Disclaimer: All the characters that you recognize belong to J. K. Rowling. The plot of this story was greatly inspired by the movie, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
Author's Note: Thanks to youkaigirl64, blaiselover, Slytherin's Cliffy Queen, lizziee, julies07, evahyoung, Juicilyn, Miss Myrtle360, miss-mags-ak, Prongsie-Jamesie, BabyD4Lyfe, and DanRadLuver01 for reviewing! You guys are awesome!
Prongsie-Jamesie I'm glad you liked the description of the guy! And no, I'm not from Wisconsin, but one of my friends dated a guy that looks similar to the guy described and he was from Wisconsin!
"You asked her out already?" Peter asked.
"Yeah," James replied as the four boys made their way into the Great Hall for the first day back ceremony.
"You're an idiot, mate," Remus informed him once they made it to the Gryffindor table.
"Thanks, Moony," James sarcastically replied.
"Why does this always take so long?" Sirius asked, holding his stomach while he spoke.
His three friends laughed at his comment. Every year since their second year at Hogwarts, Sirius always spent the entire train ride fantasizing about the food. But once they made it into the Great Hall, he was practically starving. All throughout the sorting of the new first years his stomach would growl and he would tap his feet impatiently. Even when someone was sorted into their house he wasn't nearly as excited as the rest of the students, he was just too hungry for the delicious food that was served every year.
"Hey, look, a new guy," Peter commented while pointing up to where the teachers all sat.
The rest of the Marauders turned their heads in the direction of Peter's finger. Once again, there was a new wizard seated up there, right in between the transfiguration teacher, Professor McGonagall, and the Charms teachers, Professor Flitwick.
"Who do you think he is?" Sirius asked.
"Well, it's obvious, the new Defense against the Dark Arts professor," Remus replied.
"How do you know that?" Peter asked.
"Well, seeing as Kramer's gone, I'd say this guy's taking his place," Remus answered.
"Damn, seven Defense professors in seven years, that's got to be some sort of a record," James commented.
"Longer than seven years," Sirius corrected, "There were five in five years before we came."
"Wow, the job's got to be jinxed or something," Peter said.
"I wonder what happened to Kramer," Remus thought aloud, ignoring Peter's last comment.
"Murdered," James replied.
"How'd you know that?" Sirius asked.
"My dad told me," James responded, "He said that You-Know-Who found out he was a spy for the ministry, and he killed him. He personally killed him."
"Wow, that's got to suck," Remus said.
"No kidding, he didn't see it coming or anything," James replied, remembering what his father told him. His father, as well as his grandfather and all the other men in the Potter family, were aurors. They fought crime for the ministry, and now, with the Dark Times that were going on, they were working constantly.
It was an awful time to live, murders were happening all the time. They were done by one man named Lord Voldermort and all of his followers, who called themselves Death Eaters. In fact, Voldermort was so feared that no one ever called him his proper name, most people referred to him as You-Know-Who, or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Death Eaters and Voldermort were on a mission, to kill all muggleborn witches and wizard, as well as anyone who thought that they had the right to attend Hogwarts and fulfill their magical abilities.
They were very scary times. People that James personally knew were getting murdered left and right. His aunt and uncle were both attacked by Death Eaters, and unfortunately neither survived. His grandparents had also been murdered that way, all due to the fact that they wouldn't join Voldermort's side of the war.
"Looks like Slughorn's already latched onto his favorites," Sirius commented, trying to end the sad talk of the world around them.
James turned his attention over to their Potions teacher, Professor Slughorn. He always had a group of favorites, ever since he either learned their names or saw them do something incredible. James and Sirius had both been among the group for their first two years at Hogwarts, until the little incident in his office occurred.
The Marauders were snooping around in his private office one Friday night, wanting to make a potion, one that would turn Snape's hair purple for a week. They needed the ingredients from the office, and snuck down there. Unfortunately, they came across Slughorn who was very disappointed in them. He gave them all detention for a week, which made all of the Marauders mad.
To get their revenge, they snuck into the office and did steal the ingredients. They spent the rest of the night brewing it in their room, and the next morning instead of giving it to Snape, they gave it to Slughorn. His hair was purple and he was furious. Ever since then he hadn't invited James or Sirius to his private meetings.
James smiled when he saw Slughorn approach Lily. She was definitely his favorite student in the entire school. She was brilliant at brewing potions, better than everyone in their grade, well almost. Snape was actually the best at it, but the Marauders would never actually admit that.
Slughorn didn't especially like Snape though, he thought of him as an awkward boy who didn't fit in anywhere. This was not the type of person he wanted in his little circle of friends, so he invited his second best student instead. Of course, it was rally Lily's charm and personality that had all of the teachers goggling over her. She was a fantastic student and always seemed to know the answer. But it wasn't just book smarts that she had; she had pure knowledge on the subject.
James watched as Slughorn gave Lily a firm handshake and talked up a storm. Lily laughed at some points, gave an expression of sympathy at others. All in all, she held a pretty decent conversation with the Professor, and James was actually quite envious.
He wanted to have those types of conversations with Lily, not ones where he was trying to impress her or ask her out. Not the conversations that ended with her basically telling him that she hated him and to get the hell away from her.
