Chapter 4

While I severely doubt I'm half as charming as everyone seems to think I am, I do have a bit of a flair for the wooing of pretty girls. I seem to have a natural instinct for knowing what a girl wants to hear at any given moment, especially if I know something about her. Add that to my inability to let people down, and you'll find a long line of ex-girlfriends whose hearts I've broken and whose friends I've infuriated. Sirius congratulates me regularly on being able to get dates with some of the best girls in school, by which he means the prettiest girls in school. Peter finds my luck with girls incredible and asks me regularly how I manage it. Remus tends to just shake his head and give me a sad, pitying look or tell me I'm a complete dolt. A lot of the time I find myself agreeing with Remus more than the rest.

Of course, there is one girl I've set my sights on who I've never been able to get a date with. She's the only girl for whom I've truly felt that pull of both heart and soul that many call love. Sirius says I'm insane, and that she's not all that, and Remus says that she will be the only thing that saves me from myself someday, if I get my head out of my arse.

For the past five years I've tried to at least be her friend. For the past three years I've tried to get her to go out on a date with me. Last year I became, well, desperate, and asked her to either marry me or shoot me and put me out of my misery just before the train pulled into the station at Kings Cross. Needless to say, she didn't take to kindly to being randomly proposed to on the last day of school and told me to drop dead.

This year, I've decided to try to persuade her into a date a different way; by being completely indifferent to her. I've promised myself that, no matter what, I'm not going to chase after her intentions. I'm not going to ask her out once a day, or once a week, or even once a month. I've have decided that I need to be more serious and behave like a man in love, and not a child with a school yard crush.

So far the strategy seems to be working. Tonight I have spent more time with Lily Evans and her friends than in all five of our years at school combined. I couldn't help but argue with her, she just doesn't understand how much I care for her. When I kissed her it was my attempt at saying 'I'm sorry' for being such an arse for five years and for arguing with her, while at the same time trying to convey to her the depth of my love for her. I don't think it really worked, but I sure felt better for trying.

After I kissed her I ran down the stairs and through the girl's room as fast as my feet could carry me. I ran all the way to my and Sirius's room and jumped into bed and tried to go to sleep. It didn't work. I ended up lying awake on my back staring at the ceiling until Sirius and Remus came into the room with worried looks on their faces.

"You alright mate?" Sirius asked with slight apprehension.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said back grumpily.

"Really? Because you don't look fine. You look like you've just seen a ghost, if you'll pardon the muggle cliché. And you ran through the girl's room so fast that the ground caught fire in your wake. Now tell us what's the matter so we can help." Remus said sitting beside me on the bed. I sat up and looked and him and Sirius; both had a look of genuine worry in their eyes.

"I kissed her." Was all I managed to get out.

"You kissed who?" Sirius asked dumbly.

"I kissed her. I kissed Lily, you imbecile."

"Oh."

"James, tell me you didn't. I thought the plan was to lay low and not make a move on her. To act like a grown up for once." Remus said.

"Well, I was. I mean, I controlled myself and my big mouth all night, and then we were standing there and she looked so beautiful and we were arguing and you know how gorgeous she is when she's mad and I just couldn't help myself. I caved."

"You are so pathetic when you talk about her. You're like a whining little baby."

"Sirius! A little sympathy here? Just because you're immune to all feeling when it comes to girls doesn't mean that everyone is. Which reminds me, if I have anything to say about it, you're going to change the way you treat girls this year."

"Oh, really? And how are you going to force that to come about?"

"I'm going to sabotage your dates until you figure out exactly why I'm doing it."

"What? I doubt that that will work."

"I wouldn't doubt anything Remus plans Sirius, you know he's the mastermind behind all of our pranks, he may look sweet and innocent on the outside, but on the inside he's a devious master of trickery and jokes."

"Oh, right, I knew that. Wait, weren't we consoling you?" Sirius asked me.

"Anyways, James, what happened after you kissed her?"

"Nothing. I took off like a bat out of hell and hoped she wouldn't hate me forever. That is, if she doesn't already."

"Well, you should probably apologize, girls like it when guys admit they're wrong, even when they aren't. It's one of those weird girl things."

