A/N: This chapter and the next are, in my opinion, two of the best chapters in the story. They start to set the rest of the story off, and I just like the way they were written, for once. :) As for getting Lily and James together – come on, guys, if I did it too soon, it would ruin the story! It would lose believability, since love happens kind of slowly (especially if you're Lily) and I've got a lovely little scheme planned out for that, as well as plenty more build up. If you really, really want a more definite answer, they'll get together around Chapter 50. Don't worry! I know what I'm doing. Sit tight and keep reading if you really want to know how this is going to work out; there is so much the story hasn't covered yet. But anyhow – here's the chapter!

Side note: For extra fun, go to YouTube and look up either If I'm Not In Love With You, by Faith Hill, or Fallin' For You, by Eva Avila, while reading Lily's entry. Those songs helped more than I could possibly even say for this entry.

Lily

February 10th

Dear Diary,

There is something seriously, seriously wrong with me.

There has to be – I'm thinking about James Potter more than I ever have before.

I don't even understand it; I see him, and my stomach turns. He smiles at me, and I can't breathe. He talks to me, and my tongue turns into mush. He leaves the room, and he's still on my mind. It's like he's stalking me, but I know he can't be – no one can stalk me through my own head.

Its torture, this business, whatever it is called. I don't know if I hate him anymore, which can't be a good sign. I think about him all the time – that bracelet from Christmas feels so much heavier these days than it ever did before. Everything about him intrigues me – I long to know all there possibly can be to know. He has somehow managed to become the center of my attention, the first person I look at in a crowd. What is this feeling? What am I going through? Is this normal? Is this healthy?

I've thought a great deal about this matter lately, and I have come to the grudging conclusion that I may possibly be in love.

Yes, me. In love. With James Potter. I couldn't believe it, but what else could it be? Why else is he always on my mind? It can't be anything but love; however, there are a few things wrong with me being in love. Allow me to list them.

I am not going through the pain of heartbreak again. Never. If that means I'm going to live a lonely, seemingly endless existence because of that resolution, then I will – I'm not going to love again.

1) I'm far too imperfect for him. Too emotional. Too fat. Too crazy. Too screwed up, in short. Who would want someone like me?
2) I have a reputation that I'd like to keep – how bad would it look if I went back on my biggest belief?
3) Come on. Me and James? Not going to happen.
4) I HATE HIM. What part of that does my brain not understand?

Okay, so my reasons aren't high in number, but they amount to so much more than they seem to. I mean, it's agony, going through all of this and not even knowing where it's going to lead me. It hurts more than what happened with Remus because this was completely unexpected; I had never realized that I was falling in love with James, but I had known the whole time when I was falling in love with Remus. I'm not even sure if I only transferred my feelings for Remus onto James out of simple necessity, but whatever the reasoning is, I may love James. I'm not going to say that I love him straight-out, because I still don't know, however, there is the distinct possibility it's true. That provides no comfort for me.

I sighed, trying in vain to soothe my aching head, and I decided to try an experiment. I pulled out two pieces of parchment – one black and one white – from under my bed, as well as my quill and wand. On each paper, I wrote the same sentence – I hate James Potter. I flicked my wand once and the papers began to combine instantly, meshing into a highly unattractive gray. The words became rather garbled – I saw remnants of the words 'hate' and 'James Potter' but they were mixed with much more. Complications; they were complications of what was supposed to be a very simple message.

I sighed once more, morose, as I cleaned up the remains of my little exercise, feeling horrible for myself. I had just created a fair representation of my emotional turmoil, and I was quite aware of that. Why couldn't hating him be as easy as it used to be a couple of years ago? Why do I have to be a victim to these idiotic complications? Even worse, why did the complications have to be a 'crush' on him? I feel very cursed at the moment – is it any mystery why?

Let me review how this is supposed to work – boy likes girl, girl hates boy, boy loves girl, girl still hates boy, boy gets over it, girl still hates boy, boy meets girl two and movies to South America, girl gets over that, falls in love with boy two, and they all live happily ever after. Nowhere in that story does it say 'girl falls in love with boy.' Therefore, I am forced to conclude that I'm a screwed up freak and I don't follow the rules. That really can't be right though – I almost always followed the rules before James Potter tainted my head.

I've tried everything, diary, but I still just can't figure it out – I've had two attempts at finding the prince to take me to my fairytale ending, but neither was right. Now it's as if the evil nemesis that's supposed to be stopping me has come out and told me that he loves me, and is trying to be the one who takes me away to prove it. The story is twisting into something unfamiliar, even though it should be a straightforward plot, and that's part of the reason I feel so lost – I don't know the ending to that fairytale. I'm making it up as I go, but nothing I think of fits.

All I can say now is that the real prince better stop hiding – he needs to find me before I go more than legally insane.

