Lily had never been this anxious for the owl post to arrive, not in all her years at school. James' nerves seemed to have evened out since the night before (she wasn't present for whatever he talked about with the boys, but apparently it did him some good), but she could still feel his knee shaking as he sat across the Gryffindor table from her at breakfast. Even though he was laughing with Sirius at the state of Dirk Cresswell's tie (possibly the result of an evening with Greta Catchlove, who Lily had noticed sneaking out of the common room as she went down for the feast), he was still a bit twitchy, constantly looking up at the blue morning sky for a sign of wings. Finally, after what seemed like hours of Peter trying to get Lily to admit that she thought Dirk and Greta had shagged the night before, and after making herself eat some toast and jam, the Great Hall was filled with the sound of wings. Of course, Elvis was almost the last owl to arrive (he loved to take his time), but she couldn't have been more grateful to see him. He almost landed in the jam, but James quickly scooped him up off the table and untied the two letters that hung from his leg. Lily fed the poor bird some sausage as Potter opened his mail, scanning the pages for news. She could see the envelopes, one labeled with the St. Mungo's seal, and one with handwriting she didn't recognize, although it seemed to bear an address in Wiltshire (Trowbridge, to be exact), where many affluent [read: pureblood] wizarding families kept their mansions. She knew for a fact that Lucius Malfoy stayed there with his grandparents during the summer, so it was logical that the Potters resided there as well. James was forbidding her from peeking at the letters, but for the first time in 18 hours, his mood had seemed to actually improve (instead of his acting as though it had). The clock rang out through the Great Hall, and Lily jumped up to direct the first-years to their classes; to her surprise, James got up from across the table, catching her eye.

"Lads, will you save us seats in Charms? Have to go make sure the ickle firsties don't fall off any staircases on their way to History of Magic this year." As Peter nodded vigorously (Sirius and Remus rolling their eyes over their pudding), James jogged around to the end of the Gryffindor table to wait for Lily.

"Hey, can you keep a secret?" he whispered as she started to call for the new students, craning her neck to see if any of them had managed to lose their schedules already.

"Of course I can, you tosser! Noticed how I haven't run to McGonagall about last night yet? Because I can keep a secret." she whispered back, spinning on her heel and strolling out of the Hall.

Archimedes, could James Potter have more going on? This was definitely the most hectic that his first 36 hours had ever been at Hogwarts. Thank the heavens that Elvin (Elvis? Elrond?) had finally shown up, would have knocked over half of the dishes on the table if it weren't for years of Quidditch training- combined with nerves. The letter from St. Mungo's was short, simply explaining that his father had been admitted to the hospital and that he could visit him on the fourth floor (Spell Damage) in a few days if he so wished. The second piece of mail came from his home in Trowbridge, his mother informing him that the "snake was shedding its skin", and that "the fire was going to need stoking soon". She was using their old code system, developed by his father when Voldemort first appeared in England. If this "Dark Lord" was really rising, like she said, he had to talk to Dumbledore. That damn Order of the Hippogriff, or whatever the hell it was, the "fire" that needed "stoking", might need James to drop out of school, maybe needing his friends as well! At least if that was his fate, he wouldn't have to focus on organizing Quidditch practice anymore.

James' head snapped out of his mother's handwriting as the clock chimed throughout the castle, echoing into the Great Hall and rattling the cups of pumpkin juice and cider in front of him. Across the table, Lily was jumping up and grabbing her bookbag; where the bloody hell did she think she was- oh fuck, the first-years! He sprung off the bench, parchment and quills scattering from his already-messy bag, calling out to the boys to save him and Lily seats with Flitwick. Meeting her at the end of the table, he murmured "Hey, can you keep a secret?", interrupting her efforts to get the attention of a cluster of eleven-year olds that had somehow forgotten where the exit was.

"Of course I can, you tosser! Noticed how I haven't run to McGonagall about last night yet? Because I can keep a secret." she hissed at him before marching out of the Hall. James smirked (he would try to tell her all he could on the way back to Charms), falling in line behind the little kids, making sure none of them accidentally wandered into the dungeons. Or into a ghost, for that matter. He tried to pay attention to his duties(Merlin, some of these firsties were twitchy) but it was getting difficult not to watch Evans' hair swinging in that plait down her back, her voice drifting to the back of the line as she called out to the new students. He used to tease her that he looked like one of those Muggle tour guides (he was pretty sure that was the right phrase) that he saw whenever he went to London, the ones in the funny hats waving flags around so that their tourists wouldn't fall off the Tower Bridge or whatever. Either way, he was loving the view he got- not many girls could rock the uniform's pleated skirts, but Evans was one who could. No, what was he thinking! His dad was in St. Mungo's, he might have to drop out of Hogwarts, and he hadn't even thought about when to start Quidditch try-outs. Lilypad was cute, but she was maybe 5th or 6th on his list of "James-Potter's-Things-to-Worry-About-at-Hogwarts-in-1977". At least, that's where she was supposed to be. Maybe all this stress from his parents' encounter with Lord Asshole was the reason behind all of this, that's what Remus had suggested last night. Padfoot had immediately hopped on that bandwagon, proclaiming that this anxiety about the start of a war had given James an outlet to pour his love for Lily into (he had actually started to climb up onto the desk by this point, about to expound on the wonders of love as he was wont to do, and Peter had to pull him down before he tried to leap onto the bed).

