A/N: OK, this is sooo weird. I can't believe I'm going to write this chapter. I was supposed to give up on this but.I just couldn't lol. PLEASE R/R!!!



Chapter 6

"So what? So I'm working on a project that counts for half our grade with two of the biggest slackers in the world. So people are spreading rumors about me falling in love with my worst enemy. So my parents are dead and I'm going to be stuck in Hogwarts next week for Christmas all by myself. So what?" Lily tried to console herself "Why should I care? So what if my life is in shambles. At least.at least what?"

"At least you're living?" Lynn suggested helpfully.

"At least I'm living. Hmm, no I don't think so because nothing good can be said about that. Usually people say that when they are having a rough time but have some thing to live for. I am under a rough time and have nothing to live for, so no. And see? I just proved that there is nothing good about my situation. I'm doomed,"

"Lily, darling, don't say that. You know we love, cherish, and admire you greatly?" Annie said in a playful tone.

Lily rolled her eyes. Three days had passed since Rita had told her she would have to wait until Friday for a revision to be made. That meant there were four more days to go and Lily didn't think she would be able this atrocity. She was at her wits end.

"Whatever, I got to go," Lynn said "I got a meeting with my group. Hey, didn't yours start a while ago, Lil?"

Lily swore under her breath "Uch! I totally forgot. See, look what's happening to me! Three days I have to work with them and I'm already being influenced. I'll see you guys later if I can live through this chamber of torture," Lily said before flouncing out.

She rambled down the stairs, two at a time, muttering incoherently. Ever since her parents' death, every thing sucked. It felt like she had been put under a curse. She just wanted one good thing to happen. Just one! But, no, every time something good was about to happen it was cruelly snatched away and turned into another of her worst nightmares, laughing at her for thinking that there was an end to this cycle.

She reached the end of the stairs and walked through the Great Hall to the Quidditch field. Since she had gotten to pick the last place they had met at(the library, of course), she had agreed to let them pick this one. Of course they had to go and pick the Quidditch field, the absolute worst place to pick because it was freezing outside and really windy, and so dark that you could barely more than three feet ahead of you. Obviously, she wasn't surprised, she knew they were going to pick a place like this. It was just so..so..THEM. She'd only been working with them for three days and already she knew them way too well. She knew the inner workings of their mind and their little quirks, things she would rather go on without knowing. It was too dark to see anything so Lily began to call her names. All she could see, if she looked carefully enough was a tiny white star in the sky, the North Star. It was usually bigger, but tonight, it was so cloudy you could barely see a thing. Her father had taught her which star the North Star was.

"James, Sirius? Guys?" She called uncertainly, holding her arms tightly around herself, in hopes of warming up.

"Lily-O" she heard Sirius call out toward her far left.

She trudged in the direction of the voice until she bumped into someone, atleast she hoped it was a someone, and stopped.

"Ouch," James whined "Lily be more careful."

"Hey, its pitch black here and you picked the damn place,"

"Thanks," he said brightly.

"Sorry," James snapped, "So, wanna go inside or something?"

"Duh, I wanna go inside," Lily said "Come on,"

She grabbed one of the boys-it was too dark to see which one- and dragged them with her. He walked into her foot and stumbled, grunting, while he grabbed her shoulder to steady him.

"Ow," she squeaked angrily "Whichever one you are, get your arm off me. I can sue you for sexual abuse, you know, unwillingly touching me,"

"And I can sue you for making me fall and almost crack my head open," James's voice answered "Don't you know your own boyfriend's touch?"

"Haha," Lily said sardonically, as she opened the door to the castle "You're hysterical, James. Now, can you just shut up?"

"Since James got to pick a place and you also did, I get to pick this time!" Sirius exclaimed excitedly.

"What? The Quidditch field didn't count! We didn't do any work,"

"So what? It doesn't matter that you picked a crappy place,"

"Crappy? The Quidditch field isn't crappy-"

Lily just rolled her eyes. Boys. They could be so immature sometimes. In fact, James and Sirius reminded her of herself and Petunia when they were younger. They were always fighting over stuff together.

"Look, just decide on a place together, ok?"

James and Sirius abruptly stopped fighting and grinned mischievously at each other, nodding slowly.

"Umm, I don't really like that face on you guys," Lily said nervously.

"Oh, yeah. Why didn't we think of that before?" James said excitedly before.

"Follow us," Sirius yelped, as he ran.

Lily rushed after wishing she'd never opened her mouth in the first place.

"Sirius, move your big fat foot," Lily snapped.

