A/N: This chapter takes place approximately a week after chapter six. A final prank and a summing up of past adventures brings both the Marauders' fifth year and this story to a close. I hope you have all enjoyed.

Chapter Seven: Mischief Managed

On the last day of his fifth year at Hogwarts, Sirius was awakened by his pants trying to escape.

He was aware they were trying to escape because he had fallen asleep on top of yesterday's outfit, rumpled up on his bed. Now the pants were sneakily inching their way out from underneath him, each leg advancing a little bit at a time-

"OI"

Sirius grabbed hold of the pants' left leg. He was dragged halfway out of bed as the pants made a dash for it, hovering and straining in midair as they tried to squirm away from him. "Who the hell charmed my pants?" Sirius snarled, trying his best to sound menacing despite having been dumped onto the floor on his back, legs still entangled in his bedclothes.

Drowsily, the lump that was Peter said, "Yes, Sirius, your pants are charming, but we're sleeping."

Sirius would have said something abusive back, but out of the corner of his eye he noticed Remus' robes were climbing stealthily up his bedpost. "JAMES!" he hollered.

"Snrgerwffhm," James replied.

Sirius' pants were still trying to shake him loose, and the more he tried to kick his legs free of the sheets, the more entangled he seemed to get. As he twisted and thrashed, he noticed Peter's shoes tapping gently under his bed. Sirius filled his lungs. "EVERYONE OUT OF BED. THE CLOTHING IS REVOLTING AND IT IS JAMES POTTER'S FAULT."

Nonsensical shouting was a common enough event in the dorm that even this didn't produce quite the effect Sirius would have liked. Remus was the first to sit up and look around. "Padfoot..." To Remus' immense credit, he stopped himself there, and got out of bed to help untangle Sirius' legs without asking for an explanation.

"Not my fault," James said, his voice thick with sleep, surveying the situation from his bed.

"Then why are you clothes the only ones behaving like clothes?" Sirius demanded, finally getting a proper grip on his pants and yanking them out of the air. They quivered like there was something alive in them.

"It's not my fault!" James repeated.

"Oh dear," Remus said quietly, catching sight of his escaping robes. "I'd better..." Remus climbed onto his nightstand, using his wand to extend his reach just slightly and sweep his robes down from where they had been making their way onto the ceiling.

It was also excellent concealment for whispering a further incantation without anyone noticing.

"JAMES!" Sirius wailed as several more articles of clothing burst out of people's trunks or up from the floor where they had been discarded.

"It's mine too now you idiot!" James exclaimed, diving across his bed to pin down a shirt that seemed to be making for the door.

"Well of course you did your own now that I said-" Sirius broke off, distracted by trying to catch his socks without letting go of the pants he had already captured.

"Aaaah!" Peter, always easy to intimidate, had found himself pinned to the bed by a set of his own robes. "Someone help me! Sirius!"

"I can't!" Sirius said, losing his head completely. "I think my underwear's going to the Great Hall!" And he dashed out of the room.

Despite being wrapped up in battles of their own, the other three looked at each other and immediately burst out laughing.

The Great Clothing Escape, as it came to be called, lasted all morning and well into the afternoon. Sirius was able to prevent that horror of horrors, his underwear marching into the Great Hall all by itself, but in his haste to hold off that atrocity most of his other clothing got away. The other boys fared better, though no one escaped the prank unscathed. Remus had to throw out a sweater that had wandered into the greenhouses and cuddled up to a bubotuber; Peter suffered humiliation when an attractive Hufflepuff icily informed him that his robes were trying to break into the Hufflepuff ladies' dorm; and Professor McGonagall promised James a detention first thing next year after she discovered his pants cheekily occupying her office chair.

After they had rounded up and disenchanted all of their own clothes, Remus and Peter started helping Sirius with his. Due to Sirius' continued insistence that James was behind the prank, James refused to help and went back to the dorm by himself. Finally, the last pair of pants had been found (Sirius' pants seemed particularly inclined to wander), his shoes had been extricated from a suit of armor, and Professor Dumbledore had cheerfully unwound Sirius' tie from around his own hat and handed it back without a word. The three trooped back to the dorm, tired but cheerful, only to discover that in their absence, James had wound up in a somewhat precarious position.

The room appeared to have been colonized by a large, overly affectionate plant. James was crouched at the head of his bed. He looked like he might have been trying to climb the bedpost when the plant caught up with him and started growing around him; his wand was on the floor several feet away, as though it had been flicked out of his grasp.

