Before going down to the dueling club, I look in my trunk, debating the usefulness of being even close to the level of preparedness that I have to be when fighting my father. Snorting, I grab one of my leg holsters with throwing knives and my wrist holster for my wand. I then pull my hair back and pull on my dragon hide boots.

"Why do I feel like you're purposefully going to this thing under prepared?" Lily asks.

I raise an eyebrow, "Under prepared? I feel like I may be over prepared."

Lily blinks, "Surely you don't know that much?"

I smirk, "Don't place any bets on that. I'm a damn good fighter. The only other thing that I feel as comfortable in my knowledge in is warding and obscure magic."

I slide my wand into its holster and start for the door. Looking over my shoulder, I smile at Lily, who is looking at me with a curious expression, "Come on Miss Head Girl. You can't be late for this."

She nods and follows me. I can hear my boots on the floor and adjust my footfalls so that my steps are silent. I hate making noise that gives away my location. It always ends badly. Walking through the common room, I can feel people's eyes follow me. Let them stare. It's not like it'll do them any good.

When we arrive in the Great Hall, there are quite a few people, but still not too many. I nod to Lily before sneaking off into the shadows and blending in. More people start to enter, and then the teachers walk in, starting the club.

"Welcome to the first meeting of the Dueling club," McGonagall says.

'Of course she'd be the head of this.'

"First, a demonstration will be given by Professor Flitwick and myself. Then a quick lesson on basic dueling practices, and finally, you all will be allowed to duel other students within the same year as you," McGonagall says.

The other students applaud and I scoff. I knew I should have avoided this meeting. It's going to be boring as hell. 'At least you'll be able to see how well the other students duel.'

As expected, the professor's duel goes quite quickly and ends in a draw. It's obvious to anyone who knows how a real duel goes that neither of them were actually trying, but the show seems to amuse most of the other students. After that, I watch the other students go through their lesson and, finally, begin to duel each other. As I expected, most of them follow the rules laid out by the teachers.

"I challenge Annalisa Grimwood to a duel!"

The hall turns silent as everyone turns to see who made the call. Lily is standing on one of the stages, her head high. People start to respond and I recognise their voices as they do such.

"Ann's here?" Remus.

"She isn't here. We would have heard her if she was." Rowan.

"Grimwood's too much of a coward to show." Snape.

"Are you sure, Lily?" James.

Oddly enough, Sirius is silent through this, but I can see him watching the area I'm standing in. Good, he's learning. Keeping hidden and treading on silent feet, I make it up to the stage and am standing right behind Lily. I can't help but smirk when I see her keep looking around trying to find me in the crowd.

"I'd rather not place you at a disadvantage," I whisper, watching as she tenses up. I can hear the gasps from the crowd as I return to visibility. "No need for the Head Girl to look bad."

She spins around, a snarl on her face, "Willing to prove that you're not just talk?"

I smirk, "Naturally."

Lily nods and starts to walk her paces. I decide to have a little fun and step backwards, keeping my eyes on her the entire time. Once sure of my distance, I sit back on my heels and wait. When Lily turns around, she looks puzzled.

"Didn't you want to play?" I ask.

"I thought we were going to duel!"

"So start dueling me already."

A few moments later, she starts firing at me. I sigh and put up a charm that reflects her magic back at her. Sitting on the ground, I wait for her to stop wearing herself out. She really should know better than to be so noble.

After a few minutes, I summon her wand, catching the wood lightly. She looks at me with wide eyes. Standing, I brush off my back and walk to her side, handing her wand back. I smile and pat her on the head, about to leave the stage when Snape jumps up and takes a dueling position.

"Really? You too?" I ask, holding back a groan. I really don't feel like doing this today.

"I won't be so easy of a battle for you Grimwood," Snape says.

I shrug, "If you say so."

~+~Sirius's POV~+~

I shake my head. I can understand Lily challenging Ann to a duel, but Snape? Doesn't he know the history of the Grimwood family?

