Disclaimer: Yada, yada, yada, none of this is mine.

A/N: Hey everybody! I'm back from holiday! It was a lovely time and I enjoyed it greatly! Sorry for the long wait, but I didn't have access to a computer, but I'm updating now! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! You guys are the best and I'm so happy you are all enjoying my story!

OOO

Chapter 3: The Insanity of a Stag

"Remind me again why we're doing this?"

James rolled his eyes in an annoyed fashion, stopping in the narrow tunnel to face Remus, causing the three trailing boys to bump into each other. James held up his lit wand to survey his friends, but before James could answer, Sirius butted in. "We're here to have some good old fun!"

Remus and Peter looked around their surroundings, pulling their cloaks closer to their body to generate heat as the soft pattering of water could be heard splashing onto the tunnel floor; it didn't really help either that it was the middle of November. Remus looked at Sirius as if he had just grown three heads "Uh…yeah…James? Why are we doing this?" Remus repeated.

"To get our Marauder's Map back. And to find out what's in Lily's diary; you did agree to help me, you know."

"So you're telling me that you woke us all up, dragged our butts out of bed, and hauled us over to the one-eyed witch passageway just so you could find out what Lily said about you in a diary that's UPSTAIRS IN OUR WARM DORM?" Remus asked.

James shrugged, smiling sheepishly. "Um, yeah. That about sums it all up."

"You have got to be kidding me," Remus muttered underneath his breath as the group began walking again.

"Come on now, remember our first ever Marauder rule: A Marauder in need is a friend in need," sang Sirius happily, clapping James on the back.

"Remind me to shred the rules book when we get back," muttered Remus to Peter so the two other boys couldn't hear. Peter grinned.

"Yeah, why can't you guys be as positive as Sirius, eh?" James asked.

"Because we aren't as insane as him," answered Peter simply. Sirius pretended to pout as he glared mockingly at his friend.

"And besides," James continued, crouching down slightly as a piece of rock jutted down from the tunnel ceiling, "I wouldn't have even gotten into this mess if you hadn't needed me that night I had patrol duties with Lily," James said, smiling slightly as he looked back at Remus.

Remus immediately took the defense. "No, we wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't of taken Lily's diary, not to mention we'd have our Marauder's Map with us right now. And, I'm not the one who forced you to become an Animagus and accompany me during my transformations."

"I know, I know, I was only joking," James said. "But still, since the spell to get the invisible ink on Lily's diary to become visible didn't work, then our next best hope is if we buy one of those erasers that reveal hidden messages."

"You keep on saying 'we' as if we're in on this too," Remus stated.

Sirius laughed. "Well, we're here together, aren't we? Bound by the same common goal to get our beloved map back and aid a friend in his pathetic attempt to get closer to Lily's mind and heart."

Remus groaned inwardly as he tried to bring up a new topic to explain why this trip was completely pointless and not to mention idiotic. "Wait a second, how are you even planning on getting into Zonkos? It's one o'clock in the morning."

James silently reached into his bag and held up his silvery cloak while Sirius pulled out his knife that could unlock any lock. "Oh, so now you're trying to get us arrested. This just keeps on getting better and better," Remus said sarcastically, rubbing his tired eyes.

"Right you are, Moony! The four of us, once again looking danger right in the face—OW!" Sirius rubbed the top of his forehead frantically after it rather rudely slammed into a protruding rock. "Bloody tunnel…" he muttered darkly. "I would have seen that coming if we had the map."

The four friends continued walking along the damp tunnel for twenty minutes, the silence only being punctured by the sound of their footsteps echoing off of the walls and the voice of Sirius singing "99 bottles of Butterbeer on the wall".

James thoughts about what he may find in the diary were suddenly interrupted by Sirius saying rather dramatically, "Ahoy, there maties. Light up ahead."

James snorted. "Are you sure that bump on the head back there didn't cost you your sanity?"

Remus snorted. "Sanity. What sanity? He's always been mental."

"No, you idiots! Look, Honeydukes cellar approaching at twelve o'clock," Sirius stated pointing straight ahead.

