Prompt: Marauders' friendship from Lily's pov
In first year Lily had tried to ignore the Gryffindor first year boys after their encounter on the train and for the majority of the time, her mission of not speaking to them had been successful. After all, she spent most of her time either with the first year girls or with Sev and although the boys did like to take the mick out of the latter, they were too keen preening themselves to take notice all the time. Sometimes though, she hadn't quite been able to avoid them. Of course the fifth Gryffindor first year - Caradoc Dearborn - was alright and mainly just hung out with his friends in Ravenclaw. And Remus Lupin was actually quite nice to her in Charms and the other one, Peter Pettigrew, seemed almost as eager to stay out of Lily's way as she was to stay out of theirs. It was Sirius Black and James Potter who were unavoidable. On occasion they would just pop out of nowhere with a chocolate frog, shove it down Lily's friend's robes and then leg it. Other times they would be hauled up to the front of the class because "if one more word leaves your mouths on the about that vulgar subject you will lose your house ten points. Each."
It was even quite likely that sometimes Lily would find herself sat next to them at breakfast or dinner, eavesdropping or ignoring their conversations that got more ludicrous (and funnier) as the year went on. Because of that, she wasn't able to avoid interacting with them entirely. And she had no idea what to make of them. On the train they had been two arse holes she wanted to slap but when she wasn't with Severus they could be funny and clever and even interesting. More than that, Lily noticed how throughout the year they managed to develop a way of communicating across the classroom without even speaking or moving their lips. How James would know when Sirius needed to copy his work or borrow a quill before Sirius had even asked. How Sirius accompanied James to the pitch, even if the black haired boy had just suddenly had a feeling that "the air was right", to help him practice on the school brooms for second year. How, steadily, Remus spent more and more time with them and rolled his eyes at their jokes but picked up their silent communication within weeks. How James would make paper aeroplanes and aim then at Remus' head whenever he started to drop off during class. How Peter Pettigrew laughed at their jokes and joined in on their wheelbarrow races down the corridor. How Sirius slow danced with the other three in the common room for no particular reason. How the four seemed to have formed a group that was inseparable. It seemed that, despite being arses a lot of the time, they clearly had some good traits otherwise they wouldn't have friends.
During second year the redhead noted how they got closer, as if they had bonded over some flabbergasting secret, and did not for one second doubt one of the others. Lily spoke more with Remus and it was difficult not to see some of the other three's mannerisms in the way he would occasionally ruffle his hair or skip the 't's in some of his words or not notice how he was using his fork in his left hand when usually he used it in his right. She didn't spend a lot of time thinking about how the four boys had miraculously found such a strong bond with each other but it was hard not to laugh when Sirius managed the perfect imitation of James one day in Potions or when Peter accidentally came into the common room wearing Remus' robes instead of his own.
They were best friends and there was nothing more complicated about it than that. It was so obvious to the entire school that a name was even coined for them. It wasn't intentional for the name to stick and it hadn't actually been a 'name' - per se - in the first place... except things had a funny way of working out. Frank Longbottom had been the one to label them with the name, their antics of levitating snowballs to hit against the common room window causing him to lean out and yell down at them. Not a lot of what he said was heard in the common room - though everyone got the gist of it - however "bunch of bloody Marauders" was the most popular phrase for the rest of the month in Hogwarts.
With third year came the nicknames and it was impossible for anyone at Hogwarts to ignore the "Oi, Black!"'s and "Hey, Specky!"'s and "Moony, you cheating bastard!"'s and "Pan, how's Neverland?"'s that were constantly chucked across corridors. Lily knew that they could never decide on nicknames for each other and they changed often. Sometimes Sirius would be 'Black', other times 'Sandra', other times 'mutt'. It was only Remus who managed to maintain a nickname for more than a year (his whole school career) and Lily knew there was something dodgy about that but never stopped to question it. Their pranks got more outrageous and their punishments had even less effect on them than they had had in second year. For Lily, it was only when she came down to the common room at midnight, because she had remembered a forgotten quill, and saw Peter snoring with his head in Sirius' lap and James trying to stay awake by flicking playing cards at his friends that she realized they were more than just pranks and nicknames and puns.
