A/N: A huge thanks to everyone who has favorited, followed and reviewed! That's exactly the kind of motivation that keeps me going even in stressful times of writing my master thesis! This chapter is a bit longer, and I thought I'd introduce you to the rest of the marauders! Enjoy!

It was your average Good Friday at Hogwarts; corridors rather empty, courtyards filled with students trying to catch some sun, and owls beginning to drop Easter eggs to the students in the great hall. For Aurelia, however, it was anything but average. The boy she had fancied for… Merlin knows how long, had asked her to a party after rescuing her from the groping hands of Rabastan Lestrange. In a sense, she was in shock. Firstly, the only parties she had ever attended had either been ministry gatherings or family holiday parties, and secondly, she could not wrap her head around the fact that James Potter wanted her to come to their party. While he was the Gryffindor chaser, a sixth year, dangerously fit and not to mention popular, she was a fifth year Hufflepuff, not much to look at, and practically invisible to everyone but pureblood Slytherins, whose attention she did not want, mind you. Yet for some reason, he had noticed her; well, after initially running straight into her, that is.

So, Aurelia was left in a bit of a pickle. Naturally, going to this party would provide her with an opportunity to get to know James better, to spend time with him. But then again, he was obsessed with Lily Evans and so any time spent trying to get to know him was bound to be time wasted. And then there was the issue of why; why in Merlin's name would he invite her to a party? He had been nothing but kind to her, but she had seen how he and Black made fun of just about anyone they could – especially the Slytherins, especially purebloods. Could they be planning a prank on her? It wouldn't be the first time anyone had the idea of making fun of her, and to her disappointment, it wouldn't be the last. But James Potter had in fact, that same morning, come to her rescue. It didn't make any sense for him to do that, only to make fun of her some fifteen hours later, did it? So that only left two options, either he had asked Lily first and been rejected, or, for some strange reason, he actually wanted to spend time with her.

Despite all her hesitation throughout the day, she finally decided to go. It wasn't as though she had much to lose to begin with, and quite frankly, it wasn't likely that she would ever get an opportunity like this again. So, she let her optimism get the best of her, and she hoped. She hoped that he had invited her because he, for one, noticed her - saw her. She hoped that he had thought about her all day, as she had him. She hoped that running into her the other day made him forget all about that pretty, know-it-all, redhead. She hoped that for once in her life, she could actually get what she wanted. Naturally, this sort of thinking was all very naïve and not much like Aurelia at all, but for an adolescent girl who had never been in a serious relationship and who had just been invited to a party by the boy she fancied, it was quite justified.

She crawled out the barrel from the Hufflepuff common room, and entering the kitchen corridor Aurelia realized that she had no plan, what so ever, as to how she was going to get to the lake at this hour.

"Psst."

The sound startled her, but looking down the corridor to her left, there was no one there. And turning to her right, she realized, there was no one there either. She had to be alone, yet she was certain she had heard someone, and not something. The normally collected sixteen-year-old nearly jumped out of her skin when she turned back to the left corridor finding one smug looking James Potter leaning against the wall.

"Merlin, James! You startled me. How… how did you do that?"

Letting out the breath she had been holding, she ran a hand through her hair, still looking at him in shock, trying to figure out what had just happened.

"Magic." He responded with a wink, looking positively smugger than he had to start with. And there she stood, completely and utterly gobsmacked, which was not a condition that improved with the sight of those bloody sparkly eyes of his. Those eyes might just be the death of her.

"What are you doing here, anyway? What if someone sees you?"

"I think we've already established that that's not going to happen. I came to escort you to the party, I take it this means you were planning on coming?"

"Well, yes, but…" She was at a loss for words. He had been waiting for her. James Potter had been waiting outside the Hufflepuff common room for Melin knows how long, when he wasn't even certain she would be coming to the party.

"Brilliant! Now, before we go, I'll have to let you in on a well-kept secret. I have in my possession an invisibility cloak."

"You have what?!"

In all honesty, Aurelia had never seen an invisibility cloak before, but she was definitely taking a liking to it. Now, perhaps it wasn't the actual cloak she was taking a liking to, but the whole 'being under it with James Potter' thing. She was certain her heart had never beaten faster in her life than it did as they were making their ways through the dark corridors of Hogwarts; closely together, his arm wrapped around her waist, hand resting on her ribs. He was so damn close, she could feel his breath on her neck and she bloody well hoped he didn't notice her shiver. It wasn't that she hadn't been close to boys before, because despite however much she might regret it, she had. But this was a different kind of closeness – one she hadn't felt before. It was indescribable. While his hand on her ribs was a security of kinds, instilling a sense of safety in her, it still drove her absolutely mad. And if he were to move his hand just the slightest, she would probably jump through the ceiling.