"I thought it was one thirty?" Peter stated, checking his watch.

Sure enough, the Marauders soon stood underneath the trap door that would lead them up into Honeydukes' cellar. "Okay," James said, once the four of them had gathered into a group, "I'll go up first with the cloak to make sure the coast is clear, then you three can follow."

"Yes sir!" Sirius said enthusiastically, purposefully smacking Remus on the back of the head as he saluted James. With a swish of his cloak, James had disappeared from view. Sirius, Remus, and Peter waited below and watched as the trap door opened as if by an invisible force, which in reality is exactly what happened. There was silence for a few moments before James' head reemerged out of the trap door, causing the three others to jump in surprise. "Alright, let's do this."

Sirius followed up first, led by Remus, and lastly Peter until finally the four Marauders had a clear view of the stocked up boxes of sweets.

As they made there way through the inventory, Sirius stealthily reached his hand into one of the boxes labeled 'liquorish wands', humming distractedly. "Sirius!" Sirius' hand immediately jumped out of the box. "You weren't actually considering stealing that, were you?" Remus asked, staring his friend down.

Sirius chuckled casually. "Psh, no, give me a little credit. I was going to leave money on the counter."

Five minutes later they found themselves standing outside of Zonkos, where a bright neon light was shining in the window that read 'Now open 24 hours'. "Now, that's what you call ironic," stated Sirius.

James turned towards the group and smiled. "See? I told you it would all work out."

"You never told us anything, otherwise I wouldn't have come," Remus grumbled, annoyingly leading the way into the shop, where they were greeted by an equally grumpy old man with balding grey hair, who was still working his shift.

Much to Remus' pleasure, after an hour and fifteen minutes of walking where he had to endure Sirius' singing, large roots that liked to trip you up, and demon-possessed cats out to get rule-breaking students, the Marauders were, once again, back inside the safety and warmth of their dormitory.

"I can not believe I am friends with you two," Remus stated tiredly, as he crawled back into his bed; Peter had collapsed onto his sheets as soon as they had entered the room.

"Aw, come on, Moony! You're going to miss the best part," implored Sirius.

"If you're talking about Prongs breaking into the privacy of the head girl just to see what she said about him when she probably didn't mention anything about him at all, then I think I'll pass." And with that Remus shut the hangings around his bed and fell asleep.

"Well, I guess it's just you and me, buddy old pal."

"It's good to know you're still with me even though I got our map taken away," James said sincerely, as he pulled out Lily's little black book.

Sirius shrugged. "Well, you didn't ditch me the time I lent it to my ex-girlfriend Katrina in our fifth year."

James' eyes widened. "You what?"

"Oh, right, you didn't get mad because I never mentioned it to you guys," he said, smiling innocently. "My bad."

James shook his head in a disappointed manner as he flipped to a random page in the book and held the revealing eraser over a page. He was about to start rubbing away, when his hand suddenly stopped moving, hovering a centimeter over the paper. His conscience just had to kick in. Why did it always find the worst times to jump into action? His stomach started bubbling with guilt. He glanced at Sirius. "You don't think this is…uh…wrong?"

"You mean attempting to break into Lily's diary that she forbade you to read and diving into her most personal innermost thoughts?"

"Thanks, Pads, you're not helping."

"Come on, mate. You're a Marauder. A Marauder never backs down from anything!"

James nodded. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, you're right," he continued, his confidence building. "If Lily really didn't want me to read it, then she wouldn't have thrown it at me, knowing full well I would have attempted to read it."

"Exactly," Sirius pushed, egging James on. "And what she doesn't know won't hurt her. Not to mention that the diary in question belongs to the girl who took our map!"

It seemed as if that was all the convincing James needed, as he allowed his new eraser to make contact with a random page of Lily's diary and began erasing away. Words written in a very tidy form of cursive immediately appeared, causing James' heart to beat faster and faster. After the page was entirely erased, James dropped the eraser onto his bed—surprised that it had worked at all—and brushed off the eraser shavings, letting his eyes fall onto the secret thoughts that were Lily.

"Read it out loud," Sirius said excitedly, peering over James' shoulder.