"That's not my foot, it's James,"

"No it's yours,"

"No, it-"

"For G-d's sake," Lily spat "Will one of you move it or should I trip and fall out of this lump of cloth?"

The foot was moved as James said in a hurt voice "Its not a lump of cloth! It's an invisibility cloak. You seemed to have to liked it a few minutes ago,"

Which was true. When Lily first saw it, she had been blinded just by the amazement of seeing it. An invisibility cloak, something so rare, and almost never seen, and she was able to touch, to actually go under it.

"That's before I knew it would be like we were in a toy car," Lily muttered "This sucks. Why can't you just tell me where we are going?"

"Because, if we did, we'd have to kill you," Sirius joked.

"You do know we could have already been doing this stupid debate thing for an hour all ready?"

"Stupid? Lily Evans just called just called something for school stupid? Why is the sky not falling?" James mocked.

"Shut up," Lily mumbled, "I don't actually LIKE doing work for school,"

"Then why do you do it?" James asked, curiously. He didn't understand how someone could spend so much time and energy on something they didn't like.

"Because," Lily started out strongly but faltered "Because.I-I just do. Why shouldn't I want to do good in school?"

"You could do pretty good with out working so hard," James said.

"Well, maybe-"Lily started, her anger flaring.

"Yo, guys, we're here," Sirius interrupted.

James grabbed the Invisibility Cloak off them.

"Oh, James it was your foot!" Lily exclaimed.

"I told you it wasn't me," Sirius answered excitedly, which started him and James off in another one of their crazy dialogues.

Lily surveyed their surroundings. They were in a very, very dirty room. It was all messy, chairs strewn around the room, and papers all over the place. Lily wiped her hand on the wall, and a layer of grime came off.

"This is your "special" place?" Lily said disbelievingly "This looks like a prison room! Where are we?"

"Guess," Sirius said excitedly.

"I'm not guessing like some moron," Lily said stoutly.

"The Screaming Shack," James answered.

"The Screaming Shack? But isn't it locked-"

"We're Marauders. We have our ways," Sirius said mischeviously.

"Ok, well, lets get started. You guys have the books?," Lily asked, grimacing, as she picked up a dirty chair she wiped it off with a stray paper before sitting down.

"Um..Books?" Sirius said hesitantly.

"You do have them, right? It was nice of you guys to offer to bring them," Lily said sweetly.

"Yeah, sure, Sirius has them," James said, confidently.

"No, I don't. You have them,"

"I don't have them! You do!"

"You were supposed to bring them," "No, you were,"

"Wait a second," Lily said slowly, getting up from the chair "So you don't have the books?"

"Well," James said, "You see, there's been a slight problem. Sirius here was supposed to bring them-"

"No you were," Sirius interrupted.

"YOU don't have the books," Lily said menacingly, pacing around the room "The one thing this entire night is based on, an its not here. We walked around like hooligans for NOTHING! I'm breaking Hogwarts rules for NOTHING! NOTHING, NOTHING NOTHING! That's it, I'm out of here!" Lily said, running out through the tunnel they had came in.

"Wait, Lily, get back here! We didn't get to tell you-"

Lily ignored their cries and kept running. All of a sudden she felt a huge smack and she was picked up off the ground.

"Help!" She screamed desperately. What was holding her?

"Hold on Lily! I'm coming!"

That was the last thing she heard before she saw the concrete coming closer and closer and then she was enveloped in darkness.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Lily shouted, jumping up "Help! Help!"

Madame Pomfrey zoomed into the room and toppled over a bed "What's wrong?" she asked, as she lay in a heap on the floor.

"The thing!" Lily cried, "Don't you-"

She stopped suddenly, realizing where she was. A hospital bed lay to the left of her, and light was streaming in from the window. The cleanliness of the place contrasted greatly with the dirtiness and grime of the place where she had been- well, she didn't know what had happened to her, but she did know some how something and picked her up and threw her to the floor there.

"What is it?" Madame Pomfrey said in a strangled voice.

"Oh, um, nothing, just saw all those flowers and uh, I got excited?" Lily meant to say that but it came out more as a suggestion. Madame Pomfrey just stared at Lily for a second, touched her forehead to see if she had a fever, and then walked away muttering vile nonsense about kids those days and how it had been back in her day.

Lily just sat in her bed, thinking about that weird night until a few hours later, when Professor Dumbledore came in to visit.

