Disclaimer: Obviously don't own anything, don't know why you'd actually bother to sue me: I have nothing.

Chapter 15:Back in the Game

School had been back in for a month but that hadn't stopped the rain lashing against the glass windows with force towards the end of January. Like always during this time, the students found themselves confined within the walls of their second home and it seemed that no one, except Lily, was bursting to get out of them.

It seemed that over time she was the only one doing something with all her time and effort towards the Felicity/Remus cause. Of course, whenever she asked James to help he would help with whatever she needed but even now he wasn't one to come up with plans. Jess and Sirius spend the most of the time bickering, nothing out of the usual but even through all the arguing they rarely avoided each other and in truth Lily began to believe they both actually enjoyed the sport. Lily could never seem to find Felicity or Remus these days either and although half of her wished she could believe they were together at this time, her other side saw the truth when Claudia was never around at these times either.

"I give up," Lily declared, sitting down at the Gryffindor table for dinner one night "I don't know what else I can do. When I find one, I can't find the other thus none of my plans are being made possible"

Sirius looked up at her from across the table and gave her a reassuring smile.

"Lily… can you please pass the salt?"

Rolling her eyes Lily passed it to him, where he proceeded to dump half the contents onto his roast potatoes. Lily placed her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her palm, drumming her fingers along her cheek as she watched Sirius consuming his potatoes before it became too hard to bear.

"You know Sirius, you really are a disgusting character," Lily remarked, turning around in her seat to search the top half of the table for a better seating option.

"You obviously haven't seen me with the ladies," he replied once freeing his mouth for speech and giving her a flirtatious wink. Lily gave him a blank stare.

"It's obviously never been a dinner date,"

"Oh contraire my dear Lily, we just usually skip right to dessert" he replied, placing another potato into his mouth and continued to smile at Lily as his jaw continued to chomp down at the contents.

"I'll make a note to warn Jess" Lily smiled and watched in satisfaction as Sirius's smile immediately dropped and the chewing ceased.

"Whaght?" he managed to cough out before processing he needed to swallow the remaining contents of his mouth before his speech could be audible. Lily, thoroughly enjoying herself replied

"Oh, I don't know… you follow her around all the time, you jump out behind corners and scare her and you never let her win an argument. I thought they were all the signs that a boy likes a girl?"

Sirius shook his head sadly "Lily, you've been pretending to be a girl for too long you've become delirious. Lay off the magazines," he said, patting her gently on the shoulder before standing up and walking out of the Great Hall.

"But I've always been a girl!" Lily shouted after his retreating back, attracting stares from the people sitting in her immediate surrounding. Sirius turned around and nodded patronisingly at her before continuing out of the Hall.

-:-

"What's wrong?" Jess asked as Lily stomped into the dormitory not long after without looking up from the latest edition of The Adventures of Martin Miggs. Lily paused.

"Claudia's not here," she responded; Lily nodded and continued to look around "Felicity isn't here either and-" she continued, putting down the comic for once to look at Lily "Patience is still hounding McGonagall for a dormitory change and Remus still respects girls too much to enter the dormitory without the rest of the Marauders, even if he is dating Claudia. So it's safe to talk,"

"Graah!" Lily growled as she sat down on her bed.

"You know, I do know we've been friends for a while but I still haven't perfected your use of animal impersonations. Best keep it English," Jess replied and Lily sighed.

"I don't know what to do. I mean, I'm trying to help Felicity with the whole Remus thing but it's a bit hard because these days she's always off somewhere in her own world, probably lost behind a loose portrait and Remus is never around, like he's stolen James' invisibility cloak and placed a permanent sticking charm on it to himself. And on the other hand, you and Sirius…." Lily trailed off and Jess looked up at her in surprise.

"Say what?"

"You two are always together doing nothing but argue and don't notice anything else when you're both in the same room because you are both determined to win and it's quite annoying,"

"He's only following me because he knows I'm going to win and I'm not giving up with a fight. And if worst comes to worst, I'll just lead him down to the third floor and shove him into that cabinet,"

"Still not helping," Lily told her, bringing her legs up onto the bed and crossing them.

"Lil, I don't know what you want me to do. I'm not a girly girl so I can't tell you what's going on in Felicity's mind. She could be sulking, she could have given up and hiding so she doesn't have to see Claudia and Remus, not that any of us have seen them these days, or true she could have genuinely gotten lost. But we need to rethink our game plan, and while you're doing that, I'm going to continue my research to ensure that I win," Jess said, picking up Martin Miggs and continued to read.

Lily laid down on the bed and stared up at her canopy. True, this task really needed to rethought. Maybe she'd give Felicity a map next time she saw her to prevent her from getting lost again.

"That's it!" Lily exclaimed, sitting bolt up right on her bed. Jess raised her eyes up over the book stare at Lily in confusion as she sprinted out of the dormitory. In record time, Lily found herself standing in front of the fifth boy's dormitory door, banging on it with her fists. The door lurched open so suddenly, Lily almost found herself falling face first through the door.

"You rang?" James asked her as Lily centred herself.

