Marley Mckinnon walked swiftly up the stairs, her cape billowing behind her, to the girls' common room. She rounded the corner, and smiled brightly at her best friend who was sitting on the couch reading a book. She plopped herself down next to her friend, her blue eyes sparkling.
Alice Stoball looked up from the text book she was studying and looked a question at Marley, sensing that good gossip was on its way. Green eyes rose from the book they were reading, and blinked.
"Guess what?" Marley practically sang. "I got a boyfriend!"
Alice suddenly appeared next to the couch, beaming at Marley. "Oh, do tell. Do tell!"
Marley looked over at her best friend and smiled. "You'll never guess who it was! He just asked me out today! It was-"
"Speaking of today, you'll never guess what he did!" She groaned. Marley scowled, and shook her head. "What?" Her friend asked, looking over at her. "I'm sorry I interrupted, but seriously! He is such a nuisance!" Marley's scowl turned apologetic. She knew. They all knew how annoying James was. He did everything in his power to annoy Lily, or even to get her to go out with him.
Speaking of Lily, she sighed, and looked at both of her friends. "He is so annoying! I was talking to Sev, right?" Her two friends cringed. They didn't approve of her hanging out with Severus Snape. He was bad news ion their opinion. Not to mention he was in Slytherin, the enemy of Gryffindors and basically all of the other houses.
"Right." Lily continued, "Well, James is behind me, and he must have been out of his mind, but he dragged me away!" Alice gasped, but Marley smiled.
"Ooooh, he must have been jealous!" she exclaimed.
Lily snorted. "I'll just bet he was. But it still doesn't give him the right to drag me away like that!"
Marley sighed. "Lily, if you only gave him a chance he would-"
"He would, what? Sweep me off my feet to a place of romance? Or maybe just be nice in a while?" she shook her head. "I don't think so. He's too mean to everyone else that is 'below' him. It's like he is royalty or something." She sighed. "Now, what were you going to tell us? Something about a boyfriend?" She turned her green eyes on Marley.
Marley smiled. "Okay, Sirius Black asked me out! Yesterday!" Alice squealed so loudly that a few heads turned their way.
"No. way." She said. "Lucky! I would love to have him as my boyfriend."
Lily shook her head. "All of those 'Marauders' are trouble."
"But you hang out with one of them." Both Alice and Marley pointed out.
"Remus is nice. Not like Sirius and James and Peter." They all shuddered at the last name. While the other three were cute and somewhat bearable, Peter was just downright ugly and rude.
Alice and Marley shook their heads. "Whatever." Marley said.
-----
"Back in my day, if we were caught swimming in the lake, there would be severe punishments."
Severus was sitting down in Slughorn's office, with a towel over his head. Yeah, like he really meant to be in the lake. He sighed, and put his hands up to the towel, and began drying his hair off.
"Like being hung up in the dungeon by your thumbs, and sitting there for two days with no food or water."
Slughorn looked over at Severus and smiled. "Would you like some help with that?"
Severus looked up from under his towel and shook his head. "No thanks. I'm good."
"Nonsense, M'boy! Insendio!" Slughorn said the spell while pointing his wand at Severus.
Instantly a small flame appeared on Severus's robes. At the exact same time Lily Evans walked into the room. She froze when she saw Severus's robes on fire, and shook her head. "Aguamenti!" water appeared in the air, and dropped on Severus's robes, putting out the fire.
"Sev, why are you wet?" she asked, in an exasperated voice.
He narrowed his eyes at her and flipped the wet hair out of his face. "Why do you think? You just dumped water on me!"
"Well, you were on fire!"
"But!-"
Lily turned to Slughorn and cut Severus off. "So, Professor Slughorn, what did you want again?"
Slughorn, thrown off by the sudden change of subject, was silent for a moment. Then, he answered, "Well, er, I just wanted to have a talk with my two best students."
It was silent while Lily and Severus just stared at the professor. "That's it?" Severus asked, shaking his head. Lily laughed quietly as their Professor merely shrugged.
The door behind the opened as Remus strode in. He first looked at Lily, then at the professor. "Excuse me professor, but I need Lily for her," Then Remus' eye strayed to Severus. "Prefect duties…" He raised an eyebrow. "Do I want to know why you're wet."
Severus scowled at the prefect. "It depends. Do you want to know what dastardly deeds your friends do?"
Remus sighed. "No, I guess I don't."