"So how long do you think this one is going to take?" James asks, "I bet Ann will have him beat in five minutes."

Remus chuckles, "You're on. Two minutes, no longer."

"You both are wrong," I say, "Thirty seconds and Ann will have him."

"You seem pretty confident about that."

"She's going to bombard him with a bunch of spells, some will actually do something, others will just be condensed blasts of color," I say. "I can't believe that anyone who knows the history of the Grimwood family would be stupid enough to duel her."

"Well, let's just see. I still say five minutes, no less."

Shaking my head, I watch as Ann and Snape face off. Just as I said, when the battle begins, Ann immediately begins a barrage of spells. Snape tries to use a shield spell, but that breaks within fifteen seconds. He then tries dodging them, but ends up hitting a stunning spell and falls backwards. Meanwhile, his wand flies in the opposite direction into Ann's open hand.

"Holy…Merlin…."

I glance to my right and snicker when I see Remus and James, along with everyone else in the hall, staring in shock.

"Anyone else dumb enough to want to duel?" Ann asks.

James sighs, "We really need someone to try. Think we could convince Flitwick or McGonagall to duel her?"

"No, I don't," Remus says, "Though I know someone who comes close in beating her every time that the five of us duel."

James and Remus both turn to me and I shake my head, "No, absolutely not! Do you think I'm going to make a bloody fool of myself in front of the entire school?"

"No, I think that you're going to prove to the rest of the school that there are quite a few damn good duelists in the seventh year. Naturally, I don't include Lily or Snape because neither of them have actually had a real duel before. You have," Remus says.

"Oh come on, you know you want to." James is smirking at me and I roll my eyes.

"Fine, but I'm warning you. I will get you back for this," I mutter. Rolling up the sleeves of my shirt, I walk toward the front of the room, "Last I knew, you still owe me a duel."

Ann smiles, "Finally, someone who knows how to play. What happened, Sirius? Miss me too much?"

"Ah, more like I miss your ever humble personality."

"Humble?" she snorts, "You must have me confused for someone else."

I nod, "Probably. In either case, will you entertain me with a duel?"

"Gladly. Maybe I'll actually have to try this time."

The two of us stand at opposite ends of the dueling platform. I notice how small the space is and how easily it would be for a stray spell to hit our classmates. Apparently, Ann notices the same thing because she catches my eye and nods. We cast a spell for a dome like shield to appear. Once it's up, Ann casts a stunner at it and smiles when it repels the spell. I then combine two of the dueling stages that had been set up. After this is all done, Ann and I go back to watching each other, waiting to see who will make the first. During this time, I notice that she has her knives on her.

"So when does this end?" I ask. Behind my back I conjure a knife and sheathe and charm it onto my belt. Never be without a weapon.

"When one of us is unconscious?" she asks.

"Fine by me. Just don't complain when you wake up in the Hospital Wing."

"Funny, I was just going to say the same thing."

Time ticks along slowly, and I wait, knowing that this is going to start soon.

~*~Ann's POV~*~

I smile, glad that for once I'll have an actual challenge. I know that neither of us are going to use all the magic that we know. For one, that would be stupid, and for another it would scare the other students. Plus, it wouldn't be fair to Sirius because I know more than he does. However, I know that by now he's probably conjured a knife and that he's damn good with it.

I lose my patients and attack first. That's one thing that the other Marauders still don't understand, is how Sirius, who has pretty much zero patience on a normal day, can be more patient than the rest of us in a duel.

Soon the spells are flying, and I can tell that Sirius is holding back like I am. Neither of us want this to be over too soon. And he's right, I do owe him a duel. Smirking, I conjure some ropes and cast spells on them so that they try to tie him up.

"Really Ann? Such parlor tricks," Sirius says, his voice picking up a sneer.

I laugh, "Just making sure you're not going to sleep!"

"Sure you are."

