The Hogwarts Express gave an almighty lurch as its gears sped into motion. The Marauders sat in a compartment to themselves in the back of the train, looking out the windows and filled with the anticipation and excitement of their seventh and final year of Hogwarts.
"Hey, Prongs, do you think you'll get lucky with Evans this year, mate?" Remus, a tall wizard with sandy hair and light brown eyes, asked his friend while looking over his book.
"Yeah, Prongs, maybe the four hundred ninety-seventh time will be lucky," Sirius said sarcastically. He was a tall, muscular, tan wizard with shaggy (yet incredibly stylish) black hair and piercing gray eyes.
"Mate, this year's going to be the year." James said, leaning forward in his seat and ruffling his fingers through his jet-black, and already messy, hair. His hazel eyes peered at Sirius and Remus earnestly.
"The big one," Sirius said, his tone bored as he flicked a piece of hair out of his eyes.
"The year we've all been waiting for," Remus said, without looking up from him book.
Peter, a mousy-looking boy with blonde hair, watery blue eyes, and some weight on him that his mother kept insisting was "only puppy fat", said, "The year that I'll finally convince Lily Marie Evans to go out with me." The speech James had started was obviously said many times over the years.
Remus finally marked his place in his book and closed it with a snap. "Prongs," he said, looking at James with a mingled expression of pity and amusement, "you have to change your attitude if you want to get through to Lily."
"But," James said, looking over at Sirius accusingly, "Padfoot here said that I should show off all my skills to Lily to get her hooked."
Remus sighed and threw Sirius a reproachful look, before turning his attention back to James. "Since when has his advice been helpful?" James looked aghast as he realized that Remus had a good point with that last statement. He remembered the last time he had come to Sirius to ask for advice about the best way to write a letter to Jessica, a girl a year younger than the Marauders who had been infatuate with James since she first lay her eyes on him.
"Now, all you have to do is tell her that you aren't interested in her," a third-year Sirius Black told him sternly, handing him a quill and some parchment. "Don't make it too nice, or she'll think that you're just playing hard-to-get. Make it real mean, so she knows that you mean business!"
"Um, are you sure this is going to work, Sirius?" James asked skeptically (they didn't have their nicknames until they became unregistered animagi in their fifth year, to help Remus better endure his werewolf transformations), one eyebrow raised and his glasses slightly askew.
"Of course it will, Jamsie," Sirius said, shoving the quill into James's hand. "Just write the letter and you'll be rid of her for good."
"Okay, then," James said, and started to say each word as he wrote it on the parchment. "Dear…Jessica," he said, writing the words on the parchment in quick, untidy handwriting that spattered ink all over the place. "'I …don't…like…you. …Leave…me…alone. …Lily…is…much…better…than…you. …Signed…James Potter.' There!" he said, slamming down his quill. "I'm done!"
He passed the letter throughout the Gryffindor common room to Jessica, who read it and burst into tears.
"Sirius," James said, scowling and turning to face his best friend, who grinned sheepishly at him, "I am NEVER following your advice again. EVER!"
Obviously, he forgot that promise. "Oh, right," he said, comprehension dawning on him at last. "I remember now!"
Peter laughed shrilly, earning curious glances from the rest of the Marauders. He stopped immediately.
"So," James said, ignoring Peter and turning to face Remus again, "what should I do to get Evans to stop hating me and fall miraculously in love with me?"
"Well," Remus said, his tone business-like, "first off, you shouldn't call her 'Evans'. Call her Lily. A simple 'Hello, Lily' will make a much better impression than 'Go out with me, Evans?'. Secondly, you should stop cursing people in the hallways just for the fun of it. Now, I know that Snivellus is a special case"—Sirius and James exchanged smirks at this point, they loathed Severus Snape (christened Snivellus by the Marauders) and loved to hex him when he was unawares—"but at least make sure that you don't hex him when Lily is around. And don't ask her out constantly. That only gets her annoyed and aggravated. Try being her friend first, and see where that takes you. Oh, and stop ruffling your hair and showing off, that annoys her, too."
James was looking at Remus in awe, apparently shocked that one person could find so many things wrong with him.
Sirius took the opportunity to smack James in the back of the head. "ARG!" James screamed, rubbing the back of his head and glaring daggers at Sirius. "Padfoot, mate, WHAT WAS THAT FOR?" Behind his back, Peter and Remus were laughing at the scene developing before them.
