Disclaimer: ALL OF THE CHARACTER/PLACES/THINGS THAT YOU RECOGNIZE BELONG TO J.K. ROWLING, AND SINCE I'M OBVIOUSLY NOT HER, THEY UNFORTUNATELY DON'T BELONG TO ME!!!!!!!!! Thank you for your time! Have a nice day!

Hey to all of you R&Rers out there, this is my new fic that I was telling you about. It's a lot different from my other ones, but I hope you like it just the same! Now go read, and don't forget to review!! (anyone who does, gets put on my *Honorable Mentions* list at the beginning of every chapter after this one!)

Oh, and this title is only temporary. You see, I need a little help coming up with one, so if anyone has any ideas, go ahead and send them to me in a review!!

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"Just don't even look Lily." Jo said to her friend as they made their way to their desks at the beginning of Transfiguration class.

"Who would want to?" Lily replied. "They're all a bunch of…..idiots!"

"Oh, come on! Sure, James, Sirius, and Peter are pervs, but that doesn't mean Remus is! He's actually quite sweet!" persisted the third member of their group, Beth. If you haven't figured it out yet, they're talking about, who else? The Marauders.

"Fine, Remus isn't a jerk, but the rest are."  Compromised Jo.

The three friends are 5th year Gryffindors, and current members of the MHU (Marauders Haters United). The trio had been terrorized by the terrible four ever since they had met at the beginning of first year on the Hogwarts Express. The girls had been washing up after lunch in the bathroom, when the boys sent Lucias Malfoy careening through the doorway on top of a trolley. Jo and Beth managed to move safely out of the way, but Lily, in her haste, lost her balance and fell through one of the doors to a stall, landing with a "sploosh" in the toilet.

The Marauders, who had been standing at the bathroom door to admire their handiwork, found this incredibly amusing.

Luckily, at that point, the woman who had been running the trolley appeared, and took control of the situation. Beth and Jo ended up helping Lily to clean up, and in the process, the three became great friends.

Now, over four years later, the three girls still detested the boys. They weren't holding just one grudge against them, though. After that day on the Hogwarts Express, the boys had decided to make Lily, Beth and Jo their personal "guinea pigs" for any new prank they came up with. On top of that, the boys had become incredibly popular as the years went by (especially James and Sirius), and constantly had girls drooling all over them (well maybe not Peter, but you get the idea).

This, of course, only caused the three girls to detest the boys even more.

"Good-morning class." Said Professor McGonagall rather cheerfully as she changed back into her human form. This was the first class of the day.

The class muttered a mixture of groggy replies, creating a generally inaudible moan. It was Monday morning, and most of the students would have been very obliged to still be in their beds.

McGonagall appeared indifferent to this response, and continued on.

"Today we will be practicing the Mesangarto spell (a/n my own creation!). For those of you who choose to catch up on lost sleep last Friday, the Mesangarto spell is used to turn messages written on parchment into pigeons. The size and color of the pigeon generated from the spell depends on the length on the message and the color of the ink used to write it. Once transformed, all you must do is instruct the bird as to where and to whom the message is to be delivered. The recipient then simply casts the reverse spell, Mesago.

"Today in class, you will be working in groups of two. You will take turns sending messages to each other. You and your partner go on opposing walls. I will be walking around in case anyone is in need of assistance. Any questions?"

Peter raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Pettigrew?"

"Can I borrow a bottle of ink? Sirius kind of spilt mine."

Lily looked over at the Marauders. Sure enough, Sirius had indeed "spilt" Peter's ink bottle. In fact, it had conveniently spilt all over the front of the shirt of a Ravenclaw girl sitting next to him. He was now greatly indulged in helping to "clean" her off.

Lily shook her head in disgust.

Professor McGonagall happened to notice this too, and was also utterly revolted.

"Mr. Black!" she cried, completely appalled. "Leave Ms. Ainsworth alone! It's bad enough that you've spilt ink all over her, the last thing she needs are your hands tossed in as well!"

