Chapter I
"Enjoy the little things in life for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things." - Kurt Vonnegut
From the outside, the McKinnon House looked completely ordinary, however if you were to enter, you would be greeted by many strange and wonderful things. Moving pictures covered the walls. There were no electric lights, rather candles, which didn't drip. Mirrors talked, chores did themselves and every so often an owl would fly in, drop a roll of parchment paper and fly off. The McKinnon House was a magical house, which meant that two of the three occupants were magical. Marlene McKinnon and her mother were both witches, he father was a muggle, or non magical person.
In the kitchen of the house, Marlene's mother listened to WWN, Wizarding Wireless Network, and used her wand to peel potatoes and boil water for supper. Upstairs Marlene McKinnon danced around her room, listening to Led Zeppelin and enchanting things to fly into her trunk. Technically speaking she wasn't supposed to be doing magic outside of school, but the Ministry of Magic, or magical government had no way of determining whether or not it was her mother's magic so it was alright. Of course it wouldn't be illegal if it weren't for the blasted Marauders, who had used magic to scare some muggles. They had said the muggles were throwing rocks at children much smaller than them, but even so the Ministry has banned underage magic outside of school.
Books, quills, parchment, robes, muggle clothing, and an enchanted walkman soared past her before arranging themselves neatly in her trunk. It was Marley's, as her friends called her, sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
She was looking forward to seeing her best friends Lily Evans and Mary MacDonald. They'd written letters back and forth all summer, Lily had been in France with her parents and younger sister Petunia and her annoying boyfriend Vernon. Lily was really upset that Petunia had convinced her parents to let Vernon come along because she wanted to try and bond with Petunia on the vacation. Things had been rough between them ever since Lily had been accepted into Hogwarts. Mary, who had like five older brothers, had spent most of her summer at home or visiting her family. She had met Marlene twice and they had gone to a muggle movie theater and an amusement park. Mary was fascinated by everything in the muggle world because everyone in her family was magical. Marlene was a halfblood, her mom was a witch and her dad a muggle. Marley had spent the rest of the summer visiting with her old muggle friends who didn't understand why she was voluntarily going to a boarding school, caught up on the latest movies and enjoyed her mother's homemade waffles.
Marley got up and turned off the record. Led Zeppelin was her favorite band, although both Lily and Mary liked the Weird Sisters, a new wizarding band a whole lot more. They would listen to their favorite bands while studying and sometimes in class. Music was especially handy in History of Magic, everyone's least favorite class. Professor Binns droned on and on about long ago goblin wars that might have been mildly interesting if taught by another teacher. Professor Binns was actually a ghost. He had died in the school and decided to stay and teach even after death. Music was an escape for Marlene, both from class and from life itself. Sometimes she felt herself feeling sleepy or a little sad, like she would just want to slip out of life for a while. Music made everything feel better.
Marlene stuck her wand in the back pocket of her jeans, closed her trunk, looked around the room for anything might have forgotten, threw on a coat and then tried to levitate her trunk. She and Lily had been trying to do wandless magic for months, it never worked but she might as well try. They had first gotten into the idea of wandless magic when Professor McGonagall, the Transfiguration teacher, had mentioned it in class. She and Lily thought it would be really cool not to be limited by a wand. They spent rainy days in the school library reading about it. She concentrated on lifting up her trunk and repeated the incantation over and over in her mind, she thought her trunk quivered slightly, but it was probably just her imagination. Sighing, she pulled out her wand and moved her trunk downstairs.
The sky was gray and the air was misty, which of course was like any other day to Marlene, the weather in England was never good, at least it wasn't humid or her blond hair would be twice it's size and crackling with electricity. Once she had accidentally shocked her cat so badly his fur got was before she went to Hogwarts and knew how to control her magic. She got in the backseat of the car. Her dad was in the driver's seat, they sat waiting for her mom, who suddenly burst through the door, and ran through the sudden downpour into the car. She dried herself off with her wand and told Marlene's dad to "floor it, we're going to miss the train." "This is for you," she said smiling at Marlene and handing her an envelope. Marlene opened it up. Inside were a bunch of moving pictures.
"What are these for mom?" she asked. There were pictures of her mom at Hogwarts, some of her when she was younger and some more recent ones of her and her friends at Hogwarts, there were also a few stationary photos of her dad. "I thought you could start a photo album or scrapbook" said her mom, smiling through her frizzy blonde hair, she looked a lot like Marlene, except her eyes were a warm brown instead of blue. "I made one when I was at Hogwarts, it's a lot of fun!" Marlene put all the photos inside the envelope except for one, it was from last year at Hogwarts. She, Lily and Mary grinned at the camera along with "the Marauders" who had jumped in the picture at the last second.
The Marauders were James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. They were the four biggest troublemakers in school. It was mostly James and Sirius. They weren't all bad. They were in Gryffindor along with Marlene, Lily and Mary. James was on the quidditch team, he played chaser and he was really good. Marlene was also a chaser. In the picture he stood with his arm around Lily, grinning from ear to ear. Lily, surprisingly was also smiling. Everyone knew that James liked Lily, he always had. Marlene and Mary were pretty sure that Lily liked James back but she would rather die than admit it to anyone.
