Lily collapsed on her bed. It was only nine o'clock but she was already very exhausted from the journey to Hogwarts. It felt good to be back again. Anne and Elain were fighting for the bathroom and Lily was just about to fall asleep when something caught her ears.

"Did you see James Potter today?" said one of the girls who just entered their dormitory. There were five people in the seventh year Gryffindor girls' dormitory, and the remaining two had just entered.

Lily groaned. It was almost instinctive.

"Hi Lily," both girls said cheerfully in unison.

"Hi," Lily muttered, too tired to open her eyes.

The girls continued on their conversation. "He's so cool!" one of them said.

Lily's eyes snapped open. "No he's not," she said, suddenly finding the energy to argue.

"Maybe we're talking about different James Potters," one of them said.

"Goodness," Lily declared, "I would die if there was more than one James Potter in this school."

"But he is really cool," they continued. "He's smart, a good Quidditch player, really handsome."

"Especially when he messes up his hair to look like he just got off the Quidditch field," the other one added.

Lily fell out of her bed with a thud and didn't bother to immediately get up.

"Woah, Lily, are you okay?" Anne, who had just come out of the bathroom, asked her friend.

Lily got up and said, "James Potter is an arrogant, egoistic jerk who picks on other people because he has nothing better to do. He's a big show-off who, by no talent of his own, got picked for Head-Boy, the most unsuitable position for him in the world." After she finished her tirade, Lily crawled back onto her bed again. The two girls were silent and decided to carry on their conversation somewhere where the head girl couldn't hear.

Anne kneeled by her side and said, "Wow, that was more exciting than usual. Did he ask you out again?"

Lily turned over and nodded with an annoyed expression on her face as she recalled the last moments of the train ride. "I wish Potter would disappear from my life."

Anne was quiet for a moment before asking, "Do you?" She then crawled into her own bed.

Lily turned around to face the wall but, instead of sleeping, she was now wide awake. She thought about Anne's question for a long time and, when she was finally sleepy, everyone else in the dormitory was already dreaming.

………………………………………………

"C'mon, wake up!" Remus shoved a sleepy James before beginning to poke Sirius on the next bed. It was eight in the morning and the four Marauders had gone to sleep late at night after sorting out their vast supply of what Professor McGonagall would've called 'troublemaking items.'

Sirius yawned and began to blink his eyes open. "Can you not be excited about school for one day, Moony?" he asked.

Remus rolled his eyes and said, "We have advanced transfiguration with the Ravenclaws first thing this morning. And after all the lovely entrances we've made for the past several years…

"Our entrances were fine," James said, his eyes still closed. "We were just a bit late every time."

"Our entrances were not fine," Remus retorted. "And I can't bear to face History of Magic after you two walked into class the first day of last year talking about how boring Professor Binns was."

"Hey," Sirius complained, now beginning to get up. "Not my fault I didn't see him in the corner. He is transparent, you know."

Remus sighed. "Just get up. Even Peter is up."

Sirius and James both sat up immediately, surprised.

"Really?" James asked.

"No," Remus said. "I hit him with my pillow using all my strength, but he was immobile. But at least you guys are now surprised out of bed. Let's go eat. I don't want to be late for the five-hundredth time in a row."

James grumbled. Remus was already dressed in his black robes and it took a while for the other two to find their clothes. It was only the second day and their dormitory was already a mess.

It took even longer for the three to wake Peter up. After whacking him continuously with pillows and shouting in his ear, Peter finally got up, muttered a: "huh? Did someone call me?" and got dressed.

The Marauders made their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast, they bumped into Snape. He immediately snarled and backed away, his wand out in dwelling position.

"Don't even try anything, Potter, Black," he spat out the names like they were poison and narrowed his eyes angrily at them.

Professor Sprout, who was nearest, eyed the group of boys wearily. She was just getting out of her seat, probably to reprimand them, when James spoke up.

"Not even you are stupid enough to do anything in the Great Hall in front of all these teachers," he murmured.

Snape looked around, saw Professor Sprout, and moved away, cursing at them under his breath.

"Pleasant greasy guy," Sirius said as he shoved his hands casually into his pockets and blew his bangs out of his eyes, and action that never failed to impress girls.

"C'mon, let's go eat." Remus said, and the four headed over to the Gryffindor tables. They had a hearty breakfast and walked off pleasantly to Transfiguration class.

……………………………..

To Remus' delight, the Marauders were not late to class for the first time in several years. ("We'll make up for it tomorrow," James said." Remus had ignored him.) Professor McGonagall used their first day of classes to immediately jump into their textbook.

"Today," McGonagall said, "We will be talking about animagi." And with that, she tapped her teaching stick on the board so sharply that several people jumped in surprise.

James looked up from his book. He met Sirius' eyes and they grinned at each other. Sirius put his hands behind his head and leaned back so that only two legs of his chair was touching the ground.

"Mr. Black!" McGonagall's face flared up. "If you lean back anymore, my chair legs are going to break!"

Sirius fell forward to the normal position and smiled at Professor McGonagall. "I won't break it. I've been practicing for the last seven years."

The students laughed. McGonagall's lips tightened. "Well, Mr. Black," she said. "Then make this your first year to pay attention."

Several people laughed again and Sirius smiled. Despite McGonagall and the Marauder's seemingly antagonistic relationship, they were actually her favorite students. (well, not so much Peter.) James, especially, was brilliant at transfiguration.

Elain, who was sitting two rows up from the four boys, turned to Samantha by her side and said, "He's so audacious. How can you possibly stand him?"

Samantha only smiled fondly and shrugged.

Lily, who was sitting by Elain's side, said, "Look, McGonagall's turning into a cat again."

As she turned back into a human, Anne whispered. "You must be brilliant at transfiguration to be able to do something like that."

Lily nodded in agreement as she applauded McGonagall in admiration.

"Your Potter' brilliant at this. He could probably do it," Elain whispered to Lily.

Lily felt a slight twinge in her spine as she heard Elain's words. It was ironic, because she had just thought of the exact same thing. She turned and looked back at James. He was looking at her, but was surprised that she looked back. He waved. She scowled.

Lily turned around, determined not to look at James again. She was drifting off, thinking about the complicated process of human turning to animal when James was by her side.

"What do you want, Potter?" She asked.

"Want to be partners, Evans?" James grinned at her.

"No," she said out of pure instinct. "I'm with Anne."

James smiled again. "Didn't you hear McGonagall, Evans? You have to pair up with someone of the opposite gender. And she wants us to go with someone we usually don't work with."

Lily looked around her and quickly grabbed a timid Ravenclaw boy.

"I'm with David, then," she said.

"David already has a partner," James raised his eyebrows.

"Uhh…" David stammered, about to deny James' statement when James glared at him.

"Uh, yeah," David quickly said, "I'm working with Samantha!"

"Samantha's working with Sirius," Lily quickly said.

"I mean the other Samantha!" David squeaked, reminding both Lily and James of Peter. He quickly moved away. There were no other boys left for Lily to pair up with.

She glared at James and said, "There is no other Samantha."

James shrugged, assumed a look of innocence, and said, "Beats me what he's thinking."