"Okay." I looked around and realized that Peter was no where to be found. "Hey, where's Peter?"

"He went to bed just before you came back down from the balcony thing. That reminds me, good job with that spell. I think you may have impressed her, and that's always good. Just don't flash it around in her face. Be cool about it if she compliments you and if she doesn't don't bring it up."

"Got it."

"Well, I think that about wraps it up. I'm off to bed." Sirius stood up and started for the door, then stopped and turned around. "Wait, this is my room. Remus, go away so I can sleep."

"Yes oh great master Sirius. Oh course master. How could I ever disobey you master?" Remus said pretending to bow down to Sirius as he backed out of the room.

"Ha-ha, very funny, next time you want to mimic a house elf you might want to shrink and grow bigger ears. Oh, wait, never mind, you don't need to."

"Thank you very much. I've always wanted to be called short and big eared." Remus laughed. "Good night."

"Night Remus."

"Night man."

"So what are we doing tomorrow Sirius?"

"Well, Becca asked if we wanted to hang out with them in Diagon alley tomorrow."

"Sounds cool." Sirius nodded his head as he changed his clothes and got into bed.

"Good night Prongs."

"Night Pad."

I stayed up late that night, I couldn't sleep, and I was too worried about whether or not I had ruined my chances with Lily. I really hoped I hadn't. It would be a shame to end something before it ever began. Eventually I floated off into dream land, hoping with all my heart that I hadn't screwed myself over with one little kiss.

The next morning I was woken up by a feminine screech and yell of "RAT!" coming from the girl's room down the hall. Sirius and I sat straight up at the same time and gave each other what must have been similar looks of horror. "He wouldn't…?" I asked.

"He would." Sirius said, his horror changing to one of genuine mischief. Sirius and I both jumped out of bed and ran down the hall in our pajama pants with out shirts or socks and almost without my glasses. When we got to the girls room we were just in time to see the three of the rushing out of the room at the urgency of Lily, who seemed to have a certain dislike of small rodents. They too were in their pajamas, and thankfully in their case it included shirts, otherwise there would have been one really awkward moment.

"What's the matter?" I asked, trying not to snicker at the sight of Lily, Becca, and Rebby half asleep in their pajamas in the hallway. Remus walked calmly up behind Sirius and I fully clothed. "And how long have you been up? You're already dressed."

"I've been up since about seven. I couldn't sleep." Remus gave me a look and I immediately knew why he couldn't sleep the night before. It was 'the change'. No, not menopause, Remus isn't a middle aged woman. It was the other change; the change into a werewolf. Remus has been a werewolf since he was around seven years old. It's been tough on him, and would have been worse if it weren't for the help and support of his friends, namely Sirius, Peter and I. Poor kid hadn't even had friends until he met us on the train that day. Neither had Sirius apparently, but why he hadn't I don't know. He won't tell me, won't tell anyone. All I know is it has something to do with his family and that wretched cousin of his, Bellatrix. Peter had had friends, but none of them were real friends. They had simply used him for his stuff and his money and to take the brunt of their jokes and insults. Talk about your unhealthy childhoods. I, myself, had had a few friends, but none who lived close enough to play with more than once a month or so. I always seemed to make friends with the kids that lived in places like India and Australia and Costa Rica and Mexico. I even made friends with an Inuit whose family was visiting London for a week once.

"THERE WAS A BLOODY RAT IN OUR ROOM!" Lily screamed. I raised an eyebrow at her. If there was one thing I didn't think Lily would be, it was afraid of a rat. However, I have been known to be wrong on occasion.

"Was it a rat covered in blood, or just a bloody rat?" Sirius asked, attempting a feeble joke. That was a bad idea.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Lily screamed at Sirius. "GET YOUR ARSE IN THERE AND KILL THE BLOODY THING!" this time she screamed in my direction and shoved me into her room closing the door behind me.

"Yes, of course, I'd love to kill the rat for you." I rolled my eyes and began looking around for the rat, which at this point I was guessing was Peter since it was incredibly unlikely that he was still sleeping in his room with the ruckus Lily was making in the hallway. "Here Peter, Peter, Peter. Come out little Peter. I know your in here Pete-y just come out already, would you?"

