Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
Chapter Rating: PG-13; some British (and international) cussing.
Notes: I forgot to mention that this starts in the fall of 1976 (Marauders' sixth year) and ends in the spring of 1979. I'm making up some of the teachers' names, since they aren't canon / mentioned in the books. I apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling problems. More thanks to Court and Raven, btw, because they're just swell.
Pairings: For now, I know that there will be Lucius/James (obviously), James/Lily, and Lucius/Narcissa.

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Three weeks into school marked the coming of the full moon, unfortunately for Remus. From his position by the fire in the common room, James watched him struggling to keep his usually infinite patience in check as Sirius prattled on and on about nothing in particular, but complaining the entire time. Peter had taken one glance at Remus's face and fled for sanctuary in their rooms. Other students milled about. Seventh years had grouped towards the back near a tapestry, playing poker and a few casually smoking cigarettes; first years clustered with each other by the tables near the stairs, working on homework together. Some third year girls spoke in whispered tones, staring at Jericho Pastor, a rather handsome seventh year, before breaking into giggles. Rolling his eyes, James went back to his essay for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Another teacher this year - Professor Urecht Harvey - would lead to another next year, and another, and another, just as it had always been. The position was cursed, now and forever; every Hogwarts student knew that.

Carefully dipping his quill into the ink well he'd set on the arm of the couch, James bit down on his lower lip in thought, wondering how to word the next few sentences, when all hell broke loose. "SIRIUS BLACK, IF YOU DO NOT SHUT YOUR MOUTH THIS INSTANT, I WILL HEX YOU TO BEIJING AND BACK!" Remus exploded, eyes burning more gold than their normal brown. Everything in the common room stopped and everyone's eyes turned to the scene before them.

"...Huh?" Sirius replied, mouth hanging open in obvious confusion. James rolled his eyes and shook his head at Sirius's continued "eloquence". He glanced around, feeling uncomfortable from the weight of everyone's eyes on the pair of them. James continued writing his essay, resolutely ignoring Sirius's pleading eyes as he looked at the book next to him to quote and cite in his essay -like most professors, Professor Harvey loved to see citations in the essays he assigned - because this was Sirius's problem to finagle himself out of. "Er, Remus, I, er, I think you should just, uh, calm down, you know, just for a moment..."

Remus glared at him; if looks could kill, Sirius would have been scorched to ash in seconds. James stiffled an amused grin - that wouldn't help him with Sirius or Remus, as they would both get mad - and continued writing, though it became more sarcastic and witty as he did so. His writing tended to reflect his moods, and the situation between Remus and Sirius only amused him. They'd be fine by the time Remus had to relocate to the Shrieking Shack, as they always were.

Since their first year together, when James and Sirius had stuck together like glue and Peter wedged himself in their as well and all three had adopted Remus even with all his mystery, the two fought like an old married couple. Sometimes James wondered about his two friends, about the true nature of their relationship, but every time those thoughts wandered into his mind, James would banish them and focus his thoughts on something else. For example, his essay.

"CALM DOWN?! Calm down, you tell me," Remus seethed, eyes narrowing as he continued to glare at Sirius. "Well you can just bloody well calm down! I've had it to here with your griping and whining so just shut the fuck up!" With that, Remus threw his things into his bag and stormed out of the common room; James scratched his chin absently, knowing that Remus was probably off for the prefect's bathroom to calm himself down. The full moon tomorrow night would be a welcome relief, and on a Saturday, too - it meant that they didn't need to rush to get back to school in time for their first classes.

James returned to the present time, snorting out a laugh at Sirius's incredulous face. "Come on, mate," James said, shaking his head. "You had it coming. You've been bitching to him all night, his monthly's coming up. You should have known better."

Sirius grumbled but accepted the truth silently.

[.o.o.o.o.]

Saturday morning found James laying half-awake in his bed, staring up at the top of his four-post, at the fabric draping over. It was still dark out, so inside the drawn curtains seemed blacker than black. His eyes met darkness upon opening, though he couldn't stop his mind from racing through thought after thought.

