The Early Years

Recap:

Lily: Catching…

Kat: Catching…

Jo: Caught! The snitch has been caught!

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Jo: And… Gryffindor wins! It's 210-60!

James could hear Jo happily announcing the results and could also see Lily and Kat doing a little dance.

The girls ran down to the quidditch pitch and hugged the Marauders.

"We did it! We did it!" they cried.

"James Potter! We won!" shouted Lily hugging James.

The girls were oblivious to the stares from the other females. It seemed the Marauders were too.

Just then, Lily realized that she was hugging her worst enemy (besides Snape of course) and immediately pulled back blushing a bit. When she saw that Kat and Jo were still hugging Remus and Sirius, she cleared her throat.

"Ahem, Kat? Jo?"

"Yeah?" they asked.

"Do you realize who you're hugging?" Lily asked.

"Well," they stopped in mid-sentence.

They suddenly realized that they were going to be chased by an angry mob again.

The girls all shouted, "HELP!" and ran off.

The angry mob of girls proceeded to hex or throw shoes or any other thing they could lay their hands on at the girls.

Although Lily, Jo and Kat were quite fit, they were soon tired out. The angry mob caught up with them and used their wands to shoot water at them (like a water gun).

The Marauders seeing that the girls needed their help, rushed forward. By the time they reached the spot where the girls were, Lily, Jo and Kat were on the ground, covering their faces with their hands. The angry mob was still shooting water at them.

"Stop it this instant!" shouted Remus getting angry.

"Yeah! Why are you doing that for?" asked Sirius.

"Apologize immediately!" exclaimed James.

After some apologies, the crowd dispersed. The girls looked up at the Marauders. Their faces were dirty after falling down while running. Strands of their nicely tied hair fell over their faces. Still their faces wore a grin.

"Exciting, don't you think?" asked Lily.

"You all seem so… normal," said Remus a little unbelievably.

The girls just shrugged.

"I think you all should cast a blocking charm on yourselves," said Sirius looking a little worried.

"Exactly, you could have drowned in all that water shot at you," said James.

Lily blinked. Was James Potter worried about them?

"Nah, after not eating any breakfast, James Potter isn't in a right state of mind, but then again, he was never in a right state of mind," thought Lily.

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The Marauders and the girls were walking back to the common room after the quidditch match.

"Did you see that bludger? It was really fierce but I managed to hit it back to the Ravenclaw team, the Ravenclaw beater I think he's called Ray? Anyway did you see that look on his face, he was so shocked!" said Sirius ranting all the way to the common room.

"That reminds me, Potter," said Lily, "I clearly remember telling you NOT to duck,"

"Well I couldn't very well NOT duck and let the bludger hit me," snapped James.

"Well, " Lily snapped back, "…"

She and James started quarrelling until James said, "I give up! Let's call a truce,"

"Gladly, but we still can pull an occasional prank on each other right?" asked Lily.

"Sure," replied James.

They shook hands and Sirius and James followed suit. Kat and Remus were about to shake hands when Sirius said," Actually, you two don't have to do it 'coz both of you are on good enough terms already," giving Kat one of his famous 'I'm gonna tell him' looks (A/N refer to chapter 3, Confessions and Pranks, if you don't know what's Sirius thinking about)

Kat replied with a 'don't you dare' look. Sirius' eyes twinkled and he returned with a 'watch me' look. Kat promptly gave him a 'I'm gonna give you a good thrashing' look.

The battle of the stares or as James calls it continued for a few more minutes until a loud bang could be heard from the Gryffindor common room.

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Everyone looked towards the Gryffindor common room.

"What was that?" Sirius asked.

"I don't know," Remus replied with a worried expression on his face.

"Let's go see," suggested Jo.

Everyone ran to the Gryffindor common room.

When the gang stepped through the portrait hole, a shout could be heard, "The men of the hour are here!"

"The men of the hour?" asked the girls with an eyebrow raised.

The whole common room was packed with Gryffindors partying. They were celebrating. The bang the gang heard must have come from a firecracker.

"Minny actually allowed us to do this?" asked Kat.

"Actually, I have a feeling that they must have given her a little more butterbeer than she could handle," replied Lily.

Suddenly, a few Gryffindor girls came out of nowhere and invited the Marauders to dance while glaring at the girls. The girls, deciding that it was a little dangerous, started to walk towards the girl dormitories while casting longing looks at the dance floor in the middle of the common room.

"Wait!"

The girls looked back. The Marauders were smiling at them.

"Would you like to dance?" Remus asked Kat.

"What happened to the other girls?"

Remus jerked his head towards the far corner of the room. The other Gryffindor girls were sitting there sulking a little.

Kat giggled, "Love to,"

Remus led her to the dance floor.

