Fifth Year of the Marauders
Chapter 1.
Lily lay wide-awake in her 4 poster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was almost 3 in the morning but she couldn't sleep for many reasons. One that she had a potions exam the next day that she was worried about failing. Another that one of he roommates, Lullany, was talking in her sleep. And finally James Potter.
She and James had been best friends since their first year at Hogwarts. They talked about everything and she always loved to help with his pranks. She loved pranking and having fun almost as much as the muraders. But lately things had begun to get weird. She couldn't seem to get James out of her mind.
It all started at the begining of the term when James, Lily, Lily's 2 friends Rhianna and Lullany and the rest of the muarders had decided to meet at platform 9 ¾ to start their 5th year together. James and Lily had arrived before their friends and were talking as usual about their summers and new prank ideas to try on the Slytherins. But something was different James was different. He seemed to mature a bit over the summer. He was now taller then Lily was and a lot cuter. His personality had also changed. James seemed to be a lot less silly, He was no longer her immature friends Jamsie, he was a very hot teenage guy.
She smiled to herself at the memory. 'Why can't I get him out of my head?' Lily glanced at the clock and found it was 4 o'clock in the morning. After laying there for a few min, she decided to go down to the common room and read.
As the young Gryffindor descended the stairs she noticed a light in the common room. That was weird at this time of the morning, she was expecting to find the room empty because everyone would be catching up on their last precious hours of sleep before they had to begin their day. Finally she made it to the bottom of the steps and saw the only other soul awake, James Potter.
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James sat back against the chair trying in vain to get comfortable. He soon gave up and just sat there on one of the big overstuffed armchairs in the Gryffindor common room. As he watched the fire crackle he couldn't help but let his mind wander to the reason he was down their in the first place and not in his nice warm bed upstairs. James couldn't get to sleep no matter how hard he tried, he laid awake almost all night before he decided to go down the common room to think. Now he had stayed up think about things before but that was different, that was about an upcoming quidditch game or a new prank idea, it wasn't like this, it wasn't ever about a girl. 'But then again this isn't just any girl', he reminded himself. This was the one and only Lily Evans.
It was true she was never like other girls, the kind that only think about makeup and what bag matches their robes better. She was different; she liked quidditch and pranking as much as James and his friends. The only real thing wrong with the fact that he had a crush on Lily was the fact that she was Lily. She was one of his best friends, he had never thought of her in that way before, until that day anyway.
While waiting for the rest of their friends to show up at platform 9 ¾ he and Lily had a long conversation about their summer. That was when he realized it. She had matured over the summer a lot, both physically and otherwise. She wasn't as giggly and she seemed to be a lot more down to earth. He was almost mad at Sirius when he got there.
After that day things had begun to change he began to look at her differently, not just as a friend but as something more. He longed to be with her as more then just a friend, but he was afraid that she didn't like him and that if he said something about it, it would ruin their friendship and that was the last thing he wanted. However there was the fact that if he didn't tell her he was going to go insane, he couldn't stop thinking about her and looking at her in class. James even found himself not focusing when him and the rest of the marauders where planning their newest prank on the Slytherins. That's when he knew it had gone too far, he had to do something and quick.
Just then James heard a noise on the stairs to the girls dorms. He looked up to see who was intruding on his 24/7 Lily-a-thon. As he lifted his head he saw first a red hair and then he realized who it was. Lily Evans, the causer of his troubles and happiness.
Chapter 2
"Oh no" Lily thought to herself. "There he is."
After taking a deep breath, she decided to go over and talk to him.
"Hey, what are you doing up?" she took a seat in next to him.
"Oh no, what am I going to do? She's right there." James thought to himself quickly before thinking of an answer.
"Hey, I was thinking, what about you?"
"Just thinking."
There was an uncomfortable silence for awhile during which both people were desperately thinking of something to say. James was fighting an internal battle between actually coming out and saying it and just trying to ignore the feeling he got every time he laid eyes on Lily. HE finally decided that he needed to tell her, after all this was affecting his pranking and he couldn't have that.
Lily was in the middle of wigging over what to do when a voice interrupted her thoughts.