"So, do you like it?" He suddenly whispered, breaking the silence which had lasted nearly too long. It was a strange silence though, the rare kind that didn't seem to get awkward. His question though, almost succeeded in making it awkward. And Aurelia had no clue as to how to deal with questions like that.

"Erm.. Do I like what?"

"Being invisible, of course."

"Who wouldn't love being invisible?"

"Some people," he mumbled in response, and if she weren't blinded by how close he was to her, she might've heard a slight fragment of bitterness in his voice.

It didn't take very long until they reached the lake, and Aurelia couldn't help but to smile at the scene before her, even as James swept the cloak off them and left her side to half-run down to his friends. The sun was just setting, so it wasn't quite dark yet. The three boys who James was running towards were sitting at the base of a beech tree looking out over the lake, laughing. A blonde girl with curly, beautiful hair and bright blue eyes was sprawled across Sirius' lap, but was rapidly thrown off as James tackled his friend to the ground, messing up his neatly coiffed hair. A tall boy with sandy blonde hair, and a dark, purple scar across his face rolled his eyes at his two friends, and the shorter blonde boy beside him was cheering them on. As soon as he noticed her, the taller blonde got up on his feet and greeted her.

"You must be the Hufflepuff I've been hearing about! It's nice to finally meet you, I'm Remus – Remus Lupin," he said, offering his hand with an apologetic look on his face, as though he hadn't gotten up to greet her soon enough.

"Nice to meet you, too. I'm Aurelia."

"Ah, yes!" James released Sirius from his grip, and got up to his feet, brushing his robes off with his hands.

"Friends, this is Lia. Lia, meet the marauders… Oh, and Marlene." He said with an awkward smile as he walked up to her again, putting his arm over her shoulders.

"Wherever Sirius goes, she follows," he whispered with a small grin before leading her up to the group. It was surreal to her, how happy they all seemed. Now, she couldn't say she wasn't used to it, because she was in fact a Hufflepuff, and most Hufflepuff were indeed often happy. But she was seldom part of it. And at home, with her family, she rarely saw this kind of happiness.

"Hi! It's so nice to finally have another girl around here, I'm Marlene!" The girl who she now knew as Marlene got up on her feet with a wide smile on her face, and pulled a shocked Aurelia in for a tight hug. If the closeness of being under the cloak with James had thrown her off, she didn't have words for what this did. She had never met the girl before and yet she was greeted as though they had been best friends for life. Granted, Aurelia wasn't exactly used to hugging. There was the occasional embrace from her father as she left for Hogwarts each fall, and the usual cheek-kissing half-embrace that was customary when meeting her mother's side of the family, but this bone-crushing hug was something else entirely.

"If you want to keep her around, you'd better let the girl breathe, Marley. She was raised by Slytherins, this one. Good to see you, Fawley." At Sirius' words, Marlene let go of her with an apologetic smile, and put her arms around his waist instead, as though she needed to hold on to something. Someone.

"Fawley? Any relation to the former Minister Fawley?" The shorter blonde boy finally spoke, still seated at the edge of the tree, looking at her with inquisitive blue eyes.

"Distantly."

It was a habit of hers. While most purebloods at Hogwarts were well aware of her family tree, one didn't exactly stay unnoticed by saying that their grandfather had been minister for magic.

"How distant?"

"Peter! Lay it off, you're being rude." It was James who shut him up, and surprisingly the boy who she now understood was Peter, did shut up, instantly.

"That's alright, James. He's my grandfather, actually." She said with a low voice, turning her gaze to the ground, not particularly comfortable at being in the centre of attention. However, it was quite the relief to realize that there was no way that Black and Potter had planned all this to prank her. In fact, this was the warmest welcome she had ever received in her life. It was almost like being with friends.

"Alright, who's up for a game of Whisky-Gobstones?" Black broke the silence, waving a bottle of firewhiskey in his right hand, and a bag of gobstones in his left.

A/N: Thanks for reading! What did you guys think? I know this chapter was very light, and I only thought to introduce them and also show how happy things were before the war really got going. I'm sure everyone's aware of when this story is set, so please be aware that it's going to get a lot darker along the way. I really hope you like it, and if you do, please let me know by favoriting, following or posting a review!