Two days later, Remus came tearing up the steps and into the boys dormitory. James and Sirius were sitting on the floor playing an interesting version of Wizarding chess. Each time one captured another's piece, not only did the piece get pummeled, but the winning piece's owner got to cast a hex on the loser. When Remus walked in he noticed James had a tail and was wearing a pink dress. Sirius had six fingers on each hand and his head seemed abnormal round. Just as James's castle attacked one of Sirius's bishops, James pulled out his wand and cast the jelly-legs curse, causing Sirius's legs to fold onto themselves.

"How useless, James. It's not like we're standing up," Sirius commented.

"We've been at this too long, I'm running out of creative hexes," James shot back.

"Look," Remus said, bounding over to them. "Peter turned his cat green!"

"So?" Sirius said, looking back at the chessboard. "His mother will give him hell for that, I bet."

"No, you don't get it, he turned his cat green. He's fine. Completely! He'll be back next week!"

James and Sirius both jumped up and the three danced around the room, whooping and hollering, in the process knocking over several stacks of books and the chess set.

The door opened slightly and Frank peered in. "Lunatics," he muttered. "Absolute lunatics." Then he walked out, apparently deciding that whatever he'd come for was not all that important.

The Marauders ran down the stairs and into the Common Room. "Peter's coming back on Monday," James declared to Lily and company, who were sitting in the corner.

"Really? That's great news," Alice said as she smiled widely. The rest of the group nodded in agreement.

"What're you lot up to?" Sirius asked, looking down at the cards sitting on the table.

Lily quickly reached over and snapped them up, "Absolutely none of your business, Sirius Black."

Sirius and James looked at one another with manic glints in their eyes. Remus just rolled his eyes and took several steps back from his friends.

James quickly jumped forward and pulled on Lily's long, red pigtails and Sirius took the chance to grab the deck of cards out of her hand.

Lily jumped up, "Ohhh, James Potter, you'd better run because if I catch you, Peter will be back just in time to go visit you at St. Mungo's!" She began chasing James around the room.

"Give me the cards, Sirius," Tessa said, holding out her hand.

"Sorry, luv," he replied and began to look through them, reading them out loud. "1. What was your most embarrassing moment?" He looked at the girls and then at the next card. "12. If you could marry anyone, right now, who would it be?" He looked at them again. "What is this?" he asked, thoroughly bewildered.

"None of your business, luv," Tessa said, sarcastically. "It's a girl game, now give it." A loud crash distracted them all as Lily, pummeling James, knocked them both over the couch and onto the floor. At that point, Alice and Melissa rushed over and hauled Lily off James, who was now sporting one heck of a shiner. Lily was struggling against Alice and Melissa, but had little chance of winning.

"Lemme go, Mel. Lemme go. He pulled my hair. I hate it when he pulls my hair," she shrieked. The two of them pulled Lily towards their dormitory stairs and a moment later she was out of sight. While he was distracted, Tessa took the moment to grab the cards out of Sirius's hand and make a beeline for the other girls.

"I was right all along," James groaned as he sat up and tentatively touched his eye. "She is completely and totally deranged." Sirius and Remus both chuckled and helped James to the couch he'd just fallen over.

"What's that?" Remus said, pointing to a few pieces of paper on the floor. He walked over, picked them up, and gasped.

"What, Remmy?" Sirius asked.

"It's their answers!"

"Huh?" James asked.

"We've got to get those cards," Sirius said. At that moment Frank and Rebecca climbed in through the portrait. "I've an idea." He strolled over to Rebecca.

"Hey, Rebecca," Sirius greeted her. "Your friends and I have just gotten into a bit of a tiff over this stilly game they were playing.

"Veritaserum?" she said bitterly. "I hate that game."

"Yup, I believe that's the one. They said only girls can play it, but we'd like to take a crack at it. They got mad at us for no real reason, but I'm pretty sure they're done playing, can you pinch the cards for us, so we can see what this game is all about?"

