Author's Note: Okay, I came up with something, so the end won't be till later.

Title: Love and Flashbacks

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Erm… Possibly.

Summary: Lily and James remember the events that led to their romance.

Disclaimer: As much as I'd love to own Harry Potter and its characters, I don't.

Setting: This story takes place when the Marauders are at Hogwarts.

*** = setting change

*~*= begin flashback

~~~ = another flashback

~*~ = end flashback

[…] = time

italics = emphasis

~The Graduation~

"This is our last day at Hogwarts," Lily said. "Our last day. Twenty-four hours until we leave."

The Marauders looked at each other.

"Then I guess we'd better make the best of it," James said, grinning mischievously.

"All right, what are you going to do?" Koren demanded.

"Oh nothing. Just pull one last prank, that's all."

"What kind of prank?" Charlotte asked suspiciously.

"The kind we're good at," Sirius replied.

"And what kind would that be?" Lily asked.

"Any kind," Peter put in.

"What he said."

"Uh huh." Koren rolled her eyes. "Maybe we'd better leave these guys alone," she said to Lily and Charlotte. "We don't want to be near the scene of the crime."

Remus said, "Hey, like Lily said, it's our last day. We can't get detention for this."

"You make a good point."

Lily said, "You four have done tons of pranks over the years. Aren't you tired of it at all?"

*~*

[2nd year]

"Aah!" Lily ran screaming into the common room. "Potter!" she shrieked when she saw James. "I know you did it! Now what is that thing?"

"What thing?" he asked innocently.

"Don't play dumb with me. You know what I'm talking about. That thing you put in my room to scare me."

"Well, it worked, didn't it? Because you certainly look scared."

"Just get it out," the redhead said through clenched teeth.

~~~

[4th year]

"Sirius Black! You are dead!" Koren ran over and started pummeling the dark-haired boy.

"Ow! Hey, stop that!"

"Then stop pulling pranks on me and my friends!" Koren looked up at James. "That goes for you too, mister."

"I'm sorry, Koren, but we just can't do that." James grinned. "Pulling pranks just comes naturally. It's in our blood."

"I'll show you some blood," she said under her breath.

Lily came down the stairs. "Okay, well, Charlotte's out of that sticky stuff, but Whiskers is still on the wall."

Remus said, "I just want you to know that I had nothing to do with this. It was those two." He pointed at Sirius and James.

~*~

"Nope."

"Not a bit."

"Are you kidding?"

"Of course not."

***

The end of term feast was fantastic. The Gryffindors won the House championship again.

The four Marauders kept glancing at the Slytherin table, then at each other, during the whole meal, like they were expecting something.

Near the end of the feast, a loud noise erupted from the Slytherin table. All the Slytherin boys (and a few girls) looked like crosses between animals and humans. They were also brightly colored. Lucius Malfoy had a ferret-like appearance (AN: Haha. Just had to put that in, since his son turns into a ferret in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire…) with blue body fur, an orange nose, and a yellow tail. Snape looked like a very ugly eagle, since he had green feathers, a turquoise beak, and purple wings. Malfoy's girlfriend, Narcissa, had had the good fortune to not be transformed and started giggling at the way her boyfriend looked.

James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter had stood up in their seats and were bowing to the applause of the other students. "Thank you, thank you!"

"So that's what you were planning," Lily said as they sat back down.

"Yep." The four boys looked proud of themselves.

***

[Meanwhile…] (AN: Ooh! This part goes with my other fanfic, An Unexpected Love.)

Snape and Malfoy were glaring murderously in the direction of the Gryffindors. Dumbledore and McGonagall had changed them back to their normal selves, but they were still angry.

"They're going to pay for that," Malfoy muttered.

"I'll say," Snape agreed.

"Oh, come on," Narcissa said. "Think of it this way. This is our last day. You won't have to see them again after tomorrow."

"They're still going to pay," her boyfriend replied.

***

[The next day]

The students were boarding the Hogwarts Express.

James, Lily, Sirius, and Koren were in one compartment. Charlotte, Remus and Peter were in another.

***

"We're all gonna owl each other, right?" Koren asked.

"Yeah, of course," answered Lily.

"Okay." Koren snuggled up to Sirius, who put an arm around his girlfriend.

"Just tell us when you decide to get hitched, okay?" he said to the couple across from him.

"Sirius." Lily and James laughed.

They heard a voice from the next compartment. "Go away, Malfoy."

"That sounded like Remus," Koren commented.

Sirius and James stood up. "Marauders to the rescue," Sirius said, sliding open the compartment door.

Remus and Lucius Malfoy both had their wands out. They were shooting death glares at each other. Charlotte was next to him. Peter was hovering in the background, looking worried. Snape was glaring at the Marauders just as murderously as Malfoy was. Narcissa was standing behind Lucius.

"What's going on, Moony?" James asked, looking over Sirius's shoulder.

"He called her a you-know-what," the brown-haired boy replied, never taking his eyes off his foe.

"Remus, it's okay. It doesn't matter," Charlotte said, nervously twisting a long strand of dark hair around her finger.

"It does to me."

Malfoy threw a curse at him, and soon, everyone (except Narcissa) was in the fight.

(AN: Sorry if I messed up the following spells.)

"Petrificus Totalus!"

"Furnunculus!"

"Engorgio!"

"Rictusempra!"

"Stupefy!"

Koren stopped trying to use her wand and just plain fought. She kicked Snape in the shin and also in the place that would have made any guy wince in pain (AN: Haha. You guys got that, right?).

By the end of the battle, Peter, who had gotten in Snape's way, was lying on the floor of the compartment, unable to move. Malfoy and Snape had boils all over them. Sirius and Remus looked swollen. Koren and James couldn't stop laughing. Lily and Charlotte had been Stunned.

