Okay, so I know this is a day or two late, and I am sorry if you were really, really waiting for it, but I had to pack. I'm going to Seattle on Monday, and then I won't be back until next Monday, but then I've got Band Camp until Friday. I might be able to update sometime on Saturday, but don't count on it, because I'm going to my grandparent's house, and then I'll be back on Tuesday. That's August 9th, if anyone's keeping track. I promise to update as much as possible for three days, but on Friday I'm going on a camping trip. I'll be back on Sunday, but I probably won't update again until Monday, because I'll have church stuff. I'll try to update loads then, and I may have it finished before school starts on the 18th, no promises though. All of this really scares me, because I never do this much in a summer, especially not all in a row. Thankfully, I have done nothing else all summer long, so I don't think I'll be going completely mental. No promises on that either. I do promise, however, to make a friend put up an author's note for me to tell all of you that they have finally locked me up with a couple of big, strong men to keep me from doing any serious damage to the human race.

Thanks to all of my wonderful reviewers! I'm afraid I don't have the time to mentions you all by name, but I'll try to put that in next time I update.

Disclaimer: Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I could say this is mine,

But that isn't true!

Chapter Five: Memory Lane

Lily was sitting on the couch, but that wasn't where she was. Not really.

Eleven-year-old Lily Evans stared at platforms 9 and 10, willing platform 9 ¾ to appear. It didn't. She felt tears prickling the backs of her eyes. Maybe it's all just a dream, she thought desperately, when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned. A boy her age, was standing there, grinning. He had messy black hair, hazel eyes, and a charming smile.

"You're blocking the way," he informed her, still smiling broadly.

"The way to where?" she asked, nearly sobbing by this point.

"Platform 9 ¾, of course. Can't you get on?"

"I don't know how," she whispered. He grabbed one of her hands, and pulled her along towards the solid brick wall between platforms 9 and 10. She looked at him apprehensively, when suddenly, instead of crashing painfully into it, they were walking through it. And then it was behind them, and a red steam engine was in front of them, saying Hogwart's Express. A sign above stated that they were on platform 9 ¾. Lily was shocked.

"Never walked through a brick wall before?" the boy teased. She shook her head. "Who are you?" she asked when she found her voice again.

"James Potter, at your service, m'lady," he said, bowing to her. She giggled. "And the lady's names is...?" he asked her.

"Lily Evans," she replied, curtsying. He grinned at her. "Let's find a compartment!" he said, pulling her towards the train again.

She remembered meeting Remus and Abbie discussing some book or another in the Great Hall after the sorting. Being first years, they were also sitting by Sirius and Peter, and Jessi and Grace. Lily remembered making friends with the girls in her dorm, and laughing with them until they all fell asleep on the floor, and then classes the next day, being dead tired and sore. But most of all, she remembered the pranks. She remembered setting buckets of water over doors, charming tripwires invisible, cleaning out Sirius's mouth every time he said a swear word her mother had told her was bad. But that was first year. They were beginners in magic, and most of their pranks were harmless muggle things.

And then, there was second year. At the sorting while they were sitting at Gryffindor table, laughing at the terrified first years, the Marauders dyed the girls' hair green. It began with a simple retaliation, turning all the boys' robes bright pink. But then, the Marauders got revenge, transfiguring their Transfiguration books into forks. After that, Lily lost track of what happened when, but she remembered turning all the books in the school library into romance novels (Madam Pince never did find out who did it), and waking up one morning to see the hangings around her bead transfigured into knives. The girls had cut themselves getting out of bed, so Dumbledore gave them permission to charm the girls' stairway to keep boys out. She never realized exactly how long the charm lasted. Second year was an all-out prank war. She still remembered the look on Abby's face when Sirius had put green food-coloring in the mashed potatoes while they were still in the kitchens. She and James had been united for a week just to get revenge.

They got over it by third year, though, and were all basically back to being friends. The entire school was on edge the entire year, because with the eight of them united, anything was possible. But it didn't really matter whether or not the school was on edge, because they never used the same trick twice. What was the point in that?

