"I cannot believe I let you talk me into this..."
"Quit yer whining, Moony! This is one of the best ideas I've ever had!"
"Don't know about best... Definitely the most humiliating..."
"MERLIN! How do girls wear these things everyday! I can't breathe and my arse is chaffing!"
"Stop scratching it! Do you want this to work or not!"
"I had better damn well work! I put on a skirt! A bloody SKIRT, Prongs! If it was for nothing then I suggest you grow an extra set of eyes on the back of your head, cuz I'll be coming after you! I'll hex you six ways from Sunday you big-headed freak!"
"Mutt!"
"POINTY-HEADED, PUSSY-WHIPPED LOON!"
"ARSE-BREATH!"
Remus Lupin sighs and chews nervously on his lip, immediately regretting indulging in this age-old habit when he tastes the sticky bitterness of the pale pink lip gloss Peter slathered on him with a skill and ease that left him with several intriguing ponderings...
"Just shut up," He scolds his two best friends, standing chest to padded-chest with one another, their wands both gripped tightly in well manicured hands topped with sin-red nail polish, "I don't really fancy being caught in this ridiculous outfit, and I don't think you do either, so keep your voices down."
Sirius and James share one final glare, each secretly noting that the other looks rather good in thick black eyeliner... Before both grunting, "Ya, sorry."
Remus sighs, "Alright then, let's go over the plan one more time." It seemed so simple when James had drunkenly suggested it the night before...
Step One: Dress up as girls. (Peter: I never said it sounded simple! OR like a good idea!)
Step Two: Sneak into the girls' showers. (Peter: Seriously! This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of! There's no way it's gonna work!)
Step Three: See naked girls. (Peter: Never mind...)
But now, fully sober, dressed in matching Hogwarts skirt and jumper sets, heavily made up, and sporting their messy hair clipped back with stolen barettes in various, feminine styles, every single one of the Marauders is beginning to see why it's usually not encouraged to go about getting exceedingly sloshed before making any big, dastardly, gender-bending, gonna-look-incredibly-stupid-if-we-get-caught-and-with-a-scheme-this-dumb-you-know-we-will plans.
James smiles, juicy, cherry red lips parting slightly, and shoves his glasses up farther on his nose. Groaning inwardly as he once again manages to smear mascara on the inside of the lenses (Sirius: Your eyelashes are just too long and girlie mate. James: ARE NOT!), he casually addresses the boys gathered in the room of requirement, "We waltz over to the tower-"
"You never said ANYTHING about having to dance!" Peter shrieks as he heaves his pudgy body up out of the eat-you-alive fluffy couch, trying in vain to force his skirt down over the rolls of his tummy and his generous thighs, causing some of his pale blond hair to fall out of the messy pigtails on either side of his head, "I am NOT dancing! This is a STUPID plan! I'm getting out of this STUPID outfit, and I'm going to DINNER!"
The other three boys laugh at him, harder when he fails to pry the too-small skirt off of himself, and manages to trip and take a tumble onto his head in the process. "Cool it, Wormtail," Sirius laughs, lazily leaning back into the couch and putting his hands back behind his head as he lets his knees fall open in a rather unlady-like pose, "S'not what he meant. There will be no dancing. Just twats, tits, and tails, as far as the eye can see." He pauses to close his eyes and smile wistfully, then waves his hand at James, and instructs, "Please continue, Master Prongs."
James smirks and makes every effort to keep his eyes away from the crotch Sirius has so carelessly let peek out from beneath the hem of his skirt... Tries, and fails, "PADFOOT! ARE YOU WEARING A THONG!"
Sirius' eyes snap open, and his knees snap together, "Um... Ya... I thought we were supposed to... Aren't you fellas?"
The other three stare with blank shock for a moment... Or two... Or three... And then simultaneously fall off of their respective perches, landing on the floor with one huge THUD that nearly gets lost in their deafening hysterics.
Clutching their sides as they roll about on the floor, their eyes watering as they gasp and try not to die from oxygen deprivation, James, Remus, and Peter can faintly hear Sirius' indignant cries over their own laughter, "HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW! I TRIED IT WITH THE BOXERS, BUT THEY STUCK OUT THE BOTTOM! WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO! I HAD ONE THAT A BIRD LEFT BEHIND IN MY ROOM AND I THOUGHT THAT WAS WHAT YOU GUYS MUST BE DOING TOO! STOP BLOODY LAUGHING AT ME!"
XxXxX
"You could've just worn Y-fronts," Peter snickers some time later as the boys warily make their way towards Gryffindor tower. James and Remus snort into their hands.
Sirius glares, "I don't own any Y-fronts. I'm a boxer man, not a tightie-whitey loser like you lot."
