Remus was visiting his family back home, and Peter... well, Peter hadn't said anything about what he was doing, so he cast Peter from his mind.
Ah, well.
A small sigh escaped him, sending yet another translucent cloud of silver into the winter air.
Hurry up, Sirius, he thought bleakly.

[iiiiick, what a horrible ending. >< So much for awesome.]

[Padfoot ♥]

His own piece of toast was still warm in his hands as Sirius rambled across the school grounds, munching a hurried breakfast. He was still blinking sleep from his eyes- the Gryffindor didn't even know what he was dressed in, he had been so brain-dead when he pulled himself out of bed. Looking down a bit shamefacedly at the hopelessly ripped jeans, distressed simply by the countless times he had worn them, he couldn't help remembering how McGonagall had threatened to hex him if he wore them again. Oh well.

His black cloak was warm, but it didn't stop the cool bite of the winter air. Sirius shivered mournfully- if it wasn't for James, he wouldn't be out of bed by two. Who said spending holidays unconscious was a bad idea? Trying to forget the feeling of the warm blanket layers of his bed and his very soft pillow, he finished his toast. Just because he was sleepy didn't mean he wasn't hungry. The tall, black haired teen scuffed his trainers along the frozen ground. He hoped Remus was okay- the boy had left just short of full moon. Half resentful for missing a lunar adventure with him, James, and Peter, and half worried for the kid, he buried the thoughts in the back of his mind and flicked his glance to the whomping willow. It was dead still, which meant that James had to be up already and waiting. Darn morning person.

Sirius grinned to himself and stepped up his pace, going at a dog-like trot across the grounds to the frozen tree. Thank god James was staying with him for the holidays- Sirius didn't want to face his family, but the prospect of an empty Hogwarts was almost as bleak. The professors were probably paranoid of pranks already- they wouldn't know what hit them.

"Hey Prongs," he said amiably to his friend when he reached him, calling him by their marauder nickname. "What do you have planned for us today? Sailing the Slytherin table on the lake again, shove any prefect we can find headfirst into the vanishing cabinet, finally get you an actual haircut? The possibilities are endless."

[Prongs™]

James looked up at the sound of his friend's voice, a grin overtaking his lips as he rose to his feet.
"Ha-ha, Einstein." Words were toned to sarcasm, but still as light and playful as ever. "How about getting you some new trousers? I don't exactly want to have a hexed dog wandering around after me."
James leapt on Sirius, wrestling him to the floor in a playful tackle as he shimmered soundlessly into his stag form, keeping his large mischevious eyes on the teen that lay beneath him and his almost irregular ears, one drooping slightly forlornly to the left, pricked as a slight chuckle escaped his lips.
This time, his voice was almost sinister, but the light sparks in his eyes kept the humour of it alive. "This is for insulting my hair."
Lowering his antlers, he pressed the tips gently into Sirius' chest and grinned lightly. "And now, we will think of pranks to play on the Slytherins." A slight pause as a plan formed in his mind, and he lifted his antlers. "Well, how about we lock some of the other Gryffindorks and the Snake-faces in the same room and take bets on who comes out alive? I always wondered what would happen if we did that."
Morphing back into his normal self, he helped Sirius to his feet and leaned against the Willow, still concocting.

[Padfoot ♥]

Sirius made a face at James as he dusted himself off, for hygienes sake; something James would be unable to understand. Doubtless the git was still oblivious to soap as of yet. He was nothing compared to Peter though. Apparently Professor Slughorn only let the boy off because he thought that smell, slightly reminiscent of boiled cabbages, was a concoction gone wrong in after-quidditch-Potions. Peter hadn't yet managed to visit the joys of the locker room yet.

"I'd bite your for that, but the taste would be horrible," he drawled, grinning at his friend and displaying slightly canine teeth. Just one of the creepy side-effects of being a dog animagus, but at least there wasn't a tail sticking out of the back of his pants. Yet.

