A/n: Hey everyone, sorry for the wait! I tried to make this one longer and more detailed, because I love long and detailed stories, I just have trouble writing them! Anyway, I would also like to let ya know that I have this story all planned out in my head, but if you have any suggestions, please feel free to offer them!
Disclaimer: Ok…duh…I don't own anything Harry Potter related, but wouldn't it be great if I did?...
September first arrived without the Evans or Potters in sight. The children had no choice but to go ahead and go to Kings Cross Station.
The limo pulled up to the curb, and Petunia, Lily and James hauled themselves out of the car. Petunia, being a muggle, couldn't enter platform nine and three quarters, so they always said their good-byes as soon as they pulled up to the station. The scene was no different than any other year, except for the small fact that their parents weren't there.
"I'll keep your owl, Lily, and owl you guys as soon as they return," Petunia promised while she gave her sister a hug.
"Thanks, Aitunep," Lily said as the two split apart.
"Bye, James," Petunia said, giving him a hug also, "And please don't get expelled or suspended, at least not until your parents get home."
"Of course not, you say that as if I'm some kind of prankster," he said stepping back and giving her a wink.
"Better hurry, it's almost eleven," she said.
"See you at Christmas!" James said.
"Ditto," called Lily.
"Have a good term, and hope that the supposed adults of our families don't get too spontaneous around Christmas time," and then, with a final wave on both parts, the limo's engine started up and it disappeared down the road while the other two began to walk towards the platform.
"Well, James, looks like another year at Hogwarts," Lily said as they walked side by side through the crowd of unsuspecting muggles to the barrier between platforms nine and ten.
"Yep, I have a feeling fifth year will be a good year," he commented pushing his trolley along.
"Let's hope so," Lily said. By now they had reached the barrier between nine and ten and ran through together.
They had barely come completely through the division when they were met with their good friend, Sirius Black.
"LILY! JAMES!"
Sirius and James held a strange kind of resemblance. Both had dark hair, and light eyes, although Sirius's were light green and James's were light blue. They were even approaching the same height: six feet. Sirius was the kind of person with way too much energy. He could stay up all night and not nap at all the next day, and still be in a happy-go-lucky kind of mood. His friends thought his parents had made a mistake in naming him; he agreed, although more because of the fact that people always had the urge to make a pun out of it than because he was anything but serious.
"Hello, Sirius," Lily said as he engulfed her in a huge hug.
"It's great seeing you, Lily," Sirius said stepping back and turning towards James.
"Sirius! Not in public!" James said as Sirius attempted to give him a hug.
"But, James, I thought we were going to come forward about our relationship!" Sirius said in a dramatically, girly voice. James sighed and put one hand on Sirius's shoulder.
"Sirius, my friend, I hate to tell you, but I'm just not that way."
This whole time Lily had been standing by laughing her head off as the two best friends exchanged their greetings.
"Oh, would you two stop acting like idiots and help me find a compartment?" she asked when she finally gained control of her laughter. However, before they were able to go much farther onto the platform, another familiar face appeared.
"You needn't worry about that," a fair-headed, brown-eyed boy around their age (I say around their age mainly because he was quite tall, around 5'10) said as he approached, "We already have one reserved."
"Remus!" Lily said giving him a hug. (A/n: Geez, I didn't mean to make them all a great big hug-giving family…whoops…)
"Hello, Lily," Remus Lupin greeted after she had released him.
"Ooh, you put the sign up?" Sirius asked stepping towards his friend.
"Of course," he answered.
"The sign! When'd you guys finish it?" James asked curiously.
"This summer, when you couldn't come over," Sirius said quickly.
"That's just cruelty, I had…obligations that week, er, month," James explained.
"Oh, parents leave again?" Remus asked, but before James could answer Sirius interrupted.
"Can we get back to the compartment, I want to see if anyone tried to pass the sign," Sirius said.
"What sign?" Lily asked very confused. She was, however, quite used to being confused around these three.
You see, it was most commonly known around the school that there was a group by the name of the Marauders. It was made up of four boys: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. The four had been friends since first year (technically Sirius and James had known each other longer, but they met Remus and Peter on the first train ride they ever took to Hogwarts), and thus had formed the group; the reason being that all four of them shared one common love, and that love, was the love of pranks. They had discovered this on the first train ride (mentioned above) to Hogwarts when they had tried to prank each other. The pranks worked, and the friendship began.
Anyways, the reason Lily was usually confused around these three (usually four, but Peter, as you well know, hadn't arrived just yet) was because they always, and I do mean always, had something or other up their sleeves.
Getting back to their conversation…
"The sign to reserve the Marauder's compartment of course!" Sirius explained.
"And everyone will heed because…?" Lily asked.
