A/N: Enjoy!

Chapter 21: Different Directions

James's POV

My life felt perfect for the first time in a long while. After the normal awkward bit people have after a first date, Lily had told me that she wanted to try being my girlfriend, as long as it didn't ruin our progressing friendship.

The only problem was that I needed to speak to Severus. Secrets don't stay hidden for long in Hogwarts, so most of the school already knew about my new relationship with Lily. Severus had looked a bit depressed at breakfast and I knew that I needed to speak with him.

Peter and Sirius were going to spend the day with Remus in the RoR to help him get the hang of his Animagus form. We were hoping that by the end of the day Remus would have nearly completed – if not finished – learning how to transform.

Lily was going to spend the day with Alice, and probably Frank, because with all the Animagi training and full moons she hadn't had much time to catch up with her friend and was (in her words) 'in desperate need of some girl talk'.

It was the perfect opportunity to talk to Severus without anyone interrupting. I waved goodbye to the other Marauders, making up some lie about going to sneak into Hogsmeade, and then went to find Severus.

Luckily, he was exactly where I thought he would be, hunched over a cauldron in the Potions classroom. Professor Slughorn had given him permission to go there whenever he wanted to since he had such good skills in Potions.

"Any luck?" I asked, walking through the door and gesturing towards his bubbling cauldron.

"I doubt it," he looked up and gave me a quick smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm making it 'Marauder Style'."

"You're throwing anything in to see what happens?" I snorted, leaning over to see the dark blue liquid.

Severus reached around me to pick up another ingredient, and without even checking what it was, he chucked it into the cauldron, causing the liquid to turn a light purple. "I thought you'd be spending the day with Lily."

"She's with Alice," I answered carefully. "Needed some girl time."

Severus nodded but didn't reply; instead he started to cut up one of the roots from the table. In the place of his normal evenly cut roots, the root ended up completely mangled, but Severus didn't seem to care, he selected two of the odd pieces and added them, causing the liquid to sizzle and change to a pink colour.

"We need to talk," I said once I realized he wasn't going to reply.

Severus sighed and turned to face me, gesturing with his hand at the stool next to him, taking the hint, I sat down, nervously tracing over my tattoo with my fingers.

"You love her," it was said as a statement, but I knew he expected a reply anyway.

"I do," I admitted. "I have for a while and I'd do anything for her. But I know you love her too, and I don't want to lose your friendship."

"You won't," Severus exhaled heavily. "Lily has never thought of me as anything except a brother, and I think I've known all along that she'd choose you; you're everything she needs."

Startled, I looked up to meet his eyes. "I expected you to be angry."

"A part of me is," he said honestly. "A part of me wants to hate you for being chosen instead of me, but even if I wasn't part of your pack, I couldn't hate you. I've seen now how you act around her and how you treat her. You can't choose who you fall in love with, and Lily fell for you."

I was at a loss for words; I'd expected him to be angry, like I would be, or to at least be upset, but he was strangely accepting. Luckily, I was saved from the slightly awkward moment by my two-way mirror as it began to vibrate.

"Guess what?" Sirius grinned once I'd pulled the mirror out of m pocket, not even giving me a chance to speak.

"You've got a detention?" Severus suggested, leaning over to see the mirror.

"No, well yes, but that's not what I was talking about," Sirius babbled.

"What Sirius is trying to say," Remus's face appeared in the place of Sirius as he pushed him out of the way. "Is that I can now transform successfully!"

"Brilliant!" I exclaimed, echoed by Severus. "Do I want to know how Sirius got a detention?"

Remus snickered, ignoring Sirius who was grumbling to himself. "He made the mistake of doing a victory dance outside of McGonagall's classroom."

"I thought you were in the RoR," Severus frowned.

"We were," Peter replied, shoving Remus out of the frame. "But we went to find you two and Lily."

"Lucky us," Lily's sarcasm came from somewhere behind Peter.

"We're in the Potions classroom," I laughed.

"Told you so!" Remus shouted, taking the mirror back from Peter. "See you soon!"

The mirror went dark, so I put it back into my pocket and turned back to look at Severus.

"Should we welcome them 'Marauder Style'?" I asked mischievously.

Glancing behind him to look at the pink potion, Severus grinned. "Sure."

