It was an unusually rainy day. Fifth years James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew were sitting in the Gryffindor common room due to it being an extremely boring Saturday. There was complete silence in the room. Each person pre-occupied with their own thoughts. Remus was thinking about the next full moon, Peter was thinking of how to sneak into the kitchen unnoticed, Sirius was thinking about the next prank he was going to pull on Severus Snape, and James was thinking of Lily Evans, of course. He started to be drawn to Lily in their fifth year, before that, they were huge rivals. What James was wondering about Lily was why she didn't return his feelings of affection.
"Why does she hate me? I haven't done anything to her, well this year anyways!"
He wondered out loud
"Wellll," said Sirius, knowing James was talking about Lily, considering it was all he ever did.
"Maybe it's because of all the times we pulled pranks on her. Girls are quite emotional you know mate, they can hold grudges for years"
"Well I forgave her for all the times she got us back for our pranks!" Complained James
Peter and Remus, being brought out of they're own daydreams by James's unnecessarily loud comment laughed at what James had just said.
"What'd you mean you forgave her!" laughed Remus "what her and her friends did was just retaliation for what we did!"
"What? What does retaliation mean?"
"Payback you uneducated rat" said Sirius, unintentionally referring to Peter's animagus form
"HEY! RATS ARE ACTUALLY QUITE—"
"Calm down mate, I didn't mean anything." Sirius interrupted.
"Anyways James, think back to first year, and how many times we pranked her and her lot, from then till the end of last year! And we would still be having that jolly good fun if it wasn't for you falling for that—"
"DON'T INSULT MY LILYKINS!" shouted James.
"Your Lilykins?" Sirius, Remus, and Peter asked in an amused tone
-----FLASHBACK-----
It was their first year. All the new students lined up outside the great hall waiting to be sorted — of course, they didn't know that. Many students thought that they would have to perform magic as a test. James and his best friend Sirius Black of course knew that it was nothing like that. Since they were troublemakers, they had decided to get their fellow first years a little worked up.
"Hey Sirius," said James, "did you practice enough magic over the summer? This test is going to be pretty hard. I reckon they'll send about half of us back on the Hogwarts Express!"
"Really James?" replied Sirius, "Well then I guess we'll probably be the only Gryffindors!"
A girl who looked very anxious was listening to every word the boys were saying. The girl was a red-head, but her hair was a very dark red. She was very pretty, but her sparkling emerald eyes seemed full of fury.
"Oh really?" asked the redhead, "I thought that the sorting was nothing like that! I thought all you have to do is put a hat on your head!" she finished what she was saying in a very loud voice. All the first years had heard.
(A/N: Lily only knows about the sorting because she read Hogwarts, a History. She is muggle-born and she wanted to know as much about the school as possible.)
"What did you do that for?" asked James, "We were trying to pull a prank!"
"Well, you shouldn't! Lots of us are probably scared out of our minds! You should at least have some more decency!"
"Me? Decency? James Potter does not have decency, whatever that means. And you are no person to accuse me of anything…what's your name?"
"I'm Lily Evans," said the redhead," And if you guys try to pull another prank, you better bet that you'll be in trouble!"
"Ha! You get us, Sirius Black and James Potter in trouble? We'll probably own this school in a matter of days!"
-----END FLASHBACK-----
"Well… I might not have been the best behaved boy in first year…" said James
"Yeah" said Sirius "In fact you were one of the worst!"
"That's beside the point!" James said stubbornly, "Anyways, that was four years ago! You'd think she would have gotten over it by now!"
"As I've told you my friend; girls are an emotional species and can take years, maybe even decades to get over things!" Sirius said.
"Then what do you suppose I do?" asked James, his temper growing shorter.
"Just go on and ask her out mate! I mean you're the second most popular guy in school? She would just die to go out with you!" said Sirius.
"You know what," replied James, "I think I will. Wait… second most popular guy in school? Who's the first?"
"Why me of course!" said Sirius in a very arrogant manner.
Meanwhile, Remus was sitting in the corner shaking his head. 'When they ever learn?' he thought.
-----LATER THAT EVENING-----
"My, those house-elves really outdid themselves," said Remus, "I'm so full I just want to fall down."
"Well you may want to fall down mate," said James, "but we've got much more important things to do!"
"Like what?" asked Peter.
"Well it's time to start 'Operation: Get Evans to Like James After James Heroically Saves Her'!" explained Sirius.
"First of all," said Remus, "that codename is way to long. Second of all, how on earth is James supposed to heroically save Lily?"
"That Moony, you'll just have to leave up to us!"
Remus again shook his head. Whatever his friends were up to, it definitely would get them at least a week's worth of detentions.
Remus and Peter watched as James and Sirius walked out of the Great Hall. In front of them was Lily, but she didn't seem to be paying attention to what was going on because she was reading a book. Remus and Peter quickly caught up with James and Sirius so they could see what was happening.
Lily walked up the staircase, heading to the Gryffindor Common Room. The Marauders followed her. She was still engrossed in her book when she found she couldn't move.
