A/N: New, multi-chapter story featuring AU Marauders post-graduation from Hogwarts. Their early lives are canon up until the incident with Sirius, Remus, Snape, and the Whomping Willow. You'll be able to figure it out from there. I'm guessing around 20ish chapters? With this quarantine, it could be more. Who knows.

Anyway, all rights to J.K. Rowling. Our Queen. Hope you enjoy. Drop a review if feel so inclined to make a writer's day. Cheers. —KB

PROLOGUE

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"Hurt People Hurt People"

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It was Sunday and James Potter was at the Quidditch Pitch. To anyone who sort of knew the Gryffindor Team Captain, this wasn't an earth-shattering statement. To anyone who closely knew the Gryffindor Team Captain, this was a completely preposterous statement. James Potter lived, breathed, ate Quidditch—on every single day of the week except Sunday. He kept himself on a strict schedule. Practice laps Monday through Saturday, strength training on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and agility training on Tuesdays and Thursday. Which left Sunday as his rest day—the only day of the week he hung up his broom in his locker and allowed his muscles to breathe from the regimented torture he put them through the other six days of the week.

So when word spread around the castle that Gryffindor's Captain was down at the pitch practicing his quaffle throws, the general consensus was that something bad happened.

Did he get word that his mother was terminally ill? Did something happen to his father during one his new experiments? Did it have something to do with the fact that Remus Lupin had been gone a few days longer than his normal, monthly disappearances permitted?

Though the students of Hogwarts weren't sure of the exact cause, they did know that it was best they steer clear of the Quidditch pitch for the day. All students except one, of course.

James, blinded by his boiling rage, flew around the pitch on his new Nimbus with a quaffle in hand, unaware of the fact that he was no longer the only one in the stadium. He started at his team's side of the pitch. Faking a toss from a teammate to himself, he threw the quaffle in the air and zoomed off to catch it. Once he secured it under his left arm, he took off toward his imaginary opponent's goalposts. He practiced several of his favorite techniques along the way. He zig-zagged around an invisible, opposing Chaser. Then he executed a perfect Sloth-Grip Roll to avoid an imaginary bludger that was about to take off his head. As he neared his target, he mentally prepared to perform his favorite offensive move—the Dionysus Dive.

Faking another pass, James untucked the quaffle from under his arm and threw it high in the air, out of reach of his broom, and toward the right of the posts. With his right hand, he directed the nose of his broom toward the ball. His broom neared the quaffle, but thanks to his perfect toss, it would fall just out of his of his reach. Positioning himself to execute the move, James lifted both of his feet atop the broom. Releasing his tight grip and demonstrating extreme balance, James slowly rose until he was standing on top of it. His eyes were fixed on the descending quaffle.

Wait.

Steady.

Timing.

With the quaffle just a foot above his head and a bit to his right, James lunged off the Nimbus, extended his arm, and fist-punched the it as it soared past him. He had just enough time to watch the red ball fly cleanly through the far right goalpost before he yelled, "Accio Nimbus!" Seconds before his body would've made contact with the ground, the palm of his right hand secured the neck of his broom. He pulled it between his legs and then jacked the neck upward to keep himself from crashing.

A few moments later, he safely landed on the ground in the middle of the pitch, dropped his broom to the recently trimmed grass, and collapsed with heaving deep breaths. He closed his eyes and soaked in the silence.

"Looked cool, but not enough velocity on the quaffle for it to be effective," a voice rang out onto the pitch from the threshold of the wooden door that led into the Gryffindor Quidditch team's locker room.

Realizing he was no longer alone, James eyes shot open toward the direction of the unwelcome voice. When he saw who it belonged to, his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. "Get the hell out of here," he muttered darkly in response.

"Pucey would've blocked that easily and you know it."

"I said leave," James spat again, glaring venomously at the long-haired, grey-eyed boy. He pushed himself off the ground and began collecting his belongings: his Nimbus, his water bottle, and the quaffle he'd been practicing with.

As James moved around the pitch gathering his things, Sirius Black, in all his glory (or lack thereof, as it appeared, in the eyes of James Potter), emerged from the locker room doors. Seeing as it was the weekend, his school uniform was replaced with a Muggle band tee, a pair of sleek black jeans, and a pair of brown, dragon-hide shoes. "What are you doing out here anyway? It's Sunday." Sirius called out to the Chaser casually, whose back was turned to him. The number '12' was displayed on the back of the sweat-soaked practice jersey.

