14th September 1973

First Quidditch match coming up tomorrow. Gryffindor verses Ravenclaw. James has been training almost every night this week whilst Remus tries to encourage me to complete at least one piece of homework. Tonight, James climbed through the portrait hole with one of his fellow Gryffindor chasers, Alana Tinson.

"- and it's a good job I was there when you missed the quaffle that time-"

"I didn't miss it!" retorted Alana, "you jumped in front of me so I couldn't reach it."

"Well still you didn't catch it did you?" said James and then laughed as irritation became clear on Alana's face, "better luck next time eh?"

She scowled at him before storming towards the opposite side of the common room before going to sit with her group of closest friends, one of whom was Lily Evans. This was not a fact that James was unaware of. As he came to sit next to me and Remus he glanced back towards their table automatically running his hand through his hair.

"Are you trying to get on the wrong side of everyone in that friendship group?" I asked as he flopped down onto the nearest sofa.

He grinned back at me, "nah she's actually a really good chaser. Don't tell her I said that though," he added.

"Speaking of things that we probably shouldn't tell people," I added in a lower voice, "me and James think that we might have found a very handy book."

James' eyes lit up as he caught onto what I was talking about. "Yes," he joined in, "a handy book that might be able to help us and Peter- where he is by the way?" James said looking around.

"Help us and Peter," I said quickly picking up from where James had left off so randomly, "to become animagi."

With slightly widened eyes Remus asked, "you have? How?"

Me and James exchanged a look.

"We, uh, had a quick peek in the restricted section of the library last night. Under the invisibility cloak of course," James added hastily.

"Do you have it?" enquired Remus, "did you get the book?"

"Well no," I answered, "we're going to go back and get it. There was, surprisingly, lots of people in the library last night. Couldn't risk them seeing a floating book."

Both others nodded in agreement.

"And you really think that if you if manage it successfully, you'll be able to er, keep me company?"

"Almost sure of it," said James proudly.

We had found out about Remus' "furry little problem" at around Easter in our second year. We had eventually gotten too suspicious and after several interrogation style sessions me, James and Peter managed to get Remus to confess. He said the reason he didn't tell us was because he didn't want us to think he was some kind of out of control monster and he didn't want to lose us as friends. In response James promptly told him he was stupid for ever thinking that and that we would help him in every way we could. Peter and I had agreed with him resolutely. That was when James had his animagus plan. He thought (and the rest of us agreed) that it would be safe, or as close as possible to safe, for us to keep Remus company as animals. And since then we had slowly, carefully begun constructing our plan. And I think that now, we're about to start making real progress.

3rd October 1973

They put up the date for our first Hogsmeade trip today. I'm still slightly surprised that my mum signed the permission slip, but then again I'm still not going to be near her so she's not bothered.

"Excited?" James said from appearing from behind me.

"Uh how would you not be? We get to go Honeydukes, the best sweet shop in the country! I read about it," I added proudly.

"Ah bless, you've even done your research, that's probably what then, the third time you've ever opened a book?"

"That's a bit rich coming from you, surely?"

James gave me a small shove, so naturally I gave him a slightly bigger one back. He lost his balance, arms flailing for a second before crashing into the nearest person. Which happened to be, unfortunately for James, Lily Evans.

"OUCH! Watch it Potter!" she cried, clutching her foot.

James straightened up instantly, looking slightly embarrassed,"Sorry Evans, but maybe you should watch where you stand in future."

"You crashed into me!" she fumed.

"Well, that's only a small detail, we could talk about at Hogsmeade if you want?" James asked hopefully.

She snorted, "no," she said simply before turning away and calling, "Alana are you ready?"

Alana who was just coming down from the girl's dormitory jumped down the last two steps.

"Yep," she replied, "lets go." The two girls started towards the portrait hole.

James grabbed my arm and started walking off after them. Lily glanced behind and noticing James behind her rolled her eyes.

"Leave us alone Potter."

"Uh, I'm not sure whether you've forgotten but we're in the same class. We're not following you, we're just being good students and going to class on time."

A laugh escaped my mouth and James gave me a mischievous grin as he and I both know that the words "good students" were rarely used to describe us.

Sighing, Lily linked her arm through Alana's and set off at a much faster pace not looking back this time. Despite this being another obvious rejection, James was smiling.

"One day," he said confidently, "one day she'll come round."

"Of course she will," I replied with only a hint of sarcasm. James had asked Lily out for the first time at the end of second year which she had answered with a blunt 'no'. However James being James, was undeterred and since then has repeatedly asked her out, strangely getting more confident with each rejection.

"She's just denying her feelings," he had insisted after the third rejected offer.

"Yeah that or she does actually hate you," I had responded (not very encouragingly).

As we headed away from the common room and towards the grounds for Herbology ,James was still smiling quite smugly.

"You'll see," he sang cheerily, "just you wait and see."