Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in any way, shape or form. I am not implying that I do, I am merely borrowing from it. No copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N- This fic is co-written by two individuals, namely Bellatrix Black and Unicornfan (otherwise known as Kay and Sarah). Therefore please be patient with the chaptering and story line as it's all about suprising the other author. Enjoy! (We swear we'll not add ourselves in as I've seen that done way too often :p)
Chapter One: Of Pranks and Prefects
James Potter was not what one could call the most average of students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For one thing, he was an extraordinary Quidditch player. For another, he was one of the most infamous pranksters Hogwarts had ever seen. And for another thing he was an extremely gifted student. The rest of the students all knew this of course, he had created quite a reputation for himself, from pranks to hexes, to the student body he seemed to be the most fascinating individual. His friends however regarded him as nothing of the sort. He was simply one of them; one of the Marauders and he was more than content with that.
"Hey! James! Wait up!"
James Potter turned around, his gaze wavered upon the students who were all filing out of the Great Hall. Dinner had finished and now the well fed children were heading off to their common rooms. Spying a familiar face in the crowd, he smiled and stood his ground. A moment later Sirius Black was by his side, his young face was full of glee as he held up a box labelled, 'Filibuster Fireworks'.
"You didn't, did you?" James asked, his voice filled with anticipation and his eyes wide with excitement. Sirius laughed and nodded profusely, his face lighting up like a Christmas Tree.
"Oh I did!" He chuckled as he looked towards the Great Hall, held up his watch and counted down the seconds.
3...2...1!
A loud hissing sound erupted from the Slytherin table, sending sparks across the entire hall. They both heard loud shrieks and gasps from the table as the occupants bailed and ran as far away from the table as possible. Light and dust exploded from underneath it and in a moment it was all over, a small cloud of dust wavered over the vacinity and Sirius smirked broadly.
"And you thought I wasn't up for a challenge" The young man insisted, gloating in his own special way. It wasn't uncommon for this type of event to happen; most students at Hogwarts anticipated something along these lines at least once a day. Because of this, James and Sirius were quick to cringe as they heard the voice of the Headmaster call after the two boys.
"Mr. Potter and Mr. Black," The voice started as the old man stood at the table; his light blue eyes, silver hair and beard all glinting in the torch light, "I believe you both have some explaining to do."
The two glanced over at the Headmaster and then back and forth between each other for a moment.
"Quick, pull out your invisibility cloak" Sirius hissed as he held out the empty box to his friend, "The less evidence they can see, the less detention we'll get."
"You should have let us in on it," Remus Lupin insisted that night in the common room, "It definitely would have saved us from all the shock!"
Remus, James, Sirius and another boy named Peter were seated in the Gryffindor Common Room around one of the empty tables, a deck of Exploding Snape sat infront of the three boys but they seemed more enthralled with the earlier going ons at Dinner that night.
"If we had told you, the chances are you'd have winded up in detention with us" Sirius answered glumly his head in his hands.
"How long did you score?" Came the squeaky voice of Peter, who had been in complete awe of the boys actions.
"Three weeks of night detention with Filch, which might I add is McGonagall's way of being lenient" James sighed to himself and leant back in his chair. Detention was the only downside to any prank one of them could ever pull. He loved to see the new limits his friends and himself could go to; unfortunately there was always a teacher expecting them to pull something.
"Second year was so much easier! We had that Frank Longbottom pulling pranks before he graduated; it always took speculation off of us" Sirius mused and James nodded.
"Well you're forgetting you got detention then as well, no doubt you've also lost Gryffindor alot of points because of your little stunt tonight"
They turned around and to no suprise at all, found Lily Evans standing behind them. Her dark red hair rested neatly on her shoulders and her green eyes shot them all an annoyed look. In her hands she held three books which she gripped tightly and Peter squeaked under her gaze.
"Come on Evans, can't you take a joke?" Sirius quipped and she rolled her eyes.
"I'll take a joke if it's decent and doesn't involve something that will make the Slytherin's even more testy," She muttered and turned her gaze to Remus, "Honestly, I thought you were supposed to control them"
He threw his arms up in exhaustion, "I didn't even know!"
"Well, how many points have you cost us this time?" She grumbled and James gulped, not wanting him or anyone else to tell her. He now remembered now another downside to pulling pranks. Not only were there Professor's anticipating them; but there was Evans who seemed to hold it against them all for years to come.
"It's not important anyway," James said, ignoring her question and standing up, "What's important is that we take into account the good side of what we've done"
"And what would that be Potter?" Lily insisted and he searched his mind, hoping that his 'brilliant' brain came up with an answer quickly.
"That the Slytherin's got their own special fireworks display, free of charge" Sirius quipped and James inwardly kicked himself. Oh yes, that brilliant brain of his.
Lily narrowed her eyes, perturbed. Sirius had this effect on her and it would seem like he was one of the only people who didn't cower under the girl's judging stare. They had been at Hogwarts for six years now and Sirius' attitude towards her was calm and collected. He was quick to befriend, offend and cheer up people; it was no wonder he and James got on so well. They had been inseparable since their first night at Hogwarts after they had both stood in line judging for themselves the who and who of which house the people in front of them could possibly be in.
Sighing exhaustedly, Lily rolled her eyes and tapped Remus on the shoulder, "Come on, we're going to be late for the Prefects meeting" she insisted and he quickly rose from his seat, bidding good-bye to his friends. James breathed deeply in relief.
"Hurry back Moony, we've much to talk about and the night is young" Sirius called, a somewhat twinkle in his eye which Remus knew all too well.
