Chapter 16: A Reason To Party

"Add 5 mice, stir clockwise…" I muttered to myself. I was in the library, studying for a Potions test tomorrow. Between classes, homework, prefect duties, and James, I barely had anytime to stop and breathe. They started us on Apparition classes a few days ago and that gave me even less time. I sighed and looked down at my notes again. I felt a hand cover my mouth.

"Don't. Say. A. Word." The voice said. I rolled my eyes. It was only Sirius being…anything but serious. Pun very intended. He stood me up and pushed my head into his chest and held my arms behind my back with his free hand. He walked me to the back of the library. James and Peter were already there, engaging in some sort of conversation. James' eyes widened when he saw me.

"Padfoot, when you said you were going to bring her here, I thought you meant civilly, not practically kidnapping her!" James whined. Peter snickered.

"Yes, but this ways' more fun. Not to mention, she is quite cuddly." Sirius said, wrapping his arms around my waist. James glared at him but didn't move. I looked up at Sirius and he had a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Come on Prongs, I know you're jealous!" Sirius taunted. He rubbed my stomach, but swatted his arm away. James let out a deep growl.

"James, don't do anything, you have one more minute to hold yourself." Peter said, glancing at his wristwatch.

"Oh, one more minute of fun for me!" Sirius smiled. I rolled my eyes. Knowing them, this was some kind of bet. Sirius pulled me closer to him, so every part of my back was touching him. James narrowed his eyes. I had a feeling this was going to get very interesting.

"30 more seconds. Padfoot, at this rate, you're going to lose!" I turned around and saw a smug grin on Sirius' face. He started stroking my hair as he evilly grinned. I felt like a cat. I looked at the desk James was holding, and he tightened his grip on it, causing his knuckles to turn white. He gritted his teeth but remained where he was. It seemed like James was going to win this. Of course, Sirius must have decided he needed to step up his game, so slid his hand down to my hip. James stood upright and glared at Sirius, as though daring him to go on.

"10 seconds!" Peter said, grinning. He was obviously enjoying the show. I would, too, but I was practically being harassed right now… I looked at Sirius who was now smiling like a mad man. He slowly and carefully moved his hand down to my thigh and kept his eyes on James. I definitely would've jumped up or moved his hands away, but my hands were held behind my back and he held me tight so I couldn't move. He then proceeded to rub my thigh, which was extremely uncomfortable, so I squirmed in his grip. James' eyes bulged out and he growled again. James ran towards us and knocked us down. It took me a few moments to regain my senses, and when I did, I found myself right in the middle of Sirius and James. James smiled at me and I laughed. He put a hand through my hair and kissed me.

"Guys! Get off of me!" Sirius wailed from under us. I felt my face turn red. Only now did I register how awkward and wrong this situation was. It would look worse if someone else saw. James got off of me first and then pulled me up. As Sirius got up and started muttering to him self. "Trying to snog while I'm under them. Merlin, that was gross." Of course, because of his loud voice, we all heard and laughed.

"Okay guys, we really need to get back on track. Moony will probably finish his shower any minute now!" Peter said impatiently as he looked at the map.

"Hold on!" Sirius said.

"What?" Peter hissed very un-Peter like.

"Prongs needs to hand over the money. I won." Sirius said with a smug grin.

"No Padfoot, you didn't. Prongs did. He jumped on you guys after the last second was up." Peter corrected.

"He...what? But…he…and…I…her…Bloody Hell." Sirius screamed. I giggled. He shuffled though his pockets and gave James a few galleons.

"Wait." I said. They all looked at me in confusion. "I deserve half. I was practically harassed!" I explained. James considered it for a moment and gave me half of it.

"You know there's a name for girls who get money in exchange for…favors." Sirius snickered.

"GIT!" James and I screamed at the same time. We both smacked him on the head.

"Hey! Watch the hair!" He screeched. We slapped him on the arm, and for good measure, I kicked him in the shin. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry." He sighed, backing away from us both.

"GUYS! Concentrate!" Peter yelled. We all looked at him in surprise. I didn't think he could yell that loud. But, he was a Marauder. "We need to plan this for Moony!" Peter said in the same tone.

"Right, right. Okay, so we're planning it for his actual birthday, when else? It's two days from today. Padfoot, Wormtail, you're in charge of decorating the common room and the music. I'll figure out the food and getting people to come shouldn't be a problem. Lily, you need to keep Moony distracted." James rolled on, kicking into his usual leader-mode. We all nodded.

