Disclaimer: When in doubt. Not ours.

Summary: A James and Lily Story. They both led seemingly perfect lives – appearing like flawless portraits. In 6th year, everything began changing drastically, forcing them to leave childhood, and their perfect images, behind forever. Follows The Marauders Era's 6th year at school.

Authors' Note: Wow. This chapter has been a LONG time coming. Truthfully, I think we're going through a bit of a writers' block. Not only that, I haven't really been able to get any good writing hours in anyway. To make a long story short however, Chapter five is here. Enjoy.

Chapter 5: Don't Ruin Her Day

Lily groaned as her alarm clock began ringing shrilly to wake her up for the new day. She sat up groggily and hit her alarm clock forcefully wishing she could just pick it up and hurl it across the room. But then again, that was not the best idea since it had been broken too many times over the past couple years. Lily thought the alarm clock had been through to much to be hurled against a wall, and even if she did manage to break it, she would also have to fix whatever else the clock damaged.

Lily smiled, looking at the faithful old alarm clock. She had given each of her friends an identical one after first year, and the three other girls all loved them. Lily was the only one of the girls that actually used hers however, being as she was the only one that knew how to successfully set the desired time to wake her up.

I might as well get up, it's no use lying here hiding from Potter all day…Wait…He's not important enough to hide from, Lily thought bitterly. When she sat up, she saw that at the foot of her bed there were some balloons tied up with ribbons and two envelopes floating in mid-air. She hurriedly crawled out of bed and grabbed them. One she saw, was a letter from Hagrid, the Hogwarts game keeper.

Lily,

Hapy Birthdae! Thought it would be nice if you came over for a birthdae lunch in my cabin today at one. I baked you a cake for the occation.

Hagrid

Lily grinned knowing that she would have enough time to be at Hagrid's for an hour or so before she got back to the dormitory where she would get a party from her friends. Speak of the devils; Lily grinned as she recognized Mai's neat and elegant handwriting on the second envelope.

Dear Lily,

We sincerely wish you a very Happy 16th Birthday and are sorry that we cannot be here when you wake up. We're attending to some things and will be able to spend the afternoon with you. See you then.

Sincerely,

Us.

Lily looked towards the bottom and saw that there was a postscript added in Kat's loopy scribbles.

Lily: Just got back from the Marauders' dormitory. I have something exciting to tell you, but I won't write it here because I want to tell you in person. Peter says to remind you that you have to tutor him from ten to twelve in Charms, he and the rest of the boys are sneaking o Hogsmeade to buy Remus get-well presents, but you didn't hear it from me! See you this afternoon! XoXo Kat

Lily laughed knowing that it was only cover up stories for her friends' real plans to get her out of the dormitory so they could get it ready for the party they planned for her every year. She gave a final glance at her alarm clock, this occasion to look at the time, which was 9:30. She speedily went through her morning routine, throwing on the first thing she could find, before running down to the Great Hall to grab a bite to eat and sprinting back upstairs to tie her hair back and grab her wand. Finally, she rushed down to the common room, out of breath, and sank down into one of the comfy armchair located near the fire to wait for Peter. All in all, Lily had to do a lot of running despite it being only morning and promised herself a hot shower before she went to Hagrid's.

"Hi Lily, Happy Birthday," Lily turned around looking into Peter's watery blue eyes, and at his outstretched hand where a colorful birthday card lay.

"Thank you, Peter! How did you know?"

"Well, James has been sending you gifts for years…"

"You have a point. But let's hurry and get to work," Lily said too quickly. And for the next two hours Lily managed to teach Peter the Charms he couldn't do from the year before.

"Wormtail, you done yet?" Both Lily and Peter looked up to see James standing before them.

Peter nodded eagerly and mumbled a thank you to Lily, "See you next week."

She gave a small smile and turned to go upstairs for her shower before a voice stopped her, "Lily wait!"

Lily whipped around to see James standing at the bottom of the staircase, looking up at her merrily. "Happy Birthday," was all he said before leaving the Common Room.

Lily walked the rest of the way to her dormitory just realizing that James had for the first time not tried to pull advances on her. She realized all too soon that she didn't have much time for a shower and that she had better change for the clothes she was planning to wear to her party after her shower since she wouldn't have any time after getting back from Hagrid's. She quickly grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweater she received from her parents as one of their birthday gifts in the mail the day before, and ran to take her shower.

