Previously:
James? Lily's eyebrows furrowed. Since when did professor start calling her students by their first names?
"I suggest you get back to the dorms miss Evans. Good night."
As the professor turned to close the door, Lily saw the glint of a tear in the candlelight.
Lily Evansspent the rest of the night wondering what the professor meant by 'difficult time' As far as she knew, James Potter did not care about anything so extensively with an exception of maybe his friends that he did not attend class for an entire day.
She had seen the rest of the marauders earlier that night. They had all looked fine except for the fact that they, like James seemed unusually quiet.
Perhaps they had been taken to Dumbledore or- or their parents had been sent for? But she found it extremely unusual that professor Mcgonagall out of all the teachers had felt bad for him because of that.
Maybe family issues?
The more Lily thought about it the more confused she got.
The next two days passed by without so much as a mention of the marauders. She could tell that the rest of the castle had noticed that the pranksters had disappeared. On the eve of the third day, Lily dropped into an empty armchair in the common room, after a particularly exhausting day, not paying any heed to the others in the room.
"What? No welcome back kiss?"
The voice startled her out of her thoughts. Sitting at the foot of the sofa near the fire was none other than Sirius Black. Above him, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew furiously scribbled on pieces of parchment.
"Where's James?"
The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. The three marauders visibly stiffened.
"He'll be back by the weekend." Remus said, not answering her question.
"Well, while it has been simply spiffing to see you, I really think we should get some sleep!" Sirius exclaimed in an unusually cheery voice.
With a pointed look at Remus and Peter he shouldered his bag and ran to their dormitory. Remus dropped her an apologetic look before following his two best friends.
Lily frowned, Sirius never missed a chance to tease her about James and she had noticed almost immediately that his heart wasn't in his usual pick up lines. There was definitely something strange going on with them.