‘You know, this is entirely your fault!’

‘What? Why me? You’re the one who had the idea for the prank!’

‘You were the first to say that we should prank him!’ James Potter argued.

‘Since when do you need me to tell you who deserves a prank?’ Sirius Black shot back.

It was as per normal. James Potter and Sirius Black, infamous sixteen year old Gryffindors, would think of a prank and look for the person to be the victim, or decide that a student (or sometimes a teacher) was in desperate need to get pranked. Their friend, Remus Lupin, would occasionally provide them with useful charms to get the prank working, and Peter Pettigrew… well, Peter had once or twice thought up a prank, too. He mostly supported them, though – in whatever they needed help in.

The boys’ favourite victim was, by far, a student of Slytherin House, Severus Snape. Everyone knew that the Marauders and Snape just didn’t get along. And this was proven by James one day:

‘It’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean.’ *

This time they had pranked Severus Snape, and like many times before, they, as the culprits, had been caught. Receiving a detention was the appropriate punishment for such actions, but none of the boys knew what kind of detention they were actually going to face this time. They at least reckoned that it couldn’t get too bad. After all, Filch, the caretaker, once had them clean the toilets with toothbrushes. That had been the worst detention they had had to endure in their entire school career so far. Any other detention could only be half as bad – at least that was what the boys always hoped.

They had been standing in front of Professor McGonagall’s office for some time, waiting to be called inside, when James and Sirius had started arguing. But before their discussion morphed into a catfight, Remus stepped in-between them. ‘Guys, done is done. She caught us, we have a detention set. So forget your argument on whose fault it is. It’s not going to change our current situation.’

Both black-haired boys shot their friend a look that yelled ‘Traitor!’, but, with simultaneously sagging shoulders, they stopped their quarrel.

‘Sorry, Moony, we got a bit carried away there.’

Remus raised his eyebrows. ‘Carried away a bit?’

James grinned sheepishly. ‘Or maybe a little bit more than just a bit.’

‘Ah…’

Suddenly the door, in front of which they waited, opened, and their Transfiguration teacher and Head of House stood on the threshold. She sternly looked at the four teenage boys over her square-framed glasses for some time before she stepped aside and bade them entrance. Slowly they did as ordered.

The office was relatively big in comparison to the other professors’ offices, mainly due to the huge bookshelf standing against the left wall, filled with various tomes, some thicker than others. The walls of Professor McGonagall’s office were painted in a cool ivory. No one would have known that the strict teacher was Gryffindor’s Head of House if it wasn’t for the red and gold coloured scarf hanging on the wall behind the big mahogany desk.

‘Have a seat, gentlemen.’ The professor waved her wand, and four neat looking chairs appeared out of thin air in front of her desk, behind which the professor sat herself down. When the four boys were seated, she passionately began, ‘I despise your actions on Mr Snape, as you all very well know. Never before have I seen such a nasty incident.’ She shot each of the four boys a threatening glare. ‘What could have possibly possessed you to charm Mr Snape’s cauldron like that? He could have been seriously injured.’

A murmur that sounded suspiciously like ‘Sure, Siriusly’ came from the boy seated at her left. Professor McGonagall had heard it although the black-haired boy had spoken in a very low voice.

‘Mr Black, this is nothing to joke about. The potion to create Bulbadox Powder is very difficult to concoct and can get wrong easily. But I daresay you didn’t even think before you acted in this childish manner.’

James tried to explain. ‘Professor, see, we were actually supposed to brew the Draught of Living Death –’

‘And you think that would have been better? Mr Potter, I –’

She didn’t continue though. Instead, she clasped her hands over her heart. Apparently, the imagination of what could have happened was enough to let her become speechless for a moment.

‘You should very well know that when the Draught of Living Death is consumed, you fall into a deep slumber that it is very difficult to wake from.’ The boys nodded. ‘Then, I ask you, why? What was the point of getting Mr Snape’s cauldron to explode?’

‘Actually,’ Peter spoke up and received a glare from James which he ignored, ‘we charmed the cauldron so that it would sneeze and spit back the ingredients that Snape added.’ The boy’s voice had dropped with every word until it was a mere whisper.

The silence that followed was tense; one could have grasped it with their fingers.

‘I am disgusted, boys. Absolutely disgusted. To even come up with such a nasty idea…’ She shook her head. ‘And then you sit here and don’t even regret your despicable actions? But, Merlin forbid, none of your previous detentions have done anything to make you feel regret of any sort. Over and over again you’re causing mayhem with your so-called “pranks�.

‘The headmaster and I have therefore thought of another punishment. It is different from anything you’ve done before, and although you might think it lax and low, it definitely is not.’ She shot each boy a long, meaningful look over the rim of her glasses and then continued, much calmer. ‘I therefore urge you to put your every effort into it. You must work for at least two hours daily to let it count as your detention. Every minute above that is counted as your private time you choose to spend on the task. And it is asked that you do this detention properly.’

