A/N: Hi, sorry for not posting anything for so long. This isn't even something new, it's something I wrote ages ago. I've got another chapter for A Very Hogwarts Childhood in the works, but its on hold until I can type more than a few sentences without stabbing pains through my wrists. As always, I hope you enjoy and please review. I read every review ever sent to me, most of them several times! The photo that inspired this one can be seen at pin/369576713144882134/
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Sirius, James, Remus and Peter all took a solemn oath that what happened at James's stag do, pun intended, would never be spoken of again. Particularly not to Lily.
Unfortunately, they were (perhaps unsurprisingly) photographed. Even more unfortunately, Lily was one of those muggleborns who still followed Muggle news. Still more unfortunately, she saw the photo in a quick glance through the headlines in the train station. And Lily Evans, soon to be Potter, was many things, but stupid was most certainly not one of them. She was perfectly capable of recognising her boyfriend and his best friend, even in a newspaper photo. She was also perfectly capable of looking at the date and putting it all together.
She went to visit the Marauders flat, timing her arrival so that they were all at work (her shifts at St. Mungo's meant she finished work earlier than the others). She let herself in with the key they'd given her as soon as they got the flat, left the newspaper on the table, photo up, and went to the kitchen to make a snack. She heard the door open and Sirius and James come in, talking about some awful exercise they'd had to do in auror training. She heard Sirius stop talking mid-sentence, and the horrified silence that followed. She finished stirring her tea, picked up her sandwich, and wandered into the main room.
Sirius and James gulped. Lily casually sipped her tea.
"Hey Lils" James said, rather like a condemned man greets his executioner.
"Hello James, did you have a good day?"
"Yeah. It was great."
Silence fell. Sirius backed slowly towards the door. Lily casually put her tea down and flicked her wand at the door. Sirius grabbed the doorknob and yelped. James looked between his fiancé and best friend. Lily raised an eyebrow at them. Both winced.
"See, thing is Lily flower" Sirius began "we all promised not to talk about that. What happens on stag stays on stag you know?"
"Perhaps" suggested Lily, "if this stag hadn't gotten arrested..." She raised an eyebrow at them. James was the first to crack.
"I can explain..."
"Can you? Because I'd love an explanation of how you managed to get arrested by the Muggle police in your illegal animagus forms"
James swallowed hard, but wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing. "C'mon Lils, you already shouted at us for the animagus thing."
"I thought you were explaining?"
James wilted at his fiancé's acerbic tone, and her volume. There were only ever two reasons why she was this quiet when angry. Either she was saving her voice for a truly impressive shouting session later, or she was thinking of something particularly nefarious. He wasn't sure which was worse.
"Um well, we thought we'd do something just the four of us? You know, to celebrate old times. And that meant we'd need to stay away from magic places where people might join us. We were trying to be polite! So we got some drinks at a Muggle pub, but Moony was worried we'd draw attention, so we got some bottles of beer and stuff from this massive white shop thing, and we went to the park and hung out. We had some drinks, and it got a bit late and then we saw these squirrels and Padfoot, actually, Sirius should tell the next bit, shouldn't you Pads?"
Lily switched her attention to Sirius, who sent his best mate the filthiest look he could muster. "It was Prongsy's night, he should get to tell the story!"
"What about the squirrels Black?"
Sirius gulped, Lily narrowed her eyes. Sirius broke. "They were running everywhere Lily! What's a dog to do?"
Lily didn't reply, and Sirius quickly decided he'd better keep going. "It wasn't that bad, no one saw me change or anything. I was just another stray chasing the squirrels around! Except, umm, I went a bit too far, and the others had to come after me, and they weren't quick enough as humans, so James became Prongs, and then we had a bit of a game of tag in the park. And then a bit of a swim in the lake. And then we wondered if we could use the play equipment in our animagus forms, so we convinced Moony to spin all of us around on the roundabout, and then we went down the slide. I got down fine! But Prongs got stuck, and we made a bit of a racket getting him out, and that's when the police got called I think."
"You think? When else could they have been called?" Lily yelled.
