DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything that you recognize, but otherwise I own EVERYTHING! Hehehe.

Authors Note: Hopefully you like this story, and……………PLEASE REVIEW!!!

Also, please read my other story, Give A Dog A Bone, because over thirty people have read it, and I have no reviews, so I feel very unloved! Thankyou!


Hogwarts Express and Truth or Dare

Lily Evans stepped onto the Hogwarts Express, waving goodbye to her parents as she left, as she had done for the past six years. After searching the train for a short while, she found her “partners in crime�, the Marauders, plus her two best friends Candace Sminton and Samantha Tims, also known as Sammy, in a compartment near the back of the train.

Candace, Sirius Black, one of Lily’s very good friends, and Peter Pettigrew, a boy who belonged to the Marauders but whom Lily didn’t think very highly of, were all sitting on a bench one side of the compartment. James Potter, Lily’s best guy friend, and Sammy were on the opposite bench. Remus was on the floor reading a book, James and Sammy were just sitting talking about their summer, and Sirius and Candace were dying Peter’s hair a very fleuro-pink color, while he was sleeping. Normally Candace would not go within two feet of Sirius, but when there were pranks involved, she would always help, as would Sammy and Lily.

When Lily entered the compartment, James, Sammy and Remus looked up and greeted her warmly, but Sirius and Candace barely looked up, and mumbled ‘Hi Lil,’ under their breaths, as to not wake Peter. Lily laughed softly, and then went and sat between James and Sammy, just in case Candace and Sirius decided to do something to her hair. Lily showed them all her prefect badge, which she had received a few weeks ago, and had been very surprised at getting, as she was a Marauder. But then again, Remus was a Prefect as well, and so was Sammy.

They were sitting peacefully, just talking about what they had been doing over their summers, when suddenly the compartment door burst open with a loud ‘bang’, which woke Peter up, who looked quite disoriented.

At the door were Bellatrix Black and Rudolphus Lestrange, the Marauders most loathed enemies. ‘Well, well, well what do we have here Rudolphus?’ said Bellatrix to Rudolphus. ‘Well Bella, what we have here is 3 dirty scumbags, a blood traitor, and… three mudbloods.’

Lily, Sammy and Candace were all muggle-born, and the Slytherins took advantage of that whenever they could. But by this point, James, Sirius and Remus were all standing up, wands at the ready, while Peter frantically went through his things to find his wand. Lily, Sammy and Candace all had their wands out too, but were trying to restrain the three boys who were defending them, rather than bothering to defend themselves.

Black and Lestrange, seeing that they were outnumbered, turned and exited the compartment, Lestrange calling over his shoulder- ‘Oh, and we’ll be back mudbloods, and next time, your little guard-dogs won’t be there to save you.’ James, Sirius and Remus all lunged for him, but found that they couldn’t move, because the girls all had firm grips on their arms. All except for Lily, who was pointing her wand at the retreating Slytherins and mumbling something under her breath….

Two seconds later the group heard a couple of very high- pitched screams, which seemed to be coming from down the hall. The Marauders, plus the honorary Marauders (Candace and Sammy), all rushed out of the compartment, except for Lily, only to find Bellatrix on the floor throwing up worms, and Lestrange wearing a very nice frilly pink dress and some rather pink make-up.

Of course everybody had left whatever they were doing to see what the screaming was about, so pretty much the entire school witnessed the amusing scene. Not only that, but Sirius had used the camera that he had gotten from Lily for Christmas to take a photograph!!

Once the Marauders, Sammy and Candace had all gone back to the compartment and congratulated Lily, and Sirius had informed Peter that his hair was definitely pink before he got on the train, they decided to play Truth or Dare. Sirius went first. ‘Ok Jamesie, truth or dare??’

‘Truth’

‘Well gee, easy option out! Ok if you had to pick a girl in this compartment to go out with, who would it be??’ James suddenly went very red and after a few minutes of everyone staring at him, Sirius with a smirk on his face, he mumbled something under his breath that sounded like:

‘Filly.’