Several students burst out in laughter at what this statement could suggest. This only upset her more, and put her in the right mind to punish the entire class.

"I was going to allow you to choose your own partners," she began, "but after such displays of immaturity, "she eyed Sirius, "I am questioning your ability to handle such a responsibility."

At this, the class let out a large groan at what would inevitably follow, and all heads turned to glare at Sirius.

"Therefore," McGonagall continued, "I will select your partners for you."

"This is just great." Muttered Lily. "Who knows who we'll end up with now!"

"Leave it to Sirius to get McGonagall mad, even on a Monday morning." Added Jo.

"At least we won't have to choose who's working alone this time!" piped in Beth, ever the optimist.

They were interrupted as McGonagall finished creating a mental list of groups in her head, and began announcing them to everyone's dismay.

"Miss Cromwell with….Mr. Haskins. Mr. Keigwin with….Miss Stratton. Miss Ockley with….Mr. Lupin (Beth's rater gloomy face suddenly lit up at this). Mr. Black with….Miss Sheldon ("You've got to be kidding me!" Jo complained none too quietly). Mr. Potter with…."

'Please not me! Please not me!' Lily mentally begged as she crossed both her fingers.

"….Miss Evans."

She continued on through the list until everyone had a partner. She then had the groups line up opposite each other along the walls. Satisfied with her work (almost every student's face was now glum), she instructed them to begin.

James went first. His blue pigeon came careening through the air, barely avoiding a collision with Frank Longbottom's bird. Having safely completed its journey, it landed neatly on top of Lily's head.

"Get off!" she said, irritated, sending it falling to the floor. "Mesago." Lily cast quickly, before anyone had a chance to step on it.

Picking the note up off the floor, she read James's message out loud. 'Hello Lily! You're looking awfully fiery today!''

"You'd think that after five years they'd be getting a little tired of the red-head jokes." Commented Jo. The two girls had managed to stay next to each other.

Lily grunted at this, before ripping off a piece of parchment and writing a reply.

Then she transfigured the tiny piece of parchment baring only one word, 'thanx', into the tiniest purple pigeon she had ever seen. Lily then commanded it to deliver the message to James, before sitting back and waiting for a reply.

All too soon for Lily, did another blue pigeon come catapulting her way. This one seemed even clumsier than the one before it, and at about half-way across the room, went into a complete tail-spin in her direction.

Noting its kamikaze dive, and not intending to get impaled by a beak, Lily stepped neatly out of the way, allowing the poor bird to crash into a wall.

Watching as it slowly slid to the floor, Lily transfigured it back into its original state, for the safety of man kind. Then, gingerly picking up the slip of parchment, she read James's reply.

"Not very talkative today, are we?"

"No." Lily wrote back.

"And why is that, my bitter-sweet flower?" was his reply.

"I'm tired."

"And what cruel twist of fate would cause such beauty as yourself to be deprived of their precious sleep?"

"As if you don't know!"

If I forgot to mention it before, last night, the Marauders moved half of the lake, ducks and all, into the girls' dorm. They each woke to different varieties of the unpleasant sensation of having a frog climb on your face, at three in the morning. With their wands missing, and soaked to the bone from attempting to open door (the weight of the water was too strong), they were forced to bail the water out the window (they later discovered their wands lying neatly on a table in the common room.).

"I haven't the scantest idea as to what you are talking about!" James responded.

"By Merlin's beard you don't! You and your sickening friends, who are only a half-step above Slytherins I might add, dumped half of the lake into our dorms last night at 3:00 a.m.! We spent the rest off the night trying to clean it all up! So don't give me 'I haven't the scantest idea as to what you're talking about'!!!"

"Why Lily, you sound upset! Myself, and my three charming companions were merely trying to give you delightful young ladies a midnight swim."

"Of course I'm upset, you little……Bugger!" Lily sat there fuming after transfiguring the last message. How could one guy possibly make her this upset? She didn't have much time to ponder this, however, as James's reply pigeon came hurtling across the room only a few seconds later.

"Well, in that case, I believe you're in a little need of cheering up!"

