Soooo, just another normal week in the lives of the Marauders, right? Wrong. There's a new girl at Hogwarts, and she's caught Sirius' eye. Too bad she doesn't feel the same way about him. Or does she?
disclaimer: i own none of the harry potter characters whose names you recognize. they are jk rowlings. i am however the king of cheese.
Chapter 1
Sirius leaned his chair back on it's hind legs and gazed boredly at the ceiling. He turned to look at James, who was also staring at the stone ceiling of the dungeon where their potions class was held. Noticing that Peter was still feverishly working on his potion, he caught James' eye and winked. James grinned and propped his chair up too, then both he and Sirius let their chairs fall down with a deafening bang. Peter squeaked as he slopped his potion over the sides of the cauldron, and other people in the room let out frustrated yells as they too were startled by the noise.
"Nice one," James grinned appreciatively.
"You read my mind," Sirius replied, grinning broadly.
"Now boys, you need to behave yourselves. The other students still need to finish their work," Professor Slughorn said, sounding amused.
"Yes, Professor," James and Sirius said in unison, their faces cracking into evil grins the moment Slughorn turned his back.
"What're you lot up to now?" Remus said quietly from behind the book he was reading.
"Now Remus, why must we go through life, scarred by the knowledge that you always think we're planning something," Sirius said in a voice of mock hurt. "Have a little faith."
"I do have faith," Remus replied, "faith that you'll end up hexing someoneā¦"
"When have we ever done that?" James said innocently.
Remus grinned and returned to his book. "Just make sure you get Snape good this time. The last one was pathetic."
"Oho, now we have the prefects permission," Sirius said, his voice choked with false emotion, "this is the proudest moment of my life."
"Yeah," James replied, his eyes narrowed as he looked at Snape. "What d'you think?"
Sirius didn't answer, but grinned as he turned toward Snape, drawing his wand from his pocket under the cover of the table. He flicked it in Snape's direction, then hastily stowed it back in his robes. A moment later Snape let out a yelp and jumped up from his seat.
"What'd you hit him with?" James asked as the rest of the class started snickering at Snape, who looked as if he was doing a frenzied tap dance.
"That toenail thing he got you with last week," Sirius smirked as Snape pulled out his wand and pointed it at his feet.
Remus grinned at them over the top of his book, and Peter giggled shrilly, pointing at Snape.
"Oh you really got him that time!" Peter squeaked excitedly.
"Yeah, he did," James said, bemused, "now calm down before you wet yourself, dolt."
Peter blushed, but followed James' advice and quieted down. Sirius was watching Snape closely, trying to detect if his least favourite classmate was planning on hexing him back. Satisfied that he wasn't, Sirius turned back to the table and grinned at James.
"Oh, are we going to have a fun break today," he commented, looking wistful.
"I agree," James said. "Now that this lot has got their laughs for today, I think we ought to do them a favour and wash Snivelly's hair."
"Not everyone got a laugh out of that," Remus stated, peering over his book yet again.
"Snivelly doesn't count as a person, Remus," James said impatiently.
"I wasn't talking about him. I was talking about her," Remus jerked his head in the direction of Lily.
James followed his gaze to see Lily looking over at their table, her face etched with dislike. He turned back to his table, grinning weakly.
"If she's really that upset about us hexing him, there really must be something wrong with her," James commented, trying and failing to look as if he could care less.
The bell rang and the sound of scraping chairs filled the room as the class headed for the door. James hurried ahead a bit and caught up with Lily, rejoining his friends a moment later with an uncharacteristically ugly look on his face.
"She shut you down?" Sirius asked, clapping James on the back. "Don't worry about it mate, she'll come around."
James nodded, then grinned as he saw Snape heading down an empty corridor. He winked at Sirius, and they followed Snape down the hallway, Remus and Peter trailing behind them.
"Alright there, Snivellus?" Sirius asked, rather loudly.
Snape froze, then slowly turned around. He looked first at James, then at Sirius, his face full of loathing.
"It's rude to not respond you know," James commented, drawing his wand.
"Yeah, I don't think I'll ever recover from that one," Sirius sniffled, as he too pulled out his wand.
Snape didn't respond but withdrew his wand in one swift movement and flicked it at James, who barely had enough time to block the spell. He managed to produce a shield charm, which the spell bounced off of and into a suit of armor. There was a deafening clang as the armor toppled over, bouncing all over the place.
As if on cue, all the boys took off running, Snape in one direction, the Marauders in another. After a few minutes they slowed down, panting heavily. Sirius glanced around and saw that they were outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. He turned to head up the stairs leading to the Gryffindor common room, but before he could take a step, a large black shape tore past him, closely followed by a girl with light brown hair. Sirius only caught a glimpse of her, but what he saw made his heart skip a beat.
