Marauders' Match-making Inc.

Okay, another update! It's in honor of someone's birthday coming up in about 2 days…Guess who's birthday?

BTW- So it's short. Sue me. LoL.

Also: Thank you to Katy (Grimm Sister) for your inspiring me. One of your old reviews (I re-read some reviews the other day) inspired a VERY important part of the next chapter or so that I was getting serious writer's block on. Particularly a comment you made on Chapter Ten (I think) about a misconception by one of the characters.

I hope you like this chapter. Hopefully the next update will be in a month, but I can't promise anything, sorry. So if it takes forever to write, just know that it's because I'm busy or my computer crashed.

-Kait

Disclaimer: The plot of this story is loosely based on the ABC Family movie, "See Jane Date." The characters are property of J.K. Rowling. The only things that belong to me are the changes I made to the plot I borrowed and the new characters that you don't recognize from the Harry Potter books. Is that alright with you then?

Chapter Fifteen: Marauders Strike Back (when they figure out what to do)

Lily, when her eyes met James', raced as quickly as she could from the Leaky Cauldron and through the winding streets and people in Diagon Alley. The potions and ingredients she was supposed to get for Dumbledore for the Order's latest project were long forgotten.

Almost just as she had dashed off, she heard a faint call from the pub she was currently set on getting as far as possible from.

Or was it all just in her imagination?

But she could have sworn she heard James' voice calling to her.

Not that she really cared. He didn't care for her, so why should she care for him?

He could go rot.

In hell.

OH, who was she kidding? She didn't want him to die or rot or do any of the ridiculous things she had just thought of. She supposed she deserved this. After all, she had been very cruel towards him…and he hadn't done anything to justify her anger, when you really thought about it. Sure, he had scared off boyfriends, but that was all because he still had feelings for her. And now as Lily stood in the streets of Diagon Alley, on the corner of Knockturn, she knew exactly what she was feeling.

She loved him.

Damn.

She really hadn't meant for this to happen.

But since when could you chose who or when you fall in love?

Lily really wished you could. Wished silently that you could pick when you fell in love…Like call up Cupid on the telephone and say, "It's ten oh nine pm on a Friday and I'd like to fall in love right now with…the next man on the street (if you were really desperate)."

So she loved him. But what could she do about it now?

Lily halted once she felt she was far enough away from the pub. Kicking loose stones from the alleyway's gray cobblestone streets, she started to walk slowly and calmly. At least that was the only way she could allow herself act and express her emotions, what, with all the dusty old shops with neatly printed signs and people happily walking around staring at all the Christmas decorations.

How else could she act? She wasn't about to make some sort of scene.

She thought her situation through sadly, as she noticed a few children stopping just outside Zonko's and picking up some of the snow that blanketed the ground. She smiled slightly when she watched a sandy-haired boy aim a snowball at a young brown-haired girl. The girl retaliated faster than you could say 'fight' and was not the only one to do so. Another boy, quite the opposite of the first, with longer black hair joined in quickly and soon the sandy boy had twice as much snow in his face than he'd started with.

Lily sighed as she thought back to Hogwarts and all the times she had engaged in snowball fights with James, Sirius and her other school friends. She let her mind wander until it landed on the memories of James' from the Pensieve. He had felt so in love with her then…

Was it possible that James had already gotten over his feelings for her?

She suddenly felt very sick to her stomach as she remembered the date she had just witnessed.

She had already wasted nearly two years to act upon these feelings and yet, was she now restrained to bare the same kind of torture James had been condemned to?

(Wow, did this all seem dramatic… Like some stupid soap opera with it's overly cliché and outlandish situations…)

Just shut up, she told herself; Leave it for your friends to mock you.

Of course she couldn't do anything. She couldn't very well go and break up all of Marlene and James' dates, could she? That would be in no way fair to Marlene…and she liked Marlene.

It was a shame. If she didn't know Marlene from the Order and found her to be a nice person, she would have sabotaged every date with James that she could.

Lily felt a wave of misery come over her. What do I do now, then?

It was before Lily even gave it a thought, that she apparated and found herself on Sirius' doorstep.

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"Can you believe five kids would be so much work?" Sirius raved, practically pacing around his apartment living room. "I was a kid once. I was never that bad. I never gave people any trouble. Well, hardly any. And my 'family' doesn't count."

Remus let out a strangled laugh as he let Sirius continue and tried to keep the rest of his laughter down to a minimum. "You—Trouble—Never."

"I know," Sirius agreed, rolling his eyes, "You have no idea how glad I was when Molly and Arthur came back; even though they were shocked to see the house was a bit…er…messy."

"What happened, Sirius?" Peter asked from his seat, urging him on, "What did they do?"

"I think you asked the wrong question, Peter," Remus said with a slight grin, "The question is, what did Sirius do?"

Sirius smirked and moved closer to their chairs for dramatic effect. "You'll never believe it. The two older ones, Charlie and Bob—"

"You mean 'Bill'," Remus supplied.

