Chapter 4:

As fourth year began, two fan clubs emerged from the student body filled with crazed teens. The first subject of rabid desire was none other than James Potter…But he's not important at the moment, so we're just going to ignore him. The important fan club is all about the esteemed Sirius Black. This club consisted of roughly half of the girls at Hogwarts, (as the rest were a part of James' club). So when it came down to it almost every girl in the school was in either of these two fan clubs, and by almost, I mean everyone but Lily and Madison. (They felt themselves above all that.)

The rules of Sirius' Fan Club:

1. No club member may be alone in a room with Sirius (unless on a date). There must always be at least one said other with her.

2. Each club meeting will begin with a discussion of how handsome Sirius looked prior to the meeting.

3. No member is allowed to think herself more beautiful than Sirius.

4. All members must love chocolate.

5. Anyone wishing to join the club must be able to describe at least one feature of Sirius and why they love it.

6. Any member who goes on a date with Sirius must give a full and detailed report on it during the next meeting.

7. Meetings will be held on every Saturday afternoon at exactly 2 pm. The club president prior to the meeting will decide meeting places. (You will be informed about such occasions through the magical chocolate chip imbedded in your brain upon acceptance into the club.) Special exceptions for meetings include: emergency talks in the Great Hall, in-class notes, and Sirius' birthday.

8. Any member who misses a meeting is immediately suspended from the group for three weeks and four meetings. (She will also receive a corrective shock through her chip. NOTHING COMES BEFORE SIRIUS.)

9. If a member forgets to give Sirius a birthday present or cannot remember some personal information about Sirius will be immediately expelled from the club. (And have her magical chocolate chip violently torn from her brain we are not responsible for the possible brain damage that may result, you signed a binding contract, it's not the club's fault that you forgot to read the fine print!)

10. All members must promise to name their first child after Sirius so they can have a Sirius with them always. If a member were to marry Sirius (fingers crossed) then she would be excused from this rule due to obvious reasons.

To give you readers more insight into this presumptuous organization, here is a look at a new member being interviewed by the club council. The current president is a Melissa Overcrumb, who is at the time dating Sirius. Melissa has black banana curls that frame her face and big blue gorgeous eyes that could pierce a whole through wood.

Melissa twirled a strand of her tightly curled brown hair around one of her sharply slender fingers as she waited for the next young applicant to enter the room. Some of the other council members were tapping their feet or checking their watches impatiently, moments later, the puny first year girl entered looking around with a scared look on her face.

"What's your name?" Melissa sighed. It really was too bad that all the council had agreed to let anyone join. The little girl squeaked back an inaudible answer and Melissa decided to let it pass, she could find out what it was later. "Here's you question. Accurately describe Sirius' eyes." Melissa said clearly, but with a practiced air.

"It's…they're…um…like foggy…um…they're kinda hard to describe." The shrimpy girl stammered. She babbled on incoherently for the next five minutes, trying in vain to describe Sirius' eyes. Melissa rolled her eyes. As far as she was concerned, this was already over and done with. Then,

"OH! I know! They're like URHHH!" At this point she waved her arms around in frantic circles to accompany her urhhh noise. Melissa had had enough.

"Thanks, but maybe you should wait until next month to join. When you've had some more time to study the majestic artwork that is Sirius Black." Melissa intervened as she rose from her seat. The girl smiled slightly and left the room.

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Bold streaks of pink, red and orange flared across the black morning sky. Most of the resident students of Hogwarts were still abed and sleeping soundly. Lily was another story all together. She was sitting in the branches of her favorite beech tree by the lack and humming softly to herself as she watched the sky illuminate and push back the darkness. Diaxellion had flown off for the moment, but Lily knew he would be back.

Lily loved the sense of belonging that overcame her when she climbed trees. It was a though she was temporarily part of the tree. Lily shut her eyes and breathed deeply in the scent of the newborn morning.

"What's a pretty girl like you doing in a tree, and at this time of the day?" A voice called up to her. Lily almost fell off of her branch but managed to hang on. She opened her eyes and looked below her at the base of the beech tree.

James Potter quirked his eyebrow at the glare she threw at him and a grin spread over his handsome features. Any sensible person would have understood Lily's death and warning glare and quickly left her alone, but James simply ignored it and began to climb up to her. Saphiliorey, who had been perched on James' shoulder, took off into the upper branches. Diaxellion appeared out of nowhere and flew to meet her.

"Leave me alone Potter. And for your information, there is no law that says I can't climb trees."

"Of course not. But a delicate girl such as yourself should really have a strong man around to catch you if you fall."

"I don't need your assistance, thank you very much. I am very capable of taking care of myself. Now, why do you insist on disrupting me?"

James had reached Lily's height by this time and was seated on a branch a little ways from Lily's own branch, but not too far. James looked at her sincerely before continuing.

"I wanted to ask you about your owl, Diaxellion," James said formally "Did you get him as a gift on Christmas last year?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because our owls are obviously attached and I think they knew one another before we knew them." James gestured above their heads, where the two owls were indeed perched quite closely together. Lily glanced up and then back into James' hazel eyes.

"Yeah I did."

"Did you have a dream that night… because I did. It was about two people on a beach…"

"And at the end they transformed into owls and flew away" Lily finished. The two of them had identically astounded looks on their faces.