"I don't see how we would get them in there. Well, maybe if we told Malfoy there was a cauldron of hair-gel in there," he amended, stretching his hands over his head as he yawned. Lucius Malfoy was altogether much too fond of that stuff, he decided. It looked like he had gotten his head laminated. His train of thought slightly torn between more pranks and how exactly one would go about laminating a head (maybe for future reference for James- thought it was doubtful that even glue could make that mop stay smooth for a second) he sat down against the willow, musing. "We could always hex Snivellus into some form of drag, like Moony did that one time, and raise his Christmas spirits- I could've sworn he did a twirl in that tutu we gave him before jinxing Peter." Sirius grinned. Really, Snape offered limitless possibilities in the torture and pranks department- no one like the slimy little thing anyways. Then he made a face. "Of course, I suppose the gist of this is getting away with the prank and keeping down our dinners."

[Prongs™]

"If you dare lay a tooth on me, you're going down."
James grinned, a hint of mock jealousy making itself known. Padfoot always came up with the best ideas, but it was always more fun to put them into practise.
"Yep. Snivellus does need a makeover, though... he's even worse than you. Y'know, I think Snivellus would appreciate it if we helped him with a little something regarding that dead animal on his head." He winked briefly, giving Sirius a nudge. "We could always ask the giant squid to give it a wash for him. After all, it's even greasier than yours."

[Padfoot ♥]

Sirius stuck his tongue out at his friend and swatted him playfully.
"Watch what you're calling greasy there," he replied dryly, shooting a glance up at James' own hair. "That mop on your head would make most McDonald's french fries look sanitary."

He settled back against the tree, stretching his arms over his head as he yawned widely. Mornings were better spent in bed. For that matter, afternoons too. If it wasn't for lunch, he'd be one nocturnal son of a gun. Pale, limber fingers idly pulled up the grass beside him as he thought, going over possibilities in his mind. He never liked to repeat a trick twice, not even the most hilarious of them. In his way of thinking, it was an act of shame- surely they could think up something original, something new, something even better than the last. That was what being a Marauder meant. Still, it sometimes got hard to scheme a good ruse; James was one of the best at it though, in Sirius's mind. It was especially hard to scheme if one was underfed, Sirius reasoned with himself, his thoughts already drifting over to the pretty picture of the Gryffindor table groaning under the weight of hundreds, hundreds, of plates of his favorites. . . . Losing himself in the present daydream for a moment, allowing a glaze to come to his eyes, Sirius leaned forward in the act of getting closer to his imaginary plate as he heaped it with steak, and almost toppled on the slight incline the tree's roots created. Hastily he straightened, knocked out of his daydream to the unpleasant reality of sitting in front of a tree on a cold winter morning, all the more serious for the lack of food in the scene. Looking down at his hand, he saw he had unearthed quite a mound of grass, and blinked, but then pushed it away impatiently. What would work?

He grinned slyly at his friend. "My sympathies would be with the squid in that case. There's no telling what the scum rubs in his scalp, but it could knock down Slughorn. It's not safe to inhale in the same vincinity as the thing." He ran a hand through his hair, a habit he had picked up from James; though whereas it only made his friend's hair even more similar to a hedgehog than usual, his own dark locks just fell back into place. Idly, he spoke his thoughts aloud. "We need something to get all of them at once- Malfoy, Snape, my cousins, the whole nasty lot of them. You remember the Snowdrift, right?" That had been a particularly good one. In dead winter, they had been sprinting through the courtyard to another class when Snape had almost brained Remus with a snowball. Not to be out done, they had quickly stripped him of his coat and boots, frog-marched him through the waist high snow, and hung him in a tree and waited for the rest of the slugs to arrive. In no time at all Malfoy and Sirius's cousins had stomped over to pull him down, and ever so carefully the marauders had let the huge amount of enchanted snow that hung over Snape's jail, large enough to rival a snowdrift, drop on their heads. It had taken them almost twenty minutes to dig themselves out- apparently they had been separated from their wands during it. He, James, and the others all had a good laugh as they watched them struggle to get free, drinking some nicked hot-chocolate smugly in front of the slowly turning blue captives. When they finally dug themselves out, they were too frozen to put up a fight even. Good times. "Something like that, knock them all out with a single blow."

[Prongs™]

James laughed as he watched the tree awake Sirius from his daydream; he could tell by his glazed eyes and hungry expression that he was thinking of breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner.
Well, something to do with food.

