AN: Hey everyone! I know I'm a couple days late starting this and may not be able to keep up with it but I will do my best to update these short little chapters every day. For those of you reading my other stories I promise I'm working on them too but they are kind of a jumble of things right now and only half finished chapters. So, please enjoy this as my apology for being a horrible updater. Disclaimer:
Day 1
James and Peter looked at their creation with pride. They had had the idea for a while, trying to find a way to get their plan in action so it would actually work. After all, it was a very difficult thing they were attempting to accomplish.
"So, everything in the right place?"
"Yep...think so. You sure this will work?"
"Well, Moony loved this things as a kid and Padfoot can't resist the curiosity factor." James held up the Advent Calendar with a triumphant smile. Peter held up his fist to the Gryffindor chaser.
"We did good." When James' fist collided with his own Peter took hold of the specially made calendar and stood up.
"Alright, let's put this plan in action then. If it blows up, I'm blaming you."
"As you always do."
"Sirius isn't as mean with you as he is me when things go wrong." James gave a conceding shrug as they headed downstairs to where their fellow Marauder's were playing chess.
"This is true...Hey! Want to see what we did?" The pair looked up from their match with mild intrigue. Remus' eyes widened in recognition, Sirius' narrowed in confusion.
"What is it?" The werewolf across from him turned to look at him in shock.
"What do you mean 'what is it'? How do you not know what an Advent Calendar is?"
"A what calendar?" Sirius took hold of the calendar and stared at it. He had seen these before a few times but never understood what they were for.
"The Blacks don't celebrate Christmas Moons, Sirius never had one of these growing up." A look of understanding crossed Remus' face at James' explanation. Turning back to the animagus he pointed at the calendar.
"Advent calendars are a special calendar that counts down the days of December until Christmas. Most of them have a treat behind the doors for each day and some have the days jumbled up, like this one. Others have them in order like a normal calendar. I had one once that had little ornaments for the Christmas tree instead of chocolates. But mum usually got the chocolate ones because I like them better. What one are these?" James and Peter grinned at their friends.
"It's home made. This isn't just an Advent Calender."
"It's an Advent-urous Calendar. Each day has a challenge of something to do until Christmas. Some are pranks, others are nice gestures."
"Keeps us from getting bored while waiting for Christmas. So, since today is the first, want to do the first one?" James pointed to the door on the calendar marked with a 1. Sirius raised his eyebrows at him.
"You made this?"
"Why do you sound so surprised Padfoot?"
"Because it's you and Wormtail. Normally it's you and me that do these kinds of things." James shrugged and looked at Peter for moment.
"Yeah, well you wouldn't have had a clue what I was wanting to do. Peter grew up on one that had train cars behind the doors." The shorter boy nodded.
"The train cars fit together and went around the tree. First day is always the engine, last day is always the caboose. It was the same train one my dad had as a kid."
"That sounds cool. Ours was always thrown away on Christmas. So behind every door is a challenge?" Remus asked as he looked at the doors again. James and Peter nodded in response.
"A Marauder challenge. Go on Padfoot, open the first door." The Black carefully opened up the first door and pulled out the challenge.
"Charm the suits of armor to sing Christmas carols...hmm, should be easy enough."
"Spell some small objects to play the carols when someone walks by and slip them into the armor." Remus took the slip of paper as James and Peter sat down.
"Yeah, but what object would we have enough of that would have a speaker to play the carols? And how would we get them into the suits of armor themselves?" James piped up from his spot on the floor. Clearly they hadn't thought passed the ideas when making the calendar. Sirius tapped his chin for a moment in thought.
"Well the suits themselves technically have mouths so we could just charm them to resonate the Christmas carols since they're metal. Didn't we do something similar to the suit of armor outside of the Slytherin common rooms back in fourth year?"
"Yeah, made it insult them every time they walked by. Got detention and 20 points from Gryffindor for that." Remus said as he got up and started to head upstairs.
"You guys found it in one of my books. Come on." The three of them followed their prefect as he searched for the book in question, eventually pulling it out from the small bookshelf he had next to his bed.
"It has a ton of spells to use on inanimate objects. I'm sure we could find one to make them play Christmas carols." It took them a little bit but eventually they found one. James and Sirius immediately wanted to go and charm the armor but Remus made them practice the spell first to make sure everyone could do it.
"Alright. Let's do this. We're going to split up and tackle this. Padfoot, you take the sixth and seventh floors, make sure to get the towers; Wormtail, take the second and third floors, don't forget the one in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom; Moony, you'll take the first floor and the Dungeons since he's a prefect and no one will hex him without losing house points; I'll take the fourth and fifth floors. Then we'll meet up and do the foyer and Great Hall together." Everyone nodded at the plan.
"Don't forget the Clock Tower. There's two suits of armor in there and there's one in the Stone Courtyard."
"Moony's right...how about you and I do the foyer and Great Hall and Moony and Padfoot could do the Clock Tower, Stone Courtyard, and the Grounds. There's a couple on the outside of the castle."
"You just don't want to walk all of that Wormtail, but yeah, that's fine by me. Sound like a plan you two?" James looked at Remus and Sirius to see if either of them disagreed. At a nod of agreement from both of them they set off to complete their task. There were a lot of suits of armor in the castle. It took them a few hours to do it all but by the time the task was complete Hogwarts was filled with the sounds of Christmas cheer. At least the suits of armor all played the same song at the same time. All of them playing different music during different spots of a song would have gotten very annoying.
"Do you think we'll get detention for charming the suits of armor again?" The werewolf shook his head at Wormtail, smiling at their handiwork.
"No, I think this one might go unpunished by the professors." James grinned.
"Good. Day 1 complete. Wonder what's for tomorrow."
"You put them in there Prongs, how could you not know?" The chaser shrugged.
"We made the ideas and then shuffled them up before sticking them into the calendar. I know what they are but not which ones are where."
"So let's find out then." The grey-eyed teen had been reaching for the calendar when a scarred hand stopped him.
"No Padfoot. Tomorrow's task is for tomorrow. That's the whole point of the Advent Calendar, to open them up each day to count down to Christmas. We'll find out tomorrow." Sirius pouted but pulled his hand back all the same.
"Fine...can't wait for tomorrow."
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