Yay!! Nice long chappie. This is one of my favourites because it has Sirius. Read and enjoy!! ; )

"WHAT? I can't act like Lily Potter that soon! They'll find out and then send me to St. Mungo's. What if they think I'm crazy?" she was hyperventilating and worrying too much.

James looked at her, eyebrows raised, "I'm sure you can do it. Remus won't comment even if you do make a mistake, he's too easygoing, and don't worry to much about Sirius... He'll just make up an excuse for you," James grinned.

Lily didn't find it funny at all. "I cannot and will not act like your wife and pretend that I love you in front of your stupid friends." She had pulled herself up to her entire height of about 1.7m (A/N: Sorry; in SA we use cm not inches) and met his gaze with an angry glare.

"Yes," he seemed to finally have had enough of Lily's insults and objections, "You will. I don't care if you insult me; I know that I deserve some of the insults because of the things I've done in Hogwarts, but when you insult my friends," now James pulled himself to his full height and since he was about 2m high he towered over Lily, "you've gone too far."

"Oh yeah? Well, guess what? They deserve it! Your entire group were always cocky snobs and you always picked on Snape and anyone else for no good reason! I hated your arrogance then and I hate it now," her hair seemed to crackle with electricity and she was scowling. Despite being obviously the weaker one in the fight she didn't back down.

"Sirius was always such an pompous, immature, flirtatious--"

"You are the one who's being immature! He's my best friend and one of your closest friends now, if you only knew it!" He folded his arms across his chest.

Lily was stubborn; "Once a jerk, always a jerk."

"HE IS NOT! HE'S--"

But what Sirius was Lily never found out because at that moment the man himself walked in. The year or so hadn't changed Sirius Black's features one bit. He was still handsome with long black hair and warm grey eyes that were now eyeing the couple curiously.

"You don't have to stop; it was just getting good and interesting," with that said, he sat down on the black leather couch and watched them both eagerly, waiting for them to continue the shouting match.

James unfolded his arms and laughed, "Padfoot! Merry Christmas, mate!"

The two embraced and then Sirius turned to Lily expectantly.

"Well?" he asked, his eyes still laughing and his smile teasing her, "Aren't you going to even say 'Merry Christmas' to poor little me?"

Lily just stood gaping at Sirius and James. James came up behind her and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Lil isn't quite feeling herself today, Padfoot."

Lily wasn't quick enough to disguise the look of disgust that came to her face at the touch of his hand.

Sirius surveyed her plainly; "Definitely not herself Prongs;" he noted with a withering glance, "the woman clearly hates you ," he gazed at her suspiciously, "you are Lily Potter, right?"

Lily was still furious with James for contradicting her about Sirius earlier, "Get off, Potter!" she jerked his hand off her shoulder.

"Okay: question answered. Who in the world is this, Prongs?" he turned to James.

"You always did have stupid nicknames;" Lily spat at them, "calling yourselves the Marauders and pulling pranks on--"

She was once again cut off. "That's quite enough, Lily," James was speaking quietly but firmly.

"Whenever you'd like to tell me what's going on..." Sirius looked at them both pointedly.

"Sorry, Padfoot," James sighed, he glanced at Lily, his next sentence was addressed to her, "I'm not going to keep a secret this big from my best friend, I know he'll found out somehow anyway."

Lily scowled but nodded.

James turned to face Sirius again with a rather pained expression on his face. "Padfoot, this isn't Lily Potter; it's Lily Evans. She got here by some wishing charm and--" (seeing the gleam in Sirius' eye, he hurriedly continued) "it's not like that exactly, mate. It was the charm that old Flitwick mentioned just before NEWTs started. She got here anyway and now we think that Lily Potter is stuck in 1977."

"You know how bizarre that sounds?" Sirius grinned widely, "But, of course, I believe you. If it weren't true I just know that the two of you would be in each others arms right now," he smirked, then, seeing Lily's look of disgust, he scowled, "you better not ruin this Christmas for Jamsie-boy, Evans, because if you do I'll be forced to resort to desperate measures. I have some enchanted mistletoe..." he ended with a sing-song voice.

He let the threat hang but Lily gulped; she knew what enchanted mistletoe did. It forced the people under it to kiss each other. The thought of having to kiss James made Lily shudder visibly. 'But you've probably kissed him loads of times,' the voice in her head informed her, 'he is your husband, remember?' The thoughts swirling in her mind made Lily feel distinctly ill and she couldn't help wondering again why she had agreed to James Potter as her husband.

There was a rather awkward silence between them. James broke it, "I think we'd better get lunch started so we're ready when Moony arrives," he was trying to speak lightly but all three could tell that his voice was not entirely natural.

"I'll help!" Sirius excitedly walked towards the kitchen.

James rolled his eyes, "I'd better make sure that he doesn't play with the knives again."

Lily nodded sullenly and followed the two men into the kitchen. They were all busy with their wands; causing food to cut, cook and wash itself for about ten minutes.

Abruptly and suddenly Lily asked, "Why do you call each other such weird names?"

Sirius smiled broadly, "Marauders secret."

James disagreed though, "Lily Potter knew before I married her and she never did tell me how she found out. I'm sure that in her past this was when I told her."

