I knew we'd make it up to you, see we have a cliffy and then a day later (or so) we update, are we not the best?
Meghan yelled so loud that it was a wonder that she could still speak. She whipped around like a starving tiger searching for its prey, but she did not see him. "JJJJJJJJJJJAAAAAAMMMMMEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!" She stomped up heading for the boys' dorm while Sirius stood with a giant smile on his face, speechless.
She walked up to the door and pounded on it as though her life depended on it. She pointed her wand at the door and it exploded in front of her showing James lying on his bed.
"It was unlocked you know," He said, and sat up.
"Oh don't even start," Meghan fumed.
"I don't know what you're mad about, you made the team!"
"I made chaser. The bet was for keeper!"
"Oh come on it won't be that bad." James said trying to calm her down.
"HAVE YOU MET SIRIUS? Of course it's going to be bad!"
"Tons of people would kill to be on the team." James said.
"Well good because there's going to be a spot open once I'm through with you!" Meghan said, leaping at James; fortunately James jumped out of the way in time and ran down the stairs. "GET BACK HERE YOU COWARD!"
"You're calling me a coward?" James snorted, turning to face Meghan at the bottom of the stairs, much to the entertainment of the common room onlookers.
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Oh I don't know…maybe because I had the guts to put you as chaser anyway? And besides I'm not the one throwing a temper tantrum about not getting the position I wanted…"
"Hey, you know I wouldn't give a shit if Sirius wasn't going to choose my Halloween costume!"
"Then you shouldn't have made the bet!"
"Oh please, I learned how to gamble from you."
"Look Meghan, if you don't stop complaining, I swear I will take you off the list and make Frank Longbottom chaser instead. Frank looked up hopefully, but Meghan shut her mouth, looking at James with a murderous expression on her face. "Here's what I'll do because I'm the nicest guy you've ever met—I will try and convince Sirius not to give you something too horrible, okay?"
"It won't work."
"Wanna bet?" James grinned, and Meghan's angry face slowly turned into a mischievous smirk.
"You're on. Winner gets to pick the other's Halloween costume."
"Wait…how will that work when I win?"
"When you win? Oh please James, you arent going to win."
"Says who?"
"Says me! I'm going to go find Rose. See you!" Meghan grinned maliciously and walked out of the common room.
"Hey James, we gotta go patrol," Lily's soft voice said from the girls staircase."
"Oh hi Lily. It's 10:00 already?"
"Yeah. Ready to go?"
"Sure. What floor today?"
"All of them," Lily grimaced, and they left the warmth of the common room into the chilly hallways they so frequently walked.
"Geez, what happened to the prefects?" James laughed, and Lily rolled her eyes.
"They get weekends off, stupid! It's Saturday!"
"Oh…right…"
"I have a question."
"Shoot."
"Is Sirius still looking at the list with that goofy smile on his face?"
"Sadly enough, yes. Now what was the real question?"
"How did you know…"
"I didn't. Now I do. What's the real question?"
"Why are you being so different?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well you're being so…mature! I haven't seen you hex anyone for the mere fun of it, there's only been a few pranks this year and it's October…you don't ask me out every five seconds, we're hardly ever arguing which is strange because we're like…like…purple and orange!"
"Purple and orange?" James asked, rather amused. "What's wrong with purple and orange?"
"They just don't go together."
"I see," said James, one of his eyebrows raised. "Well, I suppose this was the summer I just…grew up. Plus being made Head Boy might have had something to do with it. And you had finally gotten it through my head that I was being a pompous jack ass…and I wanted to change."
"You changed…for me?" Lily asked quietly, turning a little red.
"Well not only for you," James lied, coloring a bit too. Luckily for them both the halls were dimly lit. "But somewhat."
"That's sweet, James."
"Yes well, I try."
"So this isn't really an act? You're not just pretending to be nice so that you can make me one of the butt ends of your pranks?"
"Of course not! When in the past few years have you had a prank pulled on you?"