"I don't see why you'd want to play. It's really a stupid game. Some of the questions are ridiculous, most of them really. And I thought guys would be far less likely to like sitting around chatting about who they're going to marry and how many kids they want," Rebecca said and then saw the determined look on Sirius's face. "Why do I suspect you have an ulterior motive, Sirius Black?"

Sirius put on his best innocent face, "We're really just bored and curious. Never a good combination with us, you know."

"Oi, do I ever. I've never had so many Slytherins glare at me in the hallway."

"Are you implying we had something to do with that?" Sirius asked.

"You lot? Never," she replied, the last word dripping with cynicism. At that moment she broke out into a grin, "I'll see what I can do about getting you the cards." Rebecca dug into her bag and handed a book to Frank, "Here, this is your, mum sent it to me." Then she headed for her dormitory.

"Nice shiner," Frank commented to James. "How'd you acquire that?"

"Lily."

"No way. Lily?" Frank burst into laughter and the three retold the tale of the great chase. By the time they finished, Rebecca had returned.

"Here you go," she handed over the cards to Sirius. "You're going to regret playing this." She turned around and headed right back to where she'd come from.

"Your sister's not half bad, Frank," Sirius said.

Frank glared at him, "I was under the impression you were attached to Tessa, Black. Stay away from my sister."

James and Remus laughed at that comment.

"I am, I am. Bloody girl, won't give in and admit she's got no idea what we're doing yet," Sirius muttered.

"Bloody boy, won't give in and admit he's got no idea what they're doing either," James said as Remus grabbed the deck of cards from Sirius before he attacked James.

"So," Remus interrupted. "This game, Veritaserum, anyone familiar with it?"

"The game from hell, according to Becca. She hates it," Frank commented. "I've always been curious about it, though."

Remus pulled the papers out of his cloak pocket and grinned. "We found the girl's answers. We just needed the cards to know what the heck they were the answers to."

Frank's eyes widened, "Bloody brilliant."

James shrugged and smiled, "We try. Well, four girls, four boys, shall we pass the papers out, one to a man? We'll take turn reading the questions."

Remus nodded and handed a paper to each one, face down, keeping the last one for himself. "I'll read the first question." He opened the pack and dumped the cards into his hand. "1. What was your most embarrassing moment?" Then he paused. "You know guys, the girls probably wouldn't want us reading these."

"Someday, Remmy, we will manage to kill that thing you call a conscience, for today however, just ignore it," Sirius commented, and then grabbed his paper. "Well, I've got Melissa. Oh well this isn't a real answer, says she's never had a most embarrassing moment." He grinned wickedly, "We'll have to fix that for her sometime."

James shook his head. "Let's see, Lily says 'When Lucius Malfoy called me a Mudblood in front of the entire Defense Against the Dark Arts class'. When did that bastard do that?" James asked, rather angry.

"The day after you shrunk your head in Potions," Frank said. "I remember that, I felt really bad for her."

"Mudblood is a low blow," Remus commented quietly. James continued to sit there seething.

"Well, Alice's is pretty amusing," Remus continued glancing down at his own paper. "Apparently she was attacked by pixies when she was nine, they picked her up and hung her upside down, exposing her knickers to her whole primary school." The four boys chuckled. "Frank?"

Frank looked down at his paper and laughed out loud, "Well, according to Tessa, her most embarrassing moment was snapping and kissing Sirius Black one night. 'Haven't figured out how to get rid of him since' she added after that." James, Remus and Frank started to laugh as Sirius glowered at them.

James took the cards from Remus. "2. What do you want to be when you grow up?" He wrinkled his nose. "That's not a very interesting one." He looked at his paper, "Lily has no idea."

"Neither does Alice," Remus put in.

"Nor Tessa," Frank countered.

"Melissa claims to want to spend her entire life developing the perfect parchment," Sirius chuckled. "I suspect a bit of sarcasm in that one." Sirius reached for the cards. "3. How many kids do you want to have?" He paused. "Who cares, let's look for a good one here. 4…. no. 5… uh huh. 6… hmm, ok. 6. If you had to feed one of the people playing this game to a hippogriff right now, who would it be and why?"

"Well that's a bit nasty," Frank commented. The others shrugged, curious as to how girls would react to the question.