"What? What happened?" asked Lily, who was finally brought out from her sort of trance.
"Quick hide!" whispered James to the rest of the Marauders.
Quickly, James pushed his friends in a nearby broom cupboard. He had placed a charm on Lily so she wouldn't be able to move. James muttered a couple spells and suddenly, the scenery around them was not that of Hogwarts, but of something that looked like a peak of a very high mountain.
"AHHHHHH!" yelled Lily. The marauders peaked out of the broom cupboard which now looked like part of the mountain. They saw Lily dangling off the edge of a cliff, looking quite scared.
"DON'T WORRY! I'LL SAVE YOU!" yelled James in a much deeper voice that could have only been caused by magic. (A/N: It's like one of those heroic announcer voices in the movies. You know, the really cheesy ones?)
Lily looked over and saw the person she least wanted to see at this time. It was Potter, but for some reason he was wearing silver armor, and his messy black hair was blowing in the wind.
Lily looked down and saw that she was wearing an elegant princess gown, complete with poofy sleeves and itchy, scratchy skirt.
"Potter, whatever you've done, you BETTER UNDO IT NOW!"
James oblivious to Lily's screams went over to the edge of the cliff.
"Here, let me get my wand so I can help you!" James said in the same deep voice.
As James searched for his wand, the piece of rock Lily was holding onto started breaking away, and finally fell.
"AHHHHHHH!" Lily yelled for a second time as she fell from the cliff. James looked up and had a look of extreme horror on his face. Instead of falling hundreds feet as Lily would have if she were on a real mountain, she fell what was about 10 ft. but she hit her head on the ground.
"OWW!" said Lily, as the scene created by James' spell dissolved.
"Look Evans! I saved you! Will you go out with me?" asked James, not noticing the bemused look on Lily's face.
"James Potter!!"
"Woah. You called me James! Are you that mad that you need to use my whole name?"
"No silly! Haven't I always called you James?" asked Lily, still looking confused.
"No..." said James, starting to seem a little frightened.
"Well, James, I would LOVE to go out with you!"
"Evans, you know what. I think I'll take you to the hospital wing. Just to make sure that fall hasn't umm, addled your brains."
"What?" asked a shocked Lily, "is that your idea of a date? The hospital wing????"
"NO!" yelled James.
"You know what Lily. How about tomorrow we just each lunch together. And then you know that next weekend's a Hogsmeade trip. Maybe we could go to Hogsmeade. How would you like that?"
"Oh James, I would LOVE that! I'll see you then." With that being said, Lily continued up to Gryffindor Tower, leaving James to wonder what on Earth was going on.
"Mate, what just happened there?" asked Sirius.
"I think I just got myself a date with Lily Evans."
"Wow. Who knew the 652nd try would be lucky?" asked Sirius.
"Lucky, HA! That wasn't luck! That was the charm of James Potter (the great) in action!"
"CHARM?!?" yelled Remus, Sirius, and Peter in unison, trying to conceal their hysterics
"More like your 'taking advantage of Evans when she was suffering from some serious brain damage'" Sirius countered.
"What is with you and really long phrases/codenames?!?" Remus exclaimed, not expecting an answer.
"Well..." started Sirius
"THAT WAS RHETORICAL FOOL!"
"What does rheori—?"
"Look it up" said Sirius, cutting Peter off.
"Okay, now back to me and Evans"
"You and Evans? You and Evans??" shouted Sirius
"are you daft mate?"
"That 'oh James I would simply love to go out with you giggle'? It was obviously a direct result of her falling off the cliff, because ickle jamesypoo just had to try and save her life... even though he almost ended it "
"Don't EVER call me, or even SAY the words 'Ickle Jamesypoo "
"Hypocrite" muttered Sirius under his breath
"What did you just say?" James asked in a threatening tone
"Nothing" Sirius said.
"tell me and maybe, just maybe I wont seriously injure you"
"like you seriously injured Lily to get her to finally agree to go out with you?" asked Peter, who had an uncanny talent for making questions that would be taken as sarcastic if asked by anyone else, sound genuine.
"SHUT THE BLOODY HELL UP PETER "
"AND SIRIUS TELL ME WHAT YOU SAID RIGHT NOW "
"I just called you a hypocrite mate, you said not to say the words... well I can't say them... and you said them yourself." Then after some thought, "there's really no need to get such a swelled head about it." Sirius added.
"Why, just WHY was I put in a House with a bunch of insane idiots. "
"Excuse me? " said Remus
"Oh, sorry Moony... add 'EXCEPT FOR MOONY' to the thing I said before"
"you mean 'to the previous statement'" corrected Remus
"And add 'who is an insane super-smart-person-who-corrects-the-wonderful-james-who-never-needs-correction' after MOONY"
"Geez mate, you're just as bad... if not worse, than Sirius for insanely long phrases/codenames" Remus sighed.
And the day ended just like this, sidetracking, yelling, arguing, and insulting.