"Last year."
"Hey that was Peter."
"Peter turned my hair bubble gum pink?"
"Yes well, he thought I'd find it funny. I didn't though. I shouted at him for a good 15 minutes before I gave him the antidote…"
"Why didn't you give him the antidote first?"
"Because I was yelling at him...god Lil, try and keep up with me!"
"Lil?"
"Sorry, do you not like that?"
"No, it's fine. No one's ever called me that before, that's all."
"I'm turning into Sirius."
"Thankyou for not calling me red…"
"No problem," James laughed. "Even though your hair is way redder than Rose's. But he's changed it to little red now."
"Oh she must love that," Lily snorted.
"He hasn't used it yet."
"I don't know why he loves getting under her skin so much."
"Hey well, guys are complicated. I always tried to get under your skin."
"You tried?"
"Yeah, it was fun. But when I realized you really did hate me, I decided I should stop before there was no hope of us being friends."
"Well you stopped at a good time then," Lily smiled, and James tried to keep his face from turning red again. He failed miserably, and ended up making it redder. "Are you…blushing?"
"No," James lied, trying to cover his face.
"You are!"
"I am not!"
"HEY EVERYONE I MADE JAMES POTTER BLUSH!" Lily shouted, and James glared at her.
"Now you're just trying to get under my skin. James Potter does not blush!"
"Sure. And Lily Evans does not bitch at people."
"You don't bitch…you just…yell…" James said lamely, and Lily rolled her eyes.
"Same difference."
"Seriously, I don't know how you, Meghan and Rose became best friends. You're all stubborn with horrible tempers."
"My tempers not horrible!" Lily said indignantly, and then paused. "Yeah okay maybe it is but so what?" James chuckled, and then paused.
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Lily whispered.
"I hear Rookwood...Avery, Nott and…Lestrange. Wait there's…Peter?"
"What's so important about them?" Lily asked.
"Well they're in a secret door in the middle of a normally busy hallway at 10:30 at night," James pointed out, and Lily shushed him.
"Let's listen."
"—If we get them to die, or atleast break up the friendship, I'm telling you they won't be a threat! Those six are nothing without each other! The three boys especially."
"Don't harm them," came Peter's voice. "They were my brothers…" James could almost hear a small sob escape his lips.
"Oh boohoo, you're with us and the dark lord now. Potter, Black and Lupin are no longer your 'family.' Blood traitors and half-breeds…how could you stoop so low, Pettigrew? Good job on almost drowning the half breed's sister, however."
"She forgave me."
"The bitch is too nice. As are her friends."
"Are you kidding?" Lestrange snorted. "Those three are the worst tempered bitches on the face of this earth!"
"They weren't to me," said Peter. "They were always so nice to me."
"Yes, but they're friends with your blood traitor friends now. They're lives all revolve around each other, not you."
"I know that," Peter snapped, and then said quietly-"Only because you jerks threatened to kill them if I didn't help you."
"What was that?" Rookwood asked dangerously.
"Oh leave the rat alone." James froze, and Lily looked over at him. They didn't hear any sound coming from the secret room either.
"Let's get back to the subject at hand, please," Avery said impatiently. "The dark lord knows that the six of them are going to want to help fighting, and he also knows they're the best students Hogwarts has seen since him. We need to do something, because he says one has something he wants. He wouldn't tell me how he knows, or which one does, but he does know if we figure it out and try to take it from them, they'll all try and protect whoever the object belongs too. If we are able to break them apart, weaken them, maybe even kill them, we can find this object and the dark lord will be ever so pleased he just might make us his favorites."
"I like the sound of that. And the object is…"
"I don't know," Avery said. "I still go to school too, he's not gonna tell me anything of major importance! But he says it could make him immortal."
"Really?" Peter said eagerly, and Lily gulped.
"Do you know anything about this?"
"Well I know Lily has this odd looking ring…do you think it could be that?" James looked over at her and put a comforting arm around her trembling shoulder.