Remus chuckles, "After this, I don't think you have the right to call our choice of undergarments into question, ever again." Sirius bristles, and practically growls at his smirking friend.
The boys fall back into silence as they walk, uncomfortable does not even begin to describe it. Really, what is there to say given the situation?
Finally, Peter giggles, "What color is it?" Ok, well I guess there's that...
XxXxX
Fatal flaw number one in the master plan is discovered when James attempts to lead the charge up the girls' staircase, and it immediately changes into a slide.
Tense silence pervades the deserted common room for a moment before Sirius drawls, "Bugger."
"Maybe if you ask Malfoy really nicely. I hear he's got a thing for blokes in panties, so you might have a shotOW! SON OF A-" Peter grabs his foot, nursing the spot where Sirius' heel has broken through the skin exposed through the straps of his sandals. "I WAS ONLY JOKING!"
"WELL IT'S NOT FUNNY!" Sirius rages back, balling his hands into fists at his sides, and glaring down at his pudgy little friend.
"SHHHH!" James hisses with a badly stifled smirk. Remus sighs, "I told you this would happen! It doesn't matter that we're dressed up, the stairs can still tell the difference. Let's just get out of here before someone sees-"
"Oh," A pretty red head with gemstone green eyes smiles sweetly at the four 'girls' as she steps into the common room through the portrait hole, "You must be the exchange students. I'm Lily Evans, I'll be giving you the tour. Follow me." She turns her back, and the four boys exchange worried looks of 'oh. shit.'
"Any more bright ideas, Prongs!" Sirius hisses angrily under his breath as they all four almost involuntarily move to follow Lily, "Cuz now would be an excellent time for a brilliant scheme for how to get us out of this!"
James barely takes his eyes off Lily's backside, fingering the hem of his own skirt as he watches her legs disappear up under the red tartan material, her bum dance rhythmically beneath it, and responds, "Workin' on it."
XxXxX
"And this is the Great Hall. This is where we eat meals, and all of the students from the different houses congregate together. It's rather crowded tonight..." Lily prattles in her best 'tour-guide' voice as the four Marauders trail nervously behind her.
Being dragged throughout the entire school in skirts and make-up is NOT their idea of a good time...
...Especially because most people seemed to have recognized them...
...Especially because Sirius is getting a rash on his arse from the thong (Peter: Hehe, neon green. What was she, a Slytherin? Sirius: HEY! Get outta there!)...
...Especially because Peter's skirt is far too small, and cutting off his circulation, and making him woozy (Sirius: Or that could just be cuz he hasn't eaten in the last five minutes. Peter: Sod off. I may be fat, but at least I'm not wearin' a G-string)...
...Especially because Remus is continually forgetting about the lip gloss, chewing on his lip, and ending up with a mouth full of sticky, bitter, pink goo...
...Especially because Lily is flirting madly with girl-James (Lily: OH! Jamie! I just love your eyes, they're so pretty! And you have such nice legs, I wish my legs were nice like that. No matter, since you're my friend now, I suppose we can just enjoy yours together)...
All in all, our four heroes are quite miserable. By the end of the tour, the only person in the entire school that doesn't seem to have caught on that the 'exchange students' are actually the Marauders, is Lily Evans (also known as fatal flaw number two)... And that is possibly because she is too busy complimenting Jamie Rettop on how soft her hair is, teasingly letting her hand fall against 'her' cheek as she pulls it out of the silken black locks (Sirius: Always said you have girlie hair mate. James: Not now! I'm in a major crisis! I think Lily might be a lesbian! Me: That would be fatal flaw number three. Sirius: OOOOOOOhhhhh... Ya think I could talk her into a threesome with that bird, Mary Baker? I heard she... Alright, jeez, SOOOOOORRRRYYYY! You can stop glaring now... Baby...).
"...And make sure to mind the stairs, they often go about changing with students on them. OH! Watch your step Jamie!" And then suddenly James Potter finds himself being groped by Lily Evans... Normally, he would find it heavenly to have both of the red-heads hands firmly kneading his backside... If it weren't for the fact that Lily Evans thinks she is groping Jamie Rettop... (James: Bugger...)
"Um... ThaAnk you," James squeaks in his best girl voice, the one that probably wouldn't have cracked so loudly if he wasn't being felt up by a girl who thinks he's a girl... (James: I need firewhiskey... This is my worst plan EVER... WHY ME! All I ever wanted was to see Evans' boobs!... Hmmm... Well, I guess it's still a possibility...)
Lily smiles seductively as she licks her lips, leaving Remus to wonder why the taste of her lip gloss doesn't make her grimace at its sheer disgustingness (Remus: Disgustingness isn't a word. Me: Says the boy in the pink lip gloss. Remus: Shutting up now...). "Any time Jamie," She drawls hotly as she moves up to stand on the same step as James, pressing her body flush against his, and pinning him against the railing.
