a/n: This is a collaboration fic written by Magical Butts (Dizzly) and Raw Materiel (Princess).

Dizzly will be writing all chapters from Yoko's point of view and Princess will be writing for Sirius.

Because Sirius is odd, he get's the odd chapters. Congratulations Sirius.

Dizzly is utterly gracious to work with and cares about the important things.

For this reason we have decided to include some diversity in our story (E.g. James Potter and our OC are both people of colour in this fic.)

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Princess

Chapter one - The Great Marauder Games

Sirius Black stared into his best friends' eyes. James Potter stared back. Sirius winced and James's eyes narrowed to slits. Remus's gaze floated from one to the other in exasperation as he stood in the doorway of their shared dorm;

"Don't you think you ought to-" Remus began, but he was silenced as his three roommates all cried out for him to sshhhh. "As you were then." Remus sighed, moving the rest of the way into the room and closing the door behind him. He settled on the chair by his ridiculously neat desk and had the cheek to try to start up a conversation with Peter about N.E.W.T. subjects, gross. Wormtail was not receptive. Sirius approved of Peter's focus on the task at hand. There was some pretty important stuff going down in Gryffindor tower in that moment. Case in point, he and James were having one of their famous staring competitions.

It was day eight of The Great Marauder Games. They'd commissioned a banner and everything, it was very official. Well they hadn't actually commissioned the banner but they had discussed how a banner might make it seem more official.

The rules of The Games were simple. There would be a competition between the Marauders, deciding who would be allowed to design the challenge for the day. Remus kept on trying to back out, but after day three he'd become slightly more into the spirit of the competition. This may have been due to a sudden onset of good sportsmanship, but Sirius suspected it had more to do with the new rule James had introduced. A rule which had been voted in by the Messrs, three to Remus. It was a penalty rule. Nothing too serious, it just meant that if you refused to participate the other boys were allowed to write a note home to your parents.

This wasn't the only time they had utilized said penalty. The last time they had been in second year and Sirius had written a note on behalf of James to his mother. The letter explained how James had fallen in love with Professor McGonagall and asked for some love advice. Suffice to say Mrs. Potter's response had been an instant hit. Sirius found the moment to be a great inspiration and fondly thought back on James's mortification often. He thought of it now, hoping the memories of his best friend's downfall would give him courage to conquer him in battle. Sirius attempted to communicate with his eyes what he was thinking of. He tried to find a way to force his body to radiate enough smugness that James would have no choice but to blink or cheat, naming him the winner.

Today was by far the most important event of The Games. Today was the day that the Gryffindors would meet with their head of house (or James Potter's true love as she was most often called), to receive career advice. This meant they would be sitting face to face with McGonagall and telling her what their ambitions were. If Sirius could just ignore the searing pain in his eyes for a moment longer it would be him that decided what his friends said during their appointments that afternoon.

Remus was not included in the competition as he had elected to be 'a forfeiting wuss' according to James or 'the worst sort of person' in Sirius's words. Sirius had also proceeded to sulk in the dorm bathroom, pouring over a muggle motorcycle magazine for the better part of an hour. He had claimed, and rightly so, that the cubicles were the only place that an upstanding marauder could gain shelter from traitorous Snorckaks. James had later explained to Remus that a Snorckak was a creature Sirius had fabricated to explain to Xeno Lovegood why all of his recent purchases from Honeydukes had mysteriously disappeared. Sirius hoped that Remus understood the undertone to the insult, which was that Remus always eats everyone else's sweets. Sirius could communicate a lot with a seemingly superficial jibe, a quality he felt was very much under appreciated.

Sirius dared not speak lest a gust of breath from his mouth might somehow find its way to adding any further sensation to his harrowed eyeballs. Tears streamed down the two boys faces. Remus rifled through his school bag looking for something to entertain himself while his friends carried on. and on. Even Peter had begun to lose interest and he started staring out the window over the grounds.

Peter had had his chance to compete already and had lost soundly to both Sirius and James. In saying that Peter's eyes were watery at the best of times and at the mere mention of competitive staring they began to gush fluid like the eighth wonder of the world. Muggle families in years to come would be discussing whether they should visit the majestic Niagara Falls or the spectacle that is Peter's face during their upcoming holidays. Remus could crunch numbers, James would be a tour guide who wore one of those umbrella hats and Sirius could run the resort. Sirius was great with business ideas. They would make a killing and all the muggle girls would fawn over Sirius. He'd take them for rides on his motorcycle and then they could watch the sunset over Peter's face as his projectile tears gushed forth and produced a breath taking rainbow over the horizon. Sirius was also very romantic.

Suddenly there was a change in the blurry outline of James, truth be told Sirius was half blind with tears when it happened. James might have switched himself out for any specky git with black hair and Sirius probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

"Aah!" James cried aloud and Sirius grunted with the effort to not shift, even minutely. He forced himself not to reacte. Even the slightest movement on his part could disrupt the careful balance he had maintained. Sirius hadn't even moved his tongue in three minutes. He had pressed the wiggly bastard against his bottom left premolar and he wasn't going to allow it to move until he was shouting with victory.

"What?" Remus mercifully asked from across the room, aiding in sating Sirius's curiosity without him having to jeopardise his victory.

"Nothing;" James said, his voice clearly tight from the strain of battle, "I just thought I had gone temporarily blind for a moment there." Sirius could almost hear the squishy noises of Remus rolling his eyes so hard they were probably on the verge of detaching themselves.

"An experience otherwise known as blinking?" Remus quipped and Sirius saw James's face fall into his hands.