Sirius Black was, in Marlene's opinion, the worst. He pulled the worst pranks, and annoyed her to no end, he insisted on calling her Marls. He never wore robes like ever, insisting on wearing a leather jacket and jeans. She put up with him, mostly because she knew that he had some family issues, he wasn't a total jerk and to be frank, he had great hair. In the picture he had one arm around James, and one around Marley. She was attempting to push him off. Of course she didn't think he really liked her, he had gone out with almost every girl in their year.
Then there were the other two "Marauders" or whatever they called themselves. Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Remus was the calmest of the group, he was a prefect but he still went along with all the others' nonsense. In the photo he stood behind Mary, wrapping her in a hug. They had started going out at the end of last year. Peter was funny. He was about a foot shorter than James, Sirius and Remus who were all six-foot-something-or-other and seemed shocked at his luck of being a marauder. He was a little eccentric but generally good hearted. He stood kind of awkwardly off to the side but was grinning widely.
Of course the Marauders had their secrets, like every friend group. Marlene couldn't help feeling as if they were hiding something more. They had weird nicknames for eachother and were always sneaking around, but she didn't want to waste more time thinking about them. She had more important things to worry about, like what havoc they would wreak on the train. Last year they had started a prank war against Marlene and her friends, and she intended to finish what the Marauders had started. Lily and Marley had come up with all sorts of ideas. One false move and Marlene was going to replace Sirius's shampoo with Nair.
Lily also had two friends a few years below them in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw that wanted to help. The girl from Ravenclaw had cousins in Poland that were, if possible, worse than the Marauders. They drove her up the wall. Once they had apparently turned all of her socks into toads. Another time they had replaced her sunscreen with tanning oil and she had to go to a burn ward in St. Mungos. A majority of the Marauders' pranks were harmless, but once Peter had accidentally gone overboard with some itching powder and one of the Slytherin beaters had to spend three days in the hospital wing. Marlene stepped out of the car and walked into Kings Cross, ready for anything.
Marlene's parents loaded her trunk on a trolley and said goodbye. Marlene casually leaned against the divider between platform 9 ¾ and King's Cross, slipping through after two muggle children stopped ogling at her trunk. As she walked toward the train, she was hit by a blur of red hair.
"Marley! It's so good to see you! Get your trunk loaded up! Black and Potter are plotting something!" Marley let Lily drag her over to the train. They found one empty compartment toward the back of the train. Mary was already waiting for them.
"Hey Marlene!" She said, half waving before Lily shoved them inside.
"Okay Lils, I know you're excited about this whole thing especially since it involves James," said Marlene winking, "But don't go overboard, ok? We have a plan remember? Don't make the first move and try to avoid all out war."
"And don't tell Remus our plans!" said Lily. They looked pointedly at Mary, who held two hands up.
"My lips are sealed!"
The train left the changed into their robes early and traded stories about their summers.
"I swear some of my brothers are half troll!" Mary complained when the food trolley complained they bought some chocolate frogs, bertie botts every flavored beans, licorice wands and pumpkin juice. The rain picked up and it started to thunder. The raindrops thudded against the window and it was almost impossible to see outside. Several people, some in robes, some in muggle clothing hurried past the compartment, a blonde ravenclaw, a tall gryffindor who looked vaguely familiar, two short brunettes whispering furiously, and Marlene was pretty sure they were Slytherins.
Finally Peter Pettigrew showed up. After an awkward pause he finally coughed nervously and said "James, Sirius and Remus are coming, I'm supposed to be a warning I guess."
"Right," said Marlene, sitting down and opening up a chocolate frog, which she promptly dropped as Sirius and James appeared out of nowhere. Sirius promptly picked it up off her lap and popped it in his mouth. James's eyes were (of course) on Lily, who stared right back.
"How are you always one step ahead!? How did you even get in here?!" Lily yelled at him, she seemed to be struggling to keep her legendary temper.
"Magic," said James winking, and walking over to her. Sirius dropped a leather clad arm around Marlene's shoulders which she attempted to shrug off. "Come on Evans, calm down, it was just a bit of fun" he said, laying a hand on Lily's shoulder, she turned bright red.
"Fine," she said, as Sirius tried to take another chocolate frog from Marlene's stash. Marley slapped his hand.
"Ow!" he whined. "Lighten up Marls."
"Hey where's Remus?" interrupted Mary as Lily opened her mouth to begin yelling at James, evidently it was not "fine". James made her yell more than anyone else.
"He didn't want to go along with any of this, he's gone soft, right Padfoot?" James asked Sirius.
"Yep," said Sirius through a mouthful of chocolate. Marley laughed.
Remus picked that moment to show up, glancing around the compartment bemusedly. Marlene pushed Sirius off her. He laughed, shaking his shaggy dark hair out of his eyes and grinned at her. Mary walked over and pulled Remus's arm over her shoulder.
"We're going for a walk," said Mary. Remus shrugged and let himself be dragged away.
"So why are you three even here?" asked Marlene.
"Good question," said James "We should go rescue Moony, come on." The Marauders exited.
"Nice shirt," said Sirius as they left. Marley's Led Zeppelin shirt was on top of her bag. She knew Sirius was a pureblood, what did he know about muggle bands?
"They were probably just trying to get a hold of some of our plans, you know, scope out the competition," Marlene said to Lily.
"Ugh, HE JUST MAKES ME SO ANGRY!" Lily yelled, balling her hands into fists.
"I know how you feel, Sirius drives me up the wall," said Marlene. Lily fumed silently until Mary reappeared, and just in time. They could see Hogwarts off in the distance, through the rain.
A/N - I hope you liked it! Please reveiw!