Sirius manages to transfigure the ropes into dolls and turn them around so that they start to walk toward me, blood lust in their eyes. I snarl and blow their heads up, sending porcelain everywhere. Sirius gives a bark of laughter. My eyes narrow and I send multiple spells at him while he responds in kind. We're both dodging and attacking at once, working through such moves at such speeds that I'm sure to other people it seems like a rehearsed dance. I jump from a spot on the dueling stage, just to have it blow up moments later. Transforming that into a solid wall, I duck behind it and take a couple of deep breaths.

"Are we playing hide and seek now Ann?" Sirius calls.

"If we were, you'd have already lost!" I shout back. Jumping over the barricade, I sprint at Sirius, throwing spell after spell at him. This surprises him slightly, but not enough because when I ram my shoulder into him, he uses the momentum to flip back and keep his feet. He sends quite a few curses at me, some I feel connect, and others I manage to dodge. Leaping back, I sheath my wand and pull out my knives and grin at Sirius.

~+~Sirius's POV~+~

I recognise that grin. It's one that I've seen on her only a few times. It's the one that, when her eyes are dancing, there's going to be trouble, if they aren't, there's going to be hell.

Not taking the time to check which it's going to be, I assume that it's both and move out of the way, throwing my wand into its holster, and pulling my knife from its sheath. I hear something and throw myself to the ground, rolling right as I do so. I hear a thunk and see one of her knives embedded halfway through the wood.

"Are you trying to kill me?" I ask, laughing.

"Nah, I knew you'd move."

"Cocky bitch."

She laughs.

I jump to my feet and shake my head, "You know, one of these days, one of us is going to get hurt."

"I don't doubt it."

By now, we're walking in circles. I can see the teachers talking and know that they're trying to figure out a way to take down the shield. I glance at her at the right time and see her turning her left wrist in circles. Guessing that she injured it, I aim to hit that part of her arm with the pommel of my knife, not expecting to connect. Sure enough, she manages to dodge out of the way, and when I try to slice her, she manages to block it with two of her knives. They may be shorter than mine is, but she knows how to work them really well.

I notice that she's building power in her hands and curse. At the moment, Ann is better at wandless magic than the rest of us, which means problems anytime one of us wants to duel. Throwing my knife to the side, I sprint to the barricade and jump behind it. When I land, I can see beams of light hitting the shield right where I had been. Pulling out my wand, I manage to get her knives away from her and now only have to focus on knocking her out.

I manage to locate her and shoot a stunner at her. My eyes widen in surprise though, when a red beam of light hits me, and I am knocked out.

)o(Remus's POV)o(

Everyone watches as the shield falls. I chuckle, heading for the stage and my unconscious friends. This is the closest anyone has gotten to beating Ann. And it's one of the few times where Sirius has been taken by surprise. A plus for both duelists.

"So they tied?" James asks.

I nod, "Looks like it. They're going to be pissed when they wake up."

"Probably. Let's get them to the Hospital Wing." I cast mobile corpus on Ann and lead her out of the Hall, James doing the same to Sirius. The walk to the Hospital Wing is rather short, but since there aren't too many students in the halls, that makes travel so much easier. I know that their worst injuries are probably from the stunning charms, but I figure it'd be better not to wake them up around the younger years. Once they're lying on beds, Madam Pomfrey runs a quick diagnostic, and then wakes them up.

"Ugh…At least tell me it was a draw!"

I smile as they speak in unison and raise an eyebrow at James. He pulls out a couple of galleons and hands them to me.

"Thank you! Pleasure doing business with you as always," I say, placing the coins in my pocket.

"You may leave, but please," Madam Pomfrey says, "I don't want to see any of you in here sooner than you need to be!"

The four of us salute and quickly exit the room.

"So, are we going to return to the club, or no?" James asks.

"You might want to, being Head Boy and all, but I'm not," Ann says.

I roll my eyes, "Yes, because there is absolutely nothing that you could do in that club."