"James," Lily managed to say through her puffing, she was finding herself out of shape without Quidditch this year, "James!" she exclaimed, once she had calmed down and through her hands onto his shoulders "I need to borrow the map,"

"May I ask why?" James asked as he crossed the room to his trunk and began to rummage within its contents.

"I think we might be back in the game," Lily replied as she walked over and sat on the bed next to the door.

"How so? Did you find Felicity?" James asked before something in his trunk grabbed his hand and pulled it down within its depths.

"No, did you find Remus?" Lily asked as she watched James struggle with his trunk.

"No, did you find Claudia?" James asked as he took out his wand and started smacking the trunk.

"Nope,"

"Well that settles it," James said, freeing his hand from the trunk, map in hand "They're having a threesome,"

"Urgh," Lily replied, grabbing the map from James before hitting him with it "I don't get guy's obsessions with threesomes,"

"Threesomes and lesbians" James said looking off into the distance "Girls will never understand"

"Right, whatever," Lily said, walking away and tapping the map "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good," She sat down on the bed and began to go through the different folds and layers of the map.

"Who are you looking for?" James asked as he slammed his trunk shut and joining her on the bed.

"Felicity. We should have thought of this ages ago," Lily told him as he began helping her search the castle, well, metaphorically.

"Not Remus or Claudia?" James asked as they finished the seventh floor.

"No, whatever Felicity's doing is going to be less harmful and innocent than whatever those two are doing. Besides, I think they're trying to keep that private,"

"Yeah, right," James muttered under his breath "Appearing only for classes, not going to draw attention at all,"

"I actually didn't think Remus was that hormonal," Lily commented as they looked through the sixth and fifth floor.

"He's the one who's dated the least in the last five years, of course the guy is hormonal. I'm just surprised he has so much stamina," James replied and Lily looked up at him.

"Ew. Did not need to know. Besides," Lily said, pointing to the map "I found her,"

-:-

"Lily!" Felicity exclaimed in surprise as the two nearly crashed in the hallway.

"I don't think I've ever seen you move so fast Fe, in a hurry?" Lily asked as the two of them regained their balance and space.

"No, not really. I opened a chocolate frog and it got away from me so I was trying to find it,"

"Someone's probably found it and eaten it by now Fe. Sorry," Lily told her and she sighed.

"Oh well, I'll just have to find another one then. So, ah, what's up?"

"That's what I actually came to find you about. We haven't hung out in ages and I wanted to talk. Lets go back to the common room," Lily suggested and Felicity allowed Lily to lead her back to the Gryffindor common room and back up to their room.

"Oh, you found her!" Jessica said in surprise and jumped off her bed "So where have you been?"

"Oh, um, around?" Felicity guessed, looking between Lily and Jessica.

"She was trying to find her chocolate frog when I found her down on the third floor," Lily informed Jessica.

"I really hate when that happens," Jess said sympathetically, though Lily doubted Jess ever had a problem catching her chocolate frogs.

"You said you wanted to talk?" Felicity turned to Lily questioningly "What about?"

"I just wanted to know how you were feeling these days. I know Claudia and Remus have made themselves less public but I know that can still be hard so I was wondering how you were holding up?" Lily asked her as the three of them sat down on Lily's bed.

"Oh, um, okay? I guess. I don't know, I don't like thinking about it," Felicity told Lily. Lily and Jess exchanged a look.

"There's another reason that we wanted to talk to you," Jess said to Felicity "Which Lily is going to ask you know," Lily shot Jessica a look.

"Thanks Jess," She shrugged,

"You're welcome,"

"What is it Lily?" Felicity sighed as Lily plucked up the courage to blurt it out.

"I was just wondering how things where on the whole 'Operation Get Remus Back From The Evil Gryffindor Skank And Back To Felicity'?"

"Oh," Felicity said in surprise before thinking. "I don't know, its just that, well, it hurts. Lily it hurts so much you can't imagine and as much as I like Remus it just seems that we're not winning, and that we will never be able to win and I just don't think I can face that,"

"Aww honey," Lily said, leaning forward to hug Felicity "Remus isn't that stupid, really. He'll come to his senses; it's just a matter of when. Sometimes boys just need a little push,"

"You think he will? Because really, I'm thinking he won't. The more time he spends sucking face with Claudia is more and more time he's being taken by the wicked bitch and it looks like the light is about to come out,"

"Hey, it's us they'll be dealing with, remember?" Jessica reminded Felicity "If we're going to continue this crusade, we need to plan. Which means we need James, and as much as I hate to say, Sirius, and together we'll join forces just like the power ranges and after we're through, the wicked bitch won't know what's hit her,"

A/N:Hi guys, I hope this is okay, I guess you'll let me know in the reviews if you're angry or its not up to your standards. Umm in my defence I haven't written any fiction in a year? Well I do hope you think this chapter is alright, I'm sorry its been so long. Thank you for your reviews and comments, a lot of them really touched me :) I don't know when something else will come but I'll try my hardest, I'm doing it for you guys now.

Moonlight Honeysuckle xo