"Checkmate."

James frowned, scratching his head. Sirius grinned confidently at him.

"Your turn."

"I know! Just stow it for a second. I'm thinking!"

Sirius sighed, placing his hands behind his head as he leaned back against the headboard of his bed. "You might as well give up. I've really already won."

"Not yet," James insisted, shaking his head. His eyes were still intently on the game before him. "James Potter never gives up." The corner of his lips quirked up into a confident smirk. Sirius grinned back.

"Guess I gotta admire the perseverance, mate. It's always been a huge turn-on for me, yah know."

"Among my other wonderful qualities," James replied with a cocky grin. He glanced up from the board for a quick second to send Sirius a wink.

"Alright, alright," Peter said impatiently from his bed, where he was leaning over to watch the two play the game, "Just get on with the game, will you?"

"Patience, my dear friend," James said, wiggling a finger at him. "I'll play when I'm good and ready."

"No, you heard the man!" shouted the black knight on the chessboard. "Hurry up and make your move!"

James glared down at it. "If you want me to get you killed, then sure, I'll make my move right now!" He extended his hand to grab his knight, but it jumped up and down on its black square.

"Wait! Never mind! Take all the time you need!"

James grinned, withdrawing his hand. "That's what I wanted to hear."

Sirius shook his head, smiling to himself in amusement. As he and Peter waited for James to make his turn (Peter waiting far more impatiently, leaning so far over his bed it was a wonder he didn't just fall down) Remus came stomping into the room. His look of distress immediately caught their attention.

"What's wrong, Moony?" Sirius frowned, shifting on his bed so that he was sitting up straighter. His friend's panicked eyes trailed to his, and they hardened upon seeing him. James glanced over his shoulder, and his eyebrows rose at the expression Remus wore. Peter grudgingly looked away from the game board, and actually fell off his bed, landing with a loud thud. There was no laughter, as there usually would've been.

"What's wrong," Remus hissed, his voice low and deep, "is that you and Alex haven't made up yet."

Sirius's eyes hardened. "That's because she hasn't apologized to me or Marlene yet. I thought you understood that, Remus." James shifted on the bed, turning his body and attention fully toward the two. Things were going to get bad if they were going to begin referring to each other by their real names.

"Don't give me that excuse," Remus snapped. "You're being bloody immature! Grow a pair and apologize first!"

"Immature?" Sirius shouted incredulously, jumping off his bed. "Oh, give me a damn break!"

"Hey, now," James said, in a low tone, standing up slowly. "There's no need to get all hyped up about this. Let's just talk this through calmly."

"My arse we are," Sirius snapped, his eyebrows furrowed, his eyes still on Remus. "What did Alex say to you get you all riled up like this?" The Marauders were well aware of the fact that Remus had agreed to tutor Alex in Defense against the Dark Arts in place of Mr. Dinklemann. They'd agreed it would be too immature not to, and that as long as Remus kept his head up, he'd be fine. "I thought you weren't gonna fall for any of her bullshit."

"I wasn't planning on it," Remus admitted, softening, "but she's hurt, mate, she's hurt so much." There was a pain in his voice now, an acute and deep one, as if it penetrated to his very core.

"Yeah?" Sirius's voice was still harsh and cutting. "Well so am I. So's Marlene." Remus arched an eyebrow high, his look dubious. "Oh, c'mon, mate. You heard what she said, calling my girl a whore and calling me a terrible friend. She was being damn disrespectful, she was."

"But can you really blame her for saying that?"

James's hazel eyes widened in shock as Peter's jaw dropped. Sirius bristled and stiffened. It was a rare moment to see Remus snappy like that, and if he was that upset, the conversation with Piers must've been exceptionally bad.

"Excuse me?"

"C'mon now. I love you and everything, mate, but sometimes the things you do don't make any sense to me."

Sirius raised an eyebrow, folding his arms across his chest. "And I'm going to assume you're talking about what happened on the train. Honestly, mate, if you had a problem with the way I handled things, why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life; you make your own decisions, while I make mine. I didn't want to make a bigger mess of things by demanding that you throw Marlene out – if you wanted Marlene to stay in the room, then by all means, go ahead – but I wasn't also going to let Alex go sit on her own. But I couldn't help but wonder…why didn't you stop her from leaving? It's not like you to just abandon your friends like that."

