"Tonight." Fred muttered in passing to Hermione. She made no acknowledgement that he'd said anything, seeing as James and Sirius was walking towards them, instead, Hermione walked straght towards her next class, hoping that the two boys wouldn't notice her. After all she was techniquely a year older. It was quite brilliant of Dumbledore really, it helped distance her and the twins from the Marauders...well, as much as possible, seeing as they'd entered a prank war.

Arithmacy was a class shared with George, and to her surprise Lilly and Remus. After all they were two sixth years in a seventh level Newt class. George and her would normally sit at a desk, at least their definition of 'normal' was about a week, but today, When she walked in, Lilly was sitting in George's normal seat.

"Hey." Lilly said waving at her. Hermione smiled and returned the wave before sitting down next to her.

"Hi. What's up?" she asked as she slid into the seat. Lilly shrugged and glanced over at Remus.

"I guess I just felt like I didn't want the Lupin third degeree." She said. Hermion looked at her confused.

"He has a third degree?" Lilly laughed at her expression and shrugged.

"I know. But it's not the same as others. It's pretty much, you don't know James....he's a great guy...but I won't tell you what to do..." Lilly shrugged again. "It's rather unnerving. I mean, Remus is nice, and I like him, regardless..." at this she cleared her throat. Hermione shot her a look. 'It's just....he makes me feel almost guilty..."

"I'm sure he doesn't mean that." Hermione said as George walked in. Not missing a beat, he plopped down next to Lupin.

"Maybe...but it's what I feel. But I don't see how I should feel bad, after what they did to one of my friends." Lilly whispered, looking at the desk. "It's hard. Everyday, he's always trying to say that James is a good friend and is caring, and that's when I remember how much he cared to apologize to me, for last spring....which is zero. All he did was say he couldn't understand how I could be friends with Severus."

"Have you ever explained it to him?" Hermione asked. Lilly stared at her.

"WHat?"

"If you want him to understand, maybe you should explain it to him." she repeated.

"Why? So that he could make fun of me?" she snorted.

"Lilly, James wouldn't make fun of you for something so serious."

"You're knowledge scares me."

"I'm just perceptive." Hermione said shrugging. "Trust me on this. He won't laugh."

"James....can we talk?" Everyone suddenly froze. After all is wasn't everyday that you heard that phrase coming out of Lilly Evan's mouth without her tone ranting and yelling. James immediately nodded and stood up, slipping out the portrait hole.

"You guys got the map?" Hermione asked. Fred and George both nodded.

"Why?"

"I want to follow them." At this both boys' jaws dropped.

"WHat???" they gasped.

"Shut it." she said standing up. "Don't you want to know why Snape was always a slimy git to Harry?" At this information, the twins jumped up and followed.

"James...." Lily started to say. "I feel like you should know why I don't like it when you pick on Snape." At this James nodded, although he was quite confused as to why this was happening. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone else what I'm about to tell you."

"Of course not." he said quickly. "This is just between us." she gave a nod.

"I met Severus before Hogwarts. He was the one who told me that I was a witch. He said that I was special." she whispered. "You see, my best friend at the time was my sister, Petunia. We were nearly inseperable. That is until the letter came."

"She...didn't like it. I suppose she was jealous or something, but immediately following the letter, which had proved that Severus was right, she started avoiding me. So I simply spent more time with Sev, learning all about the magical world. He told me that it didn't matter if you were muggleborn." At that she looked down at her hands.

"During Christmas holidays, Petunai found a new form of cruelty. Instead of ignoring me, she started using insults. I spent most of time at the park. The one where we had originally met him. We would spend hours out there. Just the two of us, laughing, and joking around."

At this James felt a hint of jealousy, but kept silent. He could tell that this was extremely hard for her to say. He watched as the red-headed beauty began playing with the hair tie on her arm.

"It was more than I could take when you guys picked on him. I hated when you said that I wasn't allowed to be friends with a Slytherin, I hated when anyone would say that. There's a reason that I don't ever talk about my summer holidays. I hated them. The only time I liked them was when I was with Severus. Petunia just got worse and worse.

"It's why I didn't want to believe that he had switched over to the death eater side." she finally whispered. A single tear slipping from her eye lashes. Wordlessly, James stepped over to Lily and pulled her into a tight hug.

"I'm sorry." he whispered. She held onto his shirt as she buried her face into his chest, trying to stop the tears from flowing down. The bad memories had always haunted her. She'd tried to brush them off, although it never really seemed to work.

That night was a go. Hermione opened the map to see the marauders safely in their dorm. Of course it did help that they had locked them in there, after summoning their wands. Not that the four boys had realized that. The twins and Hermione had simply done what they were going to do to the Slytherins to the Marauders as well.

To be frank, they'd duct taped their doorways shut.

At the moment, they were working on the boys side of the dormitories in the Slytherin dungeouns. Because they couldn't steal all of the house's wands, they simply made the tape impenetrable to magic. At least in attempts to getting it off. The only real way to do it was a water charm. Something that they knew the students would never think to try.

Fred and George had reasoned that they would simply attempt a greasing charm. Well if so, it would become twice as harder to remove with the water. Hermione noted that they were done and hurried towards the girls side. For this the boys used a levitation charm, to get down the staircase. Unlike Gryffindor, the dorms were below the common room.

Wanting to preserve the moment, Hermione pulled out a camera and snapped several pictures of the colored duct taped doorways, before slipping out of the portrait hole.

The next morning at breakfast, not a single Slytherin showed up.

Everyone ate while musing about what might have happened to their classmates. No one was too overly worried. Save for the teachers. Especially once they realized that the infamous Marauders were missing.

Seeing that Lily was looking around and seemed to get worried and therefore madder by the moment, Hermione quickly plopped down next to her.

"If you are worried that the boys are in danger, don't be." she said breezily, while Lily watched her in suspicion.

"What do you mean?" she questioned.

"I mean," Hermione began clarifying, "THat the infamous Marauders are currently locked in their bedroom, via duct tape." Lily immediately broke out into laughter. Laughter which didn't stop.

"Do you realize how long that will take them just to figure out what it is?" Lily said gleefully.

"Yep. What's more, is that I have all four of their wands." she said nudging her bag. Lily's mouth dropped open in shock before she erupted into laughter.

"You have just made my day." she said grinning.