"Well, I can duel better than everyone there. Excepting the teachers and you three."

"Did you ever think about teaching some of the younger students?"

She blinks, "No, not really."

"I think you should," I say, poking her in the ribs, "You're one of the better duelists around here, and if you can help some of the other students become even half as good as you, then that will be an asset to them and the school. That's the main reason I'm going to attend."

"Fine. But only because I know your argument is better than what Sirius's would have been."

"And what would have been my argument?"

"That I should go so that you aren't bored."

A pause, "True enough."

I roll my eyes and hit the both of them over the head.

~*~Ann's POV~*~

A rustling of feathers sounds above me and I cover my goblet with a small bread plate. Somehow, the owls have managed to get a feather into my drink every time they deliver the mail, unless I cover it. A Daily Prophet lands in front of me, and I unroll it frowning at the picture.

"Mark of Terror?" I mutter, "The bloody hell does that mean?"

Under a black and white picture of a skull with a snake slithering out of the tongue is an article about how this image has been found floating in the night sky at the scene of quite a few murders. No one knows what it is, or who it's from, but many people have already begun to fear it, wondering if it will light the sky above their house any time soon. I skim through the article some more and try to connect the dots forming in my head.

"Want to bet that it's Voldemort?" Remus asks as he sits down, his paper in his hand.

I nod, "That's what I was thinking. There's no other group that I know of that is focused on killing and spreading terror at this time."

"That, and do you remember what was carved into the arms of the people who were hung outside of Gringotts? It was the same drawing." Remus sips his drink and then taps the article with his finger, "I'll bet you anything that this is Voldemort's calling card."

"Calling card?" James asks.

"It's something that, generally, thieves will leave at the scene of the crime when they know that the police won't be able to catch them and they want to take credit," Sirius says. When he notices the looks we're all giving him, he huffs and rolls his eyes, "The Blacks have their fair share of criminals in the family tree. Not that any of them were disowned, mind you."

"Kept a healthy dose of psychotic tendencies did they?" James asks, his voice full of faux light tones.

Sirius, keeping up with James, nods enthusiastically, "Why yes they did! How on Earth did you guess?"

"Pure luck!"

"Ok boys, enough with that now." Lily sits next to James and begins discussing Head duties with him. I roll my eyes and hand Sirius, who was beginning to look like he was going to do something incredibly stupid, the crossword.

"Think that this one is any better than the last?" he asks, his eyes flying over the page already.

"I hope so. The last one took you five minutes to complete."

Sirius grins, pulls out a self-inking quill, and gets to solving the puzzle.

~*~AG~*~

I pull a leaf out of my hair and keep walking toward the greenhouses. November was already halfway through and I can't help but wonder as to where the time is going. It feels like it should only be the middle of October. The only good thing that has happened so far today is that I received the information that I sent for from the Auror Academy. The ministry had shortened the length of time that they were training Aurors again. Not only do they need fighters against Voldemort, but they are trying to get people to protect the Muggles as well.

Stepping into the greenhouse, I dodge the tentacula and proceed to the back of the area where the class is waiting.

"So glad you finally agreed to arrive Miss Grimwood," Sprout says.

"Sorry, but I was caught up helping some first year out of a trick broom cupboard."

"Trick broom cupboard?"

Lily nods, "That one is rather nasty. It's only down the hall from Gryffindor commons. If you so much as brush against the door, you're stuck in there until someone lets you out. I don't know exactly how that came about, but it's been there since our third year."

I nod in agreement, not wanting to tell them that I know exactly how that cupboard came to be and exactly who was the person to create it. Though, in all honesty, it was a complete accident. Sprout nods and continues with the lesson, which is about various ways and uses for a plant called the Tacca Chantrieri, or the black bat flower.

"So where were you really?" Lily whispers, "You were nowhere near the commons before class began."

"How do you know I didn't double back?"