A small lumpy brown rat scampered out from under Lily's bed and stopped at my feet. It looked up at me and seemed to shrug in innocence. "Yeah, well, we'll talk about why you're in here later, for now, hop in my hand and play dead. Make sure you lay absolutely still. Actually, scratch that, I'll just petrify you, it's easier. Petrificus Totalis." I waved my wand, the only thing other than my glasses to make it out of my room with me, at Peter the rat and he went completely still. I bent over and picked him up by the tail and carried him out the door.

"It's safe to go in now your highness. No more icky little rats to disturb your sleep." I smirked and Lily gave me a fleeting glare.

"Are you sure it's dead?" he asked.

"Would you like to poke it yourself and find out?"

"Erm, no thank you. I'll pass. Get rid of it, will you, it's gross."

"Yes majesty, right away majesty. Is there anything else I can do for you, majesty?"

"Yes. Stop acting like an arse and get dressed before I call the house guards on you." She smiled at me for a moment, taking my half naked self. Well, that's what I get for not putting on a shirt before I left the room. I get ogled by pretty girls. I think I can live with that. Maybe I should go shirtless all the time. I took a deep bow and started down the hall with the peter-rat in hand. "And James?" She called down the hall after me "Thank you." She gave me a genuine smile and disappeared into her room. I gave myself a moment to melt and let the gooeyness inside take over for a moment. Then I pulled myself together and unpetrified Peter and made him walk back to his room.

"Now, Peter" I started as we got back into mine and Sirius's room, "Why exactly were you in the girls room in rat form, may I ask?"

"Um, well… I… um… was j-just in there t-to get my w-wand, s-see? I l-left it there last n-night…" Peter stumbled over his words.

"Really? And I thought you were peaking on the girls in their nighties…" Sirius said the hint of laughter in his voice.

I threw a glare in Sirius's direction. "Not funny, Sirius, and don't encourage him."

"We used to do stuff like this all the time Prongs. Why so tough on Pete-y boy now?"

"Because we aren't little eleven year old boys anymore and while it was an amusing joke back then, now it's inappropriate. It's not… right! You can't go around sneaking into girl's rooms and spying on them. It's perverted."

"Um, James, I hate to point this out to you but we're guys… we're perverted anyways…"

"Yeah, but they're thoughts, not actions, that's different."

"Um…"

"Okay, we don't act on them until we're at the appropriate point in a relationship with the person in question."

"The point is he shouldn't have been in there and he was!" I threw Peter an icy glare.

"S-sorry…?" Peter stuttered.

"Not good enough!"

"Prongs, take it easy on him. I'm sure he didn't mean any harm by it, did you Peter?" Remus intervened. "Why don't you go get your clothes changed Peter?"

Peter skittered out of the room like, well, a rat running from a cat. My stare followed him all the way out of the room. That bloody git had been in their room spying on Rebby and Becca and my Lily, I ought to….

"James, let him off the hook, you've scared him near to death already anyways." Remus said, ever the one keeping me from kicking someone's ass.

"Fine, but if he brings it up I'll not be held responsible for my actions." I said grudgingly. I turned and walked to my trunk and began digging around in it for a clean red t-shirt, jeans, underwear, and socks. Remus whispered something to Sirius then turned and left the room. I had everything I needed except for a clean pair of underwear. I could have sworn I'd packed one more pair of boxers… Oh cripes. I smacked the heel of my hand to my forehead.

"Now James I know your upset, but hurting yourself is not the answer." Sirius joked from the foot of his bed where he too was digging out clean clothes to change into. gave Sirius a look that said 'not now' and headed for the door.

"Where are you going, mate?" Sirius asked off handedly.

"I have to go beg Rebby to give me back my bloody boxers." I replied, closing the door behind me. I walked down the hall to the girl's room and stood in front of the door to their room trying to figure out what I could say to get back my underpants. Nope, nothing there, oh well… I knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" someone called from the other side of the door.

"It's James." I yelled back. The door swung open to reveal Lily with a towel on her head. Becca was using her wand to magically dry and straighten her hair while Rebby was gathering her clothes and heading in the direction of the shower.