Sirius shrank back and contemplated risking the door again. James hastily interjected "You don't really want to know all the details do you! We're giving you the main points. Anyway" he rushed on before Lily could tell him she did in fact want the details "the police got called and ummmm, well, errr"
At this point, the door opened, and Remus walked in "Pete's not coming home tonight, his mum's ill again. What's goi...Oh hi Lils! What did you two do?" Remus had seen that look on Lily's face often enough before. Sirius pointed at the table, where the newspaper still sat, photo up.
"Ah" said Remus "I'll just leave you to it then shall I?"
He backed towards the door.
"Remus John Lupin, Sit down."
"Yes Lily" said Remus, wincing. He sat.
"Now, James? What happened after you got stuck down a slide and the police got called?"
"Well, this is rather Moonys bit. He should have the honour of telling you."
Remus winced again, but took the 'just get it over with approach'. "I thought it would be best not to get arrested, so I climbed on Prongs and said to run. We made it out the park, but accidentally crashed into another policeman. There was a bit of a scuffle, and then we got away, but he probably called for backup, because there were lots more policemen after that. And then we saw a motorbike, and well, it seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time?"
Lily, who had read the article, reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "And none of you thought of turning back into humans first?"
"Ummmm, we were a bit sloshed and adrenaline high at that point. And Peter wouldn't have fitted as a human!"
"And Prongs did as a stag?"
Remus tried to sink through the couch. James weighed up the pros and cons of making a bolt for it and decided his chances of escape were next to none. Drat the anti-apparation wards. Remus seemed to decide that it was probably best to get it over with quickly, and started talking again, much more quickly that before.
"Anyway, we all got on the bike and we tried to get away from the police, but it turned out to be a police motorbike we nicked, and they didn't give up easily, and we mighthavesortofcrashedintoapolicecar" he finished, his words slurring together as he tried to blurt them out as quickly as possible.
Lily paused to translate that, then her ears started to go red. That hadn't been in the article, nor had the fact that the bike was a police one. She took a deep breath. The marauders quailed. She let it out.
"And what happened after that?"
Remus gulped. It was never a good sign when Lily's ears turned red, not when she restrained her temper. She wasn't very good at it, and it only made the eventual explosion worse. "Err, well we fell off the bike obviously. And the police were right on our tail, so I hid in a bush and disillusioned myself. I was the only one who was human see, and I didn't really want to be blamed for the whole lot, and I didn't think they'd accept that the stag and dog were responsible for themselves..." He trailed off at the look on Lily's face.
James, resigned to their fate and just wanting to get it over with, continued the story "It was actually pretty sensible, there was only one bush, and no time to hide all of us, so it was best that the human didn't get caught. Anyway, Moony hid in the bush, and Wormtail scarpered, but Pads and I were too big to vanish. The muggles shoved us in one of their cars, and looked around for what they called our 'trainer'. We waited until it got quieter, just one guy left to guard the car, then Moony stunned him, let us out, wiped the guys memory of being stunned, and we apparated out."
"And that's it?"
"Yeah, just about." James said, palming his wand behind his back just in case.
"So, just to sum up, you lot got drunk in a Muggle area, turned into animals, got stuck in the play equipment, got the police called, stole a motorbike, got into a police chase, crashed and then got arrested. Is that about right?"
James tightened his hand on his wand in case his fiancée started hexing them "Yes?"
Lily took a deep breath. James cast the silent muffling spell he and Sirius had perfected by second year. Lily cast the silent counter spell she'd perfected by third year.
"Of all the stupid, reckless, irresponsible things to do! You are training to be aurors! You're supposed to help protect the statute of secrecy, not rip it to shred the size of the Chudley Cannons wins list! And don't even get me started on getting Arrested..."
Sirius, Remus and James cowered and shared entirely too familiar winces. They'd heard enough of Evans', soon to be Potter's, lectures to know she was only just getting started. James sighed, it could be worse of course, she might look utterly deranged, but the fact that she hadn't hexed them showed she was only mildly enraged.
Luckily, they'd managed to avoid telling her about Padfoot and him playing fetch with his snitch. And about the whole tree incident. It could definitely have been worse. Plus, Lily always had looked especially hot when passionate. Silver lining and all that...
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A/N: If anyone recognises the photo that inspired this one, and knows where to find it, could you send me a link? I'll add it into the story because that photo is amazing. It seems to pop up on random social media platforms every once in a while, but I haven't seen it for ages.
