Sirius, Peter, and Remus were sat giggling at the Gryffindor table. Actually giggling. They were waiting excitedly for a reaction, and they weren't disappointed when they got it.
"POTTER!" Lily Evans stood up, punching the table in anger
"Calm down Lils, I'm sure it'll come out…" Sasha tried to sit the bright blue Lily back on the bench
"I will not calm down! Those idiots put something in my food and I'm GOING to kill them this time" Lily stormed over to the opposite side of the hall to where three Marauders were now trying to keep straight faces.
"Where's Potter? It was him wasn't it? I should've known!" Lily scowled, scouring the many shocked faces of students now looking directly at them in the Great Hall for James.
"Actually it was…" Peter tried to explain but Lily cut him off.
"Don't try to make excuses for him, it's sad enough he has to find pleasure through others suffering" Lily fumed.
That was when James came into the Great Hall looking scared, one hand behind his back. Lily immediately ran up to him, almost running straight through Nearly Headless Nick who floated off disgruntled and moaning about never being noticed. Lily was closely followed by Sirius, Remus, and Peter, and slapped his shoulder leaving a blue mark.
"Lily… I er… you're blue?" James stared in shock at her.
"Of course I'm blue, you know I'm blue, what's that behind your back? Some stupid potion you made to dye skin?" Lily yanked his arm out from behind his back to reveal a rose.
"Well, um, it's for you?" James held out the rose before looking at Lily's glare and putting the rose back behind his back "Or not"
"Does this look like the time for a rose James?" Lily asked eyebrows raised, gesturing to her blue skin. Smiling, James thought he saw an opportunity and tapped her wrist making the blue totally disappear.
"Is this the time?" James persisted.
"For goodness sake James! You have no idea! You have tortured me for the past five years, that can't just be fixed with a single rose!"
"Evans, he had nothing to do with the blue thing, give the guy a break!" Sirius butted in, standing in-between them.
"I will not 'give the guy a break', it's not just the blue thing it's everything he HAS done, just last week you..." before Lily could finish her rant she was showered with vegetable peelings that Sirius had grabbed off a passing elf. Even the teachers now watching them, and even Peeves had turned away from torturing some first years to laugh, so Lily clenched her fists, turned around, and stormed out.
"Curse the Marauders!" Lily murmured to herself as she picked out the carrot peelings from her hair as she lay face down at at the front of her bed in the Gryffindor dorms. Her close friend since first year, Sasha Betteridge, leaned up against her bed engrossed in an old muggle romance Lily had given her.
"I think it's quite sweet what James does to impress you" Sasha mooned over all of the past advances James had made, from sending bouquets of flowers up to their dorm tied to his broomstick, to small packets of chocolate hidden on her stools before lessons.
"It's not sweet Sasha" Lily sighed, rolling over and dangling her head over the edge "Sweet would mean not pulling pranks on me"
"Lils, you know you're a great person and all, but you haven't got the best sense of humour" she chuckled putting the book down and turning to face her.
"I just don't understand breaking the rules, that's hardly a bad thing!" Lily Evans was a simple girl, she liked nothing more than a cold winter day, a warm blanket, and an evening sat by the fireplace in the common room. After spending every school holiday caught up in petty arguments with her muggle sister Petunia, peace and quiet is all she needed, and that's the exact opposite of what the Marauders are. James Potter and Sirius Black were the worst of the bunch, constantly bickering with professors, plotting elaborate schemes with Peeves the ghost, and messing about Filch the caretaker. Remus Lupin was slightly more tolerable, always with his nose in a textbook, just a little too easily convinced to join the shenanigans, and Peter Pettigrew no-one ever really heard from, but whenever the other three were doing something stupid, you could be sure Peter would be closely following.
It's not that Lily couldn't enjoy watching them challenge each other to bigger and bigger escapades, it was just the constant involvement of her that had provoked her stubborn side to never engage them in anything.
"You know I just want to go through these seven years doing what I know, studying, and having comfy nights in, I don't care if it's bad that I don't like putting myself in life threatening situations"
"If you're referring to their enchanted windsurfing on the lake, that was actually one of their greater ideas" Sasha pointed out "And I want it out there that you'd have liked it to if you were with the rest of us in the lake, not in a huff watching from the castle"
Lily was about to make an argument for why she hadn't gone down to the lake when her other close friend, Kara Shaw, burst through their bedroom door and collapsed onto their bed panting, throwing a tattered piece of parchment onto Lily's bed "You're welcome" she grinned, waiting for them to check it out.