After grabbing the quaffle from beneath his imaginary opponent's goalposts, James turned and stalked toward the locker room doors. As he passed Sirius, he wordlessly shoulder-checked him, nearly sending him to the ground.

"What the hell!" Sirius demanded as he regained his balance. "Padfoot!"

James spun around, cheeks red and blood boiling. "Don't call me that!"

Realization flooded Sirius' angular face. Then a scoff escaped from between his lips before he asked, "Come on, you're not really that mad about Snape, are you? He had it coming! Serves him right, honestly, I mean—"

"'Mad'?" James roared incredulously. "'Mad' doesn't even begin to explain how I'm feeling right now, Sirius! I am furious! I am enraged!"

Sirius held up his hands in defense. "Christ, mate. Just calm down and—"

"No, Sirius! I will not 'calm down'! You are so fucking careless! And you don't think! Snape could've died! And his blood would've been on Remus' hands! You could've landed him in Azkaban, you absolute idiot! What the fuck were you thinking?" James demanded to know, throwing the items he'd just collected to the ground.

Sirius' throat immediately dried up. "James, I... It was just a jo—"

"A joke?" James finished for him hotly. He was shouting now. "This is all just one big joke to you, isn't it, Sirius? Well, guess what? You are screwing with peoples' lives! You made a joke out of a potential death, you sick and twisted bastard! And you know what I realized today?" He asked—rhetorically, of course, as he answered his own question before Sirius even had the chance. "I realized you are no better than the rest of those Slytherin bastards! Than the Death Eaters! Than your family! You're just like them! All of them! And I refuse to be friends with someone who thinks murdering is a joke! I am done with you!"

Grey eyes blinked back at him, but whatever thoughts that circulated in the grey-eyed boy's head couldn't been translated into actual words. Explanations, excuses, and pleadings clung to his cerebrum, not daring to escape. As a result, a thick silence—more like an uncrossable chasm, really—settled between the two sixteen-year-olds.

Finally, with a lowered voice, James put an end to what had started five and half years prior. "We are all done with you. For good."

Without waiting for an answer, and for the second time in just a few minutes, James reached down and gathered the broomstick, water bottle, and quaffle into his arms. Wordlessly, he turned around and walked into the Gryffindor locker room, leaving his former best friend alone on the pitch.

That night, Sirius Black's bed in the sixth year Gryffindor boys' dormitory was empty.

James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus Lupin—who had recently returned to the castle from his monthly trip home to visit his ill mother—didn't care.

Two days later, when James, Peter, and Remus returned to the dormitory from their afternoon Transfiguration lecture, all of Sirius' belongings were gone.

A week after that, The Daily Prophet released a headline titled, "BLACK SCION DROPS OUT OF HOGWARTS AND RECEIVES TIMELY INHERITANCE FROM RECENTLY DECEASED UNCLE." James burnt his copy of the post to a crisp in the middle of the Great Hall. Then he took a bite of toast. Peter and Remus followed suit. Everyone stared.

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement released a statement charging Sirius Black with the murder of his father's brother four days later. James hardly blinked; a warrant was out for his former best friend's arrest and it would only be a matter of time before Black was caught, tried, and sentenced to life in Azkaban. James swore he wouldn't cry over him.

When Lily Evans approached him in the back of the library—two anomalies in one, with him in the library and she willingly talking to him—that same afternoon asking if he was alright, he broke his promise. It was the first time Lily had ever seen James cry.

It wouldn't be the last.

In May 1978, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, and Lily Evans graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Say 'Quidditch'!" Euphemia Potter chirped as she snapped a picture of the four graduates, clad in their robes and caps, in the middle of the Clock Tower Courtyard.

James had one his hands interlocked with Lily's, whose head leaned against his shoulder affectionately. His other arm was slung around the shoulders of Remus Lupin. Squatting at their feet, Peter smiled lopsidedly and held up his diploma to the camera, floppy blonde hair falling into his eyes. Though none would admitted it, in the privacy of their own thoughts, each of the four lamented the absence of one particular long-haired, grey-eyed boy.

The Aurors still hadn't caught up with Sirius Black, and the death count attached to his name grew had tripled.