A/N: Hey guys! Thank you to all of those who reviewed, followed, and favorited so far! It means so much to hear that you all seem to be liking the story. Anyway, here's Chapter 4. It's a long one, so enjoy! And, as always, read and review if you'd like to!

Chapter 4: Library Encounters

Once McGonagall walked me down to the dungeon, it took a few minutes for me to actually work up the nerve to go in. As much as I wanted to wash the slime off, I really wasn't looking forward to the laughter that was going to ensue at my expense once they all saw me. I took a deep breath, muttered out the password, and walked through the door with my head down.

Once in the room, I felt more than heard the gasp of shock that ran through me housemates at my appearance. I risked a glance up and was greeted by the faces of at least half of my housemates. All was still until one younger girl couldn't help the chuckle that slipped out. This started off a chain reaction until pretty much the entire room was dying of laughter. Seriously, why did this have to happen now? When literally all of our house is in the common room," I thought as my face began to burn.

As I glanced around again, I saw one other face that wasn't laughing. Natalie was sitting in the corner with a few other first years looking at me with pure sympathy. When I met her eyes, she gave me a small smile that seemed to say "Dude, I know this sucks. I'm sorry." Suddenly, I felt a bit lighter. Even if the rest of my house were assholes, at least there was one other decent person. With that thought, my embarrassment left me and a smile broke out on my face. "Whatever fuckers, I don't care what you all think anyway." I stuck my arms out to the sides and took a couple bows, still smiling the whole time. The laughter died down as the Slytherins looked at me oddly, but I really didn't care. I turned on my heel and practically strutted towards the girl's dorm.

/

I stepped out of the shower feeling better now that I didn't have, you know, slime covering every inch of me. I put on my most comfortable jeans and sweater and was just about to lay down when I heard a soft knock at the door.

I swear, if this is someone coming to laugh or play another prank on me, I'm going to kill someone. I crossed the room and slowly opened the door, expecting the worse. I was surprised to see Natalie standing there holding a plate of food. "Natalie…what are you doing here?" She ducked her head and softly said "Well you looked like you were having a rough day… and, well you missed dinner, so I, uh, brought you some food" She then thrust the plate towards me quickly. I slowly took it, looking down at the plate. Warmth spread through me as a fully registered the sweet gesture. I looked up at her with a smile and opened the door wider "Would you like to come in?" She smiled back and stepped through the door.

I moved over to my bed and sat down, beginning to shove food in my mouth as I realized that I was ravenous. In all the commotion I had forgotten that I still hadn't eaten since my toast early that morning. "Seems like that was ages ago now." Natalie slowly sat next to me, looking towards me with mild disgust. I quickly looked over.

"What?" I said around a mouth full of food.

"You could at least eat like a human being. I brought you a fork," she said with much more sass than I expected from her tiny 11 year old body. "So, the girl does have some spunk. Interesting."

I swallowed my food and said "Hey, that's enough sass out of you, kid. Respect you elders," I said with grin to let her know I was kidding. She rolled her eyes and grinned good naturedly back at me.

I took a few more bites before I realized I hadn't actually thanked her "Thank you Natalie," I said as I looked over and met her eyes. "I really appreciate this. It was sweet." Natalie immediately blushed and looked down with a shrug. "It's nothing. After all, we muggleborn freaks need to look out for each other," she said with a grin. Suddenly her grin turned into more of a smirk. "Apparently I'm going to have to look out for you more so than you look out for me. Seriously, what was that? Slime?"

I laughed loudly. "Yes, it was in fact slime. Or goo if you prefer that term," I said through the laughter. Natalie immediately turned on my bed to face me and looked up at me expectantly.

Surprised at the sudden camaraderie I felt with this girl, I turned to face her as well and launched into my story of the past several hours.

/

I managed to avoid everyone on Sunday and had spent most of the day with Natalie, who brought me food after mealtimes. I felt like I was treating her like a slave, but she shrugged off these concerns when I voiced them, telling me "that's what friends did." I was a bit shocked to hear the word "friend" come out of her mouth in relation to me, but after considering it, I realized that friend was probably the best description of our relationship. Even if she was only 11, I still felt a lot of affection for her. "Well, I always wanted a younger sister."

The next Monday dawned bright and early, and I shuffled to my classes along with everyone else. In my last class of the day, I was looking around at the other students when I realized that I hadn't actually seen the Marauders since they pranked me. Well, not pranked me, per say, as I was not the intended target. I had recalled after the fact that I had heard what I thought was James saying that I "didn't sound like Snivellus", so I assumed that I had simply been the victim of a prank gone wrong. I guess I should change my statement to say that I hadn't seen the Marauders since I had walked into their prank unintentionally.

"Well, I better get a fucking thank you next time I see any of them," I thought to myself as I walked toward the library after classes. "I did save their asses from what was at least a week's worth of detention after all."

I found my table in the corner of the library and spread my things out to get to work. I had been working for maybe 30 minutes when I suddenly heard a commotion. I looked up towards where the front of the library was warily. That seems a lot closer to my table than normal." The commotion continued to get louder as I heard several sets of footsteps approaching and what were distinctively male voices whispering amongst themselves.

"…she has to be back here. We've checked everywhere else…"

"…definitely said they saw her heading this way..."

I immediately began to panic, not recognizing the voices. And they were obviously looking for someone, a girl to be more specific. And I was the only girl in the surrounding area. "Please, please, PLEASE don't be here to hex/prank/maim me. I can't handle more than one of you at a time." I quickly grabbed my wand and stood, pointing it directly towards the gap in the bookcases that the voices were coming from. The voices and footsteps continued to get closer and I tensed more and more with every second.