Twenty minutes later, Lily found herself walking down to Hagrid's hut in the warm September weather. It was still slightly humid – remnants of the summer weather, but with a gentle breeze, making her auburn hair flap behind her. There was a slight chalky smoke coming out of Hagrid's chimney, and Fang was running through the pumpkin patches as she approached the picturesque house and knocked on the door. "Hagrid! It's me, Lily!" She called out.

The door swung open and there stood Hagrid, beaming at her, though nervously. He stepped back and Lily stepped in, closing the door behind her. "There ye are. Been wonderin' when ye would show up."

"You didn't think I was going to forget to come?" She asked, grinning.

"SURPRISE!" Three voices bellowed out and three figures appeared from nowhere. Lily was caught off guard and shrieked, jumping back into Hagrid.

She gasped a moment later when she saw the whole cabin had been decorated with streamers, balloons, and any other decorations. There was a small pile of brightly wrapped presents and next to them was the table covered with plates of food and a beautiful white cake. Behind all this, stood Hestia, Mai, and Kat, looking at her mischievously. "But-I…" Lily stuttered, as she stepped away from Hagrid and closer to her friends.

"Thought that we were going to decorate the dormitory while you were here and then throwing you a party there?" Kat teasingly finished Lily's sentence. "We did plan to, but Mai came up with the idea to throw a curve in. So we decided to have the party here instead, can't say you weren't surprised now, can you?"

Lily laughed at all this, but once again her attention was drawn to the table covered lashings of provisions. "Where did you get all this food?" Lily asked.

"Remus told Kat where the kitchens were and how to get food from the house elves. If you get sick of all the junk, you can have some avocado salad that I put right here…er…what happened to my salad?" Mai asked turning around to look at her friends.

"I put it back in the kitchen and got some Cauldron Cakes instead," Hestia said grinning. Mai's look of bewilderment changed into one of annoyance.

Kaitlyn grabbed a bottle of Butterbeer and opened it. "Listen here Mai; this is a party, meaning you are not going to eat that tofu seaweed stuff you eat on a regular basis but some real food. And no more organic fruit juices. You are going to take this bottle from my hand and drink the Butterbeer in it. No objections, and if you don't I will make you drink it, and I won't be careful enough to make sure I don't spill anything either," Kat threatened.

Mai glanced at her testily before reaching for a bottle of water instead. Kat watched and gave huff before starting to pout. At this point, Hestia grabbed the bottle of Butterbeer and dived for Mai, who was much to quick for her and slipped out of the way. Hestia gave a shocking squeak before losing her balance and toppling over; she landed on the floor with a "thud" and shot a glare at Mai, who was smiling smugly from the corner that she had retreated to.

"Quidditch reflexes," grinned Mai triumphantly as she took a sip from the water bottle.

"Hey! Look, there's Remus! He's back a day early!" Kat cried and everyone including Hestia who was cursing under her breath ran to the window to take a look.

Sure enough, there was Remus sitting by the Lake, alone. "He looks so lonely, let's invite him in. Is that alright with you Hagrid?" Lily asked.

"Of course, it's yer party, and I wouldn't mind talkin' to the young fellow a bit."

"And it is the least you could do, he did get you that present," Hestia added.

"What present?"

"The book shaped one," Kat said over her shoulder before she ran outside.

Everyone watched from the window as she reached Remus, threw her arms around him, then grabbed his arm and began dashing back towards Hagrids'. They stumbled in the door, Remus a bit out of breath, and rather flushed from his unexpected run. There was no need to say anything; everyone became comfortable with each other in a matter of seconds, and the small group of people began chattering as they sat down to eat a late lunch before getting to the cake.

"I still feel hurt about you three lying to me in your note," Lily said in a mock sad tone, at which everyone but Kat laughed, who thought that Lily was being serious.

"I didn't lie, well not too much anyway. I did go to the boys' dormitories! Now you can hear what I wanted to tell you! Well…" Kat's voice trailed off as she began telling Lily what had happened to her earlier that morning, with interruptions from Hestia and Mai.

FLASHBACK

Kat knocked loudly, but nervously on the door of the Boy's dormitories. What if Sirius answered instead of James? She didn't have time to think of the "tragedy" that might befall her if he did, because the door opened with a creak, and she sighed with relief to see it was only James. Of course, it just happened to be James Potter without a shirt, a sight that every girl at Hogwarts would have welcomed to see; and of course, Kat now wished it were Sirius standing in front of her. She might not be able to utter any word he understood but she would have absolutely loved to see him without a shirt.