"Yes…yes…he might have said something about a ring. What does it look like?"
"It's gold, which is weird cause she doesn't like gold. It has this pearl on the end that sometimes swirls with different colours, kind of like one of those idiotic muggle mood rings, except this tells the truth of what your feeling. Like when she's angry, it turns red. When she's sad, it's black. When she's happy, it's purple and when she's jealous its green."
"And you know all this about the mudblood…how?"
"I used to like her," Peter mumbled. Lily's eyes almost popped out of her forehead, while James stuffed his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing.
"Filth," Lestrange scowled.
"Thankyou, Pettigrew. I will report this to the dark lord. This might be what we're looking for. We should go before the mudblood and her filthy blood traitor partner find us." Lily and James heard much clambering from inside the room, and they sprang up and tore down the hall. Once they were a good distance away, the stopped to catch their breath.
"What's this ring Peter was talking about?" James panted, and Lily bit her lip.
"I found it when I was in 4th year. It was in the room of Hidden objects in the room of requirements."
"You know where that is?"
"Yeah…I found it once when I needed the toilet rather badly. But anyway I found it and it was swirling all different colours…it was so mesmerizing! So I took it because I figured it hadn't been touched in many years. I put it on and it instantly went to dark blue because I was curious. I didn't know that at the time, but over the years I've learned what the colours mean for the most part. Redangry, light bluepeaceful, light purplehappy, blacksad, dark bluecurious, dark purplepride, light pinkflirty, dark pinklove, yellowhyper, orangemischievous…whiteconfidence."
"Wow you really know your emotions," James said, impressed. "But you can't wear it anymore!"
"Why not!"
"Hmm…because those Slytherins are going to attack you if they see you wearing it? You have to hide it!"
"I suppose you're right. Should we report them?"
"No one will believe us except Meghan, Rose, Sirius and Remus. We'll tell them tonight after rounds. I can't believe Peter…he's going to betray us even more, I can feel it."
"I'm sorry. I know the four of you were like brothers."
"Well me, Remus and Sirius still are. But ever since the incident over the summer…"
"I know. But does Voldemort really think the six of us are a threat?"
"I guess so, which makes me feel very talented. But I think there are reasons behind that he's just not telling his followers. After all, it's not like a dark evil lord to be scared of six seventeen year olds."
"Yeah, true enough. So why else would he want to split us up besides the fact of protecting each other…"
"I dunno. Maybe he just hates the idea of all of us being friends. I don't know why he would care though…or how he even knows about us."
"Well you've seen that people in our school are his death eaters. They hate us, they want to do something about their hatred…their number one hope is for Voldemort to murder us, so they tell him all about us. How I'm a 'mud blood—
"Don't say that!"
"I am, and proud of it! But how you and Sirius and Remus always are hexing and pranking the Slytherins…and probably a lot of fake stuff too. And probably how close we all are because they hate the fact they'll never have friends like we do. Especially you, Sirius and Remus. I have never seen anyone as close as the three of you are."
"I'm lucky. I never dreamed I'd have friends like them. Like I have more friends, and I consider you and Meghan and Rose my close friends…there's just this…bond, as cheesy as it sounds, between me and the Marauders."
"Hey it's almost 11:45…do you want to head back?"
"Yeah, we need to tell the others."
"So Voldemort wants us because of Lily's mood ring?" Meghan asked, rather skeptically as she rested her head on James' pillow.
"Yeah, Avery said it would make Voldemort immortal," James said.
"Lily! You're immortal?" Rose asked, amazed.
"No stupid, Voldemort wants to be! There's probably something to the ring Lily doesn't know about but Voldemort does," Sirius said.
"I'm not stupid."
"Suree…who's failing History of Magic…" Remus said
"I don't take History of Magic!"
"Either do I!"
"That was such a pointless question…" Rose sighed.
"Okayy…back to the subject at hand," Lily said slowly. "I'm just gonna hide the ring—it may not even be what Voldemort's looking for. But no matter what happens, we can't fight!"