And then there was the grand finale of the year. Lily and James had been playing Exploding Snap while Jessi and Remus were playing chess, with Abby waiting to play the winner for the championship, and the others were just randomly laying around. Lily could still see Sirius's face when he informed them all that he though the staircases were boring. All they had was the occasional trick step. And those were only there because a few people had tripped in the middle of spells. The stairs, he thought, needed something. Everybody looked at him thoughtfully. Except Grace. She looked at him like he was an idiot.

"What do you expect them to do, move?" she asked him incredulously. Sirius looked like he could have kissed her. In fact, he, being an impulsive person, did actually stand up and kiss her on the cheek.

"That's it!" he exclaimed happily. "We'll make the staircases move!" He looked expectantly at Remus, Lily, and Abby. "Well?" he asked. "How do we do that?" Remus looked at him like he had grown an extra head. "I've never heard of anything that large-scale that could last more than a minute or two. It's impossible."

But James liked the idea. "Nothing's impossible. You're the one who's always saying that," he informed him. They all looked at Lily and Abby, and, as the latter was just staring out the window with an odd look on her face, stared pointedly at Lily.

"Don't look at me," she said. "How would I know how to do anything like that?" She looked at Abby. "Earth to Abby." She poked her friend. "Hey! At least try to answer."

Abby looked at her blankly, and then seemed to snap out of her reverie. "I think ― but I'm not ― maybe ― I've got to go to the library!" she said, standing up and dashing out of the portrait hole.

Lily remembered vividly the moment Abby came back, ten minutes before their first class in the morning. Her was hair was frizzy and she had bags under her eyes, and her robes were all wrinkly, but she had a stack of books under her arm, and looked like she had just won the Olympics. She carefully explained to them what they would have to do, and everyone just gave her blank looks. She sighed, and explained again, and that time they gathered something about three minutes past midnight and quarter moon. But that didn't make much sense unless they had to do something three minutes past midnight with a quarter moon. The next time, however, they got it. And then, the Friday before everyone went home for the summer, the staircases moved.

She remembered when they first saw people caught on moving staircases. It was a group of seventh-year Ravenclaws heading down to the Great Hall for breakfast, and then, quite suddenly, they were no longer headed toward the Great Hall, but the dungeons. Everyone stifled their laughter to avoid detention. Except Sirius. He whooped and jumped on the railing, laughing about how incredibly fun it was. He had what was officially the latest detention ever, polishing trophies until five minutes before the carriages left for Hogsmeade.

James watched Lily's face soften until she was smiling faintly for about ten minutes, when she frowned suddenly. He was almost certain it had something to do with what had happened the summer before fourth year, but couldn't be sure, as Lily had never told the Marauders why she had sworn off pranks for good.

Lily noticed that James was seated next to her, and turned to frown at him. "Okay," she said, "I remember. I will even admit to having fun. But that doesn't answer my question."

"Yes, it does," James told her. "You are the only one who ever officially swore off pranks."

"But you four guys were the only ones who ever pranked again."

"But we're not smart enough to come up with half of our ideas."

"You're imaginative enough."

"Lily, isn't the answer obvious?" James asked, exasperated with how slow she was being.

"No. Why should it be?" Lily was mystified. It was obvious that someone outside the Marauders was helping them, he had as much as said that, but not who.

"Because. There are only four people besides ourselves who ever helped us."

"You can't mean Grace and Jessi and Abby."

"Who else? Why do you think they always look so tired in the mornings?"

"Well, Abby's insomniac. And Jessi and Grace just aren't morning people, I guess."

"For the past three years they've been sneaking out of your dormitory after you're asleep to plan with us. Remember that time when we bewitched all the school brooms to fly toward the Forbidden Forest?"

"Don't tell me that was their idea."

"Actually, it was my idea, but they did it. The spell was so strong that even now the school brooms have a tendency to buck riders off and drift over that way."

"They didn't." Lily was shocked. They could have told her that they didn't want to give up pranking. She would've understood. James saw the look on her face, and, realizing what she was thinking, snorted.

"Do you think they would've wanted to share a dormitory with you if you yelled at them as much as you yell at me? It was bad enough sharing a common room," he pointed out. Lily just sighed and shut herself in her room until afternoon classes.

