Disclaimer: None of the characters you recognize belong to me. They belong to J.K. Rowling, the lucky ducky, and now she's the richest woman in England. I'm not the richest woman in England, but I am the richest 15-year-old girl on my street (that could have something to do with the fact that I'm the only 15-year-old girl on my street...). Anyway, my point is that my life savings totals $3,066.71 (I just went to the bank today). Please don't take it from me, I need it for college. Of course, there are always those pennies in my sofa...

Chapter 7: Hogsmeade

The next morning did indeed prove an interesting one for Tave and Remus. I was the last to wake up other than them. I had every intention of rolling over and smacking Tave with my pillow to get her up, but Sirius stopped me.

"We're going to get Remus to finally ask her out," he said, taking my pillow from my hand.

"And how will you do that?" I asked groggily as I got out from my sleeping bag.

"Wake them up at the same time, of course," Sirius replied, rolling his eyes.

"Somehow I'm not so sure that will work," Drusa said hesitantly.

"Of course it will," Sirius replied with his signature grin.

"Riiiight," Alice laughed. "Wake them up at the same time and Remus will be overcome with the urge to ask Tave out. This should be interesting."

The three of us stood back with our arms folded, sure Sirius' plan wasn't going to work. He and James each picked up a pillow and poised them over the sleeping pair.

"Ready?" James asked, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Ready," Sirius affirmed. "Three...two...one..." With incredible force, Sirius brought his pillow down onto Tave just as James brought his down on Remus.

The pair's eyes flew open and Remus opened his mouth, ready to yell at whoever had just hit him. He realized how incredibly close he was to Tave, and promptly shut it again, eyes wide. Tave was looking at him wide-eyed, too.

"Um...good morning," she said breathlessly, a blush creeping into her cheeks.

"Hi," Remus replied, also blushing. They were silent for a moment, then he said suddenly, "Would you like to come to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?"

Alice's jaw dropped.

A slow smile spread across Tave's face. "Are you serious?" she asked, as though she couldn't believe it.

"No, I'm Sirius," Sirius cut in (A/N: I know, the joke is old, but it cracks me up every time). "Just freaking tell him yes and get it over with!"

"Okay," Tave replied, apparently not minding her cousin's interruption. "I'd love to."

"Finally!" James bellowed, pulling Remus up and clapping him on the back. "Took you long enough to work up the courage to ask her!"

"I cannot believe that worked," Alice said huffily. "I mean, what an unorganized plan! And it worked!"

"Of course it worked," Sirius said with a grin. "We're the Marauders, and Remus is our best friend. Who needs to waste brain power on something as simple as this?"

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, girls, we should get dressed," I said, helping Tave up from where she was still sitting on the floor. Drusa, Alice, and I had to practically drag her into my dorm.

"No!" she protested as we shut the door. "Did you see how hot Remus was in just his boxers?"

"You were practically drooling," Alice replied dryly.

"And guess what? I'm going on a date with him this weekend!!!" Tave completely ignored Alice's remark and started dancing around my room. "I'm going on a date with Remus Lupin! I could sing!"

"Please don't," Drusa grimaced. "I'd like to be able to hear for the next hour, thanks."

"Merlin's beard, what am I going to wear?" Tave cried, throwing open my closet. She seemed oblivious to our comments.

"That's my closet!" I exclaimed, rushing over to shut it. "You're not wearing my clothes!"

"Hmm, this looks nice," Tave said, pulling out my favorite sweater. It was the exact green color of my eyes and fit me perfectly.

"Not on your life," I replied, taking it out of her hands.

"Lily!" she cried indignantly. "This is a date with Remus!!"

"I don't care if it's a date with the bloody Minister of Magic, you're not wearing that sweater," I said sternly. "You have two days to decide, anyway. And if you absolutely must wear my clothes, I'll pick something out for you." And with that, I put my sweater back.

Drusa and Alice were giggling from the other end of the room. I rolled my eyes at them.

"Come on, let's get dressed. We don't want to be late for breakfast," I said. The four of us quickly dressed and went to the Great Hall for breakfast.

-----

Saturday morning dawned bright and cold. I was woken up much earlier than I wanted to be by Tave bouncing excitedly on my bed like a two-year-old.

"Guess what day it is?" she asked, pulling open my shades so bright sunlight streamed into my room.

"Do you honestly think I care at...6:30 in the morning?" I asked grumpily as I checked my clock.

"It's Saturday! We're going to Hogsmeade today and I'm going with Remus!" Tave pounced on my bed again and pulled my covers off.

"Augh! Give me those!" I cried indignantly, grabbing the blankets back. "How the bloody hell did you get in here, anyway?"

