Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling's toys are her own to play with and she is just letting my barrow them for this fic. I own none of hr brilliant idea's and if you sue me you'll get all the pocket lint I posses, but that's all.
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Only take the time
from the helter skelter
every day you find
everything's in kilter
you don't need a reason
let the day go on and on
What a day
what a day to take to
what a way
what a way
to make it through
what a day
what a day to take to
a wild child
Chapter One: In the Present Past
:: Five Years Later ::
"Lily! Oh, Lily!" James Potter, also known as Prongs, skidded into the room with a great energy. He was calling Lily's name with his hands cupped to his face as if shouting a great distance. Everyone laughed; James was extremely well liked and in the top of his class, he was also a school Prefect. Everyone seemed to marveled at the fact that he could get in so much trouble, remain well liked, and become a Prefect. Everyone except Lily that is, she was also a Prefect, just as well liked and in the top of her class as well. She just couldn't seem to be impressed with James outlandish achievements in trouble making and good looks. It wasn't that she didn't approve of trouble making. Her and her girlfriends (Thalia and Clio) played tricks on people right and left, they however weren't caught very often. So they obviously considered themselves the boys' better halves. Sirius said it just showed that they didn't have a true Marauder's outlook on life, because Marauder's like being caught.
"What is it James?" Lily questioned warily, not bothering to look up from her homework.
"What's something you and your friends have been waiting for, for the past four years?" He asked collapsing into the chair next to her.
"I don't know James, for you and your friends to get expelled?" She said sweetly, looking up with doe eyes.
"No Lily, as happy as you might be, I'm sure Thalia and Clio would be disappointed." He answered, just as sweetly. Adding his version of "the Sirius" (a cocky grin).
He was right of course. Thalia and Sirius were "unofficially" dating. They flirted relentlessly with each other and if someone was foolish enough to make advances to their unofficial significant other, they were immediately hexed or beaten up, depending on how strongly they had been hitting on the others informal boy/girlfriend. Their "dates" mostly consisted of getting into trouble or, on Hogsmead weekends, buying new stuff at Zonkos and getting a Butterbeer afterward. They always went Dutch of course, because, as Thalia said, with her usual wry grin, "You're not dating if you go Dutch." Clio countered this by saying that if you made out with the person while going "Dutch," that you were dating. Thalia would always try to project innocence, but it never worked. So, out would come her "Get Out of Jail Free Card" and she'd corner Clio with a, "You should talk, future Mrs. Lupin!" Clio always went brick red and shut up. Yes, it was true. Well, sort of. Clio and Remus were best friends, and according to them that was all it was. Every one knew that was a lie, but refrained from saying so… most of the time.
"Okay, so if it's not you having a fatal fall from you broomstick, what could it possibly be?" asked Lily.
She had been playing the guessing game for five minutes and she was getting tired of it. Everyone rolled their eyes and left the common room shaking their heads. Lily and James were completely frustrating. One day they were best friends and the next, they were enemies. They were in the patented, "in between stage," at this point. The two probably would have become full-fledged rivals if their best friends weren't all so close.
"Here!" he said, handing her a piece of paper.
Lily blinked in surprise; she had expected it to be a lot harder to get information from him. She looked down curiously at the piece of parchment.
"Mythology and Legends,
The study begins Friday, October 13.
Sign up sheet to be posted in great hall tomorrow morning. The classes will take place Friday afternoons for one hour. It will be small, with limited room available. The exact subjects of myths and legends to be studied are yet to be announced. Please join us if you can, its going to be an interesting year!
-Professor M. P."
"Ooh!" Lily breathed, "I've been waiting for this forever! I have to go Find Thalia and Clio! Thanks James!" She jumped up and placed an exuberant kiss on his cheek before running out of the room, parchment in hand. James was just beginning to pass into a state of fifteen-year-old-boy-bliss, unauthorized by the part of his brain trying to remind him Lily was his God forsaken enemy, when:
"Thanks James!" Sirius said in a high pitched voice, a bad imitation of Lily. Whom he had just seen give squeal (which was very rare), kiss James (on the cheek!), and run out of the room (dang she's fast), passing him as came through the portrait hole. James groaned knowing all too well what was coming. "You're wonderful James, I can't live without you James, I love you James!"
"Shut up Padfoot!" he said turning slightly red.
"Oh, come on then, so you finally wised up?"
"Wised up to what?"
"Don't be stupid Prongs. We all know you and Lily fancy each other, the only thing we don't know is why you two don't act on it."
