Chapter 4

Here I am, bored to death, reading a book which is just as boring as my life, on my free period, alone. It isn't exactly a free period, just that someone, and I wonder who did a prank, which kind of closed off the Transfiguration hall. Professor McGonagall was furious, but she can't give the Marauder's detention because she doesn't have proof they did it. You'd think that since they want to keep the detention record, they'd leave proof it was them. So right now she's trying to clean off the hall. Anyway, I am alone. Yes, my so called friends have abandoned me, apparently they are buying make-up from a catalogue. So I'm here, by the lake, leaning against a tree and reading the most boring book of my life. And let me tell you something, reading while you're leaning on a tree, is not comfortable. I don't care if they do that in movies or in books, but my back is all itchy now. Oh, and just to make my day better, the Marauders have now decided to leave the Quidditch pitch and come here.

"All right, Evans?" James said. Why is Sirius playing with a wand and muttering incantations. And they are all looking so sneaky. Oh, please don't make me part of a prank.

"No, I'm not all right. What do you want?"

"Why, Evans, what makes you think I want something?" Smirking git.

"Because you always want something."

"Oh, I'm offended now, Evans. Really, I don't always want something."

"Whatever, Potter." Great, now he's sitting next to me.

"So, doing anything special this weekend?" I won't bother to answer, a glare should suffice. Urg, he's scooting closer. I stood up and walked to the edge of the lake, but when I reached the edge I felt a little tugging on my leg. When I looked at it, I saw a string wrapped around it. Scowling, I turned around to see the Marauders doubling over in laughter. James looked particularly smug, and when I looked closer I saw that he was holding the end of the string.

"I'll untie you if you get DeLonge to teach us the hex," James bloody Potter said.

"No, actually you will untie me without me getting Nona to teach you the bloody hex. Really, this prank must be really important to you."

"Erm, let's just say it's a question of honor. The Marauder's have never not done a prank they've thought of. And what makes you think I'll let go?"

"NOW!" I shrieked; that only caused the Marauders to laugh even more. Honor, really. What great honor comes from pranking innocent people? And why would four miscreants care for honor?

"No." By then I had grabbed the string and was tugging it. Of course, it wasn't the easiest thing ever since the string was tied to my leg. James grabbed it also and we began a mini tug'o'war.

"JAMES POTTER, LET GO OF THE BLOODY STRING!" I screamed. James grinned at the Marauders and said, "Okay." Then he let go of me. However, I had forgotten that I was quite near the lake's edge, so I fell, with a rather large splash, into the lake. And what's worse, I fell into the muddiest place of the lake, which caused me to be soaked and have mud in every single inch of my body. Not to mention that it wasn't exactly hot. Of course, I wouldn't just lie there cursing their existence. I stayed a few seconds inside the lake, and I could hear a few voices above the water and every once in a while I'd see a blurry face. Finally, when my lungs were about to explode, I surfaced. The Marauders let out an audible sigh, but I wouldn't stop then.

"James...help me...my foot is stuck on something!" I whispered.

"Besides the string, you mean?" Sirius said. Remus and Peter snickered.

"Shut it, Padfoot. Here, give me your hand." Wow, these boys are dumber than I thought. I grabbed James's hand and pulled him inside the lake with me. He started screaming obscenities at me, while I giggled. I got out of the lake, and just as I was about to leave, I pushed the remaining Marauders inside the lake. Then I got my boring book that had somehow stayed on the ground, and went to the Gryffindor tower.

As soon as I entered the dorm, the giggling stopped. Nona and Josie looked up from their catalogues and stared at me.

"Erm, Lils? What happened? Why are you covered in mud?"

"Marauders," I said shortly and I hurried to the bathroom. When I finished my shower, Nona and Josie weren't in the dorm. I glanced at the time and frowned, we still had ten minutes before our next class. I went to the common room and found Nona and Josie screaming at the Marauders. They were looking sheepish, except for Sirius who was shouting at Josie. They were still covered in mud. I sat down on a couch and watched them screaming for a while, giggling. Finally Remus looked at me and his eyes grew as round as galleons.

"Lily? Er, what exactly did you tell your friends to make them do this?" Remus said. Everyone shut up.

