Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to J.K. Rowling. End of story.

Summary: After a series of some unfortunate events, James finds himself in the possession of Lily Evan's diary. Convinced that the diary holds her true feelings for him, James and his friends set out to try to discover what secrets the book hides. What happens when James' conscious kicks in?

A/N: Hello again, everyone! This is my new story The Trouble With a Diary. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it makes you laugh. As always, reviews are always nice!


Chapter 1: D.H.G.T.S.

James Potter glared at his friend, who was laughing uproariously from a small chair in the Hospital Wing. "She did what?" Sirius Black exclaimed, wiping tears of mirth from his dark eyes.

"She threw this at me," James scowled, pulling out from his bag a little black leather-bound book with intricate gold trimming along the edge.

Sirius immediately went into another round of hysterics as Madame Pomfrey passed by. She shot a cold look towards Sirius for disrupting her 'place of serenity and healing', and began pouring another vile smelling potion into a cup that she force fed down her patient's throat.

Remus Lupin sputtered, his nose scrunched up in distaste, as the matron walked away with one last warning glare directed at Sirius. "Even though I have to take this nasty potion after every full moon, I can still never get over how incredibly disgusting it tastes," Remus exclaimed, wincing slightly as he tried to change positions on the uncomfortable hospital bed. His light blue eyes appeared to droop from exhaustion as he fought to stay awake.

Peter Pettigrew, a small, plump boy with watery blue eyes, pulled a chair up beside the bed as well. Together, the four boys called themselves the Marauders: James, the Lily-Stalker; Sirius, the chick magnet; Remus, the werewolf; and Peter, the… No one really knew why Peter had been accepted by the three other boys, because he didn't have the looks or the talent of the others, but they accepted him all the same. "So, what exactly happened again?" he asked, settling himself in for an amusing story.

Sirius began chuckling again until James threw the book at his head. "Now, now, just because Lily threw that at you, doesn't mean you should copy the gesture. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

James rolled his eyes, running a hand threw his messy jet-black hair. "I am doing what I know you would do to me, so shut up, Sirius." Sirius stuck his tongue out at him. James seemed to ponder something for a moment before exclaiming, "We were getting along so well, until she threw this at me. Why do I always screw things up?"

"It's a talent you seem to possess," Remus stated, reaching out for the book so he could look at it.

"Thanks, Moony," James said sarcastically, thinking about the series of extremely unfortunate events that played out last night. The girl he had liked since second year now hated him again, and he had almost gotten his arm ripped off by a rampaging werewolf all in one night.

"Go on, Prongs. Aren't you going to tell us again what happened? The story is a classic Lily-James moment," Sirius pushed, his eyes shining with enjoyment.

James groaned, but knew he couldn't deny the chance to tell his friends exactly what had happened.


The moonlight filtered through a tall window, illuminating the dark hallway of Hogwarts castle. James Potter winced as he watched the full moon drift out from behind a cloud. He could have sworn he heard a faint howling, but hoped it was his imagination; he still had to deal with Lily Evans before making his way down to help with Remus' transformation. Peter's animagus form was useless when it came to helping with a full grown werewolf, and Sirius' dog form would definitely need the help of the stag.

A clock chimed nine o'clock, and James immediately quickened his pace. He would just have to grit his teach, tell Lily he couldn't help her patrol tonight, and leave as quickly as he could to the Shrieking Shack. He would have to deal with Lily's wrath later. Time was running out; Sirius and Peter were probably already making their way out to the grounds by now, and Madame Pomfrey had already taken Remus out of the castle an hour ago.

Lily Evans appeared in his line of vision as he rounded a corner, her arms crossed as she leaned against the cold stone wall. Her foot was tapping distractedly on the ground and James knew that she was waiting for him. Because they were Head Boy and Girl, the two had nightly patrols around the castle four time a month. It just so happened that tonight's patrol was setfor the exactsame night as the full moon. Excellent, bloody excellent.

His heavy footsteps alerted her of his presence, and she grinned. "James, hey," she greeted, pushing her long red hair over her shoulder.

