It was a good thing that James had such good reflexes; he caught Lily before she hit the floor. "What did you do that for!" he yelled at Sirius.
"I didn't know what else to do!" said Sirius honestly.
"Shhhh," said Remus, "you'll wake half the castle!" He took a piece of parchment out of his pocket and unfolded it. It was not a complete map; all that was on it were the rough sketches of each floor of the castle, with unlabeled dots, representing the inhabitants, roaming around various places. They had, however, managed to make their own dots a different colour, so that they could tell if a non-Marauder was coming their way. "We're clear," he said, after consulting the rough map.
"Yeah, great, check the map now," said James sarcastically.
"Should we revive her here?" asked Peter, looking at the limp form of Lily in James's arms. "Maybe we can convince her it was a dream…"
"No, Lily's smarter than that," said Remus. "Let's bring her back to the dormitory. We'll have to fill her in." James mouthed noiselessly. He clearly did not like the idea.
"Here," said Sirius, "pick her up, I'll throw the cloak over you. Remus, make sure no one's coming."
"Not a soul," said Remus, "with or without a body."
They made it back to the dormitory without an issue, and James covered with the invisibility cloak and holding tight to Lily – whose hair smelled intoxicating – carefully climbed through the portrait hole. Thankfully, Benji was immersed in homework up to his ears, literally, and didn't look as if he'd be done for hours.
"That's what you get for procrastinating," Sirius scolded jokingly as they passed him. They went up to the boys' dormitory, for the obvious reason they couldn't physically climb up the girls' staircase without it turning into a slide; the Hogwarts Founders did not believe boys trustworthy enough to enter the girls' dormitory.
Once they had climbed to the top of the tower and were in their room, Remus closed the door and magically locked it, just in case Benji decided to come up early. James put Lily on his bed as Sirius pulled to cloak off of them.
"Ready?" said Remus, walking over to James's bed.
"Wait!" said Peter. "What are we going to say?"
Remus shrugged, "The truth, I guess."
James looked positively horrified at the idea, but didn't say anything to dispute it. He didn't know what else they could do. "It'll be okay, Prongs," said Sirius comfortingly. "We won't let the ginger attack you."
"Okay," Remus sighed. "One…two…three…enervate," he said as he pointed his wand at Lily. Her eyes fluttered for a minute, and James smiled. She looked beautiful when she was waking up.
Then Lily sat up abruptly and yelled, "WHAT?" again, making James scream, and fall backwards over Peter's trunk and onto his bed.
Lily looked very confused. "Why am I in the boys' dormitory?" she said.
"You were dreaming?" Peter tried.
"No I wasn't," said Lily, and it was clear that she was quickly remembering what had happened. "You!" she said, pointing suddenly to James, who cowered on Peter's bed. "You said that you turned into a stag!"
"Lily, give us a chance to explain," said Remus calmly, sitting on the bed next to Lily. Lily looked as if she wanted to yell some more, but looking too shocked for words, she simply nodded silently.
"James, Peter, and I are becoming illegal animagi so that we can sneak out during the full moon and keep Remus company," Sirius said.
Lily looked like she was going to pass out. "What?" she said, but very quietly this time, as if the mere word had exhausted her.
James swallowed, and said, still from the safety of Peter's bed, using one of his pillows like a shield, "A werewolf is only harmful to humans. So we figured, if we became animals, we could at least go and sit with Remus in the Shrieking Shack, just so he won't have to go through it alone anymore. We've even figured out how to communicate."
Too their immense shock and slight horror, Lily burst into tears.
"Lily, don't cry!" said James, getting up immediately and going over to sit next to Lily. He tried putting his hand over hers, but she slapped him away, before turning and crying into Remus's shoulder. James glared Killing Curses at Remus, who looked back at him in a it's-not-my-fault kind of way.
"What's wrong, Lily?" Remus asked kindly, patting her on the back.
"It's j-just I've been r-really emotional lately," she sobbed.
"Really? We hadn't noticed," said Sirius sarcastically.