"What's up?" Lily asked. She looked at my chest. "Still no shirt I see."

Oops, I forgot to put on a shirt again. "Still enjoying the view I see." Lily blushed and stopped scanning my torso. Hey, she's blushing, that's good, right?

"Was there something you needed?" she asked.

"I need my underpants back."

"Why would I have your- oh, right. Becca, what did you do with James's underwear?"

"Underwear? What underwear?" She flashed us an innocent grin. Lily raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh, those underwear. I hid them away where he'll never think to look for them because he can't have them back."

"Why can't I have them back?"

"You'll see. Wear a different pair of unders today, I need those."

"All of my other underwear is dirty."

"Clean them."

"I don't know how."

"So have Lily, do it, she's great at the domestic charms."

"Uh-uh, I'm not having Lily clean my dirty underpants."

"Then you'll have to go with out or figure it out on your own I suppose."

"But… can I please have my underwear back?"

"NO. Now go away, we're trying to get dressed here."

Lily began closing the door "See you in a bit. Good luck with the underwear." She seemed way to pleased with herself right now. The door closed in my face and I was forced to walk back to my room underwear-less.

"Get your boxers back?"

"Nope."

"That sucks."

"Yup."

"I'd offer but... gross."

"Yup."

"You showering first?"

"Sure."

Sirius and I are best friends, might as well be brothers. We share almost everything, but we draw the line at underwear. Most of our conversations are full on half spoken sentences and one word answers too. We just know each other so well the rest is unnecessary. Remus finds this amusing because he's sharp enough to keep up. Peter finds it irritating because he never knows what's going on. Our teachers want to slap us when we work together in class because they think we're talking gibberish and trying to be funny. Girls think it's cute and call it the 'freaky twin thing', even though Sirius and I are definitely not twins. I mean, I suppose there is a certain resemblance, but twins? I think not.

I picked up my clothes and the toiletries bag my good ole mom had packed for me and headed for the small private bathroom connected to our room. By the time I was out of the shower I had come up with a solution to my underpants problem: manual labor. I'd wash them by hand and use a hair drying spell on them or a heat spell to get them dry. After successfully cleaning a pair of underpants I got dressed and wandered out into the hallway. Sirius was getting dressed, as was Peter. Remus was reading a book, as per usual. I wandered over to the girl's room and knocked on their door.

"Anyone home in there?" I yelled when there was no response to my knock. I knocked again louder, and yelled once more. "Well, I'm coming in then." I yelled. I opened the door to an empty room. The window-door was open though, so I stepped out onto the stairs and walked up to the balcony. "There you are." I said upon seeing the girls all lounging on deck chairs.

"How did you get up here?" Rebby asked.

"Well I was standing on the street below and a sudden breeze just happened to blow me up here by accident. How do you think I got up here, the stairs."

"No, how did you get in our room to get to the stairs."

"Oh, the door was unlocked."

"So you just let yourself in?" Lily asked with raised eyebrows. Yeah, she was getting a little upset.

"No. Well, yes. See, I knocked a few times first. Then I yelled through the door. Then I took a chance and tried the door knob and what do you know, it opened."

"Hmm…" Lily narrowed her eyes at me.

"It's the honest truth, I swear. Though now that I think about it I should have looked for my boxers while I was down there and you were unawares of my presence."

"Wouldn't have mattered if you did. You'll never find them where we've put them. Will he Becca?" Rebby said shaking her head with an expression of mock sadness on her face.

"Nope, he sure won't." Becca grinned evilly and leaned back in her chair.

"Great… Well, the guys are about ready to go. Are you all ready?"

"Yeah! Let's get a move on! I didn't get to go in quality quidditch supplies yet or that new book store. Plus I can't wait to go get some new art supplies!" Becca practically bounced from her chair all the way to the bottom of the stairs. The girl was so excited and hyper she was practically vibrating with energy. Rebby and Lily followed, in a little less bouncy, yet enthusiastic manner. I followed after them laughing at Becca as she nearly walked into the glass of the window-door in her excitement.