"May I have the pleasure?" asked Sirius offering Jo his hand. Lily realized that Sirius had a tinge of red in his cheeks.

"Sure," Jo said, smiling.

"That's funny, Sirius never blushes." Lily said, deep in thought.

"Who never blushes?" asked James.

"Nothing, nothing," Lily replied.

Lily watched Sirius and Jo, walking towards the dance floor.

"Guess I'm left with you red-head," said James.

"Guess so, four eyes," Lily replied.

Then, they both smiled.

The Marauders and the girls started dancing, they didn't notice that the whole common room was watching them though.

"Hey Remus, do you realize that Sirius and Jo are dancing right now?"

"Yeah, and I can't believe my eyes, they're co-existing peacefully and look at the smiles on their faces."

"James, does Sirius ever blush?"

"No, I haven't seen him blush, yet,"

"Well that's funny, I saw Sirius blush when he asked Jo for a dance,"

Silence.

"Is that so?"

"Eh, Sirius, are you blushing?" asked Jo.

"Nope," said Sirius, "At least I hope not," he added under his breath.

Suddenly, Professor McGonagall stormed into the common room, spoiling the quiet moment for the gang.

Those who had been watching them whined, "Professor."

"What? What?" asked the Marauders and the girls. (Clever as they were, the gang was quite dense when it came to these things.)

"What is the meaning of this?" she boomed.

Everyone in the common room went silent.

Lily noticed that Professor McGonagall walked a little unsteadily.

Sirius walked over to the Professor and said calmly, "Relax Minny, we were just having some fun,"

"Fun? Fun? Get back to your dormitory this instant!" she bellowed.

"Fine, no need to shout in my ear," said Sirius walking away.

While Lily walked towards her dormitory, she thought she heard a sixth-year say, "Rats! Must have given McGonagall too little butterbeer,"

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Kat had been thinking about Remus' uh, problem and decided that they could at least make life easier for him.

A few days after the 'butterbeer' incident, Remus walked into the common room sleepily.

"Tough night?" asked Sirius.

"Yeah, especially." Remus looked to see if anyone was listening, "especially the transformation, that's painful,"

Finally Kat decided to ask Remus, "Actually Remus, is there any way we could make life easier for you?" asked Kat.

"You already have," came the reply.

"Ooh, so mushy, I don't think I can stand it anymore," said Sirius, leaping at the chance to tease his favourite couple (okay, going- to- be couple).

"I think Kat has a point there," said James ignoring Sirius comments.

"Yeah, maybe there's a way to be with a werewolf without being bitten," said Lily.

"Maybe we could keep a lookout for books concerning werewolves or something," supplied Jo helpfully.

There was a moment of silence. Everyone look expectedly at Sirius.

"What?"

"We're waiting Sirius,"

"What?" asked a puzzled looking Sirius, "And do you know that I hate myself when all of you know something that I don't?"

"Well, then you must really hate yourself 'coz you certainly don't know lots of things that we do," said Jo.

Sirius glared at Jo.

"Hold on, you haven't contributed anything yet, Sirius," said James.

"Eh, maybe, just maybe, the old blockhead (Sirius was referring to the DADA teacher, he was somewhat like Lockheart), has something interesting to say," said Sirius hoping that he had help.

"Yeah," everyone agreed.

"Now where's Jo?" asked Sirius.

But by then, smart little Jo had already run away to save herself from Sirius wrath.

During Defense Against the Dark Arts the very next day, the old blockhead (surprisingly) had something interesting to say.

"Werewolves are really vicious creatures. They will bite a human if they happen to see one. However, they do not bite any other kind of animal. So animals are pretty safe from werewolves,"

On the way to Transfiguration that day, the gang was discussing quietly about what they just learnt in DADA.

"If animals are safe from werewolves, then we must somehow change ourselves into animals," said James.

"Listen guys, you don't have to do this," Remus said.

"But we want to," replied Sirius.

"Hey, I've read somewhere before that humans can change into animals, I think they're called Animagi or something," said Kat, "Wait, I think I got it right here," Kat pulled a book out of her bag and flipped the pages, "There! Animagus, it's suppose to be really hard to be able to change yourself into an animal and that's why the Ministry keeps tabs on those trying."

"Oh well, let's think about this later, anyway, the old blockhead said that animals are safe from werewolves and if we can change ourselves into animals, then we could be with Remus without getting bitten!" said Jo cheerfully.

"Maybe we should stop calling that blockhead, blockhead since he helped us with our little problem,"

They looked at each other, "NAH!"

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There! End of the chapter! I can't believe it! I finish typing it! Yay! Thank you to all reviewers! You all made me work faster! (: So more reviews please!