Previously: The Marauders decide to steal McGonagall's Animagus notes. The CoMC is the first time since Stoughton's death that Lily has a chance to talk to James. She's unsure what to expect, and James decides to act on his new feelings by openly flirting with her, much to everybody's surprise. Lily is not impressed. After CoMC, Sirius calls James an idiot for flirting with Lily. James suddenly notices movement, but they both shrug it off. Lily has her first private lesson with Rawlings.


Chapter 36: It's Only Borrowing

James peeked around the corner, stealthily looking both ways before hurrying forward to duck into one of the many shortcuts Hogwarts held, motioning for Sirius to do the same thing. In particular, this passageway was concealed behind a tapestry, and when he was safely hidden from any prefects or teachers who might have been patrolling the corridors, he breathed a sigh of relief and lit the tip of his wand with a whispered, "Lumos." Beside him, Sirius did the same thing.

Now with light to guide him, James hurried down through the shortcut, his lit wand in one hand and one of the rooks from Sirius's chess set that Remus had charmed. Unfortunately, Peter and Remus had taken the Invisibility Cloak with them since they were the ones in charge of distracting any patrolling teachers, leaving James and Sirius to rely solely on their talent for mischief to manage to get past seven entire floors without being seen. Thankfully, they had already made it to the fifth floor without detection.

"Gryffindor Three and Gryffindor Four, do you copy?" whispered James into his little chess piece as he and Sirius came to the end of the shortcut.

This was the first step in their plan. Peter and Remus would create distractions, drawing anybody close to McGonagall's office further and further away. Thankfully their friends did not need much assistance when it came to exactly what to do to create distractions, as they were still Marauders and had plenty of useful ideas – James knew for a fact that one of their plans included simultaneously casting the Singing Hex and Amplifying Charm on all portraits towards the end of the Charms corridor.

"Copy, Gryffindor One," came Remus's voice, and James's rook's mouth moved in perfect sync with the words.

"So do I – I mean, I copy too," squeaked Peter, and just like the chess piece had with Remus, the mouth moved once again as it echoed Peter's words.

"I still don't see why I couldn't be Gryffindor One?" moaned Sirius from his side while still whipping his head back and forth between the ends of the fifth-floor corridor just in case any prefects strayed their way.

"Because, you idiot, you get the king," explained James impatiently, gesturing to what was indeed the king in Sirius's hand. They all had their own chess pieces, with Peter getting a bishop and Remus the knight (nobody had wanted the queen), but it was still a little weird to see Sirius's king echo his own words from that tiny, stone mouth.

"Still, I think I should get a consolation prize – you know that Dawn Vasquez still refuses to meet me in a broom cupboard. Merlin, what is it with girls who have boyfriends?" replied Sirius.

"I think that's kind of the point of an exclusive relationship, Sirius," said Remus's voice from the chess piece. Apparently the other two Marauders could overhear James and Sirius's conversation and felt the need to jump in. "Besides, you have no reason to complain – your consolation prize was Harriet Browning, and if that snog was as great as you made it out to be, I think that girl's more than enough of a consolation prize. Now are you going to get a move on, or are we just going to stand here all night?"

"Gryffindor Four is in place," whispered Peter, interrupting Sirius's little pity party.

"Gryffindor Four, you do know that only a prat would refer to himself as a Gryffindor Four, right?" countered Sirius.

"Gryffin – I'm sorry, Sirius."

"Don't call me Sirius! Call me Gryffindor Two!"

"Sorry, sorry …"

"I thought we were all serious about this," smirked James from Sirius's side.

Gesturing with his hand to signal that the coast was indeed clear, James rushed across the corridor, staying in a crouched position the entire way until they reached the stairs.

"I am serious!" hissed Sirius in the loudest voice he dared use as he followed James, drawing to a halt right behind him when James pressed himself against the wall right next to a suit of armor.

"But you just said you were Gryffindor Two," he snickered in response, unable to help himself.

"No, actually, I do believe that – are you serious, James?" demanded Sirius when he spotted the smirk on his best friend's face.

"You can't tell the difference between Sirius and James?" teased James, leaning out to get a good look of the stairway.

"Yeah, ha-ha, that's absolutely hilarious, mate. Like I haven't ever heard that one before," snapped Sirius.

He opened his mouth, no doubt to say something else, but James suddenly elbowed him and hissed, "shut up!", gesturing down where Professor Gammon, the Divination teacher, was just about to climb the staircase. There was a moment when James and Sirius simply looked at each other before Sirius brought his chess piece closer to his mouth to put the first phase of the plan into action.

"Gryffindor Three, Enemy Nine is on the staircase – I repeat, Enemy Nine is on the staircase! This is when you light those fireworks, mate, and sometime in the immediate future would be greatly appreciated," rushed Sirius as both he and James started backing up so that if Gammon did reach the top of the staircase, they would not be so close.