On the way to Arithmancy, she looked at her friends and asked them, "Are you really the ones who enchanted the school brooms?" Jessi and Grace nodded, but Abby was reading (how she walked at the same time, Lily didn't know) and appeared not to have heard. Grace poked her. Hard.

"Ouch! What was that for?" Lily repeated her question. "I'm assuming James told you so you'd quit glaring at him?" Lily blinked at her. "You were glaring at him and Sirius all morning long. Don't your eyes hurt?"

"No," Lily said. She was processing this information. It didn't seem reasonable to yell at them for past crimes, but… It wasn't right for the Marauders to be the only ones punished. She planned to tell the three of them off over dinner, but they weren't there. It suddenly struck her that they were probably avoiding her. The Marauders had avoided the Great Hall often enough when they knew another infamous Evans-Potter screaming match would result. She finished eating and trudged up to the Gryffindor common room. Sure enough, there were her friends, playing Gobstones by the fire. Lily sat on a couch and glowered at them. They ignored her. Lily wasn't used to being ignored by people she was preparing to tell off. She glared.

"You know, Lils, it wasn't like we didn't know what we were doing," Grace told her. Jessi nodded. Abby was reading again. Lily glared more intensely at her. She didn't seem to notice.

"Abby!" Jessi shouted.

"Hmm?" Abby glanced up, and noticed Lily. "Lily, you don't really have much of a right to mad at us," she said.

"What?" Lily was surprised. If they were anybody else she would have been shouting by now, but it seemed her friends were smarter than other people when it came to an angry Lily. Usually they just tread lightly around her, but now, being on the receiving end of her temper, they changed tactics.

"I'm going to assume that you have recently relived the more memorable events of our first three years. You do know that we're sad about what happened the summer before fourth year, but it happened to you. Not us. It has also happened to lots of other people just like you. They may not have reacted the same way, but it has happened before. And, being your friends, we tried to stick by you as best we could. But then you decided to give up what was our main source of entertainment. It wasn't just being cruel to other people, as you well know. It's rarely a form of cruelty to simply play jokes. Half the time you don't know who it'll happen to." Done speaking, Abby turned back to her book.

"But ―" Lily tried to protest.

"Snape was the only one James and Sirius openly hexed like that," Jessi pointed out.

"Exactly," Lily said. "Do you know how many times they just randomly, out of the blue, hexed him? I probably don't know about half of them. They just walk up and go, 'Hey, there goes Snivellus, let's hex him!' And then they hex him ―"

"― because of something he did before. You aren't in the habit of stalking people, Lily, so you don't know how many times Snape hexed them. Half the time he started it. Snape was just more careful about not getting caught. He set more regard to the rules than they did, and kept his temper better. But it was, all in all, the same philosophy: Revenge is sweet." Grace got a mouthful of some disgusting liquid, giving Lily time to interrupt her.

"What does revenge have to do with anything? They have no reason to hex Snape the way they do ―"

"― maybe to you they don't but to them, they have every reason. You wouldn't believe the number of times they came back to the common room, bleeding. Bleeding, Lily. They never actually physically harmed Snape. Why do you think Grace is so good at those healing spells? We spent countless nights patching them up from run-ins with Snape down by the kitchens or someplace." Jessi went on, but Lily had given up. Her friends had no scruples about interrupting, so when they had something to say, they said it. Well, Jessi and Grace did. Abby was not often enough aware of her surroundings to be able to talk without interrupting someone.

Twenty minutes later, Lily was heading back up to the Heads' common room, feeling guilty. Guilty. She'd never felt guilty for telling people off before. But her friends were making her think. She realized distantly that they had been trying to do that, but it didn't really register. She considered everything she had yelled at the Marauders ― James specifically ― for, and she realized that most of the time it was all in good fun. Even though being asked out 24/7 really got on her nerves. But she did owe James an apology.

What do y'all think about this one? I didn't like it so much as the other chapters, and I might be changing it later, but I felt it got the necessary information across. Blah. I've got this weird thing going on right now. It's not really writer's block, because I know what's going to happen in the story. I just feel…blah. Whatever. Review. Tell me what you think. Like I said, I don't really like this one. Whatever.

Love ya,

Ab