The boys threw each other questioning glances. What Professor McGonagall had told them sounded like a lot of work, although she had not yet clarified what they were exactly going to face.

‘Err, Professor,’ Sirius tentatively asked after a few moments of silence, ‘what exactly are we supposed to do? And how long will it take?’

‘You’re not allowed to call the detention finished before Miss Vance says so.’

‘And the detention task is…’ James pressed, but Peter gulped audibly next to him. One quick side-glance at his friend told James that it wasn’t going to be as easy as they had hoped.

‘You’re going to assist Miss Vance in writing this month’s issue of the school newspaper.’

The smile on Professor McGonagall’s face was lost upon the boys when they gaped at each other in shock.

Peter knew that, without a doubt, Emmeline Vance was a good student. And she was a brilliant witch. But he also knew that she was the very stern chief editor of Magical Moments – Hogwarts’ very own school newspaper. Emmeline Vance was even known to be sterner than Professor McGonagall.

The detention wouldn’t be an easy getaway by any chance, and it was indicated the very next day when the editorial staff held their regular beginning-of-the-month meeting.

‘All right, everyone, here it goes,’ Emmeline Vance spoke up when everyone was assembled in the Transfiguration classroom which was used as the editorial staff’s headquarters. ‘First, I’d like to remind you of the importance of this month’s issue. It’s the paper’s fifth anniversary and it should be something special for the readers.’ She halted next to the window, looked briefly around, then turned and walked back to the door. Emmeline usually paced up and down when giving out directions to her newspaper’s team. The staff was used to her antics, but, to the Marauders, her pacing was rather irritating.

‘I’ve already looked at your suggestions and ideas,’ she continued, ‘and I’ve found them all very interesting. I am positive that we can include them all, although some can only be included in a lesser extent than others. But the decision about which articles are going to be the issue’s main focus we shall discuss later.’ She turned as she reached the door and started her journey back to the window. ‘All I ask for now is that every one of you should work on the ideas you suggested next to your regular topics and then hand the drafted articles in. I think two weeks should be sufficient for this.

‘Oh, and before I release you to start working flat out, I have the honour,’ she sarcastically exclaimed, looking at the Marauders as she passed them, an ironic smile playing around her lips, ‘to say that for this month’s issue we have gained the support of these four fine men, who volunteered to help us with this month’s issue.’

Some of the other students looked puzzled, others shocked, while a third group coughed out with humour. Not one of the editorial staff believed that the Marauders had enlisted of their own accords. Whispers about detention quickly worked the circuit, but they were silenced with a commanding wave of Emmeline’s hand. She then turned to address the four boys.

‘Black, you’re going to work with Robert Clarkson. Potter, I want you to assist Penny Henderson.’ James shot a look in the mentioned girl’s direction and grinned at her winningly. She simply ignored this.

‘Lupin, I entrust you with the readers’ questions section. Tiffany, who usually does the job, has excused herself for this month.’ Remus slowly nodded.

‘And Pettigrew, I want you to help John Summer.’

She clasped her hands together. ‘That is all for the moment. If there are no more questions today, we’ll see each other the next meeting. Good day, people.’

‘This sucks!’ Sirius exclaimed vehemently when the four boys walked back to Gryffindor Tower after they had been dismissed. ‘I can’t believe we’ve got to invest so much time for this stupid magazine.’

‘Newspaper, Padfoot, newspaper,’ Remus corrected him quietly.

‘Whatever.’

‘What are you pondering over, Prongs?’ Peter asked. James hadn’t said a single word since they’d left the meeting room, and appeared lost in his thoughts. Even now he didn’t give an answer; Peter turned to Remus and Sirius with a helpless look on his good-natured face.

They reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, and once Remus had given her the password – ‘Billywig’ – they scrambled through it and entered their common room. But instead of seating themselves in their favourite cosy armchairs by the brightly crackling fire, the four friends went directly up to their dormitory. It wasn’t until Remus closed the door behind them that James spoke.

‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘Wow! That’s news,’ Sirius replied, grinning; he received a glare.

‘Funny, Pads. But I think we can help this newspaper becoming a success, a huge success.’ His eyes gleamed mischievously.

Remus groaned. ‘Prongs, we already have a detention set. No need to get us into another one before we have finished the current one we’re stuck in.’

The black-haired boy dismissed this with a wave of his hand. ‘Don’t be so negative, Moony. My idea is failsafe.’

Peter snickered while Sirius sarcastically exclaimed, ‘Sure. That’s why we’ve received detention in the first place, because your ideas are “failsafe�.’

Giving out another glare towards his best mate, James sat down on his bed and said, ‘We’ll bring something new in, something that they’ve never seen before.’

---

* Quote from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, chapter twenty-eight Snape’s Worst Memory, page 570 (British edition, Bloomsbury)