James cleared his throat. "Alright, here it goes… I HATE bloody arrogant James Potter—Aha! I knew my name would be mentioned!"

Sirius smirked. "Yeah, too bad she also mentioned the words 'hate', 'bloody', and 'arrogant' before your name."

James pointed a rude hand gesture at Sirius before his attention turned back to the little book in his hands. "Maybe I should back track to earlier this morning. First of all, I should mention that today's date is April 1st. April Fool's Day is always rather fun, but throw in the Marauders and you have a total catastrophe. I'll just get straight to the point; the idiotic boys turned my hair purple and somehow got a hold of all of my knickers, but not only mine, my roommates as well. Now, you may be thinking (or maybe not since books can't think…or maybe they can…wait. What am I thinking? Books aren't real!) that this doesn't sound so bad, oh, but trust me, it gets much worse than having my underwear being in the possession of James bloody Potter and his cronies. To add insult to injury, my friends and I found all of our knickers hanging around the school on our way to breakfast. So, that is why I'm concluding this entry with how much I despise those four boys, especially Potter since he was the one that most likely came up with this perverted scheme. He's such an ignorant, annoying, stupid—Okay! I think it's time to move on to another page." James hastily turned the page not wanting to continue reading the long list of rude names Lily had called him.

"If I do remember correctly, that whole idea was my idea," Sirius said while he began laughing at the memory.

James scowled at him. "Remind me never to listen to your prank ideas ever again. Because of that harmless joke, Lily refused to go out with me to Hogsmeade that next weekend."

Sirius shrugged nonchalantly. "Mate, she would have turned you down anyway."

"Thanks for the boost of confidence."

The two friends sat in silence for a minute, both thinking about something different. In James' case, he was thinking about how Lily had still managed to look hot with purple hair that April Fool's Day in their fourth year. Sirius on the other hand was thinking about how many pancakes he'd be able to eat tomorrow morning for breakfast. Finally, Sirius broke their train of thoughts. "Well then, let's dive back into this adventure."

James' attention immediately jumped back to the book. "Right. Let's just start from the beginning then," he stated as he turned to the first page of the diary. Sirius nodded his head happily in consent and James' began reading.

"'I don't really know why I let my mum convince me into writing in this diary. I'm normally not the type of girl to let her emotions and feelings fall onto paper, but I guess mum is right. Ever since dad passed away'—" James' stomach dropped as a memory came flooding back to his own mind from last year.

OOO

"Check mate," Sirius exclaimed happily, as his knight completely took out James' king.

"Bugger. How about two out of three?"

"No way, mate. I beat you. Now you'll have to pay the price for having terrible chess skills," Sirius said easily, lazily rocking back in his chair in the Gryffindor common room.

"There in no way in hell you are getting me to propose to McGonagall…in front of the whole bloody—"

"Excuse me, James, Dumbledore asked me to give you this."

James and Sirius turned to stare at the scrawny second year who was addressing them. In his hand, the boy held a small piece of folded up paper.

"Uh…thanks," James said, taking the note from the young boy, who scampered off to rejoin his friends. He opened it curiously, confused as to why the Headmaster was calling for him.

"What did you do this time?" Sirius asked amusedly, trying to read the letter over James' shoulder.

"Nothing—" James broke off as his eyes traveled further and further down the note. With each word his face got visibly paler. Without telling Sirius what was going on, James shot up from his chair and sprinted out of the portrait hole. His mind was in such a shocked state that he didn't even recall bumping into Lily Evans, causing her books to fall out of her hands.

"What happened to them?" James demanded as soon as he entered Dumbledore's office. His face was red with built up emotions.

The wizened professor lowered his glasses and stared at James. He sighed heavily and the normal twinkle in his eyes had been distinguished. "James, your parents have been attacked by Voldemort while on a mission for the ministry's Auror department. As of now, they are still alive and have been transported to St. Mungo's."

'As of now, they are still alive'? But that almost seemed as if they weren't expected to live. James' ears began to ring violently as his heart seemed to beat wildly. "I'm leaving," James said with a strong tone of authority.