James' words caught in his throat as he looked into her eyes. Curse those green eyes of hers. "Uh, what's up?" Smooth Potter, smooth.

A strange look crossed her face, almost as if she were trying to control a teasing laughter from escaping. "We only have to do the fourth and fifth corridors tonight, along with the trophy room. The prefects have got everything else," she informed him. When he didn't answer she peered at him curiously. "Is something wrong?" she asked, thinking about his lame 'what's up?'.

A large gulp seemed to constrict his air passage. He looked at her quickly and blurted out. "I can't patrol tonight." Phew, he had said it. Now he could just play it cool and hope she would let him go alive.

Cocking her head to the side, she placed her hands on her hips. "Why not?"

"Look, can you just catch the rule-breaking students without me tonight?"

Her eyes narrowed, which was indeed a bad sign. "You failed to answer my question. Why can't you abide to your Head duties?"

He glanced at his watch nervously. 9:15. "Listen, I can't hang around. Just do it," he said, his nervousness escaping into his words in the form of anger. "Please," he added, aware of his tone of voice.

"You just expect me to let you go have fun while I stay and do all of the work?" Lily asked incredulously, surveying him from her slitted green eyes.

Fun. Yeah, babysitting a werewolf was going to be fun alright. Fun wasn't the right word; adventurous maybe. His eyes glinted as he tried to desperately get away from her. Even though he practically loved this girl, the Marauders had made a promise to always be there for Remus.

"Well, you're Head Girl, aren't you? Like you said, it's your duty."

A low growl escaped her throat. "No, it's OUR duty. I'm starting to wonder again what Dumbledore was on when he appointed you Head Boy."

"It's one bloody duty I'm trying to blow off, Lily!"

"Yeah, but that one will lead to many more later on. I thought you had finally grown up, Potter, but I guess I was wrong. You're nothing more than the same immature, arrogant prat that you were last year." Lily's voice rose as she spoke each word, glaring at him mercilessly.

"And you're nothing more than a suck up who's wasting my time." His words left his mouth before he could stop them. Oh, Merlin, he was in for it now. "No, I mean, I didn't mean that…"

Lily's hands were shaking in rage, her hair seemed to be cackling with electricity. "Next time I won't bother your time then."

James threw his hands up in the air angrily. "Fine, Lily. Just go do your duties and I'll be on my way."

"You are so—"

"—I have better things to do than sit here and let you throw insults at me. Goodnight, Evans," he said harshly, resorting to using her last name again.

He turned around swiftly in order to walk away until something hit him in the back of the head with just enough force to make him stumble on his feet. He whipped around and saw Lily staring at him, eyes burning with rage. "I hate you James Potter." He wasn't put out with this statement, as she had said it millions of times before, but it hurt a little more this time. They were just reaching the level of friendship…why did she have to be so bloody emotional?

As she stalked away, James bent down and picked up the item in question that Lily had thrown at him. A small book lay at his feet. He curiously picked it up and flipped through the pages which appeared to all be blank. Stuffing it in his pocket, he marched along the corridors and out into the grounds.

James sat and fixed a glare at his three friends, who were all laughing now, Remus clutching his ribs painfully. "It's not funny!" he replied.

"You have to admit," Peter began in between chuckles, "that it is just a little bit funny."

"I'm glad you all find pleasure in my pain," James muttered, snatching the book back from Remus.

"Come on, mate. These fights happen all the time between you two," Remus stated, attempting to hide his grin.

"And each time they just get funnier and stupider," Sirius added. "We should document them."

"You know stupider isn't even a word," stated James.

Sirius scratched his head, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, Padfoot isn't a word either, but we use it all the time."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Padfoot is a nickname, Sirius."

"So that means then, if someone was named stupider, then it would be a word," Sirius shot back, sticking his tongue out at everybody.

Peter laughed. "He has a point there."

"Hello? Can we get back to the problem at hand here?" James asked, pointing towards himself.