Sirius picked up the paper, "Melissa says…" he took a second looking for the corresponding answer. "Ah, says herself because it's the easiest answer." He cocked his head to the side for a second, "That seems like a cheat answer."

"Well, Lily's got the same one," James replied.

"Ditto for Tessa."

"And Alice," Remus concluded.

Frank clucked his tongue, "Dull girls." He reached for the deck. "7. Who do you hate?" He looked at the other a bit surprised and then looked at his own paper frowning and then shook his head. "Sorry, a rare burst of chivalry wins on this one. I really don't think Tessa wants anyone to know this answer."

"Do you really think any of the girls want any of us knowing any of these answers?" Sirius asked.

Frank just shrugged. "I'm not telling and I'll eat the paper if you try to grab it and read it yourself."

Remus jumped in, "Well Alice hates Nackle. Her and every other Gryffindor, I'd think."

James read his paper and then glared at it, "Well then," he said in a huffy tone. "Lily apparently hates me." The others looked at him surprised. He just shrugged. "Sirius?"

"Melissa hates…" he glanced down at the paper again. "Bellatrix Black? Wow. I wasn't expecting that one. I'm thinking I don't even want to know why."

Remus took the deck back, "Hmm… 12. If you could marry anyone, right now, who would it be? According to Alice…" he stopped. "Oh." He looked a bit perplexed. "Sorry, in an attack of conscience, I'll have to pull a Frank. I'm not answering this one."

The other three grumbled, but Remus held firm.

"Fine. Fine," Frank grumbled. "Well Tessa," he scanned the paper and burst into laughter again. "Sirius, she'd marry Sirius right now. The girl must be more of a madcap than I'd previously given her credit for."

"Did she not claim to regret kissing me just a few questions ago?" Sirius asked, perplexed. The three other boys just shrugged.

"Girls," Frank commented and the other three nodded in agreement.

Sirius jumped in, "Melissa is apparently adamant about not getting married. Sorry chaps."

James looked down and then glanced over at Remus, "Well apparently Lily would like to be Lily Lupin."

"What?" Remus asked, visibly startled.

"I guess all those, we're just friends lines were only coming from your side, eh Remmy?" Sirius joked.

Remus looked rather uncomfortable. Then he rolled his eyes and muttered, "Girls" with a pained expression on his face. "Alright then, he announced. Enough of this game." He grabbed the other three sheets of parchment before the boys could stop him and held out his wand "Inscendio" he said and the parchments burst into flame, leaving only a heap of ashes in front of them.

The other three boys let out yells of anger for spoiling their fun. Remus looked right at James and Sirius, "Hanging out with you gits may be beginning to destroy my conscience, but hopefully, I'm wearing off on you two, too. That was wrong. We shouldn't have been reading them and we'd flip out if they ever invaded our privacy like that." He grabbed the deck of cards and walked to the bottom of the girls dormitory. "Rebecca!" he yelled up the steps. A moment later she came running down, he thrust the cards into her hand. "Thanks, but I can see exactly what you mean about this game."

Rebecca just raised her eyebrow and then patted his shoulder, walking back up the stairs.



~~*~~




Early Monday morning, as James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin slept, the fourth Marauder climbed through the portrait hole, up the stairs to the boys dormitory and through the entrance to the First Years dorm room. He put down a book bag jammed with school work and a duffle bag of assorted clothes and other items. He had the look of a boy who had lost a lot of weight in a little time, but not in a healthy manner. Nearly as skinny as James now, he still appeared rather sickly. The large bandage covering his neck only aided this appearance. However, had you seen this boy at this moment, all that you would've noticed was the massive smile on his face and look of absolute joy in his eyes as he surveyed the room and listened to his friends sleep.

Peter sat down quietly at his desk, not wishing to awaken any of them. He pulled out his herbology text to finish a very large assignment that had been due for the rest of them before the break. He would still be behind in all the practical assessments in his class, but Peter had worked very hard to keep up with the paperwork. In the back of his mind, the entire time he'd been getting better was the worry that he's lost his magical abilities. If that was true, he had wanted to make sure that he knew as much about the magical world as possible before he was officially removed from it.