"Why not?" Sirius asked, as he and Rose looked at each other, horrified.
"Because it could be the Slytherins trying to make us break apart," James said. "You can have your pathetic little spats-
"They're not pathetic!" Sirius and Rose said at the same time.
"-But if something unusual happens…like…take Gideon kissing Meghan for example-
"Hey now, we don't talk about that," said Sirius. "Unless of course you like getting your balls chopped off…"
"-But something along those lines could be an effort to make us all hate each other. Got it?'
"Yeah. Find out the truth before going to a solution," Remus said logically, and everyone besides Lily looked at him oddly. "Lily, I think you're the only one who doesn't find me strange."
"Yes well, I'm logical also."
"Not me!" chorused the others, and Lily and Remus laughed.
"Wait so what do we do about Peter?" Sirius asked curiously.
"Well unless you want him to find out we over heard, I guess just treat him the same but don't tell him anything important," Lily sighed.
"That's going to be difficult," said Remus.
"Yes well, it would be more difficult trying to explain to him we know he betrayed us and is working for Voldemort," Sirius pointed out.
"True enough."
"Can we change the subject now?" Rose asked hopefully. "Talking about us hating each other and getting ripped apart is rather depressing."
"Sure," James said. "What do you guys want to talk about?"
"Meghan's Halloween costume," Sirius grinned evilly, and Meghan looked over at James with a smirk.
"See if you can convince him otherwise, James," she grinned, and James looked rather nervous.
"What did you choose…"
"She's gonna be a slutty bunny!" Sirius said maliciously, and James groaned.
"Sirius, that's just sick," James said, rather disgusted. "I have to watch my almost sister prance around with her boobs popping out?"
"Prongs, she doesn't have any boobs to pop out," Sirius pointed out.
"Hey! I'm sitting right here!"
"Oh shut up, you know it's true," Sirius sighed.
"Yeah…so?"
"Anyway, Sirius, she'll get yelled at by the teachers."
"No she won't. They said any costume is allowed."
"Well I can assure you McGonagall will be after me with a…a…hatchet!" Meghan said, and it was her turn to be looked at oddly. "I couldn't think of anything!"
"How bout a wand…" Remus said slowly.
"That's not very creative."
"But that's very degrading for a woman!" James said desperately, and all three girls started laughing hysterically.
"Oh please Prongs, I'll let them answer that for you," Sirius said, rolling his eyes.
"Being slutty isn't degrading, infact, it boosts the self esteem when you see guys staring at your…"
"Assets?" Lily said helpfully, and Rose nodded.
"Sure, why not. But-
"No one had better touch your-
"Just stop while you're ahead, Remmie," said Rose.
"Don't call me Remmie!"
"Don't tell me what to do!"
"Truce."
"But picking up from where Rose left off, it doesn't degrade me and Rose atleast…Lily doesn't like to cause she's a prude but…"
"I am not a prude!"
"Fine! Prove it and be something slutty for Halloween!"
"I was gonna be Ariel from the Little Mermaid."
"You're gonna be wearing a seashell bra?" James asked, rather excitedly.
"No!"
"Damn," James said to himself. Only Remus heard, and tried his best to keep from laughing at his friend.
"Fine, I guess a mermaid is slutty enough," Meghan said. "So James can't change your mind, Sirius?"
"He never will," Sirius grinned.
"HA!" Meghan shouted. "IN YOUR FACE!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" James cried. "What's it gonna be…a girl? A flamingo?"
"A dinosaur!" Meghan grinned.
"You mean those weird looking things that went extinct?"
"Those are the ones," she grinned, and James glared at her.
"You're out to ruin my reputation, aren't you?"
"You guessed it. So I'm going as a slutty bunny…Lily's going as a mermaid…James is gonna be a dinosaur…what about the rest of you?"
"I dunno yet," Rose and Sirius said together.