James

February 10th

Dear Diary,

Tonight, we had another midnight escapade, and we got the most brilliant idea on the planet.

See, while we were outside this evening, as animals, someone was nearby. Peter sneaked up closer, since he was a rat, and he reported that it was Professor McGonagall. Sirius gave a bark that would have probably been a swear-word if he had been human, and we hid out behind the trees. Sirius made sure to stay in front of Remus the whole time, so that he wouldn't be tempted to go and bite McGonagall – we would get huge detentions if we did that, and Sirius and I are in enough trouble as it was. Peter told us when she was gone, but we quickly found out that she was guarding the entrance we usually used to get back into the castle. We knew Peter could get in easily, but Sirius and I would have a harder time than that – what could we do?

We led Remus back to the Shrieking Shack and left him in there for the night, like we always did, and we began to search for a way in. We knew secret passages all around the school, but which could we use? To make an extremely long story short, we spent a terrifying hour outside avoiding McGonagall, fled to Hogsmeade to let loose our overflowing energy, and got through the secret passage in Honeydukes. Once in the school, we had to do the whole exercise again – skirting around the patrolling professors, the prefects (my heart skipped a beat when I saw sweet, innocent little Lily pacing the corridors mere feet from where I was), and the Heads – until we got to our common room. Peter was already there, lounging around and waiting.

"There you two are," he said. "How'd it go?"

"Awesome," Sirius managed to say through his heavy breaths, clutching his side. "We had such a blast."

"We did," I added in agreement.

"Shouldn't you have taken the Invisibility Cloak?" Peter asked. "That may have made things easier."

Sirius and I exchanged looks; we had forgotten about the cloak. Then I said, "Silly Peter, that would have made it much easier – we like a challenge. We'll take it the next time."

"Duh," Sirius tried inserting helpfully.

Peter and I gave Sirius an amused, but very doubtful sort of look, and he rolled his eyes at us.

"The point of the matter is that we're back," he said impatiently. "And I have an idea."

"You do?" I asked, pretending to sound shocked. "Sirius, I'm so proud of you! What's your idea?"

Sirius smirked at me. "I'm not that stupid. But my idea was that we should make a map."

"Why would we do that?" Peter queried. "More work in addition to our homework? No thanks; I'm barely passing."

"No, like a map of the school – with the secret passages," Sirius insisted. "It would be amazing! We could document all of our tricks and shortcuts, and when we're on midnight adventures, we can have it as a reference!"

"That's really not half bad," I said, nodding slowly as I considered it. "I think we could do it."

"How?" Peter asked skeptically. "When?"

"At night," I said. "And Remus would know how – he's the smartest out of us four. We could make it together using our nicknames – Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. No one knows what those really mean."

"Yeah!" Sirius high-fived me. "This should be the coolest thing Hogwarts has ever seen."

"We're not showing anyone," I said flatly. "This is for our usage; could you imagine what Snivelly could do with something like that?"

"True," Sirius said. "What do you think, Pete? The deciding voter, you are."

Peter thought for a moment and then said, "I think it should just be our thing. James is right – people could do bad things with it if they found it."

"Yeah!" I high-fived Peter then, to which he beamed, and turned back to Sirius. "So are we going to do this?"

"Hell yeah we are!" Sirius punched the air with his fist, and made a noise very similar to his victory bark. "The Marauder's Map, we should call it."

"Brilliant!" I exclaimed. "Pads, you're on brainwaves tonight."

"This should be awesome," Peter chirped contentedly.

"It should," I agreed heartily. "But we're going to need Moony – we'll tell him when he recovers from FLP."

"FLP?" Peter wrinkled his nose in confusion.

"Furry Little Problem, you moron," Sirius said, conking his head. "Get with it."

"Sorry," Peter mumbled.

"Anyway," I said, deliberately changing the subject. "I'd say we get to bed – we'll need to have some sanity for tomorrow, when we can discuss the map some more. We also have to think of a way to tell Moony – somehow, I don't know if he'll approve of this."

"Good point," Sirius said with a yawn. "Good night, boys." He stretched and began to make his way up to the dormitory, and Peter and I followed. We got to bed, fully dressed so that we wouldn't have to bother with changing in the morning, and while Peter and Sirius went to sleep at once, I took out this book to write down the greatest day in Marauder history – the birth of the idea of our finest invention for magical mischief yet. I think that it merits an entry.

So I need to sleep, because like I had told my friends, I needed some sense for the morning, but as of right now, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are officially in business.

A/N: Woo hoo! I'd been waiting to write that chapter longer than you would guess. Don't forget to review – reviews are my drugs, and the more of my drug I get, the faster I write, so consequently, the faster I update. :P Come on, click the button!!! Oh gosh, I sound like such a hyperactive spazz. I'm sorry, I was up all morning writing, and that makes me hyper. Just review.