Chapter 81

An Average Day

By transfiguration the next morning Professor McGonagall was perfectly calm. Surprisingly calm actually.

Sirius hypothesized that someone had practiced one of their cheering charms on her.

She hypothesized that someone had put Sirius and James under the imperius curse.

As she spoke on what she believes to be one of the most boring lectures in her entire schedule the two of them were intently soaking up every word that came out of her mouth. It was one of the few lessons that didn't involve actually performing the spell they were required to learn about. Yet the two terrors were anything but.

Were animagi transformations that interesting?

When the bell rang and they finally moved she got a chance to properly observe them. She didn't seriously think they'd been put under the imperius curse, but they definitely were plotting something. And that something involved her or her class, she was sure of it.

She was also pretty sure there was nothing she could do to stop them.

"What are you two playing at?" Remus asked when they left the classroom, now out of the half-panicked teacher's sight.

"What are you talking about?" Sirius said innocently, unfortunately Sirius' innocent voice usually had the exact opposite effect of what he was usually using it for.

"Since when do you pay attention in class? Especially you, James. At least Sirius has the excuse of sucking at transfig."

"It was a different lesson, most of the stuff she talks about I've known since I started school, but not this time." James said sounding sincere, Sirius noticed that he'd tried very hard to word it so it wouldn't be an outright lie. It was surprisingly well done. Sirius would have to congratulate him on that.

"I'll believe that when Peter turns into a rat." Remus said rolling his eyes and walking off towards the common room.

The three remaining Marauders just barely managed to hold their laughter until after Remus was out of earshot.

"I heard that!"

Or not...

"Stupid werewolf ears." James mumbled still not over his giggle fit.

"And that." Remus peeked his head from the corner. "Are you coming or not?"

"Coming Oh Mighty Moony!" Sirius said with a slight bow.

"What?"

"You've been surprisingly awesome lately." Sirius smiled walking up and putting his arm around Remus' shoulders.

"And why exactly is that so surprising?"

"Umm, well, I" Sirius attempted to think of a good excuse... one that wouldn't force him to spend the next week actually taking his own History of Magic notes.

"Si, look." James said suddenly pointing in what to Sirius looked like a random direction.

"Um, mate, what exactly am I looking at?"

"Evans cut her hair over break." He said as though this was something to stop and look at.

"Um, first of all, no she didn't it's the same length, second of all, why exactly should I care?" Sirius said, grateful for the distraction but not impressed with the topic of conversation.

"No it's definitely shorter, it was below her elbows before, now it's above, I'm guessing two inches."

Sirius looked at him, realizing that James may not have just been trying to save him from Moony, and may have actually meant for his opinion on the subject. He contemplated the matter for a moment.

"Mate, have you eaten anything she's given you lately?" He asked completely serious, James gave him a confused look.

"No, why would she give me anything, she doesn't even like me."

"Do you feel abnormally happy?"

"No"

"What about strangely light?"

"Sirius, I have not ingested a love potion."

"Just making sure!" Sirius defended hastily, he was kinda impressed James figured it out that fast.

"I just like her hair okay. It's pretty."

"It's red."

"What's wrong with red?"

"Nothing" he said quickly. "If you like that kind of thing. I guess."

"You guess? It's very pretty. Very bright, not ginger, but like a dark red."

Sirius continued to look at him as though he was an alien from Jupiter. "It's red."

"It's dark red."

"James, you're stupid."

"I don't care. That's what color it is."

"I think it's just an inch shorter." Remus added tilting his head a little to look at her 'properly'.

"You think so. I'm not sure... wait, you're mocking me aren't you."

"Yep." Remus laughed turning and heading back to the common room a second time, except this time Sirius followed, giving James a slightly worried expression.

"I have such wonderful friends." James said to himself as he slowly followed.

"What..."

"It was sarcasm, Peter." James interrupted before he could hear the entire statement.

"Oh,"

By the time James and Peter had entered the common room Remus and Sirius had already begun their respective activities. Remus working on the homework McGonagall had just given them and Sirius was fiddling around with the Map. Peter simply switched out his Transfig book for his Care of Magical creatures book and headed out, knowing it would take him the good part of the hour just to get down to the grounds, what with the near foot of snow on the ground outside. It was days like this he regretted taking this class.

