Hello hello, sorry about how long it's taking me to write at the moment, I have a lot going on in my life right now and it's difficult to avoid having that come through in my writing. Hope that you enjoy it and that it gets everyone ready for the next chapter. Also, please do review.

Insecurity

-Sirius-

Sirius' life was good. There was no other way to put it. Less than two months into his first serious relationship he felt like it was the right place for him to be. He'd spent most of his dating life having deliberately casual flings with girls because he was scared of falling in love. His family had never loved him the way that James' parents did, so why should any girl he dated feel that way about him? This thought had plagued him right up until James had his revelation about Lily. In the end he decided that maybe if he showed the sensitive side of himself more often, the right person might come along.

By this point he'd been infatuated with Monica for a while but in the same way that every other girl had been attractive to him; someone that could hang on his arm and show that Sirius Black got what he wanted. When his usual tactic of 'ask a girl out and watch them fall at his feet' didn't work, he began to wonder why. Eventually he began to see what James had always seen in Lily. A real, interesting, incredible person who wasn't going to enter a relationship just because of physical attraction. In other words, someone who wasn't a 'slore', as James had so aptly put it.

From the point that he had realised this, Sirius had started looking very closely at the way he acted. Every time he caught himself doing anything that he didn't agree with, he stopped and made a mental note of it. With every aborted action, he got closer to being what he thought was his ideal self. It hadn't taken long to cut back some of the nastier habits he'd picked up, such as picking on younger students and hexing anyone who annoyed him. The hard part was working up the courage to do things like aerobatics practice, he hadn't been able to manage that until James had been ready to go through with it as well. After all, who could suggest that two of the most popular people in the school were not cool. In fact, the exact opposite had occurred; things that would normally get people picked on were coming into fashion, and he was loving every second of it.

Sirius looked up from the book he was pretending to read and and smiled. Monica had fallen asleep against his leg, it was her turn to sit on the floor tonight and rest against him, but ever the gentleman, he carefully got up and lifted her easily onto the couch so that she could sleep in peace. He settled himself down where she had been sitting and looked over at James. Once again, his friend was deep in conversation with Lily, he kept catching what must have been muggle words like 'television' and 'electricity'. The pair were always engaged in discussions about the muggle and wizarding worlds, they seemed to have discovered that James really was changing, and apparently Lily approved of that. To an extent at least; she still sat on the opposite side of the couch to him, and looked to be avoiding physical contact.

James seemed to be handling it rather well, he was not attempting to make contact but neither was he making it obvious. He was completely in his element. The guy had always been a natural with women but give him something interesting to talk about and he was a sight to behold, the occasional 'accidental' movements that lifted his shirt and exposed his abs were obviously affecting Lily, and the fact that he held her gaze while talking and listening was something that Sirius knew from experience would make most girls go weak at the knees. But it looked as though James was just genuinely interested in the conversation, perhaps his subtle flirting was actually just real interest.

Regardless of what progress James might be making with Lily, there were more important things happening on this particular evening. The moon was full and it was time for them to head down and meet Moony.

'Oi, loverboy,' Sirius said loudly, causing James to startle and blush for just a moment before regaining his cool. What James couldn't have seen was that Lily had also blushed, that tidbit was worth storing away to be examined later.

'We have a friend to go meet up with,' he continued.

'James! You aren't going to start sneaking out again are you?' Lily asked, shocked.

Oh dear, here we go, wrapped around her finger already is he? Sirius smirked and replied, 'Not at all dear Lily-flower,' he'd begun calling her this a few weeks back as a joke and it had stuck, 'we just need to go upstairs and help Peter plan a prank.'

Judging by the alarmed expression on James' face, that was exactly the wrong thing to say.

Lily turned to face James with an angry look on her face, 'you're going to plan a prank? what happened to changing?'

'I-I- it's going to be harmless, promise, nothing mean or nasty or anything, right Sirius?' He finished this remark with a glare that left Sirius feeling as though he was going to wake up with more bruises that usual when Prongs took out his annoyance at him.

'Of course it will be harmless Lily-flower, when have we ever pulled harmful pranks, we'll be making all of the Slytherins sprout flowers from their hair, they'll look like pictures of serenity, and smell a damn lot better than usual,' he batted his eyelashes at her and hoped that she'd accept his obvious lie as a close to the discussion.

Unfortunately, Monica chose that moment to awaken, and while he loved looking at her when she was just waking (she looked very cute when she was sleepy), it just gave Lily another option to rant.

'Mon, tell your boyfirend that he's not allowed make James go pull pranks, he's a bad influence!'

Monica, obviously too sleepy to realise that it was not the right moment to joke, replied, 'Why don't you tell your own boyfriend not to pull pranks.'

At this point both Lily and James turn bright red. Monica seemed to have realised her mistake because she looked at Sirius and gave him an expression that cleary said 'Oops'.