James spoke before any of them could do more than gape. "Pads," he said, "I still say I didn't do it. The bit with the clothes. But if I had, I would be very, very sorry and contrite and all that. Terribly sorry. Now will you call this thing off?"

"I didn't do it," Sirius stammered, staring.

"Now you know how I feel!" At James' exclamation, the plant rustled and its feelers crept a few inches forward.

"I think it's a relative of the Tentacula," Remus said, sounding genuinely interested. "Not venomous, just-um-amorous."

"Great," James said through gritted teeth. "Kill it."

"Oh, but if it's what I think it is it's rare," Remus protested quickly. "Professor Sprout ought to have it."

"Excellent. Do that. Shrink it. Freeze it. Make it stop doing that with its feelers."

Sirius and Peter snickered. Remus smiled and performed a freezing charm. "Better work your way out of it, James. Go on."

Watching James shimmy his way out of the plant's embrace proved too much for even Remus. By the time he was free, the other three had collapsed to the floor with the discarded clothing they'd been carrying, laughing hysterically. James stalked over to them and promptly hit Sirius over the head.

"Ow!" Sirius grabbed James' ankle and yanked, sending James tumbling to the floor. "I told you I didn't do it!"

"And I told you I didn't do it! But you had to go and get back at me anyway, didn't you!"

"Maybe it was a Slytherin," Peter said, trying to distract them.

"Not this time, Wormtail," James said. "How could a Slytherin get up here into our dorm? Twice? It was one of us."

Remus busied himself charming the plant back into its pot, not commenting. "And it wasn't nice, charming my underwear out the door," Sirius said darkly.

"It wasn't nice to frame me by not charming my clothes right away," James added, frustrated.

"Hang on." Sirius was looking at Remus. "How do you know how to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Get that plant to shrink."

Remus shrugged. "I just do."

Sirius stared at him. So did James. The corner of Remus' mouth twitched.

"It was you!" James and Sirius exclaimed in unison.

"I felt bad for you after the last full moon," Remus explained, struggling not to smile. "You know, when your poor brains were exhausted and you couldn't come up with a good prank-excuse me, celebration-so we spent the whole night searching for an adventure and never found one? And we looked so long that we wound up out past dawn and I had to lie like crazy to get you all out of trouble? Well, I thought that since we didn't run into any kind of adventure on that day, I would try to create one for you all today."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Peter looked a little frightened. He glanced back and forth between Sirius and James, determined not to react until he knew how they were going to. James and Sirius both looked like someone had dropped something heavy on their heads.

"He pranked us," James said, turning to Sirius. His voice was low and hushed. Almost reverent. "Do you realize what just happened, Padfoot? Moony pranked us. And he got us."

Sirius looked so proud that he might actually shed a tear over it. "Do you know what this means, Prongs? All our hard work has paid off. It's like-it's like he blossomed from some rule-abiding caterpillar into a beautiful, mischief-making butterfly."

Remus burst out laughing. Peter looked perplexed. "You mean no one's mad at him?"

"Oh, Wormtail." James gave him a patronizing pat on the back. "One day you, too, will mature into a fully fledged Marauder. Until that day we can only press on, knowing our efforts are not in vain."

"How long would you have let me and James accuse each other?" Sirius asked.

"Quite a while," Remus said cheerfully, placing the plant (now completely contained in its pot) on his bedside table. "I knew you'd forget all about it when you found out I was behind it. I'd actually planned a third-"

There was a loud whooshing noise. Sirius, who had reached for the handle to the dorm's door to pull himself to his feet, snatched his hand back as the door shot up the wall and settled into the middle of ceiling.

"Prank," Remus finished with a sigh.

That night was the last night of the year at Hogwarts, a time when the Marauders traditionally stayed awake. Why sleep, when in a few short hours they wouldn't be able to use magic, and wouldn't have each other at hand to scheme with, and only one of them (James) would be somewhere he liked anywhere near as well as Hogwarts? Sirius in particular was depressed at having to leave. It was while they were all lying around in the dorm, trying to cheer him up, that James pointed out, "At least you know you won't spend this summer trying to figure out how Peter gave himself permanent whiskers."

"Or being experimented on by two friends who swear they're trying to get rid of them," Peter put in.

"We were." James grinned. "Mostly."