After I had gathered the other three marauders, the seven of us wandered down the stairs, through the pub, and into the hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley. We immediately headed to the nearest café for some breakfast. After we were sufficiently stuffed, we took off in search of something fun to do. We ended up in Quality Quidditch Supplies. This store was a good choice for our group considering ¾ of us were on the team. I'm a chaser, as are Lily and Rebby, Becca is our seeker, and Sirius is one of the beaters. Sirius is especially good at his position when we're playing the Slytherin's. He says this is because those games are more exciting, I say it's because he gets the opportunity to hit a bludgers at his cousin, Bellatrix Black, who is a Chaser for Slytherin. Remus and Peter enjoy playing quidditch too, but Remus has his monthly visits with the moon to contend with and prefers his books anyways. He's not exactly the athletic type either. And Peter, well, Peter just sucks at quidditch and flying in general.

We browsed through the shop for a while before heading for the counter to purchase our selected items. I bought some new gloves and some polish for my broom. Rebby and Becca bought a large square object that they insisted on keeping covered and not allowing any of us to see. Lily bought a little necklace with a broom on it she had found on one of the racks. Remus, Peter and Sirius didn't buy anything. We wandered out of the store and down to Madame Maulkin's where Sirius, Remus and Peter needed to get fitted for new robes. I had already gotten mine last week when mum came to Diagon Alley for some Flesh Eating Slug Repellant for her garden. Instead I went with Lily, Rebby, and Becca to get some ice cream while we waited for the others to get their robes. No sooner had we sat down with our ice cream than a 5'5" tall girl with bright blue-green eyes and shoulder length hair that started a dark dirty blonde on top and faded to a white blonde at the tips.

"Hey Rach, did you get a new hair cut?" I asked her.

"Hey James. Yeah, I got it cut a little shorter and had them give me side-bang-thingies. I had some layers put into it too."

"Cool. It looks nice."

"Thank you. Um, have you seen Remus here anywhere? Did he come with you and-" Rachel paused for a moment "Lily? Since when do you hang out with James?"

"Since never and a day ago. I tripped down the stairs last night and cause a people avalanche. He and the Marauders were our landing pad, though I did end up on the bottom somehow…" Lily responded.

"Well it's not my fault you hit me so hard I practically did a full front flip before landing."

"Whatever, Potter. Remus is getting his robes fitted in Madame Maulkins with Peter and Sirius."

"Thanks Lily, I'll probably see you around later. Bye!" Rach yelled over her shoulder as she bounced off in the direction of the store.

"What was that all about?" Becca asked "Are they going out or something?"

"No, I don't think so. Unless it's a recent thing and Moony hasn't gotten around to telling us yet. Of course, I'm not exactly the group gossip, that's Peters job. He's good at getting into conversations without actually being noticed. It's kind of creepy sometimes."

"Why do you call him that?" Becca asked. Lily looked down at the table and started fidgeting with her ice cream spoon.

"Why do I call who what?" I replied, trying to figure out why Lily had reacted to Becca's question like that.

"Why do you call Remus Moony? What's the significance of the nickname?" Becca elaborated on her question.

"Oh, um, well, I'm not sure he'd want me to tell you. The reason we each have our particular nickname is kind of a secret. That is, we're not supposed to tell anyone unless the entire group approves. I guess you could say it's kind of a club rule kind of thing. Though, the "Marauders" isn't exactly a club, it's more a way of life." I replied.

"Interesting… Who wants to go look around in the book store?" Lily stood up and grabbed her small bag and purse.

"What book store?" I looked around. I definitely hadn't seen a bookstore earlier.

"That bookstore." Lily pointed to an extremely thin and extremely tall rectangle that constituted as the store front. It was so thin that I was sure it was impossible for there to be room for an actual store inside.

"Sounds good to me." I shrugged my shoulders and stood up.

"Yeah, we'll meet you in there in a little bit. We're going to go put our, um, bag in our room. Want us to take yours with us too, Lils?" Becca asked.

"Yeah, sure." Lily handed over her bag to Becca.

"We could take yours too if you like James." Rebby offered.

"Yeah, okay. Just leave it in your room though, I don't trust you two enough to give you a key to my room. Next thing you know you'll be "borrowing" another pair of my boxers." I laughed at the pretend looks of hurt on the girls faces and handed over my bag to them.