"Marauders."

"Sorry?"

"Nona and Josie asked me what had happened, and I just said Marauders. If I had known it would cause such a big confusion, I wouldn't have said anything," I said truthfully. Okay, so the last part wasn't truthful. All of this was quite amusing.

"You mean these lunatics were screaming at us because they assumed we had done something terrible to you?" Sirius said. Nona and Josie scowled.

"You didn't look like you were screaming at yourselves. After all, you are the only lunatics here," I said. The Marauders glared at me and Nona and Josie grinned weakly at me."

"Haha, Evans, you're such a clown. Not," James said. Git.

"Right. Now that everything is solved we can go to our next class!" Nona said brightly.

"What? How much time do we have 'til our next class?" Peter asked.

"Right now, you have 4 minutes and thirty two seconds. This would give you about a minute each to take a bath, then a few seconds to get dressed, and a few seconds to get to the dungeons. Good luck!" Josie said. The Marauders looked at each other and then they ran to their dorm. We left the tower laughing and ran to the dungeons.

A few minutes after the bell rang the Marauders arrived. Professor Aden took off five points from Gryffindor and told them to sit down. The Marauders stared at him, all of them with shocked expressions on their faces. We'd never had a teacher that only took off five points from Gryffindor because of lateness. Not even on our first year, when we didn't know where the classrooms were. James sat next to me, grinning. Really, this was becoming a routine.

"Hey there Evans."

"Shut up."

"Nice trick you pulled off earlier. I'd never seen that." He's stupider than I thought.

"Clearly you're not normal."Potter frowned.

"Why?"

"Any normal kid knows that trick."

"You mean any muggle kid." Actually he's much stupider than I thought.

"No. Nona and Josie are purebloods and they know this trick."

"You've never met my parents. And I'm surprised Josie knows. Her mum never let her play with muggle kids."

"I wouldn't know. I've never been to Josie's house, and I've never met her parents."

"Lucky you."

"Why? Are they evil or something?" I said. Josie never talked much about her family, but surely they weren't Death Eaters or anything.

"Not evil like Sirius's parents, but they are very traditional. Josie is definitely going to marry a pureblood, otherwise she'll be disowned and I'll probably inherit everything."

"But that's awful. And I thought you were only distant cousins, so why would you inherit everything?"

"Uh, Aunt Annabelle loves me. Don't tell Josie, but, erm, it was horrible, but she told me once that she would change Josie any day for me." I paled. That was even worse than having Petunia hate me. And Josie tolerated my complaints about Petunia without saying a word.

"Her mother doesn't know you too well, does she?" He glared at me and turned, ignoring me for the rest of the class. When the class ended James left in a hurry, leaving me staring after him. Josie and Nona grabbed me and we left for the Great Hall to eat dinner.

"I nearly died when Aden came over to me to help me with the potion. He's so hot, have I said that before?" Josie gushed.

"Oh, just a few hundred times," Nona said sarcastically. Josie glared at her.

"Well, he's hot, what did you expect me to do?"

"Nothing."

"Josie?" I asked.

"Yeah?"

"How come you never told us your parents are only going to allow you to marry a pureblood?" Josie stared at me for a while and Nona froze with her fork half-way to her mouth.

"Who told you that?" Josie said her eyes downcast.

"Potter. He wasn't trying to be mean or anything. At least I don't think so."

"The git. Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I just thought that you wouldn't like me anymore. You know, since you're muggle-born." I nodded and Nona swallowed her food.

"I would never stop liking you because of your parents!"

"Sorry. It's just that it's just awful. And the worst part is that James will probably inherit everything if I don't marry a pureblood."

"Why James? Wouldn't Emmy inherit everything? After all, she's your father's niece from his first marriage."

"Emmy's father was a muggle. Mum would never let a half blood inherit the family fortune. Not that Emmy minds. She's rich enough with all the modeling she does in France."

"I've never met Emmy, right?" I asked. I'm usually good with names but I didn't recognize her name.

"No. Nona met her third year, during Christmas break. You went to Australia, remember?"

"Oh, right."