James was suddenly torn from his thoughts when he heard a first year (Bailey? Barkley?) yell "Look out!" His head jerked up, and he immediately jumped to the side, getting out of the way of the Headless Hunters barrelling along the corridor by the Fat Lady. Apparently, they had decided that terrifying the piss out of eleven-year-olds was a far better method of entertaining themselves than cantering through the dungeons and practicing for their infamous Halloween Hunt. Last year, the ghostly horses had decided to stampede the Great Hall (most likely an act of "humor" instigated by Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore), ruining the food by running through the tables. Peeves had then taken one or two of the heads hostage, requiring the Bloody Baron to come and menace the poltergeist until he finally gave returned the body parts, although not to their proper owners. Merlin, he wished that Dumbledore would just relegate them to the dungeons now, but apparently the start-of-year festivities were just too dull and needed spicing up. Whatever the morality was of the Huntsmen though, he was surprised that Barnesley (that was definitely his name) had had the foresight to alert him to their presence. Whatever, he'd have to remember that he owed the kid one.

Did they actually need to be saving seats for them? If James and Lily had walked into McGonagall's class five minutes before the gong, they still would have been able to excuse themselves with the "Head business" excuse. Peter was glad to do it, but it was really necessary? Either way, he was sure Lily would be glad to see that they had gotten seats at the front of the classroom- on the train, she had been spouting about needing to perfect her nonverbal spells in order to pursue her career as a Healer. She had been trying out her healing spells on the Marauders all summer, fixing up their little scrapes and bruises after their Quidditch scrimmages. As he remembered, she and Moony had grown especially close after he started to let her administer to him in the days following each full moon. This last full moon had been less than a week ago, leaving Remus a bit out-of-sorts to prepare for his prefect duties, as well as their upcoming N.E.W.T exams. Hopefully the start of classes would distract him enough from his condition- besides, the younger students were always particularly wild during the first month or so, he would have enough discipline to handle. Come to think of it (and Peter was definitely thinking about it, especially if "it" was in the shape of Emmeline Vance), the upperclassmen would probably be quite unruly with the rush of encircling hormones. After all, hadn't they seen the result of Greta Catchlove's handiwork all over Cresswell this morning? It was only September 2nd, and the randiness looked like it would be at an all time high.

Peter was knocked out of his reverie quite literally, his train of thoughts stalled by a smack to the back of the head from Sirius sitting next to him. Prongs and Lily were making their way into the classroom, whispering excitedly to each other and looking happier than they had all day. On his left, Sirius was muttering under his breath, "... guess that's two more people getting some action today, I need to turn up my Charm! Get it, Professor, I need to turn up my charm, because this is Charms class? Yessir, I'll shut it now, thank you very much Professor." Peter smiled over his friend's head at Remus, who rolled his eyes and pushed his bookbag to the floor, opening up the bench to the Head Boy and Girl.

…

"Pettigrew! You lazy Muggle-lover, move your arse along, why don't you?" Mulciber whispered to him from the shadows by the dungeon staircase. Nervously, Peter shuffled to meet him, silently praying that this meeting would just be to tell him that he didn't need to join the Slytherins' creepy cult anymore, that it was all just a joke, that Volde-whatsisface didn't want a nasty Gryffindor in his ranks anyway… He knew that wouldn't actually happen, but what else could be so damn urgent that they had needed to see him in the terri-fucking-fying dungeon right on the second night of term?

He had descended a few steps into the darkness (it would seem that Peeves had come through and deemed it his responsibility to extinguish all of the torches) when a hand covered his mouth and he was roughly shoved into the dungeon wall. His thoughts flickered to his friends, up in the common room, probably discussing James' parents and how good ol' Pete had to sneak off, the tosser… For a moment, he considered transforming into his Animagus form, but the legal consequences for that could be so much worse than what he might experience at the hands of these idiots. Thank Merlin he had learned to Spellotape his wand to his hip, so that he was the only one to find it and use it. If only they would just let him g- BANG! a red flash shot through Peter's vision, and he fell into darkness.