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Since dinner the previous day, James and Lily were now on much friendlier terms. Lily had even come to befriend the Marauders, and could occasionally be seen with them, laughing or helping with homework. Now, however was time for their combined period Defense Against the Dark Arts class, for which Harry had planned an activity to test their progress in POOP. POOP was something Harry had learned whilst training to become an Auror, standing for Performing Offensive Operation Procedures. He felt it prudent to educate the seventh years in this, as it had helped him often while doing 'on the field' work.

The seventh year Defense Against the Dark Arts students were silently waiting for Harry when he walked into the room late that afternoon.

He smiled and greeted them, "Good afternoon! I am sorry to keep you waiting, but I had to make some last minute preparations for today's activity."

Harry snapped his wand at a stack of papers sitting on his desk, and they began to distribute themselves amongst the students.

"Now," said Harry, once everyone had a sheet of paper before them, "I have a bit more of an interactive challenge for all of you today. As you must have been wondering why, I have combined your two class periods so that students from all four houses shall have enough time to complete this assignment. The assignment is . . . in a way, a scavenger hunt."

Someone snorted at this, "What do you want us to do, professor? Collect ten different types of leaves and flowers? What a challenge!" Several other students snickered at this.

Harry looked over them leniently. "I believe you will find it has been well-structured for the skill level of this class. Anyhow, if you would look over the parchment before you, there is a list of ten different colors. Each of these colors represents a base at which there will be a task that must be completed. Once each task has been accomplished, please report back to me, and I will grade you based upon your performance."

James and Lily raised their hands at the same time. Grinning at the two, Harry asked, "Mr. Potter?"

Looking apologetically at Lily, James asked Harry, "Does that mean we don't have to individually complete the tasks? That we could be working together as a class?"

Harry nodded at him, "Perhaps. You may find that what you face tonight will be completely different to what you expect."

Lily raised her hand again, and Harry nodded towards her. "But are we doing this inside the castle?" she asked, perplexed.

"No," Harry replied, "We will be in The Forbidden Forest."

Harry was leading the group of nervous seventh years to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The sun had already begun to set, and it would no doubt be dark by the time their lesson was done.

"Remember, I will be patrolling the forest, so DO NOT come looking for me. We will meet back just outside Hagrid's hut in three hours. Send up red sparks if you run into danger, and I will come as quickly as possible."

By then, they had reached the woods. "Good luck! Remember what you've learned about POOP!" Harry called as a group of Ravenclaw students traipsed inside.

James, however, called out, "Marauders and Lily together!" At Lily's withering look, he hastened to add, "Er . . . please."

The four Marauders clustered together in a circle, heads bowed, while Lily stood off to the side.

"Alright, we need a game plan," Sirius announced.

"Yes, we must be decisive!" James agreed.

Peter smacked his fist for emphasis, while Remus and Lily rolled their eyes at each other.

"Seeing as we don't even know what to do yet, why don't we just focus on finding a base?" Lily suggested.

James grinned, "Right you are, Lils! I mean . . . Lily."

Winking at her, Sirius said, "Yes, well said, Lily-Love!"

Lily turned to spare Sirius a death glare, before leading the Marauders into the forest.

Harry smiled to himself as he watched this interaction. Perhaps without even realizing it, the five had performed correctly the beginning for POOP. He pulled his invisibility cloak over himself, and followed the Marauders into the forest.

Harry had been circling the boundaries he had created for the activity, watching from afar as students attempted to accomplish each task. First, two Hufflepuff girls had come across the Green base, at which they had to retrieve the dummy of a small child from the tangles of a Devil's Snare plant that lay inside a broken oven. (He had actually come up with the idea for this base due to an unfortunate case he had been given in the Auror department. Strange as it was, it hadn't been assigned to the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office.) One of the girls was fortunately muggleborn, and knew how to work the machine. So, she had forced the dial to 'off', while her friend had placed a freezing charm over it, keeping it in place. Harry was quite impressed by this, considering his Aurors had dealt with the oven a bit more . . . forcefully. However, when they opened the door, the Devil's Snare had immediately zoomed out from the hot oven and into the cool air, grabbing both girls around the middle and keeping them in place. Panicking, the muggleborn girl squealed and sent up red sparks.

Harry sighed, waiting to see if either remembered how to freeze it. When it became obvious that neither was about to come out of their shocked state, Harry took off his cloak and moved forward to cast Lumos over the plant. Then suddenly, a figure wearing Hogwarts robes jumped in front of him, heading towards the girls. Quickly casting Bluebell Flames, causing the plant to recoil, the figure snagged the stuffed dummy of the child and ran away into the darkness.