"Oh Kara, I'm honoured, old parchment, for me?" Lily frowned at the blank parchment.
"Not just any old parchment, my dearest friend, Marauder parchment" Lily's eyes immediately lit up, and after pulling Kara up off the floor and to her bed she unrolled it fully.
"I see them with it all the time, never got a proper answer out of them, until now" Kara smirked. "There's got to be something hidden on it, do you know any revealing charms to try on it?"
"Does a dog bark?" Lily laughed.
"What's a dog?" Kara looked confused, Lily groaned at yet another muggle reference flying over her wizard friend's heads.
"It's just a pet muggles have, anyway the point is of course I know a revealing spell," Lily flicked her wand out of her pocket and pointed it at the parchment "Disendium". As soon as the words left her mouth the parchment was covered in words.
"Result!" Kara cried "What does it say?"
"It says:
Padfoot wants to say that Lily needs to work on her wand skills if she can't even work out the simplest revealing charms.
Prongs adds that Lily is extremely nosey... no matter how pretty her nose is... not that the rest of her isn't very pretty... damn.
Moony would also like to say that Kara is a dirty thief, and should never have taken the parchment that the idiot Lily tried to open
Finally Wormtail wants to say that Sasha should stop poking her nose into the business of this parchment and carry on reading her awful book
Yours faithfully
Prongs, Padfoot, Moony, and Wormtail.
"Who wants to put bets on who Prongs is" Sasha laughed as Kara gasped and snatched it out of her hands.
"Even his spells are in loooove with you Lils" Kara mocked, waggling the paper in front of her "Oh he'll love to hear about this!" it was at times like this where Lily hated the fact that Kara, James, and Sirius had known each other since they were kids.
"If they're pathetic enough to care so much about a piece of parchment then let them keep it" Lily sighed, pushing back her hair and rummaging through her bag for her Arithmancy essay.
"Don't be such a kill joy" Kara moaned, throwing down the map and lying across Lily's desk to get her attention "Don't you just love getting one over of James Potter?"
"Funnily enough I have more important things to do other than dedicate all of my time to one other person, unlike some people" Lily's fists automatically clenched when she thought of James.
"Just live a little, fight back" Kara encouraged "Come on, pretend this pillow is his face"
"I'm not doing that" Lily snatched the pillow off her and threw it across the room.
"Don't pretend you didn't enjoy it" Kara wiggled her eyebrows at her waiting for a reaction, and she got it.
"Right. If I here the name James Potter one more time I'm going to blow" She raged, shoving her work back into her bag after just two minutes of having it out, a record for Kara's annoyances. After shutting her bag she marched towards the door.
"Lily lessons don't start for half an hour" Sasha tried to point out, but Lily would rather sit in a classroom on her own then put up with the thought of him.
"Did you see the look on her face!" Roared Sirius in fits of laughter just after Lily stormed out of the Great Hall "I must say it's at times like this that I'm really glad Lily Evans is in our lives"
"You didn't need to do that Padfoot" James murmured, pulling up a bench and nibbling at a raspberry scone. It was bad enough getting rejected by Lily for the billionth time, but watching her get hurt for it dug the knife in even deeper "Besides I think we should be more worried about Kara and that map"
"Pfft, yeah, like they'll ever get into The Map, it was made by some of the greatest wizards of their time you know" he winked, but after getting no response from James he sighed and slapped James on the back "Look Prongsy, I don't like seeing my Marauders get hurt, yes it was a little unexpected but it definitely wasn't uncalled for"
"You said that about the tarentalegra spell you put on her and she spent the entire charms lesson uncontrollably dancing" James cringed at the thought of it.
"That's only because she ripped up your valentine card in her face!" Sirius argued, he hated seeing James get put down.
"Only because you filled her bag with chocolate frogs right before she opened it" James pointed out, wringing his hands and looking down as he remembered picking the bits of red card out of his hair.
"Hey Prongs, look at me, if Lily Evans doesn't want you who cares? You're James freaking Potter, the best seeker Gryffindor's ever seen, a giant nerd genius, a prankster extraordinaire!" Sirius waited for the smile to appear of James' face before pulling him into a hug "Anyway, I think we both know it's us two who are destined to be together" He whispered in his ear before James batted him away laughing.
"I feel like I've intruded on an intimate moment now" Remus cringed, shielding his eyes.