Lily heard the spell word "Rictusempra" cast on the other side of the room. She looked up just in time to see the purple sparks of the tickling spell come hurtling in her direction.

Suddenly, Lily collapsed on the ground with fits of uncontrollable laughter, as the uncomfortable sensation of a thousand invisible hands all tickling her at once cascaded over her.

"Disa….Disasemp….Dis………" Lily struggled to cast the counter charm, Disasepmra. "Jo! A little…..help………PLEASE!!!!" She gasped.

Jo herself almost fell to ground with laughter at the humorous sight of Lily, but managed to control herself enough to cast the spell.

Once she had caught her breath, the now outraged Lily jumped to her feet, bringing a charm to mind.

"Tarantallegra!"

On the other side of the room, one of the Marauders suddenly had the urge to dance. In fact, James seemed to have convinced himself that he was the new Saint of the Step. In reality, that particular style of dancing happened to be the first one to pop into Lily's head after she cast the spell (f.y.i., the caster of the spell gets to choose how the victim dances).

By now, quite a few students had begun to notice the two's antics, and were now having quite a few chuckles at James's odd display.

After having her own set of laughs at the Marauder's Irish step-dancing, Lily decided to change moods and move on to a waltz.

"This should be interesting." She thought to herself, referring to the fact that James had no partner and would be dancing with air.

To Lily's utter-most surprise, not to mention horror, James decided to find himself a partner, who just so happened to be her.

"Hello, Lily dearest." He said with a smile, his ego not the least bit affected by the rather embarrassing spell. "Wonderful day for a dance!"

Lily was so startled by this sudden predicament, that the words of the counter-charm, along with every other word in her vocabulary, completely vanished from her mind, leaving her with only the ability to stare dumbly at James as she followed his lead. Eventually, the notion to attempt to break free of James's grip registered in her mind. She struggled, but to no avail, as James was rather strong, (he's the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, don't ya know!). She was forced to instead simply glide along with him, racking her brain for the reverse charm.

James was either as dumb as he looked, or simply didn't care about ending the spell. In fact, he seemed to be using the situation to show off his rather extraordinary dance skills.

He was apparently so interested in doing this in fact, that just as the words of the counter-spell found their way back into Lily's mind, he backed them right into Professor McGonagall's desk. The two went careening over the top, Lily ending her "Finite" with a shriek.

They landed in a rather awkward position on the floor, with James lying spread eagle with Lily laying face-down on top of him.

The pair sat there for a few moments, recovering from shock. Then Lily suddenly regained he senses and scrambled off of him.

Sitting up and leaning on her right arm fro support, Lily was surprised to discover that she immediately felt a sharp pain in the palm of her hand.

"Geez! Lily, are you alright?" James said, startled to see a small stream of blood running down her arm as she lifted it up to see what was wrong.

"Miss Evans! Mr. Potter! What in Gandalf's name are you doing!?!?" Professor McGonagall had finally noticed the antics of her students, and was now determined to put an end to their fun.

James jumped to his feet, five different excuses already on the tip of his tongue. He didn't have any chance to use them, however, as McGonagall noticed the red river of blood running down Lily's arm and trickling off her elbow.

"Miss Evans!" she exclaimed once again, only this time with a hint of concern. "What in heaven's name has happened to your arm?!"

"Huh…..wha? Oh umm….I'm..not..sure…." Lily said distractedly. It seemed that her lack of sleep from the night before had finally caught up with her. The room began to turn; faces blurred. She found the ground was suddenly tilting beneath her feet. "Professor…..I don't feel so goo……"

Lily never finished her sentence. Instead, she fainted.

She fell backward, into James's startled arms.

"Miss Evans!" McGonagall cried for the third time that morning. "Oh the poor girl! Undoubtedly this is the result of some foolish prank of yours, Mr. Potter!" she scolded angrily. "Mr. Lupin!"

"Yes, Professor?"

"Help Mr. Potter bring Miss Evans to the Hospital Wing. Afterwards, Mr. Potter, report back to me and we will make a date for your detention."