"S-s-sorry," Lily sobbed. "Only, what with issues with Severus and everything, I feel like my life is falling apart. But what you guys are doing for Remus is just the k-kindest thing I've ever heard!" she threw herself into Remus's shoulder again. Sirius looked as if he were doing everything in his power not to laugh.
"So…you're not angry at us? You aren't going to turn us in?" James asked.
"Of course not!" Lily said, sitting up again and leaning away from Remus. She looked angry at the fact that they would think she could do such a thing. "I want Remus to be happy, too." Fresh tears ran down her face, and James noticed Peter getting a little bleary eyed. "Damn it!" Lily exclaimed, making them all jump. "I hate being so bloody emotional! I never cry in front of people! Somebody sedate me!"
Sirius picked up his wand. "Give me that," said James exasperatedly, and he threw Sirius's wand onto Benji's bed. "No more stunning for you. Bad dog."
Twenty minutes later, there was no need to stun Lily, but Remus had given her a bar of chocolate from the stash in his trunk, which she ate thankfully, and leaned back on James's bed, starting to calm down.
"What is it with chocolate?" said Sirius, staring incredulously as it seemed to work, easing Lily's mind.
"Well, it's a sort of artificial happiness," stated Remus thoughtfully. "There are certain chemicals in the cocoa bean which release endorphins into the brain, and gives the person eating it the sense that they are happy, content, and loved, or even in love. That's why it's such a good remedy after a being around a dementor; a dementor sucks out happiness, so you fill yourself with artificial happiness. I find that it helps with non-dementor related sadness, as well, though," added Remus, gesturing to Lily.
"You would be a good teacher, Moony," said James.
Lily, mouth full of chocolate, suddenly slapped her forehead with her free hand and swallowed.
"What's up?" said James, looking alarmed.
"I just realized that your nicknames make sense!" said Lily incredulously, and the Marauders laughed. "Seriously!" said Lily, and she was laughing, too. "I mean, I obviously got Moony, but the others I just had to guess."
"Why did you think I was called Padfoot?" Sirius asked, chortling.
"I dunno, some kind of strange foot disease?" Lily nearly doubling over with laughter, while James, Remus, and Peter roared.
"What did you come up with for Prongs?" James asked interestedly, but he didn't get a chance to answer (Thank Merlin, Lily thought) as at that moment there was commotion at the door, and the handle was jiggling.
"Guys!" came Benji's voice. "Why's the door locked?"
James hastily grabbed the Invisibility Cloak and threw it over Lily. "Potter," she protested, "I don't think he's going to be fooled if I'm just covered with an old, shiny cloak."
"Just stay under there and keep quiet," muttered James, as Remus unlocked the door with his wand.
"Sorry," Remus said as Benji entered, "we were practicing some spells, we must have hit the lock on accident at some point."
Benji shrugged as if he didn't care and went over to dump his books on his bed. "I'm exhausted," he said, throwing Sirius's wand to him after spotting it lying on his pillow. "If the teachers assign this much homework next week, it'll kill me."
"Don't worry," Sirius said happily. "I'm sure it will be a different amount next week. Granted, there'll be more of it, but it won't be the same amount."
Benji, who had flopped down on his bed, looked as if he wanted to throw something at Sirius, but also looked as if he were too tired to do so.
"Oh!" said James suddenly. "I just remembered that I borrowed this from Lily," he looked around hastily and picked up her wand, which had slid out of Lily's pocket while she was sitting on James's bed. Thankfully, Benji didn't look up to see what it was that James had supposedly borrowed, because James could not think of a reason that he would have borrowed another person's wand in the first place.
James reached over and grabbed Lily's invisible arm through the cloak, and led her from the room. When they had closed the door and gone half way down the spiral staircase, James turned around and pulled to cloak off Lily.
"You have an Invisibility Cloak, too?" Lily said incredulously. "Are there any other secrets I should know about?"
"No others that I really want to tell you about right now," said James, grinning.
"What am I going to do with you, Potter?" sighed Lily.
"I can think of a few things," said James, his grin broadening.
Lily slapped him, though not anywhere nearly as hard as she usually did, took her wand from James, and continued down the spiral staircase to the common room.
James watched her leave feeling very happy with himself for not managing to screw things up too badly this time.