The other three watch, somewhere between horrorstruck and turned on, as Lily Evans then proceeds to trace lazily around Jamie Rettop's lips with the sharp point of her tongue, and then delve it straight into her mouth, pulling the 'girl's' blouse free from her skirt and dragging her fingertips teasingly across her stomach.
James Potter is conflicted. It's his first kiss with the girl he has been fantasizing about for nearly seven years. She is kissing him... (James: Well, sort of...) That sort of, is the fact that Lily Evans thinks she is kissing (Sirius: More like tongue-stabbing! WOOO! WAY TO GO PRONGS!) an exchange student named Jamie Rettop.
As Lily rubs herself against Jamie, the other three boys look on in complete and utter disbelief. (Peter: Well, I was promised boobs, and I guess this is almost as good... OooooOOOoooo... Remus: I'll have to remember to ask James what her lip gloss tasted like... WOW... I never would've figured Lily for a biter... Sirius: Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god... THONG + ERECTION BAAAAADDDDD! And I thought I was gonna hafta worry about my boxers hanging out from under the skirt... That's right ladies, you heard me...)
Perhaps, if Sirius hadn't been paying so much attention to watching his best friend being snogged by a girl who thought he was a girl, he might've noticed the stairs shifting under his feet, but, as it turns out, he doesn't.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!" He screams as he gets knocked off balance and goes somersaulting arse-first down the hard stone staircase. Lily abandons Jamie to watch him fall, immediately racing after him and yelling as he stops with a thud and a groan two landings down, "Oh my gosh! Are you alright, Cynthia!"
"My... Arse..." He grunts as he lies splayed on the ground with his legs spread wide, and his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
"What about it?" Remus asks as he kneels beside his friend, taking in the raised welt on Sirius' forehead with a clinical detachment. Sirius moans, "It's broken."
Remus laughs, "It's impossible to break your arse. The arse has no bones, it's a mass of muscle called the gluteus maximus. You can break your tail bone, the little protrusion of the spine that some scientists believe is the remnants of a tail human beings evolved out of, also called the coccyx-"
Peter snorts into his hand, and mutters in a rather juvenile way, "Coccyx... hehe..."
Lily glares at him, "That is SO RUDE Patty!" She turns back to Remus, and instructs lightly, "Go ahead Rene, it was quite fascinating."
Remus smirks nervously, and continues, "Well, like I was saying, you can't break your arse, you can break your cocc... I mean tail bone," He shoots Peter a 'look', "And you can break your hips, or possibly snap off the head of your femur in the socket, but you can't break your arse."
Sirius lets out a loud, indignant moan, "You fall down those bloody stairs arse-over-ears, and then we'll see what you think! OOOOOWWWWW! MY ARSE! MY BEAUTIFUL, PERFECT ARSE!"
XxXxX
Later, after escaping from Lily under the guise of escorting 'Cynthia' to the hospital wing to get 'her' broken (Remus: Not likely. Sirius: Shut it, were-git!) arse fixed, the Marauders run into fatal flaws number four and five.
"Heeeelllooo Ladies!" The smooth, and infinitely irritating voice drawls from behind them. All of them cringe.
James looks over his shoulder, which is a little difficult seeing as he and Remus are practically carrying Sirius between the two of them, and mutters, "Bugger."
Lucius Malfoy, flanked by Severus Snape, closes in on the four boys, grinning lecherously as they circle like jackals. "What are you fine creatures doing out here all alone?" Malfoy grins as he leans in close to Remus' face, making him gulp, and involuntarily bite his lip, immediately being rewarded with a sharp burst of sticky bitterness.
"We're busy," Peter states hotly, "Sir... Uh, Cynthia has to go to the hospital wing, so I'll thank you to leave us alone."
Snape turns and eyes Peter up and down, looking like he's noticing him for the first time and not at all liking what he sees. He spits, "No need to be snotty."
Malfoy circles around the boys' backs, stepping up and hissing close to James' ear, "Perhaps we could be of some assistance."
"Nah, we're good. Thanks," James states as he begins to pull Sirius and Remus down the hall.
"Don't be silly," Lucius drawls as he shoves James away, and takes his place under Sirius' arm, Snape doing the same to Remus on the other side. Despite vehement protests from Sirius, the two proceed to drag him in the direction of the hospital wing. The other three exchanged worried glances as they move along their wake.
No one is ever quite sure exactly when the situation got out of control, but it just may have been when Malfoy's hand comes to a rest on Sirius' bum... Or when Snape's does the same thing... Or when the two of them start whispering sweet-nothings into his ears... But no matter when exactly it was, the point at which Sirius finally has had enough, happens right outside the hospital wing.