Remus smiled. "Or wondering what your dear friends are doing without you, fearing they are tired of your company, when they are in fact perfecting a complicated seven-step plan to ensure they can spend more time with you."

"Actually, I just sort of made the steps up while I was telling you about it that first time," James confessed. "I mean, of course we'd thought about how it would work and all, but that was just a way to explain it. Dunno why the steps stuck."

"'Cause it's fun," Sirius said with a shrug. "Who the hell can remember why we call ourselves Marauders anymore? We just do."

"Step one," Peter said eagerly, as if wanting to prove he knew the steps as well as everyone else. "The Willow Whomps."

"Onto James," Sirius added promptly. "The Willow Warrior."

"Shut up."

"And now we know how long the Willow will stay frozen after you touch the knot," Peter pointed out.

James glared at him. "Although some of us choose not to use that information to save certain others of us from a beating-"

"Step two," Remus intervened. "Enter Peter Pettigrew."

"The Rat King," James said.

"Shut up."

"Five inches of pure nerve," Remus said. "Not counting tail."

"I did take on those other rats that one time, didn't I?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "If by 'take on' you mean 'scare away by stinking of werewolf,' then yes, Peter, you took them on."

"Well, it takes a bit of nerve to get cozy with the wolf too, you know. No offense, Remus."

"None taken."

"And step three," James said. "A rollicking good time is had by all."

Everyone spoke at once. "Like that time we got out in the snowstorm-"

"-when we first left the Shack and were all running on the hill-"

"-when we saw hippogriffs flying over the forest-"

"-the time Prongs fell through the landing in the Shack and looked like Bambi on the ice-"

"-hey, what about when Wormtail stepped in pine sap-"

"-Padfoot got the wolf to roll over and over down the hillside-"

"-yeah, well, don't forget the time Padfoot started chasing his tail-"

"That was on purpose, how many times do I-"

It took a long time for everyone to have their say on the subject of 'a rollicking good time.' But finally, Sirius said: "Step four: The utterly ridiculous, overly be-antlered Prongs."

James cleared his throat. "The Noble Prongs," Remus corrected in a long-suffering tone, rolling his eyes.

Sirius went on. "Friendly carrier of rats everywhere."

"Thanks for that, James," Peter commented.

"I hate you."

"You really did look like Bambi on the ice, James. Not just when you fell through the floor, but the first time, when Sirius and I were dancing about under your legs so much."

"Gee I wonder why. Next step: the Marauder's Flea-Ridden Weapon."

"Flea-ridden, James? Is that the best you can come up with?"

"Scruffy? Mangy?"

"Watch it, Wormtail."

"Y'know, Pads, I was dead right when I named you the secret weapon, but I thought it was going to be because you could pin the wolf in a fight. Instead it's because you can get the wolf to sit, stay, and play fetch."

"Aw, Remus is blushing," Peter pointed out with delight.

"What can I say?" Sirius asked. "Dogs gotta play. Just like rats gotta hide and stags gotta look ridiculous, apparently. Step six: the Marauders return by dawn."

"Hear that, everyone? Return by dawn. Not after dawn, with their poor, trusting wolf trapped away from-"

"We get it, Remus, we get it," James groaned. "Step seven. Mischief managed."

No one spoke for a moment. The fact that they would be parting from each other in a few hours suddenly seemed to loom before them, making the words mischief managed seem very final. Peter broke the silence. "Until next year, anyway."

"Until next year," Sirius agreed quickly.

"After all," Remus said, the corners of his mouth twitching, "the events of the past few days show us that poor Prongs and Padfoot are utterly out of mischief-making ideas. They need a few months to recuperate."

"You have just reserved the right to be the recipient of the first prank of sixth year," James informed him.

"Just like this year, then."

"Yes," Sirius said. "It'll be just like this year." There was something in his voice that was a little too thoughtful, a little too serious for talking about pranks, and even though it was only there for a moment, everyone seemed to catch it. "Mischief managed my arse."

"We better rename that step."

"Until next time," Remus suggested.

"No, let's do it now," Peter said.

"I mean name it until next time, you moron. Everything is wrapped up until next time."

"But it's not!" James suddenly looked panicked. "We have to start planning the first prank of next year. Right now, while we have time to make it memorable. Paaads..."

Remus sighed. "We are all hopeless."

"Let's not call it that," Sirius said, with a straight face.

"Back to square one?"

"That'll do."

"Yeah. That'll do."

~the end~