Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter One

James

It was 2 AM and James Potter was getting impatient. He had been standing in the Charm's corridor for over a half an hour waiting for his friend Sirius Black to show up. If Sirius doesn't show up soon, I'm going to bed he thought to himself. This wasn't like Sirius, to keep him waiting like this. They were frequent rule-breakers and "midnight wanderers" as they sometimes referred to themselves as, and part of the reason behind their success was the fact that they all worked together so well. They being, James Potter, his loyal (but LATE) best friend Sirius Black and their other two comrades Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.

Long ago (first year that is), they had decided that they would be the supreme rule-breakers of Hogwarts. It was the 70's after all and rebellion was in. And James and Sirius especially, had taken their rebellion to heart and almost lived by it. This was their #1 rule in their "Rule-breaker's Handbook" (no such document actually existed but the ideas were embedded in all of their brains all the same). The most logical way to go about this of course, and as any military leader will tell you, is to know your territory. They had therefore embarked on a quest to be the most knowledgeable inhabitants of Hogwarts by knowing Hogwarts better than any other student or faculty member.

For the past three years, almost three nights a week, every week, and with the extensive use of James' invisibility cloak, they had been mapping the school. Their ultimate plan was to have the entire interior of Hogwarts, as well as the grounds, mapped by the end of their fifth year. The interior mapping could be easily achieved with the help of the invisibility cloak, but the exterior had posed a problem to them since outdoors was a whole different scenario. Almost by luck they had made the discovery of Remus' lycanthropy. The solution to help Remus had, luckily enough, also served as a means for them to do this exterior mapping and that solution was to become animagi. This was another of their big endeavors and , with James and Sirius' brilliance, it would soon pay off. As animals they would be free to explore the Hogwarts grounds at their leisure. But now, since they hadn't reached that point, they were confining themselves to the castle.

That was why James was standing in the Charms corridor at 2 in the morning waiting for his best friend to show up. They had planned on exploring this part of the school tonight, looking for secret passageways out of the school. He was positive that Sirius had said he would meet him there. James was just about to leave when he heard footsteps coming his way. Suddenly he was face-to-face with Sirius Black.

"What the hell?" James began but was cut off as Sirius grabbed his arm and led him away without any explanation. "Sirius? What?" He noticed that Sirius could barely seem to contain himself, he was so excited, but he had yet to say a word. "Oh Sirius?"

"James just shut up for a minute! You will not believe what I found!" Sirius whispered excitedly. Suddenly James forgot his exasperation with Sirius.

"What? What'd you find?" James was suddenly very excited. Whenever they made huge discoveries they would consider it proof that they were indeed fulfilling their goals as rebels.

"This, my friend, is possibly one of the greatest finds we've made thus far," Sirius replied. James noted his use of "we" when it had, in fact, been Sirius who discovered this new thing. It was just an affirmation of how much they considered themselves an entity that they used "we" even when they were referring to themselves singularly.

"Better than the kitchens, Sirius?"

Sirius scoffed, "Ha! The kitchen discovery is nothing once you see this!" Sirius' excitement was contagious. James could barely contain his own now.

"Sirius, are we going in circles?" James exclaimed as he noticed that they had passed that same painting only a little while ago.

"Shhhh. Just trust me."

They seemed to go around in a circle one more time, when finally, Sirius made an abrupt stop in front of a door. James couldn't help but notice that he hadn't payed any attention to the fact that there was a door there in the first place. Sirius paused and turned to James.

"I was late because I had to test it to make sure it worked. Be prepared to be amazed." Sirius opened the door. They stepped into a very well lit room. There was tables of food and drink on one side, surrounded by four chairs. On the other was a bookshelf. James wandered over to the bookshelf and was surprised when he saw the titles of some of the books. "A Beginner's Guide to Animagi," "A Rebel's Handbook," and " The Art of Mapmaking" were only some of the titles he saw. He turned to Sirius who was now stuffing his face with food from the tables.

"What exactly is this place?"

"I'm not positive, but what I do know is that I was strolling around mindlessly (since back then I had a lot more time to spare before I had to meet up with you) and I was thinking how much I wanted to eat, and all of a sudden I notice that there's a door there that I never noticed. I went in and I had a table full of food. Those," he pointed towards the books, "weren't there last time. You must have wished them there."

"Wait, what? So you just wished this room into existence?" James could barely believe it.

"Yeah. I tried it out again. It works!"

"Sirius, wait till we tell Remus and Peter! They won't believe this. Imagine what we could do here! We could start having meetings here instead of the dorm and not have to worry about Mike and Will overhearing us. This is amazing." James started to help himself to some cake, fully savoring this new experience.

"No, better yet, think of the girls we could bring here! Totally private, no one else knows, it'd be great!" Sirius gave him his mischievous look.

"Sirius! What did we say about exposing our secrets to others? No, you can't bring girls here. This has to stay between us." James commanded.

"What about blindfolded?"

"No. This is our secret. Just think of the things we can do!"

"So you'll forgive me for being late?" Sirius smiled, falsely sweet.

"Don't push it."

James was dozing off. He was in History of Magic, and due to last night's events and their late return to the dorm, he could barely keep his eyes open. Not that he usually could in History of Magic, even on nights that he got a lot of sleep.