"What is it Kat? It's seven, in the morning, on a SATURDAY! Wait! Did something happen to Lily?" James switched from the tired, grumpy, half asleep voice he was using to a tone of sincere and intense concern.

"Well, yes something is going to happen to her, it's her birthday today. Do you remember our cover story?" Kat tested him happily.

"Can you remind her she has to tutor me in Charms at ten?" Peter's muffled voice came from under his bed where he was digging for something.

"Sure! How long is she supposed to tutor you for?" Kat inquired, as she looked around the room at all the boys' belongings.

"Two hours. Then all of us are sneaking into Hogsmeade to buy a few things for Remus, he's coming back from the Hospital Wing tomorrow."

"Wormtail! You idiot! No one was supposed to know!" James yelled out in frustration.

"It's alright James, I won't tell anyone." Kat laughed and wondered how long it would take her to persuade Remus to show her how to get to Hogsmeade secretly.

"Um…Before you go, can you give Lily this? I would give it to her myself, but I might ruin her day," James requested timidly and rather sadly as he approached his bed and pulled out something from under the pillow before handing it to Kat.

The something was a small package that was wrapped up neatly in green wrapping paper, with a small card attached to it. "Ooh, what is—uhh...hurbedomer…uh…abulari…" James frowned slightly as Kat gurgled her last words. Kat had suddenly lost the ability to speak any language known to humans just when she looked up from the present. Her eyes seemed to pop out of her head and her face began turning a very bright shade of red. Her stare was locked on something over James shoulder.

"Oi Prongs! Have you seen my blue boxers, the ones with bludgers on them?" A solid voice called out from behind James and when his tousled head turned around he discovered the reason for Kat's strange behavior.

Sirius had come out of the shower unnoticed by anyone and was currently standing in the middle of the room with a puzzled expression on his handsome face, and nothing but a towel around his waist. He did not notice Kat standing immobile, gawking at him, as he was searching the floor of the circular room for his lost piece of clothing. James kindly grabbed Kat's arm and led her out in the hall where she could recover and be safe from possible risks of a seizure. As soon as he stepped outside, the dorm door closed behind him with a satisfying click. He had forgotten that the door had been locked from the outside. This realization came a moment too late and he began pounding frantically on the door, yelling for either Sirius or Peter to let him in. At that moment, Mai and Hestia were coming down the stairs, chatting animatedly.

Both girls stopped mid-conversation and stared shocked at the scene before them. James wearing hardly anything, pounding viciously on the door, and Kat standing very close to him, with her face all flushed, but finally able to regain her ability of speech. "Oh there you are! You have to help us! James locked himself out!" Kat said as she spotted them.

Suddenly, door swung open, just as James was about to throw himself at the solid wood. His weight threw him off stability, causing him to tumble at the feet of a tall figure. Sirius Black had appeared from behind the dark oak door, this time having the decency to wear pants. He took James by the elbow and lifted him up onto his feet. James gave a loud groan as he rubbed his side painfully and limped to Sirius' side.

Meanwhile, Kat ran quickly up to her friends and deposited the parcel in Mai's bag without saying anything but she began to flush again. Embarrassed, she attempted to retreat as fast a possible. Unfortunately, her hasty escape caused to her trip over her own feet and she braced herself to fall down the staircase with a loud yelp. But in less than a second, both James and Mai had whipped out their wands and transfigured a rug on the floor into a big cushion that she landed on. Kat got up meekly, and straightened herself out; she had begun to walk away with Mai and Hestia following confusedly.

"Come on, Prong. Better get inside before our fan club sees us in this." Sirius said warily, referring to both of them in only boxers. James stared at him blankly before both boys broke into mutual smiles and stepped into the dorm laughing concurrently, Sirius helping a limping James.

END OF FLASHBACK

By then end of the story, everyone was chortling and hungry. The story had taken quite a while to tell without someone interrupting or laughing. The group did justice to all the food and soon it was time for Lily to open her presents. She picked up a rectangular shaped box that was wrapped rather badly, and opened it to find a beautiful carved doll of herself. She realized right away that it was from Hagrid and smiled at the beautiful handiwork of it. He had captured her perfectly in the doll. Everyone admired it as Lily turned around and hugged him; making him his cheeks turn a light pink.