"I can probably explain to Amelia, and we can arrange for him to patrol that day for the amount of time necessary." I told him.

"That's great. Padfoot, make the music enjoyable please." James warned. Sirius nodded, and smiled as though he had a plan in mind.

"Moony left our dormitory. We better head back that way." Peter said, looking at the map once more.

"Alright. Lily, you coming?" James asked. I nodded and packed up my stuff.

"So what exactly was the bet about? I figured out most of it, but I want to know the exact details." I told James. He ruffled his hair a bit.

"Well, Padfoot bet that I can't hold myself when I'm jealous and I said I could. So, we had the timer for one minute and thirty seconds. We had specific rules though; he couldn't kiss you, or touch er…certain parts of your body. And he couldn't touch your bare skin." He explained.

"Boys." I muttered to myself in disbelief. They honestly had nothing better to do, did they?

"Red liked it, though, didn't you?" Sirius said, winking. He wrapped his arms around my waist. I rolled my eyes.

"No Sirius, I most definitely did not like it." I told him. I squirmed out of his grip and walked over to James and hugged him.

"Red, you wound me!" Sirius said dramatically and put his hands over his heart. I rolled my eyes again.

"Okay, so Remus should be back in about ten minutes. Is there anything else you want me to do?" I asked.

"Yeah, go stand outside the common room." Sirius said as he helped James put up a banner. I shrugged and left the common room. I stood in front of the Fat Lady. Right now, we were getting ready for Remus' surprise party. The day passed by pretty eventfully. In the morning, Sirius, Peter, and James got the entire Great Hall to sing Happy Birthday, save the Slytherins. Remus looked like he didn't enjoy it, but I think he was secretly glad. Sirius also made a hat for Remus to wear that said "Birthday Wolf" but Remus refused to wear it because of the "wolf" part, so Sirius changed it to boy and put it on his head. It had flashing words and attracted a lot, and probably too much attention. In Transfiguration, McGonagall asked Remus to take it off because the lights were too distracting. But Sirius being Sirius messed up the charms and it was stuck to Remus' head. She tried several charms with no avail. She called for Dumbledore, who removed it with a flick of his wand. It amazed me how he didn't even have to think twice. I really wouldn't be surprised if he had a whole book of spells entitled Spells to Reverse Marauders' Screw-ups.

Remus was currently patrolling with the girl Hufflepuff prefect. I had Amelia arrange that the boy prefect ask Remus to switch patrol times with him for this week.

Inside, the common room was decorated with Gryffindor colors and many people showed up and were waiting in the Common Room now. Peter arranged for a lot of food because he knew the house elves well. Sirius said he got music from his own collection, so I was hoping the music wasn't too out of the ordinary. James being James went around ordering the three of us around, claiming he had to "make everything perfect". He strongly reminded me of a girl on her wedding day.

"Hi Lily!" Remus said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Oh, hey Remus."

"So, what are you doing out here?" He asked. I had two options. Find an excuse or just lead him in without answering. Frankly, I prefer the latter.

"Feliz Cumpleaños." I told the portrait. It was Spanish for Happy Birthday. I set it up with her so inside, Peter, who was listening on the other side of the Portrait, would hear the special password and realize it's me and Remus. Then, he'd go tell the others to hide. Yes, it had to be complicated. This was Remus we were talking about.

"When'd they change the password?" Remus asked, confused.

"Oh, I just changed it a few minutes earlier!" The Fat Lady replied. "Good day!" She said, smiling. She swung open and winked as we went through.

"SURPRISE!" We heard almost the second we stepped through. I grinned. It looked like the entire Gryffindor Tower decided to come! Remus' eyes widened and his face turned red.

"Wow" Was all he could say. I smiled and hugged him.

"Happy Birthday!" I said.

"Moony, let go of my girlfriend before I have to hit you on your birthday." James laughed. We separated and James and Remus did one of their weird man-hugs with pats on the back and all that craziness. Sirius came out from the crowd and James backed up about five feet from Remus, and just when I was about to question why, Sirius ran towards Remus with his arms wide and a goofy grin plastered on his face. He hugged Remus by his waist and lifted him up and twirled him around.