" Lily I need to talk to you," James may have looked calm and sounded calm but inside he was having a full on war between 3 different parts of his brain. The first was saying that he was an idiot and that she would never like him like that. The second was saying that he should just ask her now that he had her attention. The third was saying that if he stuck fireworks into a jar on peanut butter it would make a pretty and very tasty explosion.
"Whoa where did that come from?"
"Where did what come from?" Lily asked looking very confused. It wasn't until then that James realized that he said that out loud.
"I uh umm" His mind frantically raced for something remotely intelligent to say. It got to the point where he just said the first thing that popped into his mind. "Will you go out with me?"
He clamped his hand over his mouth the minute he realized what he just blurted out.
Lily just stared at him in utter confusion for a few moments. Finally she voiced what she had been thinking for that past 5 min. "What???!!!!?"
At this point James was ready for the earth to open up and swallow him before he did anything else stupid. He watched Lily with his hand still over his mouth. She was staring and him strangely and looked very perplexed.
'Why is she just staring at me? Does she think I'm joking? Should I act like I was joking? I wish she would say something.' His mind continued to race and every part of his mind was throwing in a comment or two. (He took care to ignore the one that kept rambling on about the importance of strawberry jam on toast.)
Meanwhile Lily was having the same little conversation with herself. She finally decided ' This is stupid, he's my best friend and I like him, it looks like he likes me and I think he just asked me out.'
"Yes" Lily's answer finally broke the silence.
"Really?"
"Yes"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"You're not just joking?"
"James will you just shut up and kiss me?"
"Yes"
"Hey that's my line."
The room fell silent as the two enjoyed a good snog. What the happy couple didn't realize, however was that they had an audience. Fire works shot off from the stairs waking all of Gryffindor tower and interrupting Lily and James. The marauders soon came tumbling down the stairs laughing and congratulating their friends.
"I always knew you two would get together, it was just a matter of time" Sirius exclaimed as he sat on the couch near the fire. "Hopefully now we can start focusing on other, more important things. Like the you know what before our next match against Slytherin.
"As much as I hate to say this Sirius is right we still have a few bugs to work out and I don't feeling like getting caught and having to spend another detention with Filtch cleaning the trophies." Remus put in. -
"Oh you don't need to wait till for all that for your detention, Mr. Lupin." Said a voice from behind them. "Honestly setting off fire works in the common room this early in the morning. Detention and 20 points from Gryffindor Lupin, Black, Potter, Pettigrew and Evans. I thought you had learned you lesson after last week. I'm going to have to start automatically putting you five on the detention list."
There was a group sigh of dismay as she shooed them upstairs to get ready for class.
When Lily reached the 5th year girls dorms everyone else was already awake. She didn't notice this however because she was in a dream world and literally floated into the room. She was still in her own little world when her friends, Lullany, came over and sat down on the bed next to her.
"Lily, Lily, Hey Lils are you in there?" She waved her hand in front of Lily's face and snapped her fingers a few times. "HEY LILY SNAP OUT OF IT!!!!!" Lily jumped, finally back to normal.
"What?"
"Are you ok? First we all wake up to a huge explosion and find you missing then you come floating back in here with this goofy expression on your face. What's your deal?" Lullany was watching Lily expectantly at Lily. When she didn't answer she didn't answer Lullany put all the clues together. " You didn't? Did you? Oh my Merlin you snogged him!"
"Let's see that makes 87 for James, 85 for Remus 70 for Peter and 89 for me." stated Sirius as he consulted that chart that they recorded their detentions. "Damn James got a lucky brake he got a detention and he didn't even do anything."
"I wouldn't call that lucky Padfoot." Remus corrected.
James wasn't really paying attention he wanted to see Lily again. He got roughly pulled out of his daydream when Sirius jumped onto his bed soon to be followed by Remus and Peter.
"Dude you need to snap out of it we have some serious pranking to plan." Sirius yelled.
"Alright guys how are the plans coming for project falcon?"
"I still don't understand why we are calling it project falcon it has nothing to do with a falcon." Stated Remus exasperated.
"Well because Padfoot likes code names, it makes him feel special. Just humor him please we don't want a repeat of the spork incident." James was now pleading with Remus.
Moony rolled his eyes in response.
"Ok focus! How are the plans coming?"
"Well we have phases one and two worked out but we are still having trouble with the timing on 3 we need Remus to do all that math stuff."