"Okay, well, see you later!" The two girls ran off like a couple of hares being chased by a hound, which, I assume, is fast. I've never actually seen a hare being chased by a hound. The point is they ran off quickly. I turned to Lily and gestured towards the incredibly small building in front of us.

"Shall we?" I asked.

"I believe we shall." She replied and led the way into the building. I followed her slowly, admiring the view. What? I'm a guy, so sue me.

I held the door open for Lily and followed her in. The bookstore was a lot bigger inside than it was on the outside. While the outside had made it seem barely big enough to be a closet, the inside was huge, practically big enough to swallow two of the great hall. The ceiling was at least twenty feet high and two large curved staircases led up to the second floor. The entire store had rows upon rows of books stacked neatly on shelves. There were large blue and black signs hovering over the different rows of shelves with the type of book in the row glowing in bright neon green light in the center. Lily and I looked at each other with wide eyes, both caught in amazement at the size of the place. Then Lily's look of amazement turned into one of utter joy. She was smiling so brilliantly at the sight of so many books all in one place that I thought if she didn't explode from joy, I just might. Merlin she's so beautiful when she smiles. Bad James, no being mushy, it'll make you want to kiss her, and you know how that turned out. Wait, she hadn't even said anything about it. She seemed to be pretending 'the kiss' had never happened. That's interesting.

"So, where to first? I'm pretty sure they have literally everything in this store." I asked her.

"I don't know. Let's check out the spells section, I'm trying to find some good books on defense." Lily replied, still smiling at the grandness of the store.

"So beautiful…" I sighed.

"What?" Lily asked me.

"Um, oh, nothing. Let's do that."

"Okay." She took off at a run looking for the right section, I followed easily behind her. I have always been a fast runner. I could run circles around a cheetah at full speed. Okay, maybe not a cheetah, but definitely Peter, maybe even Remus or Sirius. Lily stopped suddenly in front of me and I nearly ran her over trying to stop. "Here are the spells." She said and began browsing through the particular section of rows trying to find the defensive spells.

"So, why are you looking for books on defensive spells?"

"Rebby, Becca and I are trying to learn some new spells, things we won't learn in class, just in case this guy, Voldemort or whatever, actually gains some power. We want to be prepared, just in case. Plus, Becca and Rebby are studying to become Aurors. And Mikki, our other friend, she's visiting her grandmother in Germany or something, so she couldn't come here with us. Well, Mikki and I are studying to become healers, and we have to take advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts for that, probably to reverse curses and such." She answered.

"Your studying to become a healer?" I asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Oh, nothing really. I imagine you'd be a really good healer. I've just never thought about it before. You as a healer, I like it." I smiled softly at her as I imagined her in a Healer uniform at St. Mungo's healing a curse victim or shooing some little first years out of the Infirmary at Hogwarts. Yeah, she'd be a great healer; she had the talent and the right attitude for it.

Lily was blushing now. Blushing is good, though I suppose this is flirting, and flirting falls under the 'chasing Lily' column. I'm not supposed to be chasing her right now. Oh shoot. I cleared my throat and mentally shook myself out of it. "Sirius and I are trying to become either Aurors or professional quidditch players. We refused to choose one or the other until the beginning of this year. We told Dumbledore we'd wait until the beginning of the year to tell him."

"Why are you waiting?"

"We want to see if this Voldemort character is going to keep getting stronger. If he is, if no one can catch him soon, they're going to need all of the Aurors they can get their hands on at the ministry."

Lily nodded her head gravely. "Yes, I know. I have a bad feeling about this guy. Sometimes I have these dreams…" she stopped herself and shook her head. "But, anyways, that's why we're in this particular section, so let's get to it."

The two of us got down to business and searched through six or seven aisles of books on how to defend your self magically. By the time we had finished we had a stack of about twenty books to sort through and find just the right ones to actually buy. In the end we had five books that seemed extremely promising. We were headed for the counter to buy the books when we passed by a row with the words 'Self Defense' hovering over it. I stopped and went into the aisle looking at the titles on the different books. They were all about different types of defensive fighting styles. Books on Karate, Taekwondo, Kung fu, Judo, Jujutsu, wrestling, boxing, and even fencing, lined the shelves.