James reviewed his Muggle studies homework one time before sitting on the arm of Sirius' chair and watching him draw a new passageway on the Map.

"We need a way to pass notes in class." James said suddenly.

Remus looked up from the homework, "Where did that come from?"

"We were talking about it before break. In Runes. We were passing notes, but decided to ask Sirius if he knew any better ways."

"Why me?" Sirius asked, not looking up from the map, he was trying very hard to remember the exact angle of the curve in the tunnel he was drawing.

"You're the one that comes up with all the neat spells like that."

"Remus came up with the fire one." Sirius replied not going into further details as there were other students around.

"But you come up with most of them."

"Besides, you have the most experience with charms and it's your best subject. It's not like we can't look it up, we were just wondering if you knew anything off the top of your head. I can go to the library while you're at Muggle Studies."

"No, I already have an idea, I just have to look it up. I was just messing." Sirius smiled at them, putting his quill down and placing the Map in his pocket. Remus rolled his eyes, humor etched on his face.

He headed to their dorm with James not far behind, Sirius grabbed his Muggle Studies and Divination books first then searched under his bed for another book. James didn't recognize it.

"I swiped some money from my parents and bought a few books, thought they might come in handy eventually, yes James I know, me actually buy books. I was hoping to do something with the Map, actually I was curious to see if there was more we could do with it."

"Why?"

"I dunno, bored I guess. I haven't found anything so far."

Sirius waited for James to grab his Muggle book and his Runes book before heading down the stairs. Once back in the common room Sirius tossed the book to Remus who caught it easily.

"It's in there somewhere, in the chapter about spies I think. See if that's what you're looking for." Sirius shrugged and waved to Remus as he and James headed for class.

They were talking about the essay as they entered the classroom.

"I couldn't find a single reason that muggles need their bloody electricity. Everything I found had the simple counter argument that they didn't have electricity a couple hundred years ago." Sirius said irritably, that stupid essay had taken him a full hour... which was about forty five minutes more than he spent on anything except transfiguration.

"Ignore the counter argument?" James shrugged, he hadn't really thought of a counter argument. "Who cares, Quidditch practice is tomorrow."

"I wonder if muggles could use electricity to play Quidditch." Sirius said as they sat down. The both of them laughed, they didn't really know why, they just laughed.

"To answer your question, Sirius. No they cannot. At least not yet. They haven't managed to invent anything that allows them to fly without enormous amounts of power, and even those have limitations that makes Quidditch impossible to be played on them." The teacher smiled from her desk, still waiting for the students to file in.

"Will they be able to? Eventually?" James asked, surprisingly curious.

"Maybe, I doubt even the Divination professor knows the answer to that question. It certainly seems possible. That is, if they knew what Quidditch was."

James gave a small laugh. "That's true."

Muggle Studies went as usual, Sirius naturally gave a rather long speech about why muggles don't need electricity when asked if there were any questions about the homework. A speech that surprisingly gave him bonus points.

James thought it sounded pointless, but whatever.

Sirius enlightened Remus on the impossibility of Muggle Quidditch when they met for lunch. Remus simply humored him, as he already knew pretty much everything Sirius was saying, but, hey, if Sirius wanted to talk about semi-academic things Remus wasn't going to stop him.

"Did you find it?" Sirius asked suddenly, despite his last sentence had been purely on the topic of muggles and Quidditch. It caught Remus off guard for a second but he quickly adjusted, as he'd actually been listening to Sirius this entire time, unlike what most people would have done.

"Yeah, it wasn't what I was thinking of, but it actually sounds better. Plus I found something else, but let's talk about it later."

"Okay, if I remember it correctly it seemed a little difficult, but it's been a little while."

"Wait? What? What seems difficult?" James asked, not following the conversation as he'd tuned out Sirius a long time ago.

"The charm, stupid. The one so we can talk to each other in class without passing notes." Sirius told him, knowing full well James hadn't been listening to him, but choosing to insult him anyway.

"Oh, that charm."

"Yeah, that one."

