'LILY EVANS, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL SUMMER?' A flash of blonde hair flying through the air was the only indication of where the shouts had come from as Lily prepared herself for the impact of Marlene McKinnon, almost knocking her to the ground right outside Florean Fortescue's.

'I should've known I'd find you here!' grinned Lily once Marlene had stopped spinning them around in her excitement, 'Never far from food, are you?' It was the middle of August, two days after the Hogwarts letters had been sent out and the soon to be 6th year Gryffindors were well overdue for a catch up.

'Hey, I'll have you know this is my first Super Scrumptious Ice Cream Sundae of the Summer!' retorted Marlene holding her head up proudly. Lily just laughed, looking past Marlene into the shop to see where she had been sitting with two dark haired, effortlessly attractive boys who were now finishing off Marlene's almost forgotten Sundae.

'I wasn't finished with that you two!' shouted Marlene, having followed Lily's line of sight. The two boys simply grinned as she snatched her now empty bowl from between them. 'Typical, can't even enjoy an ice cream these days, see what you've left me to deal with all Summer Lily?'

'Aw McKinnon, don't pretend you haven't loved every minute of having us around,' grinned Sirius earning him an eye roll from Marlene, before he looked up at Lily who had followed Marlene over to the table, 'Good Summer Evans?'

'Yes thanks, I've been in France all Summer with my parents, just got home yesterday actually, how about you both?' She directed her question to the two boys at the table who shared a quick glance as they hesitated to answer.

'Yeah, its been fine, nothing special,' replied James after a second, running a hand through his hair and fiddling with the spoon in front of him.

'Yeah, yeah summers great and all, but we have shopping to do, gossip to catch up on and friends to find,' said Marlene grabbing Lily's hand and starting to drag her out of the ice cream shop, 'Later boys!'

James and Sirius waved goodbye as the girls left, before James looked back at Sirius and grinned, 'Lily Evans just asked how my summer was.' Sirius rolled his eyes and dropped his head back onto his chair, 'In your dreams Jamesy, in your dreams.'

'Who are you and what have you done to Lily Evans?' asked Marlene once the girls were out of earshot of the two boys.

'What do you mean?' replied Lily, staring straight ahead down the street and avoiding eye contact with Marlene.

'If I am not mistaken, you just had a polite conversation with Sirius Black and James Potter and I seem to remember that not even two months ago, you were refusing to speak or even look at either of them.'

'Hmm, what time did Alice say she would meet us at?'

'Don't change the subject,' Marlene grabbed Lily's arm and they stopped in the middle of the street.

Lily looked at Marlene's expectant face, 'What? That was two whole months ago, I've spent a wonderful summer in a beautiful city and I've decided that this year is going to be a fresh start, what's wrong with that?'

'A fresh start?'

'Yes, a fresh start.'

'I give it a week,' said Marlene bursting out laughing. Lily couldn't resist a laugh too as she imagined all the things the boys had done to annoy her in the last five years.

Marlene had known James her entire life, they were cousins after all and they lived right next door. They had grew up together, learnt to ride their brooms together, bought their first wands together, he was like a brother to her and she had always wished that Lily could see what a great guy he was but from day one, when James had 'accidentally' soaked Lily on their journey across the lake, it was clear they were not going to be friends. Marlene knew he could be an idiot sometimes, okay, a lot of the time but once you got to know him he was great. The fact that he had been in love with Lily ever since that first incident in the lake, when instead of retaliating, she simply turned a bright shade of red and cast a semi-successful drying charm on herself, had never really helped their relationship but maybe this was the year, thought Marlene, maybe this year, they could actually stand to be in the same room without trying to kill each other. Yeah right, wishful thinking.

As for Sirius Black, lady charmer, Hogwarts resident heart throb, the one who had broke practically every girl at Hogwarts' heart in one way or another, he always came across cocky, confident, just like James, not a care in the world which of course, wasn't helped by the fact they were two of the smartest students in their year and always came out with top grades despite hardly ever doing any work and spending more time in detention that every other student in the school put together. But Marlene suspected there was a lot more to Sirius than he let everyone else see, she had been at the Potter's house after all, that night just over a month ago when he- well they didn't talk about that night, or think about that night. Marlene put it out of her head, the next time she saw him, he was back to his usual self and they were both more than happy to forget all about it.

Marlene sighed and pulled herself from her thoughts, taking Lily's arm and continuing down the street but before they had got much further, they were met by a pixie-like girl with short dark hair, a huge grin and several bulky bags.

'Alice!'

Alice Prewett launched herself at Marlene and Lily and they spent several minutes hugging and bouncing around in their excitement, 'I can't believe it's been so long!' said Alice between the other two, 'It feels like its been months since I last saw you both!'

'It's barely been six weeks,' said Marlene, rolling her eyes, but she too was glad to see her friends again.

'Six weeks is a long time when you live together every other week of the year,' replied Alice, before turning to Lily, 'And not all of us got to spend it wandering around Paris, eating pastries and kissing boys at the top of the Eiffel Tower.'

'Kissing-?! Eiffel-?! Lily Evans, you seem to have left some important details out of your letters!' stammered Marlene, looking disbelievingly at Lily, who had turned a similar shade of red to her hair.

'It was one boy,' she corrected, glaring at Alice jokingly, 'And it was under the Arc de Triomphe actually!'

'Oh excuse me for confusing the details, the most exciting thing I've done this summer is have lunch with Franks mother,' replied Alice linking her arm through Lily's and dragging her further down the street, 'Come on then, I heard flourish and Blotts have opened a new café in store, we can get our books and then catch up on all the dirty details!'

'I'm telling you, it could come in handy.'

'Prongs, how would a rubber egg be more useful for pranking than another box of never-ending swampsickles?'

'Hey Moony, catch,' James launched the rubber egg towards his friend who looked up just in time to realise that the small item flying towards him was an egg and promptly dropped the stack of brand new books he had just bought in an attempt to catch it.

'I concur my friend,' nodded Sirius appreciatively taking in the surprise turned panic turned realisation on Remus face.

'I don't know why I even tried,' said Remus shaking his head with a laugh and throwing the egg over to Peter who despite having seen the whole incident also fumbled with the egg in a panic of trying not to let it fall.

'Simplicity may be the way forward Padfoot.' Said James slipping the egg back into his pocket.

'Yeah, I'm still looking forward to accidentally leaving a swamp outside Filch's office this year,' replied Sirius. The four boys were on their way back to the ice cream parlour for another sundae after spending more than an entire summers worth of pocket money in Gambol and Japes and Quality Quidditch Supplies.

'All ready for Friday night then Prongs?' asked Peter once they had all ordered.

'Yep, all sorted, Sirius here just needs to nab us some fire whiskey and we're all ready!'

'What you mean, is that the only thing you intend to do to get ready for this party is have me charm Madam Rosmerta into selling us some firewhiskey?' asked Sirius, eyebrows raised.

'Yep,' nodded James after a moment's thought. 'What else is there? I told everyone on the team to invite whoever they wanted so that should cover pretty much everyone we want there right?' The other boys laughed.

'You know that could mean more than half of Hogwarts landing at your door on Friday night?' aked Remus, always the voice of reason.

'You say that like it's a bad thing Moony!'

'Are the girls all coming?' asked Sirius.

'Well I told Marley so she better bring them.'

'You mean she better bring Evans?'

'She's one of the girls, isn't she?' James grinned sheepishly, running a hand through his hair as his friends laughed.