We added a few more ingredients to the potion until it turned a baby blue, and then Severus levitated the cauldron over the classroom door. After a few minuets we heard the other Marauders coming towards the door.

As soon as the door opened Severus tipped the potion. Remus and Peter were the first through the door, so they got the worst of the potion, but Lily and Sirius ended up covered as well.

"His idea!" I pointed at Severus, who was unable to defend himself because he was bent over laughing.

"What does it do?" Sirius asked curiously, examining his wet robe sleeve.

"Nothing," I shrugged. "It's just messy."

"Well in that case," Lily grabbed my hands and dragged me over to where the potion was on the floor. With the help of Sirius, she pushed me onto the floor so that I landed in the puddle of potion.

Still laughing, we waved our wands and cleaned up the potion from the floor and ourselves before going to the Great Hall for lunch.

I was glad to have my conversation with Severus over with, I felt a bit lighter to know that he didn't hate me and I think he felt better too; his smiles reached his eyes and he didn't even flinch when Lily held my hand as we walked or when I put my arm around her when we sat down at the Gryffindor table.

Unfortunately my light happy feeling only lasted until breakfast the next morning before classes. My family owl, Bandit, dropped a red letter onto my plate that for a second I thought was a Howler before I realized that it wasn't smoking.

"You going to open it?" Remus asked once we'd finished eating.

"I'll read it in Divination," I pocketed the letter. "It's not like I have anything better to do in that class."

"You could try to learn something," Lily suggested.

"In Divination?" I raised my eyebrows and looked at her.

"Good point," Lily conceded, picking up her bag and walking with Remus to Ancient Runes. Sirius went with them since his Muggle Studies classroom was in the same direction.

"I suppose we better go train our Inner Eyes," Peter sighed, standing up from the table.

"I see an hour of boredom in a useless class in our future," I proclaimed in a secretive voice, causing Peter to snort.

All too soon we were sat in the back of the Divination classroom and trying to resist going to sleep. Peter was shuffling the Tarot cards while I opened my letter and began to read through it, hoping Professor Hilliam wouldn't notice.

Dear James,

I can't believe you got a tattoo, I understand that it was like a pact since Professor McGonagall informed us that your friends also have tattoos that are similar to yours, but your father and I are still disappointed in you.

We want you to come home for Easter; you can invite your friends to stay for the holiday as well. I expect that we'll see Sirius, Remus and Peter again but Professor McGonagall said that two other students were now part of your band of 'Marauders' so I look forward to meeting them.

This isn't an offer, you're coming home for the whole of this holiday, think of it as punishment if you must, but remember your friends may come too. I'm not angry at you about the tattoo, but I am disappointed.

Your father and I will pick you (and your friends if they can come) up at the platform in April.

See you soon.

Love from your Mum.

I re-read the letter five times before the words sunk in and then I handed the letter to Peter and placed my head onto the table in front of me, staying like that until the bell went.

"We have a problem," Peter announced when we met everyone outside of the DADA classroom.

"What now?" Sirius groaned, automatically walking away from the classroom and towards the RoR.

"We're going to fail all our classes at this rate," Lily grumbled. "I can't remember the last time I went to all my classes in a day."

"That's what we get for joining the Marauders," Severus laughed.

Once in the RoR and settled into our seats, Peter read out my letter. Severus and Lily looked confused, Remus winced and Sirius looked excited.

"I don't see the problem," Sirius bounced in his seat. "I love visiting your parents."

"I'm confused too," Lily admitted. "It will be nice to meet your family." She walked over and sat next to me on the couch, holding my hand.

"Care to explain the problem?" Severus asked. "We've got nowhere better to go; I was planning on crashing at Sirius's again anyway."

"The full moon's over the holidays," Remus said. "And James has no choice but to stay with his parents."

Realizing what the problem was, Sirius, Severus and Lily winced. For a moment we stayed in silence as we all tried to think of a solution.

"Well, we could all go with him and hope we can sneak out on the night of the full moon," Sirius suggested.

"Or we could Floo to Sirius's on the night," Lily added.

In the end we decided on Lily's plan and just had to hope that we were able to get to Sirius's without being noticed, it wasn't as bad if we were caught going back, but if my parents saw us sneaking out they'd want an explanation and I really wanted to avoid telling them the truth.

A/N: Hope you liked this chapter. Please vote on the poll and review! :)