"That?" Sirius asked, putting on a face of pure innocence and slapping him on the head again. "That was for taking my advice. You see what a sticky predicament you've gotten yourself into? I thought you learned your lesson, Prongsie, my man."
James growled and made to launch himself at Sirius, but just then the lunch trolley rolled past. "Anything sweet from the trolley, dears?" the woman asked, holding out some chocolate frogs with a bemused expression on her face. Remus' hand lunged out, almost instinctively, to grab the chocolate out of her hands, while Sirius and James wrestled on the floor behind him. My, those boys are really peculiar, the woman thought as she closed the door behind them and continued to walk down the train.
About five minutes later, the four boys were laughing at the stunned look on the trolley woman's face. Lily barged into the compartment, her face livid, her eyebrows scrunched down in anger. "POTTER!" she screamed loudly, "YOU ARE HEAD BOY! I AM HEAD GIRL! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE TELLING THE PREFECTS WHAT TO DO!"
"Oh, bugger," James mumbled, his face turning beet red as he looked at her. He forgot. This was not a good way to start 'the year that Lily Marie Evans would finally go out with him'. "I'm really sorry, Lily, I forgot," he said, his voice quiet and full of sorrow.
For a second, Lily felt sorry for James. For only a second. Then she felt angry again. "Well, come on then," she said briskly, snapping her fingers, "we need to patrol the corridors. Honestly, Potter, the badge is on your bloody CHEST and you forgot about it. How thick can you get?"
Lily then walked out of the compartment with James following close behind, trying discretely to sniff her hair. He loved the smell of her shampoo, whatever it was, and thought he might try to make amends by complimenting her on it. "Lily?" James said bashfully.
Lily turned around sharply to face him. "What, Potter?" she snapped.
"Um," James said, fumbling with the Head Boy badge pinned to the front of his new school robes, "I like the smell of your shampoo."
"James!" she exclaimed, backing away from him slightly. He cowered in front of her, even though she was at least a foot shorter than him. "Do you mean to tell me that you were sniffing me!"
"Somethinglikethat," James said very quickly, though not quickly enough.
"ARG!" Lily screamed, and stomped away. James, looking thoroughly miserable, followed after her, checking into numerous compartments randomly for misbehavior. Satisfied that he had found none, he returned back to his own compartment, fuming.
"The NERVE of her!" he said, slamming the compartment door. He sat down next to the window and pressed his forehead against it, his breath fogging up parts of the window. "I tell her I like her shampoo and she starts yelling at me! I try everything, EVERYTHING, to get her to like me, and none of it works. I'm just not good enough for her, am I?"
Remus looked at his discouraged friend, while Sirius patted his shoulder sympathetically (though rather awkwardly). Peter had left the compartment a while before to use the bathroom, and was nowhere to be found…not that anybody noticed his absence.
"Prongs," Sirius said, tearing James's face away from the window with an odd squelching noise, "Moony came up with a plan for you. I happen to think that it'll work. We have to try it."
"Okay," Remus said, still with a business-like tone to his voice. "Prongs, we all know that you love Lily. In fact, I think that the only person who doesn't realize it is Lily herself. I have a feeling that you're starting to grow on her. Her expression softened somewhat after you apologized for forgetting about the Heads duties."
James beamed at what his friend was telling him. "Well, then, that's good, isn't it?" James asked hopefully.
"I would assume so," Remus said seriously. "Now, Lily appreciated it last year when you tried to calm down around her, and she started noticing that you aren't a big-headed prat. Of course, that love potion that Sirius brewed for an April Fool's Day prank on you"—at this point he glared at Sirius, who seemed unabashed, though admittedly chuckled a bit—"messed things up quite a bit. But I figure that if you try again, Prongs, we could get her. After all, April Fool's Day is quite a long way from now. Now, I know that this will be hard for you, Prongs, but you need to leave Lily alone. Let her come to you. I'm positive that after a while she'll miss your attention, but she has to come to you first. Just don't talk to her and pretend you don't really care if she cares about you or not."
James groaned in protest. "Mooooooooony," he whined, "you know I can't do that! How long do I have to last for?"
"As long as it takes, Prongsie boy," Sirius said, looking at James's face with a mixture of pity and amusement. The pity won over the amusement though, as he said, "Don't worry, mate, she'll come around. This plan is virtually foolproof!"
A/N: This is my first fan fiction story. I have lots more chapters written up! If you find any mistakes, or if you have suggestions, or anything you want to say, please review! I'd love you for it :) Thanks!