"Yes of course" Remus muttered, taking the hidden hint without so much of a reply and heading over to Lily who was already at the portrait hole.
"Oh and Evans" James's voice sounded out and the redhead turned to face him.
"What?"
"Are you doing anything next Hogsmeade weekend?"
"In your dreams Potter"
"...So of course we'll be needing prefects to round up any stragglers..."
Lily Evans stifled a yawn as she sat in the dimly lit classroom surrounded by her peers. The Headboy, Leonard Zabini was giving an exceptionally long lecture concerning the next Hogsmeade visit which would be taking place the day before Halloween. Most of the other prefects seemed to be toughing it worse as she noticed Damian Lovegood, a Ravenclaw prefect dozing off in his seat and Mya Silverwolf of Hufflepuff nodding every now and again, just to wake herself up.
Remus however did not look the least bit drowsy. On the contrary he seemed to be having a staring contest with a wall. It wasn't until Lily looked across the room did she notice the wall was actually Severus Snape, one of the Slytherin Prefects. It was no secret that Severus disliked Remus; infact it was well known around the school of Snape's hatred of James Potter and all his friends. No-one knew why and Lily often questioned this herself, but received no answer. As far back as she could remember there had been somewhat of a rivalry between the two and it didn't look like it would ever end. No doubt the incident at dinner was directed in some way at Snape, or would be perceived that way.
Almost as if he could sense her eyes on him, Severus broke away from Remus' stare and faced her. She blinked at him for a moment and he began to glare at her. That was right, it was within Snape's nature to dislike Lily. He was, after all a pure blood. What's more was the fact that he was a Slytherin, which seemed to only intensify his hate for the 'mudblood', as he so called her. She merely shot him a dark look, not caring if any noticed. If he could be snide and nasty to her at every turn then she could do the same. After all, would it be fair if she didn't? He took no noticed and brushed her expression aside, ignoring both Lily and Remus as he suddenly faced the Head Boy.
"So has anybody been paying attention?" Leonard's voice cut into her thoughts and she turned to him smiling sweetly.
"Of course, so what's left on the agenda?" Lily pushed on, noting that Damian and Mya were now awake and looking quite shaken to say the least.
"I believe that's all," He started, giving everyone in the room an annoyed grunt, "Though I must say one last thing"
His gaze fixed on both Remus and Lily and it was obvious what the topic was.
"If there is a chance of house unity to happen at any time in the future, I'd deeply advise for you to keep your Gryffindor chums under a tighter leash" Leonard grumbled and Lily grimaced. she had been expecting this of course, he was always one to bring up the faults of Gryffindor during Prefect meetings; having a Slytherin HeadBoy was not one of the finer points of being a Prefect.
"...especially you Lupin, I had expected you to of at least prevented some incident like the one today at dinner"
Lily saw the defeated look on the boy's face, knowing now that he had told the truth about his part in the whole thing. She gave him an apologetic look and he took it graciously, before Leonard finished his 'Gryffindor bashing' and dismissed the meeting. She collected her books, which she had brought along with her as she had intended to return them to the library before Madame Pince locked up and headed out of the room, noting Remus was already making his way down the corridor.
She hurried her pace and soon fell into step with him. Remus was not like the other Marauders, but then again they were all different in their own ways. Sirius was the joker, the fun-loving and limit-pushing rebel. Peter was still the meek, quiet and envious little boy she remembered from first year. James was the 'jock', a muggle word she had heard from her older sister Petunia last summer. He was the socially desired person, loud, outgoing, smart.
And Remus, he was the quiet and subdued one. It suprised her that a person in his nature could love doing the things he did with them. On many occasions she had found that he had been a part of well thought out plans for revenge against Filch, Snape or sometimes even teachers who had given them too much homework for Sirius' liking.
"Look, don't let Zabini get you down. He's just up for his usual round of 'Let's-make-an-arse-of-Gryffindor'" She insisted, nudging him and he laughed. He ran a hand through his light brown hair and offered her an entertaining smile.
"The only thing I'm disappointed with is not having thought up the prank myself" Remus quipped and her face turned serious.
"Oh come on Remus, would you really like to experience one more day of Snape glowering in his dark little corner just because you've slipped beetles in his soup?"
He nodded profusely, reaching into his pocket and retrieving a chocolate frog; he unwrapped it and nibbled on the corner.
"OK, first of all that wasn't me, that was James I swear. And second of all after having his pointed face glaring at me for something I've not done I feel warranted to do something about him. Even if it's nothing serious like Sirius would have in mind, I wouldn't mind some little plot to get back at him"
"You do realise he'll just hit back with even more force?" Lily questioned and Remus winked.
"Now , now, I've not said I would be doing something, now have I?" He asked, an innocent expression plastered over his light face. But Lily knew this expression all too well. It was the same expression Sirius had when he was caught with Peeves colouring in the eye pieces on the telescopes in the Astronomy Tower. It was the same expression James had when he was found with twenty or so stink bombs in his backpack after the Charms classroom began reeking of rotten eggs.
"Remus..." Lily muttered warningly and he took her hint.
"Not to worry Lily, I'm a saint am I not?"
~ENDCHAPTER1~
A/N- OK, sorry that this is a short chapter one but I felt that I should just cut it short here and leave it up to Sarah to continue. I hope you've liked it as I did enjoy writing it. I really just wanted to set the mood and pace of the story here so ... err... tada! We've decided that this will be a James/Lily/Severus triangle ficcie, we'll just see how long it takes to get there.
Please let us know what you think by clicking the little review button below, that way we can know what you love and truly despise concerning this fic. Thanks so much for reading :p
Bellatrix Black