"See Prongs, our love is too much for Moony to handle! I've also had a great idea, and it's definitely going to cheer you up" Sirius burst out, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.
"Can you guys make it to the end of one meal without scheming?" Peter groaned, Sirius' plans almost always meant pranking, and pranking meant he would have to traipse around the castle carrying all of their flour, potions, or whatever ridiculous products they'd be using, and still get a detention when they were caught.
"Wormtail, you're not seeing the bigger picture, we're at school, and our schemes always involve some spells or charms, so it's basically revision" Sirius explained as Remus and James nodded in a agreement around him "if you don't want to help then, and I don't want to exaggerate, but you're basically saying you don't want a future"
"I... I suppose" Peter shrugged, digging into a pumpkin pasty instead of attempting to argue with Sirius.
"Brilliant!" Sirius beamed, slapping Peter on the shoulder making him jump and drop his pasty on the floor "Now, I've noticed that the Slytherins have had a distinct lack of baking products on their robes recently"
"You're right" Remus agreed, already taking notes on a napkin about logistics.
"To the kitchens!" James announced, dragging Peter up off the bench and making him drop yet another pasty before they charged from the Great Hall.
On their way through the entrance hall they passed Lily on her way to Slughorn's office for a meeting clutching a box of Chorkin's Tremendously Charmed Chocolates. Sadly for James Remus and Peter were in the unfortunate position of giving piggy back rides to James and Sirius who were pretending to joust.
"How do you even get yourselves into these situations!" Lily shouted angrily at them as they passed, sighing exasperatedly and running up the stairs.
"I think you made a good impression" Sirius laughed, James just turned and furiously punched him in the arm before jumping off the panting Peter and continuing down.
"The Slytherins have Defense Against the Dark Arts right after lunch" Remus whispered as the four Marauders crouched in a doorway on the second floor.
The Slytherins and Gryffindors traditionally couldn't stand each other, the house's traits being the opposite of each other. Where Slytherin valued ambition and cunning, championing students who had the ability to do anything to get themselves to the top; whereas Gryffindor were all about courage and chivalry, the ability to protect and defend the weak.
The Marauders had managed to have run ins with a particular group of Slytherins who took their house rules over the edge. Bellatrix and Regulus Black, Rodolphus Lestrange, Barty Crouch Jr, Charles Crabbe, and Kenneth Goyle were into the torturing and bullying of other houses, and walked the castle hallways as if they owned them. Constantly threatening teachers, and having run ins with Dumbledore himself, the Marauders couldn't stand them, and made it their goal to embarrass as much as possible. Especially in the case of Bellatrix and Regulus who, as Sirius' cousin and brother, had been making life hell since childhood, which seemed to be a trait of all the Black family.
"Have you got the mirror?" Remus asked as he and Peter prepared to take their positions on the third floor above the entrance to the classroom.
"Obviously" Sirius and James said in unison before creeping through the door and standing on either side, wands ready.
They were hunched in the dark for what seemed like forever before Remus gave the four finger crossover signal through the mirror to warn that the Slytherins were coming up the stairs.
"That was brilliant, Potter gets heart broken and Evans gets dyed and peeled!" Bellatrix screamed with laughter "We don't need to do anything when they're making fools of themselves!"
"Gryffindor's clowns never do fail to amuse" Barty smirked
Their laughter was quickly cut off as Sirius yanked the string he'd been holding, and they were covered in flour. That was when James yelled "Incarcerous!" Tying them up in a rope, Remus and Peter then pelted them all with eggs, the group yelling in disgust.
"Marauders I know this is you" Rodolphus growled, trying to wrench his arms free to wipe the flour from his eyes "You don't want to know what I'm going to do to you"
"You'll have to catch us first" Sirius called, laughing as they ran from the room "This about this next time you're throwing first years into the lake!" He shouted over his shoulder as they slammed the classroom door shut
On their way down the stairs they passed a group of Ravenclaw sixth years on their way to potions, turning and running down the stairs backwards Sirius winked and threw finger guns at them before a curse flew at him and he had to carry on running.
Nights in the fifth year girl's dormitory followed the same pattern. Lily would be changed and in bed trying to sleep before anyone else, until her roommates Sasha, Kara, Teresa, and Violet came bursting through the door after McGonagall shooed everyone else from the common room.
"Oh Lily, did you hear about the Marauders prank on the Slytherins!" Kara asked enthusiastically, jumping onto her bed facing Lily who was trying to hide under her sheets.