"I bet I can guess!" Lily tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Since it has something to do with that idiot James, I'm sure, and it involves water, he dumped you in that lake, didn't he?"
Glaring slightly at Lily, Severus nodded. "Your deduction skills amaze me."
Grinning, she replied, "Thank you." The Lily looked back over to Remus and here smile sobered. "How can you stand those two?" She asked.
Remus shrugged and smiled. "They have some charms. Not always visible, but they're there." At their confused looks, Remus sighed and turned around. "Never mind. But Lily, we really have to get to those duties. Or McGonagall will kill us." Lily nodded and followed Remus as he walked from the room. While Severus was left with Professor Slughorn.
Later that night, Lily returned to the Griffindor common room by herself. Remus was still doing something somewhere in the castle. The common room was almost empty, only a few first years studying. Lily took a book out of her bag, Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, And sat down on one of the couches, curling her legs under her. She opened the book up to a random page. "Huh," She murmured to herself. " Kneazles can breed with cats…" After that, she was silent, and so was the rest of the common room, besides the rustle of paper as the students turned the pages in their books.
But, of course, all silent moments have to be interrupted by noise as two laughing boys entered the room, carrying something large between them. Lily rolled her eyes and closed her book. Leaning over the arm of the couch, she glared at the two boys. "You just live to disturb the studying of others, don't you?"
One of the boys dropped his end of the thing, and a muffled scream came from whatever it was. The other boy followed suit and dropped his end as well. The first boy pushed hair back from his forehead and grinned at Lily. "Oh, come on Evans, would you rather us leave poor Peter with a pig nose and locked legs?"
Several "yes"es were muttered through the room, but James didn't pay attention to them. Lily sighed. Just as she was about to respond, the door happened to open. Remus sighed and stared at James and Sirius. "Now what?" He began to walk forward. "You two really need to learn some self discipline." Sirius started flailing his arms, trying to get Remus to stop. Too late. Remus tripped over Peter, and as he fell he grabbed Sirius' Sleeve and pulled him down with him. Lily stood up to see if they were okay. There was a loud thud as the fell on top of Peter.
James grinned at Lily, because they were the only two left standing. "This must be fate!" He said, gleefully. "Telling us to be together!"
Lily glared, then sat cross-legged on the floor.. "There, now it's telling you to be alone." She said. "Forever." James opened his mouth to reply, but couldn't think of a comeback.
A hand grabbed James' pant leg, and yanked, causing James to fall forward. Which ended him on top of Lily. She felt the heat creep up to her face. Though if it were from anger, or embarrassment, she couldn't know. "Get. Off. Now."
James, too scared not to obey, quickly scrambled off of Lily. He then glared back at Sirius. "You better start running." Sirius grinned, then stood up in one fluid motion, then ran up the stairs. James followed him quickly. Remus stood, and offered a hand to Lily. Lily grabbed the offered hand, and Remus pulled her up.
Sighing, Lily looked after the two. "Again, how do you hang out with such imbeciles?" Remus just shrugged, then turned and walked up the stairs to the boy's corridor. A silent groan brought Lily's attention to the heap on the floor. "Might as well get him out of the way before-" Marley walked quickly into the room and tripped over poor Peter. "That happens." Lily sighed.
She leaned over and pulled her friend up. Marley looked down at Peter and made a grossed out face. "Eeeeew." She whispered. "I touched it." Lily laughed quietly, then pulled her wand out and muttered the counter-curses. Peter rolled over and whimpered slightly. "Am I invisible or something?" Lily shook her head.
Marley sighed. "Well, I'm going to bed now." She turned and began to walk towards the stair case leading to the girl's dormitory, when some invisible force hit her, and she flew backwards with some unknown weight on top of her. Then, as if a veil was revealing him, Sirius appeared. They slammed into one of the couches and Marley winced. Sirius grinned down at her, then rolled off. "Sorry, doll can't do this now. Have to run away now." He jumped up, and once again disappeared under the invisibility cloak.
Just as the cloak covered him, James came down the stairs, a furious look marring his features. "Give it back, Sirius!" He looked around, frantically, then his eyes settled on Marley, who was now being helped up by Lily. "Where is he?" He asked. Marley made a face.
"How should I know? He just… disappeared." She said with a grin. James's eyes, narrowed, then he ran up the stairs, shouting, "Remus! Get the map! We're going hunting! For a loose dog!"