"Prongs, you're staring again," Peter whispered across the table.
James snapped back into reality, and just in time too because out of the corner of his eye he saw Lily's gaze fall toward this section of the room.
"Oh, look, McGonagall's finally bringing them out, now we just have to wait for all of them to get sorted," Sirius excitedly said.
"Which you know will take a very long time," Remus reminded him.
"Shut up," Sirius miserably said.
The Marauders all watched as " Ames, Chandler" was sorted into Hufflepuff, and then "Blair, Frank" was sorted into Slytherin, getting a large boo from the other three houses. "Blair, Pansy" was also sorted into Slytherin, the boys guessed it was Frank's twin sister as they also booed at her.
The sorting went on and on for quite some time before "Yoxall, Melinda" was sorted into Gryffindor, winning an applause from nearly everyone because she was the last to be sorted.
Dumbledore then got up from his seat to make his start of the year speech, "Welcome all to another fabulous year at Hogwarts. I'd first like to introduce our newest member of the staff, Professor Haddon," everyone gave a small applause as the new guy stood up and waved. He looked rather young, maybe thirty at the oldest. He had short blonde hair and deep blue eyes. James heard a few girls let out a gasp as they noticed his good looks.
"As a reminder, the forest is strictly forbidden to all students," his eyes seemed to twinkle as his gaze fell directly onto the Marauders. "And now, I don't believe there's anything else to say, so let's dig in!"
As the words left his lips heaps of food appeared directly in front of them, roast chicken, roast pig, mashed potatoes, veggies, and much, much more. It was a feast to die for.
---
"Okay, as great as that food was, I'm so looking forward to crashing in bed right now," Sam said as the three girls made their way up to their dorm room. They were some on the last ones to leave the common room because of Lily's duties as Head Girl, making sure that everyone knew where to go.
Kelsey and Sam had agreed to stay behind and wait for Lily, not thinking that it would take as much time as it did. But unfortunately many new students weren't paying attention and needed to be retold the password several times before actually getting it right.
"I know what you mean," Lily said as they climbed the many stairs leading to their room.
Once they got to their destination, they found that their two other roommates were already there and settling in.
"Hey guys," Lily brightly said to Tracey Osborne and Rina Spears.
"Hey," Tracey replied, Rina only smiled.
Although the five girls had known each other and been together for the past six years, Lily got the feeling that only Tracey actually liked her. Tracey was a nice girl, a very nice girl who was also of muggleborn heritage. She had long, curly brown hair. The curls weren't too tight though, just loose and adorable. She had chocolate brown eyes that matched her hair perfectly, not a drop of difference in the colors.
Rina, on the other hand, was not so nice to Lily, Kelsey, and Sam. Not that she was truly mean to them, but she was never quite as open with them, or really bothered to become their friend, unlike her best friend. Rina had blonde, shoulder length hair, nothing too special about it, but Lily did admit that with her large brown eyes she did have a very nice appearance.
"Is James Potter still after you?" Tracey asked Lily.
"Yup, he beat his own record this year though. Asked me out on the train instead of in the Great Hall," Lily responded.
"He won't give you a break at all," Tracey commented.
"Yeah, but Lily's going to go out with him next time he asks her out," Kelsey blurted out.
"What?" Rina snapped.
Lily turned bright red, she didn't quite want to announce her plant to the world, but knew that Kelsey couldn't keep her mouth shut for very long. Lily trusted that she wouldn't actually tell James or any of the Marauders about it, but knew that she'd tell all their friends.
"Um yeah," she answered.
"I thought you hated him," Rina said.
"She does," Kelsey replied with a large grin on her face.
"Then why are you going to date him?" Tracey asked.
"Just tell them, they're bound to find out," Sam told Lily.
"Okay, but you can't tell anyone," Lily sternly told them.
Both girls listened intently as Lily confessed her plans to them. Needless to say, they were both shocked to find out that Lily Evans, the nicest, most perfect girl in school was doing something this deceiving. But they were also very proud of her, not every girl could keep up with that.
"Okay, so remember, don't tell anyone," Lily sternly told them.
"We won't," Tracey promised.
"Yeah, we wouldn't tell a soul," Rina answered, and then said, "Tracey, I think I left something downstairs, will you help me find it?"
"What'd you leave?" Tracey asked.
"Um, my, my purse," Rina replied.
"Alright," Tracey said as the two girls made their way down the stairs and towards the common room.
Once they reached it though, Rina said, "This is great! Do you realize what this means?"
"What?" Tracey asked, grasping that there was no purse that needed to be found.
"Once James sees how awful Lily is, at least pretending to be anyways, he'll stop liking her," she replied, "Meaning that he'll look for someone else to like."
"As in you," Tracey said, now fully understanding just how great this plan would be for her friend.
"Exactly," Rina replied, she smiled deeply. She had never been this thrilled in her entire life. James Potter was going to hate Lily soon enough, and once he got over her, Rina would be sure to snag him.
Author's Note 2: Hope you all liked chapter three! I know that not much really happened in it, but it's important for later chapters, to please bear with me! And please review and tell me what you think!