Once they were perfectly ensconced in a carriage the girls all began their various occupations all of them glaring at the boys who had decided to join them. Lily was moving away from James who was continually edging closer to her, with one eye Jaeger was watching Remus watch her under the guise of reading a book (which was obvious he wasn't as the book was upside down) and with the other Peter who was sitting next to Remus and thinking that all her attention was on him. Artemis was throwing a ball from one hand and watching in morbid fascination as Sirius's head moved from side to side following the movement of the ball.
She grinned wickedly and increased the speed and then jerked the ball towards the window. Sirius moved quickly and his head hit the window with a resounding thud. "I know they say you're animagus form is chosen by your personality but that is just ridiculous." Remus said looking up from Jaeger for a second.
"Is the book good?" Jaeger asked innocently and Remus nodded. "And it's supposed to be upside down?" He looked down in horror and quickly turned the book the right way around.
He was spared the embarrassment of trying to explain why he was perving on Jaeger, though, because Artemis had thrown the ball to Lily. Sirius leapt and attempted to catch it, but missed it and landed with his head in Remus' lap.
Lily smirked. "Why, Remus, are you cheating on Peter all ready?" she asked, while throwing the ball back over to Jaeger. Sirius didn't catch the fact that they were also insulting him, merely leaping for the ball again.
This lead to a rather one-sided game of piggy-in-the-middle, or, rather, doggy-in-the-middle as the teenagers started throwing the ball to each other around the room, increasing in speed until Sirius was bouncing off the walls.
Unfortunately, a clumsy throw by Peter (who else) ricochet towards the opening compartment door and smashed into someone's face with a loud CRACK, shortly followed by a crash as Sirius smashed into said person.
Even concussed and with blood poring from a broken nose, Severus Snape realised what was going on and quickly picked up the ball and threw it back into the foray. James threw a few jeers towards the unlucky Slytherin, but was quickly caught back up in the game, so no one noticed as Artemis slipped over to help Severus clean the blood off his face. That is, no one showed that they noticed, as Artemis didn't like anyone knowing she had a soft spot for the gothic Slytherin.
They smirked to each other as they heard him whisper "Thank-you", and had to stifle snorts of laughter as she growled, "I don't want blood in our compartment," which was later decided a feeble excuse by all.
Jaeger by this point was getting bored of the game and when the ball made its way back to her, she flung it out the open compartment window. Sirius automatically followed, and it was only James' Quidditch reflexes that saved him from flying out the open window never to be seen again.
As much as certain people that will remain unnamed wouldn't have minded.
Lily and Jaeger weren't distressed knowing that Sirius had an uncanny way of not getting killed no matter how hard they tried, and laughed as he struggled and kicked to get out of the window. What did annoy them however was when Artemis made a break for the window as well crying out, "My lucky purple tennis ball!"
"Bloody Blacks!" Lily screeched grabbing Arty's leg while Jaeger leapt for the other one, trying to scream some sense into the twins heads.
"For fucks sake Sirius, get over your canine instincts and get in the bloody compartment! Artemis, it wasn't your lucky tennis ball- IT WASN'T EVEN PURPLE!"
"YES IT WAS!" Artemis screamed back, still struggling.
"Its miles away by now anyway, let it be!" Remus shouted, trying to heave Sirius back into the compartment without success.
"We'll see about that!" Artemis snarled, whipping out her wand and calling "Accio!"
After a few seconds the ball came whirring through the air and smacked into Sirius' head, forcing him back into their compartment. It was a good thing Artemis had grabbed onto the window frame to pull herself back in because Jaeger and Lily had fallen onto the floor laughing.
Artemis caught the ball on the rebound, surprised by the glaringly green colour jumping out at her. "Would you look at that, it's not my lucky purple one after all. Ah, well." And with that she turned back into the compartment, absent-mindedly throwing the ball back over her shoulder out the window, ignoring the boys cursing as they threw themselves at Sirius to stop him leaping out the window again.
---
Much to James and Sirius' dismay, Severus stayed in the compartment with them. Glares at him quickly turned into neutral expressions as by looking at him it was hard to miss Artemis' glaring face next to them daring to say something. Jaeger felt it was up to her to do something to ease the tension.
"Severus, how was your summer?" She said then got all confused- when the hell has she developed a social conscience? Too much time with goody-goody Gryffindors, she deduced.
"What?" She asked after the group had stared at her for a minute.
"Are you drunk?" Lily asked seriously.
"No she couldn't be drunk. She tends to be even more of a bitch when she's drunk. Plus that was a perfectly coherent sentence. She must be sick." Remus said and all the heads in the compartment swivelled his way.
"What are you my stalker?" Jaeger asked. Remus blushed and turned away, the fact was in all conventional senses he was her stalker but being a werewolf (not that they knew) made him anything but conventional.
"Uh, well..." he stammered for a moment, turning bright red. If he was in his wolf form, you could bet he would be whimpering with his tail between his legs. This, however, didn't change the fact that he was still quite obviously staring at Jaeger- concerned for her well being, of course.
He quickly turned to Severus, clearly grasping at straws. "So, Severus, how was your summer?" This proved to be a dead end as the dark boy glared at him.
"Not so good," Remus muttered, turning away. "I can handle that."