'Well James,' said Lily in an attempt at a cool and aloof voice but that came out rather flustered, 'if you'd rather pull pranks than continue our discussion I shan't stop you.'

James looked rather dejected by this point but they both knew that there was no alternative. A rather large shock came when it was discovered that Lily wasn't finished.

'But if you must prank the Slytherins and it will be harmless, then make sure the flowers are pretty, it will be an excellent juxtaposition!' With that she turned and walked upstairs to the girls dormitory, leaving a very shocked group of friends behind her.

After a good ten seconds Monica found her voice, 'I think that means you're friends now James, real friends I mean,' Monica too chose that point to leave the room. She gave Sirius a soft, chaste kiss and then followed Lily up the stairs, obviously intent on interrogating her.

He gave his friend a thumbs up and smirked, 'you're in,' James scowled at him, causing his smirk to turn into laughter, 'come on lover boy, we need to go or we'll be late, you know how Moony gets when he's lonely.'

James nodded to him and they went upstairs to fetch the cloak.

'About time you two showed up!' Peter exclaimed as they walked in, 'I was beginning to think you were ditching The Marauders for your stupid girls again.'

Sirius didn't even have time to react, one second there was relative calm, the next, a crack resounded through the room as James' open palm hit Peter's cheek, leaving a bright red mark and driving him to the ground. he knew exactly what his best friend was feeling, hearing his girlfriend described as a 'stupid girl' was more than just insulting, especially coming from one of his best friends.

'Don't ever speak about Lily like that,' James growled menacingly.

'Whoa James, calm down,' Peter whimpered from the floor, 'you know I didn't mean it like that, you just spend so much more time with them than with me and Moony. We were your friends first, just because we don't have breasts doesn't make us any less important.'

Sirius was surprised by this revelation, he'd noticed that Peter had been absent more often than not lately, but hadn't realised he'd felt so left out.

'Sorry Wormtail, I didn't know you felt so left out,' James seemed just as stunned, from the look on his face, the thought hadn't even occurred to him.

'Well it's hard not to when you're both seeing girls all the time and me and Moony are left to hang by ourselves.'

'So, wait, are you upset about not seeing us or not having a girl as well?' Sirius half teased.

'Well, both I guess. I just want to feel included.' There seemed to be an ominous note to the statement, as though Peter was insinuating that he wanted to be included by anyone, even if it wasn't them.

In a bid to raise the poor boy's spirits, Sirius exclaimed, 'Quickly now, Moony is waiting for us, if we don't hurry his furry little problem will become a furry big problem!'

They shrouded themselves in the cloak, Peter having to transform first so that it fully concealed them, then walked carefully back downstairs and out of the portrait hole. He saw Monica, who must have forgotten something in the common room, look up with a slightly suspicious frown on her face as the doorway closed behind them.

A few secret passageways and a hidden slide later, they were out on the Hogwarts grounds and he was able to forget about his human worries as the beast within him came to the fore.

What followed was one of the most fun nights the Marauders had experienced since their first animagus transformations the previous year. The world was theirs to explore, and explore it they did. The forest was filled with the sounds of howling and the lake caused bark-like laughter to echo through the night.

00000

By the time that he stumbled up to his dormitory the next morning, Sirius was more than ready to pass out, classes be damned.

This plan was quickly aborted when he discovered that someone was sleeping in his bed.

It wouldn't be the first time that one of his many fans had tried to seduce him, but none of them had so far had the audacity to enter his dormitory without permission, and now there would be hell to pay.

He quietly walked over to the bed, James and Peter stumbling into the room behind him. He turned and placed his finger over his lips, signalling for silence.

They looked at his bed and saw what he had seen.

He continued to the bed and gently pulled back the covers to reveal the head of Monica. At first he was relieved that he was not going to be molested, but then the implications came to him, if Monica was here, she knew that they had snuck out, and there was no way for him to explain it without at least revealing the secret of James' invisibility cloak.

He looked at the others in despair and whispered, 'What should I say?'

Neither got the chance to respond for at the sound of his voice, Monica sat bolt upright and, turning to face him, gave him one of the most withering glares he had ever received.

'Monica, I-' he began but was quickly cut off.

'You two, out,' she said in a voice that brooked no argument.

'But it's our-' Peter tried.

'OUT!'

They finally got their wits about them and exited the room in a hurry, leaving Sirius alone with an obviously upset Monica.

'Where have you been?' she asked him.

He knew it was a loaded question and tried to think of a response that wouldn't result in him being single.

'Monica, do you believe that I trust you?' he asked tentatively.

'I don't know what to believe right now Sirius.'

'Well, I hope you believe that if I could tell you all of the truth, I would, but it's not my secret to share. Suffice to say that we were out on the grounds.' He knew that the explanation was woefully inadequate but hoped that maybe she would accept that he really couldn't say anything.