"PADFOOT!" Remus screamed in terror. "PUT ME DOWN!"

"Awww…alright…." Sirius said dejectedly, putting Remus on his feet. Remus sighed in relief. He turned around to Peter and gave him a quick hug. Peter wasn't a hugger.

"How long have you guys been planning this?" Remus asked in an amused, grateful, yet reprimanding voice.

"Well…we've been thinking about it for a month, we actually started planning it a few days ago." James explained.

"How'd you get all these people to come then?" Remus asked in disbelief, gesturing to the party in front of him.

"We're Gryffindors, Moony." Sirius said as though that explained everything. Remus smiled. "Well, why are we standing around, then? Let's get this party started!" Sirius yelled, pumping his fist. He turned on the music with a flick of his wand and started dancing in the middle of the common room. I rolled my eyes.

"Are you coming?" James asked, gesturing where a crowd was quickly forming around Sirius. I shook my head.

"You know how I am about parties. I'll stay down here, but I'm not joining…that." I said, looking over to the crowd in disgust. He looked at me sadly and he begged me with my eyes. I was just about to give in when I heard Sirius screaming and yelling. I shook my head. "Sorry." I told him, giving him a small smile. He sighed.

"Fine." He touched my cheek with his hand. He sighed sadly once more, but left and joined the big mob concentrated in the middle of the common room. I felt a little guilty but there was absolutely NO WAY I was going in there. I was a horrible dancer. End of story.

I walked past the mob, trying to avoid everyone. I knew if I accidentally ran into Sirius, he wouldn't take no for an answer and would drag me by the ear if he had to. I sighed in relief as I reached the fireplace area without anyone stopping me. I sat down on my usual couch in front of the fireplace.

"Hello." I heard a soft voice next to me say. The girl sat down next to me. It was Marlene Merrit. We knew each other, but never really talked.

"Hey Marlene." I replied. "Didn't want to join either?" I asked, jerking my thumb in the direction of the ever-growing party.

"Well, I was in it. And then some ridiculous song came on and I left." She explained. I listened a bit more closely.

I see a little silhouetto of a man

Scaramouch, Scaramouch, Will you do the Fandango?

Thunderbolts are lightning, very very frightening me

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro

Magnifico

I'm just a poor boy,

Nobody loves me

He's just a poor boy, from a poor family

Spare him his life from this monstrosity

I laughed. "This is Sirius' collection." I explained.

"Oh, well that explains a lot. I've always thought he and Dumbledore had that one thing in common: Being off their rockers. Absolutely loony in the head, the both of them." She laughed. I smiled. I was actually having fun, rather than sitting in a corner reading my muggle books. Suddenly, the whole common room quieted. All that could be heard was the music.

Hey Jude don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

"Oh, I love this song!" I exclaimed. My dad always used to play it and sing along to it whenever it came on the wireless.

"That's great. Maybe you'll agree to dance?" James asked from behind me. I smiled and looked at Marlene. She shrugged, telling me it was fine with her. I followed James to the dance floor and put his arms around my waist. I put my arms around his neck and he pulled me closer. We started swaying, but only lightly. "Great success, wasn't it? The party, I mean."

"Yeah, seemed like everyone enjoyed it. With all of our homework and tests, it's great to wind down. And, I'm glad we're finding happy things, especially in such dismal times." I told James, unable to look away from his gaze that always took my breath away.

"Definitely." He agreed.

"May I cut in?" Sirius asked, with a hint of mockery in his voice. James growled, still not taking his eyes off of me.

"No Padfoot, you may not." He replied.

"Oh come on! I'm your best mate! I won't do anything!" Sirius whined.

"That's too bad." James smirked. "She's all mine." He said, hugging me to his chest. I rolled my eyes. Boys.

A/N: Sorry about the short chapter. It's more of a filler, really.

Not much time anymore. I gotta take care of my brother, and grandmother while my parents have been in New York all week. But, I'm glad I can update, writing really helps me wind down.

I'm happy with all of the reviews I got last chapter, I really appreciate it! :)

I'm hoping we can hit 40, how about we try for that?

And, what do you think, should I make Marlene a larger part of the story, Lily's new best friend? Or should I leave Lily's only friends as the Marauders?

Love,

SAM :)

EDIT: I changed Marlene's last name for a purpose later in the story. I know it's slightly AU, but it's so she WON'T end up with Sirius.