‘Sorry James, what was that??? Didn’t quite hear ya mate,’ said Sirius grinning widely.

‘Lily’ said James quietly, although everyone still heard him. There was a stunned silence, with Sirius just grinning widely and James examining a piece of dust on his shoe. Lily sat there open-mouthed, Sammy and Candace had identical smirks on their faces, and…. Peter gave Remus some money, although no one but Sirius noticed!

After a few minutes of silence, Sirius said, ‘Well Jamesie, your turn to ask someone!’

James looked up, relieved that somebody had broken the silence, but he was still a very odd-looking color. ‘Ummmmmm okay, Sirius, truth or dare???’

‘Truth.’ It seemed like no one could be bothered to do the dare, either that, or they were too scared.

‘Ummmm ok Paddy, same question that you asked me,’ said James with a grin.

But Sirius wasn’t to be fooled. ‘Candace of course!! Everyone knows that!’ he said, grinning, because he hadn’t been caught out- everyone knew he liked Candace! Nobody even really looked up when he said that, although Candace seemed to look at him differently for once. James was pretty annoyed, because he was trying to get Sirius back, but it hadn’t worked.

They couldn’t play anymore after that though, because Peter had fallen asleep again and Sammy, Remus and Lily had to go to a prefect meeting. Sirius, James and Candace decided to go and annoy Severus Snape, a slimy git who had been pestering them since their first year at Hogwarts.

They all arrived at Hogwarts safely, and went to the Sorting. The Marauders turned all the Slytherins’ hair the same fleuro-pink that they had done Peter’s, except this time it was almost permanent, and lasted for a month! They all got an early night, so that they could get up in time for the classes, but they all knew that James and Sirius wouldn’t anyway!!!!

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Authors Note: Thank you so incredibly much to my wonderful reviewers, this chapter’s for you! I’d also like to apologize for this update taking so long, but, although its not much of an excuse, I have been battling with depression recently, and haven’t really had any inspiration. Please forgive me, and press that little button down there and review!

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything you don’t recognize.

Warning: This story is AU because of the fact that Lily is a Marauder, an Animagus, and is friends with the Marauders.

Once everybody was asleep, James grabbed Sirius out of bed, and dragged him to the Room of Requirement, bringing the invisibility cloak and the Marauder’s Map with him. The Room of Requirement was a room that few people knew about. It was hidden, and it would manifest itself to fulfill the wants and needs of the person entering the room.

When James and Sirius arrived, the room became a smaller version of the Gryffindor common room, complete with a crackling fire, cosy armchairs, and some… interesting… magazines. Sirius sat down tentatively on the arm of one of the chairs, as he could see that James was still fuming from being forced to tell the group about his feelings for Lily.

Sirius grabbed a magazine as James sat there glaring at him, pretending to be thoroughly absorbed in it, although he didn’t realize that it was upside down.

After a few minutes of pretend-reading and glaring, James finally broke the silence.

‘Why did you have to do that, Padfoot? You knew that I didn’t want anyone to know, especially Lily!’

‘Well, you see, Prongs,’ started Sirius, thinking quickly, ‘There was this really hot alien girl, right, and she flew down from outer space, and she told me that if I made you tell Lily, then she would give me a….’

‘SIRIUS! I’m serious here!’

‘Uh, I know it’s an out-of-date joke, but, no, I’m Sirius.’

James now seemed to be foaming at the mouth.

‘SIRIUS! Are you going to explain, or am I going to hit you until you do?’ Threatened James, getting out of his seat and advancing on Sirius menacingly.

‘No, seriously, Prongs! And she did, she gave me a…’

‘SIRIUS! I will hurt you, believe me!’ yelled James, moving closer.

‘No, but it was all worth it! Maybe I can get her to give you a….’

‘Sirius! I am this close to…’ Said James, nearly at Sirius’ armchair.

‘All right, all right.’

‘NOW EXPLAIN! PROPERLY!’

‘Well, they aren’t going to know just because you picked Lily,’ he said cautiously, knowing that every word he was saying was a lie, and hoping that James wouldn’t see through it.