"So, Ms.Evans, I see you've finally recovered. Took you a good part of this week to do so,"

"Wait-week? What day is it?" Lily said "I thought it was just the day after,"

"Its Saturday. This has been no small feat you've been through. Being attacked by a Whomping Willow is not something that everyone can live to talk about. You were most fortunate to have Mr. Potter and Black there to help you," Dumbledore answered gravely.

"Yeah, but they got me into it in the first place," Lily remarked while tugging on a fold in her blanket.

"True, true," Dumbldore said slowly, stroking his beard "Professor McGonnagol was not too happy with their actions, and many house points were lost,"

"But how did they know about the entrance. It's a known thing that the Screaming Shack has been sealed off for ages,"

"You will have to ask them about that. I can't answer for them. Now, I trust I will see you in classes next week?" Dumbldore raised his eyebrows in question.

Lily nodded slowly and sank in her bed as she watched the Headmaster leave. She didn't understand why Dumbledore couldn't tell her when he obviously knew. She could have died there, so she felt that the least they could was tell her.

Later that day, James came to visit. Lily had already been visited by Annie, Joy, and Lynn and was munching on some Every Flavor Beans when he came in.

"Did you find any Fungus Foot in there?" She heard a voice say into her ear, tickling the hairs on her back.

She jumped and slammed into James chin.

"Ouch!" He yelped.

Madame Pomfrey ran to see what it happened and in a mere few seconds the tables had turned and it felt to Lily that she was the visitor and he the patient.

"I told you never to sneak up on me," Lily remarked. "I didn't know you'd get do violent,"

"Hey, I'm not the one who endangered your life by bringing you unwillingly to a place where there was a man-eating tree that could have killed me," Lily snapped back angrily, folding her arms over her chest.

James softened visibly at that. His furrowed brow and frown was replaced quickly by a concern look.

"Look, I did come to say sorry. I really didn't mean for you to get hurt,"

"Well I hope you didn't," Lily said wryly.

He reached out and touched a purple bruise on her arm "Does that hurt?"

"Just a tad," Lily said sarcastically, moving her arm out of his reach.

All of a sudden James look brightened and he reached into his cloak and pulled out a dung bomb, a fishnet (Lily didn't want to know what that was doing there) and a rumpled piece of paper. He handed her the paper.

Lily took it from his grasped, unfolded and began to read it

James watched as Lily read the article and laughed at her reaction. She jumped at of her bed and yelped, clapping her hands.

"She wrote it!" she screeched.

"Quiet," Madame Pomfrey called.

James grinned "Yup, I gotta hand it to Rita dear, she did keep her word on that one. Too bad for you, Evans. Now you're just another thing of the past. I hope that you don't cry too much from me dumping you,"

"Hahaha," Lily said sarcastically.

James laughed. He couldn't help but feel a tingle go down his spine whenever he looked at her. Especially now. He didn't know why but for some reason seeing her with her hair all mussed up in her rumpled robes just made her look so alluring. One strand of her amber hair fell on her bare shoulder and James had the hugest urge to move it and kiss that spot on her shoulder. However, this came to no surprise to him. It wasn't like He'd never thought that before. Lily was a good-looking girl so obviously he did feel some physical attraction to her. But then again, he had physical attraction for at least half the girls in Hogwarts over 3rd year.

"I wonder why she would do that," Lily said, furrowing her brow.

James grinned in anticipation of her reaction to what he was about to say.

"Well, Evans, You are looking at Rita Skeeter's new boyfriend," he said cheekily.

Lily sat up higher in her bed trying to look over James shoulder "Where is that moron?" she said gleefully "Who'd want to go out with that stupid cow,"

"Hey, I'm not a moron," James said resentfully.

Rita Skeeter wasn't that bad. At least she was tolerable. Plus, she was not that bad of a kisser, he had just found out before he came to check on Lily.

"You are going out with Rita?" Lily said before bursting into laughter "You are such a male pig!"

James's anger rose. He hated how Lily felt she could act as obnoxiously as she wanted to him, as if he had no feelings or she was better than him. Well, he wasn't going to listen to her anymore. She'd have to learn the consequences of saying stuff like that to people

"I don't have to take this. I'm leaving," James said, getting up to go.

"No, wait," Lily said, making him stop "I won't talk about RITA-" Lily paused to suppress a giggle "-But I do have a question about what happened when I was hit,"

"What?" James moaned.

"Tell me how you knew about the Screaming Shack," Lily said.

James sat down, wondering what he was going to say. He couldn't tell her about Remus being a werewolf! He couldn't just tell someone a secret like that. James could barely even trust Lily in the first place. However, he came to a realization, he could just tell her about the Marauder's Map without telling anymore.