"Well, not only is the sign really, really cool looking," Remus began, "But it also immediately sets up a combination of spells and charms that prevents anyone from taking the compartment until either myself, James, Sirius, and/or Peter go inside."
Lily opened her mouth to reprimand them (as she usually did), but found that there really wasn't any rule breaking occurring, it was just highly frowned upon.
"Whatever, we have a compartment, can we please take our belongings to it?" she asked ever so politely.
"Why of course," James said.
And off they went to their now reserved train compartment.
!
"I wonder where everybody else is," Lily asked herself out loud. The four of them were seated in the compartment that Remus had reserved waiting for the rest of the people they usually shared a compartment with.
"There's only two more people that we usually sit with," Remus pointed out.
"Yeah, and you know Peter, he's always late," Sirius said in a casually-joking way. It was true, the Pettigrews had a tendency to be either late, or just barely making it on time.
Just then, there came a sound of scraping and cursing in the hallway.
"Looks like Peter's here," James said while opening the door for their friend. Behind the door there stood a very ruffled looking fifteen-year-old boy. His face was rather pink from trying to drag his trunk to their usual compartment. Otherwise he looked like he always did; shifty, black eyes, thin, blonde hair, and slightly shorter than the other three boys.
"Hello, Peter," Lily said as he pulled his trunk into the compartment, and, with a little help from James, put it with all the others.
"Now we're only missing one person," Remus mentioned as soon as Peter was settled in for the ride.
"I know, and it worries me because Jackie isn't usually late," Lily observed while she looked out the window for the person in question.
"I know, but my grandmother forgot where her glasses were," said a young girl as she hauled her trunk into the compartment. The girl, who must have been this 'Jackie', had short, brown hair that was about halfway down her neck. Her eyes were a granite grey color, sometimes changing to an icy blue depending upon what she was wearing. She was rather tall, almost 5'9, quite a contradiction to Lily's 5'3. She was slim, but not skinny, and had the normal girl-ish figure.
"Jacklyn Morrow, why on Earth did you cut your gorgeous hair?" Lily cried when she saw her friend.
"Well, when it got down to my arse I decided it was just too much to keep up with, especially since it was so thick," the accused answered as she put her stuff away.
"Did you get taller?" Sirius asked.
"No, you must have shrunk," she replied as she sat down. Sirius and Jackie had always had a weird relationship. They were friends, and yet they weren't; they fought and had little arguments about stupid things, but they were friends, or maybe they weren't. I'm not sure if anyone really knew whether they were friends or not, but I think they always hoped they were. I told you it was weird.
"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," James said in a sing-song voice.
"Shut-up."
Just then the train started up; the six were on their way to a very interesting year at Hogwarts.
!
"Ok, Jackie, you have to tell me all about your summer," Lily said.
"Alright," Jacklyn agreed, "but in turn you have to tell me about yours."
"There's not much to tell, but alright."
"Let's see, my summer," she began, and even though it was Lily who asked her, the boys just had to listen as well, "Mum and Dad took all six of us to Canada for two weeks at the beginning. It was so great. We stayed in this neat little cabin near a lake; there was water-skiing, fishing, canoeing, and whatever else you can think of, I even learned some French! It was really, really fun. Then for the rest of the summer Gloria (her younger sister) and I hung out, there really wasn't much else to do."
"You got to go to Canada! That's so cool," Lily said.
"Yeah, it was," Jackie said, reminiscing, "But anyway, tell me about your summer…"
"Well, let's see," Lily began, "I think I spent over half of it with James and Petunia; you know how our parents are. They went to Italy a week after we got home from school, and then when they got home they spent three days with us, and then left to go to Mexico."
"Yep, and while they were there they decided it would be nice to see Brazil, so they stayed another week and headed south," James added.
"And then a week after they got home they left to go to Italy, again, and for a month," Lily said.
"But what did you two do?" Remus asked.
"Oh, you know, what we usually do," Lily said lightly as she leaned back in her seat next to Jackie.
"Actually it depends on whose house we're at," James said, "If we're at my house we swim, order pizza, and go to bars."
"And if we're at my house," Lily said, "we usually swim, order pizza, and go to bars."
"So, how did your summers go, boys?" Jackie asked the remaining boys.
"I'm sorry, but that is confidential," Sirius said, and then added, while indicating Peter and Remus, "If I told you, they'd have to kill me."
"Yes, yes we would," Peter said while everyone else looked at Sirius with raised eyebrows.
"Oh, you know what I forgot to mention," Lily said after a slight pause from Sirius's comment.
"What?" Jackie asked.
"James and I made Prefects," she said.
"What! James, a Prefect?" Sirius exclaimed.