"Okay before I answer, you two have got to stop doing that!" Remus said. "You keep saying things at the same time and it's really freaky!"
"Well we are engaged," Sirius grinned, and Rose rolled her eyes. "Speaking of which, we're doing more on Monday. We get to ask each other personal questions that we have to answer truthfully. I found this out when I bumped into the Professor in the hall."
"Great," said Rose sarcastically. "Anyway, Remus, what are you planning on being?"
"I was thinking about a vampire. Y'know, be a monster for once in my life…" James, Sirius and Rose tried their hardest to keep from laughing. "We should all go shopping together at Hogsmeade next weekend."
"Sorry boys, we decided when this whole idea came out we were going to go shopping together alone," Lily said.
"Hold on a minute…we don't need dates for this thing, do we?" Rose asked nervously.
"Well no. It's a costume 'ball' but it's pretty much a costume contest with music. I figured we'd all just go down together," Lily shrugged.
"Sorry guys, but I have a date," Meghan grinned, and everyone looked at her.
"Care to tell us who?" Remus asked curiously.
"Gideon," she grinned, and her friends looked horrified.
"Are you freaking kidding me?" Sirius practically roared.
"Yes!" Meghan said cheerfully. "Wow you all are so gullable! Of course we'll all go down together."
"Good. I hate having to find a date," Rose grimaced.
"Rose…we've never even had anything that requires dates before," James told her.
"Yeah well, our mum used to make us go to these stupid New Years balls every year…she always wanted to find me the 'perfect man', but she has horrible taste in guys so I just went with Remus every year."
"Wow Rose, I didn't know you were one for incest," Sirius grinned, already flinching to avoid a slap.
"Shut up," she growled.
"We don't have to go this year, though!" said Remus happily. "We can't even go home cause our parents are gonna be in South Korea for the holidays."
"Yeah, so we'll just be spending it here," Rose shrugged.
"No! You can come to my house for Christmas!" James grinned. "It'll be awesome—Sirius will be there, and Meghan lives right next door…Lily you should convince your parents to let you come too!"
"Oh it will never work…they'll want me home for atleast Christmas Eve and Christmas. I might be able to come after though…"
"Sweet. It's only October and we're making Christmas plans…" Sirius said, shaking his head. "Wow, we really are pathetic."
"Hello everyone!" Professor Smith said warmly, and her muggle studies class murmured their hellos. "I'm sorry about the delay on our project, I've been having a tough time…my sister was murdered a few weeks ago and I had to go home to support the family."
"I'm sorry," Rose said, and Professor Smith smiled at her.
"It's quite alright dear. I'm hoping you all continued planning your wedding…you should all have the wedding party picked out by now." Sirius and Rose looked at each other, horrified.
"Quick! Who's your best man?" Rose whispered, but was cut off by the Professor at their desks. "Mr. Black and Miss Lupin, could you please tell me your wedding party so that I can record it?"
"Of course," Rose smiled sweetly. "I couldn't decide on a maid of honor, so I don't have one. My bridesmaids are Lily Evans, Meghan Gillen, Alice Gorton, and my cousins Lisa and Kristen Baker."
"My best man is James Potter, my groomsmen are Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew," he said, with obvious distaste for the latter, "Fabian Prewett and Frank Longbottom. Our flower girl is my little cousin Tonks."
"Yeah, and our…ring bearer? I always forget what it's called," Rose stalled, and the professor nodded. "He's…Meghan's little brother, Will."
"And the band?" Professor Smith asked, and Rose and Sirius looked at each other, biting their lips.
"We actually had a question on that," Rose stalled again, and Sirius mouthed his praise behind the teacher's back. "Did it have to be muggle?"
"Yes, that would be nice. But if you couldn't find anything you liked…"
"Oh no, we quite liked this Irish band called the Wild Geese."
"Alright then. And your pastor?"
"Uhh…Ray Simon!" Rose blurted out, naming the retired priest of the church she had attended when she was small.