"It shouldn't be too hard to learn, compared to vanishing charms it's a cinch." Remus told him with a rather sly smile.

Sirius laughed, "Well then it'll be no problem for me, you guys might have some trouble though."

"Do we each have to do it?" Peter asked, knowing full well that this was probably out of his league.

"Nah, I was just commenting on how much better I am than the rest of you. I can do it myself."

"After class." Remus added looking at his wristwatch and shoving some food in his mouth before gathering up his books.

"Well duh." Sirius laughed doing the same.

They split ways, Remus and James headed for Runes while Sirius went to Divination. Peter had the period off.

Sirius surprisingly enjoyed the climb all the way up to the Divination tower, it used up some of his excess energy. He was pretty sure it was the only reason Evans hadn't begged to have a new partner. Then again, every once in awhile he would catch her laughing at one of his jokes, not often, but enough that he wondered if there really was a sense of humor underneath all that hair.

Said Miss Evans was already in the classroom by the time he'd arrived and he silently took his seat in front of her, wondering how long it would take her to look up from the crystal ball and notice he was here. She'd probably jump.

And jump she did. She even gave a little squeal, he laughed at her.

"That's not funny, Black" She huffed. "Nor was it the last three times."

"No, what was funny is that I've done it three times and it still startles you."

She was going to retort, but the professor began class and she could not do so. He smirked at her, knowing that if their positions had been switched he would have continued talking despite the teacher.

It wasn't long before they were told to continue to gaze in the crystal ball and could continue to talk.

"I'll have you know..." She began but he rolled his eyes and interrupted her.

"That conversation is so ten minutes ago."

"What?"

"Did you cut your hair?" He asked purely randomly, not really caring in the slightest, but he knew James would want to know. Especially if he was wrong and Sirius was right.

Well, James wouldn't want to know that, but Sirius would want to tell him.

"A little" She said hesitantly. "How'd you notice, no one else has."

"I didn't, James did. Something about it not being at your elbows or something." Sirius waved it off looking at the crystal ball and ignoring the silhouette of a man he saw in it. He saw the same thing every time, the teacher liked to use him as proof that she was doing a good job teaching, but really he'd seen stuff in it without her help or without this magical 'Eye' she always talked about, it was a little stupid really. That and none of the other's had managed to 'See' with her help.

You know, it sorta looked like James...

And that's when Sirius decided this class was causing his sanity to slowly drift away.

"Why would he notice? We hardly even see each other."

Sirius ignored the muttered thankfully she tacked on the end.

"Not sure, first I thought maybe you'd slipped him a love potion or something... but he doesn't have any of the other symptoms."

"Why on Earth would I slip him a love potion? Unless it was for the sheer amusement of turning him down every time he asks me out." She looked into the crystal ball, seeing absolutely nothing within.

"I don't know, that might be too cruel even for you. You know what that stuff does to you? Turns you into a complete moron that's what."

"So in other words it would have absolutely no effect on him." She said looking up at Sirius.

He gave a loud bark like laugh. "Holy crap, Evans, you do have a sense of humor."

She gave a small smile, she couldn't remember anyone complementing her sense of humor before, her grades or her looks sure, but her sense of humor wasn't something people seemed to notice about her. It felt kinda nice actually.

Not that she'd ever admit that to anyone.

Just then the Professor decided she needed a little cheering up and asked Sirius what he saw in the crystal ball, knowing he'd have an answer, unlike the rest of the class.

The more and more he looked at that stupid orb the more and more it looked like James.

But why on Earth would James be a prominent part of Lily Evans' future?

A/N) James' obsession slowly comes out in the open. ^_^ Awww.

I explain last chapter's prank in the next chapter, don't worry.

Top ten Marauder pet peeves.

#10 Sirius using serious puns, or copious amounts of said puns

# 9. Marauder's falling in love with Lily's 'imaginary' friends

# 8. Any of the Marauders dating Lily

This one's kinda obvious, but people still do it. They'll have one of the Marauders, usually Remus but I've seen Sirius do it to, go out with Lily while James is trying to win her over... Seriously? What kind of friend does that? It's okay if it's before James starts chasing her, or maybe (if it's done well) if they talk to James about it (it's hardly ever done well.)