Sirius sighed, unfolding his arms and relaxing slightly. He glanced away briefly. "It's because…Marlene sees Alex as a threat." He seemed uncomfortable admitting this, kicking the floor with his foot.

"Who doesn't see her as a threat?" Peter said, causing all three boys to turn their heads toward him. "I mean, c'mon! The girl uses anybody and anything as her own personal punching bag!"

Sirius shook his head, grimacing. "No, not like that. She sees her as a different kind of threat."

"You're not making any sense, you know," James said. "You're going to need to elaborate, Padfoot."

Sirius sighed heavily, finally glancing back up. "Alright, Marlene sees Alex as competition…for, well, me." He scratched the back of his head, glancing unsurely at Remus. "She's worried that we might end up becoming an…item."

Remus stared blankly at him. "Huh."

"So that's why I've been kinda cold to her lately," he explained hurriedly. "Around Marlene, anyway. I don't want her getting the wrong idea that we're most than just friends."

Remus's jaw tightened for a moment before he smiled. "Rest assured, then, that mistake will never be made again. I'll go tell Marlene myself that you and Alex will never get together, because she's mine."

James let out a low whistle, nudging Sirius in the side and snickering. "Yeah, Moony, you claim your girl!" he cheered, laughing. Remus smirked slightly.

Peter glanced around, confused. "Wait, you're dating Piers?"

James rolled his eyes, glancing back at his friend. "Not yet, you bloke, but they will be soon!"

"I'm not so sure about that anymore," Remus said heavily, walking backwards to sit down on the edge of his bed. He suddenly looked distraught and tired. "She's really upset at me right now."

"At you?" Sirius said incredulously. "I thought she was only mad at me!"

Remus shook his head. "No, she's mad at all of us. In fact, she thinks that this entire friendship was a lie."

"What?" James shouted. "It's not like Piers to be overdramatic like that! I mean, sure, it was a pretty big argument, but not enough to throw out a friendship over."

Remus shook his head again. "No, she has her reasons for thinking so. Remember what you said to her, Padfoot?"

Sirius plopped back down on his bed, glancing up at the ceiling to ponder. When he didn't respond, Remus reminded him gently,

"You told her that we never wanted to be friends with her to begin with."

Sirius's mouth opened into a perfect little 'o' as he recalled those words. "Right," he said, elongating his 'i'. "It was the truth, though," he quickly said defensively. "When we first talked to her, we never had any intentions of becoming her friends; you know we just needed to check if…well, y'know." He trailed off as Remus stiffened. "But I don't see how the fact we never intended to become friends with her would mean that she was never our friend at all. I mean, that's just ridiculous! If we didn't like her, why would we have bothered spending so much time with her?"

Remus sighed, shrugging. "I don't know, mate. All I know is that, if we don't make up soon, she may not want anything to do with us anymore."

A long silence ensued.

"Then let's go." Sirius hopped off his bed, and everybody stared at him with bewildered expressions. "What?"

"Right now?" James asked, with a raised eyebrow. "You have any idea how late it is, mate?"

Sirius grinned. "Yeah, so? No better time than the present, they say, eh? Besides, we all know that Piers usually stays up past curfew anyway."

James and Remus exchanged grins. Sirius winked before rummaging through his drawer to pull out the Marauder's Map.

"C'mon, mates," he said, as James went to his bed to retrieve his Invisibility Cloak. "We've got a friendship to save."

Hey, guys! So it turned out that I COULD update within a week, yay! I think it's mostly because so many of you were really understanding and supportive of me when I told you that I might not be able to update often. I guess this is my little way of thanking you for being to kind and sweet about it. Really, though, thanks to all of you who have been so generous and understanding about everything. You guys are the best!

Besides, since this chapter was considerably short, I wasn't going to make you wait two months for it! Especially since it didn't further the plot a whole lot. I just wanted to include this chapter to now show the Marauders' side and see how they all felt. I also felt it was important to show how Remus had been impacted by his meeting with Alex. Oh, and third person, yeah? I wanted it to be in third person so it's a little less biased, I suppose - more encompassing for all the boys, not just Remus.