"Well, Lil, I'll let you in on a confidential Marauder secret," James said reluctantly "See, there's this thing called the Marauder's Map. Ya see, Me, Remus, Sirius and Peter kind of hate polishing those stupid trophies in the trophy room. Filch doesn't think up any interesting detentions anymore. So we enchanted a map that would tell us where people were in Hogwarts such as Professor McGonnagol and all those annoying people that can get us in trouble,"

"You're not smart enough to invent a map," Lily's brow furrowed in confusion "That's high level magic,"

"Don't estimate the power of the Marauders," James said sternly.

He felt weak with relief inside. Thank G-d she bought his story because if she hadn't he knew there would be hell to pay. She was one of those people who wouldn't just stop trying to find out something and would just keeping sticking her face in his.

"Wait a sec," Lily said thoughtfully.

Damn. He knew it couldn't be that easy.

"How did you stop that thing from killing me?"

"You just stick a branch in the knot of his trunk," James said, letting out a huge breath.

"How'd you know?" Lily questioned.

"Um, just lucky, I guess," James said weakly.

Lily's look of disbelief on her face showed what she thought of his answer.

"So if you made it, you put in the secret passages you knew about. How'd you find out about this one?" She enquired.

"I.look," James said, getting tired of trying to make things up "I can't tell you,"

"You almost got me killed," Lily cried "I think I deserve to know why!"

"Lily, I really would if I could. But I can't. You see it's not exactly my secret to tell. If I told you I would have to tell you something that is just to huge and important for me to tell you,"

"Oh, and I'm sure your fellow MAURADERS know about this stupid secret," Lily spat angrily.

"Well, they are sort of part of it," James admitted slowly, staring down at the floor.

"Just go," Lily said suddenly after a long pause.

"But Li-"

"I'm sick of the stupid excuses. I don't feel too good anymore. Get out, please."

James slowly left the room. He didn't understand Lily couldn't just let it go. Why did she have to act like that? Another thing he didn't understand was why he cared so much that she was mad at him. They were always mad at each other and eating each other's ears off. It was probably just because he felt guilty because of the situation he had gotten her into, he reassured himself. And he couldn't tell her, even if he wanted to. It would only involve her in something she wasn't ready and wouldn't want to be involved with.

He was so lost in his thought he didn't realize the smooth hand that had slid on his shoulder

"Hey James," Rita said cheerfully, snaking his arm around her waist.

"Hey sweetums," he said blandly, but she didn't noticed.

She stopped him in the middle of the hallway and kissed him hard on the mouth. He returned the kiss, but suddenly he just wasn't in the mood anymore.

"Look Rita," He said, breaking off the kiss "I have something to take care of, so I'll see you later,"

He waved to her before walking off quickly, wondering why he was in such a weird mood all of a sudden.

OMG! I DID IT!! I WROTE THIS CHAPTER!! YAY!!! PLEASE R/R! I REALLY NEED REVIEWS TO KEEP GOING B/C I HAVE TONS OF WRK AND STFF AND REVIEWS ARE REALLY WHAT KEEPS ME GOING..ATLEAST 10 MORE UNTIL I UPDATE..(that's prob how long it will take, maybe even longer)

And thanks to my reviewers:

Pigs*In*a*Blanket: who I love so much, my very own Jas who is writing a fic just for lil ol me! Thanx! I loved ur review!! Every1 read her stories!!

Someone: Im glad you like Lily in the chapter..is she she good in this? I think I reviewed your fic, If I didn't then review and tell me (

NayNay89: Thanks for all your reviews! I'm glad you like my fic!

The Golden Goose: I also think I'll write longer chapters. I just can't write short chapters, I don't think its in me.

Sereks sword: Thanks a bunch! I love your reviews

Alhoroma: See?? I did update!! Don't hate me!

Starr: I did have summer break but my parents went up to a lame bungalow colony and forced me to go, leaving me computer stranded (

Also thanx to:

Lily Potter weirdme030589 ~¤LoWa¤~ Drops of Jupiter Audrey( I love you!) Kelly Mako Shadows Shrouded Spirit crazy*man*running*around Ally-Kamiya( You better update fast!!!!!!!!!!) A Rose By Any Other Name Lqueenie Quitesirius(your penname is really cute!) Satan's Little Princess

Ok, next chapter there may POSSIBLY be some L/J action! FINALLY!! Sorry, Just that if they hate each other there has to be a transition right? And, please, please R/R!!!!