Harry squinted at the retreating student. Who had that been? They had moved with speed and agility, finishing what needed to be done and moving on. They had quickly assessed the situation, acting upon their gut-feeling. Whoever this student had been, they had passed this lesson with flying colors.

Harry had moved on to the Pink base some time later, where he had hung another stuffed dummy from a tall tree branch so that it dangled over a tiny pond. There were enchantments placed over it so that it could not be summoned while it hung from the branch. There was also a spell he had cast so that once the dummy had been taken from its perch, a . . . surprise . . . would be unveiled. He could see that all four Marauders had swum to the center of the pond, and were now reaching for the dummy. Lily was sitting on a large rock nearby, deep in thought as she looked over the scene.

Finally, she stood and called to the four struggling boys, "Can one of you guys come here? I think I've figured something out . . . "

Almost instantly, James was by her side, asking, "What can I do for you, Lils?"

Lily frowned at him good-naturedly, and replied, "Once you've stopped waiting on my hand and foot, I would like for you to levitate me up so I can reach the dummy."

Now it was James' turn to frown, "Um, Lily . . . maybe I should go instead . . ."

Lily turned red in the face, "Just because I'm a girl, Potter, doesn't mean I'm incapable of doing things myself!" she spat, "I thought I'd give you and your friends another chance, but I clearly should not have bothered!"

James grimaced, eyes widening in fear. "That's not what I meant! It's just . . . you're scared . . . I mean . . . you don't like heights, right? Because you don't like Quidditch?"

Lily seemed to calm down a bit before she replied, "While I may dislike Quidditch, I have absolutely no fear of heights."

"Oh," James said, before pointing his wand at Lily, "Wingardium Leviosa!".

Lily rose into the air, and came to a stop before the dummy, which she grabbed.

Then, looking down, she suddenly screamed, "James! Look behind you!".

Turning quickly, James saw three large Acromantulas advancing towards him. He jumped back into the pond, wand still trained at Lily to prevent her from joining them in the cold water. The spiders slashed at them, unable to wade into the pond and pursue the four boys. One spider snagged Peter's sleeve with a pincer, tearing a long hole in the cloth. Peter whimpered, splashing closer to his friends and sent red sparks into the air.

"Wormtail!" Sirius yelled, "We can take care of this without Porter's help!"

"Actually, Sirius, I don't think we can," said Remus, "None of us really know any spells that would work against spiders like these. I think they may actually be Acromantulas; they're really rare."

"Forget that," Sirius said angrily, "They're obviously not rare enough!"

Their argument was cut off, however, as one spider thrust its leg toward James, knocking his wand out of his hands. Lily gasped as she began to fall, dropping the dummy into the water.

Once again, Harry made to help the students out, but in a flash, the same student who had helped the two Hufflepuff girls shouted from behind a tree, "Levicorpus!" at Lily.

She dangled by her ankle, arms flailing. Then, the mysterious student shot three nonverbal spells in quick succession at the spiders, causing them to topple on their feet. Summoning the dummy that was floating atop the water into his arms, the student disappeared once more.

Harry wondered again who this student was. Based on his performance here as well, he would make a swell addition to the Auror division in the Ministry. Looking down at his watch, Harry saw he had about fifteen minutes until he had to meet the students by Hagrid's hut. He shook his head to himself; besides the a handful of students, including the puzzling one, many of the students had not done very well.

When he had arrived back outside the forest, he saw many of the students were already seated on the lawn. They sat glumly, and Harry noticed that not a single one of them held a dummy in their arms from any of the ten bases. Taking a head count, Harry noticed there was still one student missing.

Then, sauntering out of the forest came the final student. Surprisingly, this student, too, held no dummies. The student joined his fellow classmates, standing towards the back with their shoulders hunched.

Harry cleared his throat, "So . . ."

Several heads turned in his direction, before looking down once more.

"Did any of you procure a dummy?" he asked.

No one answered for a moment, then the student in the back approached Harry. It was Snape. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Snape pulled out ten dummies, reduced to the size of finger puppets. Harry waved his wand over them, and they returned to their original sizes.

Not a single word was uttered as the students stared from the dummies to Snape in shock.

"You retrieved these from all ten bases yourself?" Harry asked curiously.

"Yes," Snape confirmed quietly, " I performed all steps of POOP."

Harry nodded, "While I watched you at the Pink and Green bases, you did carry out the tasks splendidly. However, I did not see you put together a group of those you trusted before entering the forest. This was also part of procedure."

Snape finally looked up to face Harry. "The only person I trust here is myself." He cast a sidelong look at Lily, who sat beside James, before repeating sadly, "Just me."

A/N: Please review! Thanks!