‘I mean, you could’ve picked her because she was the first person that came to your head…or something. I mean there were only three girls in the compartment…and, uh, we all knew you wouldn’t pick Candace unless you wanted me to kill you,’ he said stalling, thinking that James was going to see right through him, and probably punch him in the face any second.

But James appeared to take it all in, hook, line and sinker. It seemed that he was so desperate for nobody to know, that he would believe anything. A look of relief crossed his face, and he said: ‘Ok Padfoot, you’re lucky then, but next time you decide to do something like that, I’d think about it first, or you might find every girl in the school hating you… oh, the things I could tell them!’ He gloated, a smirk on his face. Sirius sat there, with a look of horror on his face, but there was relief and satisfaction as well. Relief that James wasn’t going to punch him then and there, and satisfaction in knowing that he could still pull the wool over his best friend’s eyes.

They spent the rest of the night discussing everything, from Quidditch, to the next full moon, to Lily, whether James was ever going to tell Lily about his feelings for her, (he wasn’t) and if Sirius would ever convince Candace to go out with him (James doubted it- Sirius thought he could.).


Lily and her two best friends were sitting on the floor of the dormitory that they shared together in their pajamas. They were speaking about the incident on the train, just as James and Sirius were.

‘I think he really does likes you, Lil’,’ said Candace, grinning.

‘No way!’ said Lily, almost screaming. ‘That’s, like, impossible! I’ve known James for six years! There’s no way that he could like me… I mean, he probably only picked me because I was the first name that came into his head. I mean, well, he couldn’t say you, Candace, ‘cause everyone knows that Sirius likes you and I dunno, maybe Remus or Peter likes Sammy or something… I don’t know, but there’s just no way that James would like me, that’s absurd!’ she said, babbling on, trying to convince her friends as well as herself.

‘Yeah, sure, Lily, wouldn’t all that be a bit of a coincidence?’ said Sammy, ‘I mean, you do realize that he could have just refused to answer? And did you see his face when he was saying it? He was embarrassed! James Potter was EMBARASSED! I didn’t think it was humanly possible!’

‘Nah, there must be a proper explanation for this, I mean, James can’t like me, and I don’t like him,’ she said, even though while she said that, she realized that was a lie. She couldn’t like James- could she?


The Next Day

Lily awoke to Sammy and Candace throwing pillows at her head, rather forcefully too! ‘Mmmmph’ mumbled Lily, rolling over and trying to go back to sleep.

‘C’mon Lils, there’s only twenty minutes left of breakfast, and we’re hungry!’ said Candace.

‘Yea, get your lazy ass out of bed this minute, or we’ll go and tell James that you’re in love with him!’ said Sammy, grinning.

This made Lily bolt out of bed as fast as her legs could carry her, mumbling something that sounded like ‘lousy no-good evil friends’ under her breath. Her best friends just laughed at her. It only took Lily five minutes to get ready, although she was still tying up her hair as they got to the hall.

The other Marauders were already there, eating as if there was no tomorrow.

‘Hey Fire Eyes, hey, beautiful one…and Candace,’ called Sirius, winking at Sammy. Fire Eyes was Lily’s Marauder name, as when she transformed under the full moon, she became a sleek orange tiger, with fiery red eyes.

‘Oh, hello, darling,’ called Sammy back, playing along with Sirius’ little game.

Candace just rolled her eyes and sat down next to Remus. Sammy sat next to Sirius, as they continued their little role play, and Lily sat next to James.

‘Hey James,’ murmured Lily softly, piling food onto her plate.

‘Oh, hey, Lils,’ he said, avoiding her eyes, and examining his toast intently. They continued like this, in awkward tension for the rest of the day- James saying a grand total of ten words to Lily the entire day. Their friends noticed this too, but decided not to interfere, because they all knew that James and Lily couldn’t continue like this for much longer.

Sure enough, once they’d all eaten dinner and were walking back to the common room, James pulled Lily aside.