"Lucius," whispered the only person in the compartment who had not gotten hit by a spell. "Let's go."

Snape muttered something under his breath as he got up. Malfoy looked at the former Gryffindors. "You are all going to regret this. You're going to pay for what you put us through at school."

The two boil-covered boys left the compartment. Narcissa looked at the young adults still in the compartment with an apologetic look on her face (or as apologetic as a former Slytherin can get) before turning to go after her fiancé and his friend.

***

[20 minutes later]

The mess had been cleaned up. Everyone was back to normal.

Koren leaned against Sirius for support and said, "Was it my imagination, or did Snape say that I would pay for what I did to him?"

Her friends shrugged.

"Okay. Hey, would you guys mind going into the other compartment? We girls gotta talk."

"All right. Come on," James said.

Koren and Charlotte sat down across from Lily. "Okay, I have to know something," said the blonde.

"What?" Lily asked.

"Are you going to say yes to James or what? And if the answer's yes, then when?"

The redhead knew exactly what her friend was talking about. "I still don't know. I won't say yes until I feel that I'm ready."

Charlotte smiled. She and Lily had already had a conversation about James's marriage proposal.

Koren grinned. "If Sirius asked me to marry him, I'd say yes."

"Really?"

"All right, so I don't know for sure. It depends on the situation… But I'm definitely leaning toward yes."

***

[Meanwhile…]

The four boys had been listening at the compartment door. Sirius pulled away when he heard what his girlfriend had said. He smiled softly to himself.

James noticed this and said, "What's up, Padfoot?"

"Nothing."

"Okay." James readjusted his glasses and pressed his left ear to the compartment door again.

***

"What about you, Charlotte? What would you say if Remus asked you to marry him?"

In the other compartment, Remus started choking on nothing (AN: *grins* Don't know why I made him so nervous in this fic…).

Charlotte looked down and petted Whiskers, who was in her lap. "I don't know. Maybe I'd say yes. Maybe I'd say no. I'm not sure."

Lily tilted her head. "Do you hear something?"

The other two girls fell silent and listened. As Koren looked at the door, a thought entered her mind. She got up, trying not to make a lot of noise. When she reached the door, she opened it quickly and stepped aside.

Remus, James, and Peter fell into the compartment in an undignified heap.

"What were you guys doing?" Lily asked, hands on her hips.

"Oh. Er—nothing."

"Uh huh. Sure," Koren said skeptically. "How long were you guys listening?"

"We weren't listening. We were just… leaning against the door."

"And why were you leaning against the door?" Charlotte asked, joining in the interrogation.

"Because… we were practicing our—" James started.

"—leaning skills," Peter finished for him.

"Leaning skills?" Koren started laughing. "That's the best you can do? Leaning skills? Come on, you're the Marauders. You can come up with something better than that."

Sirius smiled at the three girls. "Well, we were mesmerized by you beautiful angels, so we couldn't think of a good excuse."

Koren rolled her eyes and stepped over the three boys on the floor. "Okay, Sirius saved your butts this time, but next time—we show no mercy to eavesdroppers."

Lily pulled James up. "How much did you hear?"

"We didn't hear anything," Peter said. "We were concentrating on leaning, remember?"

Charlotte said, "Really. How much did you hear?"

Remus got up and brushed off his clothes. "Not much."

"And how much is 'not much'?"

"Uh—everything?"

Koren looked at Sirius, slightly panicked. "Everything? You heard everything?"

He just smiled mysteriously at her.

Lily said, "You boys have got to learn to stop listening to our conversations."

*~*

[1st year]

"So what do you think of the people at Hogwarts so far?" Lily asked Charlotte and Koren.

"Most of them seem nice," Charlotte replied.

"Yeah, but some people aren't," Lily answered, scowling in James's direction. The boy went upstairs, followed by his friends.

"What do you have against James?" Koren asked.

"Just about everything he says or does annoys me. And so do his friends."

Charlotte remarked, "Remus is nice, though."

"Sirius is kind of cute." (AN: Yeah, she doesn't know she likes him yet. Just commenting on how he looks and acts.)

Lily and Charlotte stared at Koren.

"Oh. Oops. Was that out loud?" The blonde turned red with embarrassment.

Suddenly, the girls heard a thump, and an audible cry of, "Ow!"

"What was that?" Lily wondered. She had definitely heard someone, but she couldn't see anyone else besides the other two girls in the common room.

Sirius and James seemed to appear out of thin air. "Uh, hi?"

The redhead noticed that James was now holding a silvery cloak (AN: Was it silver? Can't remember the description…). "You have an Invisibility Cloak?"

"Uh huh."

"Why were you two spying on us?" she demanded.

"We weren't spying. We were… Well, not spying. I just don't know what we were doing."

"Potter."

"I think I'm gonna go now," James said, taking a few steps backward.

Sirius was grinning at Koren, who was blushing like crazy. She realized that he had heard what she'd said about him.

~*~

Lily pulled James into the compartment they had originally been in. Koren and Sirius sat down too.

***

[A while later]

James looked at Sirius and Koren, who had fallen asleep and were leaning against each other. He then looked at Lily, who was sleeping as well. He smiled and kissed her on the forehead, feeling like he was the luckiest man on Earth, just because he was with her.

(AN: Whoa. Didn't know I had more sap in me…)

TO BE CONTINUED…

Author's Note: Whew! I successfully made this chapter longer than usual. Yes! And y'all gotta appreciate my efforts, because it's really hot in this room and it's midnight…

BIG THANK YOU TO: Dragyn, Masqu erade, Felicity Aulia Evans, Potpourri, Kimmy Larisa, Shadow Child, TriSuki, Sierra Sitruc, Puddles, darkdevil4eva1989, Taty-Chelle, and all the anonymous reviewers!