The Harry Potter series is a story that has a lot of different themes and ideas that are explored within it, but there is no theme that is stronger and more present than the fact that love is the most powerful magic in the world. And that love includes the love of family, the love of significant others, and the love between friends that can literally carry you to the ends of the earth and back.
The golden trio of Harry, Ron, and Hermione are obviously the focal point of the story, but they’re not the only friend squad that changed the wizarding world with their friendships. Back when their parents were kids themselves, the Marauders were tearing it up at Hogwarts as an equally strong group of friends.
This quartet was made up of James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, and their exploits were legendary. They’re one of the most beloved squads in the Harry Potter fandom, and here are 10 of the funniest memes about them.
Sirius Stilinski
It’s pretty hard to imagine who Sirius Black was before he spent years of his life being tortured in Azkaban, but given how mischievous the entire Marauders gang was, it’s not too hard to imagine that Sirius may have been a lot like young Stiles Stilinski from Teen Wolf. And honestly, imagining Professor McGonagall as an alternate universe Sheriff Stilinski makes the entire scenario even better.
Sirius and the Marauders undoubtedly got up to an enormous amount of shenanigans in their day, and it’s more than easy to believe that they would have come up with an excuse as absurd as this one in order to try (and likely fail) to get themselves out of trouble.
Cross-Breeding
See, this is one of the reasons why Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry really needs to shore up its normal muggle education subjects.
Sure, lessons in Charms and Transfiguration are an absolute necessity for any witch or wizard, but the very fact that it’s so believable that James and Sirius might question whether or not Harry Potter was going to come out of the womb as some sort of half man half beast baby, would indicate that their understanding of science and magic is woefully lacking.
Thankfully Lily has enough brains to cancel out the idiotic half of Harry’s genes.
Halloween Shenanigans
In all likelihood, it seems that the entire Marauder squad probably didn’t need to pull these kinds of moves in order to generate interest from most of the girls at Hogwarts, since it seems like these rascals were pretty popular boys at the school. But we have to hand it to Lily Evans because she seemed to be the only lady who really had no patience or interest in James Potter’s constant peacocking.
Eventually Lily fell for him without needing to be encouraged by a kissing pumpkin, but it’s not hard to believe that James’ desperation before they finally got together could lead him to do something like this.
At Least It’s Faster
There’s an old saying, if you can’t do something smart then do something stupid. And it’s extremely easy to imagine that this particular life philosophy is one that Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter were more than willing to live and die by.
Quite frankly, Sirius’ “wrong way” of doing things has clearly gotten him pretty far in life. For his entire life, it seems like he has done exactly what other people didn’t want him to or tried to prevent him from doing but considering the fact that he was the first man to escape from Azkaban it seems safe to say that even Sirius’ wrong way can end up with the right outcome.
Lily Is A Savage
It’s actually strange to realize this in retrospect, but the vast majority of the information that the Harry Potter audience gets about James Potter comes from Severus Snape, and obviously, Snape’s assessment of James is more than a little prejudiced against the elder Potter.
But given Lily and James’ contentious relationship before he and Lily ultimately became a couple, it is absolutely plausible that Lily would be regularly serving up these sick burns to James. Heck, it’s even more plausible that half the reason why James was so into Lily was that she was so utterly unimpressed by him and even seemed to dislike him.
That Retro Marauder’s Style
Wizard culture and muggle culture are two very clearly separate things, and it doesn’t seem like the wizarding world goes through a lot of trends and styles as the times change, at least not as much as muggles do.
J.K. Rowling has been clear on the fact that the HarryPotter series is supposed to take place in the 1990s. But as this meme so deftly points out, if Harry Potter takes place in the ’90s then the Marauders were a bunch of 70’s kids, and imagining them in full ’70s regalia is priceless.
Maybe It’s More Fun Not Knowing
As any fan or even casual viewer or reader of Harry Potter has often pointed out, the very fact that Peter Pettigrew showed up on the Marauder’s Map and seemed to be attached at the hip to young Ronald Weasley is bizarre enough. However, since Fred and George Weasley were in possession of the map it’s even more bizarre that they never even questioned why some man they’d never heard of was always with Ron.
But then again, it’s the Weasley twins. It’s very possible that they didn’t bother to care, and it’s even easier to believe that they just loved the weirdness of it and didn’t want to stop whatever was happening there.
A Deer In Headlights
The original purpose of the rest of the Marauder crew becoming animagi was to accompany Remus and help him cope with the horrendous condition of being a werewolf. But this interpretation of the Marauders and their animal forms is so much more fun.
It’s hysterical to imagine any one of them magically converting to animal form because they’re panicked or need to get out of a sticky situation, and it’s even funnier to think that turning into an animal and literally running wild could be their form of letting loose and really getting the party going. A jaunt through the castle on all fours is a more than appropriate way of celebrating a long-awaited date with your crush.
James’ Second Favorite Boy Now
Well in all fairness to Sirius, clearly he was James’ favorite boy until his own son Harry was born, and undoubtedly the feeling was mutual and James was Sirius’ favorite boy until Harry was born too.
Of course, the death of the Potters and the dissolution of the entire Marauder’s crew was a tragedy for many reasons, but one of the greatest losses in Harry’s life was the potential for his childhood to become some madcap wizarding version of My Two Dads. If Peter Pettigrew hadn’t been such a literal and metaphorical rat, Harry could have had four dads instead of winding up with zero.
Oh Deer, Make It Stop
Well if you can’t razz your best friend with absurd puns in your best man speech at his wedding, then what is even the point of having best man speeches at a wedding?
We have no doubt that this meme is pretty much exactly the kind of speech that Sirius would have given at James and Lily’s wedding, and one of the saddest parts of their tragically ended friendship is that James Potter never got the chance to return the favor at Sirius Black’s wedding. There are undoubtedly about a thousand more dog puns that can be worked into a speech than there are deer puns.