"I'll have to do that later tonight I still have some make-up work to do from last week's full moon."
"Ok then all we have left to do is get the supplies for phase 4 and we're done" Peter finished.
"We can do all that later right now we are later for diner and something tells me James will be sorely missed cough Lily cough"
James threw a pillow at moony as they headed out the down and down to the common room.
When they reached the great hall they found Lily Rhia and Lullany sitting together towards the middle of the table. James sat down next to Lily and the other 3 filled in around them. As soon as they all sat down they heard whispers coming from the other Gryffindors.
'Did you hear about Lily and James?'
'Are they really going out'
James smiled to himself and glanced at Lily. They came to a silent agreement and got up from their seats. James helped Lily up on to the table (A/N ah a true gentlemen)"Can I have everyone's attention please?" Roared Jame's voice. When all eyes where on him he continued. "Yes it is true, Lily and I are dating thank you all for your interest in our love lives."
And with that James pulled Lily to him and they shared a passionate kiss right there on the table in front of the entire school. Below them the marauders began to cheer soon to be followed by the rest of the Gryffindors except of course Jame's fan club whom of course where in tears.
When the happy couple sat down the commotion they had caused didn't go away and the teachers tried to quiet everyone down.
"I give it an 8, good idea, good execute but the noise level could use alittle work." critiqued Sirius.
"Nah I give it a 9 the noise level is pretty good but you only got professor Mcgonagall truly mad at you the other ones are trying to keep from laughing. stated Wormtail.
"Actually I thought it was quite good. It was the best uproar one of us has caused without planning since the spork incident argued moony.
"Can we not talk about that please." pleaded Padfoot.
The other solemnly nodded in agreement.
"So girls you want in on project falcon?" said Remus trying to change the subject.
"Depends" stated Rhia.
"On what?" sighed Sirius?
"On whether or not it'll get us detentions."
"Come on Rhi, you know we have a risk of getting a detention if we join them, we always do but that's half the fun." reasoned Lily.
"That's my girl!" cheered James
A collective awww filled the Gryffindor table.
"What do you think Lully? You in?" asked Lily ignoring the rest of the table.
"Sure you not we haven't had anything interesting happen in awhile."
"Great what about you Rhi?" inquired Remus.
Rhia blushed at being addressed by her long time crush but finally answered "sure I'm in"
"Spiffing" cheered James.
"Ok so what we need is for you girls to pick up a few supplies that we need for phase 4 of our plan. James will give you the map, cloak and a list of what we need." informed Peter.
"When do u want us to go?"
"Tomorrow while everyone else is at the quidditch match, we've already preordered what we want so you shouldn't have any trouble." Sirius answered.
The girls nodded they where used to getting vague answers on what they were doing that made it all the more exciting.
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The next day at breakfast James and the girls had to get out of the great hall early to get the cloak, map and list. It was up to the rest of the marauders to create a diversion so they could go unnoticed. Of course there were more then happy to do this. But it couldn't be just any old thing like fireworks or dung bombs, oh no this had to be interesting.
Sirius glanced at Peter who was counting down on his watch. When he reached on Remus transfigured his plate into a guitar. Meanwhile Sirius magically magnified his voice. Remus began to play and Sirius began to walk up to the teaches table and started to sing.
"What would you do if I played quidditch bad would you stand up and walk out on me?"
Remus and Peter transfigured their plates into flowers and began to hand them out to the teaches as Sirius sang the next line.
"Lend me your ears and I'll play you a game and I'll try not to mess up my pass."
When it came time to give Professor Shrank, the Slytherin head of house and potions master, a flower they made sure to give him a yellow one with red in it. Then came the chorus.
"Oh I'm gonna try with alittle help from my team,
I'm gonna fly high with alittle help from my team,
I'm gonna win with alittle help from my team."
By now they were done handing out flowers and Remus and Peter started to sing backup.
"What do I do when my team is away? (Does it worry you to play one on one?)
How do I feel by then end of the game? (Are you sad because your on your all alone?)
Oh I'm gonna try with alittle help from my team,
I'm gonna fly high with alittle help from my team,
I'm gonna win with alittle help from my team
with alittle help from my team!"
