AN: I know, I know. I'm going to have to get these up faster if I want to get them done before school. This one is what I call an intermediary chapter...in other words a link between one big event and another so it was harder to write. The next one will be up quicker, promise!

Chapter 17: Rule Number Three

Getting out of the common room without the invisibility cloak, proved less complicated than she had expected. There were very few people back from dinner and the two or three that were there were bent so steadfastly over their piles of home work that they apparently didn't notice a strange girl in a catholic school uniform coming down the stairs from the boys dormitory and walk out through the portrait hole.

Getting through the castle though, proved more difficult.

Once outside the common room, she found herself receiving strange stares from a few of the older students passing in the corridors, and had to conceal herself when ever a teacher passed by. For, she had learned from her two weeks of following the marauders, the professors knew almost all of the students by sight. They would certainly notice a girl that they had never seen before, even if the other students didn't.

And on top of everything, she had absolutely no idea where she was going. Sirius had managed to distract her long enough that she had no hope of following him to meet the others and she didn't have a clue as to where they might be.

She was definitely running out of time now. The windows outside told her that she had a little less than an hour before sun set. Luckily, while wandering along one of the corridors she heard it:

"James Potter! Stop that this instant!"

The unmistakable voice of Lilly Evans told her that James, at least, was around the next corner. And as it just so happened that James was exactly the person she needed to see.

"What are you talking about Lilly? I'm not doing anything." James said in an innocent voice she knew too well. Whatever the idiot was doing this time, Emily was certain it was not something she would approve of.

Quickly, silently, she moved across the hall to hide behind the statue of a large winged horse. Here she could get a fairly clear view of what was going on.

Lilly Evans was standing across from James, Sirius, and Peter with her hands on her hips looking livid.

James was standing in front of her in what he apparently thought to be a charmingly innocent matter, with his hands behind his back, clearly attempting to hide something.

Behind him, Sirius and Peter were having trouble keeping straight faces.They kept stealing amused glances behind them where Severus Snape was crouched silently by the door that Emily recognized as the infirmary. He had his ears pressed to it as if hoping to hear what was happening inside. Meanwhile, he didn't seem to notice that his own hair was growing longer by the second. The hair that was once shoulder length was now falling to the middle of his back and was showing no signs of slowing down.

"Besides if you ask me it's a bit of an improvement..." James said beginning to smirk.

"It's not funny!" Lilly said. Even though Emily could tell that she was trying very hard not to smile.

"Fine, fine." James said sullenly. He pointed his wand at Snape's hair, which immediately returned to its normal length.

"Happy now?" But no sooner were these words out of James's mouth then there was a small flash of light and Snape's now shoulder length hair turned a blinding shade of neon green. Again, Snape didn't seem to be aware of what was going on, as he was now apparently attempting to follow the sound of footsteps along the wall of the hospital wing.

While Snape might not have noticed, Lilly did.

"Potter..." She said threateningly whipping out her own wand. "I'm warning you now, take that curse off of him."

"Wait a minuet!" James said backing up and looking wearily at Lilly's wand. "I really didn't do that!" He said frantically pointing at Snape's now light pink hair.

Lilly automatically lifted her wand to point behind James's shoulder at the other two boys. Peter was now openly laughing while Sirius wore his signature smirk with his wand pointed at the back of Snape's head.

"Couldn't resist." Sirius said still grinning as he flicked his wand and Snape's hair changed back to its normal color.

Lilly lowered her wand.

"Arrogant bastards the lot of you." She muttered frustrated as she turned and stalked away towards the statue that Emily was hiding behind.

Emily ducked behind, the large wing of the statue. As Lilly walked past she could be heard muttering to herself:

"...So stupid of me. Thinking he could change when I know he never will."

Emily could not have been happier to hear this. No matter how much she disapproved of James's conduct in this situation, she could not have asked for a more perfect set up for her plan.

Like clock work, (Emily was now certain some one in heaven loved her), James came rushing around the corner only a second later.

"Hey Lilly, wait!"

Emily took this opportunity to reach from behind the statue, grab his arm, and drag him back into the space behind the horse's wing.

"Emily?!" James nearly yelled in a state of surprise.

"Shh." Emily said frantically putting her finger to her lips.

"What are you doing?" James lowered his voice to a whisper.

"I could ask you the same question." Emily whispered in a harsh voice.

"You saw that?" James asked somewhat guiltily.

"Yeah, I did. Explain." Emily said coolly placing her hands on her hips.

"Well, It's not as if the prat didn't deserve it! If you'd seen the whole thing, you'd know that he followed Remus to the hospital wing, trying to see inside, wearing that stupid sneer on his face. The one that just spells out revenge. And Remus didn't even do anything to him! Someone had to teach him a lesson!" James spoke so passionately that Emily had to remind him to lower his voice again by pressing her finger to her lips.

"That doesn't matter!" Emily said as sternly as was possible under the circumstances.

"Have you remembered nothing of what I told you about chivalry?"

James looked guilty for a second before rising to defend himself.

"But I didn't break any of those rules did I?" He said in a defiant whisper.

"Number three." Was Emily's only needed response. Understanding laden with embarrassment suddenly lined James's face.

"I've never liked that one." James mumbled bitterly.