‘Lils, we have to talk…’

‘Ok, what did you want to talk about?’ she asked softly and inquisitively, scuffing the ground with her shoe, making an invisible mark on the toe. James ignored her question and instead rather roughly pulled her along the corridor, weaving his way between people, barely noticing when he knocked a few over, much to Lily’s silent protest.

Lily closed her eyes after they knocked over the first load of people, hoping that if she kept them shut, then she wouldn’t have to witness a head-on crash between James and another student.

After Lily had felt a few more arms smash into her stomach, legs kick her own legs, and heads collide with her shoulder, they suddenly came to a halt. Lily carefully opened one eye, squinting slightly. Ah, they were in the Room of Requirement. Lily let out a fleeting breath that had been unknowingly constricting her lungs throughout their treacherous journey. Give her a roller coaster any day.

Lily shakily removed her hand from James’, not even noticing the cute blush creeping onto his face, and his hand diving straight into his pocket. She sat down on a newly upholstered purple cushy couch, gulping for air. What an ordeal, just to talk to James.

“Well, I just wanted to talk to you about what I said on the train, you know, the truth or dare thing…� trailed off James anxiously, fiddling with the hem of his robes and pacing up and down across the room.

‘Right. Well, that was just because it was the first name that popped into your head, wasn’t it? I mean, you don’t really like me, do you?’ Lily babbled, regretting it almost instantly, but unable to take it back.

James’ heart shattered into a million pieces and then dropped down into his stomach, making him want to cry like a girl with anxiety. But of course he didn’t show it. He was James Potter.

‘Oh, yeah, that was it, I mean you were just the first name that came into my head! That’s exactly what I was going to say!’ he said, trying to laugh and shrugging it off.

‘Oh. Ok. Right, then.’

Why did she feel so disappointed?

What had she expected him to do, profess his undying love for her right there and then, and then sweep her up off her feet in a very dignified manner, carry her out into the courtyard, and then conjure up a flying unicorn and fly away with her into the distance?

Well, yes actually.

That would be quite nice.

James looked at Lily’s face anxiously, his stomach still constricted and knotted together.

Why did she look so confused?

“Um, you’re okay, right Lils?� he said, stuttering a little on the word ‘Lils,’ but managing to pronounce it at the last second.

Lily looked up quickly, a look of surprise on her face, as if she had forgotten where she was.

“Oh, yeah of course. We’re all good right? Still friends?�

James’ stomach unknotted another knot, and he went over and sat next to Lily on the couch.

“Sure. Best friends Lil, always,� he said, engulfing her in a hug as she buried her head in his shoulder.

Lily nestled into James’ arms comfortably, wrapping her arms around his torso.

He certainly had filled out over the summer.

JAMES’ DORM

‘WHAT?’ shouted Sirius, screeching so loudly that James’ eardrums almost burst, but luckily, they managed to re-construct, although if Sirius had possibly been one decibel louder, James would be deaf to this day.

‘I told her that I didn’t like her in that way.’ James sighed, his face looking the same way he had felt only minutes ago, broken, confused and heart-broken.

‘But why?’ asked Remus, ever the practical one. If it were up to Sirius, he would sit there all night long yelling at James, until he stopped for a breath and James managed to get a single word in- to which Sirius would respond even louder.

‘She doesn’t like me! What was I supposed to say?’ James yelled exasperatedly, throwing his arms up in the air, then proceeding to put his hands over his face, as if to hide from the rest of the world.

‘Did she actually say that, Prongs?’ inquired Sirius, still a little too loud for James’ liking.

‘Well,’ said James, thinking back, ‘Not outright, but she hinted at it,’ he said, sure that she didn’t like him. Why would she? That was stupid.

What was he expecting?

Her to profess her undying love for him, leap into his arms, and them both to ride off into the sunset on a Firebolt?

Well, yes.

That would be rather nice.

‘God!’ cursed Remus impatiently, breaking James’ daydream rather rudely, ‘Now we’re going to have to put up with you moaning about it! Why didn’t you just tell her? Maybe she does like you back, you stupid twat. Did you happen to ask her? Or you just assumed?’

