A/N: This is a continuation of my one-shot "Of Love & Chocolate," so if you haven't read that, you probably should :) Otherwise, this won't make much sense, if any…

"Moony, honestly, how many times do I have to apologize?" James implored, trying to lower the book my nose was stuck in.

"Once would be nice," I snapped, swatting him away.

He plopped down next to me on the couch. "I've apologized, haven't I?"

"Not really," I scoffed. "You've done that thing where you say, 'Well, I'm sorry if I wanted to have a little fun… Well, I'm sorry if I didn't know you actually liked her.'"

James furrowed his brow. "Well, I did say I was sorry."

"Just forget it."

"Really, now," Sirius said, snatching my book from my hands.

"Hey, I was reading that!"

"Sure, you were." He rolled his eyes. "That's why you haven't turned the page in twenty minutes."

I scowled at him. "It's not my fault if you two are distracting me."

James sprawled out across my lap and looked up at me with his best puppy-dog eyes. "Moony," he pouted. "Will you please forgive me?"

"Gerroff," I muttered, trying not to crack a grin. But James always saw right through me.

"See?" he cried in triumph. "I knew you wouldn't hold onto this forever!"

I sighed as he rolled off my lap. "Can I have my book back?" I asked Sirius.

He snorted. "I don't think so. Do you have any idea how boring you would be if it weren't for us?"

I laughed despite myself. "Fine, fine. Who has the Cloak?"

James grinned and pulled a corner of his Cloak out of the pocket of his robes.

"I love house-elves," Peter said dreamily while he stuffed his face with his third treacle tart.

"Me, too," James said, taking another few spoonfuls of pudding.

"How much do house-elves cost, anyway?" Peter wondered aloud, through a full mouth.

"You don't want to have a house-elf, trust me," Sirius said darkly.

James laughed. "You're just saying that because your elf hates you."

Peter and I snickered at the offended look on Sirius's face.

"It's not my fault!"

James rolled his eyes. "Sure, it isn't…"

Sirius grumbled something about his family under his breath that everyone was content to ignore.

"On a happier note," James said, earning a laugh from Peter, "when's the next full moon?"

I snorted. "Yeah, 'cause that's a happy discussion topic."

"Happier than the direction Sirius was heading in," James said, playfully shoving the boy's shoulder.

Sirius shrugged and suddenly seemed to brighten up. "Eh, Moony, guess what!"

"Er…"

"I'm getting a lot closer to—" he leaned closer and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "—to being able to transform."

"Really?" I blurted. "That's great!"

"We'll probably be able to manage it by next winter at the latest," Sirius continued. "As long as Peter doesn't keep holding us up."

The shortest of the Marauders blushed as we all glanced to him. "I've been practicing! Really, I have! I even skipped my Transfiguration homework the other night so I could have more time to."

"Yes," James said with thick sarcasm, "because that's what you need to be doing in order to accomplish an Animagus transformation: skipping your Transfiguration homework…"

Peter looked crestfallen and took solace in a slice of chocolate cake.

"Anyway," Sirius said, "watch what I can do." He stood up and shook out his limbs, as if trying to center himself.

"What, are you going to teach us yoga?" James jeered.

Sirius shot him a nasty glance. "I have to focus. Don't distract me."

The messy-haired Marauder leaned back and watched, his expression set to default: a smug half-smile. Sirius closed his eyes and opened them about an entire minute later. He was still one-hundred percent human.

But he seemed to think otherwise. "Well?"

"That's your Animagus form? A stupid-looking bloke?" James said.

Sirius groaned. "I never said I was able to transform completely! I'm just getting closer is all."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "This is what you call progress?"

He rolled up one of his sleeves and shoved his arm in my face. I tried to back away, but he grabbed the back of my head with his other hand so I was trapped. "Look! See the hair? It's thicker and darker now."

"Sure you just didn't forget to shave?" James gibed.

Sirius glared at him.

"But, really," James continued, "what d'you think you'll transform into? A gorilla?"

"Ha, very funny…"

"Then we could call you Monkey-Butt. Or Banana-Breath or something. We really shouldn't single out Moony by only giving him a nickname.

"Fine then, you can be Four-Eyes and Peter can be Chub."

Peter gasped and put down his cake. "I am not fat!"

"You sound like a girl, Chub," Sirius said. "A really annoying girl."

Peter slid the slice of cake away from him across the counter. "At least I'm not a stinking ape…"

"Remus?" said a quiet and familiar voice. I actually dropped the book I had been reading this time.

Whoa. Déjà vu.

"Hey, Lily," I said nervously. I wondered if my smile looked as stupid as it felt. Because I felt like a bloody idiot. She sat down next to me and folded her hands in her lap.

"Umm," she began, glancing around the common room and basically everywhere except at me. "I'm really sorry about… that."

"Oh, it's not your fault!" I said hurriedly. "Completely not your fault. I'm the one who should be sorry… James is such an idiot, sometimes." I said the last sentence a little louder than necessary in hopes that James would hear where he was across the common room. His loud bark of laughter signaled that he heard, but didn't care. Typical.

"Well, that's not exactly your fault either," she said.

It was quiet for a moment. I mean, the common room was loud, but neither of us spoke so it was still unbearably awkward…

"Uh, Lily, I was wondering if—"

"I just wanted to say that—"

We'd both started talking at the exact same time. Bloody wonderful.

"Er, you go," I told her.

She smiled shyly and tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. "Can we just pretend like the whole thing never happened? I mean, it's really embarrassing for me…" She winced at the memory. "All the things I said…" She gave a small shudder. "So, can we, Remus? Just go on like it never happened at all? Completely forget it?"

"Oh, sure! Yeah! Definitely!" Since when was my voice so high-pitched and squeaky? I thought I was done with all that…

She smiled in relief. "Thanks! God, if James ever found out… But he won't because it never happened, right?"

"Nope. Never happened at all."

I never had a crush on you, never gave you chocolates, you never smiled at me and sat on the edge of my bed. It's not all that easy for me to forget, Lily.

"Great. You're a life-saver, Remus."

"Yep. No problem."

"So what were you going to say?"

I panicked all of a sudden, until I remembered that she didn't know what I had been going to say. "Just the same thing. To forget about it. You know, that it never happened."

It's not like I was going to ask you out or anything. I mean, I wanted to, but I probably would have chickened out anyway. And if I hadn't, you would've turned me down, so… yeah.

"Oh," she said in clear surprise. "Well, great. We're on the same page then."

"Yep. Completely on the same page."

"Okay… Well, if that's all… I'll see you around."

"Yeah, around. Probably, sometime."

We nodded at each other until she finally stood up and returned to her friends.

That. Was. Pitiful. I fell back on the couch and folded an arm over my face. Merlin have mercy on me and my… patheticness. I'm so pathetic I can't even use real words to express how pathetic I am. Now that's pathetic.

"Lily looks kinda glum, mate," said Sirius's voice as his weight fell on my knees. "What'd you do to her?"

"Ow!" I hissed, whipping my arm away from my face. "Why can't I sit on this couch without either you or James being on top of me?"

James let out a low whistle as he perched on the arm of the couch. "Someone's in a mood."

A/N: I had way too much fun writing this… So I hope you enjoyed it half as much as I did ;) If you didn't heed my advice in the A/N at the beginning and are really confused: Go read "Of Love & Chocolate"! It's just a one-shot and this story will make little to no sense without that background. Mary will come in during the next chapter and things will get… interesting. Please leave a review!