"Because I know the damn password," she replied with a satisfied grin.

"Must you be so...perky?" I growled, resigning myself to the fact that I would be getting no more sleep that morning.

"Lily, this is Remus we're talking about," she said, looking at me as if I'd lost my mind. "He's only the sexiest man alive. And I'm going to Hogsmeade with him!"

"It's freaking Hogsmeade!" I exclaimed exasperatedly, not in the mood for my friend's childish antics.

"Exactly. Now we have exactly two and a half hours before we leave. Well, before I leave with Remus. You and Drusa will be hanging out all day because I'll be with Remus and Alice will be with Frank," she said, throwing clothes in my general direction from my closet. "Put these on, we need to go to Gryffindor tower to look over my wardrobe."

"Fine, fine," I sighed, grabbing my t-shirt from off the floor. "So Drusa and I will be alone all day?"

"You don't mind do you?" Tave asked, turning to look at me.

"No, no, it's fine. We'll find something to do." I gathered the rest of my clothes and went across the hall into the bathroom to change. I heard Tave humming to herself and couldn't help but smile. She and Remus really liked each other a lot. I couldn't blame her for being so happy.

I finished changing and there was a knock on the door.

"Are you almost done?" James asked through the door.

"Yeah," I replied, opening the door. James squinted in the bright light of the bathroom. Apparently he had just gotten up. "Did Tave wake you?"

"Yes," he muttered darkly. "She must really like Remus."

"You could say that," I said sarcastically.

"I heard that!" Tave called from my room. "Now come on, Lily, I already got Drusa and Alice up. Tackling my wardrobe is a four-woman job."

I soon found myself practically being dragged up to Gryffindor tower and into the seventh year girls' dorms.

"She woke you up, did she?" Drusa asked, a very disgruntled frown on her face. She looked rather frightening, what with her black eyes and tousled black hair.

"We tried to stop her," Alice said tiredly. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," I sighed. "This was inevitable. Honestly, I've never seen her so excited about a date before."

"I've told you a million times!" Tave said exasperatedly. "That's because this is Remus." She said it as if that explained everything.

"Right," I nodded, trying not to roll my eyes. "Anyway, on to your wardrobe."

We spent the next hour pulling out Tave's articles of clothing one by one for her to critique. Occasionally she'd ask our opinion, but mostly nixed what came up. After what seemed like an eternity, she settled on a light blue sweater and hip-hugging black jeans.

"You'll be walking around Hogsmeade all day," Alice had pointed out when Tave had originally vetoed anything denim. "You'll want to be comfortable." So Tave had agreed to jeans.

"Not blue jeans," I had said instantly. "Wear your black jeans. Blue jeans and a blue sweater are way too much blue. You'd look like you just walked out of a freezer."

"What's a freezer?" Tave had asked, throwing her blue jeans back into her trunk. "Is it some Muggle thing?"

"Yeah," I had replied, shaking my head. "Never mind. The point is, it would be too much blue. So go black."

Alice, Drusa, and I heaved a sigh of relief when we had finally chosen an outfit. We were finally done, or so we thought.

"Help me with makeup!" Tave demanded, and the three of us groaned at the same time.

"Do we have to?" Alice whined, looking as if she was going to pass out.

"I'm not exactly a pro at makeup," Tave replied.

I sighed. She had a point. She was not good with makeup and hardly wore any. She said she only used it for special occasions. Unfortunately for us, she deemed this date a very special occasion.

"Okay, fine," I said in resignation. Drusa gave me a death glare, and I tried not to shudder. She was rather scary when she was upset, and apparently being woken up at 6:00 in the morning didn't sit well with her.

Another hour later Tave was finally satisfied with how she looked. I had to admit that she did look good, and I was secretly proud of our handiwork. Not that Tave wasn't pretty; on the contrary, I thought she was gorgeous. She just didn't usually bother with her looks. But today I knew Remus would be knocked off his feet.

"We have about ten minutes for breakfast," Drusa said, losing a little of her grumpiness at the thought of food. The four of us traipsed down to breakfast and found the Marauders deep in conversation.

"...out of the Shrieking Shack?" I heard the tail end of Sirius' question.

"It's no problem. We can easily keep Moony in line," James said, then realized we were about two feet away. "Oh hello, ladies," he said with a suave smile.

"Hi," I said shortly, reaching for a blueberry muffin.

"I gotta run, I'm meeting Frank at the Three Broomsticks," Alice said as she also took a muffin. "See you later."

"Shall we go, Tave?" Remus asked, getting up. He looked incredibly nervous.

"Sure," she said with a smile. The two also left, leaving Drusa, James, Sirius, Peter, and me at the Gryffindor table.