He would never know how very close he had been to losing his abilities; however, the doctors had known and they were absolutely positive that without the added effect of the few pints his friends had contributed to him, he would be a squib. Peter would never thank them though, as this was perhaps the biggest and only secret James Potter and Sirius Black would both go to the grave without revealing to anyone.

Just as Peter was finishing up his bibliography, he heard a stirring from James's bed. He grinned slightly. Always the first to get up, he thought. But Sirius will be right behind him. It's almost as though their bodies run on the same clock. Sure enough, before James had quite managed to begin trying up his curtains, Peter could head Sirius moving about his bed. A moment later, Peter saw a hand snake around the curtain of both James and Sirius's bed as they began to tie back their curtains. They even had a method to that, Peter noticed. Sirius and James would tie back the curtains that separated their beds from one another and cheerfully greet one another. Then they'd go about tying back the other three sides on their respective beds.

James and Sirius then bounded from their beds, already chattering and made their way to the bathroom. Peter chuckled slightly at the fact they didn't even notice him, but he had overheard something along the lines of 'but if Remus distracts her, I can use the Changerous charm… perfect revenge'. He knew they were already plotting. The water turned on in the bathroom, first the sounds of one of the sinks, quickly followed the by rush of water from the shower. About ten minutes later, there was a loud thump from Frank's bed and he slid out from the curtains, leaving them drawn for the time being, rubbing his head and muttering to himself. He started towards the bathroom, stopped and then spun around, looking at Peter.

Still rubbing his head, he grinned and appeared to be searching for what to say. "Morning, Pete." Then he stumbled back towards the bathroom.

"Morning, Frank," Peter called after him, putting his parchment and quill back into his book bag. Five minutes or so later, Sirius emerged from the bathroom, still brushing his teeth. He looked over towards his bed, searching for something, and happened to catch a glimpse of Peter. He gagged on his toothpaste, causing Peter to chuckle and ran back into the bathroom to haul out a sopping wet James.

"Pete!" James yelled.

"Mushve mishishd oo," Sirius said with a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Huh?" Pete replied, making a face.

"We missed you!" James translated for him.

"Would you shut up!" Remus roared from his bed. The three chuckled.

"No," Peter yelled back at him. A second later Remus's head was poking out of the foot of his bed.

"Peter?"

"No, Peeves. Of course it's Peter," James yelped and Sirius ran back to the bathroom to spit out his toothpaste.

Remus, still looking dazed from sleep, mumbled, "Hey Pete. Glad your back. Shut up." And crawled back under the covers.

"Nice to know some things will never change," Peter grinned.

Much to everyone's surprise, a moment later Remus appeared from his bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, all four Marauders made their way down to breakfast for the first time in nearly three months.



~~*~~




"You did that to Filch's cat? Clearly you've all lost your minds while I was gone," Pete said as he choked on a piece of sausage. "His cat… holy Merlin."

Remus and James smiled proudly.

"I hear your Slytherin prank went well too," Peter commented. "Although I've already heard murmurs in the hallways about revenge."

Sirius shrugged and bit into a piece of bacon. Then his self constraint crumbled and he broke into a wide grin, quietly reliving the actions of the Slytherin prank for Peter's benefit. In the middle of his explanation Frank and Rebecca had joined the four Marauders. They settled in and listened to his retelling. Near the end, the other four girls of the 'Gryffindor five' had walked into the Great Hall and sat down with the Marauders. Tessa sat right next to Sirius but was Lily as far away from James as she could get. When the bell rang to signal the beginning of morning classes, the group started off.

"You suppose Lily's still mad at you?" Remus asked James.

"I certainly hope so. It was nice not listening to her chattering away about Transfiguration or some other daft subject first thing in the morning for a change," James grumbled.

"Why's Lily mad at you?" Peter piped in.

"Because she's a know-it-all, fusspot, prissy, tattletale nag," James said a bit too loudly. Up at the front of the group Lily had overheard him.