Sirius scratched his head, nearly causing one of the knives to chop off his other hand's fingers. "I suppose, but do you really think she can be trusted?"

James looked up sharply, "Yes I do! I'd trust her with my life."

"It might cost you that, or even your soul if she knows," Sirius grumbled, "the Dementors are pretty unforgiving if you hadn't noticed, Prongs."

But James was stubborn. "No, I'm sure she won't or doesn't tell. If she did; we'd already be in Azkaban."

"Fair point, Prongs. But this is getting confusing; if you trust her tell her but I really don't think that you should. What about Moony? He may never forgive you if you tell, I mean Marauders' oath you promised not to tell anyone," he looked at Lily critically, "not even your wife."

"Oh for Merlin's sake, Padfoot! Moony would understand; I mean the future her knows anyway so Moony might even bring it up during lunch."

Sirius sighed, defeated, "Fine tell her. Don't blame me if she ships us off to Azkaban."

Lily was getting agitated, "I promise I won't tell." She looked imploringly at the two men in front of her.

"You also promised on your wedding day that you would love Prongs forever," he was brusque, "You broke that promise big time," he voice was cold and made Lily shiver slightly.

"Enough, Padfoot," James interjected quietly, "I want her to know."

"Your funeral," he muttered loudly enough for only Lily to hear.

James ignored his friend's less than subtle warnings against telling Lily and started: "When Remus was about five or six he got bitten by a werewolf."

Lily gasped, "But that means..." she trailed off.

"That Remus is a werewolf," James continued, "And when he was eleven years old, Dumbledore sent him a letter to attend Hogwarts, as he did all the other students in our year. Of course, Remus' parents were reluctant to allow him to come because of his condition. They were worried he'd be a danger to fellow pupils. Dumbledore overruled them and told them that Hogwarts would change to able to accommodate a werewolf safely. That's the reason for the Whomping Willow. It hides a secret passageway to the Shrieking Shack. Remus went along the tunnel once a month to transform and of course in there he was a danger only to himself, not the rest of the school. While we were in our first year we all formed our group and by the end of the year we had figured out the truth about Remus' monthly disappearances."

Lily nodded, "That still doesn't explain why you could get sent to Azkaban," she pointed out.

"Eager to hear are we? Eager to get our husband who we promised to love no matter what in jail, huh?" Sirius was glaring suspiciously at her again.

"Sirius, for the last time, she should know!" James frowned at his friend, "As I was saying; we figured out his secret by the end of first year. And then," James paused for effect, "we decided to take matters into our own hands."

Lily was getting very interested and curious about her husband now, "What did you do?" she prompted, but James needed no encouragement.

"We started to study ways in which we could help Remus make his transformations more bearable--" (seeing her look of puzzlement, he added) "It's really painful to transform into a werewolf, and since he couldn't bite humans he bit and scratched himself. Don't you remember how terrible he sometimes looked after he had been 'ill'?"

Lily frowned slightly, "Yes," she admitted slowly, "but after fifth year he always looked sleepy but not hurt."

"Ah," their was a definite twinkle in James' eyes, "That's where Peter, Sirius and I came in. In the middle of fifth year we could finally help Moony."

"How?" Lily breathed, now completely absorbed in the story.

James looked once around the room before saying, "We're Animagi."

There were about three seconds of silence before Lily yelled, "WHAT?!"

"It's a good thing your house is sound-proof, mate," Sirius commented wryly, "I think you would be in big trouble with your neighbours otherwise."

Lily was still in a state of shock, "But you aren't registered! What if the Ministry finds out? You'll get a cell in Azkaban!"

"Do I detect a hint of care for Prongs in that statement?" Sirius' eyebrows were raised.

Lily blushed slightly, "You'd both be in trouble if the Ministry finds out," she continued at a mumble.

"We know. It was worth it to help Moony, though. I turn into a stag, Peter is a rat and Padfoot here is a--"

"Dog," Sirius supplied. "James and I needed to be big to keep Moony under control during the night. It was only in fifth year that we started using the nicknames and some of my happiest memories are from running around school with those guys on full moon nights." Sirius got slightly misty eyed.

"Of course, since they invented the Wolfsbane potion to make werewolves tame during the transformation," James finished, "Moony hasn't needed us."

Lily just nodded weakly and turned back to the carrots she was chopping.

"Don't let Remus know who she is," Sirius said suddenly.

Both Lily and James looked at him curiously.

"Why not?" James ventured.

Sirius just shook his head, "I just think that nobody else should know, it will mess with time too much," he sighed and Lily could tell that his next words were hard for him to say, "and we already know that someone in the Order is passing information to Voldemort. The less anyone knows the safer you are. You know that Voldemort could use it against you."

James sighed, "I would say yes but, Lily knows nothing about being Lily Potter."

"Still," she persisted, "I agree with Sirius. Nobody else should know. Not even Remus."

"If Padfoot and I can teach you enough in time to pass it off, which I doubt," James spoke slowly and thoughtfully, "none of us will tell him, but if Lily slips up ... He'll know something is wrong and we'll tell him what."

Lily nodded a look of determination on her face, "Teach me everything I know."

Finished another one. Please review, guys!