The day passed uneventfully for the Sixth Years with them simply going to their double classes; Potions, Charms and DADA. Obviously whenever James and Sirius were together they goofed off once in a while, somehow still taking notes on what they were doing which was mostly notes on what they were doing over their NEWT's preparation. But when all four Marauders were together, they usually caused at least a little havoc. In Charms they caused the Slytherin's books move in the other direction when they reached to have a look at some information or to write anything down. Flitwick was to amused and the year was too early to give the boys a detention so he settled for a warning and threatened to take points away if the charm wasn't lifted.

Aside from the mishap in Charms, the day passed calmly until classes were finally over when the four boys bolted from the classroom, up to their dorm and locked themselves in. Only realising what they were doing too late, the girls all split up. Alice was going to meet her Sixth Year Hufflepuff boyfriend, Frank Longbottom, whilst Mary and Dorcas went to the library to find some books on hair styles which they had been discussing how to do magically since that morning. Shrugging Lily and Marly wandered back to the Common Room tossing ideas about what the prank the boys were planning might be.

That was until they had an unexpected encounter with the person Lily wanted to see the least in the entire school. The black haired boy blocked the corridor making it so that the two girls couldn't pass by to carry on to their Common Room.

"Lily I need to talk to you"

"What do you want, Snape? You've done nothing but hurt Lily since you started to hang around all those wanna- be Death Eaters" Snape winced, "which you're probably one of now so why don't you shut up and move out the way? And why you're at that, leave us alone" Marlene defended. With each word, Snape shrunk more into himself. When Lily was his best friend, Marly had been civil to him, almost friendly and now she had shut him out just as much as Lily had. Snape wouldn't admit it out loud but he missed having friends like Marlene was to Lily and vice versa. None of the Slytherin's were that friendly to anyone and they certainly weren't as close as the group of Gryffindors.

Feeling the anger bubble up under the surface, Snape stood straighter and his voice as firmer, "I'm not leaving until I speak to Lily. Yeah, whatever, I'll leave you Gryffindor's alone but not until I speak to her".

Lily placed her hand on her best friends forearm, silently telling Marly to let her speak to him herself and that she needed to let her do this. The slightest nod was given from the black haired girl next to Lily, encouraging her to step forward and confront Snape, "So talk, you have five minutes and no more. I'm not feeling lenient to you Snape" pulling her wand from her boot.

In a rush Snape struggled to speak properly, "I never meant to call you that word, that was all Potter's fault, maybe Black's as well. I swear if it wasn't for those arrogant toe-rags, then we would be fine right now. You believe in second chances so please give me one Lily, I need you to be my friend again . I know you hate the Marauders just as much as I do so why can-" but he was interrupted by the Prefect.

"In case you haven't noticed Snivellus" using the names Sirius had given him two years ago, "I'm friends with the Marauders now, not with you. Stop telling me what to do. I can make my own friends and my own enemies and at the moment you're leaning more towards the latter. Don't give me that pathetic look. I know you want to be a Death Eater, don't deny it. And that means you want to get rid of my kind. Muggleborns. Or as you so kindly put in June, Mudbloods" she glared. "Why would I give you a second chance when really I've given you so many since First Year. Get over it Snape, we aren't friends anymore and we never will be. So leave me alone" and with that Lily made a wide circle around the boy from her childhood and carried on to her destination leaving two very stunned people.

Marly snapped out of her stupor and made sure to hit Snape's shoulder as she passed before jogging to catch up with the mad girl in front of her.

"Hey Lils?"

"Yeah Mar?"

"Are you ok, sweetie?"

After a few moments of silence, Lily finally responded in a calm voice though her words showed her frustration, "No, not really. I mean he called me that word, he didn't have to say the curse word he could've just stayed silent. But no, of course he just lashes out, he can't bear to have someone come and defend him so he hurts me as well. I mean, he says it just slipped out but that means he uses it a lot otherwise and thats worse than just calling me a Mudblood. It's because he's friends with all of the wrong sort isn't it? I mean if he wasn't sorted into Slytherin would he still be friends with him and on the path that he is?" she got quieter on the final question and looked sadly at Marly who gave her a comforting hug.

