A/N: Thanks to "names are overrated" for being my first reviewer!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter Four

Rainy Day Fun

Lily rushed down to the ground floor. She found Will in front of the Great Hall, waiting for her. "Sorry I'm late, Catherine Potter held me up," she explained, breathing hard. They started walking down the corridor.

"Bullying again? Awww, poor Lily," he replied with a slight smile on his face. Lily punched him playfully on his arm.

"Ha! Me, bullied? Never!" Lily always prided herself on being headstrong.

"So, what'd you bring?" Will peered at the packages in Lily's arms.

"Watercolors, I think they'll look best." Will nodded at this, and held open the door for her as they arrived in their "special room." It was basically a drafty room, one corridor down from the Great Hall that had a lovely view of the grounds. Today it was raining and Will had decided it was a perfect day for artwork. This was one of Lily and Will's many "bonding" activities. They always came to their special room for it.

"Those better be the kind that change brightness," Will commented as Lily removed the watercolors from their box.

"Of course William! What, did you think we would be using the muggle kind?" Lily smiled at him. She loved to indulge him. At times she felt that she was his like his mother, other times, his sister. But most of the time he was just her companion. He had been for the better part of her life. William just smiled back at her.

He had such an angelic face, with his bright blue eyes and innocent smile. Lily couldn't help but wonder why girls never paid him any attention, but she supposed with "sexy, rebellious" Sirius Black, and "popular and athletic" James Potter around, who could possibly pry their eyes away, and look at cute, innocent, little William Gellar instead?

They sat down together and began on their respective paintings, silently. They did not need to fill the silences, simply because they were comfortable enough in each other's presences not to mind when things suddenly got very quiet. On the other hand, if Mike had been in the room, there would have been no such thing as peaceful, silent moments, since Mike just never shut up. He was always on about something.

Michael Sullivan added something interesting to the "Lily-Will" dynamic. Lily had known Will from way before Hogwarts even started, and, unlike James Potter whom she was also friends with before Hogwarts, she remained close friends with Will. Will had become her best friend in the entire world. He would accompany her on her summer holidays to France and write to her whenever she was away (he learned to use muggle post just for her).

They had the type of relationship that just balanced itself out. Will was extremely subdued and shy for the most part, while Lily was always incredibly outspoken and confident. Their qualities rubbed off on each other so that Lily made Will slightly more outgoing while Will could tone Lily down a bit. As children, they would spend long afternoons together reading or drawing. Lily taught Will about her love of literature and music, while Will got Lily into the world of art. Lily supposed it was this easy transfer of interests that made their friendship so strong.

When Lily met Mike on the Hogwarts express at the beginning of first year, she had befriended him immediately since, like her, he was a muggleborn, and loud. Also he had the incredible ability to "tell it like it was", which Lily admired. At first, Mike and Will had been wary of each other: they were such opposites, both personality-wise as well as appearance-wise. Will had dark brown hair that curled around his ears, bright blue eyes, and really pale skin (the result of a disdain of "outdoors-y"activities, such as Quidditch). Mike, on the other hand, looked like he was born in the outdoors, with his incredibly tan skin and bright, blond hair. He also had a much easier time smiling than Will did. Eventually they opened up to each other and Lily was happy that at least Will had one friend who was a boy.

Together, they made an interesting mix. Today, though was Lily and Will time. They got these moments to themselves whenever Mike had his latest girlfriend or "snog partner" as he sometimes referred to them as.

"Finished!" Will showed Lily his watercolor which had come out beautiful (as usual). He had managed to make the dreary, wet day outside look almost magical and surrealistic. Lily's, in contrast, was much more realistic (and boring).

"You're getting really good with the watercolors, Will!"

"Thanks." And he smiled modestly, waiting for her to finish her painting.

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"Sirius, what's wrong? You've been distracted this entire time." James said, not noticing the looks Remus was throwing Sirius behind his back.

"Er, nothing James." And Sirius went back to flipping through the animagi book he was reading. James took note of Sirius's tone and let it go, deciding to ask him later. They were currently in the room of requirement (already utilizing their new-found tool) reading up on animagi. Remus had warned Sirius before coming that he was not to mention a word about Carrie's appearance to James. Remus knew it would only cause problems between the siblings.

Sirius was in two minds about telling James. Contrary to what many thought, Sirius did not tell James everything (most things, yes, but not everything). This wasn't the reason he really felt the need to inform his best friend of his sister's shenanigans. It was more of the fact that he knew James would make an attempt to stop it. For some reason seeing Carrie looking as though she'd just walked out of a broom closet really bothered Sirius. He had known Carrie for as long as he'd known James and though he never really hung out with her as children (or now even) he still felt the urge to protect her. He told himself this was because he practically thought of Carrie as his own sister but he knew this was a lie, since what kind of a brother ogles their sister when she's half naked? Sirius quickly repressed that thought and the image that came with it. If any girl was off-limits it was Catherine Potter. James, being the overprotective bastard that he was, would have a heart attack if he knew that the school's resident "connoisseur of women" (namely Sirius) was after his sister. It wasn't worth it.