'Oh? And how did that happen Sirius, we saw you go up to your room and I didn't see you come back down, I went straight back down because I forgot my book. I couldn't sleep so I came to find you and you were gone. What am I supposed to think about that?'

'Um...' he began lamely, but thankfully, or perhaps not, the answer was provided.

'I thought you'd snuck out to meet up with some bimbo in a broom closet or something. Now are you you going to prove me wrong, or am I right?'

He had originally thought that he was in trouble for pulling pranks after hours, not so bad in itself but very bad when it was chosen over spending time with his girlfriend. This was a lot, lot worse. He decided that he would need to call in the cavalry.

'Monica, there is part of this that is a huge secret that I cannot share, and there is part of this that is a huge secret that I may be able to share just a little, but I need James' permission. It will hopefully help explain what's going on without giving away the other secret. Will you let me check with him?'

'Oh, so you want to get your story straight with him and make sure it's foolproof before you lie to me?' Things were getting out of hand very quickly, Monica was becoming increasingly paranoid and displaying an insecure side that he hadn't known was so prevalent.

'No, it's okay, I'll talk to him in here, you can hear everything we'll say.'

Monica merely huffed in response so he flicked his wand and opened the door, unsurprisingly causing James and Peter to fall through it.

'We weren't listening!' They said in unison, a little too quickly, immediately disproving their statement.

'It doesn't mater,' Sirius said quickly, 'James, as you probably heard, Monica thinks I've been out cheating on her, you guys were with me so you know that's not true but she doesn't see how we could all have snuck out with nobody noticing. I need her to know that it's not true but to prove that I need to tell her about the Christmas present your dad gave you in first year.'

At this, James' face went ashen, and Sirius knew that he was very close to stretching their friendship a little too far, James had not told anyone but the Marauders about his invisibility cloak and had never planned to. He could only hope that his friend would understand just how important this relationship was to him.

It took nearly a minute, the wheels were turning, as always, in James' head. Finally, he nodded once.

Sirius let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding and reached out his hand to James, who placed the cloak in it.

'Monica, this is how we have been able to get away with all of our pranks and other misadventures, it is also how we snuck out tonight, we were all four of us together the whole night.'

With no further explanation he pulled the cloak around himself and allowed himself a grin at the expression on Monica's face.

'The rest of the story has to remain a mystery, because as I said, it's not my secret to tell. But we were-'

'Visiting Remus,' Monica supplied.

He felt his heart drop, there should've been no way that she could know about Remus' secret, but somehow she did.

'How did you-' he began.

'Well I noticed he looked pretty sick the last couple of days, and he's not here now, so he must be in the hospital wing right?'

Sirius nodded glumly in response, wondering just how much trouble he was in, he really didn't want to have to reveal the secret of their animagus transformations as well but there would be no other way to explain it.

'That's really sweet of you all, sneaking out to visit him while he's sick, I didn't realise you were all so... nice.'

Wait what? Somehow she seemed to be under the impression that they had just snuck to see Moony while he was sick in bed. This was both a very good and a very bad thing. It meant that Remus' secret was safe, but also meant that he had to lie to Monica, or at least not correct her, which was just as bad in his opinion.

Thankfully he was saved the necessity of replying as Monica moved over and embraced him, softly kissing his cheek as she did so.

'I'm proud of you,' she whispered in his ear.

He felt himself blush slightly at the comment. By this point James and Peter seemed to have gotten uncomfortable, which led top the next logical step; a mock reenactment of the scene they'd just witnessed.

'Oh Sirius, you're so great,' Peter warbled in his best 'Monica voice'.

'No Mon-Mon, you're the greatest,' James replied in a deep, masculine voice.

'Nuhuh,'

'Yuhuh,'

'Nuhuh,'

'Yuhuh infinity,'

Sirius rolled his eyes and Monica laughed.

'Well now that I know you're here, I guess I should go back to bed,' Monica said with, was that a hint of reluctance in her voice?

'Seeing as you were in my bed, back to bed would imply-'

Monica laughed, 'Nice try Sirius, maybe some other time.'

The way that she said it gave him the impression that she did want there to be 'another time' at some point, but he knew that neither of them were ready to openly show that level of commitment.

He gave her one last kiss goodnight, to a chorus of mushy kissing noises from James and Peter before she left.

'Well that was lucky,' he said quietly.

'Very,' said Peter, 'I thought we were about to lose another huge secret, as though the cloak wasn't bad enough.'

'Two,' Sirius replied.

'Two?' Peter queried.

'If she had found out about Moony then how could we explain seeing him without exposing the other three Marauders?'

The implications of this sank in and the three of them went to bed in the hope of waking up early enough for class the next morning, well, maybe hope is the wrong word...

