Authors note:

I've been having a lot of bother over the pronunciation of Remus' names. I mean call me stupid but I've always pronounced it like Ray-mus, and I just can't see saying it like Ree-mus as normal, I mean I've grown up saying it like that. I've now been reduced to calling him 'The Werewolf' and 'Lupin' just to avoid that annoying argument, just me?

"Where on earth are they?" Sasha asked impatiently as her and Remus wandered through the castle looking for James and Lilly.

"Well if they haven't killed each other yet they could be anywhere, so we'll probably never find them." Remus muttered, he was already tired from his time in the infirmary, and Sirius had also made him do 'the special party dance' with him so he was barely standing up right.

"Great optimism there Remus, nice having you around" Sasha replied sarcastically.

"Well, it's the truth." he defended.

"Oh gosh, what if they've decided to start going out after a romantic apology from James!" Sasha's mind wondered slightly too much.

"Yes, I think it's very likely that, after James' stupid head made him lie to Lily about Aragog and kissed the bitch who's been bullying her for five years right in front of her face, just an apology, no matter how 'romantic', is going to solve everything" He raised his eyebrows at her and watched the smile disappear from her face.

"A girl can dream" She huffed "Anyway, you better hope they haven't or else it'll be all four of us jumping into the lake naked"

"Yeah we need to find them right now" Remus shuddered at the thought and dragged Sasha quicker down the stairs.

"Why are we looking for Santa Claus again?" Sirius slurred as Peter dragged him through the corridors.

"Pads, for the last time, we're looking for Lilly and James!" Peter snapped, he had had to listen to Sirius' drunken babbles for the last half an hour and it was seriously starting to annoy him – there's only so many times you could trip him over and find it hilarious. Well, one more time wouldn't hurt; they'd been looking for ages…

"WOW! Wormtail look how big the floor is now!" Sirius said as he lay sprawled on the floor "Look! Look! Come floor swimming with me!"

Peter watched as Sirius mimed paddling through the floor before flying down the staircase. Once he'd hauled him up they carried on looking for Lilly and James.

"Wormy?" Sirius asked.

"Yes?" Peter snapped as he half carried him along the corridor.

"I didn't want to tell you this, but there seems to be a purple Llama following us everywhere" And with that he passed out and fell onto the floor, the bells on his party hat singing him a lullaby.

"Great." Peter thought to himself.

James had spent the whole night wondering the school trying to find Lilly after she'd run off out of sight. He knew that the others were looking for them, but he couldn't have them interfering. He had finally found Lilly on the balcony of the astronomy tower asleep with tear streaks covering her face. She looked too peaceful to disturb so James carefully picked her up and carried her up to the common room where he tucked her in on the couch with his duvet that he grabbed from his bed, an enchanted hot chocolate that never went cold with marshmallows, and a note that just said:

'I'm sorry,

James

X

After that he crawled up to bed and lay freezing cold without his duvet for the rest of the night.

When Lilly woke up she found herself in the common room with a mysterious blanket wrapped around her and a hot chocolate by her side. She felt so cold she drank the hot chocolate in one go, and it wasn't until she read the not until she realized where it all came from.

Because Lilly was still overflowing with the emotions that had been raging through her the night before she stormed up to the boy's dorm and threw James' duvet onto his head so he woke up immediately.

"HOW DARE YOU THINK THAT IT COULD ALL BE SOLVED WITH A SINGLE NOTE? A PIECE OF PAPER AND A DRINK IS ALL I GET FOR WHAT YOU DID?!" Lily screamed at a half asleep, fully confused James.

As he quickly scrambled to put on his glasses a scrunched up piece of paper hit him in the head.

"Lilly, I only meant to…" James wanted to tell her everything, but by that point there were three more confused Marauders gathered around the scene.

"You only meant to what, James?" he could tell that wasn't one of the questions you weren't supposed to answer "You only meant to lead me on for a bit until you finally had a real opportunity and got with someone else?" James was completely gobsmacked at how she had interpreted the 'incident' "So after you'd left me to suffer you didn't want your precious ego to be harmed so you just left me with a note. And a drink. Well thanks, but no thanks Potter I don't want your pity" And with that she stormed out again.