"Right," Sirius said, nodding, "Charlie and Bill. They insisted on playing Quidditch in the house. Says their mother let them do it loads of times. And then the other one, the three-year-old, Percy, started yelling about how Molly never let them even bring a broomstick into the house, no less fly one. So then the other two started chasing him around, threatening to hit him with their brooms. So I had to take those away."

"You took their brooms away?" Remus interrupted, grinning at Peter who was laughing too hard to say anything. "Wow. You're turning into a regular house-witch. So when are you expecting?"

"Shut up," Sirius grumbled as he went on, "Then they told me they were going to hit me with their broomsticks once they got them back, so I sent them to their rooms. And then the two twins were crying for some reason I couldn't figure out, so I gave them my wand to play with—"

Peter shot up in his chair. "You gave them your wand?"

"Well, I can tell you now, that that was a stupid plan," Remus said, wondering how Sirius could be so thick.

Sirius murmured in agreement, "You have no idea just how 'stupid.' While they were still crying the little kid, Percy, kept telling me, 'Don't give them wand. Give them diaper change, milk. You not a good babysitter.' So then I got fed up and sent him to his room."

"Wow, Padfoot, you really don't like children."

He glared Remus and put his arms across his chest. "Well not when they come in fives, mate."

No one chose to argue with that point, so Sirius continued with his story of his eventful night.

He was getting to the part where the twins had started blowing things up, armed with his wand and Bill and Charlie had stolen back their brooms; contenting themselves with flying around the downstairs while knocking many vases and clocks over—when a knock came at the door.

Sirius stopped his narrative, much to the protest of the other two ("Keep going! "Let the machine get it.") to answer the door.

He was particularly concerned when he opened the door to see Lily looking distressed and a bit like she was about to cry.

"Lily?" He stood there shocked. "What's wrong?"

She just smiled faintly at him. "C-could I come in?"

"Yeah," he replied without a second thought and ushered her in, "Of course."

By this time, Remus had come to the door to see who Sirius was talking to. He wasn't surprised to see Lily there, but rather, he had a look on his face that suggested he was wondering why Lily seemed to be on the verge of tears.

"Lily?" he asked, clearly just as concerned as Sirius. Peter soon appeared behind him. "What's wrong?"

"You were just at the Leaky Cauldron, weren't you?" Peter said, venturing a guess.

All three stared at him incredulously. "How did you know?" Lily asked, nodding to confirm his suspicion.

"Oh," Remus said softly, realization dawning on him almost instantly.

It took Sirius a little bit longer to figure it out as he slung his arm around Lily's shoulders and led her to the living room.

"So…You saw James and Marlene, then?"

Lily nodded miserably again as Sirius gently pushed her into the couch.

Why did I come here, Lily wondered, I don't want to talk about this. Not with James' best friends!

She almost made a move to get out of the room and leave but Sirius, who was watching her closely, noticed and gave her a look that said very clearly, 'Stay.'

Lily sighed and stayed rooted to her spot in the chair.

I don't know why I deal with this.

But she knew why. She currently had no where else to run to.

"So what happened?"

"I saw James and Marlene, for starters," Lily mumbled bitterly, answering Remus' question while the boys seated themselves.

Peter snorted quietly, though not meaning to be rude and tried to cover it with a loud cough. "Well, that was obvious."

Lily glared at him from her armchair, as did Remus. Both appeared to be extremely displeased that Peter was being such an insensitive prat.

"Shut up and sit silently, Wormtail," Sirius shot at Peter, giving him an annoyed look. "Did James say anything?"

"No," Lily mumbled, taking a tissue from the mahogany end table and started etching her initials in the wood. "Sorry," she added, removing her hand from the table, as she noticed Sirius watching her.

"S'okay. My dad's anyway, so I don't really need it."

It was pretty clear to the three boys sitting there that Lily definitely had feelings other than the normal friendly ones for James. Even Peter and Sirius (who could be very thick sometimes) could see that much.

Soon it seemed that Lily had realized their perception and felt no need to do anymore damage by talking to them more. As good listeners as they may be, she couldn't be certain that her confusing feelings wouldn't reach James' ears.

Ears!

Suddenly, an excuse to get out of there dawned on her…She still had to get the goblin ears and black beetle eyes for Dumbledore's project!

"Umm," she started slowly, trying not to look suspicious, "I had better get going…I still have ingredients to get for the Order."

She looked around for their reply while she began to get up out of the chair.

"Uh…Sure," Sirius answered, not quite sure what to believe as he watched Remus get out of his chair and go in the direction of the front hall.

"So we'll see you at the next meeting, then?"

Lily smiled slightly at Peter in reply. "Yeah."

She got up hastily and said a quick thank you to Remus for picking up her coat from the foyer. She wasted no time showing herself out the door as the boys sat, partly stunned.

Peter was the first to speak up from his armchair.

"So what do we do now?"

"You mean about Lily and James?" Sirius asked, having no plan in mind. He took a sip of his drink as he thought the situation over.

"No, about Cleopatra and Antony. Yes, Lily and James," Peter said, exasperated.

Sirius just looked annoyed when Remus tried to stop the potential fight. "This is no time to be stupid, Peter. If you have something to say, spell it out."

"I don't know," Sirius murmured aloud. "But we'll think of something."