Next was Hestia, who had given her a new set of pretty quills that could change its ink color to whatever the writer desired. Remus had indeed given Lily a book full of many new Charms she wouldn't have learned at school. Mai's gift came afterwards, which was a basket full of bath beauty products and aromatherapy candles, which Lily couldn't get enough of. Kat's gift, which felt very soft under its wrapping paper, was a beautiful light green dress robe that suited Lily's figure and complexion perfectly. Lily knew right away that Kaitlyn had probably spent a long time putting her talent into making the splendid garment.

Finally, Mai pulled out a small package from her bag, that Kat had slipped in there earlier. "James' present…" Lily thought, "Every year…." Not knowing whether to scowl or smile as she unwrapped it, and gasped when she saw a beautiful gold barrette for her hair. It consisted of a single perfect emerald, gleaming in the middle of finely polished gold. "Potter, as many faults as he has, has exquisite taste," Lily reflected as she put the barrette in her hair, after being urged to do so by her friends. It was a simple gesture on his part, though one done with great thought. Guilt poked at her as she felt the beautiful barrette sit in her hair. "Even after I yelled at him…"

'These are all so wonderful, thank you everyone," Lily whispered, her eyes filling with tears of happiness.

"Now let's put these out of the way and PARTY!" Hestia hollered, jumping up impatiently.

The girls quickly put away the presents and Mai put on an old record player that she found at home and turned it on. As a fast paced violin Celtic tune came on, Kat grabbed Mai and they began dancing to it, laughing whenever they made a mistake. Hestia grabbed Remus who turned out to be an excellent dancer, and Lily went over to ask Hagrid for a dance since he was sitting all by himself.

For the next couple of hours everyone moved crazily to the music, chatted, or did whatever else they could think of. Finally, after realizing that even Hagrid was weak from exhaustion, the group left, though not before they all took out their wands to perform cleaning charms, so as to prevent Hagrid from cleaning up the mess by himself.

After they were done, the girl picked up Lily's presents, said their goodbyes and thanks to Hagrid and started to walk across the grounds back into the castle. They sky had begun to turn a soft pink as the glorious sun was getting ready to call it another day. They chattered lightly all the way to the Common Room, planning to go change then go down for dinner; Lily would then leave for her date with her boyfriend, David. Upon entering the Common Room, the group immediately spotted Sirius lounging on a couch with a pretty, blonde fifth year girl sitting in his lap. He was whispering softly in her ear and from time to time, she would giggle girlishly and turn to kiss him passionately. Lily and Mai glanced at Kaitlyn cautiously. Kaitlyn, who had been laughing at one of Hestia's jokes seconds earlier, merely gaped at the pair on the couch tragically. She turned away from the sight of them to stare back at her friends blankly before making an abrupt turn and running up the stairs to their dorm and out of sight.

"I wish Kevin was more like that with me," Hestia said wistfully and suddenly she looked at the pair of them. Mai and Lily, who were still recovering from watching Kat's heart fall disastrously, both swerved their heads to frown at her, slightly stunned.

"But I thought you two were happy together." Lily said.

"We are, but lately he's been going off to the library alot– "

"What? The library, I didn't think he even knew Hogwarts had one," Lily said and got a glare from Hestia.

"What I was saying is, he has been going there a lot to study so he can get the grades for a good career in his future. I offered to go with him, but he told me not to worry my pretty head over such trivial matters." Hestia said and Mai began reassured her while Lily yet again got lost in her own thoughts.

She herself was very happy her own boyfriend was not like Sirius. David was the caring, smart, sensitive, and handsome man she always dreamed about. They had a stable and relaxed relationship though Lily privately thought that it could use some excitement, but you couldn't have everything. After leaving behind Sirius and his blonde friend to continue to snog – they had not even noticed the girls come in – Lily changed out of her disheveled clothes into a more dressy outfit and spent 15 minutes fixing her maple hair and touching up her make-up. As she stepped out of the bathroom, she received compliments from Mai and Hestia, and even one from a still distraught Kat. Lily gave her an encouraging hug before stepping downstairs.

Lily once again passed Sirius and his friend… still "busy" and stopped to frown. "I'm glad David has higher values. He wouldn't use girls like that… even James wouldn't…" The corners of her elfish mouth curved up slightly as she thought about her arrogant suitor, "James…". She started to hum softly as she left the common room behind to meet David for her date, the golden barrette adorned with a single emerald, still glimmering softly in her hair.

It's done. Next chapter is where the drama starts. It probably won't be up for a few weeks, but we'll work hard. Anyway, hope you like it… please remember to review ;).