"I know, he nearly fainted from the shock," Lily said.
"I did not," James said trying to defend himself, "I was... I mean…ok, I almost fainted from the shock."
"Wow, Prefects," Jackie said.
"I know, they're just growing up so fast," Remus said. Now everyone looked at him with raised eyebrows.
"What?"
!
This kind of idle chit-chat continued for the remainder of the ride. They were all quite shocked when the conductor announced they were five minutes away from Hogwarts. If you had walked into their compartment then you probably would have gotten hit by some object or other that was being thrown around in the attempt to get all their things together and put on their robes at the same time.
However, they managed to get everything organized in the five minutes they had, and by the time the train stopped they were all dressed in their Hogwarts robes. It was a good thing too, because Lily and James were then immediately called to help organize all the students getting off the train and into the horse-less carriages.
Everything ended up running very smoothly, and the two had rejoined their friends in no time.
"I really, really hope the Sorting doesn't take too long," Jackie said as they made the short trip to the castle, "I'm starving."
"I just want to go to bed," Lily said drowsily.
"It's a good thing these carriages are fast, and that Hogwarts is close," Remus observed. It was indeed a good thing, too, because if the ride had gone on much longer Lily would have been completely asleep, Jackie would have been able to complain a little bit longer about her hunger, Sirius would be kicked out of the carriage or Remus, James, and Peter would have been just about ready to jump out of the carriage themselves.
Anyway, pretty soon after that the six friends were seated in the well-remembered Great Hall and waiting for the Sorting to be over.
"Zellon, Anchez."
"RAVENCLAW!"
"Ok, I think there were twice as many kids this year than there have been," Jackie commented after the last student had left the stage.
"I know, and Dumbledore still has to make his speech," Sirius whined. Just as Sirius had said, Dumbledore stood and began to speak.
"Welcome to another wonderful year of Hogwarts! For all of you new students, as well as a few of the older ones, there are a few rules here that are to be followed. First of all the Forbidden Forest is verboten, the Whomping Willow will hurt you if you come too close, your dormitories are there to be slept in, and anyone caught out after hours will be severely punished. If you have any further questions, please speak to our caretaker, Mr. Filch, and now, let's eat!"
With that he seated himself and the feast began.
Jackie, who really was, it seemed, starving, began to eat like there was no tomorrow, and Lily, who just wanted to get some sleep, silently put some food on her plate and began to eat. On the other side of the table, however, the boys were being very friendly with the rest of the 5th year girls.
This was only to be expected, of course, because they did it every year; but for some unexplainable reason, which really does have an explanation she just doesn't know it yet, Lily found herself looking in that direction and feeling that strange turning in the pit of her stomach.
About the fifth time she turned to look that way Jackie raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"What's up with you?" the dark-haired girl asked after she had eaten her fill.
"What'd you mean?" Lily asked like she didn't know what in the world Jackie was talking about.
"Why do you keep looking at the Mauraders with that weird look on your face?"
"What weird look?" Lily asked, truly confused now because she had know idea she was making a weird look.
"That look like you're going to murder Katy Hall in her sleep or something," Jackie replied, and then added as if as an afterthought, "Not that that would be such a bad thing…"
"I am not making any such face," Lily denied. In all truthfulness, she was making a face, and she did feel like she could murder Katy Hall in her sleep. The reason being that Katy, and all her friends (Marie Colbert, Erin Sarren, and Elizabeth Snider; all the really girly-girls in the 5th year girls' dorm) were shamelessly flirting with the Marauders, and Katy was flirting hard with James.
"Mm-hm, I'm sure," Jackie said.
Unfortunately Lily had no chance to defend herself, because just then the feast ended and she had to direct everyone to the common room. That didn't, however, distract her thoughts of what her friend had said.
It wasn't possible that she could actually be feeling something like jealousy…could it? She and James were just friends…right? Just innocent, child-hood friends, and nothing more.
I can't have gone this long without liking James, and then just suddenly start to. It doesn't happen that way. Besides the fact that it is so cliché; falling in love with your best friend? Please…
But then why does my heart sink in my chest when I see him with some other girl? Why am I even thinking about this? I do not like James!
These thoughts and more all ran through her head as she headed up to the Gryffindor common room. After leading the first years to the appropriate dorms she headed to her own where she immediately undressed and fell into bed.
But before she was able to fall to sleep one last thought slipped through:
Who am I kidding? I am totally crushing on James Potter.
A/n: So??? What did ya think? Please review and tell me!! And sorry I didn't thank everybody in this chapter, but I really wanted to go ahead and get it out because you guys have already waited so long!! I promise I'll do thank you's next chapter:) I might even make that a habit, thank you's every other chapter….anyway r/r!
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