Of course in fourth year, they were well and truly walking hand in hand with puberty and their friendship became a lot louder. Often they would be found marking each other's heights in a corner in the common room, trying to figure out who exactly was tallest (in fourth year it was a tie between Sirius and Remus) and teasing the others that they hadn't hit their growth spurt yet. Lily could see how the four boys were becoming even more intelligent and sometimes she found herself staying up into the small hours, just so she would get a better mark on the test tomorrow and beat Sirius to top spot. She would see James trying to steal Sirius' pancakes at breakfast and Sirius flicking golden syrup at him in response and Peter hitting him on the shoulder with his book and Remus subtly stealing Sirius' other pancake whilst Sirius was distracted with attacking James. And in the evening she would be laughing with Dorcas and Mary about something and she couldn't help but hope that one day the Gryffindor girls would be as close as the Gryffindor boys because, yes, they were prats but they loved each other.
Fifth year came and cockiness and aggravation arrived with it. As well as height; James and Sirius shot up so much during the first month of fifth year that McGonagall had to take them to Diagon Alley one weekend to get them new sets of robes. For Lily this meant she was much less interested in the Marauders. Not only did they now parade their height over everyone, but they also enjoyed being arrogant bastards. The redhead could appreciate that the occasional joke that they made was funny and they were still as thick as thieves but there was a dynamic in the group of boys that had altered slightly and it wasn't hard to miss.
When the "Incident" happened, Lily found she couldn't care one jot about any of them; Remus, who she had become a lot closer to over the years, included. Their friendship, their hair, their romantic lives, their pranks, their grades… she didn't care about any of it. All she wanted was to not have lost her friendship with Severus.
But things change and, in sixth year, Lily came to appreciate them again. Cockiness had been replaced with charm and aggravation with amity (almost). She found herself drinking with them in the evenings on Hogsmeade weekends and laughing when Sirius left James with a hickey the size of Peter's watch. If she was stuck on Transfiguration homework Remus would lend her his notes and James and Sirius would provide amendments to her essays - though the latter didn't always prove so helpful. Peter would sidle up to her in the hallways and ask if she wanted to meet them beneath the Beech tree at lunch and she would. It became the regular meeting place for all the Gryffindor sixth years and soon the boys and girls were integrated as a group. It was still the Marauders but there seemed to be a '& Co' stuck on the end of it.
Beneath the tree the boys would lounge about and Remus would dare Sirius to climb to the tree and Marlene would beat him up there and by the time Sirius jumped down, James and Peter already had about a hundred new insults for him. In the common room they had the seats by the fire and it seemed Marauder law that Remus got the slightly saggy arm chair, Sirius and Peter shared the striped sofa and James kept the third sofa to himself.
Lily could see that they were all friends now but it was still obvious that the boys were still the Marauders when Sirius would fling something casual out and all four boys would fall about in laughter, despite whatever was said having no humour in it at all - to the rest of the group. At lunch they would save each other places and in the Quidditch stands they would heckle James instead of cheering for him, yelling insults louder than any one from the Slytherin stands. And yet when he scored, three voices were heard whooping and cheering louder than any of the rest. Towards the end of sixth year she knew that she couldn't consider James "just a friend" anymore because she knew that she did, utterly and completely, fancy him.
Seventh year swung around and, to her, they were Moony and Wormtail and Padfoot and Prongs. Their friendship had changed a lot in its dynamics but, fundamentally it was still the same and although it still shocked her that four boys - who were so different - could be such good friends, they were as familiar to her as family. Peter who was nervous and a follower and clever but sometimes lacking in common sense. Sirius who was clever and cocky and hard and all punk on the outside and not even soft grunge on the inside. Remus who read and hid and found it hard to trust and was quiet and was more witty than funny. James who was kind and arrogant and smart and friendly and loyal and thoughtful and the star Quidditch player who you would find comforting a second year at four in the morning. Lily would watch them fall asleep on one another, shout insults at each other and then laugh, make ridiculous bets and accuse another of cheating, slip each other notes before tests, share food and she would smile because she knew they weren't just friends; they were brothers.
