A/N: Well, this story kinda started out as a "bored in class" type of scribble, but we sincerely hope (and obviously think, or else we wouldn't be posting it now would we?) that it's better than that.

Disclaimer: Neither Celia nor I have the genius to make up characters like, say, Prongs, but that doesn't mean we can't worship them. If there is an occasional bit of unnecessary Sirius-bashing put in the narrative part of this story, chances are a hundred to nothing that Celia wrote that part, so blame her. Any Snape-bashing is my work.

Right, hope you like, and remember to review and tell us what you think!

Days of Old

Chapter 1

"Prongs!" bellowed Sirius as he and the other marauders strode out to the Quidditch pitch.

James casually turned, raising a hand to his hair and fluffing it spasmodically. A few girls over by the lake turned and twittered as they stared at his handsome face.

Sirius, who was being ignored by the girls for once in his life, frowned slightly. Suddenly, mass glompage came from behind in the form of his girlfriend, Ashley.

"I know what you're thinking," she said in an eerie fashion. Sirius's frown was replaced by a comic look of shock.

"Oh come on." Ashley rolled her eyes. "You're so obvious. But you've got me and that means commitment. I know it's a big word and everything, but…"

Remus Lupin started laughing silently at Sirius's expression from behind his Ancient Runes book.

"Shut up, Moony," Sirius said, grinning saucily. His head was swollen and he was enjoying the attention.

"I thought we were going to practice Quidditch," James said majestically. His redheaded object of affection had momentarily moved out of his sight.

Peter Pettigrew should've been with them, but he was in detention washing Mrs. Norris. Not that anyone missed him much.

Suddenly (and rather randomly), Sirius noticed Severus Snape and his only friend, Celia sitting on the edge of the Quidditch pitch, studying hard. Severus had his nose, quite literally, in a book. His dark hair swung in a greasy curtain as he moved to turn the page.

"Hey there, Snivellus!" Sirius bellowed.

The air was heated by the obvious tension as Celia looked up and met Ashley's eyes. They were secretly friends, but enjoyed the tension between the two groups too much to let on.

"Unlike you, Black, I am fortunate enough to be privileged with a more than adequate amount of brain cells," Snape said sneeringly. Celia smirked.

Ashley smirked as well, reluctantly admitting that Sirius wasn't exactly the sharpest crayon in the shed. Sirius's mouth was moving frantically, but he could not seem to find any words to say.

James, in the meantime, had pulled a spare Snitch out of his pocket and began to play with it, filling in for Sirius by coming up with a witty retort. Ashely and Celia watched him with a gleam in their eyes. Though their respective friends didn't know it, both girls had crushes on James, and Sirius would never figure it out, since as was previously stated, he wasn't exactly the sharpest crayon in the shed. (he also wouldn't know that crayons don't belong in sheds).

"How's Quidditch, James?" Celia asked flirtatiously.

"Quidditch!" James's head jerked violently towards her at the sound of his beloved sport being spoken into the air.

"Why would you care?" Sirius sneered. "It's not like you'll be riding on a broom anytime soon, especially not Snivellus's there."

While Ashley smacked Sirius across the face, Severus had gotten to his feet, his wand seeming to appear magically in his hand.

"Sectumsempra!" Severus hissed, pointing his wand at the stunned Sirius.

A jet of purple light shot out of his wand and slashed Sirius across the face and chest. Blood spurted out of him in a shower of red as he cried out in pain. Sirius landed heavily on the ground, writhing in agony. Blood continued to flow out of his partially lifeless body.

Ashley ran over to her bleeding and broken lover, while James stood in horror. His face momentarily contorted in shock before shifting into one of rage. In a flash, he pounced viciously on Snape, blow after blow landing on the latter's frail body.

Celia stood, transfixed in horror, her eyes darting from her object of affection to her beaten friend. All the commotion attracted the attention of Professor McGonagall, who stormed over in a tizzy. With one spoken incantation, James and Severus were separated, and sent flying in different directions.

Celia caught Severus to prevent his head from cracking open on a tree. Her look of horror was now mingled with worry, as James was a good deal stronger and more fit than Severus (to say the least).

Ashley was bemoaning Sirius's hurts, along with Remus, who, up until this point had been trying to read. Only when she heard James hit the ground did she look up. Both girls couldn't help but watch the winded James with expressions of deep regret (A/N: Because, really, who wouldn't want to catch James Potter?)

McGonagall glared harshly at the entire group and pointed them into the castle. James stood shakily, but both Sirius and Severus were in dire need of assistance. Celia put an arm around Severus, who immediately tried to jerk away. She glared at him, and he stopped struggling, looking at the ground sullenly. In the meantime, Ashley and Remus were helping Sirius to his feet, before the entire group reluctantly trudged up to the castle.

Once they were there, McGonagall directed the into her office and gestured rather violently for them to sit down. Celia immediately spotted an entire cake-chocolate-on McGonagall's desk and muttered something in which "cake" was clearly audible in a rather evilish voice. McGonagall glared at her, and Celia slapped herself across the cheek and whispered "Shut up!" to herself.

This earned her strange looks from McGonagall and Remus, the only normal ones in the room. Everyone else minus Sirius and Severus gave her sympathetic looks.

Severus was busy trying to ignore the fact that he was showing "weakness" in the face of his greatest enemy by glaring at Sirius, and Sirius was glaring back while trying to ignore the fluffy little bunnies that were floating around his head, as well as all the blood that was secretly making him squeamish.

"I trust you all know why you are here," Professor McGonagall snapped sternly. She had never looked so angry.

"We were going to play Quidditch, Professor," James said magnificently, fluffing his hair (can you tell it's a habit of his?) and straining out the window to see the Quidditch pitch. "But then Sniv-I mean, Snape cursed my best mate here!"

He indicated toward the bloody Sirius, giving McGonagall a winning smile. Ashley and Celia suppressed their urges to swoon at this.

"That's not entirely true," Celia said suddenly, "If he had minded his own business-" She shot a look at Sirius.

"Don't you dare blame my boyfriend!" Ashley shouted, enraged at this unexpected attack. "If that slimy Dark Arts obsessed creep hadn't-

"Don't you dare-

But at this point McGonagall had interceded on the screaming.

Severus cleared his throat, and ended up hacking blood. Sirius giggled before dizziness came over him again.

"Professor," Severus said, looking at Sirius distastefully. "Potter and his crowd are always crossing lines, and yet they always seem to get away with it-

"Mr. Snape, where did you get that curse?" McGonagall snapped at him. Severus fell silent, not speaking, his dark eyes narrowed hatefully. Sensing that Sirius was perhaps going to pass out from loss of blood, McGonagall cut to the chase.

"I am detracting 50 points from Gryffindor, and 100 from Slytherin. Mr. Snape, you have come indescribably close to getting expelled for use of mortally wounding Dark magic, so I would just keep quiet right now. Mr. Potter, you will be ejected from the Quidditch team for the next week and a half for aggression. Don't look at me like that, you've brought it upon yourself."

James's mouth was gaping and he had such an expression of agony on his face that it would have been funny had the circumstances been different.

"Finally, all six of you will be doing detention every night for the next week. Together. And if you cannot get along and keep quiet during detentions, then you may just find things to get a lot worse. Now Mr. Black and Mr. Snape must be escorted to the hospital wing, so you are dismissed."

Everyone left very quickly, all without looking at each other until they were out the door.