"Got it," said Remus.

There was a brief moment of silence before – boom! James felt the floor vibrate ever so slightly as Remus lit the first firework, and then the first muffled detonation was followed by a second and third consequently. Gammon's squeak of surprise was immediate, and James glanced back at Sirius before shuffling back to their original positions. When James poked his head around the corner, Professor Gammon was nowhere to be found, and the two of them let out a sigh of relief.

"Gryffindor Three and Four, Enemy Nine is coming your way – move! Move!" said James and he and Sirius raced down the staircase to the lower levels. "C'mon, Sirius, McGonagall's office isn't that much farther."

It did not take them much longer until they were standing in front of McGonagall's door to her office. They had both been in there many times before whenever their head of house had caught them breaking the rules, but James had never thought that he would be choosing McGonagall's office of all places to break into. Sure, she was a pretty awesome professor and a wickedly cool Animagus, but her office had never promised any of the Marauders anything valuable – until now, of course, when they needed her notes of all things.

"Alohomora," whispered James, pointing his wand at the door, which clicked and swung forward, revealing the dark, unlit office that, especially during the night, did not look the least bit inviting. Thankfully, Professor McGonagall herself was nowhere to be found and was probably busy chasing Remus and Peter's various diversions.

They had assumed that while there was still some Locking Spells on her office, she did not exactly have the state-of-the-art counter-curses that Gringotts had since this moment aside, James had never heard of any student bold enough to break into her office – generally, the threat of McGonagall's fury would be enough to dissuade students. However, that did not stop Sirius from performing the General Counter-Spell with a flick of his wand and a quiet whisper of, "Finite Incantatem."

When there was no change in the office, James shrugged and cautiously entered while Sirius closed the door behind them as quietly as he could.

"Where's all the light?" whispered Sirius's voice from beside James. "Incendio."

Several candles flickered to life, revealing the rest of McGonagall's office. Now that the candles provided the light, James nimbly made his way to one of the filing cabinets that stood behind McGonagall's desk. Though it was locked when he and Sirius had first searched briefly during the detention McGonagall had given them for splattering her ceiling with frog spawn, that did not stop him from pulling on them one more time – they were still locked up nice and tight, much to James's displeasure.

"We each can take three drawers," said James, tapping each drawer and whispering the Unlocking Spell under his breath. He started at the bottom while Sirius took the topmost one, rifling through pieces of parchment. It was easy to tell from the fine layer of dust on the bottom that McGonagall had not actually gone through the pieces of parchment James was now rifling through for a very long time.

"Useless," muttered Sirius from above. "These are all just grades and papers – hey, James, look! We're top of the class right now. I always knew that McGee secretly loved us."

"Well, she probably won't love us as much if she catches us right now, so hurry along, will you?" said James. His own drawer was only filled with corrected editions of Transfiguration Today, and he quickly moved on to the next drawer.

"Mm-hm," muttered Sirius in agreement, though he was clearly not listening. "Damn! Snivellus is beating Remus – why can't he just be an idiot like Wilkes? Let's see … Pete's averaging between a 'Dreadful' and a 'Poor' – really, Pete? We're trying to learn how to become Animagi here, and you still don't know the difference between a Switching Spell and a Placement Charm? Though should we really be surprised?"

"I can still hear you, Sirius," protested Peter's squeaky voice from both Sirius's king and James's rook simultaneously.

"That's the point, idiot. You're a third year, and you still can't – ha! Ha-ha!" barked Sirius suddenly, and Peter received a brief break from the teasing as Sirius focused on somebody else who was apparently much funnier than Peter's general lack of talent at Transfiguration. It must have been really good because Sirius beamed at James and rushed, "Mate, you're not gonna believe who's at the bottom of the dungheap for the fourth years! Merlin, it's almost too good to be true."

"Who?" asked James, looking up from his current drawer full of ungraded essays, genuinely intrigued.

"Diggory!" yelled Sirius.

"Who?" James repeated, but this time, instead of curious, he was flabbergasted.

"Amos Diggory – it says … let's see what we all have here …" mumbled Sirius, scrolling down Diggory's grades, several of which were accompanied by comments written in Professor McGonagall's handwriting. "He 'understands theory but struggles with producing the desired effects' according to McGonagall – oh, apparently Diggory 'shouldn't be placed around any girls due to his short attention span when next to them.' Really? And I thought we had problems, Jamesie-Boy – oh, hey! Will you look at that? You're currently scoring better than your girlfriend at least."

"James has a girlfriend?" came Remus's skeptical voice.

"You do?" asked Peter, sounding quite surprised despite the chess pieces' marble-still expressions. "Why didn't I know about this?"