‘Just shut up Moony, I’m just going to get over her, and I’m never going to tell her - and neither are you two, ok?’ he said rather morbidly, looking as if he had just swallowed a vomit flavored Bertie Bott’s Every Flavored Bean.

Remus just glared at James and huffily went and sat on his bed in silence, Sirius following suit- minus the silent part of course. The Slytherins could probably hear him cursing from their dungeons.

LILY’S DORM

‘WHAT?’ shrieked Candace, screeching so loudly that Lily’s eardrums almost burst, although they just managed to hold out, for the day when Candace managed that extra half a decibel.

‘He doesn’t like me in that way,’ said Lily calmly and passively, keeping a perfectly straight face. By looking at the ground, of course.

‘YES, HE DOES!’ said Candace loudly starting to pace the room, her nails digging into her palms so much they were starting to bleed.

‘Calm down Candace! God!’ cursed Sammy. “Now what did he actually say, Lily?’ asked Sammy.

‘Well…’ and she relayed the entire conversation back to them.

‘You stupid little…!’ screamed Candace. ‘Look, Lily, I know you were confused, but you just screwed EVERYTHING up!’

‘I DIDN’T MEAN TO!’ Lily bawled back at her, tears starting to form in her eyes.

‘Ok, both of you just stop it, ok? Candace, Lily didn’t mean to, and Lily, Candace is just a little disappointed that he didn’t tell you that he liked you,’ said Sammy, trying to calm them both down, and, with her rather hypnotic voice, she managed to instantly.

‘Yeah,’ said Candace, much quieter now. ‘I’m sorry Lils, I just thought that he would tell you, that’s all.’

‘Yeah, I guess I did screw it up a bit, didn’t I?’ said Lily, thinking back.

‘I’ll say,’ mumbled Candace.

‘I heard that! Maybe he just doesn’t like me though,’ said Lily.

‘YES, HE DOES!’ screamed Candace and Sammy.

‘All right, all right,’ she said, backing away from her best friends.

‘C’mon, let’s just go to bed, and forget about it for a while, ok?’ said Sammy.

THE NEXT DAY

When morning came, it seemed that everyone had forgotten about the day before, or were just pretending to, and were all acting like they usually would, laughing and joking with each other, pretending that nothing had ever happened.

But Sirius hadn’t forgotten. Just as the bell rang to go to lunch, Sirius pulled Candace aside, and said, ‘C’mon, we’ve got to talk.’

Without any explanation whatsoever, he grabbed Candace’s arm and dragged her on a whirlwind ride through Hogwarts, her loving every minute of it- and where did they end up? Their favorite meeting place of course. The Room of Requirement.

Once they reached the room, Candace sat down on one of the cushy couches, still grinning a little from the three second adventure she had just been on.

‘Now, what is it, Black? What’s so important that I have to miss lunch?’ Candace asked, pretending to be annoyed, although not actually caring all that much.

‘Look Candace, this is me – Sirius – do you think I would be dragging you here during lunch if it wasn’t important?’ said Sirius, looking at Candace as if she was a three year old just starting kindergarten.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, feeling a little dumb. ‘Well what’s this all about then?’

‘James and Lily. I think it’s all getting a little out of hand. I mean James likes Lily and Lily likes James, right? Am I right?’

‘Well, yeah, I’m pretty sure she does, I mean I think she does, I mean...’

‘Ok, I’ll take that as a yes. Anyway, I think that we should play matchmaker,’ said Sirius getting straight to the point and not wasting any time. It was lunch they were missing, after all.

‘What exactly did you have in mind?’ asked Candace eagerly.

‘Well, I don’t exactly know,’ he admitted. ‘But,’ he said seeing the look on her face, ‘We can call in reinforcements!’

‘Yeah, Sammy and Remus!’ she exclaimed, smiling again, knowing that being the two brains of the group, between the two they could probably come up with something.

‘And Peter,’ added Sirius as an afterthought.

But Candace wasn’t even listening anymore; she had a dreamy look on her face, horrible and yet wonderful ideas already forming in her mind.