"No, and I don't want to" Lily muttered, burrowing further into bed and trying to block out all thoughts of the Marauders.
"Oh don't be such a spoil sport! The Marauders have many flaws, but they're at least fighting back against the Slytherings" Kara argued, throwing a pillow at her to try and coax her out of her duvet cave.
"I don't see how you could know Potter and Black for most of your life and still be able to defend them" Lily's voice came through the sheets muffled.
Choosing to completely ignore Lily's protests, Kara launched into the story of the flour attack, and the following fight in front of the castle which had to be broken up by three professors while Lily sat back and winced through it.
"You do realise that pelting people with food doesn't count as a prank" She sighed, annoyed at how the Marauders had everyone in the palm of their hands "I can't wait for people to decide physical fights with the Slytherins was only going to make things worse.
Lily had given up hope trying to convince Kara of this, the Shaws were a pure blood wizard family which had an age old feud with the Black family, as children Kara and Sirius had been raised to hate each other, but their mutual friendships with James had meant the three had been a trio since childhood, so Lily knew she was going to have to put up with them for a while
Sirius leaned nonchalantly against the one eyed witch statue, raking his hand through his silky hair as a Hufflepuff girl walked passed, blushing and smiling at him "The hair always gets them" Sirius grinned to himself, flicking his hair and watching her run off.
"Pads you better not be trying to flirt with anymore bloody Hufflepuffs" Remus warned as he, James, and Peter met up with him.
"Pfft, no, that Hufflepuff was trying to flirt with me" he winked at him, flicking his hair back into position, tapping the hump with his wand and muttering "dissendium" causing the wall to slide to the side revealing a secret passage.
"We're not witnessing you go through a two week relationship before deciding you're a loan wolf again pads" James laughed "You're hopeless at anything other than smiling at people", bustling into the hatch quickly before anyone noticed them sneaking out whilst Remus checked the map.
"I'm not taking this from the guy who's had five years to make one person even like them and has failed!" James thought about it for a second before choosing to simply slap him when he had no comeback.
"Enough of how much of a failure at relationships I am anyway, I had a crate of sweets reserved at Honeydukes in the basement and I'm not waiting for the weekend"
"Pads you're a beautiful human, do you know that?" James patted him on the back.
"Yeah I'm going to need this just to get through the next couple of night, you know we have three essays due next week?" Remus started to panic "If we hadn't spent so much time in the kitchens eating cake this last minute rush wouldn't be happening"
"It's a known fact that no effort should be put into History of Magic essays Moony" Sirius sighed at Remus' constant dedication to school work "Now come on, I need my Acid Pops"
Even as Sirius swung open the trapdoor he knew something wasn't right, he stopped the others in their tracks and pushed his finger to his lips, lowering the lid slowly and creeping out.
"There's someone up there" He whispered, gesturing to the shop. Nervously pushing his hair out of his face and pushing up his glasses James raised his wand and crept up the stairs to the door, Sirius close behind.
"Waw mind the hair Prongs" He warned as James brushed against him, he just raised his eyebrows and Sirius and carried on.
Once they'd pushed open the door and peered around James saw what was going on, the shop assistant was behind the counter with a strange man in black robes, talking in muffled tones and exchanging money.
"Death Eater!" Sirius said loud enough for the two to hear, the man in black's head snapped around and glared at the basement door but the two of them had already swept down the stairs and thrown the other two under the Cloak of Invisibility with them. Frowning, he flung open the door and stamped down the stairs, lifting his hood up for long enough to peer into the darkness for Sirius to recognise him.
"Uncle?" he mentally gasped. watching as the man who helped raised him was currently wearing traitor's robes. James looked over at him sympathetically before he finally left.
"It can't be what we think" Remus shook his head "Those stories were just in the Prophet to scare us, there's no such thing as a Dark Lord"
"I'm not too sure now" James bit his lip and threw the cloak off his head.
Grabbing the sack of sweets by the bottom of the stairs the Marauders quickly legged it back to the castle, trying to comprehend what they'd seen.
Authors Note:
I hope everyone reading this will carry on reading, I've put a lot into this fanfic over the two years I've been writing it so far and I want this to go on way past their time at Hogwarts because I've read loads that end at 7th year and I love Lily and James' story so much I want to write all of it, so I hope you stick with me to the end and enjoy :)
I'm currently at the end of Hogwarts and about to go into the war so hop over to chapter 55 if that's all you want to read about
Don't forget to review with what you think, thanks!
-Hannah