James was stunned. "But Professor! I…."

"No buts, Mr. Potter! Now hurry up and get Miss Evans to Madame Pomfrey!"

James wisely decided to drop his argument there; realizing persisting would only gain him more punishment. Taking Lily in his arms, being careful to avoid her right arm (it had stopped bleeding, but he didn't want to chance starting it again), he and Remus headed out the door.

Once they were out of earshot of the Transfiguration room, Remus bombarded James with questions.

"What on earth did you do to the poor girl, James?!"

"Nothing!! At least not anything other than our prank last night!"

Remus raised an eyebrow, clearly displaying his disbelief at this statement.

"What?" James said in defense, before relenting. "Okay, okay, so I cast a tickling charm on her in class, but that was only to cheer her up! Then she went and cast Tarantallegra on me, and made me do Irish step-dancing before having me do a waltz, during which I made her dance with me so that I wouldn't look like an idiot, dancing with air, before we collided with McGonagall's desk and she cut her self on some random pointy object, before fainting in my arms!" he stopped, gasping for breath.

"You're right James, you really did nothing." Remarked Remus, rolling (a/n hee-hee, alliteration!) his eyes.

"Hey, so maybe I did bug her a little, but no more than usual, and definitely not enough for her to go and faint like that! In fact, I still don't get what caused her to keel-over like that."

"She didn't 'keel-over' James, that would mean she died. But to answer your question, loss of blood maybe?"

"Nah, she didn't lose that much blood."

Remus just shrugged his shoulders at this.

"You're a lot of help." James said irritably.

Remus just made another shrug.

"Please tell me that you at least agree with me on the fact that I don't deserve a detention for what happened today."

Remus began to shrug again, but James gave him a look, that, if looks could kill, Remus would have been dead, cremated, and sitting in a jar on the mantle piece next to his great-aunt Linda. Needless to say, he quickly exchanged his shrug for an exaggerated nod.

"Good luck convincing McGonagall to see things that way." Remus added after a few moments.

"Maybe Lily would vouch for me." James replied after a moment of reflective thought.

"And maybe someday Snape will take a bath too."

"Yeah, maybe you're right."

"Of course I am! Besides, I doubt Lily will be feeling well soon enough to save your arse anyway."

By now, the two boys had finished climbing the many flights of changing staircases to the floor on which the Hospital Wing was located.

They opened the door slowly and as quietly as possible, knowing from past experiences that Madame Pomfrey did not, let's say appreciate, people who disturbed her patients.

The two boys tip-toed into the room, glancing around for Madame Pomfrey. They spotted her right away, attempting to instruct her new apprentice, Gilderoy Lockhart, on the proper way to mend a broken arm. The poor boy a great enthusiasm for the art of magical medicine, but was regretfully absolutely horrid at it.

The unfortunate 3rd year Lockhart was practicing with looked on with terror as her arm went from being simply broken, to having absolutely no bones at all. Madame Pomfrey cursed him for his mistake, and sent him back to the Hufflepuff dormitories.

It wasn't until after she had forced a glass of Skel-O-Grow down the 3rd year's throat, along with a sleeping draught, that Madame Pomfrey was aware of the boys and their unconscious cargo's presence.

"What in heaven's name has happened to Miss Evans!?" she exclaimed.

"There was a small, umm…. accident, in Transfiguration." Supplied James, sheepishly.

"I would have to call that an under-statement on your part, Mr. Potter, judging by the dreadful appearance of the poor thing! Well, never mind that. Bring Miss Evans over here. Watch her head!" James had nearly rammed Lily's skull into the metal foot-board as he attempted to 'gracefully' carry her between the two beds, and place her down.

When the unconscious Lily was safely positioned on the bed, Madame Pomfrey shooed the two boys back off to their classes.

James and Remus slowly made their way back down the tangle of staircases, both wondering what task was in store for James's punishment this time.

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Now go ahead and push the little button in the corner there. Come on, I know you can do it! (and don't forget to send me any ideas you have for a title!!)