"Ok, first off, you've got to remember that it wasn't your fault so don't beat yourself up about it. But otherwise, I think it doesn't matter what House he was sorted in to, it was how he was bought up and his ideals as a result of that. Even if you were still friends and you were still his anchor to the good side of this War, a majority of his mind would be on the other side and that would happen even without his friends and his House. There's nothing to do about it now and you wouldn't have been able to do anything in the past either"

Lily's non-committal "I guess so" ended the conversation as they reached the Fat Lady and stepped through. Heading towards the girls staircase to put their bags away, they ran in to Lucy. Well, they were run into. As Lucy was running round the corner of the staircase, she collided with the other two girls. Helping the younger girl up as she had fallen backward from the impact of the larger girls, Marly asked "Hey, what are you in such a rush for? Where's the fire?"

"There isn't a fire, there's four other girls trying to make me play truth or dare and they are already obsessed with the idea that I've got a crush on the Marauders because I was hanging around with you guys last night!" the younger girl exclaimed loudly relieving weird stares from the other occupants of the room.

Calmly, Lily reassured Lucy, "Don't worry you can stay with us instead if you want. Go find a sofa and we'll be back down when we've put our bags in our dorm ok?"

Lucy agreed and ran to the only free sofa, conveniently right in front of the roaring fire.

A few minutes later, the two Sixth Years returned and started quizzing the youngest Potter about her first day.

"It was amazing, at breakfast Mc... McFonarol?"

Marly grinned whilst Lily corrected her, "McGonagall, sweetie, don't let Sirius hear you say the other" before winking.

Lucy smiled and carried on, "Yeah, her! Well, she gave us our timetables and I had Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, Transfiguration and History of Magic... Did you know Binns is actually so boring? He made a goblin war sound like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly! Anyway yeah my day was pretty awesome, I made some friends in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff so I've got a few friends now"

The conversation carried on in the same way pretty much talking about first days and funny memories from their time in their younger years before they realised it was soon to be dinner and they might as well head down to the Great Hall.

Quarter of an hour later, everyone was seated in the Hall, the Sixth Years all together and Lucy and her friends close by but in their own group. Soon enough, Dumbledore stood to start the meal which was obviously the signal for the Marauders to start their prank.

Sirius stood boldly on the bench where he was sat and shouted at the top of his voice, which could be very loud, "Prepare for mayhem!" before pointing his wand at the ceiling and muttering an incantation that caused glitter of red and gold to fall and land on the students below. As this happened, James muttered another spell causing the clouds that were in the imitation of the sky to turn thicker and redder so that they covered the entire canopy and swirled prettily. After the glitter had stopped falling, everyone that the decoration covered started to turn a different colour depending at the house table they say at; Gryffindors turned a light purple, Hufflepuffs turned a bright orange, Ravenclaws a dark grey and the Slytherins a neon pink.

During the commotion of people laughing at each other and the stunned expressions of the other houses, Peter cast the last spell that caused the glitter to fly back up (still leaving the coloured skin) and form the words, 'Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are delighted to welcome you all back to school. And we want to warn you; prepare yourself'.

Once the laughter and grumbling died down, the Headmaster stood. Even Dumbledore had not been spared from the prank though he didn't seem to mind judging from the twinkle in his eye.

"I do have to admit I thought this prank was going to come much earlier than this boys, I'm slightly disappointed. Though I'm glad it happened now as the first day is stressful for many and you may have elevated some of the unhappiness! Anyway, how long will everyone's skin stay these colours?"

The three other Marauders looked to Remus, they always took turns with who would answer the questions of the teacher on behalf of the group and Remus had the honour of starting this year off, "We wanted to encourage House unity today, Sir. Therefore when you compliment or help someone from another House, your skin will change back to your normal colour within the next few minutes... However, we wanted to mix it up for the Professors this time, Sir, and each will need to hug another teacher and then both people will have their skin back to normal in no time" he finished with a smirk.

As Remus explained the part about the teachers, nearly everyone swivelled their head to look at McGonagall and smirked as she glared at the four Marauders. Ignoring this, Dumbledore smiled and started dinner causing the food to appear, after assigning the Marauders a detention each.

A/N: Ok so I'm back! Two chapters today to make up for the three months I haven't been here... So again, what do you think? How's it coming along? Your opinions? PLEASE REVIEW DARLINGS!