She spun around. "Know-it-all, fusspot, prissy, tattletale nag?" She countered, each word getting slightly shriller than the last. "Better than a lazy, no good, idiotic, big headed, coasting prankster with the overall IQ of a sleeping flobberworm," she hissed and then pulled out her wand. "I'm so sick of you and your oh-so-superior attitude, James Potter. Vindictricus!" She didn't even stop to watch the effect of her spell as she stormed off towards the transfiguration classroom.

However, her spell caught the attention of the rest of the group. None of them had recognized the spell, but its effect was apparent immediately. James's head began to swell like a balloon. It continued to grow and grow until James toppled over and had to lay down. The entire group stood transfixed as James head reached the size of a watermelon and continued growing still. At this point both Melissa and Remus took off towards the Hospital Wing with the same idea in mind. Their actions broke the trance of the others, and as they darted down the corridor they could hear the remaining six Gryffindors shooting various spells at James, trying to shrink his head back to its proper size.

By the time Melissa and Remus arrived back, with Madame Pomfry in tow, the group had succeeded in stopping the spell, but not reversing it, and, in the process, the had managed to turn James's head blue, then red, leaving him with an odd purple tint and he appeared to be sprouting little lights that were burning up his hair. The boy was yelling at the others and obviously trying to avoid shrieking in pain and nearby, a group of Slytherins stood laughing like hyenas.

Madame Pomfry reached James and stopped for a moment, the look on her face changed and the sides of her mouth twitched, it appeared as though she was trying not to laugh. She quickly immobilized James and then conjured up a stretcher, taking him off with her towards the Hospital Wing and chiding all the students to hurry off to class.

"We're gone less than ten minutes and you set him on fire?" Melissa asked.

"It's actually a pretty common occurrence, Melissa," Remus commented. "What surprised me was that he was purple."

The group made their way to the Transfiguration class discussing James's strange state the rest of the way. Upon entering, they informed Professor McGonagall that James was in the Hospital Wing and broke off to sit down. The girls flocked over to Lily to try and figure out what on Earth she'd done to him and give her the blow by blow after she'd left. The three Marauders sat down in their seats in the back of the class.

"Man, it's good to be back," Peter commented, chuckling slightly at the memory of James.



~~*~~




For the next week, the Marauders made sure to constantly comment on James's "big head" and warn him to watch out. They'd learned that the spell Lily had cast forced James to appear as she saw him, which only caused them to be even more amused.

None of the other Marauders realized that this was the start of a war that would continue for another fifteen months between James and Lily. While earlier they had managed to put aside their differences for their friend's sake, the two had completely had it now and were no longer in the mood to deal with one another for any extended period. Before the second week ended, James had managed to turn Lily's hair green one day and purple another, before turning in her Charms homework, he cast a spell so it appeared to be written entirely in Swahili, whenever possible he'd pull her pigtails because he knew she hated it, after learning their first levitation charm James had worked hard to master it, thus allowing him to levitate Lily one day in the Common Room, not only scaring her half to death, but when he accidentally broke the charm too early, she fell, exposing a pair of pink knickers to the entire house… only an added bonus in the war of embarrassment, as far as James was concerned. However, Lily wasn't taking this sitting down, the day after Lily walked into the Great Hall with green hair, James walked into the Great Hall with no hair, after turning it purple, she retaliated and cast a tricky little spell that turned his uniform into the girls version, knee socks and all. After translating her homework into Swahili for Charms, later that afternoon James found his quidditch magazines had been charmed into magazines that told beauty tips and health secrets, with a little note attached that if he expected to be able to pull of the skirt and knee socks correctly, he'd have to do a bit of work. After exposing her knickers to the entire House James hadn't received any sort of retribution… which at first he'd taken as a sign of her admitting defeat, but was now slightly worrying him.

