A/N: Just read the bottom if you want to hear my excuses for why this is so late. Heh heh oops…
Chapter 6: In Hot Water
It had been one week, one blissful week since the start of classes for James, but Remus was beginning to wonder where this new attitude of Lily's had come from. It wasn't like her to all of a sudden drop her attitude of the previous year's overnight and actually be nice to James. He shrugged.
Maybe she just thought she should give James a chance by being friendly now that he was Head Boy. No, no that was most definitely not the reason. Something was up, and by god Remus was going to find out. He'd enlist the help of Sirius, who cared just as much about James as any of the Marauders – or James's own family for that matter. Peter wouldn't be much help as he had never really been as smart as his fellow marauders
"Yes," Remus mused, "Yes it will definitely have to be Sirius."
He packed up his bag and left the library, nodding to Katie and Ariel as he walked by them, they themselves having just entered the library.
Then suddenly another thought hit him and he sat back down, lowering his bag. Why had those girls become so close in the past few months? By 'those girls', Remus meant the Gryffindor seventh year girls.
Remus stood up, he was certain he would tell Sirius now, someone besides himself needed to know of this situation – whatever "this situation" was. Leaving his bag in the library, he wandered the halls for nearly ten minutes, before remembering that Sirius was in Care of Magical Creatures during this time.
Shrugging, Remus turned around to head back to the library to gather his things, thinking that he would at least get some studying done before Transfiguration – which he happened to share with Sirius. But before he reached the library, Remus ran into Howard McCarthy, a Ravenclaw that he knew took Care of Magical Creatures.
"Howie?" he asked, employing the boy's sometime nickname, "Don't you have Care of Magical Creatures now?"
"I do, but it just got cancelled. I think I was the last to leave. Professor Merriweather was showing us a group of Kappas and they managed to escape their cage. Professor Merriweather, Hagrid, and I believe McGonagall are trying to round them up now."
"Bloody hell, how many Kappas were there?"
Howard scratched his head, "Er, I believe five of them. Wait no, three. Hang on it might have been four…"
"Well thanks anyways Howie, I'll see you later." Remus interrupted the boy's rambling and took off towards the Gryffindor common room, leaving a bewildered and head scratching Howie behind.
He reached the corridor containing the Fat Lady in time to see the very boy he was in quest of clamber through the portrait hole.
"Sirius!" he yelled, but not fast enough. Sirius had disappeared into the common room.
Remus sprinted up the hallway, gasped "Horcrup Entrails," at the Fat Lady, and clambered through the portrait hole, while inwardly shaking his head at the extraordinarily mature Head Boy's choice of password.
Looking around, Remus spotted his evasive friend talking to Sally over by the girls staircase.
"…so you think Katie could help me with that? I'd ask her myself but I couldn't find her-"
"Sirius!" Remus marched over and grabbed the boy by his arm.
"Sorry Sally, I'm going to have to steal him for a bit."
"Oh no problem we were just chatting," she winked at Sirius and waved to the retreating boys.
When they reached the Boys' Dormitory Sirius wrenched his arm out of Remus' grip
"Mate, what's the issue?"
"Have you noticed anything odd about the girls in our year?"
Sirius gaped like a fish out of water.
"Are you serious? You dragged me up here to ask if I think girls are acting weird? They're always acting weird!"
Remus shook his head, "No, I mean only the girls in our year. Well, specifically Lily, Ariel Hartem, Jessica James, and Kate Ellesbury. They are probably four of the most unlikely girls to suddenly become friends in our final year."
"Well maybe they just wanted to settle old differences before probably never seeing one another again," Sirius shrugged.
"Yes but Sirius now that I think of it they came together last year, around Christmas time I believe."
Waving a hand, Sirius left the room, calling back over his shoulder "Sure mate, believe what you want. I'll see you in Transfiguration."
:
Remus soon pushed his theories about his female classmates to the back of his head; there was no room for them among his NEWT classes, and, of course, prank planning. The Marauders had lulled the Hogwarts school community into a false sense of security with the absence of a prank in the first two weeks of school. But at the end of the second week, that security was shattered.