"She's awesome. She's a few months older than me but she seems so much older. All of the boys that have met her love her. God, my mother likes her more than she likes me and she's a half blood."

"Look, I can order some Honeydukes chocolate so that we can have a girl's night, okay? And we can just gossip the whole night. I'll even let you copy off my charms essay. Let's go now," I said. Josie gave me a weak smile and we had a group hug. The Marauders passed by us and I felt James glaring at me. Really, I'm always insulting him after pranks and now he's annoyed just because I implied he was a git.

Nona and Josie went to the dorm and I went to the Owerly to get my owl, Saffi, to order some Honeydukes chocolate. Then I hurried to the dorm where Josie was crying and Nona was comforting her.

"Hey, Josie, what's wrong?" I asked, sitting next to Josie.

"Not-thing. J-just that my family is ho-horrible," Josie said, crying even more.

"Well, I'm sure they love you. Deep, deep down," I said. Oops. I don't think I should've said the last part, since Nona is glaring.

"Yes, Josie. Lily is right, your family loves you. It's just that they have a peculiar way of showing it," Nona said.

"Oh, look! The chocolates already arrived!" I said brightly and ran to get the chocolates. We opened the package and started stuffing ourselves with chocolate. Josie stopped crying and said, "Look, my parents always hold a New Year's Ball, but I'm never allowed to invite anyone. This year however, I'm allowed to, and er, do you want to go to the ball?" Nona and I looked at each other and smiled.

"Of course Josie! Do you have any hot cousins?" I said. Josie laughed and nodded.

"Ooh, then I'm going!"

"Just one thing Lils. I know it's horrible, but my parents, while they don't support Voldemort, they don't exactly love muggle-borns. So, I was wondering if you could pretend you're a pureblood, just so that my parents won't annoy you?" I was shocked by the news, but Josie was one of my best-friends.

"Sure, no problem. But I can just be Evans, right?"

"Yes, yes. Thanks Lils! I thought you wouldn't want to do that."

"Hey, what are best friends for?" I said and we had another group hug. "Oh, and Josie, you don't know, by any chance, why are the Marauders all of a sudden talking to us? Before they only talked to us when they were going to prank us. And the oddest thing happened today. You know I'm always insulting James, right? So today I kinda implied he was an idiot and he became all huffy and won't talk to me anymore."

"No, James and I aren't really close so I wouldn't know why the Marauders are talking to us now. And about him getting huffy, it's all right, he does that every once in a while."

"Did you guys see how hot Remus was today?" Nona said, grinning. Josie and I groaned.

"Erm, Nona, he was wearing what he's always wearing, and he's looking just like he always looks like."

"Well yes, which proves my point, he's always hot!" My friends can be very crazy.

"Right. So, when are you asking him out?" I asked her, smirking.

"What? Lily are you crazy? Haven't you learned anything? It's the boys who have to ask the girls out, not the other way around!" Josie said.

"Josie, modern times! That was fifty years ago!" Nona rolled her eyes. Sometimes Josie and I have little discussions about what's right and what's wrong. Of course, I'm always right. Her views are so antiquated and sexist.

"So? Just because something has been used for a long while doesn't mean we can't do it. Why, if Dumbledore would just approve it, I would be giving detentions to all girls who ask boys out and to the boys who accept it." Yes, she asked Dumbledore if he could give detention to girls who asked boys out. According to her, it's unethical; therefore people who do so have to get detention. She was furious with him. Then she tried to get people together to start her little strike, but no one entered her group.

"Josie, you are aware you're being sexist? Why can't girl express their feelings? Why can only boys ask people out?"

"Duh. Because it looks nicer. I mean, imagine a girl kneeling down to ask her boyfriend to marry her? It would be horrible! Besides, what if a girl asks a boy out and he doesn't like her and she makes a fool of herself?" Nona was now stifling her laughter and I was getting more pissed at Josie.

"Who's talking about marriage here? It's just to ask a boy out, for Pete's sake! Oh, and are you saying that only boys can make fools of themselves?" Okay, so that was a weak argument.

"Okay, children, no more fighting. It's me who's going to decide whether I ask Remus out or not. Now let's go to sleep, we have a busy day tomorrow," Nona said.