A/N Hey guys, this is my first ever fanfic and I'm very excited. I do not, regretfully, own the Harry Potter story or any of its characters, and I would like to apologise in advance for all the spelling and grammatical eras, as I'm sure this is riddled with mistakes, please don't hate me for it! So yeah that's the boring stuff out the way and onto the fun…
Chapter 1
Sirius was annoyed. He had been annoyed for a whole 5 minutes, which must have been the first time he had been annoyed without trying to cheer himself up. Ever. Even in the black house, if his mother had been shouting at him; being a disgrace, a blood traitor, filth etc. etc. he would have gone and talked to James and they would plan the next big marauder prank. It must have been a record.
Sirius glared at James, he was sitting on his bed, his chin in his hands and was looking morosely at the wall.
"For fuck sake." Sirius grumbled under his breath and he grabbed his pillow, using his wand he charmed it to levitate in the air, and sent it at James head at the speed of freight train. James was knocked side ways and off the bed with a loud thump. When he sat up his glasses were eskew and his hair, dare it be possible, was even messier. Remus looked up from his book which he had been reading quietly on his bed.
"What the hell Sirius?!" James shouted "What is your problem?!" Sirius was still annoyed.
"You! Could you please forget about 'her' for half an hour, we need to decide the big Halloween prank. I'm thinking: turning the Slytherin robes bright pink and have FABULOUS stamped across the back in purple." James went bright pink at the mention of 'her'.
"And how exactly do we plan to do this?" Remus enquired, even though he was the quietest of The Marauders, it did not mean he didn't enjoy being one just as much as the others. "Something in their drinks or some kind of collective spell that is cast on them when they are all in the great hall. Wait the chances of at least one of the Slytherins seeing us cast the spell would be high, we'll need to distract them first. Fillybuster's?
"No we used them at Christmas, don't want to become cliché, do we?" James added, this made Sirius instantly happier, as soon as James stopped thinking about 'her' he was much more fun to be around, however it seemed that Sirius was still not forgiven as James threw a glare his way.
"True, true," Remus said pensively, "Hmm, what about an animal of sorts?"
"Ooooooh, a mad cow!" Sirius answered back excitedly. Remus laughed.
"A mad pink cow." James added with a grin.
"Wait…wait," Remus said between laughs, "Where are we gonna get a mad pink cow?
"Transfigure something, someplace; we can work out the finer details in the library." James said.
"Perfect lets go now, I think peters still down there" Remus added, and they jumped off their beds and dashed towards the door and raced down to the common room.
Lily looked up from Hogwarts: A History. James, Sirius and Remus came thundering down the stairs. James and Sirius raced each other to the portrait hole, each leaping over books and in James cases, people, each in an animalistic way that matched their anamagi counterpart. Yes Lily knew all about that, Remus was her one of her best friends, much to James annoyance. She had noticed the monthly signs and had put two and two together, then had realised what his friends had done for him.
One particular night, after sneaking back into Hogwarts curtsey of a laughably awful date, she had seen James, Sirius and Peter racing down the grass towards the whomping willow and had gazed in awe as they had leapt into the air and had landed as a stag, dog and what Lily had later learnt to be a rat. Lily had never told Remus straight out that she knew about his furry little problem, but he knew she knew after visiting him with a large bar of chocolate on a night after and asking him which part of the forbidden forest they had been exploring.
He hadn't even been surprised that she knew, always knowing that because of how bright she was she would work it out anyway. Remus had then become one of Lily's best friends, especially after the ordeal with Severus. James had been more than happy to curse Snape into oblivion, however if Lily had wanted Severus to be in pain she would have given him her standard Bogey-Bat hex. What she wanted was a shoulder to cry on and her two best friends, Alice and Marlene had been able to provide that and had promised to never tell anyone, Lily was a woman of pride after all. But Remus had been someone to talk to when she had felt her most venerable and she would always be grateful to him for that.
Remus too dashed past Lily, who grabbed his sleeve, pulling him back momentarily.
"Where are you all going in a rush?" She asked suspiciously, it took no imagination at all to think of them going off to set something on fire, or blowing the entrance hall up.
"The library," Remus answered innocently "No we are not going to go do something stupid." He said already knowing what she was thinking.
"No you're going to the library to go and research how too do something stupid" She sighed, going back to her book.
Remus just grinned.
However, at that point James burst back into the common room. The fat lady's complaints audible over the noise of the common room.
"Come on Mooney," He shouted over the din. "Mad pink cows, remember?" Remus laughed at Lily's quizzical look, jumped over the sofa and ran out of the common room.
Ten minutes later The Marauders were sitting around a desk covered in every transfiguration and collective spell book they could find. The way The Marauders would work was that there was usually more than one section to a plan. They would split into pairs and the different pairs would be responsible for the different sections of the plan. James, being the strongest at transfiguration, was tackling the cow with peter. Sirius and Remus were working on the collective spell. The latter task was more difficult as they had not covered collective spells, well alright if you looked at it difficulty wise the cow was more advanced but The Marauders were possibly the best people in the school at transfiguration, including the seventh years but excluding the teachers.