"Looks like it's you and me today, Lily," Drusa said, forking a pancake onto her plate. "We've been abandoned."

"We'll survive," I shrugged as I took another bite of my muffin.

"You ladies could come with us," Sirius offered, sending a charming smile in our direction.

I raised an eyebrow, ready to turn him down. I didn't want to spend all day with three-fourths of the Marauders. Okay, so we technically were friends, but I still had to fight not to yell at them sometimes. And they still irritated me. A lot. Actually, it was more Sirius who annoyed me. James wasn't as bad as he had previously been, and I had hardly ever talked to Peter. But before I could get a word out of my mouth, Drusa answered for me.

"We'd love to."

I turned my head so fast I got a crick in my neck. She was smiling sweetly at Sirius and I almost gagged on my muffin.

"Excellent." Sirius got up from his chair, followed closely by James and Peter. "Then let's go." Drusa and I finished eating quickly and followed the Marauders outside. I shot daggers and Drusa the whole way, but she only looked at me innocently.

We got into Hogsmeade and, as I had expected, James and Sirius headed straight for Zonko's. I had only been in there once in my life, and that was enough for me.

"Coming, Lily?" James asked, holding the door open for me.

I sighed. "I guess," I said, and stepped through the door.

"This won't take long," he said to me reassuringly. "We know exactly what we need. Then we can go somewhere you want to, okay?" He moved ahead to where Sirius was, and I was touched at his thoughtfulness.

True to James' word, we were out of Zonko's in ten minutes. I didn't want to know what was in the overflowing bags they brought out with them. If I didn't know, I couldn't yell at them, right?

"Can we go to the Three Broomsticks?" I asked, deciding it was time for a Butterbeer.

"Sure," James said. He led the way and I soon found myself sitting in a booth with a Butterbeer in front of me.

Nothing too exciting happened to me the rest of the day. Spending the day with three-fourths of the Marauders wasn't as bad as I had originally thought it would be. Sirius did occasionally get on my nerves (like in the Quidditch supply store when he bewitched a quaffle to fly around behind me and make disgusting noises), but James would stop him before I reached the point of doing something drastic. I was reluctant to admit that it wasn't a bad experience when Drusa asked me at the end of the day, but I eventually did.

"But that does not mean I like the Marauders," I said hotly when she had insinuated that I secretly had a soft spot for them.

"No, I think you like one specific Marauder," she teased when we were back in her dorm. "One who's name starts with a James and ends with a Potter, to be precise."

"In his dreams," I replied haughtily.

"But dreams can come true, you know," she said with a smirk.

"Oh whatever. James and I are hardly even friends. I don't know why you, Tave, and Alice seem to think we're more," I defended myself

"We don't think you're more than friends," she said, grinning mischievously. "We just like to get you riled up."

I threw a pillow at her for that.

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A/N: Kinda pointless, I know, and there really wasn't much about actually being in Hogsmeade. I just don't exactly feel like writing out every little thing James does that softens Lily towards him. Just the big things. If I wrote out every little thing, this story would never ever end. And besides, you want to know how Tave and Remus' date went, right? Yeah, I know you do. That's coming soon. And a Quidditch thingy too (what's Hogwarts without Quidditch?). So I must get back to my notebook and start scribbling away. I find that I usually write something really good when I babysit and the kids are in bed. Maybe it's boredom that inspires me. I'm babysitting tomorrow so maybe I'll have this huge lightening bolt of inspiration and just write and write and write. Ha ha, who am I kidding? But anyway, my whole point was that I need to go write some more. So I'm off.

taniita: I know, poor James. It would totally suck to be in love with somebody for years and years, and knowing the whole time they don't love you. But they do get together eventually! lol, I liked your little dialogue there. Very nice.

otakuannie: you know, I never got into Buffy. I've seen a few episodes here and there (that one vampire with the bleached blonde hair...I think his name is Spike or something like that...is totally hot) but not many, so I never really understood the stories. I got into Alias, but now I think it's stupid. So I really don't watch much tv anymore. I should start renting the Buffy series on DVD from Blockbuster. Maybe that'll help me with my writer's block. :- ) Yeah, I guess I do update a lot. (I updated last night, and now I'm updating again...lol) Chappie number eight probably won't be up for a few more days, though. I don't know, depends on how fast I type.

not-theonly-dreamer037: glad you like it! I love JL fics, too. They're my favorite, which is probably why I'm writing one...lol. Hey cool! Wisconsin rocks. I live in southeast Wisconsin, around Milwaukee. Whereabouts do you live? And yes, I most certainly will keep updating. :-D