Remus and Sirius, and their relationship with each other - James could imagine that yes, it was probably platonic, but he couldn't help the niggling voice in the back of his mind telling him that it had to go further than just irritation from the moon. Then came Lily, his darling redhead, the girl he'd had eyes for since their first day at school; her bright green eyes flashed in his mind, vivid in color, and then the shape of her lips, and the curves of her gorgeous body. But replacing Lily's usual place in his mind, the last thought before really waking up and going about his morning routine - and, honestly, leaving an impression on him for the rest of the day - was none other than Lucius Malfoy.

James started as he realized that Malfoy would probably be on his mind all day. He tried pushing the blonde out of his mind - tried putting Lily in his place, tried thinking of Mary-Katherine from Ravenclaw... hell, James even tried thinking about McGonagall, as awful as the thought truly was. But nothing would get Malfoy out of his head; still half-asleep, James just accepted the fact that the older wizard had invaded his thoughts and was there for good. He let the thoughts chase across his mind; images of Malfoy's elegant hands gripping a quill to write down the advanced number charts that he could only loosely understand, of Malfoy's hair cascading down around his face, and of his eyes, especially his eyes, a cold gray that sometimes turned into hot silver when James could catch them at the right time. He could acknowledge that Malfoy was a handsome man, most definitely, but James felt strange telling himself so. He'd never thought about men in any other way than as friends, so this new-found feeling in his gut, caused by none other than Lucius Malfoy who'd made Remus's first year a living hell, caused him no small amount of worry.

Breakfast came and passed with no interesting events; Lily still sat far away down the table from him, no matter how many times he made doe eyes at her. Sirius grumbled into his pumpkin juice, Peter rambled on about one thing or another, and Remus sat quietly engrossed in a book. James resolutely ignored the urge to look at Malfoy during breakfast, knowing that it would only lead to more lewd thoughts and unwanted fantasies running around his head. He needed to enjoy Hogsmeade, and enjoy the rest of his day before the moon rose and Sirius would be back in the Shrieking Shack, enduring the painful transformation from man to wolf.

On the walk to Hogsmeade, Sirius had asked James to distract Peter for a while so that he might be able to have a private word with Remus, to presumably apologize for "being a right bloody git" as Sirius had put it. Being the best of friends that they were, James readily agreed with a wide smile and a cheerful nod of the head. They meandered together in the back of the line of students while he and Peter busied themselves with plans for what to buy while at Hogsmeade. The shorter teen had his mind on buying a new sweets stash while James wanted to get some more stink bombs to torment the new caretaker, Argus Filch. When Peter started to ask about Sirius and Remus, James laughed it off easily.

"They're married, remember?" he joked, and Peter laughed at that as well. "Padfoot wanted to have a 'private talk'," James made the air-quotes accordingly, "with just him and Moony. It's nothing big, I bet. Just doing couple-y things and having together-time, I suppose." It was a joke between them that Sirius and Remus were married... though really only between James and Peter, seeing that Remus and Sirius would probably kill them both if they caught a word of it. Snickering to themselves, James and Peter made their way into Honeydukes past a cluster of third years who'd just bought their first sugar quills - James's favorite, but making their way through the gaggle of giggling girls was a feat in itself.

Peter never ceased to be amazed at the sheer amount of candies in the store. James would never cease to be amused by Peter's face - the phrase "kid in a candy store" never fit better.

[.o.o.o.o.]

An hour and a half later, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter had secured themselves a booth in the back. It'd been a hell of a wait, stalking the booths (because the tables would be just uncomfortable, honestly; people jostling them around, trying to get by, have a mug spill all over the table, because it'd happened before) and moving in whenever they could to scoop up a seat of their own. For a half hour, they tried and failed at getting a spot, losing it to seventh years and one to a group of fourth years - but only since they'd been there longer than the four friends had.