-Lily-

'You have to Lily, you promised to give him a chance and he hasn't done anything to lose it,' Monica told her firmly.

'I can't Mon,' she replied softly, 'I'm so scared.'

'What do you have to be scared about?'

'I'm starting to trust him, I consider him a friend, I'm looking forward to the evenings because he talks to me about anything and everything and makes me feel good.'

'How is that a bad thing Lily? To me it sounds as though you like him.'

'I can't. I can't like him. What if I get hurt, what if things don't work out, what if-'

'Lily stop,' Monica said in a forceful tone, 'you can't let fear govern your life, James is trying to be a good person, look at the changes he's made. The whole damn school is a nicer place because everyone looks up to him and Sirius and they are both acting better. You said it yourself last year, they are so similar that if you hit one the other would feel it. Look at Sirius and I, it's working out Lily.'

She could only shake her head in response, Monica may not understand it but there was a deep rooted fear in Lily's heart and she didn't want anything to do with it. That was why she never sat close enough to have any physical contact with James, she knew that with that level of intimacy, tiny as it was, her task would be nearly impossible to complete.

'I have to Mon, I can't be with him and I can't keep leading him on.'

'Fine,' Monica replied abruptly, causing Lily to look up, 'but if you stop talking to him then you're going to lose me too, because I'm not giving up Sirius for your stupidity.'

The words stung, but she couldn't muster a reply as Monica got up and walked out of the room.

It had started that morning when Monica had explained that the night before, the boys had snuck out to go visit Remus. What she couldn't know was that it was impossible. Lily had discovered the year before that Remus was a werewolf, there was no other explanation for his monthly absences and pale, sickly appearance around the full moon. For some reason, Monica was convinced that Sirius had not been lying to her, so if that were the case, how could they possibly have been visiting Remus while he was transformed?

She didn't believe that they had found a way to visit him but there was no denying that they had snuck out, and to do so while a werewolf on the grounds was stupid and dangerous. It was at the point that Lily had discovered that she was scared of the thought of James coming back injured, or worse, bitten. As soon as she realised this, all of her insecurities came rushing back, the thought of losing someone she loved was so scary that she wanted to hide from it, and in this case, that meant hiding from James.

Lily sighed, she knew that she wasn't strong enough to get through it without Monica which meant that she would have to keep seeing James. She would just have to try and make it obvious that she was not interested in him. It wouldn't be easy, but it was better than being hurt by him.

So that evening, she pulled her book out of her bag like normal and sat down on the same couch as James as far away as she could manage. She noticed the furtive glances that James kept sending toward her but ignored them. He tried to initiate conversation a few times and she remained polite, but said nothing that might be perceived as flirtatious or caring. He turned the pages of his book loudly and it was all she could do to keep a straight face. By the end of the evening James looked upset and she didn't blame him, but there was nothing to be done for it. The only way that she could keep herself safe was to stay away from the things that could hurt her.

Sleep was evasive that night. She tossed and turned to no avail, remembering the hauntingly sad expression on James' face as she'd left and the look Monica had given her before she closed the curtains around her bed. When she finally succumbed to exhaustion, she slept fitfully. None of these were enough to deter her though, and she was determined to maintain her chosen path now that she had started along it.

-James-

Five reasons why life is out to get me.

By James Potter

1. Lily thought I was an arrogant toerag and wouldn't get to know me.

2. Other girls, attractive girls wanted me but the one girl I wanted didn't.

3. I'm changing myself to be the person that I want to be but apparently it's still not good enough.

4. Monica told Sirius that the reason Lily is avoiding me now is because she's starting to like me. How does that make any sense?

5. Monica said that the only chance I have at getting Lily to change her mind is by continuing to do exactly what I'm doing and not losing my cool, even though every moment I spend with Lily ignoring me makes me feel like a failure.

'See Sirius,' said James, pacing in their dormitory and waving the parchment at his friend, 'Life has it in for me, it doesn't matter what I do, nothing works out.'

Sirius sighed, 'Think about it James, the changes you've made have worked on multiple levels, first and most importantly, you're becoming the person you want to be. Second, Lily likes you, maybe as more than a friend too. Everything that you wanted is happening, you just need to be patient and keep doing what you're doing.'

'But the holidays start soon,' he said persistently, 'if she's trying to avoid me now then what will happen when she gets two months away from me to reinforce her fears?'

He could see that Sirius was thinking along the same lines. Mercifully a plan began to form in his head.

'What if we-' he began.

'I think I know exactly what you mean James,' Sirius smiled at him and they got up and walked downstairs to find the other Marauders; it was high time for another prank.'

Hmmm, what on earth are they going to do now? I already have a fairly solid idea but if anyone has their own idea please send them to me, if I end up incorporating them I'll send out a preview of the chapter to you ;)