We kennen een grap / grap die de Marauders speelden. Zoals Sneep Harry vertelt in Prisoner of Azkaban (mijn nadruk):
“I would hate for you to run away with a false idea of your father,
Potter,” he said, a terrible grin twisting his face. “Have you been
imagining some act of glorious heroism? Then let me correct you —
your saintly father and his friends played a highly amusing joke on
me that would have resulted in my death if your father hadn’t got
cold feet at the last moment. There was nothing brave about what he
did. He was saving his own skin as much as mine. Had their joke
succeeded, he would have been expelled from Hogwarts.”
Later in het boek wordt het beschreven als "amusant" door Lupin en een "grapje" door Harry (mijn nadruk):
Sirius thought it would be — er —
amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he’d be able to get in after me.
Well, of course, Snape tried it — if he’d got as far as this house,
he’d have met a fully grown werewolf — but your father, who’d heard
what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great
risk to his life . . . Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the
tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from
that time on he knew what I was. ...”
“So that’s why Snape doesn’t like you,” said Harry slowly, “because
he thought you were in on the joke?”
Ze worden ook wel de grootste "herrieschoppers" genoemd door professor Anderling in Prisoner of Azkaban :
“Precisely,” said Professor McGonagall. “Black and Potter.
Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright, of course —
exceptionally bright, in fact — but I don’t think we’ve ever had such
a pair of troublemakers — ”
"Troublemakers" lijkt iets te impliceren van een meer grappige regeluitvoering, die zou kunnen verwijzen naar verschillende grappen / grappen. In datzelfde gesprek vergelijkt Hagrid ze inderdaad met Fred en George Weasley die zeker jokesters / grappenmakers waren:
“I dunno,” chuckled Hagrid. “Fred and George Weasley could give ’em a
run fer their money.”
Belangrijker nog, wanneer Harry herinneringen ophaalt aan het horen van dit gesprek twee jaar later in Orde van de Feniks , schrijft hij expliciet aan McGonagall het gevoel toe dat James en Sirius de voorlopers waren van de Weasley-tweeling:
Yes, he had once overheard Professor McGonagall saying that his
father and Sirius had been troublemakers at school, but she had
described them as forerunners of the Weasley twins, and Harry could
not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside down for the fun
of it ... not unless they really loathed them . . . Perhaps Malfoy,
or somebody who really deserved it . . .