"You might not like it, but I warned you that it was essential." Emily said "Now, you've gone right back to where you were before I picked you up!" She nodded her head in the direction that Lilly had stalked away in.

"I guess your right," James heaved a small sigh. "Well, I suppose that's it then."

"What?" Emily wasn't quite certain she had heard him properly. He wasn't giving up was he? No he couldn't. Not after all he had been willing to do. The lessons, practically stalking her everyday, learning to call her by her first name, he wouldn't throw it all away now.

"I mean there's not much else to do is there? Besides there are plenty of other girls out there..." The idiot was throwing it all away. How could he do this to her? Just when she was banking on his newly (almost) acquired chivalry.

Well, there was only one thing to do. Take the direct approach.

"Well, there is one thing you could do..." Emily trailed off in what she hopped was a light voice (She did not want to be too direct after all).

"What is it?" James urgently, dropping his former non chalant appearance.

"Do you remember what Sirius said about...getting back at Snape?" Emily said now sounding just as eager as James. The sun was setting. They had very little time.

"Oh, yeah. But he wouldn't actually go through with it. I mean Sirius talks about that stuff all the time, but he's not stupid enough to..."

Emily cleared her throat and inclined he head to the other side of the statue where Sirius and Peter were engaging in a rather loud conversation.

Looking slightly bemused James walked over to the wing in order to hear more properly.

"...Honestly, it's not as if it's a great mystery where Remus goes every month is it?" Sirius asked Peter who paused for a while as Snape, who was crouched next to the window where Remus was walking with the nurse across the lawn, looked discreetly up towards Sirius obviously paying very close attention.

"No, no mystery at all!" Peter said quite loudly and pointedly in Snape's direction.

(He had obviously been thoroughly rehearsed by Sirius)

"Nope." Sirius had become extremely casual, apparently attempting to make up for Peter's overly enthusiastic performance.

"If any one really wanted to know what he was up to, all they'd have to do is prod the knot at the root of the whomping willow with a stick. But, of course, I bet every idiot in the school has worked that out by now..."

"Idiot." Emily distinctly heard James mutter.

"Well, you know what you have to do don't you?" She asked with her hands on her hips.

"It doesn't look like there's anything I can do, with out risking my kneck..." James had wheeled around to face Emily and stopped dead at the eager look on his face.

"Oh, no. No! I'm not risking my life by trying to stop that greasy git from following Remus!"

"James you're the only one who can! Do you have any idea what could happen if you don't?" Emily said exasperatedly.

All right so she hadn't been expecting him to jump right into action. (It had become clear that he was, after all, no Lancelot.) But he had to have some amount of common decency.

"Look if Snape wants to go chasing after a werewolf that's not my problem. He can hurl himself into the lake and get smothered by the giant squid for all I care."

Apparently not. Well then, she would simply have to appeal to the more selfish aspects of his nature.

"It's not just Snape I'm talking about. After that disastrous scene out there, you're going to need something major to get back where you were with Lilly..."

This would work it had to... romance always worked. James paused for a moment in thought.

"Sorry, Emily, but this is where I draw the line." He said finally. "Not even the life of my own mother could make me chase after that git. I could get killed."

For heavan sake! And she thought the lessons in chivalry had made some amount of progress. Now she was simply going to have to move to her last resort.

"Well then," She said in feigned resignation. "I suppose I'll just be giving Lilly's diary back to her then..."

"What?" James whispered, wide eyed and suddenly fearful. The diary that Emily had told James to give back weeks ago, was still sitting at the end of Jamse's bed. While he claimed that he was simply waiting for the oprotune moment to give it back to her, Emily knew the real reason: The prospect of facing Lilly Evans scared him to death.

"She all ready hates me!"

"Yes." Emily said grimly. "And apparently you don't care enough to do anything about it. So we'll consider the diary a sort of surrender...I suppose she's won."

James stood with his mouth wide open gaping at her. Once again, it looked as if James would have liked nothing better than to hex her into next week.

"You evil little minx." He whispered fiercely. The sun was setting and Emily looked quickly through the gap in the horse's wing and saw that Snape had left the window and was now headed for the doors that led to the grounds. They had very little time now.

"James. Please." Emily said a note of desperation in her voice. James looked at her for a moment and then let out a breath of resignation.

"All right, I'll try." He said. Defeated.

Emily could not help but break into a smile at this. She felt as if she could kiss him.

Deciding that quite enough kissing had gone on for one day, she contented herself by saying simply:

"Hurry. You haven't got much time." James nodded, still looking hesitant as he began to move to the gap in the wing of the statue.

"You'd better appreciate this." He said warningly to Emily before sliding out to the other side of the statue.

With a small amount of hesitancy, Emily waited a few moments before following James out of the statue, and on to the ground where he had met up with Sirius and Peter.

She knew that she should have gone back up to the dormitory. After all, this brave and daring act she had convinced James to do would no doubt be very dangerous, and possibly life threatening. She would be safer back in her bed.

But she had never known a heroine to be asleep in bed while her novice went out and performed brave and daring acts. And she was the heroine of this novelesque sinerio, weather James Potter liked it or not.

So, careful not to be seen, she followed the boys as they made their way across the grounds toward a large tree...

As always review and I just might convince the lare men that are currently standing behind you to spare your life. Don't review and well... I think you understand