A/N - Well, first off, hello and thanks for at least starting my fic. As you've probably already guessed from the (admittedly bad) summary, this is a fan fiction tale of our four favorite Marauders - Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter - in their first year at Hogwarts. And it is a humor fic. If you are a dour, pessimistic person who shuns the thought of anything light-hearted, then I am sorry to say that this fic is not for you. As for the rest of you more cheerful people....

Yes, the prologue and first five or so chapters are (in my opinion) pretty bad. And yes, it is a rather long story - it'll probably be between 28 and 35 chapters when I'm done. But I promise it's interesting. And funny. It's about the Marauders, after all.

Disclaimer - J.K. Rowling owns everything you recognize.

Enjoy!

Prologue

Sirius glanced around the room, already feeling extremely bored and rather ill-tempered. Every time his parents went to a Ministry of Magic dinner he went too - rather than allow their eldest son to be exposed to the possibly corrupting influence of a babysitter, the Blacks dragged him along to every single one of the numerous parties they attended, which were often several hours long.

"Sirius!" his mother said sharply – he turned slowly to look at her, his long black hair falling casually across his face, which was already handsome, though he was only eight years old.

"Yes?" he asked, trying (unsuccessfully) to keep his boredom out of his voice.

"You are to behave this evening!" she said harshly - she looked like an oversized vulture in a hideous black evening dress, which smelled suspiciously of mothballs. "You are to talk to no one other than those your father and I have told you – ignore everyone else. I will come and get you when we are ready to leave." Turning sharply on her heel, she stalked off to find Sirius' father, leaving her son staring glumly in her wake.

"Right." said Sirius bitterly, brushing a strand of dark hair out of his eyes. "Right. Well, I'll just go off and be antisocial then, keep up the good Black name...." Sighing, he walked over to the refreshments table, already dreading the evening before him, while, unbeknownst to him, a small, tousle-haired, hazel-eyed boy slipped away from his parents and went to join him.

"Hello!" said a roguish voice right by Sirius' ear. He jumped and spun around quickly – a short boy about his own age with untidy black hair and mischievous hazel eyes was standing beside him, grinning.

"Hello...," said Sirius uncertainly. The boy laughed.

"Your parents bring you to this party too?" he asked, pulling sadly on his crimson dress robes. "World's biggest bore, I swear....Anyway, my name's James Potter. You?"

"Sirius Black."

"Pleased to meet you." said James politely - then, eyes twinkling, he asked "Do you wanna go explore?"

Sirius hesitated a moment, an image of his mother telling him to talk to no one coming unbidden to his mind, but a sudden feeling of recklessness shot over him, and before he knew what he was doing he agreed.

"Excellent!" said James excitedly. "I've never explored the Ministry of Magic before! Well, sort of," he amended as an afterthought. "Once Mum brought me to the Auror headquarters and I looked around there but there wasn't anything too interesting. I wanna go to the Department of Mysteries, there's supposed to be lots of cool stuff there, but nobody talks about it a lot, I don't know why. Anyway, ready to go?"

He said all of this very fast and Sirius, who had been ready for the past two minutes, nodded. "Right, well, off we go then!" said James enthusiastically. He skipped away from the table and into the milling crowd, Sirius tagging along behind him.

"Um, James?" Sirius asked apprehensively, staring at a large tub full of floating brains. "I'm not entirely sure we're supposed to be here."

"Course we're not," said James dismissively, trying to juggle four sneakoscopes while standing on one foot. "Darn, dropped one....Oops, make that two...," Sirius rolled his eyes and walked over to a small shelf, on which were placed to old, extremely dusty mirrors.

"Hey James!" he called, standing on tiptoe to get a better look at them. "Come look!" James walked over, still clutching a broken sneakoscope in one hand.

"Just two rusty old mirrors," he said, sounding slightly disappointed. Sirius shook his head, staring hard at the shelf.

"No, I don't think so...," he said thoughtfully. Something at the end of the shelf caught his eyes – grabbing a nearby stool, he clambered onto it and picked up a small, badly smudged and torn card, which was so covered in dust it was hardly readable. Brushing it off impatiently, he read the following words:

Two-Way Mirrors

To use hold mirror up to face and

say the other bearer's name -

bearer of the other mirror will hear

and correspondence will ensue.

Although he couldn't understand what some of the larger words meant, Sirius got the general idea. "Excellent!" he said excitedly, snatching up the mirrors and handing one to James, who looked confused.

"Um, this does what, exactly?"

"You say my name into that mirror," Sirius said impatiently, brandishing the card under James' nose, "And your face pops up in this mirror, and we can talk to each other! Come on, let's try it now - go over there, behind that cabinet, and say 'Sirius Black' into the mirror."

James looked slightly skeptical but obediently trotted off. A few seconds later Sirius could hear his name being whispered - looking into the mirror, he saw James' face reflected up at him, looking excited. "This is SO cool!!!" James said fervently. "I can see your face in the mirror, and you can probably see mine...this is weird...."

Sirius could have laughed out loud. Imagine the look on his parents' faces....And speaking of which...."D'you know what time it is?" he asked suddenly.

He saw James shrug nonchalantly. "No idea - look around, there's bound to be a clock somewhere."

There was one, on the opposite wall – with a horrible, sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach Sirius saw it was ten 'til twelve – the party ended at midnight.

"It's 11:50," he said, mouth dry. "We have less than ten minutes to get back to the main hall....C'mon." Throwing the mirror in his front pocket, he waited for James, and then hurried towards the door.

"Where have you been?" Mrs. Black snapped, eyeing her son furiously. "The party ended five minutes ago, we've been looking for you all over...." Sirius wasn't paying attention; he was too busy watching James being gently scolded by his parents. James, noticing Sirius, grinned and patted his front pocket. Sirius smiled slightly to show he understood before reverting his attention back to his mother, who was now fuming about his "deranged appearance."

"...looking like some little brat mudblood. Where were you this evening?"

He grinned impishly. "Oh, just...out and about." She sniffed disapprovingly.

"And did you talk to anyone you weren't supposed to?"

"Now Mother," Sirius said, watching as James disappeared through the elevator shaft with his parents. "Why would I do something like that?"

Hardly the most intriguing and profound chapter ever written, but hopefully it caught your intrest. I promise things will get more interesting. Especially right before the Sorting. And at the first Quidditch Match. And the day after Halloween. And....But I digress. I hope you found this chapter decent enough to 1) keep reading and 2) leave a (nice!) review. I don't particularly like flames, since most of them tend to be insulting, base, and vulgar, but if you can come up with a particularly creative one without any obscenties then feel free! What would be even more appreciated, though, is constructive criticism. I LOVE constructive criticism, but no one seems to want to give me any. Sigh. Oh well - I suppose I shall have to deal with it.

Anyways, keep reading, tell me what you think, and, for now, bye!