Rosmerta had swept by, taking their order of a round of butterbeers for the table. Sirius had oh-so-kindly agreed to pay for the first round after much coercing on James's and Peter's parts, and soon enough all four were slurping down the delicious concoction.

"I wonder how long butterbeer's even been around," Remus stated, as if surprising himself with the question. A pensive look came over his face as the young werewolf started to ponder.

"Why would you even wonder that, Moony?" Sirius asked his friend with a small laugh, one echoed by James and Peter.

"The oddest notions pop up in your mind," Peter continued, taking another sip of his own drink. "You know that, don't you?"

James opened his mouth to also comment on Remus's innate ability to say the oddest things when the door to the Three Broomsticks opened. Standing there in the oddly absent doorway was none other than Lucius Malfoy in a rather expensive-looking set of robes with a matching cloak and leather gloves. James's mouth went slack, and the other three turned to look -and then glare- at the person in the doorway.

"Fucking Malfoy," Sirius snarled, but he looked just as surprised as the rest of them when Narcissa Black, one of Sirius's older cousins, stepped into the doorway right next to him. She smiled up a storm, and obviously only had eyes for the blonde standing next to her. Gracing her with a rare smile, as just-barely-tolerant as it was, Lucius strode into the room and over to the bar, leaning on it almost disdainfully.

"What's Narcissa doing here?" Remus asked in a hushed whisper, all four sets of eyes on the pair at the bar. James couldn't look away for some reason, his eyes distracted by the lock of hair that had fallen astray from the tie keeping the rest of it away from his face. His friends' conversation faded into background noise, words he could just barely pay attention to processing. "Sirius," Remus kicked Sirius's foot under the table. "What's she doing here?"

"Hell if I know," Sirius snorted, and with Peter and Remus, started conversing about Malfoy and Narcissa Black. "Narcissa has always fancied him, as far as I know. At least, that's what had always teased her about... And get this." Sirius lowered his voice quite a bit in pitch just as Malfoy turned just the slightest towards their booth, as if he were listening. Still looking at him through narrowed eyes, convinced it was to see his reaction and not to stare more at his hair - a man shouldn't have hair that nice. "Bellatrix is getting married."

"That bitchy cousin of yours?" Peter asked in a hushed tone, trying to stay relatively quite as to not draw attention to their table. He could be discreet when he needed to. James curled his hand around his mug, tightening his hold minutely as Malfoy almost relaxed into the bar as he talked to Rosmerta. 'Merlin knows what that's about,' James thought to himself. "The one that's as mad about blood as your mum?"

Sirius nodded in affirmation. "The guy's a bloody prick. I met him over the summer, at that party I told you all about?" he grinned as he looked across the table at Peter. "The one where Andromeda got me drunk?" Peter grinned right back and nodded his understanding. "They showed up all prim and proper. Don't even love each other, I reckon. But you know how my family is. All about pure-blood this and pure-blood that."

James had nodded accordingly, still watching Malfoy from their booth. He straightened as he waited for Madam Rosmerta to come out from behind the bar, then tilted his head to the right to look over his shoulder, eyes darting over and catching James watching him. The older man gave James a slow smirk, almost a smile but not quite, and narrowed his gray eyes. James held the gaze for a long moment before a blush came over his cheeks, for whatever reason, and his eyes averted down to the table. He quickly took a sip of his butterbeer to cover it up amongst his friends, and glancing back up, James saw Rosmerta walk Malfoy and Narcissa down the hall that students were never allowed to go - private booths, for customers that could actually afford such a luxury. James could have sworn that the former Slytherin man had winked at him just before disappearing through the doorway.

[.o.o.o.o.]

A/N: For Lucky1111- I'm not usually fond of Lucius, but I think planning out and writing this story has made me more fond of him. Plus the last book made me like him a little more.

I'm still looking for a beta! I need one to keep my characterization in check, and to check spelling and grammar that I might have missed. Anyway, please leave a review or some concrit! They keep me writing!