After punching his bed post in frustration James stormed into the bathroom, staring at his damn reflection in the mirror and asking himself why he'd been such an idiot.

"What just happened?" Sirius broke the silence surrounding the marauders.

"I screwed up." Is all that James could say.

"Well that narrows it down. Not." Sirius replied sarcastically "James I think it's definitely time to go into pay back mode, I was thinking we get the elves to hide a parrot in a pie, then…"

"NO SIRIUS!" James exclaimed "Enough with the payback look where that got me – nowhere! She doesn't deserve it, how have we never noticed that it's our fault this keeps happening?"

"Well I still think the parro…" Sirius did have a pretty good plan.

"No." James scorned

Lilly had made a quick excuse that she was going to study for the owls at the end of the year –'God Lils, they're not for, like, a month and a half – no worry!' Was Sasha's excuse for not going. She was just sat in silence mindlessly flicking through a defense against the dark arts text book, when before she knew it Sirius black was sat directly opposite her staring her straight in the eye.

"Go away Black!" Lilly tried not to look up from her book.

"Ok, Lillypop, let's just get some things straight here: One, never call me Black, it's the worst name I could possibly have; two, my best friend is currently sat underneath the covers of his bed crying his eyes out because the one girl he has ever liked just threw his kindness back in his face, and you don't exactly look fine and dandy either, and I want to get to the bottom of this." Shocked that Sirius was being serious for once Lilly looked up from her book at Sirius and saw the genuine worry in his eyes.

"Sirius, can't you see? He'd be so much better off without me; I mean look what I did today! I was horrible to him, and I keep doing it. He deserves better."

"Can you hear yourself? You doing this is hurting him!" Sirius pleaded.

"Look, I just don't want to talk about it, Ok?" And with that Lilly gathered her things and ran out of the library.

Remus, Sirius, and Peter had finally dragged James out of his room and into the Great Hall as he hadn't eaten or left his room for four days.

"Guys I really don't want to be here" James moaned of Remus tried to ram a croissant into his mouth.

"James, people are talking, there are rumors about what you did to Lilly and Shanice and as Marauders we're not letting one of us be down just because Lilly's done this to you again! Anyway you've missed two days of school and we can't keep saying you've got wizard flu, OWL's are in a month!" Remus reasoned as he finally got James nibbling on a piece of toast.

"Ugh, OWL's I can't be bothered." It was at that point when Sirius just turned around and slapped him in the face.

"FOR GOODNESS SAKE PRONGS!" He shouted at him "MAN UP, THIS GIRL IS NOT GETTING IN THE WAY OF YOUR AMBITIONS, YOU'RE GOING TO SNAP OUT OF THIS NOW!" The other three Marauders just sat there in shock at what Sirius just said "What? Someone needed to do it!"

"Yeah, I suppose I…" James was interrupted by the arrival of the owls bringing their mail. A single black letter was dropped in front of James by a new owl they hadn't seen before. It read:

James Potter,

We deeply regret to inform you that your mother has been emitted to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries after an attack at 'The Leaky Cauldron' by an unknown source, and your presence is requested as your father cannot be here. A wizard will be sent to Hogwarts to take you to the hospital and ten 'o' clock tomorrow

Yours sincerely

Healer Doris Suchely

"No." Is all that James could manage as he stared into the distance.

"James, what's wrong?" Sirius questioned.

"They've got to my mom"

Authors note:

I FORGOT ABOUT THEIR BET! Anyway I think you'll find that was expertly weaved back into the storyline at the start :P I know, I'm a terrible person for what I've done to James, but I had to – sorry .

Also, wow the sections in this chapter got pretty short, but think of how boring they would have been if I'd had drawn them out! Anyway it just so happens to be the hottest day of the year here in Britain so I'm off to enjoy it!

Mischief managed.