"Sirius, did you hear me?" James interrupted Sirius' thoughts.

"Sorry, no."

"I think we should definitely try this spell before we do the transformation, so that nothing comes as a surprise."

"Er...what spell?"

"Sirius, weren't you listening to a word I said? The spell where we can see what our animagus forms will be, before we even become animagi," James responded, slightly exasperated.

"Yeah, definitely! That'd be really cool. I wonder what we'll each be, eh?"

"I bet you'll be something cool, Sirius," Peter said, eternally sucking up.

"It's times like these that I wish I was actually going through the transformations with you, but then again I have my own to deal with," Remus responded grimly.

"Well at least you don't have to worry about the risk that you'll be permanently messed up! But it will be pretty amazing once we pull it off. I wonder what I'll be?" Sirius thought aloud. "I bet James will be something like a lion, a true Gryffindor at heart!"

"Nah, James isn't fiery enough to be a lion. Something a little calmer," said Remus. "And I bet you'll be something really playful, eh Sirius?"

"Yeah! Imagine one of us ends up being something really lame like a butterfly, huh? That'd be no help at all!"

"That would also be highly disturbing. Are you sure you're telling us everything about yourself Peter?" Remus asked in mock seriousness.

Peter smiled weakly. Even though they were joking about it now, he just knew that he was going to end up being something stupid, that would most certainly pale in comparison to whatever it was Sirius and James would end up being. He almost didn't want to know.

"So basically we each have to learn to produce a Patronus charm," James was explaining.

"What was that again?" Peter asked hesitantly.

"Honestly, Pete, do you ever pay attention in class?" Sirius asked.

"The pot said to the kettle," Remus whispered comically.

"Are you lot done?" James said, getting impatient.

"Sorry Professor McGonagall, sir,"Sirius said, saluting James. James sighed and continued.

"Well anyway, the Patronus charm is meant to ward off dementors, but the form it takes also represents your animagus shape. So if you want a preview of what yours will be you simply produce a patronus and you know what it is."

"Right, simple!" Remus laughed.

"What?"

"That's extremely advanced magic James, it's not that easy." Remus' logic was kicking in.

"Are we, or are we not also attempting to become animagi Remus? Seriously, that's got to top any stupid little charm!" James argued, undaunted and determined that his plan would work.

"Whatever you say James. All I'm saying is that it will involve some work."

"Alright fine, you're right," James relented.

This was the usual format of prank-planning, etc. Remus bringing up the logical (sometimes discouraging) facts and James, being the headstrong, stubborn boy that he was, rejecting them, determined that they could do anything.

"Okay, so tonight we look into the Patronus charm and we'll start prepping for it." James commanded. Everyone else nodded. Though Remus wasn't actually a part of the transformations, he always helped with research and work related to them (after all, they were doing it for him).

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"Alright, Sirius, what is this all about?" James pulled Sirius aside later.

"What is what all about James?" asked Sirius, playing stupid.

"Come on Sirius, we've been friends since we were babies, I can definitely tell when you're in a mood. Is it something to do with your mum?" Sirius frowned. He most definitely did not want to think about that now, and hated when the subject was brought up.

"No, not that."

"Then what?"Sirius decided to ignore Remus' warning, James should know after all.

"Um, it has to do with Catherine." James frowned.

"What about her?"

"Er..." Sirius did not know how to go about telling James that his sister was acting like a slut nicely, but decided to try it tactfully. "...why don't you go look at her neck?"

It took James a moment to process what that meant, but when he did his eyes narrowed. "Not again! I don't know what to do with her, I mean doesn't she even think about her reputation at all? How does she ever expect anyone to respect her if she keeps going around throwing herself at every bloke in the school? Honestly, Sirius, you know what we think of girls like Claire, imagine everyone thinking that about my sister?" Sirius nodded along sympathetically. He'd done it, now it was up to James to get her to stop.

"I need to go speak to her!" James got up. If there was one quality James did not like in a girl it was when she disregarded her own self-respect and dignity. James was very big on honour, and it drove him crazy when his own sister forgot about it. Perhaps this was why James only looked at girls like Lily Evans (who had too much self-respect for her own good). Girls like Lily didn't walk around the school displaying their love bites for everyone to see. He shook Lily out of his head and focused on finding his sister. She was definitely getting a lecture from him.

A/N 2: To Alex Sakura (thanks for reviewing), sorry about all the descriptivness, but I really needed to put in some background info (like Lily with her friends). I'll try to distribute it more evenly from now on though.

Cheeriogirl