Professor Dumbledore nodded understandingly, and wordlessly walked over to the fireplace in his office and handed James some floo powder. "They're located in the intensive care unit. Take your time, James."

James nodded distractedly and within seconds James was whirling in the midst of green flames on his way to see his parents for what could possibly be the last time.

OOO

"What? Why did you stop reading?" Sirius asked confusedly, staring at James whose eyes had become oddly unfocused as he had been thinking about that dreadful day that his parents had almost been killed. If it hadn't been for the well-trained Healers, his mum and dad wouldn't be alive now.

James firmly closed the book and placed it and the eraser into his bed side table drawer. "Um…I'm just tired, that's all. We can read the rest in the morning with Remus and Peter."

Sirius got up and headed for his own bed without responding to James. Something was bothering him, Sirius could tell, but he decided not to push the matter and fell asleep.

OOO

"What do you mean you're not going to read anymore?" Sirius asked, as the four friends sat around the room the next morning, now fully awake. "You have the chance to find out everything you ever wanted to know about her, and you're blowing it."

"No, Sirius, I blew it when I took the diary," James said, rubbing a hand distractedly through his hair.

"No, she blew it when she threw the bloody book at you," Sirius shot back.

"She didn't blow anything, I blew everything."

"Who's blowing what, where?" Peter asked confusedly, glancing at the others.

"Prongs is right, Padfoot. Lily was writing about her father dying, I mean think about all of the other things in there that she doesn't want anyone knowing."

"Do I need to mention, again, that she HAS OUR BLOODY MAP?" Sirius said, clearly trying to persuade James into reading the diary further.

"Padfoot!" James exclaimed. "I almost lost my family, remember?" Sirius immediately grew quiet, his eyes shifting to the floor. "I know how it feels and I don't think it's right for us to read that kind of thing. I'm not reading it, and that's final!" His voice held such a tone of certainty that no one pushed him further, leaving a ringing silence in the wake of the announcement.

"You're right, Prongs. I'm sorry," Sirius admitted finally.

James grumbled under his breath, picking up the diary and holding it in his hands. "What do I do now?"

"I think you should give it back, so we can get our map back. Then we'll all be happy," Remus suggested.

"Well, yeah, but I kind of like being able to see out of my eyes, thank you very much.," James said haughtily, referring to the threat Lily had thrown at him earlier. "We need to come up with a safer way for her diary to get back into her possession and our map into ours."

That's when Peter's squeaky voice spoke up from the far side of the room. "Why don't you just tell her the truth?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Wormtail. She'd bite Prongs' face off," Sirius stated.

James, however, was staring off into space, pushing his glasses up his nose as they began sliding to the edge of it. "Just tell the—Pete, you're a genius!"

Peter shrugged, abashed at the compliment, but he smiled nonetheless. "Glad I could help."

"It's worth a try," Remus said, shrugging. "Just don't get your hopes up too high, Prongs."

"No. I could walk up to her—"

"—yeah, you walk," butted in Sirius, clearly thinking James was coming up with a better idea then the telling the truth.

"I'll give her the diary—"

"—yeah, you give!"

"I'll tell her that I only read a little and then stopped—"

"—yeah! You—what?"

"And then I'll get the Marauder's Map back, and maybe only escape with a few bumps and bruises."

"Have you all lost your minds?" Sirius asked, looking around at them all. "I like having a best friend, and I'm pretty sure I won't have one anymore when Prongs admits to Lily that he stole her diary, went to Hogsmeade after hours, bought an eraser that would reveal her invisible ink, and then learned that her father died. This is Lily Evans we're talking about! The girl who ruins our pranks, the girl who made James go bald in our second year, the girl who—."

"—We know who she is, thanks Padfoot. I have a plan and I think it'll work. All I need is a bit of luck," James said hopefully, a determined glint in his deep hazel eyes.

Sirius slumped his shoulders in defeat, knowing James' mind was made up. "Whatever, mate. It's your funeral."

OOO

Well, I hoped that amused some of you. The next chapter should be coming along shortly! Thanks for reading and feel free to review:)

--HeyLookTheSnitch