They had already decided how they were going to do the spell but finding the right one to fit the situation was tricky.
"There's no way around it, we are going to have to use a potion." Remus said exhaustedly.
"Well, although my potion and transfiguration skills are tip top, I think this may be a little out of my league." Sirius muttered his chin resting on the desk, his eyes closed in concentration.
James being very the most adept at transfiguration, already knew how he was going to do his half of the task, once he'd practised a couple times in the room of requirement he'd be ready for Halloween.
"What's wrong guys?" He asked, looking up from his book.
"Well the magic required is really quite incredible, and as Sirius regretfully pointed out, it's out of our league, we'd need to brew a NEWT level potion and then transfigure the potion after that. If anything went wrong we could potentially poison the Slytherins, and before you start grinning," Remus added quickly, "I am not going to let you do this if you're going to accidentally kill someone."
"Aww Mooney, you're no fun!" Sirius said loudly.
Madam Pince glared at Sirius. He blew her a kiss.
"Yes well, call me rule abiding, but I am not going to poison anybody and end up in Azkaban for it." Remus said, nose already returning to the book he was skimming through.
"Rule abiding." Sirius and James said together, laughing at there unexpected unison, peter joining in. Remus just huffed under his breath.
Lily walked down to the Library, she decided she was going to finish her transfiguration essay down there, she didn't actually need the library to finish her assignment but, but… Well she knew it definitely didn't have anything to do with 'Him' being down there.
She walked in and inhaled the lovely scent of old pages and smiled to herself, wandering down the rows hoping to find 'Him- wait no… she hoped to find The Marauders (she amended mentally), because she wanted to discuss the essay with Remus. 'Him' being there would be an added bonus. But they weren't.
"I don't suppose you were looking for ja…" Lily whirled around and slapped a hand over Remus' mouth; he had seen her strolling through the Library and had guessed as much as to why she was there.
"Shhhhhh!" She whispered at him, peering round checking no one had heard and she pushed him into a deserted row of books on Grindylows, Hinkypunks and Red Caps. Remus just rolled his eyes.
James, at that point walked into the Library to find Remus who had stayed behind to put away all the books, just in time to watch 'Her' push one of his best friends into a secluded area of the Library.
How could Remus do that to him? He knew they were friends, they had been for ages, even when James had been incessantly asking Lily out. He had thought she was friends with Remus just to annoy him. He had never considered they might be anything more than that. He crept up to the bookshelf behind them and listened in. He knew it was wrong but he needed to know.
"Geez, Lily, when are you going to wake up, why don't you just tell him you like him?" Remus asked soothingly.
What? Who was it that Lily liked, what was so great about this other guy, what did he have that James didn't?
"Because it would never work!" Lily seethed. "There is no point getting my hopes up over something that will either: 1) never happen or 2) wont be long enough to be worth it and then 3) end in me being upset and, and… well there's just no point, anyway he's moved on, we agreed we'd be friends." Lily looked down into her hands, her whispered out-burst seemed to have calmed her down.
Remus saw how deflated she had become and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in for a hug. James was so jealous of Remus in that moment that he couldn't bare it. He walked away from the book shelf and out of the Library.
He knew that Remus hadn't betrayed him but he wished with all his might that he could've been him in that moment. He wished Lily trusted him like that. He wished, he wished…
Remus groaned internally. Try as he might, he hadn't managed to get Lily to say James name, he knew he was there, the full moon was tonight and it meant Remus' senses had sharpened. He had sensed and smelt James through the bookshelf. But still neither of them knew how the other felt.
It was driving him barmy. They were so busy thinking about each other, stealing glances while the other was not looking that they had been driven blind. Alice and Marlene knew Lily's feelings towards James but not James's towards Lily. Sirius and Peter knew James's feelings towards Lily but not Lily's towards James.
Remus was stuck in the middle, sworn to secrecy by them both unable to tell them the others feelings, he just kept on trying to bring them together, to confess their love to each other without him actually telling either of them.
But it was impossible truly, truly impossible.
Lily pulled away from the hug, sniffing a little but not crying, she was a woman of pride and Remus respected her for that.
"I've got to go," Lily muttered and turned away before ducking out of the library, bag swinging on her shoulder.
Remus gazed around at the books, so much knowledge concealed between the millions of books, he ran his finger along the spins, wishing for knowledge he knew was not between pages. Sighing as he thought of his two friends, he knew there was no hope; he was just going to have to let them figure it out themselves and hope for the best.
A/N Well there you go, the first chapter, I know it was a bit slow and short, VERY short, but I figured you kinda needed the back story, the people involved, the inbetween etc. will hopefully start picking it up a bit now. Please do review so I know whether or not to continue the story, thanks.
The Bookworm x