"A problem? I don't see any problem besides a seventeen year old boy clutching a diary."

"It can't be a diary, Sirius. It's blank," James pointed out.

"Well, mister smarty-pants, maybe if you wrote out all of your feelings into it then it could become a diary," Sirius remarked.

Before James could retort, Madame Pomfrey hustled over to the group of boys. "Time's up. Everybody out. Mister Lupin needs his rest."

From behind her, James, Sirius, and Peter all rolled their eyes as they gathered their stuff together. "We'll come visit you tomorrow," James called out to Remus as the strict matron ushered them out with her hands.

"Yeah, maybe we'll have more Lily updates—OW!"

Remus chuckled as James hit Sirius upside the head. He tiredly waved goodbye to his friends and grimaced as Madame Pomfrey shoved another potion under his nose.


"Can I have the diary, Prongs?" asked Peter from his bed in the corner of the boys' dormitory.

"For the last time it's not a diary!"

"Why would you want it, Wormtail?" Sirius asked humorously. He watched as Peter blushed a tiny bit as he shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

"No one is getting it. Lily gave it to me and I intend on keeping it."

Sirius let out a bark of laughter as he flipped through the pages of his Quidditch magazine. "Mate, she chucked it at your head."

James waved off Sirius' words. "Same difference."

There was silence for a moment before Sirius broke it, as usual. "I still think we should make the book become our Marauder seventh year documentations," Sirius said pointedly. "We could pass it down to our children when we get older. We can call it…Documentations of a Handsome Gryffindor and His Three Sidekicks."

James wrinkled his nose as he looked at Sirius amusedly. "What kind of title is that for anything? The title would be longer than the book."

"I dunno," said Peter, picking out a red jellybean from his pack of Bertie Botts, "I kind of like being named as the 'Handsome Gryffindor'."

At the same time, all three of them began laughing until a look of disgust crossed Peter's face. Sirius and James looked at their friend in confusion as Peter spat something onto the ground, his eyes red and watering. "Ugh! Red pepper flavor. I hate peppers!"

"See? Now this is the kind of stuff that would be written down in our Documentations of a Handsome Gryffindor and His Three Sidekicks," Sirius said, slapping Peter on the back as he continued to splutter at the taste of his red jellybean.

"That's such a mouthful though. I mean, think about how long it would take us to say the name every time we talked about it," James said, playing along with Sirius' little dream of having a Marauder book.

"If you say it fast it could only take a few seconds to say," Sirius stated logically. He drew in a deep breath before blurting out, "Documentationsofahandsomegryffindorandhisthreesidekicks."

Peter and James shared a look that was usually saved for the times when Sirius would say or do something that made no sense...now was one of those times. "How about just D.H.G.T.S.?" asked Peter, smelling another jellybean before cautiously plopping it into his mouth.

James nodded. "Yeah, it would save us a lot of trouble, and breath."

Sirius' eyes lit up. "So, does that mean we'll do the documentations in that book then?"

"No."

Sirius crossed his arms with an undignified humph and leaned back against his bed, forming his mouth into a pout. "You're cruel."

"Speaks the dog who pees on my leg," James said, grinning.

"It's not my fault dogs get overly excited, and Padfoot has a small bladder size," Sirius retorted in an attempt to defend himself.

"Your human form doesn't have a big bladder either," Peter added.

"What is this? Pick on Sirius day?"

James lazily lay down on his bed, pulling Lily's book towards him and opening it up. He took a quill and began scribbling away on an empty page. "No, that holiday is tomorrow."

Sirius got off of his bed and leaned over James' shoulder. "What are you doing?"

James grinned. "Writing about the time you relieved yourself on Snape while in your dog form. You know, this keeping a diary business isn't such a bad idea."

"Diaries are for girls," Sirius said, wrinkling his nose.

"So are stuffed teddy bears."

Sirius frowned, trying to hide his stuffed blue bear, Twinkie, from view.


Well, there's a taste of what the story is going to be like!

Chapter two should be up shortly!

--HeyLookTheSnitch