"I dreamt the same thing!"

"Duh Potter. God, you can be so… so…"

"Handsome? Smart? Funny? All of the above?"

"Potter you great prat! Get down here and stop flirting!" Lily looked down from her branch towards the lake. An unspoken retort died on her lips. Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew stood by the lakeside, hands grasping the edge of a rowboat. Lily looked from the boat to James and back to the boat.

"You're not… You wouldn't…"

"Sorry Lillikins gotta go. Can't keep my peeps waiting," James intervened as he began his descent to the ground. "Oh, by the way. Wanna go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?"

"NO!" James shrugged his shoulders and hopped the last few feet to the ground. Smiling up at Lily one more time he tore off to his mates and all four of them jumped into the boat. "Ruddy boys" Lily mumbled under her breath. Five minutes later, Madison had joined her in the tree and they were discussing just how annoying the Marauders could be.

Remus looked back to the shore at the Gryffindor girls sitting chatting in the beech tree. There was a strong wind wiping through the boys hair and causing the rowboat to tip and rock over the waves. Remus turned back to his friends who were joking around messing with each other's heads.

Sirius' laugh echoed over the water, "Pete, I dunno what's wrong with you". Peter was slouched in the back of the boat looking slightly more green than usual and had his lips firmly clamped together. "You shouldn't be seasick. Don't you know that the world is currently spinning at millions of billions of miles per hour? Not to mention that it's also rotating around the sun at the same time. Now that's one awesome ride."

Peter clutched his stomach and sank lower into the bottom of the boat. Sirius laughed and turned to his best mate. James and Remus were currently speechless with their mouth's wide open. Pretty soon they would be ingesting more than the normal amount of flies for a human being.

"Y-You actually knew something" James said flabbergasted.

"W-Where… Who are you and what have you done with our bud Sirius?" Remus said jokingly with a smile forming on his astonished face.

"I'm highly insulted with that statement" Sirius shot back at the boys with his nose in the air. It was a pity that he wasn't watching them, then he would have seen the glance they shared before promptly pushing the over dramatic young man into the lake.

Sirius spluttered to the surface and waved his arms around to right himself. James and Remus were in fits of laughter over Sirius' predicament. "You do know that I'll have to get you two back for this." Sirius lunged to the boats edge and flipped the other three into the lake. Laughing and splashing the boys swam in the murky waters until their teeth were chattering and lips turning a warning shade of purple, it was after all the middle of winter.

Lily and Madison lounged in the tree while occasionally glancing at the boys out on the lake. "Those four look so ridiculous. Too bad nobody else is up to witness it" Lily laughed. Madi's eyes opened wide and she smiled at Lily. A look of comprehension dawned on her face. "Don't tell me. I think it's a brilliant idea. Did you bring your dad's camera?"

"Course" Quickly Madi took a succession of photos of the Marauders' decent into the murky water. "Perfect. Let's go!" The two girls jumped to the ground and dashed across the grounds to the front door. After a few hours of preparation, their prank was ready. Tomorrow the biggest pranksters would get a dose of their own medicine.

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"You know what would be just fabulous right now? Some tea." Sirius sighed from his stool by the fire in the Hogwarts school kitchen. The boys had wandered in there when they had finally hauled themselves out of the lake. The giant squid was annoyed at being woken so early and chased them out. Peter being the slowest was thrown with full force onto the sand. They were now congregated around the kitchen fire heating their numb bodies up.

" I bet you can't make it yourself." James spoke up on a whim.

"Oh really!"

"Yeah!"

"Fine. I will make it myself." Sirius shot up and searched through the cabinets till he found a teakettle. He filled it with water and set it on the stove to boil.

"This should be interesting." James mumbled to Remus through his hand. Remus nodded enthusiastically.

Two minutes later, Sirius was getting impatient. This is taking to long. Wait. I think I remember a spell that should speed this up. Sirius pulled out his wand and muttered the incantation. Immediately a small explosion occurred and Sirius was covered from head to toe in ash. James, Remus and Peter erupted in laughter at the surprised look on Sirius' face.

"Wh-Wh-What did you do?" James said between shouts of laughter.

"I…I think I burnt the water" Sirius said with a bewildered look on his face. Remus and James broke out into even louder laughs.

"Mate, that's impossible" Remus gasped.

"Not for Sirius it's not."

After eating their fill, the Marauders left the kitchen and a whole lot of very frazzled house elves behind. Some of them could distinctly be heard muttering things like, "drowning", "incompetent" and "meddling, no good…" under their breathes.

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The next morning every one was already in the great hall when the four Marauders walked in. They liked to make an entrance that caused everyone's heads to turn in their direction. This morning was no different except for one thing.

The whole student body erupted into hysterical giggles when they saw who it was.

Confused, the boys looked at one another and then at a wall that drew the student's attention while they laughed. On it hung a blown up wizard photo of the Marauders on the lake, more specifically, the moment that they all fell in the lake and got drenched. The strange thing about it was that it replayed the same moment in time over, and over, and over again.

As one the Marauders thought how embarrassing! Quickly they made their way to the Gryffindor table and sank low into their seats. Lily and Madi smirked behind their hands two seats away from the stunned group. Madi had made the potion that made caused the ordinary muggle photo to move and Lily had done a complicated charm that enlarged it and made it replay the moment over and over.