Secrets

Sirius gazed out the window of the common room into the inky black sky while waiting for James to decide where he wanted to move in wizard's chess. Sirius was winning so far, as usual, but James was putting all of his effort into going down with a good fight. It was no less than Sirius expected of him.
Remus was curled up in a nearby armchair, engrossed in a boring-looking novel by some dead wizard. Remus always liked to read the dullest books. What was the use of knowing all of these dead people's names, even if they did invent hexes and cool stuff? Sirius had always been more of the hands-on type.
James ordered his piece to move, and Sirius smiled. It was a nice try, but Sirius evaded the attempt lazily. This left James to sit and chew his already shot fingernails while trying to find a way to at least almost halfway look like he wasn't a total idiot when it came to wizard's chess. Sirius's pieces were yawning and leaning on their props, but James's looked anxious for the game to be over with; they most likely felt it was better to be shamed quickly and have it over with.
In the end, James threw up his hands and sighed. "I'm no match for you, Sirius," he said, yawning. "Never was, never will be. Shall we call it a night? It's awfully late, and all that dancing drained all the energy out of me."
Remus set his book down on his stomach, tipping his head back so he could gaze at them upside-down over the armrest of his chair.
Sirius leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees. "I've been meaning to talk to you two about something."

Remus marked his spot in his book with a piece of tattered paper that looked older than Remus himself, and set his book on the floor, turning onto his stomach to look at Sirius. His legs dangled over the back armrest of the chair and he propped his chin on his elbows, looking like a comfortable, bored cat. James dumped the chess board and pieces back into their box, much to the protest of the chess pieces.
"I wanna hear what the secret is!"
"I won't tell anyone!"
"Ouch! Watch it!"
"Get out of my bubble space!"
"That was my nose you just elbowed!"
"I didn't do it! It was somebody else!"
"Who just touched my butt?"
James closed the box, shutting out their rather annoying voices. Finally, after setting the box on the floor, a little harder than was necessary, James turned his attention to Sirius.

"What?" James asked after Sirius hesitated.
"Well..." he trailed off, not sure how he could put this into words.
Remus sighed. "I know why you're pausing. You're not sure how we'll like this idea. Well, let me give you some advice. I'm not gonna like it if it involves us doing something that we'll get detention for." He bent to pick up his book.
"Wait!" Sirius said, hotly. "You haven't even heard my idea yet! It's a good one! And we won't even get in trouble for it! Honestly! Well, we might, if someone finds out that it was us who-"
"Just tell us the idea," James said, sounding rather irritated. "And Remus, try not to interrupt."
Remus sat back in his chair, frowning.
"Well, I was just thinking that, since we know every single secret passageway, we should make something that we could leave here for other mischief-makers to use," Sirius said.
”Like a map?” Remus asked with just a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
"Yes! A map of every single passageway we know of!" Sirius said. "Think of how many kids in the future that would look up to us, James! But, they wouldn't look up to us, exactly, you see. They would look up to Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. So then it would be harder for us to get in trouble for making the map. You know?"
Remus and James sat there pondering this new idea for a while, then Remus nodded, and James did the same, after a moment.
"Just one thing," Remus said as he picked up his book. "Let's wait for Peter to come back, okay?"
"Sure," Sirius said.
"Alright, let's go to bed then," James said, standing up to yawn and stretch.