Suddenly, I saw a tall figure step around the corner and immediately stop when they saw me standing with my wand pointed directly at them. It took me a second before my brain registered that it wasn't a Slytherin standing in front of me, but Remus Lupin. I saw 3 more figures come around the corner and nearly run into Remus. "Oi, did you find…" Sirius began, but then quickly faded out at he saw me standing there, wand drawn.

I gaped at them for a few more seconds, trying to process what I was seeing. Remus. In front of me. With Marauders. Obviously looking for me. Remus Lupin was looking for me. And the Marauders. Remus. My wand is pointed at Remus Lupin. WAIT"

I realized I hadn't put my wand down while my brain was processing and quickly brought my hand back to my side. "Shit, I'm sorry! You startled me and I'm used to assholes trying to corner me and it's just a knee-jerk reaction now. Of course, if I had known it was you guys I wouldn't have done that…" I trailed off as I realized I was rambling.

They all had relaxed as soon as I lowered my wand and all had slowly started to smile as I had rambled uncontrollably. A blush overtook my face as I shuffled in place and shyly looked at them. It was a bit disconcerting to have the 4 most popular boys in school smiling at me, especially when one of them was my crush and looked quite adorable while smiling. Especially when it was aimed at me.

After a few moments of mildly awkward silence, I sat back down in my chair and cleared my throat. "…Um, what could I, uh, help you boys with?" I said as I awkwardly shifted between looking at them and my hands, which were fiddling in my lap. For the love of Merlin, could I be any more awkward?

Speaking seemed to have unfrozen the boys, as they all looked at each other and nodded. Sirius cleared his throat and stepped forward.

"We owe you an apology, it seems. You stumbled upon one of our pranks the other day and, unfortunately, it did not end well for you. You seemed quite angry in that moment, which you had every right to be, and we just…well, we wanted to clear the air."

James stepped forward as Sirius finished. "You weren't the one who we were planning that prank for. You've probably noticed that Snivell…I mean Snape and I, along with the rest of the Marauders, don't particularly get along. And he had done something earlier in the week that really pissed us off so we were trying to get him back, you see…" James trailed off and looked at me guiltily.

Remus then coughed quietly and I turned to face him, suddenly realizing that while I had been focused on Sirius and James, he had moved closer to me. Within touching distance actually. I had never actually been this close to him and my breath caught. He stepped forward and gestured towards the chair next to me. "Do you mind…?"

I couldn't manage words right now, so I settled for a shake of my head.

He sat down and then looked at me, rubbing the back of his neck a bit awkwardly. "I know you don't have much reason to believe us, but we promise we weren't planning that prank for you, Lauren." The others all nodded at this statement but I was sidetracked by the fact that Remus had said my name. "HE KNOWS MY NAME!" my brain screamed out enthusiastically. I quickly returned to listening to Remus as he started speaking again.

"You really did just happen to walk by at the wrong time. Snape usually walks that way and we thought he would be the only one heading through there. It was just an unfortunate accident. We know that you're mad at us and you have every right to be, but we really wanted to say how truly sorry we are." He looked into my eyes at this and my heart just about stopped. He looked so genuinely concerned and upset over this and his eyes were just so gorgeous. It was so endearing that I just stared at him for a few seconds, trying not to swoon.

Then my brain process what he had said. "Wait, he thinks I'm mad at them?" I glanced at them all again. They all looked so upset over this. They really think I'm upset at them. And that makes them all upset. They're all looking at me like I just told them I'm dying." I looked at all of them again. This is crazy! This is quite possibly the weirdest situation I've ever been in. As I processed this very odd situation, I suddenly couldn't hold back any longer.

I laughed.

They all jumped as suddenly started laughing loudly. And they all looked at each other and back at me completely bewildered. This only made me laugh harder. This went on for about a minute before I managed to calm myself enough to speak.

"Oh my gosh, you guys think I'm mad at you?" I said as I looked at them incredulously as I tried to catch my breath.

Peter spoke up for the first time. "…well, yea…aren't you? We did dump slime all over you…"

I giggled a bit. "I mean, yea, I was pissed for a minute there, but it was really because I was just having a shitty day. Seriously the prank was hilarious. OH and all of your faces once you saw me? Completely priceless," I said with a wide grin.

They are were staring at me, completely shocked. I seem to have broken the Marauders

Suddenly, Remus let out a bark of laughter. I turned to look at him and he was staring at me with the same look he'd given me as he peeked out of the alcove. "Yea, definitely admiration," I thought to myself as my heart fluttered a bit. "You hear that boys? She's not mad," he said as he turned to look at the boys, who all had started to relax and smile again. He turned back to me. "We've been worried for days about apologizing to you." He said as he smiled at me.

James stepped closer again and started speaking. "Soo…you're really not mad?" I shook my head, still grinning." He immediately brightened and ran a hand through his hair excitedly. Sirius then spoke up "Is that why you didn't rat us out?"

I had honestly forgotten about that, but I nodded quickly. "Well yea. I really didn't want you all to get in trouble over me. It was pretty obvious by your faces that you had meant to slime someone, but it definitely wasn't ME." I looked down at my hands as I continued, "…and well, I mean your pranks have always been brilliant. Even if they are typically aimed at me and my housemates. I usually…well, I usually laugh and admire the work you guys put into them…" I trailed off again.

When they didn't say anything, I panicked internally "Shit now they think I'm some weird fangirl." I looked up cautiously.

They were all now looking between themselves and the back at me smiling. Sirius grabbed the chair across from and flopped down into it. Peter and James joined the table as well. I looked around at them and then back over to Remus. He was still looking at me with that same damn adorable look, a small smile on his face. Damn butterflies. I looked away shyly and met Sirius's gaze.

"Lauren Dixon, I believe this is the start of beautiful friendship."