He thought of Remus and Peter's reactions last night. They had both been sleeping when they got back to the dorm. Remus, because he had been recovering from the full moon and Peter because, well Peter was a child when it came to "bed time," he couldn't keep his eyes open past 10:30. They had thought that the occasion was important enough to merit waking them up though. Peter had said "cool" and went back to bed. Remus initially seemed skeptical then insisted on further exploring the room before they could jump to conclusions.

Remus, always the logical one. Most of their pranks wouldn't have occurred or even been successful if it hadn't been for Remus' cool and rational thinking. In fact, most of their pranks wouldn't have been possible if even a single one of them had been missing, since they each brought something important to the table. Remus, the rational one, the one who could always see the flaws in plans five steps ahead of everyone else. Peter, with his innocent, childish face, was usually in charge of the decoys and distractions: no one ever suspected Peter of any wrong doing. And Sirius, with his daredevil attitude towards everything. Sirius seemed fearless, nothing could stop him and his daring and quick thinking were responsible for some of the infamousness that people associated with them and their pranks. James was really the "idea" person. He was good at hatching weird, interesting plots. Many of the pranks they pulled were usually the result of a brainstorm James would have in the middle of taking an exam or a bath. Ideas would just occur to him randomly and they never lacked originality.

Currently James was giving his mind a break from the strain of thinking about anything though. Oh Merlin, when is this going to end?

Suddenly his eyes caught a glimmer of red and he suddenly found something to keep his eyes busy and prevent them from drooping shut. Three guesses where the red was coming from? Lily Evans. It wasn't hard for James to focus his attention on her since she wasn't exactly hard on the eyes. In fact, in James' opinion she was gorgeous. She was sitting in a desk one row in front of him on the right side, so he had a good view. She was currently twirling a piece of her hair around her finger, also looking as though she were not paying close attention to Binns.

James stared at her hair for a moment. According to Sirius, James was infatuated with Lily, but James did not wholly agree with this assessment. James just liked the way she looked. At least that's what he told himself.

He had met her long ago, before Hogwarts. It was a long story and James didn't always like to think about it because it brought back memories of his early childhood; people and places he didn't want to think about anymore. But back then Lily was this little thing with red hair and a smile, who just wanted to know everything! James had effectively introduced her to the world of wizards. James smiled inwardly, back then she had been so cute and sweet. Now, most of the time she was just bitchy. That was part of the reason he claimed he did not actually like her. Just the way she looked.

Unlike James, who was popular and friends with everyone in the entire school (minus the Slytherins, of course) she was anti-social, with only a few friends (who happened to be James' other dorm-mates). She always stood behind her convictions, which sounded nice in theory, but when she was adamantly opposing something you said or did it wasn't always pleasant, and James had experienced this quite a few times from her. This year they mainly ignored each other, James doubted whether she had even spared him a thought this entire year, in fact, he doubted they'd even spoke two words to each other throughout the entire year.

Back when they were younger they simply adored each other. But when Hogwarts had started and the social divides started happening, they shifted away from each other. During first year, girls were still a little yucky so James distanced himself from Lily, which he supposed did not endear him to her very much and very well may have been the largest contributing factor in the demise of their friendship. After first year they seemed to just grow further apart and less fond of each other. So they weren't exactly on the best terms with one another, but they weren't enemies. No that title was reserved for Severus Snape, the Slytherin that he despised.

Only towards the end of last year had James really noticed how pretty Lily was. She was nothing like the other girls in his year; for one thing Lily did not look anywhere near as mature as the other girls. Lily was still flat-chested, no curves, and still looked like a child. Besides that, the other girls seemed to put some effort into their appearance, with make-up and stuff, but Lily never wore make-up or did anything special to her hair. James knew about such things, due to his twin sister, Carrie, who was obsessed with the way she looked.

Carrie shared a dorm with Lily and according to her, Lily was a rude bitch. James, though he agreed with this at times, thought Carrie was a bit biased considering the fact that she always seemed to be mad at Lily. Even back when they were children Carrie was not really very nice to Lily. Carrie had immediately picked up on the fact that her brother now seemed entranced by Lily, (it was a twin thing) and though she never discouraged him from pursuing her (like he even would!) she definitely did not have anything nice to say about Lily.

Sirius too, was a bit in the dark as to why Lily seemed to captivate his best friend so much. But after all, Sirius did not understand the concept of liking a girl. To him, girls were just "things you snogged in broom closets." James doubted whether Sirius had ever actually just had a plain, purely non-physical crush on a girl. "Sure she's pretty James, but come on, she looks like she's eleven.," was Sirius' usual response to James staring at Lily.

Remus was really the only one supportive of James' "thing" for Lily. But the only problem with that was that Remus always seemed to be hinting to that James'crush was more than what James was owning up to, which was: "I think she's pretty." Remus seemed to think that James actually liked her, which of course was not true.

Suddenly something hit James on the back of his head. He turned around and found that Sirius had decided to shoot bits of parchment at him. Sirius smirked at him. "Enjoying the view?" he whispered. James rolled his eyes and turned back around to face the board. Ugh. Another 20 minutes of this. He resumed staring at Lily.