The other Marauders quickly noticed this change in both Lily and James. One afternoon James came sprinting in through the portrait hole and headed straight for the boys dormitory, cackling his, what Peter had quickly took to calling, Lunatic Lily laugh. At first the other's had thought that Peter was crazy, but they'd hastily realized that it was in fact James who was missing a few marbles on the subject of Lily Evans and the title Lunatic Lily cackle wound up sticking around. A few moments after James and his cackle had retreated, a soaking wet, red faced Lily sloshed her way through the portrait hole and then stopped to lean against the wall. Completely unaware of the three sets of eyes of her, her eyes suddenly lit up with a crazed look and a cackle, nearly identical to the Lunatic Lily cackle of James's, was emitted from her mouth and she sprinted over to the small bookshelf on the other side of the Common Room, grabbed a book and headed for her room. The three Marauders looked at one another and shook their heads.

"Still betting those ten galleons, Remus?" Sirius inquired.

"Yup," he said. "Speaking of deranged couples, whom we will someday get to mock mercilessly for their early actions, how are you and Tessa? I've noticed she doesn't sit with us anymore at breakfast."

"We broke up," Sirius said. "I knew there was something I kept forgetting to tell you lot."

"Oi!" Peter exclaimed. "How long ago?"

"Two weeks maybe?" Sirius closed his eyes in thought. "You know, I'm not even sure anymore. Shortly after Lily turned James's head into a massive bowling ball, but before the two really went insane I think."

Peter turned to Remus, "Did you ever ask…"

Remus cut him off abruptly, "About the hollygolumps? Yes I did, Pete. They're not so bad."

"The whats? What the heck is a hollygolump?" Peter looked confused. "I was going to ask about Me…"

Remus cut him off again. "No, I didn't. Now shut up," he hissed.

It was far too late for any mercy from Sirius. "Now I really doubt Peter was going to ask about himself… which would lead me to wonder, who else could he be talking about?" He tapped his finger under his chin three times. "Could it be the lovely Melissa Denezyuk?"

Remus blushed bright red.

Sirius slung his arm around Peter, "Aw, Petey, our little boy is growing up. Before you know it, we'll have to explain the birds and the bees to him." He glanced over at Peter who was chuckling. "I'd say I'll leave the talk up to you… but I'm under the impression you still believe in the stork, so I guess I'll have to do it." Sirius was shifting into overdrive; the other two boys could sense it but were helpless to stop it. He bounded off the chair and onto the couch next to Remus. "Now Remmy, when two people love each other very much…"

"Oh gosh," Remus groaned and pushed Sirius off the couch and onto the floor with a thud.

"So what do you plan on doing about this, Remus?" Sirius asked, trying to look serious as he sprawled across the floor. "Drag her off, medieval maiden in distress style, to the astronomy tower? No, that doesn't seem like a suitable style for you. Hmmm… don't suppose you'd be into handcuffs? Or perhaps you are," Sirius raised an eyebrow. Remus pitched a book at him.

"We're eleven. Where do you find this stuff? Is there a book of crude and inappropriate things to say that you memorized? I'm not planning on doing anything at all about it," Remus said quietly.

"I reckon he almost hopes that if he ignores it long enough, it'll just go away," Peter commented.

At that moment a loud thumping noise occurred and James ran past them, still cackling his Lunatic Lily laugh, holding what appeared to be water balloons and a decent sized iguana, and then disappeared out the portrait hole.

The three Marauders burst into laughter.

"Good Merlin, what is he going to do with that iguana?" Sirius finally spit out.

Remus, laughing so hard he was nearly crying, just shook his head.

"I'm sure we'll find out soon enough," Peter replied. "If not, we can always just follow the screams."

As though that scene wasn't odd enough, a mere moment after the boys managed to compose themselves, Lily, also still cackling, walked past them dropping pieces of chocolate in a trail to the portrait hole. As she reached the portrait she swung it open and waited a moment. The boys sat there watching her. Then Remus's eyes followed the trail backwards to where a small kimono dragon was actually following the chocolate trail right to Lily, who still had not stopped cackling. A few moments later both Lily and the odd lizard were out of the Common Room.

The Marauders looked at one another wide eyed.

"Where the heck did she get one of those?" Remus asked.

"Transfigured something, maybe? But that's pretty advanced magic," Sirius commented.

"That thing is gonna eat James's iguana," Peter said quite seriously and a moment later the three burst into laughter again.