At breakfast on the second Friday back in term, the faculty and all members of each house – with the exception of the marauders naturally – opened their mouths to speak as they ate only to find that their voices had been switched.
Lily spoke to Sally only to find that her voice now sounded like McGonagall.
Severus 'Snivellus' Snape tried to talk to Avery, but silenced himself immediately after hearing is voice come out as the vocal chords of the boisterous Professor Slughorn.
"POTTER! BLACK! LUPIN! PETTIGREW!"
The boys winced, it was never a good thing to have the voices of Lily Evans or Professor McGonagall blaring at you, especially when the both of them had been victims of a prank.
"Now," breathed McGonagall, her nostrils undulating, "I had hoped that this year might be devoid of such…stunts as these considering it is your last; but clearly I was mistaken. Detention! The lot of you! Tonight, report to my office at 8 o'clock and I will assign you your detentions. I expect that by then this stunt will have been reversed."
She turned with a glare to leave but not before her voice rang out again, but it came not from the daunting professor but the equally as daunting Head Girl, as the prank had not been reversed yet.
"POTTER! I expected better of you as Head Boy! What the bloody hell got into your head to pull something like this not two weeks into term?"
"Now Lily," Sirius broke in, "Dear ol' James here didn't think of this prank, I did. So don't go bothering your pretty little head about how awful the Head Boy is, he just did the spells to pull this off, all the hard work of planning it was me!" he grinned wolfishly at her and turned back to his bacon.
"Thanks mate, thanks a whole lot," muttered James to Sirius, who merely clapped him on the back.
"Evans, I – " he started.
"Save it Potter. I don't care what you've got to say," she said bluntly, and marched back to her place.
:
"UGH," Lily vented, "I cannot believe him!" She thudded down onto the bench and vehemently stabbed her toast.
Katie patted her on the back, "Don't worry, he'll either get better or Dumbledore will take his badge away. So it's a win – win situation."
"I don't care!" screamed Lily.
"Lily!" hissed Katie, "Shut up, half the hall is staring at you."
It took several minutes for Lily to fully calm down, and when she finally did, a wicked thought entered her head.
She glanced down the table, where the Marauders were sitting merely a dozen seats away, and remarked, "You know, I don't really care about the pranks."
She looked up, Katie, Ariel, and Sally had all stopped eating to stare at her
"No, I'm serious," continued Lily in the same oddly calm voice, "They're actually kind of cute."
"You know, I think I'll go tell him that," she got up and made her way to James's seat.
The three girls she left behind simply ogled each other as Lily plopped down next to James and started speaking with him,
"You know, I've changed my mind. I've realized that all these years I have actually enjoyed all these pranks. Yes they are sometimes ridiculously childish, but they're still funny."
She smiled at him. He gaped at her.
A split second later he recovered and smirked at her,
"Yeah they are pretty good aren't they? You know what?" he asked her conspiratorially,
"What?" she whispered, leaning in.
"I bet you could come up with even better pranks than we do."
"Well maybe we just need to find out then."
Maybe it was a good thing that James took the mischievous glint in her eye as anticipation for pranks, but he was very wrong about the subject of that prank.
"All right then, how about tomorrow night, the Heads' room?"
Standing up suddenly, Lily fired the famous Potter smirk at its creator, saying,
"Sorry Potter, I'm busy."
As she walked away, James turned back to his friends, who looked just as amazed as he,
"That would have been way less creepy if she hadn't been speaking in McGonagall's voice."
Muttering a very mutual concord, the group of four went back to breakfast, slightly less appetized than before.
A/N: yes yes I know I said this would be up faster but…I lied…and am going to hell…not like I wasn't already… Anywho, I completely wrote most of this in history…as per usual…lots of … in here…
Okay excuse time: according to my beta my excuses are unimportant so they be gone.
Ew. I have school tomorrow. Just thought you should know that… Bruins vs. canadiens in 2 hours. HABS GOING DOWN. Oh right this is the corrected post I promised.
Oh, and quote for the next chapter:
"How do we make sure he gets in trouble? This honestly must be the first time he's not involved."
"Well that's easy, just set him up!" – Kate Ellesbury and Jessica James
REVIEW! Cuz you know you love the story…
-Wicked