"Thank you very much. Here is a list of questions you may ask each other for our trust unit—it will make you answer truthfully. You can stray off the list, however if you wish. This is just to get to know each other better, and to develop a trusting relationship." Smith walked off to another table, and Sirius and Rose breathed a sigh of relief.
"I think we got an outstanding on that part," Sirius laughed. "Good improvising."
"Thanks. It's a good thing we atleast did the research."
"Yeah, thank god. And we were just gonna ditch it…"
"So what are these questions?" Rose frowned, picking up the list. "What's your favorite colour? What kind of a question is that?"
"Red and a stupid one," Sirius answered instantly. "Woah we really do have to answer truthfully! Give me that! What's your favorite food?"
"Apple pie," said Rose. "Oh yum now I'm hungry. She took the question list back from Sirius, and skimmed it. "What's your favorite class?"
"Muggle studies," he said, and Rose looked at him strangely.
"You always complain when we're working."
"Well overall it's very interesting," Sirius lied. "What say we stray off this boring list and get some real personal questions going?"
"You're on," Rose grinned. "You ask first," she said daringly.
"Okay," Sirius said mischievously. "Are you a virgin?"
"That would be a personal question…but no," she whispered.
"Why are we whispering?" Sirius whispered back.
"Because my very protective brother is sitting only a few seats away from us and probably listening to everything we say."
"Ah yes. I forgot about good old Moony. But my, little red, I am surprised."
"What, don't think I'm good enough to have sex?" Rose asked, one of her eyebrows raised.
"That's not what I said," Sirius said. "I just never thought of you as the type to have sex before marriage."
"Well you thought wrong. My turn. Have you ever wanted a serious relationship?"
"Yes, I have for quite sometime now. If you've notice, I've stopped snogging random girls."
"Yes I did notice."
"My turn again. Who did you have sex with?"
"Gideon. And what's the sudden fascination with my sex life?"
"It's intriguing," said Sirius.
"That's disgusting!"
"You know I didn't mean it like that. And that counted as your question, so I get to go again."
"That's not fair!"
"It's perfectly fair! Now, why did you really go out with Gideon?"
"I already told you part of it—I thought he was the only chance I had for a boyfriend. And I was hoping I could make the guy I liked jealous. Why are you always calling me Little Red?"
"Because it's fun to get underneath your skin. Who is this guy you liked?" Rose turned a light pink and mumbled something Sirius couldn't understand. "Huh?"
"James," she whispered.
"Oho!"
"You sound like Slughorn," Rose said, and started stalling her next question because she knew Sirius was just itching to ask her more questions on her crush for James. "Have you…hmm…er…oh here's a good one! Between me, Meghan and Lily, who would you want to snog the most? And it can't be all at once!"
"You."
"Why I'm honored," Rose said sarcastically.
"You should be. But James would kill me if I snogged Lily, and Meghan's like my sister."
"Oh so I'm just the leftover choice. I get it," Rose grinned.
"You can't guilt me into asking you another question! Do you still like James?"
"Yes."
"How much?"
"No more than one question per turn!" said Rose shrilly. "But I really think I love him, seeing as I have to answer. But I get two questions now. Are you going to tell James, Remus, Lily or Meghan?"
"No, I'm not going to tell anyone."
"Okay good. And why did you choose something slutty for Meghan?"
"Because a) I've seen Adrian Jones, the Hufflepuff keeper giving her some looks, and I have an odd hunch she likes him, so I'm doing her a favor. B) She told me about her bet with James and, well, I couldn't resist the temptation of seeing James as a dinosaur."
The question asking continued all the way through class, and even into the common room where they found Lily, Meghan, Remus and James waiting for them.
"Where have you been?" James demanded. "Muggle studies ended an hour ago! You missed dinner!"
"We went down to the kitchens," Rose shrugged. "We were having fun."
"Wow, I think it's the apocalypse," Remus teased.
"Oh shut up."
In the words of Outcast i believe...YOU KNOW WHAT TO DOOOOOO (review)