"Because there isn't – I don't have one – what girlfriend?" demanded James.

Sirius rolled his eyes and said, "Well, duh. I seem to recall you trying to flirt with Little Miss Perfect during that first Care of Magical Creatures class, though I don't think she got the same amount of amusement out of it as I did – though amusing or not, I still stand by the fact that it's definitely one of your worse ideas."

"I was just talking with Evans," defended James, and he felt his cheeks redden. "Is that a crime?"

"No, but it is pretty stupid when you think about it," said Sirius bluntly. "I sorry, mate, but I'd say you're putting the Quaffle through the wrong hoop with that one – because let me tell you, she most certainly has plenty of Bowtruckles hidden somewhere in her branches."

James shot a glare at his friend, but Sirius shrugged it off.

"You've already made you opinion of her very clear, Sirius, so can we get back to looking now? Please?"

"I am looking," insisted Sirius, and it was clear that he was not yet finished with the Lily Lecture quite yet. "I mean, why even bother with a girl like Evans? If you still want to date a Gryffindor, I'd go for McKinnon or Prewett since at least they can still have some fun – wait, don't go for McKinnon. Sorry, mate, but I call dibs on McKinnon. Go for Prewett … or you could also go for Macdonald, I s'pose."

Sighing, James said, "It's not because she's a Gryffindor, mate. She's just … she's gorgeous for starters, and she's also pretty feisty. She's … well, she's Evans."

"Exactly my point, mate: she's Evans," said Sirius. "I mean, you want to chase after that girl, go ahead. Just don't blame me if you wind up with some broken baubles hanging between your legs instead of your –"

"Got it!" said James triumphantly, pulling out a folder full of dusty old notes and mercifully silencing Sirius. Inside were dozens of scrolls of parchment covered in the same handwriting James always saw on his returned transfiguration assignments. While some parts were only hastily scribbled notes such as "doesn't work as well" and "must focus on keeping concentration," some were neatly written steps that she must have fallen back on dozens of times. Unfortunately, there was too much in there for the Marauders to decode in just one sitting.

Glancing back at Sirius, James asked, "Um, you wouldn't happen to know of any Doubling Charms, would you?"

Sirius shook his head.

"Sorry, we don't start learning those for a little while, mate. We could probably just take it with us and return it when we've copied everything important. I mean, I don't think she's gonna miss those notes much since she's already an Animagus – at least, until we're done with them."

There was no better option, so James simply tucked them into the bag they had taken with them while Sirius extinguished the candles and set about locking up everything so that nothing would be amiss next time Professor McGonagall entered her office. When they were satisfied with the state of the office, James slowly opened the door to check if the coast was clear while Sirius whispered into his chess piece, "Gryffindor Three, mission is complete. I repeat, the mission is complete."

"All clear in the Entrance Hall," whispered Peter.

"Well, I'm not sure if it's all clear on the first floor, but so far everybody who's awake is currently dealing with a rather slimy mess on the sixth floor," said Remus, sounding rather proud of himself.

"Roger that. Meet us back in the dormitory," said Sirius, hurrying up the stairs with James right behind him.

It did not take them long to get back to the Gryffindor common room, and they came across nobody patrolling thanks to Remus's distractions that would probably take the teachers at least another half an hour to figure out. By the time Sirius and James climbed through the portrait hole (earning both a hiss from Crackerjack and a scolding from the Fat Lady), Remus and Peter were sitting in front of a barely lit fire.

James had expected them to be happy that they had succeeded, but their apprehensive looks as Sirius and James approached drew them up short.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked slowly. "We got McGonagall's notes, mates, so why all the long faces?"

"James, I'm so sorry!" squeaked Peter, jumping up from his spot on the couch when he noticed James's presence. "I didn't mean to! I swear I didn't."

"Whoa, Peter, slow down," said James, making a calming gesture with his hands even though a growing sense of dread slowly filled his gut when he saw just how distressed Peter was. "What are you talking about? What happened?"

Peter started to chew his nails, but he managed to say, "It's just … I heard some people when I was setting up some of the Gobstones in the first-floor corridor, and I – well, you see, I took off in a bit of hurry because I didn't want them to catch me, but I accidentally left some stuff behind …"

"Peter, where's my Invisibility Cloak?" questioned James in a dangerously low voice. Peter blushed and looked down at his feet, saying nothing, and James repeated, "Where did you put my father's Cloak?"

"I … I kind of forgot it back in the Entrance Hall, but when I went back, it … the cloak – I'm really sorry, James! Somebody else had taken it by the time I got there!"


Note: I changed this chapter a little bit when somebody pointed out that it was highly unlikely for thirteen-year-olds to break into what they originally broke into, but I'm still keeping a lot of the things from the original version – they are now just in different places, some of which are in some later chapters.