No one spoke for a good couple of minutes, each not wanting to say anything to offend the others regarding romantic interests or the tough family lives some of them led. i.e. The guys didn't want to say anything to the girls lest it be interpreted as and advance, and an unwanted one at that, the girls didn't want to say anything to the guys unless it would, once again, be interpreted as an advance and didn't want to be jumped by hopefuls, and no one wanted to bring up just how much Sirius, Artemis, Jaeger and Severus hated their families.
Sirius felt that this time it was up to him, and with all the tact that he possessed, he announced loudly-
"Well, THIS is an uncomfortable silence!"
-and was promptly tackled, laughing, off of his chair by the vast majority in the compartment.
It may not have been the most gentlest or discreet way to ease the tension, but it did the trick.
Sirius howled in laughter as he was being unmercifully tickled by 5 pairs of hands, "Stop it, S-s-stop-p IT!!!!" He screamed luck seemed to be on his side as the door was opened by a 2nd year who stood there in complete shock to see these 8 people seeming to get along as their rivalry was somewhat of a Hogwarts Urban Legend.
They all turned and half-smirked, half-smiled at him- Lily Jaeger and Artemis quite happily ensconced in the arms of James, Remus and Severus, Sirius sprawled across their laps and raising his eyebrows suggestively at the poor girl, all of them sitting on Peter- when they suddenly realised not only what it must look like, but what they were actually DOING.
With an angry yell, the girls threw themselves out of the boys arms sending Sirius off their legs onto the ground, the force of it pushing the boys back into Peters stomach- no-one noticed Peters face turning blue from lack of air. Well, Severus did being at the end closest to his head but he didn't really care.
The boys looked horrified that they hadn't realised what was going on enough to have taken proper advantage of the situation, and quite sadly reached out to the girls to please come back.
And, lastly, Severus looked at all of them, and realised that he had just had fun with GRYFFINDORS! He slowly, very slowly, picked him self up, and, at the same snails pace, slunk around the edge of the room, making his way towards the second-year hoping to quickly Obliviate her before she made it back to her friends to tell them anything.
With the others occupied with their problems Sirius- hell, Sirius didn't have a problem, he just wanted to get a step closer to this delectable little second-year that hopefully wasn't old enough to have the older members of her house warn her against him yet- decided to say something.
He smoothly pushed himself off of the floor, falling up against the window frame, crossing him arms and tossing his head to click his hair out of his eyes, thinking himself looking sex-personified. In, reality, he looked post-sex-personified. Hair ruffled up, clothes askew, panting and out of breath, it looked like he'd been shagging!
"Can we help you?" he whispered breathlessly.
"Um... prefects-asked-me-tell-you-almost-at-school-change-robes-soon-gotta-go-BYE!" spilled out in a semi-coherent rush as she span and ran out of the door.
"Damn," Severus hissed- he didn't make it in time. His reputation was through, not that he really had much of one to begin with.
Jaeger saw his unease and snorted. "Don't worry about her, Snape. She'll probably think she was hallucinating and won't risk telling anyone."
"Or that she was stoned," Artemis interjected.
"Stoned?" James interjected. "Second-years? Pull the other one, Arty."
"You'd be surprised what the little berks get into. And my name isn't Arty." The rest of the compartments occupants just rolled there eyes at her once you'd known a person for more than 6 years then the threats tend to lose their effects- well, that was, until you were positive they were going to make good on them, which Artemis did rather randomly.
"We should really get Drug Talks here like at the muggles schools. I mean drugs get you no where and there not even that much of a kick!" Lily said as she moved out of James's grasp once again.
"What about the Beatles?" Severus asked slyly.
Everyone turned and gaped at him.
"Come on! We all live in a Yellow Submarine? Eleanor Rigby who left her face in a jar by the door? Not to mention Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, LSD!"
Everyone still started, and Severus became unnerved. No one usually noticed him except to pick on him; he just hid in the corner. He continued to ramble.
"They were off this planet when they were writing most of their songs, and judging by the person singing "Oompah Loompah stuff it up your joompah" in one of their songs, they were stoned while they were singing them too? WHY ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT ME?!"
"You... you know a Muggle band?" Lily choked out.
"It pisses of my father." He simply replied.
"Oh." and then, "The idea does have merit, though, really should mention it to McGonagall next time I see her."
She soon became aware that Jaeger was looking at her suspiciously. "What..." she said slowly.
"What's that about, 'they don't have much of a kick anyway'?" she asked innocently, which she surprisingly pulled off being a Malfoy and all.
Lily turned red turned away, and mumbled something incoherent. Meanwhile, the others started to catch on, and Remus' eyes lit up.
"Lily, you've been stoned!"
"I most certainly have not!" She defended going if possible even more red and as everyone knows that blushing is a sure sign that you're lying and the Marauders plus Artemis and Jaeger latched on to this piece of information like- for lack of a better phrase- a dog with a bone and began screaming rather childishly in a sing song voice,
"Lilly's been stoned!!! Lilly's been stoned!!! Lilly's been stoned!!! Lilly's been stoned!!! Lilly's been stoned!!! Lilly's been stoned!!! Lilly's been stoned!!! Lilly's been stoned!!! Lilly's been stoned!!!"