Raising his eyebrows and grumbling James said, "Probably the same reason you and Thalia don't."
"Not true in the least. Thalia and I don't go out because we know the other might get blasted to bits; the temptation's too strong. But we do act on it." He said grinning in memory of the last Hogsmead weekend.
"You'd better not let Thalia here that, or she'll punish you." James teased, wagging a finger at his friend.
"I'm not scared of Thalia, Prongs." Padfoot said in a bored tone, however, he did rubbed his head in memory of the last painful noogie.
"Well, seeing as you have my life figured out, I guess I can go now. I have to run over Quidditch plays with Mudugus, remember?"
"Hold up, jut one question. Why was she so happy?"
"I just saw those flyers up and thought she might want to see 'em. You know the ones about the mythology class. So I brought it up."
"And you just gave it to her?" Sirius said in disbelief, jaw dropped, while they walked up the steps to their dormitory.
"No, I played a guessing game, but I gave it to her in the end."
"Tusk, tusk Prongs, getting soft in our old age are we?"
"Padfoot, my good man, I'm the same age as you are."
A first year on his way downstairs gave them both very strange looks; Sirius bowed low in a sarcastic manner. The first year ran off knowing he had disturbed the great pranksters in their progress and wished to do it no more, lest he become one of their targets.
"Oh well," Sirius said continuing after the kid ran off, "if it's not old age, then you must be going soft for a woman. Who could it possibly be?" He ended in sarcasm.
James rolled his eyes and threw on his Quidditch robes, refusing to answer.
"I'm warning you James, she's not going to wait forever." Sirius yelled at the retreating back of James, who merely waved. "Honestly, I think I'll go find Thalia, we have some major work to do."
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"Thalia! Clio! Guess what? I have the best news!" Lily hollered as she burst into the dormitory the three shared. Usually dormitories were split between at least four people, but these three had been lucky enough to get a small dormitory all to themselves. It was round, built at the top of the tower with a lot of windows. Technically, it was built right against the wall of a boys' dorm, the Marauders to be specific. The group was working on building a passageway to each other's rooms. Which was exactly what Clio and Thalia had been doing before Lily had firmly shattered their hearing.
"Great day in the morning, Lily!" Thalia stood up and blinked the dust from the hole in the wall away from her eyes. "What's wrong? Did James have a fatal fall in Quidditch practice and you finally realized, all too late, that you're in love?"
"NO THALIA!" She shrieked. Above them in the owlry, its inhabitants took flight. Calming down Lily said, "How many times must I tell you, James and I are just friends… or enemies," she added as an afterthought.
"And how many times must I tell you, that's Bull shit."
"Thalia!" Clio yelled, stomping on her long time friends foot.
While Thalia hopped around howling and holding her foot, yelling things that would only earn her more punishments; Clio turned to Lilly and said, "What is it Lil'?"
"You know that class that we've been waiting for since first year?"
"The Mythology one?"
"Yes, it's starting next Friday. We'll have to go down early tomorrow to sign up before everyone else takes up all the room in the class."
Thalia stopped cursing long enough to catch her breath and say, "I'll wake us up at five A.M. tomorrow. And you all better sleep in your clothes. I don't want to miss this class." She then returned to cursing, only this time she was mumbling about, "Stupid teenagers and their pathetic sleeping patterns."
Rolling their eyes, Lily and Clio went back to work on the passageway. Making a tunnel through a wall wasn't so bad, especially with human bulldozer like the boys and Thalia, a charm expert like Lily, and a magic prodigy like Clio. The hard part was doing it without the teachers noticing; or that nosy git Snape and his number one goon, Malfoy. The trick was to do it slowly and dispose of the items by putting a shrinking charm on them and emptying them in obscure places. As a result of this, the group often was found with small pieces of debris in their pockets and was known to dump them in the lake, at the edge of the forbidden forest, or at Hagrid's.
Lily was just saying it had been to long since they'd seen anything of Hagrid, but not his monster fetish, when a nock at the door was heard. Looking up at the door, then the whole in the wall, and lastly at each other, they began to panic.
What a day
what a day to take to
what a way
what a way
to make it through
what a day
what a day to take to
a wild child
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A.N. Thanks for the reviews so far, I want to give a shout out to my first and foremost beta, Angelic Medusa, thanks for all the encouragement and memories! The song this chapter is" Wild Child" by Enya, from her "A Day Without Rain" album. Go buy that too! R&R!