With this the boys pointed to each other and then to the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team. Suddenly fireworks went off showing a lion killing a snake with the words "Gryffindor rules" written in scarlet and gold on the bottom. The Gryffindor table erupted in cheers. Moony, Wormtail and Padfoot then high fived and congratulated themselves on completing phase one of "project falcon".
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While the other three marauders were doing their job James had taken the girls up to the tower to get the cloak, map and list. The 4 of them made their way to the statue of the old witch with the hump. After 5 min. of shameless goodluck/good-bye snogging from Lily and James the other girls got impatient and wanted to know what it was they needed to do.
"Ok, so what you need to do is go to Honeyduke's and ask for the "marauder's nest". They will know what you mean. It's already paid for so you just need to pick it up and bring it back to the common room where Wormtail will meet and help set everything up." he paused making sure they all understood. "now go quickly, you never know how long these quidditch matches will last and we need everything needs to be set up when the rest of the house gets back." With that he kissed Lily one more time and ran down the hallway
.
"Those guys have way too much time on their hands." stated Lully.
"If they spent half as much time on their homework as they do on their pranks they probably would have graduated." commented Rhia.
"Yea, but think of it this way, if they did graduate then that would mean they'd have to leave Hogwarts and if that happened it just wouldn't be the same without them." reasoned Lily smiling.
The others nodded in agreement and started down the path towards Honeyduke's.
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"Oh that was a cheep shot!" yelled Christine Dara a Gryffindor 6th year and announcer of the quidditch matches. " I guess the Slytherins can't take a joke, they seem to be even meaner (AN. is that a word?) Since this morning's breakfast."
And it was true it seemed as though they had taken the marauder's song and dance routine personally. Their beaters were merciless which didn't help Remus, who every time he caught sight of the snitch, a bludger would be hit at him. Sirius was doing his best to keep the bludgers away from his teammates along with the other Gryffindor beater, Brandon Fisette. James and the other 2 chasers Allyson Erickson and Elizabeth Pienkosz were also have quite a bit of trouble.
The Slytherins seemed to pop out of nowhere. Even the Gryffindor's keeper Heather McDermott couldn't tell when they were going to show up and score. Luckily she had pretty good reflexes and caught the quaffle before it went in 5 times out of ten.
"This is insane I knew the Slytherin team was good this year but this is ridicules. Oh Slytherin scores again." Boomed Christine's commentary over the Slytherin celebrations. "What's this? Gryffindor calls a time out."
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"Guys I'd hate to break it to you but we're doing pretty crappy." stated James as his team landed around him.
"I don't know what they charmed themselves with but they are actually good. They seem to be everywhere." stated an exasperated Allyson.
"I agree with Ally, we can't get away from them." sighed Elizabeth.
The team was silent for a minute while they all tried to think of a solution. "I've got it!" cried Remus happily. " Do you remember that thing we tried in practice a few weeks ago, the surprise, surprise play?"
"Oh! We should have thought of that before!" yelled Brandon alittle too loud.
"SHHHHHH!" the rest of the team cried in unison.
"The key to the surprise, surprise play is the element of surprise." explained Heather.
"Ok, does everyone know what we're doing?" asked James. When everyone nodded they lifted into the air to begin the play.
Once in the air everyone went to their usual positions, but as soon as Madam Chad blew the whistle everyone started to move. Sirius and Brandon tossed their bludgeons to Ally and Lizzy, who were to be the beaters. Sirius then took his spot as a chaser along with Remus and Heather. Brandon took Heather's place as keeper. James then took the job of seeker, he wasn't spouse to be catching the snitch but stopping the other team from getting it.
It seemed as though their plan was working. The Slytherins had no clue what was going on. The new chasers scored 3 times before they knew what was going on.
At this point James yelled "P3" and everyone switched again.
This time:
Seeker: Ally
Keeper: Sirius
Beaters: Heather and James
Chasers: Brandon, Elizabeth, and Remus.
Again the Slytherins were lost. It took them longer to figure out who was doing what this time because they had just gotten used to P2. They scored without problem 4 more times when James yelled "P1."
The Gryffindors once again changed but this time back to their original positions. Luckily right after Remus resumed looking for the snitch he found it. He also didn't have much competition because the Slytherin seeker was still alittle flustered, so he caught it easily winning the game for Gryffindor.