"Oh thank Merlin that's over." James groaned and Sirius's face almost split open with his grin of triumph. He closed his eye and faced the ceiling shouting;

"Sirius Black! The Very Dashing Gryffindor that Could!" before grabbing one of the damp flannel cloths he and James had set aside and pressing it to his eyes. He was never going to get rid of this head ache but it would all be worth it. Sirius and James both sat in their desk chairs, which were still facing each other poised for optimum equal competitive advantage. They both groaned quietly with their faces pressed into their cloths and were obviously trying not to cry openly with relief. Remus shook his head almost imperceptibly; he was clearly baffled as to how he got along with two boys who were such divas. Sirius was flailing around like he's just gone ten rounds in a boxing ring. James sat desolate like he'd gone ten rounds and lost.

Remus was suddenly concerned that the staring competitions would have to be omitted from the structure of the games due to the amount of pressure his two melodramatic friends put on themselves. He had never heard of anyone experiencing a major injury due to a staring competition but if anybody could manage it, it was these two.

"How long have you two been staring into each other's eyes and crying like that?!" He asked, watching aghast as Sirius pulled the cloth away from his face to reveal eyes which were so bloodshot that there was more red than white gazing back at him. Sirius smiled wistfully and put his hand on James's shoulder;

"All of our lives, Remus, all of our lives." James nodded solemnly from underneath his cloth and Remus laughed despite himself.

Sirius was feeling a lot of regret. How did he ever let James persuade him to make such a mad gesture of 'good sportsmanship'? At the time James had made it seem so simple. His impassioned speech had seduced Sirius into believing that since he had decided what the other boys should tell McGonagall, they should be allowed to decide his fate. How had James done that? How did Evans keep her hands off of James? His powers of persuasion were evidently completely irresistible. Sirius was, after all, famous for his unerring restraint in such matters.

James and Sirius had argued at length as to their respective fates. Peter was to tell McGonagall that his long term goal was to become a potioneer and invent potions which would change the face of the wizarding world. He would then go onto explain all his great ideas for potions. For example, a potion that allows you to take on the appearance of another, a potion that forces someone to tell the truth, a potion that makes the person who takes it unfathomably lucky. Sirius had instructed Peter to not allow McGonagall to interrupt him with explanations of how all of these already existed but to continue describing his very very clever ideas.

Peter was well aware that this was one of his friends' passive aggressive moves to punish him for refusing to drink a mysterious concoction that Sirius had 'made especially for him you greedy git' the week prior. Peter called these frequent gestures by Sirius his 'Diva's Revenge'. This was not a term that James had let slip through his fingers and he used it at every available interval much to Sirius's ire.

Remus was to explain how he had seen the future and he already knew he was to be the most successful seer in a century. Sirius had kindly agreed that if Remus could convince McGonagall of this plan he could later discuss 'alternate career plans as divination is not infallible and Sirius I really do need her input.'.

James was going to just go in and tell the truth, that he had high hopes of becoming the wizarding world's most famous and beloved male gigolo. Bedding numerous witches who would be responsible for sponsoring James' semi-professional Quidditch career. James had complained that if word of his meeting ever got back to Lily she would have his balls. Sirius, being the sensitive refined gentleman he was, had put James's mind at ease by explaining that Lily 'couldn't give a rat's arse how many witches you shag Prongs you miserable sod.'.

James had then griped a small amount about Sirius's use of the term 'semi-professional' but Sirius had explained that prostitution was a very demanding racket and would put constraints on his time and energy. Sirius was utterly exasperated. Aspiring to be both a beloved gigolo and full-fledged Quidditch player was just unrealistic. Honestly.

At first James had wanted Sirius to describe his ambition to bewitch muggles of a modest monarchical nation and rise to the rank of king. Sirius had suggested that Britain could be a good choice. After forty minutes of in-depth discussion about strategies to replace the royal family of the United Kingdom, Remus had eventually demanded the topic be omitted before the two boys actually moved forward with their plans for high treason. Plans which Remus gathered might actually succeed should they put them into action.

After this plan had been unfortunately vetoed by Remus, following a drawn out conversation as to whether it was worse to betray your country or the Marauder's cause. Sirius then instigated a second lengthy discussion as to what technically fell under the parameters of 'the Marauder's cause', in which he described how they should really consider the long term benefits being royalty could lend to their management of mischief. Remus had then been forced to explain, in no uncertain terms, that Sirius and James should really just stop talking. Truly.

Eventually the results were in, many careers had been contemplated, most of them muggle jobs Sirius had never heard of. Chicken genderer, milkmaid, lollipop lady, Mr. McGonagall, dentist, pornography historian, acrobat, Olympic cricket player, pro-wrestler, end table and even a muggle magician (apparently a job where you do magic without using magic?). The final decision had sprung forth, at last, in the form of an off-hand comment by Peter. Peter had suggested that Sirius should express a desire to be a muggle midwife, something which after a short explanation turned out to be the most horrible job to ever exist in the known world.

James had said that it had sounded perfect but was looking a little green after the details he had just received about muggle child birth. Eventually he had conceded at Sirius's look of outright betrayal and asked for something which might be described as 'diet mid-wife', this had been the right decision as Sirius was privately making plans for a Diva's Revenge.

Peter had then gone on to describe a career which had been supported unanimously as the right choice for Sirius due to a combination of its believability as a choice Sirius would actually make and hilarity at the imagined reactions of their head of house. Gynaecologist. Just the sound of the word made Sirius smile whenever he thought about it during class for the rest of the day. Vagina doctor, he ran through different lines he could work into his conversation with McGonagall later on, all the way through history of magic.