He too remembered the Snowdrift, and how hilarious the bastards looked as they glared at Sirius, Remus, Peter and him with their teeth chattering wildly whilst fumbling around for their wands.
"Of course I remember the Snowdrift. McGonagall looked as though she was gonna blow her top. . . and Slughorn wasn't too happy either, if I remember rightly." Again, the thought of that festive winter day brought a smile, but he knew how dry it would be to put that one into practise a second time. Besides, there was only a carpet of frost on the ground. Useless, unless they intended to throw frost-balls at those pathetic morons.
"You know, I found Snivelly and Malfoy under the mistletoe this morning. Looked as though they'd been rudely interrupted when I saw them."

[Padfoot ♥]

Sirius barked a laugh. The teachers were always a puzzle. Slughorn, looking torn between trying to decide whether to bop all the Gryffindors a nasty one for hurting the Slytherins, or getting the Slytherins for allowing themselves to be tricked in such a ridiculous manner in the first place. And McGonagall. The dark haired teen shook his head ruefully. He would never puzzle that professor out. He said as much.
"Huh, I don't know about you mate, but I saw McGonagall smirking at Slughorn for about a month after that at every chance she got. She even let me out of detention early a couple times, muttering something about how the 'bloody Slytherins probably deserved it anyhow'." Sirius shook his head again, but he was grinning. Even if McGonagall didn't play favorites in class, there was no getting past the fact that she was a Gryffindor.

Sirius made a face. "Why does that not surprise me? That stuff should be confiscated, for the benefit of all delicate stomaches anyplace." He grumped a minute. "Not to mention all the dashing, debonair blokes around this place. Did you know that whats-her-face Hufflepuff girl, with the frizzy brown hair that looks like a mushroom gone mental, tried to corner me under the stuff? Nearly shoved me out the window doing it too." Of all places to hang mistletoe why in the arch of one of those huge stained glass windows? He had slammed against it hard enough for the panes to rattle ominously; the Hufflepuff had been no delicate flower, that was for sure. Worse, McGonagall had been laughing to hard to even tell him off. Sirius scowled.

[Prongs™]

James also laughed. That was one occasion he hadn't been lucky enough to witness, especially as the same Hufflepuff had been trying to send him soppy half-Christmas, half-Valentine cards; he'd shredded them and used them for Ares' bedding.

"McGonagall and Sluggy? That's nothing; you should see Malfoy and Sluggy, or Snivelly and Malfoy, or Snivelly and Sluggy... all three of them have at least two boys on the go, and believe me, it ain't a pretty sight when they gather under the mistletoe." He pulled a mock face of disgust and made an exaggerated shudder. "We should see if we should tempt Peeves into hiding there."

Peeves was always a very useful factor in their pranking, especially as he knew all of the places of Hogwarts where they could cause even more trouble, as well as help the Marauders out.

[OoC >> Was Peeves at Hogwarts when the Maroodurs were there?]

[Padfoot ♥]

I would think James and Sirius and the lot would have been favorites of his if he was though. And he'd probably be their hero. xD]

Sirius gave a lazy smirk that spread across his whole face. He drawled, "I would suggest we stake someone out there with a camera, maybe Wormtail 'cause Peter would probably eat his own foot if it was you who asked him, and perhaps publicize the photos, but that might induce a school-wide gagfest." He gave a dramatic shudder. "Can we please change the subject? That measly scrap of bread is going to come right back up if we continue on this line."

Sirius looked out across the grounds, and then longingly back to Hogwarts. Who's ever idea it was to have suggested this, this freezing tree in the freezing middle of the freezing grounds next to the freezing lake, as a meeting place for the Marauders was going to answer to Sirius' wrath. Honestly, what was the problem with the Great Hall as a meeting place? You have your food, your benches, your giant table, your more food. . . . Dismissing a memory of suggesting the tree himself (that was the year he had pushed James into the lake, to which his friend retorted with placing a bouncing spell on him and then shoving him off the top of the astronomy tower) he yawned widely, eyes still on Hogwarts as he spoke to James. "What say you about continuing this discussion inside? With food?" He turned to his friend, his eyes suddenly too earnest to not be fake. "I mean look at you; titchy little thing with a hedgehog on your head, as likely to be blown off your broom as a Slytherin is to fall off his. What you need is food on your bones, my dear quidditch freak!" he said with very sincere enthusiasm.

Just in case his friend would take the last few terms of endearment the wrong way, Sirius began carefully edging away from him until he judged he was out of antler range.