The other three Marauders are trailing a few yards behind whispering amongst themselves about what the bloody hell they're gonna do. Malfoy, Snape, and Sirius arrive at the door, and, with a quick glance back to ensure that the others are fairly far away, Malfoy roughly presses Sirius' hips against this own. (Sirius: I. Will. Never. Have. An. Erection. Ever. Again.)
And then Malfoy's tongue is in his mouth, and Sirius goes wide eyed and can't react quick enough to bite it off. And then, just as quickly, Malfoy's tongue is gone, and it's replaced by Snape's.
Sirius growls and brings his knee up into Malfoy's groin, wiping that smug smile right off his face. And then he turns, and punches Snape in the nose, breaking it with a satisfying crunch.
Sirius gets in a few more brutal hits before the other Marauders arrive to pull him off the stunned and cowering pair of Slytherins, and forcefully drag him, kicking and swearing, down the hallway.
XxXxX
GARGLEGARGLEGARGLEGARGLEGARGLE "Ugh! I still can't get the taste of Malfoy-Snivellus out of my mouth!" Sirius groans as he spits his mouthful of firewhiskey out the window, and then proceeds to claw furiously at his tongue, "Why the bloody hell did you let them do that to me!"
Peter snickers as he continues to scrub furiously at his face with a washcloth, "Didn't mean to. It was kinda brilliant to watch them get their arses kicked though."
Sirius groans again, "Don't talk about arses. Mine's still broke! NOT A WORD MOONY!" He reels on the boy neatly folding the 'borrowed' uniforms, cutting off the 'arses can't be broken' remark that everyone knew was coming.
Remus grins, "Fine, but I'm not going to fix your arse, until you admit that it's not broken." Sirius glares defiantly, "Fine. Be that way. I've lived through worse." He takes another swig of firewhiskey and walks a circle around the room of requirement, gargling and wincing.
James is lying on the floor, brooding and feeling sorry for himself. After an unusual stretch of silence on his part, the others notice. "What's wrong, mate?" Peter asks as he leans over James' face. James notices that Peter didn't get all of the eyeliner off as he replies, "Nothing."
"Ya right," Sirius chuckles as he takes another swig of firewhiskey, "You've been quiet for more than two minutes, and that means something is up. Spill it before I get around to remembering that my getting molested by two of THE FOULEST creatures on the planet is almost entirely your fault."
James manages to smile slightly as he sighs, and says, "Lily's gay." The other three give him sympathetic looks, but, really, what do you say to that?
"At least she's gay for girl-you," Peter quips with a shrug. Ok, I guess there's that...
XxXxX
James mopes for an entire week, barely eating and talking very little. Sirius whines about his arse for an entire week, still refusing to give in to Remus' demand to admit that it isn't broken, and therefore remaining without his ability to sit down. Every time he sees Malfoy or Snape, he gives a feral growl and makes an attempt at murdering them. Remus and Peter spend the week alternately laughing at, and trying to comfort their best friends.
At the end of the week, the four boys are sitting around the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room in complete silence when Lily Evans prances over, looking uncharacteristically smug.
"Evenin' boys," She smirks happily as she stands with her hands on her hips in the midst of their strange crew.
"Hi Lily," James mutters with downcast eyes. He still loves her, still wants her, and remembering kissing her and the fact that he can't have her is doing some serious things to his fragile psyche (Lily: Not to mention his ego...)
Lily smirks at them for a few more seconds before exclaiming quite proudly, "You four are THE UGLIEST girls I have ever seen! Did you honestly think no one was going to figure it out within two seconds?"
The boys all look at her in awe. James squeaks, "You knew! You knew it was us! But that means..." He trails off as his face breaks into one of the first smiles seen there in a week, "THAT MEANS YOU'RE NOT A LESBIAN!"
Several heads turn in the direction of the unusual outburst as Lily chuckles, "No, you great prat! I just through I'd teach you all a lesson! Did you learn anything about dressing in drag to try and sneak up to spy on all the girls naked?"
Remus smiles weakly, "I learned that lip gloss is one of the foulest tasting things on the planet."
Sirius lets out a bark of a laugh from where he's standing beside the couch, still unable to sit, and says, "I learned that you CAN break your arse, and that Moony is cruel and stubborn, and that four bottles of firewhiskey consumed within a seven day period still won't get the taste of Malfoy-Snivellus out of my mouth."
As the others laugh, James locks eyes with Lily and gives her a crooked, loving smile. He says, "I learned that you are sneaky, and clever, and a bloody good kisser."
He's still smiling as he quickly uncoils and sweeps Lily into his arms, tipping her backwards as he kisses her deeply to the sounds of a collective "AAAAAAAWWWWWWWW!" from his friends. She barely struggles at all.
Peter laughs wistfully as he remarks, "I learned that life's a drag, but it's downright entertaining."