"James? Where'd you go?" Lily yelled from a couple aisles back.

"I'm over here." I yelled back, selecting a book on Taekwondo and flipping through the pages. Lily walked up behind me and looked over my shoulder.

"What did you find?" she asked.

"Some books on martial arts. Maybe learning to defend ourselves without wands would be helpful as well. That way, if a death eater managed to get our wands away from us, we could still kick his, uh, butt." I picked up another book on fencing. "And learning how to sword fight would just be fun in general."

"You're such a guy." She said, rolling her eyes. But never the less she browsed through the aisle with me and we ended up with a couple books of instruction on fencing, Taekwondo, and basic boxing and wrestling. We then proceeded to the checkout counter.

"I'll pay for all of these books if you let Sirius, Remus, Peter and I into your little study group." I offered.

"I can't let you do that, these books cost way too much."

"You forget, I'm rich, I can afford it."

"Oh, right, well then, you can buy all of them except this one, and you can join our study sessions if you promise me two things." She said.

"Okay, what are they?"

"One, you can't come and then just joke around all the time, or I'll kick you out."

"Yes ma'am." I gave her a military salute.

"Two, you can never, never tell anyone except the other guys where we practice. Got it?"

"Why not?"

"You just can't, okay? You'll get a full explanation when we get to school and the girls and I show you the room. You'll understand then. You can't put it on that map of yours either." She said full of seriousness.

"Okay, I promise, and I'll make sure the guys promise as well. Wait, how did you find out about the map?"

"Oh, I was curious as to why you four were always so tired on the weekends and stuff, so I stayed up late one night and saw you sneaking out. Then I was curious as to how you evaded all of the teachers and prefects, so I took to listening in on your conversations, and heard about the map. It sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind getting a good look at it someday."

"Really? And I thought you just wanted to scold me repeatedly about being an inconsiderate prat."

"Well, that too."

"The map is back in my trunk in the Leaky Cauldron. I'll get it out later and you can have a look at it if you like. Did you tell the girls about it yet?"

"No, I was going to , but I decided they didn't need to know. Plus, they would have wanted to use it to blackmail you into, er…, never mind."

"Into what?"

"Oh, nothing, just suffice it to say, it would have been either embarrassing for you, or very embarrassing for me."

"Hmm…"

"Let's go see if the boy's are finished getting their robes. They should be finished by now."

"Okay…" I said eyeing her suspiciously. She had changed that topic awfully fast.

We raced to the door of the bookstore, her with a small bag containing a random book she had found by some guy named Ken Follet, me with two huge bags full of heavy books on defense. Somehow, I still managed to win, don't ask me how. I collapsed just outside the bookstore on a bench and lay on my back breathing hard, practically wheezing.

"Um, are you okay? Do I need to call a healer for you or something?" Rachel walked over and raised an eyebrow at me. She looked over at Lily who was bent over breathing hard and laughing at the same time. "Maybe I should call on for her too; I think she may be going insane."

"No, I'm sure they're fine." Remus said stepping in beside her.

"Perhaps we should take him to a veterinarian, just in case."

"Pad, he's not a dog, like you."

"No, but he is a deer, and it's deer season, maybe he got shot."

Remus rolled his eyes and sat on my chest like I wasn't even there. "You know, you could be onto something there. Maybe he did get shot. Except he's not in the woods, and things like that don't usually happen in the middle of Diagon Alley."

Sirius sat down on my stomach next to Remus. "True. Maybe he's having an asthma attack. Do you have asthma James?" Sirius and Remus both looked down at my head, which was felt like it was going to explode. I tried to respond, but all that came out was a small wheezing breath. My mouth moved around soundlessly, a bit like a fish on dry land. Not good, too much weight on my chest and stomach. No air going in, no air going out. Head exploding. Sight fading. Darkness.

"GET OFF HIM YOU IDIOTS! HE CAN'T BREATH!" I heard Lily yell faintly. The weight was off of me suddenly, but it was too late, and I slipped into the blackness anyways.