"Because you wouldn't. That's not how your mind works."

"Who can answer my question? Miss Grimwood?" Sprout asks.

I glance up and blink at her, "South East Asia."

"Correct."

Letting out a subtle sigh of relief, I turn back to Lily, "Just wait till after class, then I'll tell you, alright? Yes, you as well Marlene."

Marlene, who had been impatiently watching the two of us, nods with satisfaction. The rest of class flies by, with the girls and me making sketches of the plant and flicking pieces of dirt at the Marauders across the room. I snicker when Lily manages to knock a piece that was part dirt, part mud to the inside of James's glasses. While he's wiping them off, Sirius flicks his wand and words appear on the dirt on our table.

'Evans, I hope you realise, this means war.' The message read.

"What does he mean?" Marlene asks, glancing over at the four boys.

I shake my head, "Whatever it is, it won't be good."

"Definitely not."

Soon the pitter patter of rain can be heard on the roof of the greenhouse and I frown at the grumbling that a lot of students give.

"Please, it's not as if all of you don't know how to do a water repelling charm," Lily says, rolling her eyes at the people. Quite a few of them give sheepish grins while the others scowl at her. Nothing worse to them than someone who ruins what had the chance of being a good chance to complain. When class ends, the three of us leave, the other two girls eager to find out why I'd been late to class.

"Come on Ann! Please?" Marlene asks.

I shake my head, "Not yet."

"Hey Lily!"

Lily turns around, only for a glob of mud to hit her right in the chest. She looks down in shock before glaring at James. James, who had only just managed to get Lily to allow him to call her by her first name, gives a grin.

"That's for the glasses."

"Potter! That is it!" Lily makes a sudden move and a glob of mud hits him in the face. James stiffens when the cold substance comes into contact with his face. Keeping a stiff back, James pulls his glasses off and wipes them off on his shirt. When the lenses are perched back on his nose, there's a look of total mischief in his eyes.

Recognising what is about to start, I take a few steps away from Lily. Not that James has bad aim, hell he's one of the best chasers the school has had, but I know that people tend to get caught in the crossfire of these things a lot.

I'm contemplating starting a bet with Marlene when my world gets turned in an odd way and I land on my back in the mud. Sirius stands above me, laughing like a loon and sounding incredibly like Padfoot. I narrow my eyes and knock his legs out from under him. We start wrestling in the mud while I can hear the other two laughing as they dodge mud balls.

"Can you believe them? They're acting like children," Marlene says, amusement lacing her voice.

Remus smiles, "Oh yes. They do this quite often."

"Well, you'd think that they would lear-aaaaaaaahhhhhh!"

Sirius and I pause in our wrestling to see mud on Marlene's head and Remus chuckling.

"REMUS LUPIN!"

It's not long after that and there's another pair of people having fun in the mud and rain. After a while, Sirius and I are lying tangled together and laughing too much to move. When I finally manage to calm down my laughter, I can see that Remus and Marlene have moved to under the trees where it is relatively dry and that they've cleaned up. I nod and glance at James and Lily, only to have my eyes widen and my jaw drop slightly. They were kissing. No, not kissing, they were in a full out snog.

"Hey Sirius, take a look at that. Prongs finally got Lily's undivided attention," I say, nudging Sirius in the ribs.

Sirius glances up and then grins, "Well it's about bloody time."

AN/ James and Lily are finally together! Yay! *cues music, confetti, and balloons*. And since we're on the topic of relationships and what not, after some thought I've decided that any sort of romance between any of the characters, excepting Lily and James cause they're canon and kinda important to certain events, is going to be in a separate story. If I put it in Breaking Glass, this story will become entirely too long. As it is, this is the twenty first chapter and I still have at least four or five chapters planned. As always, reviews are appreciated! Thank you to those who have reviewed, especially if you did an anonomous(my spelling is shit right now, but it's also almost one in the morning) review and I haven't been able to thank you as I usually do.